The Berserker's Arrival
Before the mad berserker Han Seonggil reached the battlefield where Yoo Heeyeon and Lee Hyunseung were fighting, he had been killing time at the third occupation point.
“Goddamn it. No one’s coming?”
After securing the point, time kept passing with no sign of enemies. Han Seonggil seriously considered going out to hunt them down himself. But then he remembered what Lee Hyunseung had told him.
“Haa… damn it…”
Han Seonggil sat back down. But his wait didn’t last long.
“Th-there! The F-class bastards are over there—!”
Not long after, roughly ten A-class members arrived at the third occupation point. Han Seonggil raised his sword and engaged them. The ten-or-so A-class students began struggling as Han Seonggil grew stronger with every blow. Of course, all the F-class members who had been with him were already retired.
“Why the hell does that crazy bastard get stronger the more you hit him…?”
The A-class students had been ganging up on him, but they slowly started backing away.
“Come on, let’s keep fighting! Why are you running?”
His eyes were beginning to turn red as he let out a low, giggling laugh. That was when it happened.
“We got a message from Yoo Heeyeon. Execute Plan C.”
Plan C. A contingency prepared in case Yoo Heeyeon ever found herself in real danger. It meant gathering all forces to her location.
-Tap tap tap tap-!
“What the hell are those guys doing?”
Just as the fight was reaching its climax, every single opponent suddenly turned tail and ran. Han Seonggil briefly considered chasing them, but eventually sat back down.
‘He only told me to hold this spot.’
It wasn’t exactly pleasant to follow Lee Hyunseung’s orders, but for some reason refusing them left a bad taste in his mouth. Maybe it was because that guy reminded him of Pung Geonho? He wasn’t sure. Truth be told, Han Seonggil had never really listened to Pung Geonho either.
“Haaam…”
He yawned with bloodshot eyes. A mild headache and lingering pleasure still coursed through him. It would take quite a while before he returned to normal.
-BANG-!
A gunshot echoed from far away. Han Seonggil paused for a moment, then stood up.
“Ugh… what a pain in the ass. Why the hell is he firing shots and giving away his position? He’s probably getting his ass kicked alone again.”
He headed toward the sound of the gunshot.
“Why are you so late?”
Atop the cliff. The last of the A-class members who had been fighting Han Seonggil finally arrived. Park Taeyong looked at his blood-soaked arm and spoke.
“I was fighting some insane bastard and didn’t see the signal right away. Sorry.”
Hearing that, the A-class mage Shin Junho spoke with clear irritation.
“Whatever. If you’re all here, start transferring your mana to me right now.”
“What?”
One of the boys asked, confused.
“Shin Junho. Why should we give our mana to you? Plan C was supposed to be everyone gathering at Yoo Heeyeon’s side to fight together, right? If that doesn’t work, we were supposed to provide long-range magical support.”
Shin Junho twisted his face in annoyance.
“You’re a swordsman. How the hell are you going to provide long-range magical support? And can’t you see that crazy bastard Lee Hyunseung rampaging down there? You want to go over there and end up crippled? Even if we don’t die here, we still feel the pain. We just need to use our skills from a distance.”
“…”
Park Taeyong fell silent for a moment. It was true that a swordsman like him couldn’t provide meaningful long-range magical support from two kilometers away. He also agreed that he didn’t want to get shot by Lee Hyunseung’s gun. But there was one thing that still bothered him.
Park Taeyong opened his mouth.
“Yoo Heeyeon wouldn’t have given you this kind of authority, would she? Are you doing this with her permission?”
When Park Taeyong pressed him, Shin Junho pulled him aside into a corner and answered quietly.
“Taeyong, get a grip. How long are you going to keep licking Yoo Heeyeon’s boots? How long do you think the Artemis Guild is going to stay on top? Ten years? Twenty? You think they’ll still be number one after Yoo Hanbeom gets old? No way.”
He continued with a serious expression.
“Taeyong. Guilds that only use outdated, rigid methods have a limit to how strong they can become. But unlike the rest of you, I’ve been chosen.”
Shin Junho muttered words that made no sense. He began gathering mana into his hand. An unpleasant, ominous energy started radiating from it.
‘Demonic energy.’
Park Taeyong stared at him with wide eyes.
“You… how the hell did you get your hands on demonic energy…?”
“Since you’re an old friend, I’ll tell you. You know about Hilleon, right? I was chosen by them.”
Hilleon. The criminal organization that had framed Lee Hyunseung with the stalking accusation. The only group in the underworld that could rival the Artemis Guild. A deranged faction that pillaged the Labyrinth, killed people as a matter of course, traded every kind of drug imaginable—anything for money.
Park Taeyong snapped at him.
“Are you out of your mind? You crazy bastard, getting involved with those lunatics…!”
“Shhh…”
Shin Junho twisted his face as he answered.
“Don’t lecture me. You know how badly I wanted to get stronger, don’t you? If I didn’t have this damn disability, I could have become far stronger than I am now. But it’s impossible. Why? Because there’s no way to fix my arm. But Hilleon said if I take care of one little job for them, they’ll fix my arm.”
Shin Junho had been born with a congenital disability. He was missing one arm. For a mage, having only one arm was an unimaginably cruel handicap.
Park Taeyong looked at the empty sleeve and closed his mouth. He had watched since childhood how much pain that missing arm had caused him. He had heard that Hilleon possessed countless artifacts and forbidden arts unavailable to the public. Maybe… they really could restore his arm.
Shin Junho spoke to the silent Park Taeyong.
“Anyway, enough preaching. For some reason, that bastard Lee Hyunseung seems to be hated quite a lot by Hilleon.”
“By Hilleon…? How would you know that?”
“I overheard some of the executives talking. Something about how that guy ruined one of their plans.”
Hilleon had originally planned to stalk Yoo Heeyeon and send a warning to keep the Artemis Guild in check. But since they didn’t want to take full responsibility, they had planted decisive evidence—his phone—in Lee Hyunseung’s drawer and framed him as the stalker. However, when Lee Hyunseung brought in a mage from the Magic Tower to analyze the mana trace and even started making noise about using the national mana database, it became extremely troublesome for them.
If Yoo Hanbeom found out that his daughter had been stalked by Hilleon, there was no telling what would happen. So they chose a backup plan.
“Anyway, that doesn’t matter. They just said I need to completely destroy Lee Hyunseung’s mind. Simple, right?”
Even in the virtual stage, mental damage and a certain level of pain were transmitted directly. In other words, if he inflicted insane amounts of mental damage, the target’s mind could shatter to the point they couldn’t even speak properly.
“How? None of the skills we have can destroy someone’s mind.”
It was obvious. There was no way mere students could pierce the high-level safety measures protecting every participant inside the stage and inflict enough damage to shatter someone’s mind.
-Swoosh.
He pulled a small, circular artifact from his pocket.
“I smuggled it in. Hilleon helped me. If I gather and channel a massive amount of mana into this, I can use the Spear of Longinus. If I land it properly, even Lee Hyunseung will be half-crippled, right?”
-Gulp.
The Spear of Longinus. A forbidden art that delivered enormous damage while shattering the target’s mind.
“Th-that’s insane. There’s no way a cheap artifact like that could cast a forbidden spell…”
“Well, you’re not entirely wrong. From what I heard, it can’t even output one percent of its original power. Still, it’s more than enough to break a pathetic student. Anyway, help me out. If this goes wrong, I’m really dead. This is my last chance. Got it?”
Park Taeyong looked at Shin Junho’s empty sleeve and spoke.
“Just… just this once…”
Shin Junho smiled brightly.
“That’s enough. And once this is over, I’ll disappear right away. Take care of yourself. And thank you.”
Shin Junho and Park Taeyong returned to the cliff where the rest of the A-class members were gathered. Park Taeyong naturally mixed in some lies to create an atmosphere that encouraged everyone to transfer their mana to Shin Junho. The A-class students all poured their mana into him.
-Whooooooosh-!
The moment Shin Junho poured the received mana into the artifact—
-Rumble rumble rumble-!
The Spear of Longinus materialized in the sky.
Yoo Heeyeon watched the Spear of Longinus appear.
“Wh-what the hell is that…?”
She knew exactly what the technique floating in the sky was. The Spear of Longinus. She had predicted that only a few high-level spells would fly in from the cliff, so when she witnessed something this absurd, she was left completely stunned.
“Th-that… why…?”
It was a forbidden technique her father had warned her about countless times. The Spear of Longinus. The spear shot forward at insane speed and hurtled straight toward Lee Hyunseung.
-Shiiiiiiiing-!
-Shuuuuk-!
Two spears of Longinus embedded themselves.
-Whooooooosh-!
Dust exploded in every direction. Yoo Heeyeon couldn’t fully grasp the situation, but she cheered at the fact that she had won. If he had been hit by those spears, Lee Hyunseung would definitely be retired.
-Shiiiiing.
Once the dust settled, the person standing there bleeding wasn’t Lee Hyunseung. It was someone else.
“That… fucking hurts…”
There stood Han Seonggil, his eyes bloodshot to the extreme.
Excessive damage received.
Berserker Trait activates dramatically.
Strength, Endurance, and Agility stats rise to extreme levels.
Temporarily nullifies pain perception.
Berserker Trait has reached its limit.
Additional effects generated.
Severe pain threatening life is automatically healed.
Torn body is restored.
Maintaining sanity becomes extremely difficult.
“Wh-what…”
Yoo Heeyeon screamed when she saw Han Seonggil gripping the Spear of Longinus.
“Everyone get over here and stop him—!”
When the A-class members hesitated near the cliff, she screamed again.
“Get over here and stop him before he kills us all, you worthless bastards—! Don’t you care about the consequences?”
Only then did the A-class students start running. Yoo Heeyeon backed away while staring at Han Seonggil.
“C-calm down. You look badly hurt… l-let’s talk…”
She let out a sigh mid-sentence.
“Ah…”
There was no focus in Han Seonggil’s eyes. He had completely lost his mind.
-Shuk-!
Han Seonggil ripped out every Spear of Longinus embedded in his body. Then he raised them high into the air and slammed them down toward the ground.
-Whooooong-!
With a tremendous gust of wind, the Spear of Longinus hurtled toward the earth.
-Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang-!