Real Combat (3)
I flicked a glance toward Min Ji-won's fight and took stock.
She's fine for now.
Amazingly enough, Min Ji-won was trading blows with an S-Rank monster head-on. Growth this fast was outside my expectations, but I decided to file it under a happy miscalculation. Judging by how her movement kept getting cleaner by the second, she was still shooting up in real time.
Which meant—
Priority number one right now.
The man in front of me. Yu I-jin.
His left arm hung limp—probably broken from my last hit—and even a casual look said he was nowhere near fighting shape. I watched him freeze halfway through trying to stand, then slowly opened my mouth.
"Hey. What the hell are you? Even for Freedom and their habit of charging in without a plan, this was a terrible time to pull something."
Yu I-jin let out a low chuckle at the question.
"So you already have a decent grasp of our movements, then."
"Hey."
Thud!
When no real answer came back, I drove a kick into Yu I-jin's gut while he was still stuck halfway to his feet. For someone locked up in that posture, I felt him catch it with his arm somehow. He still couldn't kill the impact, though—he went flying backward. I closed in and asked again.
"Why pull a stunt this half-baked?"
"Hah… A monster like you, and they expect me to believe you're a freshman."
"This bastard… And what's with the casual speech? You were all polite honorifics before, but the second the teacher cosplay ends you start talking down to me. Real charming."
Yu I-jin smirked at the jab. A clear sneer—the kind that said, You needed me to spell even that out for you?
"I reserve courtesy and respect only for things that shine brilliantly before they scatter. Filth like you—"
CRACK!
I snapped another kick at the head of the idiot spouting nonsense. Same as before—he couldn't ride out the force and went sailing backward through the air, but once again he barely got an arm up in time to guard.
"I had a feeling, and sure enough—total waste of breath."
"Words that would do no good for the likes of you, who cannot see the whole."
"No different from a cultist."
I dusted off my pants and checked Min Ji-won's side.
She's holding her own for now, but that balance could tip any second. If I want to be ready to jump in, I need to finish this side first.
For a Freedom spy posing as an Academy teacher, he wasn't exactly handing me free hits. On top of that—
I'm not in great shape either.
I was hiding it well enough, but my condition was far from normal. I'd pushed myself hard clearing the Tower's dungeons as fast as possible, and the backlash was sitting heavy on my body now. Honestly, I wanted to squeeze the life out of him slowly—but this whole stage was something they'd prepared. Dragging the fight out was a bad idea.
So ideally I wrap this up fast and get the kids out of—
"Thinking a little too hard, aren't you?"
"…!"
Yu I-jin closed the gap in a blink and swung his knuckled right fist in a wide arc.
Whoosh—!
The wind pressure from his punch skimmed my cheek, but the fist itself never touched me. I slipped the attack and drove into his left side—the side with the broken arm, the side he shouldn't be able to move.
The sudden ambush had startled me, but it also handed me a clean counter. Grab the left, pin him down, squeeze him for information. That was the plan—until the moment I thought it.
Crack-crack-crack!
A grotesque sound tore out of Yu I-jin's left arm. The limb that hadn't shown a single sign of movement until now came flying at me. I threw my body back to dodge the sudden strike—and his right fist was already waiting, as if it had been timed for exactly that.
BOOM!
I twisted my hips and caught the punch on my foot, then used the rebound to put distance between us.
"You… what the hell are you?"
"Haha. That was a fairly good window. I suppose the one who made a fool of us really is built different."
Talking to this bastard was like speaking two different languages from the start. Not that it was completely unexpected. Considering he was a Freedom operative with an obsessive fixation on creating the Child of God—
"You used your own body for Freedom's experiments."
"…KHAHAHAHAHA! Of course you'd catch on fast—we've got history, after all!"
His laughter exploded through the hollow dungeon. Every gaze in the place snapped toward us—everyone except Min Ji-won, who was still lost on the far side of her own battle.
"You're even more insane than I thought."
"And what exactly do you think you're judging with those rotten eyes that can't recognize anything sacred?"
I had no idea how far his regeneration went. Whether it could even handle something like a severed limb.
"Bet you can't regenerate a smashed skull, though."
I'd been aiming to subdue him. Not anymore. No more playing around.
I had to kill him.
BAM!
I closed fast and threw a punch—Yu I-jin caught it on his knuckle.
"You're worn down."
"……."
As a Freedom spy embedded in the Academy, he'd clearly been watching me closely enough to see straight through to the fact that I wasn't at full strength. I caught his incoming fist and gave ground; his mouth opened again.
"This Tower doesn't have just one dungeon. It would have been nice if you'd lucked into the first one, but of course you worked through them in order from the nearest."
CRASH!
He slipped my punch and kept talking.
"Getting here this fast means you pushed yourself the whole way."
That easy little smile of his made my teeth grind before I could stop them. Sure, I'd forced the pace getting here—but Yu I-jin didn't look like he was in peak condition either. I'd figured we were both fighting with penalties. But that bizarre recovery of his…
WHAM!
My fist slammed into Yu I-jin's waist. A wet crack-crack sounded once—and then he casually twisted the waist that should have been broken like nothing had happened.
That regeneration had tipped the board. I needed to brace for a long fight, and at the very least I wanted to get the kids out of here—but heading their way right now would probably just turn everything into a bigger mess. That wasn't an option either.
"Hoo…"
I drew a deep breath to steady my racing pulse, then clenched and unclenched my fist. Feeling the wasted tension drain out of me, I set my resolve.
Only one way left.
Commit to the brawl.
Tap—!
I drove power into the balls of my feet and launched forward.
I take him down first!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sound of stone slamming into stone rolled through the dungeon. Somewhere beyond the dark, Yu I-jin was fighting someone.
"……."
The members of Team 7—Min Ji-won's group—turned toward the noise. Then—
CLANG! Screeech! CLAAANG!
Not far away, metal ground and crashed. Min Ji-won trading blows with the Skull Dino.
"……."
Watching both fights, all they could do was stand there staring. Min Ji-won's attacks were visibly faster and heavier by the second, even to their eyes. And wherever Yu I-jin was colliding with someone, it was so fast they could only make out shadows.
"So… what are we supposed to do?"
"I think just staying put is the move…"
"Yeah. Let's do that."
Jumping into either fight would only get in the way. Their eyes met those of the B-Rank monster watching the same scene from across the way. It bared its teeth and snarled at full volume—but showed no sign of coming over. Of course not. To reach them, it would have to cross an S-Rank monster.
CLAAANG—! Screeech-screech!
No creature in its right mind was stepping into a slaughterhouse like that. Even setting aside the monster habit of not entering higher-ranked territory—
Boom! Boom!
Why wasn't it going near Yu I-jin's fight either?
CRAAASH!
A stone pillar shattered on that side of the dungeon, and the B-Rank monster—the Red Boar—flinched hard. Team 7 understood in a single look.
Ah. So you're scared too…
It was the first time they'd ever been on the same wavelength as a monster.
Babababam!
Park Yeon-chan and Yu I-jin's fists collided, whipping wind out in every direction.
So that was just probing earlier?
Yu I-jin swallowed a dry breath, half in disbelief. Until now the pressure hadn't been that heavy, the speed not nearly this high—he'd assumed that was the limit of what the kid could put out. But Park Yeon-chan, committing fully to a brawl, was driving him back with something well beyond that.
Kh…! Even keeping up is a struggle.
He was blocking the attacks, but that had a ceiling too. The thought that he was starting to fall behind had barely formed when—
Thud-thud-thud!
Three punches he couldn't track landed clean—gut, arm, shoulder. Crack. Crack-crack-crack! Every hit broke bone, and every break healed. But unlike Park Yeon-chan, who was landing real damage, Yu I-jin—charging in ready to take hits—hadn't landed a single clean blow of his own.
If we were both at full strength, this would have been over instantly.
He'd known that already, but fighting him like this still forced a fresh wave of admiration for Park Yeon-chan's skill. On the other hand—
But this call of his is a mistake.
Yu I-jin quietly hunted for an opening. No matter how many hits he ate, the damage never stacked—he just healed. Mana wasn't infinite, but if he held on long enough, the other side would run dry first. The longer this went, the more the advantage tilted his way.
With Student Min Ji-won I nearly handed my body over in a moment of carelessness. Not this time.
In his panic he'd resorted to the black bundle then—but with his guard up like this, there was no weakness left to exploit.
Thud-thud-thud! Thud-thud-thud-thud!
He took Park Yeon-chan's fists on his body, catching and absorbing them—
Now…!
Yu I-jin read a flicker in Park Yeon-chan's movement and threw a punch. Perfect timing. The instant his arm extended he was certain the hit would land—
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The arm bent the wrong way. Before it could even finish healing, Park Yeon-chan was already driving in.
The head…?
Park Yeon-chan's fist came straight for his skull. The head was the most critical point, so of course he guarded—
"…!"
The punch he'd thought he'd stopped only tore his guard open, setting up the real one behind it.
BOOM!
"Ghk—kh…!"
His broken arm healed just in time to barely block, but the timing was late—he couldn't kill all of the shock. Even as his brain rattled, he tried desperately to protect his head.
"See, when you cover your head like that—"
Fists kept hammering the arms wrapped around his skull.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"—it just makes me want to hit it more, because that's clearly the weak spot!"
The arms guarding his head healed, shattered, healed, shattered, over and over. He clenched his teeth and rode out the pain, but the relentless barrage finally pushed the breaking past the healing.
"And another thing."
CRAAASH!
Park Yeon-chan's fist didn't stop at the arms. This time it drove straight into Yu I-jin's gut.
"Guhk!"
"Just because the wounds heal doesn't mean you don't feel the pain, huh?"
The focused assault on the head had left everywhere else wide open, and he started targeting those spots immediately.
"And that regeneration of yours doesn't look absolute either."
"Hah…! Hahh…!"
Yu I-jin gasped for air and looked into Park Yeon-chan's eyes. Those deep blue irises made him shudder before he could stop himself.
What is this… Am I actually being—by this kid—
Falling behind in skill was one thing. Being driven into a corner psychologically was not allowed. Clinging to the last scrap of pride he had left, he looked at Park Yeon-chan again.
Crack.
Park Yeon-chan rolled his knuckles until the bones popped, then slowly spoke.
"Keep hitting long enough and something new always shows up, right?"
The corners of his mouth stretched wide. A smile sat on Park Yeon-chan's face.
That is…
You could call it madness, but the texture was different—a pure smile. Like a child looking at a fascinating new toy.
"You're a lunatic."
And the time that followed became, for Yu I-jin, the most agonizing stretch of his life.