It Hurts

A man came through the teleportation array. He had the look of someone hunting another person down, and without so much as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a greeting he seized the hunter standing beside him by the collar.

"Hey. Where'd that bitch go?"

"Sorry? That bitch? Who are you talking about?"

"Yoo Se-ah! You dumbass piece of shit!"

What was this guy's problem? They didn't even look like they knew each other, and he was already running his mouth like that.

The array flashed again, and more people kept spilling through. The moment they spotted him they rushed over, falling over themselves to hold him back.

"Shin-hoo! Calm down!"

"Yeah, it's not too late. We can still get ready from here!"

"What the hell are you two even doing? Guild Master, Vice Guild Master — we're about to get left in the dust by Nebula!"

"Hey! Throwing a tantrum isn't going to fix this!"

"Can't you see Nebula already moved? They're ahead of us! What the hell have you people been doing?"

Who even was this man? Why were a guild master and a vice guild master tiptoeing around him like that?

He kept huffing even after he'd spent his rage, like it still wasn't enough. The guild master and vice guild master flicked a glance in my direction, then went right back to pleading with him.

"There's an NPC right here. Let's just try talking to her properly."

"Yeah. We've got members who've been farming her affinity."

He shook their hands off his arm and, in the space of a blink, was standing in front of me.

What the—

He was so fast I couldn't even see him move. Before I could put a thought together he'd grabbed me by the head and started shaking it back and forth.

"This is the NPC?"

I did not like what he was doing. It felt like he was turning a machine over in his hands, checking whether it still worked. Of course that was going to piss me off.

I slapped his hand off my head.

"Oh-ho. Playing human, are we?"

The way he talked was genuinely disgusting. Everyone else thought I was an NPC too, but they at least had the decency to be polite about it. This man clearly did not care.

The masters watching from the chat were furious.

The hunters watching from the side felt the same way. Everyone had been lining up for Inedia Pills, and an S-rank had just shoved his way in. Even Yoo Se-ah had waited her turn, and this man had shown up out of nowhere to start a scene. Grumbling rose from every direction.

The problem was that, somewhere in the middle of all that complaining, one voice came through perfectly clear.

"Mad Dog Baek Shin-hoo..."

It sounded like something muttered without thinking — more like a man confirming who he was looking at than anything else. Baek Shin-hoo, apparently, did not take it that way. He vanished from in front of me and reappeared in front of the hunter who'd said it.

He kicked the man in the shin without a second's hesitation.

"Aaaagh!"

"Fuck, I know they call me Mad Dog, but running your mouth behind my back like that pisses me off."

"Nngh..."

"There are times you send a drone up and still never find out what killed you, y'know?"

"…"

"Ah! Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I'll do anything. Just watch your mouth if you don't wanna die, yeah?"

"I— I'm sorry."

The hunter clutched his shin and apologized. Baek Shin-hoo still wasn't satisfied. He kicked the other shin too.

"Aagh!"

The man grabbed both legs. After hanging onto them for a long while, he gave up on the line entirely and started hobbling toward the teleportation array. The way he dragged himself along, slow and lopsided, he was hurt badly.

He'd been waiting forever, too. It was just pitiful.

I called out to the limping hunter.

"Take it."

He snatched the Inedia Pill out of the air. Color rushed back into a face that had been twisted in pain.

"Go— Goat-jjang, thank you!"

Baek Shin-hoo watched the whole thing, one corner of his mouth curling up. Infuriating expression. And then, in another blink, he was standing in front of me again.

S-rank, so of course his skill looked ridiculous. Was that teleportation? Some kind of hunter technique? Either way, he had no manners. He shoved in close before I could even finish a thought.

"Hey. Hand over all the Bait you've got."

"...."

"Of course you're a dumbass. Can't understand words? I said hand over all the Bait! I'll buy the whole lot!"

Did he mean the Inedia Pills? Well. They did kind of look like fish bait.

"I don't have many left."

"Hand those over too."

"Get in line."

"What? The fuck?"

It wasn't that he didn't scare me. My personality had just always been like this. Back at the orphanage the other kids used to call me a chihuahua. A contrary streak, maybe. No matter how strong the other person was, I never liked doing as I was told.

Baek Shin-hoo did what thugs always do — stared off at the distant mountains and put on a rotten little smile, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Ha— fuck. Trying to talk to a dumbass is gonna kill me."

"…"

"Hey!"

"…"

"Hey! You deaf?"

"…"

"How many did you give Yoo Se-ah?"

"Fifty."

"Ha— that fucking bitch. Fast as hell."

"...."

"Then you should give us fifty too!"

"That's up to me."

"Heart? You're a goddamn NPC."

I understood he had the wrong idea. That didn't make every single word out of his mouth any less disgusting. I'd never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even said I was an NPC! The lying part I could live with, since I had been lying. If he'd just talked like a normal person I might have actually considered it. Why did he keep crossing the line?

By now, just having him stand next to me was enough to make my face twist on its own. So why did he keep coming at me? This Baek Shin-hoo just kept scraping at people's nerves.

"Ha~ fuck. An NPC acting all offended?"

"…"

"If you're a system, act like a system and take customers! You not getting this?"

I couldn't take it anymore. I'd never planned to lord it over anyone just because I had an item people wanted. I was just a little… no, moderately? That happy that something I'd made was actually helping. No matter how strong he was, I did not want to be treated like this.

I held out, and held out, and then I gave him an ultimatum.

Look at that. One sentence he didn't like and his eyes went sharp.

"What? What the hell did you just say?"

So what? You think I'm going to back down just because you're trying to scare me? No matter how strong you are, I am never selling to someone I can't stand.

"You fucking bitch!"

I had no idea what happened. My brain was a mess. Before I could even register the situation, my body was already moving. I was flying through the air, and that man had one foot raised—

The impact slammed into my hearing, and then the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pain hit my stomach. It didn't stop. The threshold kept climbing. It felt like something was gouging through my insides, a heavy, crushing ache driving all the way into my gut. Had my organs ruptured?

Only then did my brain catch up to what was actually going on. I was flying backward off his kick.

He really is fast...

I hadn't even seen what he'd done. My body sailed a long way, and when gravity finally caught up I hit the ground and rolled. Then, right on schedule, the pain arrived.

"Kh—!"

Something hot climbed my throat. A metallic smell hit my nose, and I couldn't hold it — I heaved. Spit and sticky blood mixed in my mouth and spilled out.

The hunters who'd been watching started raising their voices, one after another.

"Even if you're S-rank, isn't that too much?!"

"She's a friendly NPC — how can you hit her like that!"

"Even if Blitz is a major guild, this is way over the line!"

"This is all going out live! I'm reporting every last one of you!"

"Being S-rank doesn't make you god!"

The complaints got louder. The atmosphere turned ugly in an instant. They spoke with one voice, like he'd just become public enemy number one. People get strong when they band together. Even a lunatic couldn't do much against dozens of them.

Off to the side, the guild master and vice guild master of Blitz Guild caught the shift and scrambled to contain it.

"Shin-hoo! That's enough! We've already got warnings stacked up!"

"Yeah. Cool your head. Let's handle this calmly."

"Shut up!"

From the way they were talking, this Baek Shin-hoo was one of their guild members. How good did you have to be for a guild master and a vice guild master to beg like that? Weren't they spoiling him a little too much? He was a golden child if I ever saw one.

Was he not afraid of anything? Was he really that strong? Did S-ranks just get to run wild like this? No — that Yoo Se-ah woman hadn't.

More to the point, what was this man even saying? What was he ranting about?

"Why is everyone who should know better playing innocent?"

"NPCs aren't Korean citizens! You can't be charged for killing them!"

"Those things are entities the Tower creates!"

"Whatever they hand out — everything that comes out of the Tower is the enemy, isn't it?"

"Plus, when an NPC dies they just come back the next day like nothing happened!"

"You all know they don't even remember what happened the day before!"

One of the hunters who'd been listening to the speech stepped up to argue.

"That NPC is one you have to farm affinity with!"

"Right. Affinity farming."

Baek Shin-hoo put on a vile little smile and looked around.

"Not my problem."

"What do you mean…"

"Can't be helped that that bitch got there first. No — even if the Bait works great, fifty is cutting it close. They might die trying to clear it."

"But we're fellow hunters…"

"Shut up! Fellow hunters? They're all competitors. If that bitch dies trying to clear it, that's good for us. Isn't it?"

"Even for an S-rank, isn't that too much?"

"What's too much is this. From tomorrow that NPC is under Blitz exclusive, so crawl accordingly."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Open your mouth one more time and you die. We're taking this spot for our guild, so if you've got a problem, come fight us."

The crowd went quiet in an instant.

So they wanted a monopoly? More than that — wasn't he talking about killing me? Kill me so a new NPC spawned, and then lock it down for themselves? Or grab me right now?

Except I wasn't an NPC.

I'd thought he was just a lunatic. He was a lunatic who used his brain, too?

Worse, the masters who'd been watching were losing their minds. The chat looked like a sea of fire.

Then a message appeared from Taehyeon Jin-in, who had been quiet until now.

Everyone was thrown. It wasn't Hyeolha Nojo telling me to draw a demonic blade — it was Taehyeon Jin-in.

While they were still arguing, Hyeolha Nojo — who had gone quiet — finally moved.

Everyone was losing it. You could feel how messy it had gotten. Hyeolha Nojo didn't seem to care about the mood at all. He messaged me again.

"Really?"

"What do you mean by that?"

If I boiled down what the masters were saying, it came to this: I couldn't win in my current state. Taehyeon Jin-in — the same Taehyeon Jin-in who fought with Hyeolha Nojo every single day — had told me to take up a demonic sword. That was how strong this man was, then? Well. He had been fast enough that I couldn't even see him.

"Taehyeon Jin-in. Is it... really all right to take up the demonic sword?"

An inner demon? A Great Dao Oath?

They'd said an inner demon was when dark thoughts rose unbidden. But if he was swearing a Great Dao Oath, it probably wasn't a lie. Not that I had any other options anyway.

I pushed myself up off the ground and drew the Reversal Blood Sword.