Chapter 93: Let’s All Watch Over Hansol Orphanage! (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 93: Let’s All Watch Over Hansol Orphanage! (4)
It was always the same.
Most low-level fools tended to ignore her when they first crossed paths.
They were thugs who grew arrogant, mistaking the sense of superiority they felt from oppressing the weak for their own actual skill—letting their guard down because they judged others by appearances rather than what they had built.
Kang Ha-ni hated those half-baked punks.
And in this battle, most of the enemies were exactly the kind of mediocre fools she despised.
The pure white blade emerged from its scabbard, accelerating as it drank in her mana.
A quick-draw strike.
Once the villain at the very front collapsed with a massive laceration, the rest was simple.
Perhaps he had been the strongest among them, because the moment he fell, their formation crumbled as they tried to flee.
Even if she had shown overwhelming power, she was still just a student. Had they surrounded her and attacked all at once, they might have stood a chance.
But instead, they failed to decide whether to fight or fly, scattering like animals driven by pure instinct. Their cowardice made her job easy.
The white blade, saturated with mana, drew a straight line through the air. a beat later, a spray of crimson blood erupted.
Since the rule was to neutralize rather than kill whenever possible, she was operating under the handicap of aiming for arms and legs instead of necks. Even so, the fight wasn’t particularly difficult.
“…Hmm, looks like this side is almost wrapped up.”
Now that she had dealt with the heavy hitters, the guards should have no trouble capturing the remaining stragglers.
“Should I go help So-hyun?”
With that thought, she turned her head, only to be met with a sight that far exceeded her expectations.
A multitude of villains were being crushed under something massive, unable to even attempt an escape.
As if receiving a divine punishment handed down by a powerful entity that humans dared not oppose, they were suffering under a weight precisely calculated to be the limit of what they could endure without dying.
It was such a magnificent spectacle that it took her a moment to realize that the “massive something” was the weapon So-hyun usually carried around.
So-hyun had explained the Ruyi to her before.
She had thought it sounded impressive when he described it, but seeing it in person was a different level of intensity altogether.
Even if they were only B-rank villains and below, the combined strength of that many superhumans was nothing to scoff at.
Of course, the weapon played a large part, but the way he suppressed them even more perfectly than she had was truly surprising.
Was he always that strong…?
The sight of him—denying even the possibility of resistance to those who hadn’t reached a certain level—was enough to make her feel an aura she never could have imagined from the boy she first met.
“Ah…!”
One of them managed to slip out with the help of the others.
It was a textbook response: when faced with an overwhelming weapon, target the user.
Without the Ruyi in his hands, So-hyun was vulnerable.
Thinking he had let his guard down, Ha-ni was about to spring forward.
Crunch.
The villain screamed as his foot was crushed under a boot, followed immediately by a punch that landed squarely on his jaw.
“Shut up. Why are you screaming, you brat?”
What? He’s actually good at close-quarters combat now, too?
Perhaps because one had escaped, or perhaps because So-hyun had increased the pressure, the villains finally collapsed, unable to hold out any longer.
“That ended more anticlimactically than I thought.”
Since that side looked like it would finish even sooner than hers, should she just help the guards round up the ones who ran?
The only reason she suddenly threw herself into an evasive maneuver was her sixth sense screaming at a sudden surge of murderous intent.
“Huh?”
But nothing happened. No attack followed.
“What a waste. Such a waste. A little more time, and you might have been worth eating.”
Actually, someone was there.
It was just that he wasn’t close enough to warrant such a desperate dodge, nor was he even in a combat stance.
However, the feeling that she would have died if she hadn’t moved in that split second was definitely not an illusion.
“Kid. Being sensitive to bloodlust is good, but if you can’t distinguish a feint, it becomes a poison. Do you plan on reacting to every bit of killing intent an enemy throws your way?”
She remembered the massive man approaching her, radiating malice.
“Ah, wait… The Rose Festival?”
“Hmm…? Ah! I wondered who it was, but you’re the friend of that kid with potential!”
He laughed as if meeting an old friend, his face appearing as friendly as a neighborly uncle’s, but the pressure he exuded was anything but friendly.
He bared his teeth in a savage grin.
“Is that brown-haired brat here too, then?”
The giant had shown interest in Lilac in the past. By “brown-haired brat,” he likely meant him.
“He’s not here today.”
“Tsk, what a shame. He was the most promising one. Well, you’re not too bad for your age either, so I’ll have to make do with you today.”
He smacked his lips and looked at her as if she were a consolation prize.
It was insulting, but she saw no reason to stop an enemy from being overconfident.
“Let’s see. Since I see the seeds of strength in you, I shall personally test you.”
Test me? Is he joking?
She placed her hand on the hilt of her sheathed sword and began circulating her mana.
Since she didn’t know the extent of her enemy’s skill, dragging the fight out would be dangerous.
Quick-draw. A strike at supersonic speed flew toward the man’s neck in a surprise attack, but he didn’t even move to defend.
It wasn’t that he failed to react.
He simply stood there, indifferently enduring a strike fueled by mana and the sharp edge of the cursed sword Seol-ah with nothing but his Protective Aura.
“Oh, not bad. Even with a good weapon, it’s the swordsman’s skill that determines how well it’s used. Good. Very good. You are indeed worthy of being tested.”
This is dangerous.
“Kid! Let’s see just how far you can go…!”
The S-rank Villain, War Demon Seo Tae-ho, let out a roar and threw a punch.
* * *
A few hours ago.
Seo Tae-ho had arrived at the battlefield, but he hadn’t even considered moving.
He had been played.
No matter how he looked at it, he had been scammed.
He had been looking forward to a bloody battle for the first time in a while, but his opponents were all Non-Awakened weaklings draped in toys.
“This is a breach of contract! I’ll overlook the fact that you aren’t taking the lead! But why on earth did you attack our own allies!”
He was the one who should be angry, yet this annoying fly kept buzzing in his ear.
“Hah, those runts picked a fight with me. Did you expect me to just sit there and take it?”
“Ugh…!”
It was true.
Seo Tae-ho had originally gotten into a spat with the external personnel they had recruited and had left them half-dead.
“I didn’t mind them calling me a mountain-sized furball, but how dare some nameless trash insult Arcadia? I was going to pop all their heads, but I held back because of the Boss’s orders. They should be thanking me.”
Surprisingly, he had actually tried to endure the provocation at first, which was unlike him.
He didn’t want to break his promise to his boss, Kalia, and he needed the pay to buy that ‘Rum Raisin’ ice cream for the kid.
But the more he endured their insults, the more they crossed the line.
Eventually, when they suggested that any organization such idiots belonged to couldn’t be legitimate, Seo Tae-ho decided he was done being patient.
He could have endured more, but it didn’t seem like the insults would stop if he did.
He believed he had already shown great mercy by not taking the lives of those morons.
When he released a tiny bit of his bloodlust, the noisy man trembled in fear.
Pathetic.
“…Ugh.”
“And I came running all excited because I heard I’d be fighting Yuseong, but they’re all Non-Awakened in suits and gear. Why should I have to bully weaklings like that? I came here thinking I’d get to trade blows with the superhuman private soldiers Yuseong is rumored to have raised.”
It was a chore.
He felt a bit bad for the Boss, but he figured he’d just look for that hidden dungeon and head back. The ice cream… it was a shame, but he could just buy it with his own money.
“B-but there are heroes over there too!”
“…Huh?”
“We’ve confirmed two heroes who dealt instantaneous damage to our side. Surely they would satisfy you?”
This weakling really knows how to flap his gums.
Should I just split him in half?
He considered it, but he had been so bored lately.
He expected to be disappointed, but with a glimmer of hope, he looked over the battlefield that was already mostly cleared.
As expected, there wasn’t much.
But as he scanned the area, his mana sensing caught something decent.
A boy… or a girl? Running through the battlefield with a pure white sword. Which was it? Well, it didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that the kid showed the potential to become quite strong, and that they had dodged the moment they felt his bloodlust.
Good. Very good.
If he couldn’t fight someone strong, he might as well poke at someone with the potential to become strong.
The War Demon headed toward the battlefield with a savage grin.
* * *
What was going on?
Looking at the situation, Ha-ni was actually doing a decent job of dodging Seo Tae-ho’s punches.
But Ha-ni’s expression wasn’t bright at all.
She likely understood that her evasion wasn’t due to her own skill, but because her opponent was going easy on her.
“Kid! You’re pretty good! You’re faster than I thought!”
Despite that, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
He had one arm tucked away and wasn’t using his legs for anything other than movement.
He was using only his left fist for both offense and defense, maintaining a balance that looked like it could collapse at any moment.
Not yet.
In the original story, during the time she was known as the Sword Ghost, Ha-ni eventually succeeded in cutting off that man’s left arm. But that was after she had grown much more than she had now, and at a point where her path had taken a completely different direction.
“You… crazy…!”
A beautiful, refined Sword Qi drew a straight line.
It was an attack that most heroes or villains wouldn’t survive, but it only left a small scratch on the giant’s arm—hardly a fatal wound.
“Good! You’ve grown in that short time! To pierce my aura and leave a wound on my body!?”
Only then did the War Demon, grinning savagely, take a proper stance.
“The student is in danger! Immediately…!”
The guards tried to rush in to support her, but Ha-ni immediately blocked them.
“Don’t come any closer! You’ll all be killed if you do!”
“Haha! Exactly! I haven’t had this much fun in ages, do you think I’ll let noise interfere? Ordinary people shouldn’t meddle in a fight between superhumans!”
Ha-ni’s voice and his overlapped.
His fist, wrapped in a protective aura, grew a level faster.
“Good. This is great! Let’s see if you can handle it if I go even faster…!”
His fist, shrouded in aura, slammed into the white blade.
Ha-ni, nearly dropping her sword from the numbing pain, tried to retreat, but it was a bad move.
“That sword is a masterpiece. I struck it with the intent to break it.”
Retreating across open ground against an opponent faster than oneself was a suicidal act.
“That wasn’t bad. Be stronger the next time we meet.”
Energy gathered in his fist.
He likely intended to knock her out with a blow that was just shy of being lethal.
Tap.
He felt something touch him, but the War Demon didn’t look back, thinking the opponent in front of him was more important.
Or rather, he intended not to look back.
“…Hmm?”
“Grow.”
That is, until the energy of an artifact suddenly amplified right above his head.
“Ruyi…!”
“Hah.”
He hurriedly spun around and drew a circle with his left hand.
The massive object that had suddenly ballooned in size would have been a burden to simply take head-on, but every object has a center of gravity.
Through a circular motion, he was able to deflect its trajectory before its full weight could be transferred to him.
With a massive thud, the Ruyi staff slammed into the ground.
“Who are you?”
I didn’t even know you were there.
He was likely thinking exactly that.
To him, I must have seemed like a half-baked nobody.
* * *
What was with this guy?
He looked like an ordinary person, yet he felt strangely like a superhuman. The energy he radiated was quite vast, but the vessel containing it was still pathetically weak. It was truly bizarre.
Ultimately, however, he decided to lose interest.
He wanted to focus on the opponent in front of him rather than this mediocre brat.
“You’re not worth my time, so I’ll let you slide. Or you can wait until I’m finished with this one, and then I’ll play with you.”
He had no hobby of bullying those who showed neither potential nor the proper attitude toward martial arts.
“Why are you even here right now?”
But it seemed the boy had no intention of waiting.
“No. Let’s just say that’s fine for now.”
“…Hmm?”
“Wait for what?”
The massive pillar he had retrieved had somehow become a small dagger in his hand.
“That’s quite a mysterious artifact. But no matter how good it is, if the user is weak…”
“Get away from her, you bastard.”
“Sigh.”
There was nothing more futile than the ideals held by the weak.
He felt he needed to show the charging boy the reality of the situation.