Her Name is Rhea (1)
The training ground.
I stood at the edge of the arena, gripping the wooden spear in my hand, and swung it once.
Every motion—shoulders, arms, the subtle contraction and relaxation of muscles—felt flawless.
“What the hell is going on with you?”
Jun-ho asked, watching me.
“I’m just doing what anyone would do. I wanted to rough you up once, like you do to dogs on a hot summer day.”
“Watch it! Every time you say you’ll handle it, you push the line! Hey!! Start already!!”
“The referee hasn’t shown up yet!”
Since the bet was between people from the same department, they hadn’t pulled a referee from inside. They’d borrowed one from another.
“What, didn’t you already call for one?”
“Why are you so late?”
A childlike voice cut through the chatter.
“I’m sorry I’m late! Starting right now, at the first ring of the bell!”
A single woman came running and stood in front of the bell.
Bong—!
The bell rang. Jun-ho gripped his specialty spear and thrust it forward.
***
“Who do you think will win?”
Joo Seung-min answered his teammate’s question.
“Probably Jun-ho.”
“Throwing two million won? On a guy like that?”
“But you know, Kim Min-su… no matter who he faces, he never loses with a sword.”
The shock when Kim Min-su first stepped into the arena was something no one would ever forget.
The moment he drew the sword, most employees ended up handling him like they would a child.
But once the retired hunters started using mana, he kept losing one after another.
“The gap between having mana and not is huge.”
Even after losing, Kim Min-su never put the sword down.
Whenever he had a moment, he trained alone in the arena. It looked like he was just rolling around, but you had to respect the effort.
“I dodged it! I dodged it!!”
Countless clashes rang out across the arena.
Jun-ho’s spear tip sliced the air. I twisted my head and evaded it.
“Even that was dodged?”
Jun-ho, who had been pressing the attack, looked genuinely shocked by how easily everything I threw at him was read.
“I… I’m a C-class mana spear user… How is a legless guy supposed to—”
“Use mana.”
“…What?”
“It’ll be no fun if I keep going like this, so I won’t.”
As soon as I spoke, I took a step forward.
I seized the spear shaft with my wooden spear and drove it straight down.
The spear slipped from Jun-ho’s grip and rolled across the ground with a hollow thud.
“If I do it like this, it doesn’t look very good, does it? Boss.”
Voices rose from the crowd at my words.
“What, it’s already over?”
“He was in perfect form… but that was the best he could do?”
“Jun-ho’s skills are finished. Totally dead.”
Jun-ho clenched his fists, trembling with rage.
“Fine… got it!!”
Blue mana began to flicker across Jun-ho’s body as he grabbed the fallen spear.
“I’ll really do it properly!!”
Ice hardened at his back and shot forward like a razor.
“Now this is a real fight.”
I laughed and swung my sword in a smooth circle. My wrist turned easily, and the wooden spear deflected the entire block of ice.
“Gap.”
Jun-ho, who had closed the distance, thrust the spear upward.
It was aimed straight at my head.
I blocked the blade with my tilted wooden spear.
Swish.
The spear slid off as wood rubbed against wood.
“Is this for real?”
Before I could even answer, I stomped hard into his solar plexus.
“Khuh—!!”
Jun-ho scraped across the floor with both feet and retreated.
“I’ll give you points for not dropping the spear. Now it’s time to pull something else.”
“Fine… even if I die, I won’t admit it!!”
Mana flared from the tips of Jun-ho’s feet and surged up his body. It looked exactly like a colossal worm writhing.
“That’s it.”
I remembered the story of how Jun-ho used to sweep monsters with his dragon-slaying skill in the past.
“You have to restrain him.”
“Even if you restrain him, if he uses his skill he can still die. Referee!!”
The crowd turned to the referee, but the woman who had come from another department raised one finger.
“Everyone, stay quiet.”
The overwhelming pressure in her eyes made every employee close their mouths instantly.
“I understand this is what the department head ordered.”
The woman who had spoken nonsense shouted.
“I’ll continue!!”
Jun-ho’s expression changed the moment he heard that. The rage was still there, but now it was serious.
“Before we start fighting, I have one question.”
“What is it?”
“Am… am I really that bad…? No, not the face… somewhere else too…”
I narrowed my eyes and sighed.
“Are you asking me that?”
Jun-ho kicked the ground and leaped.
“You damn ugly beauty-obsessed bastard!!”
Blue dragons wrapped around his arms and spear shaft.
The condensed mana writhed, then shot forward in dragon form.
I looked up at the approaching blue dragons and stepped forward.
Kung—!
I declared my one-man domain.
The air around me grew heavy, space seemed to freeze, and everything fell silent.
I gripped the wooden spear tightly and looked up at the dragons.
Imperial Sword Form.
Simply put, it meant overwhelming anyone and anything.
The sky doesn’t look up at dragons.
It looks down from higher up, dragons in hand.
“So kneeling is for dragons.”
Blue inner energy burst from my palm.
It crushed the arena.
I extended the wooden spear toward the blue dragons.
It was nothing more than a simple thrust, but a wave of sword energy shot forward with it.
The sword energy that had advanced straight ahead tore the dragons to pieces and continued toward Jun-ho.
“Uuuuuaahh!!”
Jun-ho, sensing death, curled into a pathetic ball.
Bang—!!
A thunderous boom that would shatter ears rang out as my sword energy exploded and vanished.
“U… uaa… ah?”
My wooden spear touched the neck of Jun-ho, who lay flat on the ground.
“Kim Min-su!! Kim Min-su wins!!”
The referee declared my victory, and cheers erupted.
“True to form, it wasn’t a lie.”
Jun-ho, who had come speeding to the arena in a wheelchair the moment he heard about the fight between Kim Min-su and me, said.
“Ji-tae!! Look at this! It wasn’t a dream, right?!”
Jun-ho couldn’t hide his joy and laughed brightly.
Baek Ji-tae stared at the victorious Kim Min-su with a dumbfounded expression.
“So… that story about you living three lives isn’t a lie? You… crazy guy. How did you even hold on this long?”
***
“Na-ra, let’s go home.”
Ju Tae-jin said to Na-ra, who was watching the referee.
“Huh? After showing off that kind of power, you’re just going home?”
“The power I saw just now wasn’t even S-class. It was probably someone related to him.”
“In that case, you could feel the mana?”
“Not exactly, but you can say he has that much power. Ah, and did you get anything about the woman who was with him?”
I walked through the corridor as Ju Tae-jin asked.
“Ah, the identification seems solid, but there’s no trace after high school graduation. We can’t even find out which school the girl who looks like his daughter attends.”
“Hmm… this person you met before wasn’t her, right?”
“The management department said no one there had ever seen a red-haired mother and daughter together.”
That meant the person you met after the gate outbreak event.
“Wait a second… does that mean it fits?”
If the S-class person is one of the mother and daughter, and meeting them changed Kim Min-su…
“Kim Min-su’s information needs more digging. Find every record from the military up to now.”
Ju Tae-jin realized the answer was right in front of him.
The problem was that one wrong move, one bad guess, could push him and Na-ra straight into death.
“Think… best way…?”
The last place they visited was a real estate office. They even confirmed the massive mansion and shops.
They didn’t know if the contracts had actually been signed, but their interest was clear.
“Shops…?”
If they planned to open shops and run a business…
They could get closer naturally and gather information.
“If we open shops, we have to go.”
“What do we do about this report?”
“Say we couldn’t find them. Better to get cursed than have S-class hunters notice us. Ah, and that gate where the Living Armor Legion came out last time… there were eyewitnesses, right?”
At those words, Na-ra pulled out her notebook and said.
“Nam Jin-cheol, the hunter. He was the only one on site. Management department people were there too, but they said they didn’t see anything clearly.”
“That guy also has to be interviewed… there’s a lot to do.”
Ju Tae-jin touched the back of his neck and headed outside. They had only been gone from the management department for three minutes.
Whyyyyy—!!
Sirens began to wail.
***
“Khhugh… why am I doing this…”
Romanoff was cleaning the enormous mansion with a mop.
“My hands are tired?”
Jeok So-ye glared at him while holding a heavy sword.
“Ah, no!!”
Watching the flustered Romanoff run away, Jeok Hwa-ryeon smiled with satisfaction.
“A cleaning lady who doesn’t even need food or money.”
While I was pondering how to use the toy-sized Romanoff, I brought an old armor from the Blood Sect’s storage.
I possessed Romanoff with the armor and gained one extra hand.
“By the way, Mother, I have something I don’t understand.”
“What is it?”
“What kind of power does Father actually have?”
Jeok Hwa-ryeon nodded. Even she thought Kim Min-su’s power was on another level.
“He believes he has no talent.”
“Huh…? No talent?”
“I heard he took several years to form his first dantian. My father’s strength lies not in martial arts but in understanding.”
Understanding.
The miracle of a modern person dropped into Murim reaching Super Supreme level by understanding only novels.
“I tried to understand what I didn’t understand. For three whole years. That’s why I took a huge leap the moment I formed the dantian.”
“The desire to understand what you don’t understand…”
“Oh…”
Jeok Hwa-ryeon smiled as she saw Jeok So-ye’s eyes glaze over.
“You’re trying to break the wall of Super Supreme.”
I pulled out the old Blood Demon Sword that had been stored in a small ring.
“I, this mother, will serve as your protector.”
Jeok Hwa-ryeon rose happily, but something caught her senses.
“This place is where the gate opened last time.”
An existence with terrifying presence appeared.
“Protect my daughter with the Blood Demon Sword.”
The Blood Demon Sword flew up and stood behind Jeok So-ye.
“If it possesses this kind of presence, how strong must it be? I’m very curious.”
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