A Straight Line
I ran in a straight line—the shortest path, at the absolute limit of my speed.
My target was the end of the alley.
Distance-wise, maybe seventy? Eighty meters?
In reality, it was a distance I could cover in under ten seconds.
But this was the Internet. My goblin avatar had short legs and a limited range of joint motion.
I made up for my physical shortcomings with items.
I drove my dagger, Karwennan, into the wall and pulled myself forward, channeling the power of Strong Arm.
Instantaneous acceleration.
How long had I waited for this moment?
Charging forward, I aimed my Tokarev at her.
In that split second.
The moment the Tokarev's line of fire aligned perfectly with her head.
A cold sensation of impending death shot straight down my spine.
Reflexively, I lunged to the side.
Boom!
An explosion erupted exactly where I had been standing a millisecond ago.
The blast wave and searing heat blew me off my feet, slamming me hard against the wall.
Choi Minseol spoke.
"Wow, you dodged that?"
My ankles and shoulders screamed from the sudden change of direction and the impact, but there was no time to stop.
"Ugh!"
Thud!
The moment I pushed off the wall with an arm reinforced by Strong Arm, another explosion went off.
It was an explosion without any warning signs.
"My goodness. Twice in a row..."
My heart hammered, and a tingling sensation refused to leave my body.
An instinctual warning: If you stop, you die.
Obeying my primal instincts, I kept moving blindly.
Bang! Bam! Boom!
Explosions erupted wherever my feet touched the ground.
I avoided direct hits, but I couldn't escape the blast radius entirely. The heat singed my skin, and my lungs, having inhaled the scorching air, rebelled against breathing.
If this kept up, I would die.
Crash!
While being hurled through the air by the force of an explosion, I pointed my gun at Choi Minseol.
Point shooting.
I needed to create an opening first.
Bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
I emptied the entire magazine without hesitation.
But not a single one of the eight bullets reached Choi Minseol.
The bullets stopped, hovering in midair just before reaching her.
White snow crystals were spreading outward from the bullets.
A skill? Or some kind of item?
There was no time to analyze.
"I'm returning these."
With Choi Minseol's brief remark, the bullets rained back down on me.
"Tsk!"
I raised both arms to protect my head and vital organs.
I charged forward, fully prepared to take the hits, but fortunately, the deflected bullets only grazed past my sides.
"Ah... my aim is off..."
Choi Minseol scratched her head sheepishly.
In that brief window, I managed to close the distance right up to her nose.
A barrier that deflects bullets, huh...
Then how about a melee attack?
Gripping Karwennan in a reverse hold, I thrust it toward her solar plexus.
"Kya!"
Clang!
Choi Minseol's short shriek overlapped with the sound of the dagger striking ice.
White ice crystals were forming at the tip of Karwennan's blade.
"Hup...!"
I channeled the power of Strong Arm into the dagger, determined to pierce right through the crystal.
Creak... crack... crunch...!
The sound of ice cracking and the sound of ice growing thicker echoed simultaneously.
Even though I pressed down so hard that blood began to seep from my hand gripping Karwennan, the blade only penetrated a few centimeters.
The white ice crystals blocking Karwennan were rapidly thickening and expanding.
It seemed she was also concentrating her power on a single point.
In that case...!
"Tokarevs!! Maximum output!!"
Hearing my command, CC materialized five Tokarevs in midair.
I used the Phoenix Ornament Hairpin tucked into my breast pocket to surround Choi Minseol with the Tokarevs.
"Wo-Woah..."
Choi Minseol looked at the Tokarevs surrounding her in bewilderment.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The five Tokarevs fired simultaneously.
Cold shards of ice sprayed in all directions.
"Whew... that startled me. You've really picked up a lot of tricks, haven't you?"
"Even this..."
The white ice crystals were now almost completely enveloping her.
"You, wait a moment."
Choi Minseol placed her palm against the wall of the adjacent building.
Immediately after, the building wall shattered, and the cables and pipes inside burst out, wrapping tightly around me.
"Ugh...?!"
I immediately used the power of Strong Arm to tear the cables and snap the pipes, but they kept gushing out endlessly. In an instant, I was bound so tightly I couldn't move an inch.
Choi Minseol spoke with a gentle smile, as if soothing a child.
"Just wait a little bit. I know you're happy to see me after all this time, but I came here for that business over there today."
She pointed toward where Seok Hayeon and the players were.
The players flinched and lowered their stances.
"I..."
"Hmm?"
"Do you know... how long I've waited..."
Seven years.
I had waited seven years for this exact moment to arrive.
"I can't wait any longer."
I activated the ability of the dagger in my hand.
Grade: S-Grade
Dusk Step: Allows the user to enter the shadows up to three times a day.
Indestructible
Deals critical damage to magical entities.
The ability of Karwennan to slip into the shadows.
Plop.
Slipping through the cables and pipes binding my body, I sank into the shadow on the ground.
It felt like being submerged in dark water.
Holding my breath, I looked up toward the surface.
Karwennan allowed entry and exit only through shadows.
The current time was just before evening, when the sun was sufficiently tilted.
The long shadows cast by the buildings turned the entire alley into my domain.
I swam through the shadows, positioning myself directly beneath Choi Minseol.
Then, bursting out of the "water," I lunged at Choi Minseol with Karwennan.
"Ah, so it was the power of that dagger."
The moment I emerged from the shadow, Choi Minseol spoke while looking at me.
Just before the tip of the blade could touch her solar plexus, the same ice crystals that had blocked my previous attacks enveloped me.
"Uh... cough..."
A biting cold pierced my nerves.
My body was freezing over.
It felt as though ice was filling every gap between my muscle fibers, my cells, and every empty space in my body.
I couldn't even wiggle a fingertip.
Choi Minseol snatched Karwennan from my hand and tossed it behind her back.
"I'll confiscate this for a bit. Now, really, wait here."
Leaving my frozen self behind, Choi Minseol walked toward Seok Hayeon and the players.
Just when...
I had no choice but to watch her retreating back.
I had finally gotten within arm's reach...!
As Choi Minseol approached, the players flinched and lowered their stances.
Their movements were filled with hesitation.
Should we fight, or should we not?
From the brief clash between Choi Minseol and me, they must have gauged her strength.
I didn't know what skills and items the Intra-Asan players possessed, but they likely had few means to dodge instant, motion-free explosions or pierce a snowflake barrier that defended from all directions.
"Ah... ugh...!"
As Choi Minseol drew closer, one player transformed his body into metal.
Seeing this, another player shouted.
"Hey! What are you doing! Why are you trying to fight?!"
"B-But...! That goblin guy just now..."
"Is the goblin's enemy our enemy?!"
They were terrified.
Unsure of when a motion-free explosion might detonate, he had turned his skin to metal to adopt a defensive posture.
They were trying to avoid hostility by showing they weren't enemies.
The female player holding a dagger retreated at almost the exact same speed Choi Minseol approached, maintaining her distance.
Everyone was trying to avoid getting involved with Choi Minseol.
Except for one person.
Clang!
The sound of shattering ice.
A few severed strands of Choi Minseol's hair drifted down to the ground.
She stared in surprise at the sword that had cut her hair.
"A Single-Molecule Cutter...?"
Kang Seongbeom, who had regained consciousness at some point, was pointing his sword—the Single-Molecule Cutter—at Choi Minseol.
"Hah!"
Slash!
Slash!
Clash!
Clash-clash-clash!
An endless barrage of slashes.
The tip of the blade grazed right past Choi Minseol's nose, forcing her to take steps back.
The Single-Molecule Cutter even sliced through Choi Minseol's snowflake barrier.
However, the moment it cut through, ice formed around the blade, causing the blade to thicken.
A sword wrapped in ice was no longer a Single-Molecule Cutter, and it was easily blocked by Choi Minseol's snowflake barrier.
But Kang Seongbeom's technique didn't stop at simply creating the sharpest blade.
Every time the blade froze, Kang Seongbeom dissolved it and reformed it anew.
Since the newly formed blade wasn't encased in ice, it could once again bypass Choi Minseol's defense.
An Intra-Asan player shouted.
"Hey! What are you doing! Why are you attacking her?!"
"What are you seniors even doing?! Can't you tell just by looking?! She's the enemy!!"
"How is she the enemy...!"
"If you're scared, just stay back! It's obvious...!"
Kang Seongbeom raised his sword.
"She's a monster in human skin...!"
A few more sword strikes followed.
Unlike before, the blade didn't even come close to the tip of Choi Minseol's head.
The speed at which the ice generated had clearly increased.
"Aaaaargh!"
Kang Seongbeom swung his sword down with all his might.
But the snowflake barrier didn't activate.
Because there was no blade to begin with.
It was a trick utilizing the nature of the Single-Molecule Cutter, which was virtually invisible to the naked eye.
Kang Seongbeom thrust the bladeless hilt forward.
The snowflake barrier activated to block the hilt, beginning to freeze it.
In the next instant, the blade materialized, slicing right through the snowflake barrier.
The tip of the blade was aimed directly at Choi Minseol's neck.
Boom!
An explosion erupted between Choi Minseol and Kang Seongbeom.
"Kyaah!"
The aftershock of the blast sent Choi Minseol tumbling backward onto her rear.
Thanks to her snowflake barrier, she had avoided the explosion itself, but she apparently couldn't block the sheer pressure of the blast.
She rubbed her backside and muttered.
"Ouch... you use a really annoying skill..."
Where the explosion had occurred.
Kang Seongbeom stood there, frozen in the exact posture of his thrust.
The only differences were his shredded clothes and the soot covering his entire body.
Beneath his skin, which had been blasted away by the explosion, his blackened muscles trembled violently.
"Ugh... argh..."
Kang Seongbeom stood frozen, unable to even collapse.
Choi Minseol walked up to him, snatched the sword hilt from his hand, and turned it over to examine it.
"It's heavy... You crammed a lot of data into this. How do you use it? A combination with a skill... like this?"
With those words, a massive blade—incomparable to Kang Seongbeom's—materialized.
"Aaaaaaaaargh!"
"Oh my, sorry! I didn't mean to!"
The newly generated blade sliced through Kang Seongbeom's leg as he stood there and embedded itself in the ground.
Startled, Choi Minseol quickly let go of the hilt.
As the materialized blade vanished, Kang Seongbeom's left leg fell to the ground along with the hilt.
"Aaaah!"
The player who could turn his body to metal threw a punch at Choi Minseol.
Though he was quickly repelled by the snowflake barrier, he retreated with Kang Seongbeom cradled in his arms.
Another player screamed.
"Are you crazy?! Why are you suddenly attacking?!"
"Didn't you see? Our junior just got taken down!"
"T-That's... because he attacked first..."
"Stop making excuses! What have you been watching this whole time?! She's a dangerous woman!"
With those words, the Intra-Asan players seemed to make up their minds and took up combat stances.
One player's arm expanded, transforming into a metallic shield, while the female player's dagger glowed green and vibrated subtly. The player who manipulated magnetism swallowed a small pill.
"...I really... didn't want to fight..."
Choi Minseol scratched her head vigorously and let out a sigh.
"This won't do. It's all so annoying."
In front of her as she grumbled, a translucent keyboard materialized in midair.
Staring straight ahead, she began to tap away at the keyboard.
The players were bewildered by an action that had absolutely nothing to do with combat.
"What... is she..."
"Tsk!"
The female player with the dagger lowered her stance and lunged at Choi Minseol.
Only then did the other players realize they couldn't just stand by and watch, rushing in behind her.
But it was already too late.
"Transfer."
Flash!
With a flash of light, the charging players vanished in an instant.
Kang Seongbeom, who had been rescued and lay collapsed on the ground, was also gone.
Only his discarded sword and severed leg remained rolling on the ground.
"Finally, some peace and quiet."
Choi Minseol smiled brightly and walked toward Kim Hun and Seok Hayeon.
Just as Kim Hun raised his dagger to block Choi Minseol and protect Seok Hayeon.
"Husband? It's alright. I don't mean any harm."
Kim Hun pointed his eyes toward Kang Seongbeom's severed leg rolling on the ground.
"That was because they attacked first... and I didn't mean to cut off his leg... I'm sorry. It really was an accident."
Choi Minseol bowed deeply to Kim Hun.
Her back of the head and nape were completely exposed.
If he wanted to strike, now was the time, but Kim Hun only shifted awkwardly, unable to make a decision.
Still bent over, Choi Minseol lifted her head and spoke.
"You want to save your wife, don't you?"
Kim Hun lowered his arm holding the dagger.