Chapter 58
I’ll translate the chapter into polished English HTML, preserving the scene structure and converting every system-style line into the required styled blocks. Then I’ll do a quick consistency pass to make sure the title, dialogue, and special content formatting all line up.CHAPTER_TITLE: Chapter 58
Kwa-ga-ga-gang—! Water erupted in every direction. The violent impact sent ripples surging outward, and the ground shattered as fragments sprayed into the air.
Kwa-ji-ji-ji-jik—! My gaze dropped into the crack, now webbed with countless fissures.
[Ugh!!]
Yoon Yeon was slammed into the ground in my grip. In the instant of her agonized scream, her body vanished.
The situation withered away like mist.
Hero's Super-sensory has been activated.
My body moved. Yoon Yeon had vanished, but I could still tell where she was.
My field of vision shifted. My body was already lunging somewhere.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
[……!]
Her voice changed. I seized Yoon Yeon by the collar as she tried to widen the distance between us.
[How—!]
I didn’t even hear the rest. I yanked her up and hurled her into the air.
Pik—!!
With a short, sharp crack, Yoon Yeon’s body was flung away at speed. Her flesh sliced through the floodwater before her body rolled across the ground.
Thud—!!
She bounced once, twice, then kept rolling. I watched it and sprinted after her.
Kwaak—!
[Kuh!?]
As I closed in, I stomped on her chest.
[Ghk.]
“Talk.”
I pressed down and asked, “What do you have to do with the incident from ten years ago?”
[Haa... haa... haha.]
Yoon Yeon let out a laugh.
There was no mistaking the pain in it.
[……Musin…….]
“……”
[……Lee Jinwoo. How are you Musin?]
She seemed to have figured out my identity from my mask and clothes.
[That can’t be right. The Association said you were A-class…….]
“If you people can fool others, why couldn’t I?”
[……Ah…….]
Her response suggested she’d accepted it.
[How did you know it was me……?]
Her questions kept coming.
Ku-u-u-uk.
[Ghk!?]
As I stepped harder, I said, “I’m the one asking questions. Are you connected to the incident from ten years ago? What’s your purpose?”
[Ughhh.]
If I pushed any harder, bones would break. I could tell that instinctively. An S-class superhuman. And even though I was pinning her down and playing with her like this, I didn’t feel much of anything.
The Rift of Korka. The overwhelming boost to my physical abilities that came from it. Add to that the gap between Musin’s rank and the gate itself, and the increase in power that created.
My strengthened body was crushing Yoon Yeon with ease.
[……Ah…… this is a real loss…… or is it a gain?]
Yoon Yeon muttered under her breath and moved something.
[You made a mistake, Lee Jinwoo.]
Looking up at me, she said,
[You should’ve just died here. Not revealed your identity.]
“……”
Was she trying something?
Korca's apostle is attempting to escape the Rift.
The system gave me the answer. Yoon Yeon was trying to run away from here.
[See you next time. Musin.]
But—
You are the owner of the Rift.
Do you permit escape?
I hit reject.
Korca's Rift rejects the apostle's will.
[Huh?]
Confusion seeped into Yoon Yeon’s voice.
“Why?”
Watching her, I said, “Trying to run? Doesn’t seem like it worked.”
[What the— what is this……!]
I clenched my fist and drove it toward her face.
[--!]
Kwaaaang—!!! My fist tore into the ground, smashing it apart. Yoon Yeon was no longer there. Just like before.
[You. What are you, really? How is Korca-sama’s Rift……!]
“Are you stupid? You keep saying the same thing. You’re not the one who gets to ask questions.”
I turned around.
“Answer what I say. If you don’t—”
Wooooong.
I tensed my body. My muscles swelled.
“You die here.”
[……Y—!]
Yoon Yeon ground her teeth. Then she leveled a dagger at me.
Wooooong—!!! Something burst with light from her sword.
Hero's Super-sensory has been activated.
Condensed power. And then—
Darkness that had not yet become primordial.
The shadow pouring from Yoon Yeon’s legs wrapped around her. And then I faced her again—now cloaked in that same color.
Personal achievement completed.
You have faced Authority for the first time. Achievement unlocked: “Is this your first time seeing Authority?”
Authority, huh.
So that was it. That was Yoon Yeon’s Authority.
[Arrogant bastard.]
Yoon Yeon spat the words and vanished again. This time it was different. She really disappeared right before my eyes.
Hero's Super-sensory has been activated.
My senses had sharpened, but I couldn’t feel Yoon Yeon’s presence at all.
Was this her Authority?
But then—
Hero's Super-sensory has been activated.
I felt something a moment later. I twisted at the cold sensation.
Whoosh—! I heard the slice of air being cut. Something had just swept past my throat, trying to sever it. Yoon Yeon, apparently.
Invisibility?
It wasn’t just that she had gone invisible; her presence had become almost impossible to sense. Near-nothingness. It felt as if her very existence had been erased.
Still.
If she came close enough, I could detect her. It seemed like Danger Detection was searching her out for me.
No time limit?
Could she keep using it indefinitely? Were there conditions for activating it? I tried to figure it out, but—
Can’t see her.
For now, I had nothing to go on.
Hero's Super-sensory has been activated.
I dodged again.
The problem was that the speed at which she was approaching seemed to be gradually increasing.
…….
I ran the possibilities through my head. My experience and knowledge weren’t nearly deep enough to understand an opponent like this.
What I learned in school isn’t enough.
This might have been my first real battle.
My first true fight, life on the line as a knight against a terrorist.
What I’d learned in school was practically useless here.
How.
What was the move?
Hero's Super-sensory has been activated.
I could feel it. Dodging wasn’t enough. Realizing that, I changed tactics.
Wooooong—!! I put power into my fist. With more force than before, I drove it straight into the ground.
Kwa-jik—! Kwa-ga-ga-ga-gak---!!!
The earth exploded apart and surged upward.
[Kuh!?]
Yoon Yeon, who had been closing in, cried out as the shattered ground warped beneath her feet. Found you.
“There you are.”
I shifted my gaze toward her.
Eye of Enlightenment has been activated.
Yoon Yeon’s blurred form came into view as the skill activated. It looked as if I could see her because she was close enough to detect.
I could tell she was trying to vanish again. I drove my foot forward and smashed it into her abdomen.
Pwaak—!!
[Ghk!]
My kick landed square in her solar plexus. Yoon Yeon’s body collapsed on the spot.
Thud—! The mask she’d been wearing fell away, revealing the face I knew.
“Uweeeek—!”
She vomited violently right there.
“Kuh... cough... ghk...”
She seemed to be in terrible pain, clutching at her stomach.
“You... you... how...”
“……”
I stepped closer.
“Can you still do it?”
“What...?”
“Your Authority. Can you use it again?”
Go ahead and try, if you can. I looked down at Yoon Yeon with that expression.
“Ha... you monster... where the hell did someone like you come from...?”
“Beats me.”
I’d driven an S-class superhuman this far. Maybe it was because of Korca’s Rift and the difference in rank, but it was still strange.
“I’m curious too.”
What was Musin?
What exactly was it that allowed me to produce this kind of power? As I wondered about that, I asked her again.
“Now answer me.”
“What the hell are you? What are you trying to do?”
“……Ha....... haha....”
Blood ran from the corner of Yoon Yeon’s mouth. The blow to her abdomen seemed to have done serious damage.
“……You’re asking what we are?”
Her gaze lifted to mine. My eyes narrowed at the emotion flickering in hers.
“That’s an interesting thing to ask, Lee Jinwoo. Do you even know what you are?”
“……”
“You still don’t seem to know what this device called the system really means in the first place. For someone so unusual, you know surprisingly little.”
Heh heh heh. Yoon Yeon gave a low laugh.
“……After all that effort to find Musin, how pointless. Who would’ve thought an unripe brat like you was Musin? What a waste. How many synchronization points do you have?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“Probably low. If it were high, you wouldn’t be asking such a stupid question. Lucky you. Still untainted.”
“What?”
“One day, you’ll understand. Not just you, but everyone who calls themselves a superhuman in this world. How absurd and warped this world really is...”
Chak—!
Hero's Super-sensory has been activated.
Yoon Yeon cut herself off and thrust out the dagger.
“—this place is!”
My eyes were already tracking it. Even more than that—
Patcheonmu was inherited.
The counter technique fired through the low odds. My hand moved. I slipped past the dagger with ease, and my fist met her chest.
Then—
Kuaaahaaaaaaa---!!!! A storm swept through Yoon Yeon’s body and passed on.
“Ah.”
With a single breath, Yoon Yeon crumbled. Unlike Wei Ajun, whose body had been ripped apart and killed instantly, she—
“Aaah......”
—had her abdomen punched through and was collapsing in place.
This is bad!
I rushed to her side with wide eyes. She couldn’t die.
I still had too many things to ask. She couldn’t die like this.
“Aaah......”
With eyes growing dimmer by the second, Yoon Yeon spoke.
“This... is it liberation...? Or is this the abyss...? I don’t know...”
Thud. With those final words, Yoon Yeon’s body collapsed by the water’s edge.
The blood flowing from her spread into the water.
“……”
Watching it, my body went rigid.
She was dead.
I had killed someone with my own hand. The fact settled over me in full force.
“……”
I looked down at Yoon Yeon’s lifeless body. I had just killed a person, and I knew it in an instant.
Why...
Something felt off.
Why is this?
The feeling surging through me right now wasn’t shock or guilt.
It was only regret that I hadn’t managed to get the information I wanted.
That was all my mind held.
“......How......”
How could this be? As that strange thought seized my entire body—
The quest has been completed.
You restrained the target within the time limit.
The reward has been obtained.
The egg (???) incubation conditions have been released.
The meaning of the Rift's existence has vanished.
As Korca's Rift is lifted, the space collapses.
Crack—!!!
The sky began to split apart. The cracks spread in an instant, racing across everything overhead.
The Rift is ending.
Light burst forth and swallowed my vision whole.
* * *
“……”
I opened my eyes again. The moment the light collapsed, I stared ahead with my eyes wide open.
“...Huh?”
What unfolded before me was nothing like I’d expected when I thought the investigation team would be here.
“...You came...”
A familiar, gentle voice.
A voice that shouldn’t have been able to reach me here.
“...If you hadn’t... come...”
Yoo Sung-in was on his knees, his face a bloodied mess.
And several men in suits whose identities I couldn’t make out were all kneeling just like him.
In front of the collapsed Yoo Sung-in—
“...I was going to tear my way in...”
Hale Irene stood holding her staff and looking straight at me.
For some reason, her eyes looked fiercely irritated.