Chapter 52
Chapter 52
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Culling (3)
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“A presence so brazen it doesn't hide a single trace... You came alone? To steal my card? That good reputation you had spreading through Jincheon Class was all thanks to Fuyuno Tsubaki, and you don't even realize it. Let me show you firsthand what happens to a lone lamb dropped into the wild.”
Rank 40, Beast Tamer Kapari Fatima.
A superhuman who wielded three self-tamed magical beasts like limbs: two-headed serpents, a giant poison-spine rat, and a venom-fang giant lizard.
During the massive magical beast outbreak, she'd hidden her venomous beasts among the horde and terrorized the cadets. A true villain.
Of course, she was just following her country's orders to take out promising Dabcheon cadets—who knew how much personal intent was in it? But that didn't matter.
Kwachik! Kwang!!!
“Wh-what? My venom-fang giant lizard... taken out in one hit?”
The only thing that concerned me was that she'd interfere with my plans.
“Tch.”
I clicked my tongue at the sensation of the lizard's massive head shattering under my downward punch, then immediately kicked off the ground and charged forward.
“Kiiieeeek!!!”
Pyushushushushu!
Sensing the crisis from its ally's head exploding under one punch and one blast, the giant poison-spine rat fired its spines in a full barrage—even before receiving orders.
In terms of not freezing up in unexpected situations, that rat bastard was better than some humans.
The poison spines filled my vision like rain from the sky, each one lethal.
Every single spine was laced with paralyzing venom and neurotoxin—no way I could let even one hit.
“Y-yeah! Turn into a pincushion, writhe in agony, and die!”
Kapari Fatima, who'd panicked at her venom-fang lizard's instant death, snapped out of it with the spine rain and flashed a victor's smirk.
But that smile didn't last long.
Deok—Kwaaaang!!!
“What?!”
The explosion from my finger snap as I thrust my arm forward robbed the spine rain of its momentum, scattering them harmlessly everywhere.
My finger throbbed from handling the Solar Body mana explosion, but it was fine.
“You fired them all.”
Blocking the full barrage with just cracks on two fingers was pure profit for me.
“Time to die, then.”
Having closed in without much damage, I nailed a refreshing soccer kick to the head of the now-thornless giant rat—perfect positioning.
Ppakak—Kwaaaang!
I felt its jawbone shatter against my instep, and the Solar Body mana detonated, blowing its head clean off.
Plop.
The lump of meat that had been a giant rat collapsed limply to the ground, headless.
“Phew, rat bastard down too.”
Having lightly turned two beasts into mincemeat, I turned to crush Kapari Fatima—and spotted her with arms fully extended toward me.
I held still at the energy-blast pose, and she curled one lip smugly before shouting.
“Die!”
Sruruuut—Chwaat!
At the same moment, two-headed serpents burst from her baggy sleeves like shotguns.
Firing twin-headed venom snakes from her sleeves was Kapari Fatima's desperation pattern. First-time players ate this ambush and went cursing the devs' parents.
'What the fuck is this bitch? Why snakes from the sleeves?' became a tradition—posting game-over screenshots on the Reverse Hero Tales forums.
That was how fast and vicious her twin-headed serpents were.
But ambushes become utterly useless once the target knows they're coming.
Thub.
“Shiiik?”
Kwang!
I already knew about the twin-headed serpents, so the instant they lunged, I grabbed the body and detonated my palm.
Hudu duduk.
The twin-headed serpents became something with two heads and dozens of body chunks.
I walked toward Kapari Fatima without sparing the snake corpses a glance.
“Uh, uhhh? H-how...?”
Completely neutralized, Kapari Fatima stared up at me with wide eyes, unable to believe all her beasts gone in seconds.
Of course, I had no obligation to answer, so I silently smashed my clenched fist into her face.
Ppakak—! Kwang!
Thud!
Without her imported beasts, she was less than the alley thugs in Fanban.
I snatched her card from her collapsed, face-caved-in form and moved on to the next target.
Hunting the third and fourth targets was far easier than Kapari Fatima.
Because Rank 37 Ivanov Yelena was a mage, and Rank 32 Joy Ioannu Demitrianu was a spirit user.
Mages and spirit users were different classes, but they shared a fundamental trait: wielding the mystical.
Meaning they fought enemies from range with spells and spirits.
Or in other words, fragile main bodies despite their firepower.
“You're... Yang Woo-bin? Alone, huh? A guy like you wandering such a secluded spot without fear... truly fearless...”
Pang—!
“Huh?”
Kwachik! Kwaaaang!
“A guy...? You're Yang Woo-bin? Alone? Heh, fearless. Or should I say unlucky? If you'd hidden under Fuyuno Tsubaki's skirt like always, you might've lucked into a white card and survived... what a shame.”
Pang—!
“Huh?”
Kwachik! Kwang!!!
Both bitches emerged alone from the bushes, yapping away, and I didn't miss the opening—kicked off full throttle and smashed my fist into their faces before they could cast spells or summon spirits.
With Chao Mingming and Kapari Fatima, it'd gone exactly as expected, victory as planned. These two were way easier than anticipated.
They'd been ridiculously off-guard.
“So that's how it goes... This happened because I'm a guy.”
My act in the promotion match—using every trick against trash like Choi In-gyu—must've contributed to their carelessness.
But more fundamentally, it was the ingrained common sense of the superhuman world that bred that complacency.
'Male supers can never match female supers in strength.'
The utterly obvious truth rooted in male-female physical differences, spread across the global super society.
A man with one mana core couldn't keep up with a woman who had two. That basic fact made every enemy I faced drop their guard.
“Living as a guy in this world... might not be so bad after all.”
Being male meant this would happen routinely.
No matter how strong I got, there'd always be female supers looking down on me or laughing.
But that wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was great.
For someone like me who'd have to win countless fights to survive, gaining a reliable way to induce enemy complacency was cause for joy.
“Kuhuhu.”
So I reveled in it fully, wiped the grin off my face, and resumed walking.
“Feels like finding them is harder than fighting.”
Toward my final prey, where I couldn't leverage the male-super complacency advantage.
While Yang Woo-bin was busting his ass hunting the terrorists threatening Dabcheon, Fuyuno Tsubaki—who'd teleported with Jin Se-jeong—was in a pretty awkward spot herself.
“......”
“......”
Namely, sitting alone with Jin Se-jeong in a cave.
'Why is the Student Council President following me...? I told her I didn't know where Woo-bin went and had no intention of meeting him, but she still followed me into this nice, dark, damp cave?'
Fuyuno Tsubaki had heard about the culling from Yang Woo-bin beforehand, and he'd told her not to go looking for him.
She always obeyed whatever Yang Woo-bin said, so she'd planned to hole up somewhere during the culling and train her abilities.
But that plan shattered the moment the culling started and she teleported with Jin Se-jeong.
Because Jin Se-jeong kept following her. Relentlessly. Non-stop...
I wasn't going after Yang Woo-bin, she said. She didn't even know where he was. Even when heading into a pitch-black cave—Jin Se-jeong followed to the end, leading to this.
“......”
“......”
In this suffocatingly awkward silence, Jin Se-jeong—who'd kept her mouth shut until now—finally broke it.
“Um... You're really not anything special with Woo-bin, right?”
“......What?”
Girls' talk... beginning!