Chapter 192
Chapter 192
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: Mage Killer
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My thoughts had ground to a halt. I'd heard somewhere that when your brain takes in too much information at once, it just shuts down momentarily.
And right now, I was experiencing it firsthand.
My brain had already surpassed its limits. It wasn't functioning properly. Not that anyone could blame me, given the situation unfolding before my eyes.
The magic circle spread out beneath my feet was so vast it couldn't be taken in at a glance, gleaming brilliantly as it emanated mana.
But that wasn't all. If that were the end of it, I'd already be moving.
There was a monster right in front of me. The kind people commonly called a chimera. A new monster born from fusing countless others together.
It was impossible to tell what was the base body and what had been mixed in. Even higher species seemed to have been blended into this chimera.
It glared at me with eyes brimming with murderous intent. Drool dripped from its jaws.
This alone was a desperate, do-or-die situation. Or so it seemed. But the real reason my thoughts had frozen was something else.
It was right there─
The blue window floating before my eyes. The word 「Sleep」 that made me doubt my own vision.
What this meant was something even a passing dog could understand. Even the neighbor's dog, Ppongppong, would bark it out if you asked.
"Hey there."
And as if to resolve that doubt, something slowly emerged from between the chimeras.
A man smiling knowingly. A face I'd never seen before, but a voice that felt familiar.
As if showing consideration, he stepped right in front of me, and his face split into a grin, transforming.
From a stranger's face to one I recognized.
"Park Shin-woo."
"You remembered me. I crawled back from hell to repay the humiliation you gave me on the rooftop that day."
A smiling face. But his mouth wasn't smiling at all.
That, combined with the people scattered lifelessly around, created an atmosphere of sheer terror.
"Seriously. If you hadn't remembered, I might've killed you right away."
How was he here? I was sure we'd caught him back then. Doubts like that flooded my mind.
But they didn't last long.
The reason was simple. Something clicked in my head.
It wasn't a voice. It wasn't footage. It was a single line of text.
A fragment of memory from my time as an author, staying up day and night to write.
─You remembered me. I'm back. To repay the humiliation you gave me that day.
Slightly different from the line I'd just heard, but in the same vein.
"You've got to be kidding me."
This was dialogue originally meant to be spoken in front of Isia and Kim Tae-hyun, who were supposed to be in the same group as me.
Now it was being said in front of the fallen Park Ho-soo and me. A profound sense of dissonance gripped my entire body. Even amid my stalled thoughts and that unease, I desperately pieced it together.
The twisted events had unfolded in a twisted manner. So then.
"Lachesis is asleep."
Who bore responsibility for this incident occurring?
"Raphael's in another group. Levatein and Sion are at home."
It couldn't be pinned on anyone. But the one who suppressed him and brought him back here...
Was me. How he'd escaped and infiltrated Justitia again didn't matter.
"No one's coming to help. A true do-or-die moment."
If you've committed a mistake, you own up to it.
"So the stage was just a warm-up."
That's the duty that comes with enjoying freedom.
'No...'
Park Ho-soo was forcing his drooping eyes open. He couldn't stop his eyelids from sinking.
Even as spells rained down on his body, he wouldn't give in. Resisting 「Sleep」 through sheer willpower alone was impressive in itself.
But that didn't matter now. What mattered was whether he slept or died.
It was a matter of life and death.
Of course it was. A monster radiating murderous intent loomed before him. Even a brief glance confirmed it wasn't a hologram.
Falling asleep in front of such a beast? Pinching his thigh until it bled was the least he could do to stay awake.
But pinching didn't chase the sleep away. It hadn't taken long to realize this was a type of magic.
His eyelids slowly closing. Strength draining away. In his blurring vision─
Park Ho-soo saw a boy. Unaffected by the magic in the slightest.
The boy strode forward confidently. A pure white scythe gleamed in his hand. His fluttering black hair drew the eye.
A guy whose name he didn't even know. A weakling he'd never bothered to remember.
Yet he couldn't look away. Maybe it was the aura emanating from the scythe. Or the boy's fearless gait.
Feeling an unprecedented sensation that held his gaze right up to the moment his eyes closed, Park Ho-soo finally shut them.
"What the hell..."
Park Shin-woo muttered without thinking. The scene before him was that shocking.
He knew 「Sleep」 wouldn't work on him. That's why he'd suffered in the first place.
But he hadn't expected this.
「Kiyaaaaaah!!!!」
Blood sprayed everywhere.
「Kieeek!!」
The head of the chimera he'd painstakingly created flew past him. What in the world was happening?
The Lee Seong-hoon that Park Shin-woo knew was weak. Pathetically, dirtily weak.
He couldn't even handle mana properly, getting outpaced by a physical fighter like himself. He relied on others because he couldn't solve things alone.
His ranking was around 1000th, from what he recalled.
A moron with slightly high magic resistance whose only skill was running away disgracefully. Still, since he'd been humiliated, he'd planned to kill him and tear the corpse apart─
「Kiyaaaaaah!!!」
Instead, the chimera was getting slaughtered. And this wasn't just any chimera. An artificial monster incorporating genes from fairly powerful beasts.
Even Park Shin-woo had no way to defeat it in a fight. And that wasn't the end of it.
The chimera was linked to the magic circle on the floor. It received a constant supply of top-grade mana and possessed insane regenerative abilities, reattaching limbs almost instantly.
And yet.
「Kiek!!」
It was falling effortlessly. No chance to recover. When he sliced its neck, the head flew off cleanly, severed.
No thought of flesh reattaching.
Ambush? It turned as if it had eyes on the back of its head when he approached from behind. Even floating in midair, it wasn't defenseless.
When it lunged at Lee Seong-hoon suspended in the air, he curled his body, forcibly redirecting the scythe's path.
Every swing of his scythe left a trajectory. A pure white trail from the pure white scythe.
The chimera's body split along that path. Creatures that wouldn't die until their link to the magic circle was severed.
Just being sliced halted their vital functions.
Before he knew it, a mountain of corpses had piled up behind him. The spilling blood pooled into a lake.
Even in that iron-scented battlefield, Lee Seong-hoon remained pristine.
Not a drop of blood on his ceaselessly swinging scythe. Nor on his clothes or robe.
"Impossible."
With those words from Park Shin-woo, the battlefield fell silent. In a field devoid of even breathing sounds, what echoed was─
Caw─!!!!!!
The ominous cry of a crow resounding through the air.
And then.
Footsteps.
The man in the black robe approached. With every step, the silent battlefield trembled.
The river of blood rippled. Park Shin-woo's pupils shook.
"Wh-what are you doing?! Go fight him!!"
He yelled at the remaining chimera, but it didn't budge.
Of course not. Chimeras obeyed commands. Creatures driven solely by instinct.
Designed to submit to orders─
'Instinct?'
That thought brought Park Shin-woo's gaze back forward. What he saw was the black-haired man.
Staring at him with an impassive face. In that instant, Park Shin-woo understood.
The chimeras were instinctively afraid of that man. And it wasn't just them.
He could sense mana. A man who felt mana with his body every day, without relying on incantations or spells, could tell.
Mana had will. Magic was the manifestation of will. The emotion he sensed from the mana was one thing.
Terror.
The mana blanketing the ground feared that man.
So it was only natural for magic-born chimeras to fear him too.
Park Shin-woo unwittingly staggered back and fell. He fired mana bullets to slow the approach, but...
They were simply sucked into Lee Seong-hoon's hand.
'What the hell did I mess with?'
He couldn't comprehend it. Dragons were supreme beings, closest to gods.
Even dragons received blessings from mana. It didn't fear them.
It didn't fear them, deeming them superior and granting blessings.
But that man?
Not even a transcendent being, just a human not worthy to stand at a dragon's feet. A fragile lifeform that lived a mere 80 years.
Yet mana quaked with every step he took. It feared him. Felt terror.
Becoming unstable, rendering even spells unusable.
"I've got the rough route figured out."
The man drew near. Looking down at the fallen Park Shin-woo, slowly.
"You targeted Rosaline's weakness, right? That damn old hag only guards against demons and vampires, so she let humans slip in."
Their eyes met as he closed in. The eyes looking down held no mercy.
Death emanated from the pure white scythe in his hand.
"Some serious power flex, huh? So just one question."
With every movement, black eyes left blue trails.
"Did you come alone?"
"What are you?"
"Huh?"
The conversation didn't mesh. He knew answering a question with another was idiotic, but...
Park Shin-woo had to ask. If only out of frustration.
All his preparations dismantled. His lifelong mastery of status ailments useless.
Attribute-less spells? Sucked into the hand.
A being mana feared, rendering magic ineffective. Where did something like that even exist?
"Me?"
The answer to that question was surprisingly simple.
"Mage Killer."