Someone's Identity
Stumble—.
Fortunately, this time he did not fall. He caught his balance well enough.
That did not mean he was anywhere near normal.
The mana newly settled inside Sunghyun’s body seethed with a force that threatened to crush him from within.
“Armin… Do not come anywhere near me. Do not touch me either, understand?”
Armin nodded.
Even without those words, she would never have touched him.
No—she couldn’t have.
The pressure of mana radiating from Sunghyun right now was like a typhoon; just stepping close felt as though she would be swept away.
At that intensity… at least on par with a Dragon Lord…
How…?
Armin’s thoughts scattered with the sound of Sunghyun’s deep breathing.
“Hoooooo—.”
Sunghyun sat down on the floor at once and began circulating his mana.
The insight gained from the battle just now.
And the growth of both mana and body—he had to bring it all under control.
Mana first.
With his raised physical level, the pathways through which mana traveled had become stronger and wider.
So wide, in fact, that one might wonder whether they could ever expand further.
Sunghyun guided the newly increased mana toward his dantian.
Follow me. This way.
Whooooosh—.
As he carefully led the mana along, the Taiji welcomed the new power as if greeting an old friend.
Ordinarily, digesting fresh mana outright would take a great deal of time.
Sunghyun’s work required no such wait.
That was thanks to the peculiar nature of the mana he possessed.
The all-embracing Taiji began to swallow even this newly born mass of enormous mana.
More precisely, it was the work of becoming one.
Its scale exceeded everything he had gathered so far—
but the purity was different.
The Taiji was the sum total of energies refined and refined again without end.
No matter how much smaller its quantity might be, it would never be consumed by a disordered lump of mana.
Sunghyun finely adjusted the mana pathways and corrected the routes so that the Taiji could accept the power more smoothly.
Of course, it was no easy task.
Which was why he put the new insight he had gained to use.
Embrace the pure energies. Hone the filthy ones into killing intent.
And then—unification. Hap-il.
That realization was transmitted to the Taiji as well.
As if becoming an ever more perfect circle, the speed at which the Taiji absorbed the mana grew even faster.
“Huuuu—.”
Once he had finished absorbing all the mana, he seemed to decide the immediate crisis was over.
Sunghyun let out a long breath.
That breath still carried residual mana—dense enough that the entire rest space filled with power from that quantity alone.
It was a sight that looked as though the primordial dragon itself were drawing mana in and exhaling it again, circulating the world.
Armin forgot even how to breathe as she stared at him.
Just what kind of person is he?
The time she had spent with Sunghyun was not especially long.
But given everything they had been through together, Armin already felt a deep sense of closeness toward him.
Like an onion—peel after peel revealing something new—Sunghyun’s successive layers left her no choice but to feel a strong fondness for him.
The princes who appeared in the fairy tales she had read as a child.
Compared to those fairy-tale princes, Sunghyun seemed far greater, far more magnificent.
If she had to put a name to it… a god?
Armin imagined Sunghyun smiling in light clothing.
In that instant, her face blazed red.
What am I even thinking right now? Uuugh!
When Armin, still clutching her face, looked up, Sunghyun was already standing right in front of her.
Seeing his face so close made her flush even deeper.
“What? You kept holding your face, so I came over thinking you were hurt—but you’re all red?”
“Aaaahhh!”
Armin fled from him at once.
She burrowed under the blanket and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to calm her pounding heart.
In the darkness where nothing could be seen, only the sound of her heartbeat remained.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
As that sound grew louder and louder, Armin finally admitted it.
What do I do… I think I like this person.
Barely a single day.
That was how long it had taken Sunghyun to charm Armin.
Not that the man himself had any such intention—his head was full of entirely different thoughts.
Squeeze—.
Hmm… I really want to fight already.
Wriggle wriggle.
He wanted to march out right now and slaughter the dragons, but his body still needed time to recover fully.
And right now, watching that cute little creature was more enjoyable.
When he first opened his eyes, Sunghyun had seen Armin sitting there in a daze.
Her pupils were unfocused, as if she were imagining something.
So he had approached intending to startle her—
only for her to suddenly flush scarlet and dive under the blanket.
No way. Right?
No! It was a perfectly reasonable suspicion.
We’ve only known each other a day. I even threw a spear at her the first time we met.
He still wasn’t sure what was going on, but for now—
Let’s just watch this wriggling little creature.
Whatever she was doing under the blanket, she kept squirming, and every time she peeked her face out for a second, he genuinely wanted to nibble her.
Cute.
Without even realizing it himself, Sunghyun was beginning to feel fondness for Armin as well.
Summoned to Olympus by Zeus’s call, Hermes headed straight for the audience chamber.
Seeing Zeus seated upon the ornate chair, Hermes bowed his head.
“You called for me, Father.”
“Ah, yes. I figured it was about time, so I called you. So—my lightning’s been getting good use, has it?”
Hermes smiled at the all-knowing Zeus.
“You knew everything, then?”
“Hm? Sunghyun didn’t tell you? Honestly, raising sons is completely useless—this fits perfectly. I give him hints, grow his traits, hand over Coin Shop authority, give him lightning… That should be enough, right? And he still doesn’t even ask you to pass along a single word of thanks?”
Wait—what did he just say? Grow his traits?
As Hermes looked confused, Zeus grinned.
“Looks like you’ve got a lot to say. Fine! Let’s drop the formalities and talk father to son, shall we?”
After a statement like that, Hermes had no intention of keeping up the polite act either.
“Father! That was you?!”
“That? Drop the subject and how am I supposed to know what you mean? I never taught you to speak that way.”
This old man knows everything and he’s still messing with me?
Hermes glared at Zeus hard enough that veins stood out on his forehead.
Zeus’s mouth was curved upward, but his eyes had gone ice-cold.
“Your face is about to get a hole in it.”
That was far enough. Push any further and the God-King father would come out.
Hermes took a deep breath.
“Huu… So it was you who grew Sunghyun’s traits? The original plan was to raise him as the next Heracles, wasn’t it? Why on earth did you suddenly do something like that?”
Zeus stroked his beard over and over.
Hmm.
“You lot didn’t know, but after Sunghyun turned twenty, his fate had already been erased.”
However—
“I roughly expected something like that would happen. I just didn’t know when or how, so I couldn’t prepare for it—or rather, there was no need. Because I’d already seen the future Sunghyun.”
That was why he had never bothered looking deeply into the being that had erased Sunghyun’s fate.
He had already seen fate reappear, after all.
But the fact that no fate had existed until then was still true—and for Sunghyun, that had been a fatal condition.
Having no fate. For an ordinary person, that would have been the end right there.
Sunghyun overcame the phenomenon with pure talent.
With overwhelming talent he not only managed to keep living—he thrived as an investor.
A living demonstration that fate itself was unnecessary.
Even so, Zeus had not known when fate would be granted again.
Until that day.
Zeus pressed his lips together for a moment, then looked at Hermes.
“Son, you know I usually keep an eye on Sunghyun’s surroundings, right? The day Sunghyun went to your world, She came to find me.”
Lady Gaia? How in the world did She…
“But She was supposed to be…”
Zeus’s golden eyes flared with light.
“Yes. She should have been sleeping in preparation for that day.”
On the day Sunghyun was summoned, Zeus had been watching him the way one watches a daily soap opera.
Seeing Sunghyun go to rescue the bullied Hayato, Zeus crunched on popcorn.
“Kya~ Now that’s a hero. Can’t just walk past the weak. If that isn’t a hero, what is?”
Tap—.
Someone tapped Zeus on the shoulder.
Impossible.
An intrusion from outside the dimension? Already? How?
Zeus tensed every muscle and looked behind him.
A woman with brown hair and green eyes stood there.
“Gra… Grandmother?”
Thwack!
Gaia’s hand-blade struck Zeus across the head.
“Do not call me that. It makes me sound old.”
How? Gaia should have sealed herself away in preparation for that day.
More importantly—you really are old, though.
“What is going on?”
Instead of answering, Gaia pointed a finger somewhere.
That direction is… Sunghyun…?
“Who do you think erased that child’s fate?”
Surely not?
“I did.”
But why?
“Do you know? That child’s talent is far too great to end merely as a descendant of Heracles.”
Watch carefully what happens next.
At those words Zeus turned his gaze back to Sunghyun—and light flared.
He shot to his feet.
“Shit, it was now?!”
Slap!
“Use nicer language.”
Zeus glared at Gaia.
“So what do you intend to do now? Sunghyun has been summoned, so I need to go carry out my own preparations.”
“This should explain it. Watch first.”
Gaia waved her hand, and the image of Sunghyun in the forest appeared.
“Grandmother? What is this?”
“Just watch. The reason I came to you is right here.”
Behind Sunghyun, a tiger the size of a house appeared and swung a paw at him.
Zeus nearly shouted for him to dodge—
but seeing Sunghyun’s swift movement, he managed to hold back.
Is this even possible?
Sunghyun had never experienced a single proper battle.
And yet he was dodging the attacks of a tiger whose physical abilities so vastly outclassed his own?
Without even looking? Purely by sensation? Something was wrong.
Only then did Zeus understand what Gaia wanted to say.
“That’s it, isn’t it. The reason Grandmother erased Sunghyun’s fate.”
And because of that talent, he had received the fate of Heracles.
“Yes.”
But—
“Isn’t that still not enough?”
“That alone is not enough. But right now, the system is applying to Sunghyun who has fallen into another dimension. You understand what I’m getting at, don’t you?”
Zeus swallowed.
Talent could be grown.
Especially before awakening, the correction would be even greater.
Even before awakening he had possessed the talent to become Heracles—and that talent would grow further?
If it could be done, then Sunghyun would…
However—
“Even so, would the universe ever allow it?”
“Of course not. That’s why I came to where you are, isn’t it? Prepare yourself. For the moment Sunghyun tries to awaken.”
On the monitor, Sunghyun was just then dodging the tiger’s attack and sending it tumbling off the cliff.
“It begins. Three… two… one.”
Gooooooo—.
Gaia and Zeus exerted their power simultaneously.
First, Zeus covered the eyes of the universe.
Desperately.
So that the universe would not be able to observe Sunghyun.
Because of that, untimely lightning began to strike across the entire cosmos.
At the same time, Gaia bestowed upon the system the causal force necessary for Sunghyun’s talent to grow.
The amount was considerable, but considering the results it would bring, this much was nothing.
And so the growth of Sunghyun’s traits—rejected at first—was finally carried out.
With that, Sunghyun was granted a new fate.
And that fate… was of a kind that even Zeus himself dared not declare with certainty.