Battle in the Underground Passage (3)
Park Cheon-ho, first-year student of the Combat Department at Cheonmu Academy.
He was someone Jeong Seok-hoon had never even considered a potential threat.
There was Lee Seonho, who seemed close to Kim Isabel, or girls like Cha Eunju and Han Sora, who were friendly enough to have gone on an amusement park outing together.
Of course, to him, a dozen or so first-year academy students swarming him at once wouldn't have posed the slightest problem. He hadn't prepared for them, but he hadn't let his guard down either.
Which was precisely why he should have swatted away that insolent blue-haired brat from the very start.
-KAAAAAANG!!
"Urgh, HAAAAAH!!!"
He simply couldn't bring down Park Cheon-ho, who met his attacks head-on with fists as mindless as they were fearless. The boy stood rooted in place, planted as solidly as if both legs had been cemented into the floor.
The attacks themselves were crude enough that a modest amount of mana could deflect them, but... no matter how he looked at it, that defense was beyond anything human.
'Now that I think about it, didn't Bang Hwa-cheol say he lost to this kid?'
In their internal briefings, it had been assumed the man had simply been careless and let the martial artist close the distance. But watching this unfold before his eyes, Jeong Seok-hoon began to suspect there had been more to it than that.
With defenses at this level, the man's bombs would have been survivable after all.
"Hoo, hoo, hooo..."
'...Even so, in the end he's nothing more than a greenhorn with no combat experience.'
A fool who couldn't even gauge the gap between their strength and charged in with nothing but blunt, honest force. Had the boy been beneath him, he'd have been a raw gem worth cultivating — his blockheaded nature made it obvious he would never abandon a comrade, even at death's door.
A shame, then, that if left alive he'd become a lingering nuisance. He had to be killed here, alongside Lee Seonho.
...And that purple-haired sorceress, fearless when it came to murder, would ideally be captured alive as well.
"UWAAAAAAAH!!"
Another charge, another mindless swing of fists from Park Cheon-ho. The boy's brazen movements practically announced where he would strike from — even broadcast his openings — and Jeong Seok-hoon sighed inwardly as he swung his own fist in response.
Mana Hardening — an awakened ability that channeled mana into specific muscles, hardening them like steel. He concentrated mana into the area where Park Cheon-ho's strike would land while hardening his own fist at the moment of impact, the instant before his blow could come down—
-TANG!!
"?!"
At the sudden crack of gunfire, Jeong Seok-hoon flooded his whole body with mana in an instant. At the same moment, he felt a lead slug strike his body and flatten against it.
-Kkagang!
"..."
Less the sound of a bullet embedding itself in flesh than of one crumpling against a steel plate. The moment he opened his eyes and saw the bullet dropping from his eyelid, an absurd, incredulous feeling washed over him.
'Lee Seonho...'
Not even a spellcaster — a mere Combat Support, of all people, had dared attack him.
Just how confident was the boy in his marksmanship? Shooting for the eye while threading past his own comrade in this chaos — the sheer skill of it was, frankly, worthy of admiration.
'So it wasn't a lie, then — that he severed Jo Jin-hyun's arm in the underground waterway with gunfire alone.'
He'd heard the boy was nothing but a simple buffer. Perhaps he knew some kind of buff that improved a firearm's accuracy?
The panic had cost him a fair chunk of mana, but no matter. He'd never assumed a Combat Support would come unarmed in the first place, so an attack of this caliber fell well within his expectations—
-TANG!
'Damn it—!'
A second shot followed before he could even breathe a sigh of relief. Though the shots came in rapid succession, each one aimed precisely at the same right eye, his moment of alarm was brief — this time Jeong Seok-hoon focused mana into his right eyelid and blocked it.
-Kkang!
'...Annoying.'
Truthfully, the attacks themselves were no threat. If he knew the trajectory in advance, a mere bullet couldn't pierce his body as long as he hardened only the area where it would strike.
Even if his reactions lagged, he had long since grown accustomed to hardening on instinct the instant he felt contact. There was no way a mere bullet could land a meaningful blow on his body.
-TANG!!
"..."
...But one thing kept grating on him: the sniper kept targeting his eye, and only his eye.
After two failures, any sane shooter would have shifted to another vital point. Fixating solely on the eye carried the unmistakable whiff of a different intent. It was as if the boy had decided from the start that no other target existed — as if he knew his eye was the weak point.
'...Impossible.'
He had never revealed his weakness even to fellow executives. There was no way a boy he was meeting for the first time today could know it.
That Mana Hardening was useless on parts of the body without muscle. That his exposed eye, the instant his eyelid lifted, was his sole vulnerability.
Every now and then someone's instincts would surface the idea, but those people inevitably gave up on their own after having their blades turned aside by his eyelid a few times. By this point, surely Lee Seonho wouldn't stubbornly persist in a futile effort.
"Th-this is the first time I've ever fought someone this strong!!! My blood is BOILING!!!"
"..."
One brat, mindlessly blocking his path like a boulder... no, like a somewhat oversized rock.
And behind him, another brat, buzzing like a mosquito and firing off meaningless round after meaningless round.
Expending his full strength against such fledglings wounded his pride, but there was no more time to spare. If he delayed any longer, the academy would discover this hidden underground passage.
Accepting the side effects, Jeong Seok-hoon released his body's limiters and began to swell.
-Bbudeuk, bbudeudeuk!
"N-no way?! Wh-what the hell is with that body!!"
Hardened muscle bursting through his suit as Jeong Seok-hoon's frame expanded. To some observers the sight of those grotesquely bloated muscles bordered on the grotesque — everyone except Park Cheon-ho stared at him in revulsion.
"Is... is that really a human body...?"
"...Disgusting."
"..."
-Ttui!
Especially Lee Seonho, who scrunched his face as though he'd seen something he never should have and spat openly on the floor. The moment that insolent display made Jeong Seok-hoon reflexively reach a fist toward him, a voice beside him dragged his vision away.
"Ha, hahaha! You cursed little brats! THIS is our boss's true form!"
"..."
"If our boss truly put his mind to it, the likes of you would be scrap in under a minute—"
-PPUOOOOOK!!
"Kka...?!!"
He had kicked the subordinate buzzing at his side like a mosquito to death, as if swatting away an irritation.
Releasing the limiter meant hardening every muscle in his body — and that came with the side effect of strengthening even the muscles wrapped around his spinal cord. Thought gave way entirely to instinct; he had become a monster that moved on pure impulse. The kind of monster that, if something annoyed its eyes, would fling away friend and foe alike without distinction.
"You monsteeeer!!! Enemy or not, how DARE you toss your own comrade aside like a rag!!! I will never forgive you!!!"
Only Park Cheon-ho, oblivious to the mood, charged at the monstrous Jeong Seok-hoon — and while he sighed inwardly at the sight, Lee Seonho loaded his next bullet.
Among the consecrated bullets Kim Isabel had blessed for him, this one carried the most potent sacred power.
If he could land only a single shot, it was a round to be used only when he was absolutely certain of hitting.
Seonho judged this the perfect moment — the man's physical abilities were enhanced, but he could no longer think properly — and once more his muzzle leveled at Jeong Seok-hoon's right eye.
-TAAANG!!
The instant the man's attention wavered toward Park Cheon-ho, Seonho fired fast.
-Pwat!!!
"...!!"
A flash of light before Jeong Seok-hoon's vision.
Something searing hot, tearing from the inside. A shock boring deep into the back of his eyeball, and blood surging upward.
Half his world dissolved into a red mist. Amid that disorienting blur, his slowing brain couldn't even process that his right eye had ruptured.
...And losing focus in the middle of a desperate fight was tantamount to leaving yourself wide open for the enemy's next attack.
"Take the punch that carries my very SOUL!!!"
-BBAAAK!!
"Kkeuk, kKEHAAAAK...!!"
A second massive impact crashed down on a mind still choked with confusion.
It was the first time Park Cheon-ho's fist — hurled upward at him with everything he had — truly and fully connected with Jeong Seok-hoon's face.
-KUWOOOONG!!
Unable to absorb the blow with his remaining mana, Jeong Seok-hoon crashed down onto the basement floor.
⁂
-KUWOOOONG!!
...Was it over?
The massive body went flying from the punch that landed with Park Cheon-ho's scream of a battle cry. His already skin-tight suit had burst and torn all over, leaving him a gruesome sight in every respect. Why on earth did I have to look at this Macho-Man bastard's half-naked torso?
Part of me wanted to cover Cha Eunju's and Kim Isabel's eyes. Showing them a sight like this when they barely had enough of my body to look at already was simply unacceptable.
"Haah, w-we wooooon!!!"
Park Cheon-ho roared over the fallen Jeong Seok-hoon, both arms raised high. It was a bellow loud enough to rattle the entire underground passage, but I just let him yell. There were no more enemies left anyway, and he'd contributed enormously to this battle in more ways than one.
Granted, the finishing blow owed itself to Kim Isabel's consecrated bullet and my marksmanship — but the time he'd held out against Jeong Seok-hoon before that, and the decisive hit he landed, couldn't be dismissed.
"Look, guys!! I took down that monster with my bare fists!! I really am the man destined to become the world's greatest martial artist hunter—"
-Ddukduk.
"KKEUAAAAK!!"
"Kyaaah?! P-Park Cheon-ho?!"
After rolling his body around that brutally, it would be stranger if he came out unscathed. The moment the fight ended, Park Cheon-ho's arm snapped with an almost cartoonish crack, and Kim Isabel rushed over to treat him.
Fortunately, my suggestion was still active, so her treating a man posed no problem at all.
'Considering Park Cheon-ho's recovery rate in the original story... there's really nothing to worry about.'
At most he'd spend three days or so with a cast on his right arm. At least, that's how it went for the Park Cheon-ho I knew.
If it had been Park Hana who got hurt, I might have tagged along under the pretense that her arm was inconvenient, feeding her and whatnot — but obviously I had no intention of doing that much for Park Cheon-ho.
I'd just slip him a few bottles of Holy Water through Kim Isabel and be done with it. Honestly, considering everything he'd done today, even a few bottles felt like a bargain.
He'd come running without a shred of suspicion when I called out of nowhere, brought down Jeong Seok-hoon — one of Black Moon's Nine Executives — and even set up the perfect angle for conditioning Yoon Selena. He'd done just about everything a man in his position could do...
"Kkeuk, huuuh..."
"...Hm?"
"Haah, d-don't tell me I lost to mere academy freshmen—"
-Tang, tang, tang!!
"..."
He could have lived another few minutes if he'd just shut up and lain there. The dying man just had to run his mouth. Asshole.