Chapter 232
Chapter 232
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 232
Chapter Title: 52. Eulsa Japanese Invasion (4)
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Incheon Metropolitan City.
A port city situated in the west of South Korea, it boasted not only Incheon Port but also Incheon International Airport, making it no exaggeration to call it the country's primary gateway.
With a population of three million, it ranked as the third-largest metropolis after Seoul and Busan, underscoring its immense importance.
Especially in these times, when it directly faced the border with China.
‘W-We can’t just kill people! These are all national defense forces!’
Even with his eyes half-rolled back in fury, Young-woo reminded himself that the country needed to maximize its forces right now.
So.
Ting!
Even after confirming via the sin meter that the opponent’s sin points tallied a whopping 1,200, he didn’t draw his sword.
Of course, the real reason was.
‘Kinda… iffy? But is this even high?’
Young-woo’s own sin points currently stood at a staggering fifty million.
So it was only natural that 300 or 1,200 looked like peanuts to him.
‘Killing this guy wouldn’t even make a dent in my sin tally.’
He’d hoped to finally meet Incheon’s worst villain, but reality proved harsher.
“…….”
In the end, as Young-woo lowered his gun with a disappointed look.
Thud-thud-thud!
The man calling himself the Incheon Alliance leader charged in at blinding speed.
“Stop right there!”
“Stop…?”
To Young-woo, still perched atop the Negeui Platform, it was an utterly baffling line.
Thud!
As Young-woo dropped to the ground to greet him, a terrified Bupyeong shouted toward him.
“M-Mister! You can’t use weapons here! Not guns either!”
“What? Then what the hell do we fight with…?”
The moment Young-woo shot Bupyeong a what-kind-of-bullshit-is-this look, a sensory hijack alert popped into his vision.
「Sensory stat temporarily boosted from 3,400 to 5,532.」
Sure enough, the Incheon leader had attacked the outsider.
‘Whoa, what’s this?’
Young-woo blinked as his sensory stat rocketed past 5,000 in an instant.
The guy really was a top-tier expert.
And impressively so.
Whoooosh!
The Incheon leader wasn’t swinging a sword—he was coming in with his bare fist.
‘What the hell, these guys?’
Bupyeong First Sword’s warning about no weapons had been literal.
‘So Incheon fights bare-fisted, no blades?’
The hologram warning of the incoming attack was already right in his face, so Young-woo twisted his upper body to dodge the Incheon leader’s punch.
Swoosh.
The opponent’s right forearm, covered in flashy tattoos, grazed perilously close to Young-woo’s jaw.
“You bastard…!”
The Incheon leader gnashed his teeth in frustration.
And it was only then that Young-woo properly checked the man’s title.
『Namdong First Sword』
‘Incheon leader, but not Incheon First Sword?’
That meant no First Swords in Incheon had ever crossed blades.
To claim Incheon First Sword, you needed titles from at least three districts.
‘What the hell kind of people are these? Incheon?’
Culture shock.
Stunned, Young-woo backpedaled instead of throwing the elbow counter the hologram suggested.
Interpreting it as a loss in spirit, the Incheon leader roared.
“Stand still, you punk…!”
His momentum surging, he charged again.
Fwoooosh!
This time, a bold mid-kick.
Young-woo’s equipped martial art, ‘Floor of Room,’ immediately advised slashing the guy’s shin with a sword.
But.
‘No, you lunatics. He’s unarmed. Isn’t that too dirty?’
No matter his fifty million sins, Young-woo wasn’t the type to swing a blade at an unarmed foe.
So instead of drawing steel.
Thud!
He grabbed the Incheon leader’s leg targeting his side.
Then.
Screeeeech!
He smashed a fist into the man’s cheek at air-splitting speed.
Bam!
“Gah!”
The Incheon leader flew back with an ugly yelp.
He scrambled up into a fighting stance almost immediately.
“Urk…?”
But even that didn’t last.
The Golden Punishment’s pain-infliction effect had kicked in.
“Huh? W-What did you do?”
The Incheon leader, trembling and barely standing after one slap to the cheek, prompted the other three Incheonites to freak out at the weirdness.
“Mister! What did you do? Poison?!”
“P-Poison?”
Young-woo echoed, scratching his chin.
“Poison… not allowed?”
Bupyeong’s jaw dropped.
“We said no weapons! Poison’s a weapon! Even dirtier than a blade…!”
Dirtier.
That word finally clarified Incheon’s duel rules for Young-woo.
The kids had just said ‘no weapons,’ but it meant no gear at all.
‘No swords, no poison, no darts… Basically, no villainous crap.’
Ironically, the outsider at Incheon Port right now was Jeong Young-woo07, rated the peninsula’s worst demon.
Star ad model for Dogo, the intergalactic arms brand infamous for beating civil servants to death.
“No blades, no gear—how the hell do you even duel like that?”
Young-woo protested in disbelief, and Yeonsu First Sword scolded him.
“Then every street fight ends in deaths?”
“……!”
Young-woo winced sharply.
From someone with just 12 sin points, no less.
By his standards, that was practically a saint.
And strictly speaking.
‘People can die plenty from fists alone, right?’
As Young-woo grumbled inwardly, Michuhol chimed in.
“Only bare fists show who’s truly strongest. Anyone’s OP with good gear…?”
“W-Well, not wrong.”
Romantic in theory, suicidal in this world.
“But you’ll use weapons against the Chinese, right? If they invade?”
Young-woo asked, and the three Incheonites nodded in unison.
“Yes. War’s nothing like duels.”
“Not total idiots, then.”
Young-woo finally nodded in genuine approval.
He could get behind that romance.
And as western border guardians, they passed muster.
Plenty of surviving First Swords, solid will to fight.
So the remaining task was.
‘Even outsiders get respect if their fists hit hard? Romantic duel region…?’
Young-woo ostentatiously stripped off his gear, tossing it to the ground piece by piece.
First, he dropped ‘Aerial Ethics’ from his shoulder.
Boom!
Then his wristbands—Serpent of Greed, Golden Punishment, all of them.
Next.
“Hey, I’m kicking barefoot too. No bitching later.”
He flung his only shoes, ‘Mirage,’ far away.
Bupyeong pointed cautiously at Young-woo’s waist, wide-eyed.
“Th-That gun too.”
“Right.”
Young-woo unbuckled his belt and tossed the whole thing, changing everyone’s expressions.
“Total madman showed up.”
“Crazy bastard…?”
Rome has its laws, sure—but disarming voluntarily while surrounded by four foes? Impressive guts from an outsider.
Reality?
‘Heh, idiots.’
Just shed the gear; buffs from dozens of codexes still hummed through him.
‘But yeah, disable poison effects? Fair play.’
Young-woo turned off Deadly Blood and Golden Punishment’s pain, clenched both fists, and stood tall.
Thud!
“Let’s go again, proper this time. No poison.”
The pain effect had eased, so the Incheon leader guarded up tight, grinding his teeth.
“Come on, punk. I’ll show you why I’m alliance leader!”
Rooooosh…!
Behind his line, Yeongjongdo sliced through waves.
The five men now stood at the boundary of Yeongjongdo and Incheon Port, still sailing west toward China’s Shandong.
A duel on a moving ship, essentially.
Swooo.
Young-woo slowly assumed a fighting stance and addressed the Incheon rep.
“You’ll learn too—what’s been going down outside Incheon all this time.”
* * *
Meanwhile, at Cheongsa-po in Busan’s Haeundae-gu.
A dozen-plus Gyeongnam experts gripped weapons near the blinking holographic dotted line on the pier.
They were the ‘Southern Alliance.’
A coalition of Gyeongnam’s Gimhae City, Ulsan, and Busan inspectors.
Here for the promised Korea-Japan war, as foretold.
But for now.
“I-Is this for real?”
“How long’s this gonna last?”
Japan wasn’t even on their minds.
The seawater before the pier was receding at insane speed.
The peninsula’s west shifting to face Shandong had massively accelerated Busan’s drift southward.
The Southern Alliance at Cheongsa-po might as well be on a massive speedboat.
“The pier might snap at this rate…?”
Someone voiced a legit concern, and Busan First Sword Kang Gyowon instructed the group.
“Fall back for now. No sign of Japs yet.”
“Yeah, better safe.”
“Even seals get swept away in that current.”
The flow was visibly ferocious.
As they moved the line inward.
Crack!
An ominous sound from the pier’s end.
Spla-aaat!
The concrete deck split.
The pier was actually breaking.
“Fuckin’ bad luck.”
Actual fisherman Gijang First Sword Park Sung-jun grumbled, sheathing his sword.
Then.
“Hm…?”
Looking seaward, his brows twitched.
The distant horizon looked thicker.
Soon others spotted it too, murmuring.
“That can’t be.”
“Looks like it…?”
Ulsan First Sword Kim Chaena pushed through to the half-broken pier.
Then.
Thud!
She peered through her telescope at the horizon.
「Telescope」 - Narrative Compass
【Peek into any region once per day.】
Even post-special use, it offered 10x zoom.
And at 10x, the horizon’s truth was.
“Fucking bastards… They really came ready to invade.”
Dozens of Japanese inspectors lined along the coast.
Riding their moving land like a battleship, heading straight for Busan.
“Battle stations, everyone! At that speed, collision in an hour!”
Chaena’s near-scream prompted Busan First Sword to issue orders inland.
“Seoul, Suwon, Changwon, Incheon… Send runners to the big cities. Gotta warn ’em—war with Japan’s brewing.”
Chaena added to the command.
“Seoul! Fastest guy to Seoul! Best shot at finding someone useful!”