Chapter 11 Betrayal
Rebellion
Chapter 12
'Huh? How did things get to this point?'
The sudden turn of events left Park Si-hyun struggling to collect his thoughts.
Silver-haired Ha-rin and black-haired Hayase faced each other in silence, trading sharp looks that needed no words.
Ha-rin's expression was as cool and arrogant as ever. She gathered her waist-length silver hair into a braid, fingers moving with practiced precision, then secured the towel without a single stray movement.
Hayase put on her protective equipment as well.
Once fully equipped, the two women bowed to each other.
Kendo began and ended with courtesy.
They assumed their stances, bamboo swords pointed toward each other, and locked eyes.
Their referee, Han Hyeok-do, looked distinctly uneasy.
'Hayase... you...'
Hayase didn't falter under her father's gaze. Her attention remained fixed on Ha-rin.
Si-hyun's unease intensified as the match approached.
'Hayase, you're an instructor. Why challenge a trainee?'
The instructors and trainees withdrew to the edges of the dojo, leaving only Hayase and Ha-rin in the center.
The atmosphere seemed to grow heavy around them. Si-hyun had never felt pressure like it on Earth.
'That a person could give off this kind of pressure...'
Though neither woman had awakened her mana, everyone in the room could sense the tension building between them.
'That's ridiculous... still.'
Si-hyun wanted to cheer for Hayase, but he couldn't show it. She was a formidable instructor, yet Ha-rin's strength and cold indifference were beyond anything human.
The contest was already underway in all but name, and he could see no way to spare Hayase a defeat.
All he could do was hope she caught Ha-rin off guard and somehow won.
'Hayase. Since it's come to this, please win.'
#
Hayase drew a slow breath. Years of swordsmanship training had given her confidence in her hands. Yet the woman standing opposite her seemed to sweep all that experience aside with her mere presence.
Ha-rin held her sword lightly. Even through her face guard, her golden eyes gleamed. She'd trained for only two weeks, yet her stance was flawless, and her presence made Hayase feel as though she stood in the eye of a storm.
'I'm scared...'
Hayase's heart hammered with instinctive fear. But every time her resolve faltered, she remembered Si-hyun's face.
─So stop looking at my brother. I could kill you.
Ha-rin's cold warning rang through her memory, followed by the image of Si-hyun looking anxiously at his sister.
Hayase tightened her grip on the bamboo sword.
'I'll save Si-hyun.'
Merely thinking his name sent warmth through her chest. Her grip steadied, and the sword felt lighter.
Something flickered in Ha-rin's gaze. The watching instructors, too, seemed impressed by the change in Hayase's bearing.
Then Hyeok-do's command rang through the dojo.
"Begin!"
Hayase bent her knees, surged forward, and swept her bamboo sword upward.
Tang!
The spectators stared. What happened next was nothing they'd expected.
"Hm?"
As Hayase attacked, Ha-rin thrust her hilt forward and caught the blow with its very end.
'What is this...?'
Ordinarily, that collision should have knocked one blade aside. Instead, Ha-rin twisted her hilt, absorbing the impact with uncanny precision.
'How is that possible...?'
Shock and fear flashed through Hayase, but she recovered quickly, retreated a step, and attacked again.
Swish!
Ha-rin brought her bamboo sword across her body almost lazily.
Tang!
Hayase's face went pale.
Again, Ha-rin caught the attack with the end of her hilt. Sweat gathered on Hayase's brow.
'Is this even possible?'
Without meaning to, Hayase searched Ha-rin's face.
Ha-rin was smiling as though she were enjoying herself.
A casual flick of Ha-rin's hand sent Hayase stumbling backward several steps.
'Ugh? What kind of power is this?'
Hayase steadied herself and fixed her eyes on Ha-rin once more.
Ha-rin simply waited in the basic Striking Sword Way stance.
Hayase bit her lower lip.
"Haaah!"
Then she charged again.
#
Clack-clack-clack-clang!
Hayase never let up. She pivoted, feinted, and drove her shinai forward with practiced force, gliding across the dojo floor as she pressed the attack.
"...Is that all?"
Ha-rin remained maddeningly calm. None of the strikes disturbed the faint, alluring smile on her face.
Tch!
Hayase searched for an opening, but every strike met the smallest, most efficient counter possible.
From the spectator area, Si-hyun watched in disbelief and cursed under his breath.
'They really nailed the game's depiction of her. Fucking bastards.'
To an ordinary spectator, Hayase's blows might look manageable. In truth, her blade moved so quickly that most people wouldn't even react in time. She was a prodigy destined to make a name for herself at the world kendo championships the following year.
'But she's still human.'
Ha-rin was something else entirely—a monster from birth. Hayase could push the limits of human ability all she liked; against Ha-rin, they meant little.
That was why Journey of the Eastern Tower treated Ha-rin as something worse than a devil.
'Even the game called her a genetic monster, despite her being human.'
Journey of the Eastern Tower mixed romance-game elements with an open-world action RPG. Players explored and fought in third person, with occasional illustrated cutscenes.
Ha-rin was terrifying because of her near-impenetrable defenses.
Low-level attacks were 100% reflected even if she didn't react. She dodged 90% of all attacks. The only way to even hit her was with wide-area strikes, but even then, her parry chance was 92%, and her block chance was 98%.
Attacking her felt pointless.
There was one way to hurt her, at least.
Keep her occupied with relentless attacks, deny her a chance to evade, and land one unavoidable heavy blow.
But dealing damage wasn't the same as winning.
Victory was another matter entirely.
'And that's before you consider her endurance.'
Park Ha-rin stole HP from her opponents to restore her own.
She was also immune to debuffs and crowd-control effects. You couldn't weaken her stats or immobilize her.
Her speed made her seem to teleport. Nor could you count on her offense being weaker to compensate.
Park Ha-rin's job class was [Agent].
What did that mean in practice?
An infiltration specialist trained to accomplish objectives deep inside hostile territory—and to handle whatever stood in the way.
'In other words, Ha-rin could use practically any weapon.'
She favored an odachi, short blades, concealed weapons, indestructible cutting wires, spears, and firearms, pulling whatever she needed from her private pocket dimension.
Nor did weapons exhaust her options. Magic, Spirit Arts, necromancy, Archery, divine arts, curses, assassination techniques—she could wield them all at an extraordinary level.
'She could adapt to anything. That was why beating her was impossible.'
The bitter memories of fighting her in the game had barely resurfaced when—
Whoosh!
Hayase's shinai swept through empty air.
Ha-rin had merely tilted her head, letting the strike pass five centimeters away.
Not a fraction of her movement had been wasted.
Hayase's face tightened with frustration. Fear and despair flickered across her eyes, but she refused to accept defeat.
"Haaah!"
She struck again. Ha-rin shifted one shoulder and let the bamboo sword pass.
She didn't even bother moving the rest of her body.
"......"
Hayase's furious strikes and deceptive feints all missed. Ha-rin answered each one with the smallest possible movement.
It was as if she knew precisely where every attack would land. Her evasion had the fluid grace of a dance.
As the color drained from Hayase's face, Ha-rin's smile widened.
Tap.
For the first time, Ha-rin made a deliberate attack. The motion was so small it scarcely looked like a strike.
"Ah—?"
Yet it broke the rhythm of Hayase's entire offensive.
Ha-rin's shinai slid neatly between Hayase's sword and arm.
"I think I've memorized all your techniques."
For a moment, Hayase imagined a sinister light shining from behind Ha-rin's face guard.
Ha-rin withdrew her shinai, lowered her stance, and adopted Hayase's exact posture. Then she accelerated.
Swish!
The bamboo sword tore through the air with an ugly hiss.
Even the onlookers could barely follow its path.
The tip of Ha-rin's shinai cut diagonally across Hayase's upper body in the blink of an eye.
Chi-chi-chi-zzt!
Friction scorched a straight line across Hayase's protective armor.
"Ugh?!"
Hayase scarcely had time to gasp before Ha-rin reversed her shinai, seemingly without regard for momentum.
Hayase reacted with remarkable speed, twisting her own sword to block the blow. An ominous crack came from the bamboo.
Tat-tat-tang!
Even after that, Park Ha-rin swung her shinai with a calm expression.
Ha-rin drove her back with strikes identical to Hayase's own—or perhaps more refined versions of them.
Forced onto the defensive, Hayase could barely keep her guard up. Still, she refused to drop her sword.
The spectators tensed. Even Hyeok-do watched Ha-rin's swordsmanship in open astonishment.
But Si-hyun couldn't stop thinking about one thing.
'How is Hayase holding up against those blows?'
Ha-rin possessed strength beyond human limits.
Even with a bamboo sword, she couldn't possibly be striking with ordinary force.
And yet, why...
'Huh...?'
Then he noticed something that answered his question—and made his blood run cold.
'No way...'
Crrunch.
The threat was already unfolding before his eyes.
Pwang!
"Ah...?!"
Ha-rin's next blow snapped Hayase's shinai in half. Jagged bamboo slats jutted from the broken hilt like thorns.
Ha-rin's eyes narrowed. Still smiling faintly, she swung again.
The broken tip of Hayase's own sword was forced back toward her chest.
If Ha-rin struck the base of the hilt, she could drive those jagged slats straight into Hayase.
'No way...?!'
Ha-rin was arranging for Hayase to die in what would look like a terrible accident.
She meant to kill her.
"!"
Si-hyun caught sight of Hayase's trembling eyes and Hyeok-do rushing too late to intervene. Then his vision split, two scenes overlapping.
In one, Hayase fell in a spray of blood while Hyeok-do cradled his daughter and wailed.
The instant Si-hyun saw it,
he was already running.
"Haaah! Hah!"
His head burned. Fifteen meters separated him from Hayase.
His lungs seized as he ran, and his body moved far too slowly.
Tung!
Ha-rin's shinai struck the base of the broken hilt.
The sharp bamboo splinters shot toward Hayase's chest.
With Ha-rin's strength behind them, they could pierce her armor and reach her heart.
He was too late. There was no human way to cross that distance in time.
But his legs kept moving. He had to try.
'No...'
It wasn't only because Hayase was a heroine. She was supposed to be safe even three years from now.
She was supposed to have a future, to smile with her family beside her.
Crunch-
Because he'd appeared in this world, Ha-rin and Hayase had met earlier than they should have. Because of him, a happy family was about to be destroyed.
He had to stop it.
'I...'
I didn't come to this world just to watch another tragedy.
I came to save every heroine and bring this game to a happy ending, no matter what.
That was the whole reason.
"Gh!"
Even when he stumbled, he forced himself up and kept running.
His efforts might be futile, but for this one instant, he refused to think about the rules of the game. All that mattered was saving Hayase.
"Fuuuuck! Stop it!!"
He reached his hand out toward Hayase.
At that moment.
『Protagonist Synchronization Rate - 142%』
『The completion of the passive skill 'Optimal Progression' has risen by 4.21%.』
Golden light blazed from the message before his eyes.
『Current 'Optimal Progression' completion - 10.20%』
Pwook!
In the next instant, the world lurched around him.
"Ah...?"
Blood spattered between Ha-rin and Hayase. Ha-rin's startled face was suddenly inches from his own.
The shinai meant for Hayase had pierced the hand Si-hyun thrust between them.
"Ah, ah..."
Hayase's fingers slipped from the broken hilt. Tears filled her eyes as she stared at Si-hyun, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
He slowly lowered his impaled hand.
Then his expression twisted with fury as he turned on Ha-rin.
"Cut... cut it out!! You fucking bitch!!!"
Blood poured from his hand. He ignored it and clenched his fist.
Ha-rin stood frozen as his fist crashed into her face guard.
Kwaang!
An iron face guard caved in far too much for it to be from a mere fist. And Park Ha-rin's body flew up toward the ceiling.