The Trap

"Brother-in-law. I've turned this over and over in my head, and it just won't do."

The words came from my brother-in-law, glaring daggers at me from across the sparring hall in the basement of the Blood Tide Guild building — empty but for the two of us at the moment.

The reason we were standing there like that was simple enough. I intended to use Seoyeon as bait to reel in those lunatics calling themselves Babel, and my brother-in-law was vehemently, absolutely opposed to the idea.

'Funny, considering Seoyeon herself was all for it.'

Whether it was a sense of responsibility over the whole affair, Seoyeon hadn't even hesitated before agreeing to my proposal. The problem was her father. No amount of persuasion from the two of us had managed to crack his stubbornness one inch.

That said, I couldn't entirely blame him for his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠position.

"I know you're strong, brother-in-law. But how can you think of using my daughter as bait for those lunatics? What if even a one percent chance of something going wrong comes true!"

What my brother-in-law said was close to unassailable logic. The problem was that I was utterly certain no such one percent could ever be allowed to happen — not while I was on the scene. And that conviction was no vague burst of confidence. I'd already gotten a rough read on the abilities of one Kuroda Sho, and countering whatever skill or trick he possessed wasn't especially difficult for me.

"Brother-in-law, I already explained this. He isn't working alone — he belongs to an organization called Babel. Handle him clumsily, and you could end up running for the rest of your life. That's why we take them all down in one stroke, now, while they're still in the dark. And right now, Seoyeon is the only lure we have to draw them out."

Besides, I genuinely believed it. Men like that only grow bigger and fatter the longer you leave them alone. And the surest way to grab their tail right this moment was to dangle exactly what they wanted in front of their eyes. Judging by the single eyeball still drifting around near the house, they hadn't given up on Seoyeon.

"No — what if I just stand guard beside Seoyeon for the rest of her life?"

"You already failed once, haven't you?"

At the words out of my mouth, my brother-in-law bit down on his lower lip, face tight with frustration.

"Your skill is impressive, that's true. But leaning on that skill alone, there's a hard limit to how strong you can become."

That, in fact, was part of the reason I'd dragged him to the Blood Tide Guild's sparring hall. I'd handed him the Binding Talisman just in case, but I never imagined he'd actually need to use it. In other words — exactly as he'd argued — my brother-in-law needed to grow stronger too.

"So it's simple. All you have to do is prove you can protect Seoyeon with your own two hands. And all I have to do is prove that even if Seoyeon draws ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them out, I can keep her perfectly safe from whatever crawls out."

I picked up one of the wooden practice swords lying at the edge of the hall as I said it.

"Land a single hit on me — just one — and I'll withdraw my plan completely."

I saw my brother-in-law's eyes darken at the flagrant provocation. He knew, intellectually, that I was right; it was his fear for his daughter that kept him from committing. So this was something to explain with the body, not the tongue.

Sriiing—

That was the moment he drew his own sword.

"You'd better keep that promise."

A strange pulse rippled out from my brother-in-law's body, and the air of the sparring hall began to warp.

Time dilation.

His overpowered skill had activated — the one that slowed the flow of time for everything around him. Of course, just as I'd resisted it before, I could still resist it well enough now.

'But then he'd never accept the result.'

I surrendered myself to the slowed current of time. To my brother-in-law, that sliver of a moment would stretch out into something like an eternity.

"Chaat!"

I watched his blade carve into my blind spot. Flawless timing, a clean trajectory. The sword reaching for the nape of my neck was genuinely threatening — and that was all it was. His blade hissed through empty air, and I had already slipped back a single span from his strike, like a ghost slipping out of its own shadow.

For an instant, I saw his eyes waver. Even with time slowed, untangling the intricacies of footwork my master had created — in the short span he'd had — was beyond him.

"Clinging to that skill like this, you'll never lay a finger on me."

So saying, I swung my wooden sword in a slow, deliberate arc. To be fair, my brother-in-law's skill could produce staggering results depending on the wielder — controlling the flow of time across a limited space in the middle of a pitched battle was a tremendous thing. The problem was that total dependence on it could render the ability worse than useless.

"You can react to fast attacks. But how about this kind?"

The wooden sword hurtling toward him split into five in the blink of an eye.

Phantom Sword.

One of the foundational principles of sword theory, but an art utterly foreign to a man who had leaned on his skill for everything.

Within his dilated sense of time, my brother-in-law thrust his blade at the sword-shadow with the densest flow of mana among the five. But—

"Slow time all you like. Cutting down a fake means nothing."

With my voice, the tip of my wooden sword came to rest against his wide-open flank. His pupils wavered yet again. Phantom Sword was never merely an afterimage built from speed — it centered on disturbing the flow of energy itself, deceiving the opponent's every sense. So even the strike he'd been certain was real was the fake I had intended him to see.

"Ghhk! It's not over yet!"

I watched him lunge at me again, slowly raising my sword overhead.

"This time, try blocking an attack you can see coming with your own eyes."

Heavy Sword.

A simple downward strike, stripped of every flourish, fell toward him. My brother-in-law closed the distance toward me, gripping his blade in both hands and settling into a rock-solid guard. But the instant my wooden sword met his steel—

BOOM.

"Kghuuuk!"

His knees buckled and drove straight into the floor. It was nothing but carved wood, yet his sword — a fine-looking blade, to be sure — simply could not turn mine aside. A Heavy Sword strike laden with compressed true qi was, no matter how well you read its trajectory, no different from a mountain of iron crashing down on you; it could not be physically batted away.

And dodging changed nothing either. The essence of Heavy Sword lay in carving away the opponent's line of retreat, inch by inch.

"Before an attack you cannot block, even time is meaningless."

I spoke evenly, looking down at him pinned beneath my wooden sword. He glared up at me, face flushed crimson — but there was no surrender in those eyes yet. He rolled across the floor and in the same motion drove his blade at my lower body.

'Good. He's got guts.'

I lightly recalled my sword, tracing it in a soft circle. The moment his sharp thrust touched my blade, I received it gently — and rode my wooden sword naturally ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down the length of his steel, pushing it inward.

Tak.

That was the instant his sword slipped from his fingers.

"...Ha."

Soaked head to toe in cold sweat, my brother-in-law heaved for breath. He commanded time itself, and he hadn't managed so much as to graze my collar. Before the three principles — Phantom, Heavy, and Soft — he was feeling, bone-deep, the weakness of the skill he'd built his whole style upon.

"It's not— over yet!"

Even so, he came charging at me, refusing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to quit. Overuse of his skill, maybe — both eyes were bloodshot crimson. His fist flew straight as an arrow for my face.

'Has he actually improved during all this?'

Watching his hand reach for me at an unthinkable speed, I let my wooden sword drop carelessly from my grip instead.

"...Huh?"

Just before his hand touched my body, horror flooded his eyes. He had clearly watched my arm fall — and yet the tip of my wooden sword was resting against his throat.

"It's called the Hidden Sword. An attack you never perceive — stopping time won't save you from that either."

Faced with an invisible strike stripped of every trace of killing intent, my brother-in-law could only stare at me, utterly dumbfounded.

"...You — you monster. Fine. You win. Do whatever you want."

He slumped onto the floor as he said it. It was the moment his stubbornness finally broke — yet a strange relief had settled over his face. Seeing what I was capable of, he seemed convinced that even against any monster, I could keep his daughter perfectly safe.

"But if so much as a single hair on Seoyeon's head gets hurt, you'd best believe I will not sit still."

"...Of course not. She's my niece."

I chuckled and held out a hand to him, still sitting on the floor.

CRASH!

An old, derelict factory on the outskirts of Tokyo. Kuroda Sho slammed his fist down on the desk in his hideout, glaring at the monitor with raw nerves.

"This little bitch is mocking me right now? Huh?"

His bloodshot eyes were fixed on a private Korean hunter stream, rerouted through the dark web. And there on the screen, Choi Seoyeon was making her way through a C-Rank gate in real time, hunting monsters. Alone, too — as if to flaunt it.

"Ha? You went through all that, and now you're streaming again? You seriously think you can look down on me, Kuroda Sho?"

Gnawing at his fingernails, Kuroda glowered at the Choi Seoyeon on his screen. The urge surged up hot in his chest — to open the door he'd torn from the Kamikakushi right now and hammer a mana bolt straight into that insolent brat's skull.

The problem was Black Sheep's standing order to lay low for the time being. But with his prey strutting around in plain sight — prey who had witnessed his most humiliating moment, no less — he couldn't swallow the hunger to hunt. If she weren't belittling him, there was no way she'd be running a live broadcast this casual.

"Ha. Whatever. Once I catch her, that's the end of it. Even he will have to admit it then."

And so Kuroda reached his conclusion. Not that he intended to move immediately. Proud as he was, he was equally cautious — he'd already factored in the possibility that the other side had dug a pit and was waiting for him inside it.

Kuroda idly manipulated a dark-web comms channel and called someone up.

At Kuroda's words, Ghost went silent on the other end of the line for a moment. Everyone in Babel feared Black Sheep — but there were things even Black Sheep didn't understand. No matter how brutally a power crushed them, the people gathered beneath him had been beyond anyone's control from the very start.

At those words, Kuroda's grin split his face from ear to ear. He couldn't guess what she was thinking — but if Ghost had confirmed that Choi Seoyeon was alone, then it had to be the truth. No one, not once, had ever escaped Ghost's Clairvoyance.

"Okay. I'll cover my own tracks."

Kuroda let a twisted smile curl across his face and reached out, clutching at empty air. And in the same instant, an old Japanese sliding door — hopelessly out of place in a Tokyo basement factory — shimmered into existence before him.

"Surprise, you little piece of trash."

Wearing a smile of pure, gleeful cunning, Kuroda slid his body through the door. He intended to detonate a mana bolt straight through Choi Seoyeon — the girl who had dared to scorn him and go wandering about on her own. At the very least, that was the plan, right up until he crossed the threshold.

Grab.

"...Huh?"

That was the moment a stupid, graceless sound popped out of Kuroda's mouth. He had stepped through the old door into the very space he'd been watching on his screen — and there in the distance, he could make out Choi Seoyeon hunting monsters, just as expected. The problem was that in a space he'd believed held no one but her, someone's hand had closed around his shoulder.

Turning his head toward the unfamiliar sensation, Kuroda found a man glaring back at him with the eyes of a beast.

"So it was you. The son of a bitch who laid hands on my niece."

There stood the man who had caught the Golden Goblin, watching Kuroda with a smile cold enough to freeze the air between them.