The New National Team (2)
'Wow.'
Confronted by Park Ho and the Baekho executives, Yoo Jia found herself at a loss for words.
A summon planted squarely in front of her car. Expressions that were threatening, and deliberately unsubtle about it. She didn't need to ask what it meant—however aggrieved they claimed to be, were they seriously resorting to strong-arm tactics with summons right now?
"What do you think you're doing?"
Clunk. Yoo Jia shut the sports car door she'd half opened, her brow knitting. Then, quietly, she readied a skill.
Desperate Call — Intermediate
Once per day, forcibly summons a designated player to your side.
An intermediate skill that could call Baek Jinwoo to her side. In a South Korea that had lost its capacity to keep the peace, it was the single greatest reason Yoo Jia could go wherever she pleased without fear.
So she didn't panic. If anything, she had to work to hold down the rage boiling up inside her.
For the record, she had registered that skill to her rare summon, the Snow Owl (B-rank). The Snow Owl was essentially a living CCTV camera, capturing and recording everything within a ten-meter radius in three dimensions—automatically, no less. Filming without consent might be illegal, but in a country where crime reigned, this much was simply standard practice.
"You're not some street gang. You're the master of a major guild, and you're blocking the path of an ordinary civilian with no combat ability? With summons, no less? And a whole crowd of you swarming in?"
"Which is exactly why you should have shown some restraint."
Park Ho's fist clenched with a low creak.
"Even a cornered mouse bites the cat—did you not know that? Look, waging the opinion war with rumors of discord, fine. That much I'll accept. I'll admit it, I had my own share of greed in this too. But re-forming the national team? You? By what right?"
There was no masking the fury on Park Ho's face. She had brought down the Baekho he'd spent three years building with a few words and some political maneuvering. And in the course of his investigation, he had realized something else.
'She moved even faster than I did.'
Yoo Jia had clearly been recruiting people and priming public opinion before Park Ho had even launched his political campaign in earnest. And what did that mean? That she had intended to swallow Baekho whole from the very beginning.
Grrrk. Grinding his teeth, Park Ho extended his right hand horizontally. At the signal, Bok Jeonghui and Seo Sangwon subtly shifted position, cutting off her escape.
"Hah."
Yoo Jia sighed.
"So what exactly are you planning to do here?"
"What do you think?"
The chill in Park Ho's eyes deepened. Summoning might be a backwater field in South Korea, but this was the man who had reigned as its undisputed champion for three full years. He had run his guild with relentless tenacity and venom, dealing decisively with anyone who crossed the group's interests or dared insult it. Even if the target happened to be someone from Daesung? It made no difference.
"He pays for insulting us, and then we naturalize somewhere else. Public opinion's already swung entirely to Baek Jinwoo's side anyway, hasn't it? We've got no intention of fighting for the bastards who condemn us."
"'Make him pay'... And you can take responsibility for those words?"
Park Ho. This bastard really has gone all the way. Yoo Jia was dumbfounded. How could anyone contemplate murder in the middle of Seoul? Had the public truly revered a guild like this as the nation's finest all this time? Baekho's exposed true face was ugly—far, far too ugly.
"What, scared? This is why you size people up before you touch them. And let's be clear about one thing—the one who answers for this is you, for insulting us."
Yoo Jia smirked. Far from scared, she crossed her arms with easy composure. As long as Baek Jinwoo's protection stood, there was nothing to fear.
"First things first—all of you feel the same way, yes?"
"……"
"Then let me ask one final time. Following one idiotic leader—abandoning your nationality, committing crimes on top of it. Is that truly what you want?"
Her words had teeth. She was saying she couldn't fathom why they would stand by and follow such idiocy.
"That's right."
"If anything, we're the wronged party here."
"You froze us out of training, and you were planning to swallow us from the start... What gives you the right to lecture anyone about crime? You're no different from us, are you?"
Bok Jeonghui and Seo Sangwon piled on behind Park Ho. And Yoo Jia understood exactly why. They had harbored rotten intentions from the beginning—and acted on them, too...
'They think I simply moved first, that's all.'
That was why they talked like this. You're the same kind of person we are. But they didn't know. They didn't know Yoo Jia possessed a mind-reading bird—that she had simply identified their rotten intentions in advance and prepared accordingly. And what was the point of explaining that now? The two groups already had guns trained on each other, and there was no taking it back.
"No reason to keep talking, then. Strike. We kill Yoo Jia and leave Korea immediately."
"Yes, sir!"
Seo Sangwon's summon, the Ogre, heaved up its massive arm.
'I guess there's no helping it.'
It was the very instant Yoo Jia moved to use Desperate Call—
"Hold it."
The moment Kang Geonho stepped in front of her—
Uwaaaaaargh!
The Ogre's arm, soaring skyward along with its club, was severed with casual ease by Kang Geonho's summon, the Paladin (A-rank).
FWOOSH!
A fountain of blood painted the sky as the Ogre shrieked in agony.
"Kang Geonho! What the hell do you think you're doing!"
Park Ho roared.
"Is this betrayal?"
"Less betrayal. More conviction."
"Conviction?"
"Hyung. Enough—stop making yourself ugly. Sure, we've killed before, but it was gangs we killed, not civilians. This has gone way, way too far."
"Gangs, them—either way, they tried to destroy us all the same."
"No. They have never once tried to kill us."
"So someone only dies when their throat's cut and their heart's pierced? Burying a person socially kills them just the same."
"Spare me the sophistry. If you want Yoo Jia dead, Hyung, you'll have to kill me first."
"Even for you, taking on the three of us at once won't be easy?"
The standoff was a breath away from becoming one against three—
Fwoosh!
—when a man appeared before Yoo Jia. Baek Jinwoo, answering her Desperate Call.
"What the—?"
As he glanced around, trying to make sense of the scene, Yoo Jia slid to his side—"Jinwoo!"—and began rattling off everything, every last detail. And that wasn't all; she even pulled up the footage the Snow Owl had captured, explaining it all with fervor.
"Whew."
Watching it all, Kang Geonho exhaled a short sigh and turned his gaze to Park Ho.
"I'd say the one in trouble here is about to be you, Hyung."
"……"
"No? Then maybe 'in trouble' isn't the word. Should I say 'fucked' instead?"
It was the literal truth. Park Ho, Bok Jeonghui, Seo Sangwon—all three were staring at Baek Jinwoo with expressions frozen solid. Thanks to their frequent consulting sessions, they knew better than anyone exactly where Baek Jinwoo stood. They all arrived at the same thought: even attacking three-on-one, their odds of winning converged on zero.
'Fuck. We're screwed!'
Baek Jinwoo's expression hardened.
'Look at these bastards.'
Malicious. 'They knew they'd lose if they came at me head-on, so the plan was to snip at Yoo Jia—the one with no combat power—and bolt?' This crossed the line, and then kept going.
"You sons of bitches."
Whoosh. The moment Baek Jinwoo raised his arm—fwsh!—Hungyo was summoned to his side. As if sensing his master's fury and will, Hungyo drew his blade, murderous aura pouring off him in waves.
"N-now, hold on—"
"We're just leaving."
The pressure was so immense it strangled the breath in their throats, and the three rankers began backing away. They had already sized up the situation completely: everyone but Kang Geonho was to be purged, and there would be no compromise.
"Last words."
Baek Jinwoo murmured quietly.
"You don't have any, do you?"
The thing he hated most in this world was anyone laying hands on the people around him. He'd assumed that lesson had been thoroughly learned back during the gang purge.
"L-last words? Did you not hear us say we're leaving?"
"It was just talk. A verbal threat. You didn't seriously think we'd kill someone, did you? We were going to teach her a little lesson and be on our way."
They piled excuse upon excuse, but not a single word reached his ears. It wasn't worth listening to anyway. They had tried to kill someone. From the moment that attempt failed, they were bastards who deserved to die.
'And worse—the target had been Yoo Jia.'
"Sweep them all away."
"Yes, My Lord."
A monstrous energy began erupting from Hungyo's body—the yin-yang qi he had mastered through Gongmyeong Magong.
'H-he's insane.' 'What kind of summon has an aura like that...?' 'Was Hungyo always like this?'
Baekho's rankers knew Hungyo well; they'd seen him often enough during the consulting sessions. But even for them, this was the first time witnessing Hungyo fight at full power.
"Hold him off!"
Park Ho bellowed. Cold logic said escape was impossible anyway. Better to thrash with everything they had than simply lie down and take it. 'Besides—' he could understand the confidence, but Baek Jinwoo had only brought out a single summon so far. This was the chance. If the likes of Ramba or Pokryong came pouring out next, there would truly be no answer.
"Don't defend—everyone attack together!"
National team players to the last, they unified with impressive speed and switched to the offensive—
Fsssssh...
—but there was no withstanding Hungyo, draped head to toe in Trinity Runes. He simply drew his sword down, slowly.
Krehk?
Krurururgh!
One stroke. With that single downward slash, every summon that had been charging froze mid-motion.
"What are you doing! Move!"
"What's wrong with these things! Is this a bug?"
Every summon had already been crushed by Hungyo. No—they had already been cut down. Shhhk-k-k-k-k-k! He had simply severed them at the speed of light, and the sound hadn't caught up yet.
'Insane!'
This was absurd. The full-power assault of three national team members, undone by a single stroke from one summon? And this anticlimactically? Losing was one thing—but this was taking it too far!
"Summon the other team!"
As everyone knew, a player could hold countless summons, organizing them into 'teams'—up to three, pre-registered in advance. The moment their elite team was reverse-summoned in a single blow, the rankers moved to bring out their second-string team. No—to be precise, they were about to.
Fwsh!
Energy shot from Hungyo's fingers, splitting into three strands that bored through the gaps where their barriers had vanished and struck home with perfect precision.
"You shall pay the price for daring to vex My Lord."
The art of Root-Splitting, Bone-Lodging had unfolded!
"G-gaaahhh!"
"Aaaargh!"
"Grraaaahk!"
To summon, one had to either shout the command aloud or adjust one's field of view. But with unprecedented agony flooding their entire bodies, they were far too busy screaming. Such was the fate of rankers who were not his disciples—ordinary bodies that had never exercised, never trained breath or mind. How could such bodies endure bones cracking apart and muscles shredding into fine ribbons?
'Even if they somehow manage to summon, it won't matter.' They would only be cut down by Hungyo regardless.
"Hungyo—how many minutes did I set you for?"
"One minute, My Lord."
For a summon it might not matter, but for ordinary players' mental fortitude, one minute was the limit. Push past that, and the odds of lasting psychological damage climbed steeply.
But.
"Too weak."
Baek Jinwoo's voice was ice. Without sparing so much as a glance at the rankers writhing and screaming on the ground, he murmured:
"Set it to ten minutes."
"As you command."
Mercy toward one's enemies was a luxury.