Intersecting Triangles (2)
Choi Jeong-hyeon, still on the phone with Lee Jun, could only freeze at his words.
Seo Yoon is there too?
Then… the person standing next to me is…
“W-Wait just a moment!”
Tap—
Putting distance between herself and the other woman, Choi Jeong-hyeon listened to the call with a bewildered expression.
But nothing more came through.
Only crackling static.
“Boss? Boss!”
Click—
Despite her desperate calling, the phone cruelly cut out.
“Don't tell me… something's happened to the Boss?”
“Before that… it really is you, Seo Yoon, right?”
“Of course it is, so answer me quickly! What's happened to the Boss?”
“I don't know exactly… but I suspect that criminal, Kapman, has disguised himself as Seo Yoon.”
Choi Jeong-hyeon tried calling again, but the call wouldn't connect.
Something must have happened. It was obvious.
“Could he have been ambushed because of the disguise?”
“No. The Boss isn't someone who'd fall for a trick like that. The one problem is… whether he can hold his own in a fight….”
“Damn it… he might really struggle, won't he…”
According to the intelligence Yelena had passed along, the executives of that criminal organization—the so-called **Liberators**—possessed formidable combat power.
At the very least, mid-tier A-Class.
Both of them wanted to believe in Lee Jun… but the thought kept gnawing at them: this might be beyond him.
“We can't just stand around here! Miss Bernadotte will be fine, so let's go find the Boss!”
“Understood. And since we don't know what may happen, we should stay together.”
The two of them pinpointed where Lee Jun had most likely headed.
It would be the epicenter of the first explosion.
Whether or not he'd been caught in it, if it was him, that's where he'd go.
“Then… it's this way.”
Choi Jeong-hyeon said this, turning back to look at Seo Yoon.
And then.
Thrust—
“Seo… Yoon…?”
A single dagger, driven clean through the center of Choi Jeong-hyeon's chest.
Crimson blood gushed out.
At the end of that sudden attack… stood Seo Yoon.
* * *
Lee Jun kept a wary eye on the person before him.
Kapman's ability was impossible to distinguish by appearance alone, so extreme caution was required.
If there was a Seo Yoon beside Choi Jeong-hyeon too… then one of the two was unquestionably a fake.
“Boss…?”
“Hold on. Don't move.”
Lee Jun spoke carefully, gripping the dagger he'd shaped from shadow behind his back.
“I explained Kapman's ability to you, didn't I?”
“That he has a unique ability allowing him to disguise himself….”
The moment she said it, Seo Yoon realized it herself.
“He's telling me there's a Seo Yoon next to Jeong-hyeon right now. One of the two of you has to be a fake.”
“…I am the real one.”
“Then answer me one question.”
First, he needed to determine whether the one in front of him was genuine or not.
If this one turned out to be the fake, fine. But if the one with Choi Jeong-hyeon was….
“…Tch.”
Kapman was a man who pushed his innate ability, Doppleganger, to its absolute limits.
Worse, he was cunning.
Most people couldn't tell Kapman apart the instant they laid eyes on him.
Even Jeanne couldn't.
So he had to determine it as quickly as possible.
What information would Kapman never be able to know?
The new ability Lee Jun had recently acquired?
He'd kept it hidden as much as he could, but he'd used it in the Seoul Dungeon, so there was a chance it had leaked.
Or his connections with the S-Class hunters?
That much could be guessed through deduction alone.
If not that, then….
“I told you about Reproduction Gates before, didn't I?”
“You did.”
“And that I'd cleared one in the past.”
“Yes.”
“Then do you remember how long I said I spent inside one?”
At that question, Seo Yoon answered without a trace of hesitation or doubt.
“Eleven years.”
“An instant reply.”
“I could never forget it. Never.”
Lee Jun looked into Seo Yoon's eyes.
Information could be dug up one way or another.
A verbal Q&A wouldn't reveal it so easily.
The real reason he'd asked was… to see this look in her eyes.
“…....”
Good.
“Let's move, Seo Yoon. Jeong-hyeon's in danger.”
“Yes, understood.”
Clear, unclouded eyes.
The kind of gaze you would never find in those rotten Liberators.
* * *
—Vice-Chairman and one affiliated hunter moving through Corridor C.
“What? You've already figured out which one's real?”
—Told you not to expect to buy much time.
“Still, it fits our projections. Where are they headed?”
—Currently heading toward the main hall.
“Good. Drop the fireproof barrier right before they reach the main hall.”
—Roger.
With that, the man on the other end of the comm glanced up at the ceiling and smiled thinly.
“The Head of the Technology Bureau is nothing special. Cut the signal, and he's helpless.”
—Don't get careless.
“Ha. I'll show you that S-Class hunters are nothing at all. Just you wait.”
The man spoke as he wiped the blood from his dagger.
Then he left the place soon after.
On the floor… only the red-haired woman lay fallen.
* * *
KRAKOOOOM—
The thunderous explosion threw the auction hall into chaos.
The MC tried to calm the crowd, but nearly everyone here was a mid-to-high-rank hunter.
In a situation this suspicious, they were hardly the type to sit still.
Worse, bad news kept pouring in, one piece after another.
“What? Our entire network's been compromised too?”
“All communications with the outside have been severed.”
“…Damn it all.”
And in the heart of this chaos, every hunter's gaze converged on a single point.
It was the natural flow of things.
There was an S-Class hunter here.
It went without saying.
“…....”
Whether or not she was aware of the eyes on her, Jeanne simply kept her eyes closed.
“Joanna. Something troubling you?”
“It must be that organization from before. They've moved ahead of Brother's projections, it seems.”
“So that thing that bothered you earlier is connected to this too?”
“I can't say for certain. If the soul was artificially removed… might the person capable of that also be on their side?”
“Let's assume that for now and stay cautious.”
Jeanne and Timothy rapidly assessed the situation.
Siara, listening to their exchange, could only frown in confusion.
“Okay, hold on. What are you two talking about?”
“Jeanne felt something strange before we even came in here.”
“I heard that part. I'm asking about what came after. Did everyone have this conversation except me?”
“We told you too, Siara. You were just too focused on the auction.”
“Hmm… I guess so….”
The rabbit plushie tilted its head in an adorably puzzled way.
But that didn't make the situation any better.
The three of them now had to decide, and quickly, how to act.
“I can't reach Hyung on the phone. All the signals are definitely cut.”
“Then… should we wait?”
“Regrouping will be difficult in this situation. Let's do our own jobs.”
Nod—
Jeanne and Timothy both believed that Lee Jun had been at the epicenter of the explosion.
He must have stumbled onto the truth in the middle of his investigation.
They worried about him, of course… but there was something Lee Jun always used to say, so for now, they would protect this place.
—You have to protect everyone weaker than you. All of them.—I see. Then I'll protect you too, Brother.—Uh… except me.
They'd had that conversation once.
Jeanne had learned so much from Lee Jun about what it truly meant to be a hunter.
And it made sense—set aside raw strength, and the person who best embodied the name 'hunter' was Lee Jun himself.
Jeanne thought of him, surely rolling around somewhere at this very moment, and sent a little worry along with her faith.
He'll be fine.My feelings got through, right?
With that thought, she decided her first task was to calm the panicked hall.
The moment she rose from her seat—
KRAKOOOM!
With a colossal roar, the ceiling came crashing down.
“…?”
The sudden explosion didn't startle her.
What came next was far stranger.
“…It stopped.”
“This is….”
Everyone had stopped.
Figuratively speaking, they were frozen solid.
All 247 hunters in the hall.
“Magic?”
“No, there's no trace of it. An artifact, most likely.”
It had probably been triggered together with the explosion just now.
Timothy's physical abilities were thoroughly unremarkable, so he couldn't peer through the blast to catch the artifact's activation, nor pick out sounds hidden behind the explosion.
But the one who could was right beside him.
“Right after the blast, a single sphere dropped onto the floor. There was no popping sound—just a faint shimmer of light.”
“Then it's likely a mana convergence device. The effects seem to be whatever we're seeing.”
From what Siara had seen and heard, Timothy deduced the answer.
“Can it be dispelled?”
“Hmm… if it's an artifact, that's difficult. But it looks like a time-limited activation. Once the set period passes, it should release on its own.”
“What a relief. No problems, then?”
“I can tell it's not a directly damaging type. But… when it comes to artifacts, that's about the extent of what I know.”
Timothy surveyed the phenomenon and organized the situation.
This hall was packed with hunters who weren't quite upper-tier A-Class but were solidly mid-to-upper rank.
Plenty of them knew a trick or two.
And yet only the three Initial Awakeners could move—which meant the artifact their enemies had detonated was itself of a considerably high grade.
“With this much mana output, I'd call it Legendary-tier… maybe even Transcendent.”
“I see. It does feel a little dizzying.”
“Even that much is extraordinary. It means your mana resistance is at an absurd level.”
Jeanne nodded at that.
Her mana resistance was naturally high.
She had walked the battlefields in the immediate aftermath of the Gate Crisis, when nearly half the atmosphere had been saturated with mana.
That was why all Initial Awakeners had at least this much.
And then, a voice drifted down from the hole in the ceiling.
“Impressive, I'll give you that.”
A sickly-sweet voice.
Something sticky and cloying slid along the edge of her ear.
“Careful, Joanna.”
“Yes. They look suspicious no matter who's doing the looking.”
The ones descending from above numbered forty-five in total.
All of them wore black robes marked with a distinctive sigil.
The woman who appeared to be their leader stepped forward.
She wasn't wearing her hood up, so her face was clearly visible.
Crimson hair twisted up into a knot.
Around her right eye was a tattoo identical to the sigil on the robes—a trident shape overlaid with two interlocking circles.
Above it, amber eyes glinted with arrogance.
The woman looked Jeanne over and sneered.
“Hah, what is this, some little princess? You can actually fight looking like that?”
“…....”
Even faced with the taunt, Jeanne didn't respond.
She merely swept her mineral-cold gaze over the robed assailants.
That was all.
She made no other move whatsoever, and yet the woman felt a crushing pressure radiating from Jeanne.
“Ngh…!”
Startled, the woman flinched, thoroughly confused by what had just happened.
What was going on?
Had she done something?
She hadn't released any aura, hadn't used a skill.
And yet… what was this sensation?
'I felt… danger? Me?'
The moment that thought landed, the woman's mood turned foul.
To all appearances, Jeanne was nothing more than a blank-faced little kid.
Especially dressed like now.
In a dress, with a doll clutched at her side.
Feeling threatened by her left the woman deeply unsettled.
“Ha. Fine. Stare all you want. It's not like you can even use your unique ability, right? Am I wrong?”
“So it was you. You're the ones who tampered with the venue.”
“That's right. We did our homework pretty thoroughly. No magic, and your skills are nothing but low-grade attack spells—what exactly can you do in this situation?”
The woman spoke as she gathered her mana.
She wasn't wrong, admittedly.
Jeanne's weakness was her inability to use magic.
Because she couldn't use it, she never came to understand magic in depth.
Naturally, countering it was difficult for her.
However.
Jeanne's shortcomings were covered by Siara—and by Timothy.
Where Siara handled physical combat in her stead, Timothy….
<Burn awa―――>
Reverse Calculation — Dispel
PANG—
The mana that had been slowly taking shape scattered into nothing in an instant.
“What…?”
“Too bad. Your intel was a little lacking, it seems.”
You thought removing her soul solved everything, didn't you?
“With talent that meager, you'd never have been chosen by Captain Kyle in the first place. Right?”
A boy whose magical talent reached to the very heavens.
True, he'd been trapped by an intractable condition and never got to let that talent bloom—but it hadn't rotted away either.
“Siara.”
“Yep.”
The teddy bear's eyes glowed blue.
On the surface, it hardly looked threatening… but the instant that gaze touched a spell, every spell unraveled.
An impossible speed.
The moment he laid eyes on a spell he'd never encountered before, he grasped its structure and reversed it.
Such a thing… shouldn't be possible?
“Ghhk… how the hell…!”
The woman in the black robes was thrown into disarray by a sight that defied all common sense.
But it was already too late.
The battle had begun, and they would soon learn exactly whom they had touched.
The triplets were only complete when the three of them were together.
Three—the number symbolizing perfection.
This was the proof of it.
* * *
Beep— beep— beep—
[Decline in the user's vital signs confirmed.]
[Initiating self-repair.]