The Heroine's Savior (2)
Han Se-hee recognized the voice at once, and a smile of relief crossed her face.
Seo-jun Oppa!
She still couldn't speak, but she understood immediately that he had come to save her. Through the hand resting on her head, mana poured in and began to purge Gye Un-jik's power from within her body—the same power that had been crushing her from the inside. At the same time, the ominous mana coiled around her simply vanished, leaving not a trace behind.
"N-no! Nooooo!"
As Gye Un-jik's scream tore through the air, a sharp blade came slashing toward him. The strike was aimed precisely at his heart, but he quickly formed a shield of mana around it and blocked the blow.
"Seomun Ye-jin!"
The moment he confirmed his attacker's identity, the screaming stopped. In its place came a look of rapture.
"The third sacrifice has come to me of her own accord! This, too, is the guidance of the End!"
"The only one meeting their end here is you."
Because her opponent was a villain, Seomun Ye-jin spoke with a coldness utterly unlike her usual self. Her indigo-tinged light purple hair streamed behind her as she drove her blade forward.
Gye Un-jik clasped his hands together and formed a mana shield at the exact point where her sword struck, reinforcing it with the power of waves, and again and again he met her attacks head-on. But as the exchange wore on, the expression of the man who had been holding her off began to crack.
"Kh! This is a shockwave!"
For someone who wielded the power of waves—also known as aura, or as genre novels liked to call it, Aura—Seomun Ye-jin's method of attack was a disastrous matchup. His aura was so versatile it could be called all-purpose, possessing every kind of property imaginable: cutting force, piercing force, the ability to rattle something from within or even alter its very nature. He had every application at his disposal. And yet the mana wreathing Seomun Ye-jin's blade, and the shockwave contained within it, bored straight back into his own aura.
"Khuh!"
Seomun Ye-jin, for her part, was concentrating every attack solely on Gye Un-jik so as not to damage the surroundings. Gye Un-jik had no such luxury of focus—if the altar collapsed, he was finished—and so he had no choice but to fight while watching everything around him. And so a peculiar duel unfolded, both of them strangely mindful of collateral damage, while Han Se-hee was able to rise with Baek Seo-jun's help.
"You came to save us. Thank you, Ho-jun Oppa."
Because Lee Ha-yeon was present, Han Se-hee thoughtfully used his alias instead of his real name.
"Yeah. The young lady's handling that guy, so in the meantime I should go save that girl over there."
Baek Seo-jun stood and approached Lee Ha-yeon, who still couldn't so much as twitch a finger thanks to Gye Un-jik's mana. It seemed he had come to save her—but lying there in a demure pose, unable to move a single finger in front of a strange man, was an awkward situation. As the daughter of the Angel Guild's guildmaster and a wealthy young lady who had always been treated with the highest regard, she had never even imagined herself in such a predicament.
"So this girl is Lee Ha-yeon."
And looking down at her was a boy four years her senior named Kim Ho-jun, whose face she had seen in internet articles and the like.
Lee Ha-yeon.
One of the original work's heroines, she was a girl who, at the academy, possessed the dual distinction of being both a genius and a wealthy young lady. In the original, her first appearance came when she was pushed to second place in Kangin Academy's entrance exam because Baek Seo-jin took first, and she developed a competitive streak toward him as a result.
For a girl like that to be kidnapped by a villain on her first day back in the country, and to be lying here completely helpless—she had to be feeling complicated. Someone looking at Lee Ha-yeon's current state might have called her a feast laid out on a silver platter, but that had nothing to do with me. She was still young, and besides, once tonight passed I would be spending an unforgettable night with Seomun Ye-jin, who would finally be an adult.
Right now, Lee Ha-yeon was nothing more than a girl I was saving—and, incidentally, preventing a ritual.
"You've got quite a bit of talent, but you drew a bad opponent. Give it five or six years and you'd probably make SSS-class hunter."
I was careful to phrase it in a way that wouldn't bruise her pride. Knowing her personality—quietly proud, with a competitive streak—I praised her talent as I placed my hand on her forehead. After removing Gye Un-jik's mana from her body, I watched her sit up in a hurry.
"Th-thank you."
Perhaps because I was her savior, she immediately offered a polite expression of gratitude. Then she looked back and forth between me, Han Se-hee, and Seomun Ye-jin, who was still fighting Gye Un-jik.
"Aren't you going to help her?"
She asked me cautiously. If I stepped in, taking down Gye Un-jik while he was locked in combat with Seomun Ye-jin wouldn't be difficult at all—she was wondering why I was just standing there watching. She didn't know that my power far exceeded what the public believed, but the identity she knew me by was Kim Ho-jun, an SSS-class hunter, which meant that at minimum I was an SSS-class powerhouse. If I joined the fight now, bringing him down would take no time at all.
"Not yet. This is a rare chance for the young lady to get some real combat experience."
Seomun Ye-jin wanted to become strong enough that she wouldn't be a burden to me. And I wanted to give her more confidence before our first night together—she would finally become an adult after tonight.
Honestly, whether she has combat power or not, just her being here is already a help to me.
I had accepted the power of Lamia, the final boss of the original work, and I was growing even stronger from there. But even though I had wanted this myself, I had become someone who always remembered those hellish moments of suffering with perfect clarity. The only reason I could remain mentally at peace was entirely because Seomun Ye-jin stayed by my side.
But Seomun Ye-jin, who had her own quiet pride, would find it hard to accept that fact alone.
As expected, even the way she fights is beautiful.
Watching her swing her blade, using shockwaves with perfect timing exactly when they were needed, driving Gye Un-jik back—that, too, was beautiful. Unlike when I sparred with her as her instructor, the way she fought now—radiating killing intent, fully intending to end her opponent—was captivating in its own right.
A strange person.
That was exactly how Lee Ha-yeon felt about this man named Kim Ho-jun. The way he looked at Seomun Ye-jin was, at a glance, the gaze of a man looking at a passionate lover. Young as she was, Lee Ha-yeon had seen plenty of people in the throes of passionate love, and she recognized it easily.
She's strong.
And Seomun Ye-jin, fighting an SSS-class villain without giving an inch despite being only nineteen, was also incredible. No—honestly, even setting aside exceptional cases like Kim Ho-jun, the fact that someone could be that strong was hard to accept even seeing it with her own eyes.
The reason, she thought with some embarrassment, was probably jealousy. She was called a genius girl—but even when she turned nineteen, could she really become that strong? As Kim Ho-jun had said, it might take five or six years at the earliest.
Just who is he, really?
He seemed to know Han Se-hee, but she found it hard to ask Han Se-hee about him. A stubborn feeling that she alone was falling behind here made her hesitate, out of pride, to ask. The fact that she—called the next guildmaster of the Angel Guild—was falling behind even in information was quietly wounding to her pride.
And he's the one who saved me.
Moreover, Kim Ho-jun was the person who had saved her. She worried that trying to dig up information just because she wanted to know his identity might look bad to him, and she also personally felt it would be rude.
That man is my lifesaver.
Kim Ho-jun was her savior, the one who had given her back her life. She didn't want to do anything rude to the man who had saved her. She simply... wanted to give him some kind of good repayment—enough that he would remember saving her as something worth doing.
"Kh! This sacrifice is far too lively!"
The fight between Gye Un-jik and Seomun Ye-jin still showed no easy end in sight.
"Young lady, that's enough."
"Yes..."
At Kim Ho-jun's words, Seomun Ye-jin immediately stepped back with a look of reluctance, tapping her blade as she retreated with quick footwork. At the same time, sharp black tentacles suddenly erupted from the ground and pierced through Gye Un-jik's body. Even as he tried to defend with his mana, they punched through his defenses all too easily and ran him through.
"Th-this ending... O End... I cannot greet you..."
Pointing at Gye Un-jik, who was still muttering like a fanatic to the very last, Kim Ho-jun spoke.
"Lee Ha-yeon, was it?"
"Y-yes!"
"You've got some pent-up feelings after being kidnapped by this guy, right? How about taking a swing? Ah, Se-hee. Want to try too?"
"Ah, no. I'm fine. I'll be satisfied if Miss Lee Ha-yeon hits him for my share as well."
Unlike Han Se-hee, who waved her hands in refusal, Lee Ha-yeon found herself tempted by Kim Ho-jun's consideration. To be able to attack Gye Un-jik—the one who had kidnapped her and made her feel the terror of death!
"Lee Ha-yeon, want to take a shot?"
"Yes! Thank you so much."
"Go on, pour your feelings into the attack. That's the only way you'll feel better!"
"Yes! You rotten villain bastard!"
At Kim Ho-jun's invitation, Lee Ha-yeon wreathed her fist in mana and threw a punch. A streak of light pierced through Gye Un-jik's body, and because he was being crushed by Kim Ho-jun's power and couldn't defend at all, the SSS-class villain sprang a hole through his torso and blood poured out in a stream.
"Ah."
Lee Ha-yeon hadn't expected an SSS-class villain's body to be pierced by a single blow of hers, and as she stood there startled, Kim Ho-jun spoke.
"He's not dead yet."
No sooner had those words left his mouth than Gye Un-jik's neck was severed, and his head rolled across the floor.
Watching an SSS-class villain who had seemed like a terrible catastrophe die so easily, Lee Ha-yeon realized that Kim Ho-jun's ability far surpassed the level of an SSS-class hunter. No—just the fact that he had completely overpowered an SSS-class villain to the point that her attack could inflict a fatal wound was enough to tell her they were on entirely different levels.
At this level, he might be national-power class... or even beyond!
Her savior was a far more remarkable person than she had thought. In Lee Ha-yeon's heart, a quiet worry bloomed—that a repayment memorable enough to last a lifetime might be more difficult than she had imagined.
