Chapter 72
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: I've Gotta See That Naughty Underwear
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"...This thing is even ambiguous to call a monster."
Monsters are generally born from feeding on people's negative emotions.
But the one right in front of me showed no sign of that whatsoever.
"K-Kill... D-Destroy the Mountain Lords' s-seed...?"
An existence born not from negative emotions, but with a specific purpose.
The monster kept repeating the same words, as if it had been created solely to kill the Mountain Lords.
"Y-You... M-Mountain Lords, n-no... The r-real one has to, has to come..."
A grotesque head with a tiger's face split in half.
Its body, scattering like incomplete smoke, was patched with tiger hide.
'It's just a straight-up Mountain Lord hunter.'
To be precise, it had been dropped here specifically to kill me.
Even its outfit made that intention blatantly obvious.
With an appearance designed to rip tigers apart, it had five or six rifles mounted on its back—guns used by tiger hunters.
And judging by the spears, bows, and nets it was equipped with, it was clearly targeting me alone.
'If it had been a naturally occurring freak that just showed up...'
It would've gone berserk and tried to kill everyone around the moment it spotted them.
But this monster—no, tiger hunter—calmly repeated the same words, waiting for me in a composed stance.
"Y-Young heir? If you d-don't come, I'll m-make you come."
How long had I been watching it?
The tiger hunter, as if it could no longer wait, began pulling out rifles from its back one by one.
It seemed to have decided that waiting wasn't the way to go and was about to start killing people.
'Not on my watch.'
I hadn't just been standing there watching it—I'd been waiting for the perfect moment to strike it down in one blow.
The instant I had some distance secured, I whipped a dagger from my pocket.
'Ferocious Tiger Form 2.'
Sever.
That ridiculously simple name concealed a power too immense to be packaged as mere simplicity.
Slash.
"M-Mountain Lord?"
It was so fast that it only reacted after being sliced.
Sever compressed the power of Ferocious Tiger explosively into the blade and swung it at maximum speed.
The Ferocious Tiger's power gripped the blade like a sheath during the draw, then released upon unleashing.
The fastest iaijutsu, usable from any stance, as long as you had time to gather power.
"Gaaaargh!"
Naturally, a monster artificially created at the story's early stage couldn't react to it.
Or withstand it.
It packed that much destructive force.
My growth level was already far beyond the novel's opening anyway.
So it was only natural for a monster sent to take me out to crumple in one hit.
Yeah, that was totally natural.
"I-It hurts? B-But I endured? It's bearable...?"
I'd clearly severed its neck to kill it in one strike.
Yet the tiger hunter casually spoke from its sliced throat, as if it were the most obvious thing.
"I-I'm not cut? Not cut...?"
Huuuup... Snuuup... Haaa...
Air hissed from the severed vocal cords—pfft-pfft—meanwhile.
The tiger hunter calmly picked up its own head and slapped it back onto its neck with a click.
Like it was assembling some toy.
As if nothing had happened, it healed the wound in an instant and swung its spear right away.
Clang!
'What the hell, why is it this fast?'
Was this really an early-game enemy?
Its spear tip moved at a speed that made it impossible to predict the trajectory.
If I hadn't instinctively blocked with my knuckle, my arm might've been lopped off.
"Everyone, stay back and don't try to help, no matter what."
After gauging its power roughly, I realized support from others wouldn't help at all.
With people around, they'd just get in the way and die trying to assist, so handling it solo was the only option.
And even if they'd called for backup, per the story, they'd arrive right around when I'd almost finished it anyway.
So my only choice here was to take it down fast.
'But why show up at a timing like this?'
Wouldn't a surprise attack have had a higher chance of killing me?
What was the point of luring me out to the middle of an amusement park like this?
"Y-You won't die? I'll k-kill you for sure!"
Whirrl, cock!
Even as various thoughts raced through my mind, the skirmish with the tiger hunter dragged on.
It felt like it had been born as my custom counter, piercing my weaknesses with pinpoint accuracy.
'It's a pain.'
Bullets flew wherever I tried to dodge, and when I blocked the bullets, the spear tip came thrusting as if lying in wait.
It had clearly analyzed me thoroughly.
Well, the "past me," anyway.
'Makes it easy to pinpoint who leaked the info.'
All the movements the tiger hunter was trying to counter were relics from my past.
Tricky as they were, they were all a beat slower.
I'd spent every sleeping hour in the Mental Realm, growing every single day.
"Why, even like this, you should d-definitely be dead!"
The tiger hunter started getting impatient as I slipped its attacks by a paper-thin margin over and over.
The longer the fight dragged, the more disorienting it was to be countered by the very target it was trying to exploit.
I analyzed its rough info while searching for its core weakness—the one that would let me finish it for good.
[The Ferocious Tiger power this tiger hunter is countering was last used at least three weeks ago. When you took down the little giant Pembr. And the staff who analyzed your data at that time...]
Cross-referencing past data with the current encyclopedia entries to find the traitor.
Track this thing down, and I could definitively identify the betrayer hiding in the Academy.
Once my thoughts sorted that far, I had no more time to play around with the tiger hunter.
'I've gotta go see that naughty underwear.'
I didn't know who'd botched the job, but they'd done it so sloppily it made pinpointing the culprit easy.
In truth, it was only exploitable because my growth had outpaced normal speeds so dramatically...
'Gotta get stronger to enjoy this stuff.'
A strength unimaginable in the first playthrough.
Potential aside, my current combat power alone had already caught up to about 60% of first-run me.
Kiiing, clang!
At that level, I could smack away all its rifles and snap the spear blade.
"Eek, you won't die?!"
"Thanks to you, I've got a ton of info."
You're useless now. Die.
Ferocious Tiger Form 3. Burst.
If Form 2 used the dagger, Form 3 used the knuckle.
Not just a simple punch, but like shattering an entire pane of glass at once.
I jammed the knuckle into its presumed core and blew it to pieces.
Then chained into Ferocious Tiger Form 2: Sever to finish it off clean.
The tiger hunter had no idea I'd even learned Ferocious Tiger power, so it never stood a chance.
The techniques I'd used blatantly were just Tiger Fist, the Mountain Lord's power.
Assuming that was my full strength made this outcome inevitable.
'No corpse, huh.'
Being artificially spawned, the tiger hunter turned to dust and vanished the moment it died.
It might've just felt like an interruption to my date, but I'd gleaned quite a bit of info from it.
They'd apparently rushed to prepare it on short notice, thinking they could take me out this time.
All they'd done was expose their own tails like idiots.
"Then handle cleaning up the rest of this mess."
I'd finished it faster than rescue could arrive.
I told them the report was a false alarm and ordered a cover-up of the incident.
Being the young heir really made it convenient—I could wield the staff like my own limbs.
"Yes, sir. Will you be heading straight to the Mountain Lord, then?"
If so, we'll escort you.
Several staff attached themselves, offering to accompany and assist me on the way.
But I had zero intention of going straight to the Mountain Lord.
"Nah, I'm going to see my fiancée?"
She said she was wearing naughty underwear—what else would I do?
Maybe I should've gone after all.
"..."
Heila sat on the edge of the bed, stamping her feet anxiously.
Mountain Lord matters were Radmos family matters.
With worried looks drawing lines around her, she hadn't been able to move easily.
If she'd gone and messed up, causing him injury...
She couldn't fathom how much her fiancé would blame himself.
If a wounded beast saw its treasure shattered before its eyes, what catastrophe would that unleash?
That single thought had her pinned firmly to the bed.
"...A little cold."
Heila, top of the Hero Academy cadets, wouldn't feel chilly even in revealing underwear.
Yet she rubbed her bare skin, feeling the chill.
AC off, windows all shut—what was causing it?
Deep down, she knew, but she couldn't bring herself to say it aloud.
Afraid that voicing it would make it real.
Afraid it would mean admitting her own weakness.
"Pretty cold, huh?"
But Kim Geon-ho slipped right into that fragile gap, wrapping Heila in warmth.
"...You nearly made me a widow, so I just said it."
"Should I not hug you, then?"
"That'd be worse."
It's actually a bit cold, after all.