Mana Punch (1)
In the outskirts of the Myeonmok-dong villa complex.
A boy was cleaning up goblins with ice magic. His name was Seo Jinseo.
Even spelled backwards, it was still Seo Jinseo.
He had just experienced something utterly baffling.
‘He killed them all… with melee attacks?’
A strange masked man had passed through here earlier. Jinseo had tried to stop him, thinking he was walking straight into a death trap.
Instead, every goblin that charged the man had died.
‘From what I could see, they were all melee strikes.’
A passing truck had blocked his view, but he was certain he’d seen a weapon glowing with blue light being swung around.
‘I heard melee classes can barely fight at all…’
Since Seo Jinseo also lurked on the Awakened community forums, he already knew plenty about the current meta. Melee classes were supposedly almost impossible to hunt with unless they formed a proper party. There was even talk that most of them might fail the upcoming Awakening Maintenance Quest.
So what the hell had he just witnessed?
‘Then that guy… no way?’
It was just a rumor on the forums, but supposedly there was one person who had slaughtered goblins using pure close combat. And not just a few—he had practically swept them up.
‘The Goblin Slayer?’
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Seo Jinseo broke into a sprint.
“H-hey! Mister!”
Tap tap tap tap—!
He thought he had run pretty fast.
“Huh?”
The man had already vanished somewhere.
“What the…?”
That was when—
Thud—
A tall man approached from behind and bumped into him.
“Got a question for you.”
For some reason, Seo Jinseo felt a scorching heat radiating from the man. Without thinking, he took several steps back.
“Ah… yes.”
He was huge. Had to be almost 190 centimeters tall. A little intimidating, too.
The man spoke.
“Is this the place that was posted on the Awakened forums?”
He was a user of the community. The world really had changed. He didn’t look like the type at all.
“Y-yes, it is. Are you heading in?”
“Yeah. Gotta go.”
Crack.
The man rolled his wrist like he was loosening it up and answered casually.
It took real talent to say you were walking into a suicide mission so nonchalantly. Was that confidence based on…?
“By any chance… are you S-rank?”
Seo Jinseo asked carefully about his rank.
“Huh?”
The man looked down at him like he had no idea what he was talking about.
“N-no, I mean your rank. They said an S-rank was coming to help…”
“Oh. That?”
The man grinned, showing his white teeth.
His eyes looked scary, but when he smiled, there was a boyish mischief to him.
“Ranks are just numbers.”
“…Excuse me?”
“What matters is the heart that wants to save people. Don’t you think?”
Tap.
The man said something that sounded like a public service announcement—one that really didn’t suit him—and lightly thumped Seo Jinseo on the chest. Then he dashed off toward the swarm of goblins and disappeared.
Seo Jinseo stared blankly at his retreating back and muttered,
“But ranks are letters, not numbers…”
He rubbed the spot on his chest where the man had hit him.
“Ow… that hurts.”
A narrow alley. Red brick villas. Cars parked so tightly there wasn’t a single gap.
It was the kind of villa neighborhood you could find in any corner of the city.
On the rooftop of one of those villas, a man was screaming at the top of his lungs.
“S-save meeee!”
It was understandable. The ground below was absolutely packed with goblins.
“Kiiiieeeeek! Kiiiek!”
“Kiiiek! Kyaak!”
The goblins were swarming the place like it had been smeared with honey. More kept pouring out from somewhere, and their numbers seemed to be growing endlessly.
There were easily hundreds. It might have already surpassed a thousand.
Bang! Bang!
The goblins slammed violently against the villa’s front door where the man had climbed, letting out threatening shrieks.
“Kiiiieeeeek!”
The man on the rooftop muttered in a panic.
“Damn it, when the hell are they coming?”
He had already called 119, 112, everything he could think of.
There was no response at all.
They had no idea how to handle this. Only Awakened with actual powers could deal with goblins. The old police and firefighter manuals were completely useless now.
That was why he had posted a rescue request on the Awakened community forums.
It had been an excellent decision.
Replies had flooded in immediately, and a man with S-rank potential had shown up.
“I’m starving to death, you bastards…”
It had been a long time since he’d been able to leave the house because of the goblins. The man’s mind was starting to fray.
That was when—
‘Huh?’
Whoosh—!
Red flames surged up, cutting straight through the goblin swarm.
“Kiiiieeeeek!”
“Kyaak!”
Several goblins were incinerated in an instant.
“Oh… he’s here!”
The man on the rooftop widened his eyes and rushed to the railing.
When the massive flames died down, a man stood at their center.
His clothes were torn in multiple places.
“Are you the S-rank!? The one who replied to my post!”
The man couldn’t answer.
Because goblins were already charging him, swinging their blades wildly.
Slash!
But the man failed to dodge and took a hit.
‘What? He couldn’t even avoid that?’
The wound was so large it was visible even from the rooftop. Bright red blood should have been pouring out, but it wasn’t.
Instead of blood, red flames rose up.
Whoosh—!
‘What the hell is that? A fire human?’
Flames wrapped around his entire body, concentrating in his fist. The man thrust it forward without hesitation.
Boooom——!
An even stronger blaze shot out than before.
“Kyaaak!?”
“Kek…”
The flames exploded, turning over a dozen goblins into pitch-black ash.
The intense heat surged all the way up to the rooftop. The man’s hair whipped around in the hot wind.
With wide, shocked eyes, he muttered,
“Whoa… insane.”
Excited, he leaned over the railing and shouted down.
“Hey! Mister! What’s your rank!? Your rank?!”
Only then did the fire human finally look in his direction.
“You’re the one who posted the rescue request?”
“Y-yes! Please clear a path over here!”
“What’s your main skill?”
Main skill.
Every Awakened had one skill they used as their primary weapon. A kind of unique ability.
Of course, F-ranks didn’t have one.
“I’m…”
The man hesitated to answer.
“It’s too lame to say out loud! It’s not helpful at all! That’s why I’m trapped up here!”
Boom!
The man wreathed in flames drove back the goblins again and shouted,
“Then I’ll carve a path all the way there! Just stay put!”
The moment those words left his mouth, cries erupted from the other villas.
“S-save us! There are people here too! Please!”
“……Huh?”
People who had been too afraid to shout earlier in case the goblins noticed them. There were even a mother and a child.
“Th-there’s a kid here! A kid!”
“Me too! Hic… Mister, please save us!”
“What the… there are more people? No one mentioned that.”
He hadn’t expected there to still be so many survivors.
Even while fighting the goblins, the man of flames looked around to see how many more needed rescuing.
‘Can I really handle this alone?’
It wasn’t a scale one person could manage.
That was when—
“Is this the place!?”
“Break throughhh!”
Boooom!
An Awakened party appeared from another direction.
“We’re overleveled as fuck!”
They were mostly mages, except for one. The tank used his shield to bash goblins aside in front while the mages behind him unleashed a barrage of spells. They were advancing in perfect formation.
“Reinforcements.”
The man wrapped in flames rejoined the fray, knocking down goblins left and right.
Boom!
The goblins were pushed back faster than expected.
“Whoa… whoa, th-thank god!”
“Oh my god.”
Relieved voices rang out from the citizens trapped in the different villas.
“Take it slow! Slow! Trust the tank! One at a time! Alternate fire! Do not stop casting!”
“Yes sir!”
One side advanced with the perfect coordination of a trained raid party.
The other side smashed through with overwhelming individual firepower and breakthrough power.
Meanwhile, Moon Junil—who had entered first—was nowhere to be seen by any of them.
‘Hmm…’
Surprisingly, he had climbed to the top of the tallest villa, hidden his presence, and was simply watching the situation unfold from above.
It was a far cry from his usual attention-seeking behavior.
The Constellations seemed to have expected him to sweep through the goblins in spectacular fashion.
‘I thought so too.’
Junil had thought the same.
Until he saw how the goblins were behaving with his own eyes.
‘This isn’t a normal situation.’
The goblins’ behavior was strange, and then there was the hidden quest that had appeared for him.
There was definitely something more behind this.
The objective was to rescue the VIP.
But who exactly was the VIP here?
The man in the rooftop room who had sent the first rescue request?
Or the mother and child in the semi-basement of the villa across the way?
The high school siblings on the second floor next door?
He couldn’t tell.
What Junil could tell was that the goblins’ behavior here was anything but normal.
They looked busy moving around, but they showed no real will to attack the people inside the houses.
With this many goblins, they should have climbed all the way up to the rooftop rooms and the semi-basements. Yet everyone was still alive and unharmed.
After climbing higher and looking down, he became even more certain.
‘So… which one are you?’
Someone was controlling them.
The only ones capable of that were a Goblin King or a black mage.
If a Goblin King had been nearby, it would have revealed its presence without hesitation. Monsters steeped in magi didn’t hide their power. They flaunted their dominance directly.
That was how monsters operated.
The only ones who hid their controller like this were…
‘A black mage.’
It was the way of black mages.
Ram and Sam were watching the screen, giggling with glee.
“There’s no way the others won’t fall for it here.”
They had prepared the Goblin Swarm event with quite a bit of ambition.
But just clearing out a bunch of goblins would be too boring, right?
There was a trick here.
Most people wouldn’t notice it, though.
“Most Awakened are blinded by leveling up, so they’ll be desperate to kill as many goblins as possible.”
Awakened who couldn’t level up quickly would lose their powers. If they could just kill a ton of goblins, they wouldn’t suspect a thing.
“Humans don’t think much when things are going the way they want. Hehe.”
They would simply feel that there were too many goblins and it was difficult. They wouldn’t question the situation itself.
“But Hae-il is different.”
However, Kang Hae-il was different.
Was it because he was smart?
Well, that would be nice… but no, that wasn’t it.
It was because of his special class.
[Class: Flame of Conviction]
A class granted with a proper noun.
Its abilities were as follows.
Inherits the power of the 'Flame of Conviction' from myth.
When the inheritor desires, flames envelop the entire body and all physical abilities gain explosive power.
The more damage taken, the stronger the flames become. As long as conviction does not waver, there is no limit.
The inheritor can instinctively recognize those who go against their conviction, and grows stronger when facing them.
The last line was the important part.
“Can instinctively recognize those who go against their conviction…”
This had been Ram’s creation.
Of course, the detailed ability writing had been done by his assistant Sam, but anyway…
“With this, there’s no way he won’t notice.”
“Right. Especially since Hae-il has it.”
Kang Hae-il possessed an upright and powerful conviction that was rare in this era—no, in this entire dimension. It seemed like it would never waver no matter the circumstances.
And someone like him could recognize those who went against his conviction at a glance?
Then he would have no choice but to break through this situation immediately.
“L-look! Hae-il! Our Hae-il noticed!”
Sam pointed at the monitor in excitement.
It was only natural for him to be excited. The skill he had stayed up all night creating—in place of Ram—was finally shining.
[What the… this feels kinda off?]
Kang Hae-il had made eye contact with the man on the rooftop and muttered to himself.
The Constellations watching Hae-il were suspicious.
But they would find out soon enough.
“Hehe. Just watch.”
Now Hae-il would climb up to the rooftop, punch that guy in the face, and the black mage’s true form would be—
“Huh?”
Ram’s eyes widened.
“Ah…?”
Sam froze as well.
Swish…!
A black figure flew in at incredible speed and landed on top of the rooftop room.
“F… fuck?!”
Ram’s face twisted hideously.
“That’s Julian!?”
Julian.
He had made the first move.
And then he said this:
[Hey. Black mage.]
“Aaaagh! Don’t spoil it!”
No matter how loudly Ram screamed here, Julian down there couldn’t hear him.