The Third-Rank Catastrophe #1
Back then, Deoksoon had likened a Grade 3 ability user to a major strategic asset. She claimed that making an enemy of a Grade 3 was the same as turning our entire third-year D-class against us. I’d spotted a fatal flaw in that comparison, but I didn’t bother explaining it on the spot. Actions speak louder than words, after all. And now was the perfect time to prove exactly where her analogy had gone wrong.
“Finishing move—Namjin Kiiiiick!”
THWACK—!!!
My love-filled roundhouse kick, launched at 120 kilometers per hour, slammed with surgical precision into Yeom Hoon’s groin. When pain reaches a certain level, people can’t even scream. Yeom Hoon’s mouth opened in a silent, agonized howl as he crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
The mantis-looking bastard lying nearby screamed loud enough for both of them.
“Aaaargh! Fuck! It hurts just watching! Hey! Ha Namjin, you psychotic son of a bitch! How can you call yourself a person after that? Are you even a man? You fucking animal!”
“The reason you can’t equate a Grade 3 ability user with the entire D-class is exactly this. Our class has about fourteen guys, which means twenty-eight balls total. But a Grade 3 only has two.”
In other words, I just had to aim for those two precious orbs to take one down.
“Ugh… uwaaaagh!”
The attack had clearly been devastating. Yeom Hoon foamed at the mouth as the delayed shock hit him. He gnashed his teeth so hard I could hear them grinding. The pain should have been enough to kill most people from shock alone, yet he was enduring it.
“Hey, you son of a bitch! Why do you keep showing up in front of me?! Why do you keep hovering around?! Does making me this miserable make you feel better? Huh? Why?!”
I was about to finish Yeom Hoon off when Samajun started making a racket. I had zero interest in listening to his nonsense, but there was one thing I needed to correct.
“You don’t know the first thing about real misfortune.”
“What?! What the hell are you saying?! Let’s settle this right here, you and me!”
Clap—!
Samajun spat a string of vulgar curses and clapped his hands. A sudden burst of heat exploded in the air. The force reminded me of the time I’d detonated a butane canister back at the shack. If you got caught in it, even thin bones would snap like twigs.
Clap-clap—!
BOOM! BOOM—!
Samajun kept clapping, detonating explosions in midair. I was dodging left and right, but his accuracy was pathetic.
“Goddamn it! Why won’t it hit?!”
Name: Samajun
Possesses:Explosion Lv.2 — Possesses explosive power comparable to butane gas. Can generate explosions at range, but aiming is difficult.
Status:Decreased Rationality — Has lost rational judgment due to excitement, panic, and tension. Mind filled solely with the desire to kill you and eliminate all witnesses.
He wanted to kill the witness? Well, that made sense. An elite like him had just realized I knew about his connection to the terrorists. His life was about to go up in flames. If he could just shut my mouth, he probably thought he could still salvage the situation.
“Why won’t it hit meeee?!”
But his attitude was too soft. His aim kept missing. Did he really have any intention of killing me? Deep down, that moral safety mechanism—you must not kill people—was still functioning. No matter how much he acted like a rabid dog, he was still just a minor living in a peaceful world.
“Why… the hell… won’t it hit…?”
I waited for the moment his heavy breathing threw off his stance, then launched myself high into the air.
“Idiot! You can’t dodge in midair!”
His ability had a restriction—he had to clap every time he used it. That clap served as both recoil and trigger. Which meant I could predict exactly when the explosion would happen just by watching his palms.
Clap—!
The instant his palms met, I kicked off the air again while still airborne, dodging the blast.
Whoosh—BOOM!
“What?! What the hell is that?! Since when could you do that?!”
What was it? An application of the Air Leap I’d used when I kidnapped Seo Gaeul. And if I pushed the application just a little further, I could do this too.
“Fly like a bee—”
Tap—!
I kicked off the air again. This time I spun my body and dove straight toward the ground. Right now I was essentially a missile hurtling toward the earth.
“And sting like a butterfly!”
“Gwaaaaaagh!”
Samajun took my accelerated kick square in the chest. He collapsed, vomiting a huge mouthful of blood as every ounce of air left his lungs. One look told me he was combat ineffective.
But it was too early to let my guard down.
“Namjin Kick! Namjin Crusher!”
“Ugh! Ack! S-stop! Ack! Eek! Graaagh!”
I’d sworn to make his gender identity ambiguous this time, so I kept hammering his groin with merciless kicks. That was when I felt a strange heat on the back of my neck. It carried a clear purpose I hadn’t sensed from Samajun’s attacks. A purpose to completely erase and kill me. It could only be called killing intent.
Tap—!
I kicked off the ground and created distance. The spot where I’d been standing was immediately scorched by a blazing fireball that exploded on impact.
BOOOOM—!
Fwoosh—!
When I turned my head, I saw “Yama” holding a lit cigarette and glaring at me. I’d thought the Namjin Kick to his balls would keep him down for days, but the guy was tough.
“I know who you are. You’re… ugh—that survivor from the department store? Or maybe one of the bereaved? I can tell at a glance. You want to kill me for revenge, right?”
“You don’t know shit. You’ve got me all wrong.”
Sssip—
Instead of answering, Yeom Hoon put the cigarette to his lips. The small flame left behind gray soot as it consumed the entire cigarette. Then he exhaled a blazing inferno from his mouth.
Fwoooooosh—!
It was literally hellfire. The callsign “Yama” hadn’t been given for nothing. The problem was that the flames were spreading to the abandoned houses around us, burning and melting everything they touched. Scorching heat pressed in from every direction, naturally narrowing the space I could move in.
Shuffle—
“Yama” Yeom Hoon rummaged through his pocket for another cigarette, only to discover the pack was empty. He tossed the trash on the ground and stomped on it viciously.
“Ugh, this is why neighborhoods where the convenience store is more than twenty minutes away aren’t worth living in. Hngh—”
Yeom Hoon was an ability user who could exhale cigarette smoke as actual flames. I knew all about him. Without cigarettes, he shouldn’t be able to use his “flames” anymore.
Shuffle—
He pulled a gas mask from the bag on the ground, put it on, and settled into a strange fighting stance. Then he beckoned me with his fingers, as if inviting me to come at him.
According to what I’d heard from Yu Yeoleum, the reason “Hand-to-Hand Combat” and “Sparring” had been removed from the general curriculum at Youngsa High was because of the first-generation students. Those people had learned how to beat and kill others with professional thoroughness. Once their heads got too thick to control, they started using that power in the wrong places—just like the bastard in front of me.
In short, the Yeom Hoon before me was a first-rate terrorist who, even without superpowers, possessed an Awakened’s raw strength and stamina plus lethal hand-to-hand killing techniques.
Did I have a chance of winning? In my opinion, I had about a 120% chance of victory.
“Ha Nam-jjiiiiin!!!!”
“Ha Nam-jjiiiiin!!!!”
Someone was shouting loudly. The voice sounded completely unhinged.
“We’re here! We’ll help you!”
“My friend! We saw the explosions and came running! Are you unharmed?!”
“…Still alive against a Grade 3 ability user… This is a miracle…”
It looked like the members of “No Leftovers Day” had shown up after hearing the earlier commotion and explosions.
“This is the weakness of ignition-type ability users. They’re too flashy and loud. They draw everyone’s attention, so in the 21st century where laws and systems still function, it’s an ability with many restrictions.”
Soon, fire trucks and police cars alerted by the disturbance would swarm this place. No matter how strong a Grade 3 Yeom Hoon was, he wouldn’t be able to overcome numerical inferiority then.
“In other words, right now the power of the state stands behind me!”
“……”
Yeom Hoon’s fighting stance, which had been filled with fighting spirit, loosened slightly. Had he detected the sirens coming from all directions?
Name: Yeom Hoon
Possesses:Flame Lv.3 — Can spew flames comparable to napalm incendiaries.
Status:Predicament — Panicked by the current situation and has decided to flee.
Flee? If he ran away now, what would happen? He’d hide even deeper. We might not find him again until the world was destroyed a year from now. I absolutely could not let him escape.
But he would also be desperate to get away. I knew all too well that a cornered beast was the most dangerous, so I hesitated.
“Hey, you evil bastard!”
That was when Baek Yeoul, aka Ppang-daeng-i, shouted. She pointed Unlucky Rod forward and yelled as if she would charge in at any moment.
“You wicked piece of shit who burned people to death! Bastards like you need to be castrated!”
“My friend! That guy is definitely going to try to run! We have to catch him!”
“……”
It wasn’t just Baek Yeoul. Even Changsik and the usually gentle Deoksoon were showing fighting spirit. Were these the same kids who had been terrified in front of the “monster dog”?
Ppang-daeng-i poked me in the side.
“He’s your family’s enemy! If you miss him now, who knows when you’ll catch him again! And Ha Namjin, you definitely have some plan we couldn’t even imagine, right?! Don’t you?! Say yes!”
These guys… they didn’t seem afraid of getting hurt. They’d all lost their minds. Whether it was because of the heat from those flames or because the hair dye had seeped into their scalps and turned their brains pink—
They really were the unluckiest friends imaginable. But to me, they were also the greatest stroke of luck.
“I do have a plan. Starting now, Ppang-daeng-i is going to begin cooking.”
“Cooking? Me?! Out of nowhere?!”
“But the enemy must not know about this plan. In that sense, Deoksoon. Can you create a curtain of silence just around that guy?”
“N-not around us, but only around him? My ability blocks sound in a ten-meter radius around me…”
Deoksoon trembled. I was wondering if it was too much for the gentle Deoksoon when Baek Yeoul suddenly yelled.
“I have two concert tickets I got by some insane stroke of luck! I’ll give them to you, Deoksoon! Give one to Taeseong! You two go together!”
“……!”
Deoksoon’s whole body shook violently. A powerful will blazed in the eyes visible between her long bangs. Finally she clenched both fists, ran toward the arsonist Yeom Hoon, and began to dance.
Taking that opening, I shouted.
“Ppang-daeng-i and Changsik! No time, so listen carefully! You see that gas mask he’s wearing? He’s an ignition ability user, but he’s clearly vulnerable to the smoke produced when he burns things!”
Even now, the smile I’d seen on the day the department store burned sometimes appeared in my dreams. The arsonist Yeom Hoon’s smile curving like a crescent moon behind that gas mask. I had thought about that day constantly. Why had he smiled? I’d grown so curious I even looked up the manufacturer of the gas mask he’d been wearing. And then the question suddenly occurred to me: “Why was he wearing a gas mask?”
The reason was simple. Toxic gas was fatal to him as well.
This operation would use that fact as its core.
“And thus begins Ppang-daeng-i’s Grand Cooking Operation.”
I explained to everyone why this plan was called the Grand Cooking Operation. After hearing my explanation, Changsik and Baek Yeoul’s faces went through a rainbow of expressions before they clutched their heads.
“My friend, this is madness!”
“I approve! I am Baek Yeoul of Baekdang! If it’s cooking, I’m confident!”