Chapter 240
Chapter 240
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 240
Chapter Title: Future and Past (3)
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“Let go if you don’t want to die.”
“Hm? What was that? I can’t hear you.”
Bright yellow electricity crackled around Jeon Do-jin, spreading in all directions.
His hair and eyes were dyed gold.
This was the phenomenon that occurred when Jeon Do-jin drew out the power of lightning to its absolute maximum.
A chilling killing intent and a powerful wave of mana.
Even Cha Eun-ha found her breath catching at the sight of Jeon Do-jin’s full power, which she had never seen before.
“I won’t say it again.”
Jeon Do-jin’s form vanished.
In its place, a line of yellow light, like a current of electricity moving through the air, was drawn.
S-rank Lightning God Flash Step.
It was truly as fast and intense as a bolt of lightning, and it looked as though Marker would be struck and sent flying in the blink of an eye.
“Heh.”
At that moment, Marker’s lips curled into a smile that seemed to stretch from ear to ear.
“No!!!”
Cha Eun-ha screamed.
Fzzzt!!
A violet current of electricity pierced through Jeon Do-jin’s body.
He had intended to break through any ordinary trap with sheer force, but his agitation had led him to make a completely wrong judgment.
“Pfft, haha! Ahahaha! What a complete moron! A blatant provocation, a blatant trap. And you fell for it just like that? IDIOT! That’s a trap that forcibly burns your internal mana and sends a shock through you! The more mana you have, the more pain it causes! They say a fool’s body is what suffers!”
Marker burst out laughing, covering his face with one hand.
Marker already knew Jeon Do-jin’s personality, having heard about it from Roberto beforehand.
He cherished his disciple, Cha Eun-ha, as if she were his own daughter, and that was the key to exploiting him.
Sure enough, Jeon Do-jin had fallen into Marker’s trap far too easily.
The pain was so intense that he couldn’t even scream. Jeon Do-jin’s body trembled for a long while before he collapsed limply.
“Master!!”
Cha Eun-ha struggled, desperately reaching out her arm.
However, her body was still being controlled by Marker’s threads, so there was nothing she could do.
Jeon Do-jin pushed himself up.
His legs, devoid of any strength, buckled, and his body, which he had struggled to raise, slumped back down.
His mind screamed at him to get up, but his body was already a wreck.
“What’s the situation?”
To make matters worse, Cha Eun-ha fell into despair as the other players from Team A returned.
“Those idiots must have let them get away, but they’re here now. No problem, though. Jeon Do-jin fell for the obvious trap.”
“Jeon Do-jin did?”
“Doting dads are so easy to manipulate; their thinking is so simple.”
As Marker chuckled, the players from Team A laughed along.
Soon, they approached the fallen Jeon Do-jin.
“This is for William, you son of a bitch!”
Thwack!
The players from Team A began to indiscriminately stomp on the fallen Jeon Do-jin.
They spat on him with degrading taunts and aimed their kicks at the weakest parts of the human body.
Jeon Do-jin could only take the beating without any resistance.
“Didn’t I tell you? It forcibly burns your internal mana and sends a shock through you. That will continue until all your mana is depleted. I wonder what will come first, your mana running out or you dying from the shock. Hahaha!”
Marker sneered and lifted Cha Eun-ha.
“Let go of me! Let go!!”
“Stay still. Your role isn’t over yet.”
“My role? What are you planning to do now…”
“I need to use you as a hostage to threaten Kim Se-hyeon. I heard you have some connection to him, too?”
Cha Eun-ha’s heart sank.
First Kim Ji-hyeon and her master, and now Kim Se-hyeon.
Just how many people would come to harm because of her?
“…No.”
The words escaped Cha Eun-ha’s lips before she even realized it.
“Absolutely not! I won’t let you have your way!!”
Cha Eun-ha gritted her teeth and began to struggle with all her might.
“You little—can’t you stay still!”
In the struggle, Cha Eun-ha’s fingernails scratched Marker’s cheek.
Marker carefully touched the wound on his cheek.
Seeing the bright red blood on his fingers, Marker’s eyes turned icy cold.
They were the eyes of someone who wouldn’t hesitate to kill a person on the spot.
It was all the more chilling because Marker had been acting playful until now.
Cha Eun-ha flinched in fear, but she still glared back with venomous eyes and sneered.
“What’s this? Your blood is red. I thought it would be blue.”
“…Maybe breaking a bone will quiet you down?”
Dozens of threads wrapped around Cha Eun-ha’s right arm from various angles.
Threads so strong they wouldn’t budge no matter how much she struggled.
She was certain that if Marker applied force, the different parts of her arm would twist and break at unnatural angles. Cha Eun-ha bit her lip, bracing herself for the pain.
“…Don’t.”
Krakoom!!
At that moment, a bolt of lightning struck, and the light momentarily banished all darkness.
Marker and Cha Eun-ha both instinctively turned their gazes to where Jeon Do-jin had been.
The men who had been stomping on Jeon Do-jin collapsed one by one, black smoke pouring from their mouths and the whites of their eyes showing.
“Hah.”
Marker let out a disbelieving laugh.
Jeon Do-jin was getting up.
His face was a bloody mess, but his eyes were filled with killing intent.
“He’s getting up? And even channeling mana? He should be in agony, feeling like he’s being burned alive from the inside out!?”
One step.
Another step.
With each repetition of that short movement, Jeon Do-jin felt a pain as if his entire body was being torn apart.
However, Jeon Do-jin ignored all the pain.
He could ignore it.
Because from the very beginning, his eyes had been fixed on nothing but Cha Eun-ha.
*Grit.*
As Jeon Do-jin clenched his teeth, it was as if a trigger had been pulled. A storm of lightning engulfed his body.
“My daughter. Don’t you touch her.”
***
“…I thought their voices sounded somewhat similar.”
What a shock.
Jo Min-woo from the future.
I knew of an item that could make such a thing possible. It wasn’t an impossibility.
But the fact that he held ill will toward me was hard to understand.
“Shut up.”
The future Jo Min-woo growled.
“I didn’t come to the past to hear your disgusting voice.”
[Why is he so pissed off?]
How should I know?
There was no way for me to know what happened in the future.
I narrowed my eyes and decided to observe the situation.
Then, Jo Min-woo pointed a finger at his future self and asked with difficulty.
“You’re… me?”
“It’s a bit weird to call you by the same name. When you address me, Yeomryong is fine. That’s the title I… you will have in the future.”
“Yeomryong!?”
[He likes that.]
‘Just be quiet.’
Yeomryong’s hostility wasn’t directed at the twins.
It was animosity reserved solely for me.
That meant that in the future, something happened because of me that completely overturned all the trust he had.
“Min-ah.”
Yeomryong called out softly. Jo Min-ah flinched and gripped my sleeve tightly.
“Get away from him. Kim Se-hyeon will be the cause of your death.”
“Oppa will cause… my death?”
“Soul Flame.”
Jo Min-ah’s body trembled once more.
It was a trait that Jo Min-woo didn’t have, one unique to her.
“The more you use Soul Flame, the more it consumes the user’s soul. You used it several times, and in the end, you died because you pushed yourself to use it again, knowing you would die. No, perhaps it’s worse than death. The very existence of Jo Min-ah was erased.”
“That’s…”
“Kim Se-hyeon knew you possessed Soul Flame, but he never told us about its side effects. He knew and kept silent, leading to Min-ah’s death!”
Yeomryong suddenly erupted in a fiery rage and threw a punch at me.
Fwoosh!!
A fireball in the shape of a fist flew toward me.
It wasn’t difficult to destroy, but the impact on my hand was surprisingly strong.
I could see why Jo Min-woo had been so overwhelmed.
‘Is this future Jo Min-woo the same Jo Min-woo from ‘that point in time’ that I know of?’
I carefully examined Yeomryong’s appearance.
His face hadn’t changed much from the present, but the difference in his physique was undeniable.
It would take at least a few years to change that much.
If this was the Jo Min-woo from before Chapter 40, it would be fine, but if it was from a point after that, it was a different story.
I couldn’t guarantee victory if we fought.
Jo Min-ah spoke with a trembling voice.
“What you’re saying is strange. How could Oppa know that?”
“Because Kim Se-hyeon can see other people’s information. Your stats, your abilities, your traits, even your skills. All of it.”
“What…?”
Both Jo Min-ah and Jo Min-woo turned to look at me with shocked eyes, as if asking if such a thing was possible.
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
How does he know that?
“…”
The children’s gazes, demanding the truth, felt like they were piercing my skin.
I could deny Yeomryong’s words here.
The children’s trust in me was considerably high.
If asked which of us they would believe, they would undoubtedly choose me.
But what if that was exactly what Yeomryong was waiting for?
‘Think carefully.’
This was an opponent against whom I couldn’t leverage my advantage in information.
I didn’t know what he had prepared, what he knew.
The ‘future’ Jo Min-woo spoke of was not the timeline of the original EOA I knew.
It was the future of a completely different world line called the ‘present,’ one where second-generation players like myself had participated.
I had no way of knowing what Jo Min-woo had experienced or what situations he had faced.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“…That’s right. I can see other people’s information.”
“Is, is that really true?”
“You admit it so readily. A pity. If you had denied it, I could have finished you for sure.”
Yeomryong sneered, clearly displeased.
So, his last words had been a leading question intended to lure me into a trap.
“So what! If Hyung can see our information, I’m fine with it! No, it actually makes sense now. Why Hyung has been teaching us so effectively all this time.”
Jo Min-woo, his morale surprisingly boosted, snorted.
Yeomryong’s eyebrows furrowed into a V-shape as he sighed.
“You know nothing. You really know nothing at all.”
“That Soul Flame thing or whatever! In the end, we just have to get rid of it, right? Right, Hyung?”
“No. There is no way to get rid of Soul Flame. Such a thing does not exist. If it did, I would have used any means necessary to find that method before Min-ah died. Think about it. If you were in the same situation, wouldn’t you have tried to find that method no matter what?”
Jo Min-woo was struck dumb.
Looking at him, Yeomryong wore a self-deprecating expression.
“Hyung. Is that really… true?”
“…Still, Soul Flame won’t activate unless the user is willing to risk their own life. Never.”
“And that’s ultimately because of you!!”
Yeomryong shouted in fury.
“Min-ah used it for you! She used it to save you, even though she knew what would happen to her if she used it again!”
Yeomryong charged.
His entire body wreathed in flames, he lunged like a true Yeomryong—a flame dragon—unleashing a fierce and swift barrage of attacks.
Whoosh!
Punches that tore through the air and kicks that seemed to shatter the void.
Fwoooosh!
And the fiercely dancing flames.
Each of his attacks was menacing, as if his fight with Jo Min-woo had been mere child’s play, but I didn’t counterattack.
I focused solely on evasion, letting Yeomryong’s attacks flow past me.
What was the purpose of this attack?
Yeomryong’s assault was somehow off-kilter.
It was as if he wanted to kill me, yet his emotions were unrestrained, his movements sloppy and ruled by passion.
“Because of you, because of you…!”
Pow!
I caught Yeomryong’s fist.
The flickering flames that sought to burn me were devoured by my Black Flame.
However, the Black Flame only consumed what came at it; it did not advance.
Yeomryong struggled to pull his fist back, but the harder he pulled, the tighter I gripped.
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. I swear it.”