All-Master (6)
"…Huh?"
Something strange had happened.
Park Sung-chan's sword strike had missed Shin Min-woo.
And not by a little — by a wide margin.
He dodged my attack? Me?
There was no way. Something was definitely, unmistakably wrong.
Come to think of it, something does feel off.
His whole body felt like it was sinking. Even the level of the ground seemed off somehow….
"…!"
Park Sung-chan's eyes went wide as he looked down at the ground he was standing on.
The floor was sinking.
No — to be precise—
I'm being swallowed!
The sodden earth was devouring his feet, his knees.
"It's a swamp!"
The entire area had turned into wetland. The 'environment' of a place that had been an ordinary forest moments ago had changed.
"Grrgh! Damn it!"
Perhaps because the pain had numbed his senses, by the time he came to his senses, the swamp had already swallowed his legs up to the thighs.
"You think…! Something like this…! I can just slip right out…!"
He tried to force strength into his legs and move — but the harder he struggled, the faster he sank.
"…They say gates can trigger drastic environmental changes like this."
Shin Min-woo added the words like advice to Park Sung-chan, who was flailing his strength away for nothing.
"So no matter what situation you face, you stay calm. That's what being a professional hunter is all about — or so I was taught."
"Shut up! Where does a bug like you get off giving me advice?!"
Not that it mattered — Shin Min-woo was stuck in the swamp too. With his shoulder blown apart by the sword strike, escape was a distant dream. As it stood, they were both fated to sink under together.
"Once I get out of here, that's when I'll—!"
"Sorry to disappoint you, but the one getting out first is me."
"What?"
Shin Min-woo placed a hand on his ruined shoulder and concentrated his mana.
Limited Heal (A)
A pale green glow blossomed, and his shoulder restored itself to its original state as if time were rewinding.
Limited Heal — a skill that completely healed wounds sustained within a short window of time at minimal mana cost.
"A healer's skill too…?!"
Park Sung-chan's mouth hung open in stunned disbelief.
"With this, I can get out of here."
Shin Min-woo drew out his 'Threads of Mana,' latched them onto a tree, and pulled himself free of the swamp.
Hyung's training paid off.
The virtual reality training through the 'lens' Gong Gi-hyun had built by hand. There, Shin Min-woo had accumulated experience to spare — adapting to all manner of environments, and even mastering the feel of using his mana threads efficiently.
Especially that.
His first-ever one-on-one duel against a person. If not for the lens's virtual reality sparring, that fist would surely have hesitated.
"You! You sneaky little bastard!"
Park Sung-chan, left trapped alone in the mire.
"You…! You bug-faced son of a bitch! Once I get out of here, I swear I won't let this slide! I'll make you just like your sister—!"
"…What did you say?"
The mana threads snapped taut like blades.
"Say it again."
Shick!
The bladed thread split Park Sung-chan's skin.
"Grrrggh!"
Pain beyond words came pouring in, but his mind was crystal clear.
"My sister… what about her?"
"I'll break your legs just like I broke your sister's—"
Shkeeeek!
This time the thread carved away an entire chunk of flesh from his forearm. Blood gushed from the raggedly gouged wound.
"AAAAARGH!"
"Talk. Say it again."
Even so, Shin Min-woo did not stop.
"Talk. Say it!"
Shick! Shrrk! Shrrrreeeek!
Even as Park Sung-chan's entire body was soaked in blood, even as wounds piled up on his mangled flesh, Shin Min-woo's fury would not subside.
It's okay, Min-woo.
"Apologize! Get on your knees and apologize!"
Don't think about revenge or anything like that.
"Apologize for stealing my sister's dream!!"
Just live the way you want to, and be happy.
"You piece of shiiiiit!!"
That's all I ever needed.
"Guhh… khh…."
"Ah…… ugh…."
Park Sung-chan let out a low moan and dropped his head. The swamp had already swallowed him up to his chest. Every visible inch of him was plastered with wounds and blood, his eyes gone unfocused. He had completely lost his mind.
"A bastard like you…!"
Mana threads coiled in Shin Min-woo's grip. Several bladed strands aimed precisely at the point between Park Sung-chan's brows.
"Rather than let you make victims like my sister, I'll end it right here—!"
The blades were about to fire.
"Okay, that's enough."
A hand stopped him.
"Hyu… hyung?"
"Damn, you absolutely wrecked him."
Lee Tae-hyun was somehow already sitting beside him. He looked Park Sung-chan over and scratched his head with evident satisfaction.
"Right. If you're going to fight, you finish it beyond all doubt. Good work, Min-woo."
"Did I… really?"
"If you'd been a little more restrained, you might've ended up the way he is now."
It sounded like a joke, but it sent a chill down his spine all the same.
"So — how does it feel?"
"What?"
"You got exactly what you wished for. Beating that guy."
"Ah……"
Right. Just like he'd always dreamed, he had finally brought Park Sung-chan down. With Lee Tae-hyun's help, sure, but still an achievement won by his own hands. This should have been the moment pride swelled in his chest.
"…I don't know."
Somehow, he didn't feel the catharsis he'd expected. Instead, his emotions had tangled up like a knotted skein of thread.
"Is that… really what I wanted to see…?"
"Huh? Hey, don't ruin the mood — smile."
"What?"
"You just pulled off your sister's revenge! If you go bawling your eyes out now, what kind of revenge is that?"
"Y-you… you knew about that?!"
"I have~ my ways."
In truth, he had quietly looked into the academy's recent list of expelled students through Lee Si-hyun. Among them, he'd found a female student with the same surname, enrolled around the same time. A closer investigation had told him the rest of the story.
"Min-woo, everything in this world has a role to play. Do you know what role gets assigned to the trash villains who torment others for the thrill of it?"
"What… is it?"
"Getting thoroughly, gloriously educated by the protagonist."
He had absolutely no idea what the man was talking about.
"So — smile. And end it exactly there."
"…!"
"Go any further and you sink to that bastard's level."
Shin Min-woo thought back to the person he'd been moments ago. The version of himself who had been trying to drive a blade into the bastard's skull, convinced that killing him was the only answer. If Lee Tae-hyun hadn't stopped him there—
I might never have come back.
Shin Min-woo swallowed a ragged breath and steadied his pounding heart. And then, before long—
"…Pfft-hah!"
the laughter burst out of him.
"PUHAHAHAHA! I won, hyung! I won!"
"HAHAHAHA! That's right! You won!"
Puhahaha. Hahahaha.
While the two of them traded laughter back and forth—
Ssshhk!
the environment shifted again. The swamp turned back to soil, leaving Park Sung-chan buried with only his head poking out of the ground.
"By the way."
Lee Tae-hyun hopped lightly down from the tree and studied Park Sung-chan's condition. Yep — still conscious. That cursed skill of his kept him from blacking out.
"You really are a monumental piece of shit, aren't you?"
While digging through the list of expelled students, he'd uncovered a whole catalogue of Park Sung-chan's atrocities. Crippling Shin Min-woo's sister's lower body wasn't enough — he'd also burst another student's eyes, slashed another's ankle tendons, and had been periodically carrying out motiveless violence of exactly that kind.
And the victims all shared one trait.
All of them were high-performing students with bright futures.
Shin Min-woo's sister, Shin Yeon-hee, for one. Her skill with a bow was said to have run an undefeated first place in the entire academy — enough that the epithet 'Divine Archer' had followed her since her academy days.
"Now I get it. You were scared, weren't you? Scared of being caught up to by the people you thought were beneath you."
"Grraaargh…!"
"That's why you did those things to the talented ones on purpose. Because you were terrified of being overtaken by anyone who wasn't S-rank. Because you couldn't bear to admit it. So you turned your eyes away, calling them bugs, calling them worthless."
"Sh-shut uuup…!"
"I'm no different, really. A mere F-rank hunter running wild and laying waste to everything — I must look pretty annoying in those eyes of yours."
That's why Park Sung-chan had tried to break him. Same as everyone else.
"You're nothing but a gutless coward. Got it?"
Lee Tae-hyun smiled wickedly and pulled something out of his subspace.
"That skill of yours — it keeps you from losing consciousness, right? But you do still sleep."
During the last B-rank gate clear, Kang Hwi had personally given him a special plant.
The Sleep Flower.
The nectar of this flower could put anyone into an instant, blissful slumber. There was one unusual quirk, though.
Lord Otherworlder, this may be presumptuous of me, but you must never eat the Sleep Flower with its roots.
Why?
If you eat it together with the root… it gives you horrible nightmares!
Consumed root and all, it was said to bring nightmares so brutal they'd shave years off a person's lifespan.
"Bon appétit."
Lee Tae-hyun shoved the Sleep Flower, root and all, straight into Park Sung-chan's mouth.
"Ugh — glk! Gulp!"
After forcing the flower down his throat, he grabbed him by the hair and yanked him out of the ground like a weed.
"Eat it whole and you'll be sleeping for days. Do plenty of soul-searching in your nightmares about everything you've done."
WHAM!
Lee Tae-hyun clenched his fist.
"And if you can help it, don't ever wake up."
Xuanwu Ink Fist
First Form
The fist, carrying the essence of the Ink Fist, struck his philtrum dead-on.
KWA-BOOOOOM!
Park Sung-chan's body flew a long, long way before crumpling to the ground. Unlike before, he didn't rise — he simply lay where he'd fallen, barely breathing.
"And that's one taken care of."
"Hyuuung…!"
Shin Min-woo came running with tears brimming in his eyes. What had he done to deserve all this? The mountain of premium skill books, the state-of-the-art training facility — and now this: stopping him from going down the wrong path and finishing his revenge in his place. The word 'lifesaver' didn't feel like nearly enough.
"I truly want to serve by your side for the rest of my—"
"One left to go, then."
"…Hyung?"
"What's that tone, student Shin Min-woo."
Lee Tae-hyun unclenched his fist.
"I'm a monster now, you see. And this is a gate."
"Aw, come on~ you're such a kidder."
"I can't play favorites just for you."
At least until this lecture was over, Lee Tae-hyun was a monster of the gate.
"Come at me, human."
That day, symphonies of every shape and form rang out through the forest.
The result of the special lecture: not a single student had made it into the central safe zone.
Complete, universal mid-lecture elimination!
Some students grumbled that the difficulty had clearly been rigged from the start with no intention of ever awarding the scholarship — but when it came to the lecture's purpose and content, the verdict was unanimous: invaluable.
"It definitely helped, no question."
"I'd heard the environment inside gates could shift, but I never imagined it'd be like this."
"Still, it was genuinely useful."
And the feedback handed down by the monster (Lee Tae-hyun) to anyone taken out by his ambush had proven helpful beyond all expectation.
Best of all—
with even the S-Class trio having failed, many students felt a strange, delicious satisfaction that overshadowed any complaints about unfair difficulty.
"Hmmm, so frustrating. The wetland slowed my summons down, and the gale winds made my flying ones unusable…."
Yoo Ji-an seemed her usual self.
"I see…."
"Seo-ah, are you feeling unwell?"
"Wha—?! Huh?! N-no, nothing's wrong. More importantly, let's go visit Sung-chan in the infirmary."
The general consensus was that Ah Seo-ah had been oddly dazed ever since that day. Rumor had it that even when they crossed paths on campus, she no longer looked down on or condescended to others — she avoided their gazes instead.
And Park Sung-chan, most important of all—
"Uuuugh……"
was still laid up in the infirmary, dead asleep. No cause had been announced, though it was said that now and then he let out groans of anguish and terror.
And at last—
"The full roster's finally here."
"Ah, ah, hello! I'm, I'm a fan! White Dragon! Baek Seo-ha, ma'am!"
"…This is the dog you said you were bringing in? Looks awfully ordinary to me."
The three members who would form the foundation of the guild were all assembled.
This guild war—
a great many things would be different from the one before the regression.