A Premium Supporting Character (1)
After shaking off the nurses' pleas to stay just one more day, I checked myself out of the hospital. My first order of business was getting my hands on a spear to tide me over.
It held out longer than I expected. Honestly, I'd figured it could snap at any moment. All the stress it had absorbed until now seemed to have burst out the instant I unleashed Honwon-geuk, breaking the shaft clean in half. And of course, holy-attribute weapons couldn't even be repaired in this country.
"Looks like I'll have to set aside some time later and get myself a proper piece of gear."
Handing out top-shelf equipment to every guild member while I made do with a bargain-bin spear — seriously, what other guild leader in the world does that? Executives of every corporation out there, feel free to take notes.
"Hmm... this is about on par with what I was using before."
The C-rank spear I'd picked up for a reasonable price. Strip away the holy power option of the Blessed Radiant Light Spear and it was nearly identical — same weight, same reach. It would do just fine for finals prep.
"Now then... let's see."
Shutting my eyes tight, I drew out my Karma Flame.
Fssshhhhh...!
Fire sheathed itself over the spear, and the weapon took the form of a crescent moon blade. What remained was a blade burning crimson from tip to haft, its edge rippling like heat haze and lending the whole thing an air of something otherworldly.
Flame Soul Moon Blade.
"From today on, this is the state I train in."
My fight against Myeolcheon had taught me something: those bastards and I started from entirely different starting lines. That blood greatsword in particular had been so absurdly powerful that, without the Flame Soul, I couldn't have so much as parried it.
Most of the bastards I'll be facing from here on out are stronger than Myeolcheon. If I ever hoped to lay a finger on them, I had to be able to hold the Flame Soul Moon Blade at all times.
FWOOSH!
I swung the spear, and a faint fiery afterimage trailed along its arc. Putting strength into my grip, I chained the Nameless Spear Art's forms together without a single pause.
"Next time, I win. For certain."
I swallowed down the hardened resolve.
[ 'Flame Soul' is resonating with its user. ]
[ 'Flame Soul' is preparing for its birth... ]
When Fujiwara Manabu joined the Cheongryong Sword Sect, the public reaction was mostly favorable. A foreigner signing on with a sword sect was nothing unusual — but for the Sword Demon, an actual Irregular no less, to join one? That was, in common parlance, a shot of pure national pride.
These were times when hunters were precious — and capable hunters all the more so. A marquee name like the Sword Demon operating on Korean soil was, plain and simple, wonderful news.
Right around the same time, the White Dragon had withdrawn from the sect and headed for Shinseong. Word even spread that they'd recruited the Sword Demon as a replacement to represent the sect in her stead.
The mountains of gossip swirling around Baek Seo-ha and the sect only grew more cutthroat as the guild war raged on. The White Dragon's sect versus the Sword Demon's sect. And when the sect finally broke its long silence and took the field with the Sword Demon at its vanguard, some people couldn't help but swoon at his skill.
A sword art so refined it pulled the soul right out of your body, low potential be damned. And his battoujutsu — a draw-cut no non-awakened eye could hope to track — was more than enough to set men's hearts ablaze.
On top of that, unlike Baek Seo-ha, who'd always holed up inside the sect's grounds, he made frequent public appearances.
And so, little by little, the world began to love the Sword Demon's sect more than the White Dragon's.
"Didn't think you'd be the one coming to find me."
I was deep into my moon blade drills when, of all people, an unexpected figure requested a meeting.
"If you've got something to say, say it fast. Can't you see I'm training?"
"..."
When I rapped the spear butt against the ground, the man adjusted his glasses and scowled.
"...You've made more of a name for yourself than I expected."
Fujiwara Manabu. The Sword Demon folded his arms and lifted his chin.
"I truly didn't think you'd climb all the way to the finals. I figured you'd fail to even reach the main bracket and quietly disappear."
"Funny — same here."
I raised the spear and brought it right up to his nose, the exact pose I'd used to provoke him the first time we met.
"And yet you managed to crawl all the way here with skills like those?"
"You have... a genuine talent for getting under people's skin..."
"In that one arena, I might just be the world champion."
Tendons rose along the man's forearms. I kept a careful eye on him, fully prepared to snap his arm if he came at me as recklessly as he had back then.
"Hoo... never mind." To my surprise, he reined his temper in. "I didn't come here to trade barbs with you."
"Then what did you come for?"
"Lee Tae-hyun." He laid his sinister cards on the table. "Even now — any interest in backing me?"
"What?"
"Exactly what I said. Cast Baek Seo-ha aside and come to me."
Well, there's an offer I never saw coming.
Before I could even begin to process it, Manabu pressed on.
"I've watched every one of your matches, and at the heart of it all, every single time, there you were. A talent like yours is wasted under some ignorant worm of a woman."
"..."
"Stop propping up that hopeless woman as sect leader and come to me instead."
His tone and bearing were as overbearing as ever, but the recruitment pitch itself seemed made in earnest.
"And what exactly do I get out of serving under you?"
"I'll grant you the seat of Instructor."
Instructor of the Cheongryong Sword Sect. The post currently held by Seong Gyu-ho — and, for all practical purposes, the seat of Vice Sect Leader.
Which meant... open access to the sect's administrative work and its detailed records, whenever I pleased. And if the eldest grandson of Cheonseong became the sect's Instructor...
...it would amount to entrusting the sect's affairs to Cheonseong.
The sword sect that not even the other corporate giants had managed to lay hands on — and Cheonseong alone would get a ladle in the pot. The gains from that would be nothing short of astronomical.
"Well? I'd call that more than a fair deal."
"Have you cleared this with Seong Yong-ho?"
"I haven't breathed a word to him. It doesn't matter." Manabu let out a foul little snicker. "I can always find a way to bring the current sect leader around."
"...Is that so."
"It is. So withdraw your support from that woman, take your place beneath me — and as for winning this guild war..."
I hadn't even given him an answer yet, and there he was, presuming I'd swallow everything whole and grandly unspooling the rest of his script.
Hm.
He clearly had no intention of listening to a single word, so I resolved to communicate through the most eloquent medium available to me.
Slowly.
I clenched my fist — and with great valor, unfurled a single, proudly extended middle finger.
Manabu, who'd been monologuing to himself, looked at my hand and stopped dead.
"What... is that supposed to be?"
"Exactly what it looks like. Oh — want me to spell it out?"
Apparently my friend here had difficulty comprehending nonverbal communication. Then it was only kind of me to explain.
"It means eat shit, you lunatic."
"Y-you... you goddamn bastard!"
Thick veins stood out on his forehead.
"Why would I toss Baek Seo-ha aside and go groveling to scum like you? And if I'd actually coveted the sect itself, I'd have come at it a very different way."
What I wanted was not to swallow the sect whole. The sect was at its best precisely when it stayed the sect.
"And let me say this one more time."
The biggest reason of all.
"You still don't have the right to be sect leader. You have even less right to cast Baek Seo-ha down."
Manabu was the last man alive who should ever hold that seat.
"Grrrrgh...!" He gnashed his teeth and sent a razor-edged killing intent flying at me.
Of course, it wasn't the slightest bit threatening. I shrugged and slung the spear across my shoulder.
"If we're done talking, get lost."
"...You will regret today's decision."
At the back of the man walking away without a shred of hesitation, I served up one more helping of nonverbal communication.
Manabu pulled out his phone and thumbed through his contacts. After a few rings, the call connected.
"Hello?" Fluent Japanese drifted from the speaker.
"It's me. Fujiwara." Manabu's voice went taut with fury. "I'm raising the elixir concentration from 50% to 60%."
"Huh? Out of nowhere? Wasn't 50% enough?"
"No... it wasn't."
The memory of that day flashed across Manabu's mind: Lee Tae-hyun slipping past a sword swung with genuine killing intent — and then, somehow, already behind him, spear leveled at his back.
Krrk! His grip clenched down hard without him willing it.
"I've found a man I intend to break with my own two hands. Spare me the lectures and send elixir boosted to 60%."
"Leaping a whole 10% in one go is dangerous, you know? I'd suggest 55 instead..."
"Send 60%. I won't say it twice."
"Yeesh, fine, fine. Someone's furious clear down to the tips of his hair, hmm?"
The voice on the line giggled.
"In exchange — you can guarantee delivery, yes? The Cheongryong Sword Sect."
"Of course."
"Then we're settled. I'll have it to you within three days. And I'll say it once more — you mustn't overuse it, understand?"
Manabu saw no need to answer. He simply hung up.
"Almost there now."
One more match stood between him and everything else. Once it was over, the Cheongryong Sword Sect would fall into these hands. And with it, even the Bronze Bell — an item counted among Korea's national treasures.
I'll take everything I can hold and carry it all back to Japan.
Do that, and the promised wealth and power would be his. Above all, with the healing power dwelling in the Bronze Bell, he could overcome even the elixir's fatal side effects.
And if that much came true...
He would grasp a power surpassing any hunter alive. Yes — beyond even Japan's hunter rankings. The World Ranking. He could tear down the wall to that distant world.
"An E-rank, dreaming of Ranker."
"Does he think hunters come cheap?"
"Know your place and quit your wailing, defective piece of junk..."
"How did something like that ever come from our bloodline?!"
The people of his clan, spitting venom and contempt in his face. Not one of them had ever acknowledged him — not even in the final moments of their lives. Not even as their hearts were carved out and their bodies went cold, hardening by degrees through the long hours of dying.
"Y-you... how...?"
They had stared at him with eyes that could not comprehend.
Those damned, incomprehending eyes. That black, dog-like memory that still cinched around his ankles and dragged.
"Watch closely, from hell."
Manabu forced out a harsh, compulsive breath.
"The trash of the clan who trampled me and scorned me like gum on the pavement... you will watch me become the World Ranker you always dreamed of being."
A long, sprawling revenge play that had yet to even begin. The coming guild war finals would raise its curtain.
Come. Whoever stood across from him. He would chew them to pieces — thoroughly, mercilessly, down to the bone.