Fate's Prank (8)
Ordinarily, musical chairs was a lively, exhilarating game.
You circled a row of empty chairs to upbeat music, spinning and laughing until the song cut out, and then young men and women would scramble for the one chair left standing, all smiles and shouts.
But the Dio Guild’s version of musical chairs looked less like a game and more like a slaughterhouse.
BOOM!
Heavy metal so loud it seemed to hammer straight into the eardrums thundered through the banquet hall.
“You motherfuckers!”
“This is mine! Don’t come near it!”
“Fuck off!”
The already rough men tangled together in a frenzy to seize the chairs, and in an instant the whole hall turned into chaos.
In principle, the moment you sat down, you were the winner.
But when had Dio Guild ever been a place where words like “fair and square” meant anything?
Even if someone managed to sit, someone else would just use force to steal the chair back.
Fists flew, boots kicked, and hands grabbed at hair.
Injured hunters kept piling up, and blood no one could even identify soaked into the carpet.
Damn it.
If it was going to be like this, they should’ve called it anything other than musical chairs.
This was just a thin excuse to make everyone fight each other.
I glanced up at the stage.
The judge had his eyes closed, bobbing his head to the beat.
Then he brought the microphone to his mouth and said, “Everyone, life is musical chairs. If you stake your claim on a chair—even if you have to put everything on the line—you protect your rice bowl. If you can’t claim it, you get weeded out. Do you want to spend your life as a pathetic unemployed loser and die that way? So tell me, where is your fate heading? Are you going to claim the chair, or lose it!”
I was sick of his fate this, destiny that garbage.
I wanted to sew that mouth shut.
Frowning, I lowered my stance.
“Boss. Stay behind me!”
Bang Su-hwan stepped in front of me to protect me.
He had better physical specs than I did, and his expected rank was higher too.
Bang Su-hwan knew how strong I was, but for now he still saw me as someone who needed protecting.
Why?
I watched his back.
His tightly clenched fist was trembling without fail.
“...Boss. Do you know the hero called Strong Man? I really loved him when I was a kid.”
I knew it well enough.
I knew most of the heroes from comic books.
“The name’s kind of old-fashioned, but he’s a cool guy with an iron body and a tough mind. He’s someone I’ve always envied.”
Bang Su-hwan half turned his head.
“Boss. I’m a power type. My toughness is absurdly good. So I’ll protect you. You don’t use your abilities, all right? Just stay still.”
He laid out his mana type.
In a situation like this, revealing your hunter-specific nature meant...
That he trusted me that much, I guess.
Bang Su-hwan saw me as someone he could believe in and rely on.
One of the bastards threw a punch at him.
Smack.
Bang Su-hwan took the hit square on the cheek, and one side of his face puffed up at once.
He glared at the man who’d struck him.
He didn’t shout his usual curses.
“Get lost.”
“Get lost? The hell are you talking about, bastard!”
“I’m predicted B-class. You really think you can take me all the way?”
“......”
After checking Bang Su-hwan’s badge, the other man hesitated.
The bastard who’d hit him was only predicted C-class.
“Fuck.”
The man muttered something under his breath and ran off toward the other side.
Bang Su-hwan exhaled in relief and spoke again.
“...Boss. To be honest, I’m scared of fighting. I still have dreams about seniors trampling me underfoot. Right now, if I’m being honest, I want to run away too.”
It was ironic.
Bang Su-hwan had been born with talent, but he was still a coward trapped in the past.
And I, a terrible dullard who had somehow obtained a cheat-like talent by sheer luck—
yet even that talent came with limits, resources bounded by Awakener's Balance.
So who, exactly, had the advantage?
The judge readjusted the microphone.
“Everyone! Five minutes are already up! Huh? No one’s actually secured a chair yet? This is so boring I’m about to yawn. All right, then let’s do this!”
He snapped his fingers, and Dio Guild operatives emerged from all directions.
They were carrying something in their hands.
Long, heavy steel pipes.
They tossed them onto the floor as if scattering them.
Metal rang out as the pipes rolled across the ground.
They weren’t ordinary steel pipes.
Judging by the smooth surface and the flesh-colored sheen, they were superalloy mixed with burn-light.
If you got hit by one of those, no hunter would walk away unscathed.
These filthy bastards.
So they were pouring oil on the fire?
The judge grinned, clearly enjoying the spectacle.
“Let’s make this exciting! Flesh cut, bone broken! Give up the meat and shatter the bones!”
The hunters who had been fighting bare-handed exchanged glances.
They weren’t guns or knives, but for beginners, any weapon was better than none.
One of them shouted and charged the pipes, and soon the others were grabbing them too.
That made the chair fight even more vicious.
Clang! Clang!
The judge burst out laughing.
“Bwahaha! Life is a comedy when you see it from far away. This looks kind of like a StarX Wars lightsaber battle, too. This is great!”
Maybe from up there it would look like a comedy, just as he said.
But inside the ring itself, it was a savage feast of the strong preying on the weak.
Steel pipes slammed into faces, smashed into ribs, and drove into stomachs.
One man’s mouth spilled broken teeth with a mouthful of blood, and another clutched at his side, his face gone pale, as if a rib had cracked and driven into his lung.
Some were already sprawled on the floor like corpses.
For only five minutes.
If I’d been lying down comfortably, it would’ve passed in the blink of an eye.
But here, time moved with cruel slowness.
The nightmare war showed no sign of ending.
Crash!
Three or four burly men got into a brawl, and two chairs rolled across the floor.
Bang Su-hwan reached out with trembling hands toward the chair that came flying his way.
“First, Boss and I can at least get our chairs—”
The moment his hand was about to touch it, another hunter lunged out and cracked Bang Su-hwan on the back of the head with a steel pipe.
Clang!
Bang Su-hwan’s skull burst open, and blood shot into the air like a fountain.
“Ghk.”
After letting out a strangled cry, Bang Su-hwan collapsed.
His massive body hit the floor with a thunderous crash, and every eye in the hall snapped toward him at once.
“What, he’s all size and no bite.”
“Hey, stomp that bastard first.”
“Yeah. If we’re gonna take him out, might as well crush the sprout before it grows.”
Under someone’s direction, several applicants rushed over and started kicking Bang Su-hwan indiscriminately.
Bang Su-hwan tried to shield his head with his arms and avoid the attacks, but there were too many for him to handle alone.
“Ugh... ngh!”
Maybe old memories had surfaced, because he looked like he was sinking into despair.
I watched him wander in a daze and drew in a slow breath before letting it out.
If I used a hero’s power, I could clear this up in no time.
However—
My gaze went up.
There were an uncomfortably large number of CCTV cameras mounted on the ceiling.
It was as if they were trying to record every single move made by every participant without missing a thing.
I had already attacked Dio Guild once before.
If I used the same skill the Purple Devil had used, they’d realize it immediately.
Even aside from that, it made no sense for an F-class like me to use Speeder’s Infinite Acceleration or Regeneration.
Moving like lightning and recovering from injuries with miraculous speed—those were skills on par with an S-class hunter.
For that reason, I couldn’t use more than one hero ability at a time.
It would be as good as advertising the fact that I had a special talent.
If I was going to operate as the Purple Devil, I had to hide my real strength completely.
Then that left me with two choices from Super Kid: Judgment of the Superhuman and Divine Aura.
One was offense.
The other was perfect defense.
My choice was simple.
I clenched my fist and charged the group beating on Bang Su-hwan.
Judgment of the Superhuman has been activated.
Pow!!!
Five men went flying at once from a single blow.
“Ugh...”
“What the hell is this guy?”
“My stomach got hit... wheeeek!!!”
The man struck in the abdomen vomited violently.
His puke splattered over the blood-soaked carpet.
Bang Su-hwan’s face was a wreck from the beating.
His eyes were swollen shut, and the skin from his neck up was completely bruised purple.
I reached out to him.
“Get up.”
“Y-yes, Boss.”
Bang Su-hwan took my hand and pushed himself to his feet.
The men I’d hit crouched as if they were about to rush me again.
One of them grabbed a steel pipe rolling on the floor.
With a slight flex of my grip, I snapped it clean in two.
Crack!
“......Huh?”
“That thing broke?”
“...Is that bastard really F-class?”
According to SRI’s reading, I was a special class whose nature didn’t fit into any of the five tiers as an awakener.
Special class was a form that drew energy by consuming mana in a specialized way.
“He’s definitely a power type.”
“Fuck. Still just F-class, though.”
“Come on, bastard!”
With that, I’d fooled them well enough.
From here on out—
I tore off the T-shirt I was wearing.
Riiip. Rip!
I wrapped the fabric around my fists and the steel pipes, binding them together.
That way, even if my grip loosened, I wouldn’t drop my weapon.
“Hey, loser.”
I called out to Bang Su-hwan, who was swaying on his feet but still stubbornly standing beside me.
Apparently he didn’t like the nickname, because his voice shrank back in his throat.
“Yes, Boss.”
I turned my back to him.
“How long are you going to keep groveling in front of those bastards? Do you want to spend your whole life getting trampled?”
“......”
I had no intention of offering some half-baked comfort.
This was a battlefield where life and death were on the line.
“Just follow behind me. If you fall behind, I’ll leave you.”
That was the smallest encouragement I could give.
From behind me, a huge voice rang out.
“Yes, Boss!”
I heard him snort hard, like he’d found his footing again.
There you go. You’re finally living up to your size.
I’d pumped up the momentum, but the situation itself hadn’t changed.
The savage fight for the chairs was still raging.
I lifted the steel pipes now connected to both hands.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes!”
From there, it turned into a brutal melee.
I swung the pipes like dual blades.
With every ferocious motion, my sweat- and blood-soaked hair flew through the air.
Metal clanged against metal, and breathing turned ragged.
I smashed indiscriminately at anyone in front of me and used my whole body to block the pipes flying in from every direction.
One of my ears split open.
A ringing filled my head, and my vision went hazy.
Enduring, and enduring again.
Swinging, and swinging again.
“Kraaaah!!!”
He gave up on defense and screamed like a man possessed.
He was pure madness.
One of the steel pipes slammed into my knee.
The hair on my body stood on end.
Unbearable pain spread through me.
I shoved all my weight into one leg and barely held on.
Bang Su-hwan looked to be reaching his limit too.
As the hunters piled on together, he was getting pummeled helplessly, reduced to just standing there and taking it.
“Ugh...”
I grabbed him by the collar just as his eyes began to roll back.
“Snap out of it!”
I slapped his cheek to force his consciousness back in place.
“Ugh... y-yes! B-boss!”
I unwound the cloth from my hands.
Then I snatched up a steel pipe and hurled it at the bastard attacking me.
The pipe slammed into him and knocked him flat on his back.
“Aagh! You cowardly bastard!”
The judge dragged the chair off the stage and carried it down to the floor.
“All right, there are thirty seconds left. I’m going to enjoy the view from down here. Wow. Up close, it’s like watching a 3D action movie.”
He sat in the chair as if nothing were wrong and watched the desperate chaos unfold.
“Twenty-five seconds, twenty-four, twenty-three!”
Nearly ten people standing in the banquet hall hurried to grab chairs one by one.
My seat?
I was looking around when a chair suddenly shoved itself into my line of sight.
“...Boss. Sit down.”
Bang Su-hwan, now a bloodied mess, smiled faintly and held out the chair.
He was giving me his own chair, somehow one he must have found.
And then he lost consciousness right there.
I caught him before he could hit the floor.
Ding.
At the perfect moment, the elevator doors opened.
A familiar face appeared.
Lee Yu-seol... and beside her, Go Ju-hun?
That bastard was supposed to be dead by my hand.
For a second, my head went blank.
No, impossible. There was no way he was alive.
I blinked twice and looked again, only to realize it was just someone who resembled him; it wasn’t Go Ju-hun.
That greasy pomaded hair and that disgusting suit made my stomach turn.
“Fuck. What are you looking at?”
The judge kept counting without missing a beat.
“Ten seconds, nine, eight!”
If I sat in a chair now, I’d pass.
But Bang Su-hwan, who’d sacrificed himself for me, would be eliminated.
I eased the unconscious Bang Su-hwan into the chair.
“Five, four, three...!”
Then I lunged at the judge, who was cheerfully counting down.
“Two! Huh?”
He saw me and shot to his feet.
I had been conserving my strength until now.
But that guy was an S-class hunter.
Even if I used Judgment of the Superhuman, his head wouldn’t explode.
Grinding my teeth, I attacked the judge with everything I had.
“You crazy bastard...! Ngh!”
The judge blocked the punch with both hands, but the impact still sent him flying far away.
And then, without hesitation, I sank down into the empty chair the judge had been sitting in.
“Claimed.”