Victory, Escape, and Again
The awakening of Harin came too late.
Yet at this very moment, it was the perfect timing.
—Ooh...!
From the King Turtle's perspective, they were nothing more than a fly.
However, every time they unleashed their power, something happened.
Previously, I would have ignored it, but now I simply could not.
That was why I remained vigilant.
That was why the opening appeared.
A moment of perfect stillness.
—Fzzzt!
—Oooooh...!
A tingle of lightning shot from their nostrils.
At the same time, a feeling filled my entire body, like something was rising inside.
It was familiar.
It had to have been that attack from earlier.
The King Turtle, no longer willing to endure, expelled all the air and the oxygen and hydrogen it had been holding inside through its nostrils.
—Huuuung!
“Ugh… this thing…!”
“Teaching patterns is a little too much, don’t you think?!”
I swung flames, but they only burned empty air.
The fire never even reached the King Turtle itself.
The only counterattack.
Nature’s strategy.
With that now shattered, even to force a follow-up hit by drawing attention was impossible.
—Kuuuung…!!!
“Kr, aaahhhaaaak!!!”
“Kyaahhaaaak…?!!”
An assault barreled straight at Nature.
The seawater beneath the ground surged, rising with the swelling water until the colossal body began to move.
—Kuzjzjzjzjzjzjzzt!!
“Th-this… insiiiide…”
The King Turtle’s foot finally crushed Harin’s body.
Deflecting the blow was impossible, so I had no choice but to drop my sword and retreat.
“Coach!”
“Just a little… just a minute! Even thirty seconds would be fine!”
“Fuck, thirty seconds? Now I can’t even last ten!”
I couldn’t stop it.
I couldn’t block it.
Unlike before, when the sea water kept me afloat, now the water had risen to my knees.
Nature’s movements slowed, while the King Turtle’s suddenly loosened.
A reversal after another reversal.
Once more, ruthless violence approached Nature.
“—I can endure it.”
“What…?”
“Unnie Harin?”
Harin declared.
“Leave it to me.”
I can endure. I can hold on for a minute.
At the tips of my fingers extended toward the sky, faint currents kept crackling.
“..........”
It was hopeless.
Even with Harin’s common sense, that thing was impossible to block.
Even if I had managed to hold it until now with luck, I could no longer do so.
I had to stop stalling and back away, but Harin’s determined expression left me speechless.
‘What are you aiming for.’
I didn’t know.
I felt no gathering of power.
Not even the mana flickering around Coach like a halo.
Just the fingertips wrapped in electricity, firing bolt after bolt.
“Sujin-ah. Remember what Coach showed me before?”
“Yeah?”
“Pure water doesn’t conduct electricity, right?”
“..........”
But.
Maybe.
Maybe if it was Harin.
If it was always the one who showed something, presented something, maybe this time too she would show me something.
Sujin quietly protected Nature and Sunu with pure water in response to Harin’s words.
Harin, saying it was impossible, only watched quietly from behind.
“Harin-ah.”
“…Coach?”
And behind them.
I didn’t release the power I had been gathering, just whispered toward Harin.
“Finish it.”
“!,… Yeah!”
Their faith. My faith.
To repay that faith.
“Huuuung…!”
Harin directed the current she had gathered at her fingertips toward the King Turtle.
‘Even with my strength it’s impossible.’
No matter how high the rank, intermediate power wouldn’t do.
But she had already experienced it once.
‘So I’ll borrow power from somewhere else.’
Drawing external power, not my own.
‘It’s okay. It’s just a slightly bigger battery.’
A massive black cloud of lightning gathered in the sky.
Lightning and thunder above it.
“Go, raaaaaaaaahhh!!!”
It struck straight down before my eyes, toward the enormous turtle.
**********
—KWAJZZJZJZJZJZJZJT!!!!
A sound like the sky and space were tearing apart.
At the same time, a yellow lightning bolt descended from above and slammed into the King Turtle’s body.
—KWAAAAAAAANG!!!
—Ooooooooh!?
Once.
—Kuuung, kwaaajzzzt!
—Kkwooooooooh!!!
Again.
And finally
—KWAKWAKWAKWAKWAKWAK!!
————?!?!
A clear yellow judgment that even swallowed the sound, striking down.
Black lightning smoke rose between the shell plates. Thick blood poured down. Heat. A strangely browned smell.
“…Coach. You went all out for us, huh?”
“I’m the one who’s weird.”
Even after breaking free of the intermediate-rank frame, Harin’s attack left me shaking my head.
“That won’t work for me either.”
Mana control pushed to the limit.
Trained from the time I was a low-rank spirit—when the spirit barely listened—to fight my way out, and it produced this result.
A strike that transcended even a normal spirit contractor.
Everyone had their mouths shut in awe at the overwhelming scene that left even me stunned.
[There… Master? It seems everything’s finished…]
“Ah.”
There was still a follow-up.
In a sense, this was the proper one-hit kill.
I regained my senses and drove the final blow toward the King Turtle.
“Huuuuuung…!”
The mana I had gathered at the tip of my staff was released.
Wind and water and lightning combined.
And
—KWADDDDED!
—O… ooohhh…
“….Whoa.”
The attack buried in the King Turtle’s body like a drill had already softened to the point of being chewed up and worn down, piercing through the shell and tearing into the living flesh.
The sound of bones and organs grinding. The sound of a living creature becoming raw meat.
“…This. I’ve seen something like this before.”
It was a video with a hamster and a blender…
Sujin didn’t say another word.
Something. It felt like she was looking at something beyond that.
“…After that.”
“Uwaa…”
Finally, after my attack split the King Turtle’s insides like a meat patty.
The electrolysis of water. Oxygen and hydrogen. And the tiniest spark added.
—DUKUWUUUUUNG!!!
“””........”””
Even though it was already destroyed, the shell that had somehow maintained its shape acted like a pressure cooker.
The explosion inside caused the King Turtle’s body to swell enormously, and it barely avoided bursting, spewing thick blood and heat from its mouth, nostrils, and vent.
A terrible smell. Yet strangely appetizing.
Nature and I watched in silence and murmured.
“It feels like we did something we really shouldn’t have.”
“It smells delicious…”
“…Then again, some monsters were edible, right?”
“Do you want to eat that?”
A scene that made me shiver for a completely different reason.
Just a moment ago it had been the atmosphere of the hero party that toppled the Demon King.
Now it felt like seeing a couple who had given birth because the Demon King was a female and died.
Either way, I had defeated all the S-rank monsters…
“…Is it dead?”
“Reito-nim?!!”
“No. Who knows. Maybe it’s just pretending to be dead.”
A single spoonful of the resurrection spell.
The King Turtle simply lay there without reviving or opening phase two.
If the corpse suddenly revived and moved, that would be troublesome in its own way.
And
“Someone called about the monster report… eh?”
“…Is that all a monster?”
“There’s one or two, not just any.”
The police arrived late.
They held a special anti-monster pistol, but it meant nothing.
“…You reported it, and now you come after everything’s over?”
“It’s the promised script. Now the police have done their part and a hero appears, huh?”
“I don’t think so. The president is here, and it looks like everything was filmed from start to finish…”
Meaningless in every sense.
I quietly led the girls out of the beach toward the parking lot without a word.
“…It was an S-rank, right.”
“Yeah? Ah. Maybe.”
While ascending.
One of Harin’s murmurs.
“Hoo… hoooh… I thought I’d stay B-rank my whole life…”
“…Good job, Harin.”
“Yeah. I’m amazing, right?”
“Amazing. I almost wet myself.”
“Urinary incontinence at your age? I’ll buy you diapers?”
The conversation on the way up.
A relaxed atmosphere.
“Harin-unnie… do you think we’ll have to pay compensation or something?”
“Maybe. Normally police or the military should handle it, and the report was late…”
“I’ll pay the compensation if the government doesn’t. No need to worry, Sujin. Harin.”
“Hwa… boss is the best!”
Despair receded.
Hope rose.
The reality of having defeated the catastrophe, the joy of having saved our lives, were slowly approaching.
—DANG DANG!
—Kyaahhaaaak?!!
“Unnie! Kkuk… the bullet didn’t even hit?!”
“Eh?”
“That sound—”
Voices came from the direction of the beach.
The sound of a trigger pull. Screams and cries. Panicked voices.
Everyone turned their heads in response.
—Fzzzt!
“””——End…?!!”””
It shocked the four of us—Nature, Hyewon, and me—into unconsciousness with electricity.
Just enough to knock us out.
Given how exhausted we already were, the three of us collapsed without resisting…?
“H-hoo…! Hooooh…?!?”
“Ah, crap.”
It turned out the problem was that I had adjusted the output to knock out all of them at once.
I reached out to Harin again.
“Eh… why…?”
“If not like this…”
You guys.
It was obvious I was about to pass out.
I covered my eyes with my body, blocking the gaze that tried to look beyond my back.
Even the mana waves that echoed there. The pressure and killing intent.
And the presence that didn’t even belong to the D-rank to C-rank range.
“…Coach… Coach…”
“Rest.”
“No… right? Coach… Coach, again like this──!!!”
Fzzzt!
A short burst of current.
This time, for real. Harin finally passed out.
“….Yes.”
Across the beach.
I grabbed one of the cars in the parking lot, unlocked it, and stuffed the girls inside.
Then
—BOOOWWWOWWWOONG!
“Electronics are so convenient when this happens.”
We fled.
…Why? Did you think I’d declare that I’d fight for Nature while you stayed?
As I’ve said before, there are priorities.
Human lives are precious. I don’t want to see the Korean flag burned for the sake of Nature. But that doesn’t mean Nature sacrificing itself is acceptable.
If that’s the case, I could ask why I knocked you out, but given their personalities, the police were probably going to die and they’d go berserk instead, so I let it slide.
‘What can I do.’
The one who has to go will go.
The tail can’t be bigger than the belly.
Besides, the government seemed to have abandoned us, and there was no reason to fight in a deserted field.
Of course, I couldn’t sincerely mourn the police, but if they had filed the report, they should have come sooner. Why show up after everything was over and say something meaningless…
[Master. Are you okay?]
“….Haaah.”
A long tongue is proof that there’s something stabbing me.
And for a spirit contractor, that was no different from a sin.
Still.
“What can I do.”
There’s something even more precious.
Something precious was born.
It became something to cherish.
So, sorry, but here—
—TRIRIRI!
“….Eh?”
A sudden call.
But it wasn’t my phone.
“This is…”
Hyewon’s phone.
On the smartphone screen, the name was displayed as.
[Unlucky bastard]
“.............”
Yoo Hanseong.
The eldest son of Yuseong Group calling.
The content was simple.
[Take responsibility for your actions.]
“….Damn.”
When I had evacuated the people.
It seemed the ‘Yuseong Group’ that Yoo Hyewon had mentioned was the spark.