chapter 2
Chapter 2
Lee Jeon-seok came out of the room.
He was about to grab Han Yuri and stop her, but suddenly his steps halted.
He could not think of what he should say.
If you go out today, you will die?
Would they even believe such words?
They would surely dismiss it as nonsense.
“Then…”
He would have to find another method.
Just then.
“What is it, son?”
Han Yuri turned back and asked.
Lee Jeon-seok stayed silent, but only for a moment.
Soon he shook his head and answered.
“It’s nothing.”
Then he turned his body and headed toward the entrance.
“I have an appointment. I think I need to go out for a bit.”
“An appointment all of a sudden?”
“A friend called me.”
It was a lie.
But it was a necessary lie.
“I’ll probably be back soon.”
As Lee Jeon-seok said that and opened the front door, he immediately ran into his younger sister who had just returned home.
Her face was extremely sour, irritation clearly visible between her brows.
She had gone out earlier saying she had a blind date.
Judging by her expression, it must not have gone well.
“What?”
Perhaps because he was staring too intently.
Lee Ji-hye spoke with an irritated tone.
“Why are you staring at people like that?”
“What?”
“Your eyes… ugh, never mind.”
Lee Ji-hye seemed about to say something but gave up and let out a sigh.
“Whatever. Just move.”
Her voice was filled with exhaustion.
There was not a trace of manners in her behavior.
Ironically, Lee Jeon-seok felt deep longing when he looked at his younger sister.
Just look at that rude attitude.
How long had it been since he had seen it?
After their parents died, Lee Ji-hye had never smiled even once.
Not only that. She never even got angry.
She lived with depression clutched tightly in her arms.
Drowned in medicine and alcohol, she lost her smile.
In the end, she drove herself to death.
Jumping from the rooftop of the fifty-second floor.
That was the last memory Lee Jeon-seok had of Lee Ji-hye.
Even after falling into hell, how much he had longed for that younger sister.
“Alright.”
Lee Jeon-seok stepped aside with a faint, nostalgic smile filled with longing.
And then.
“…?”
Lee Ji-hye made a stunned expression.
For some reason.
“…What the hell.”
Her face showed clear shock.
“Mom! I think Oppa is really sick!”
She hurried into the living room shouting.
Bang!
The front door closed loudly.
Voices could be heard from inside.
Was it really that shocking that her brother smiled?
In the past, he would have found it ridiculous.
He would have snapped back asking if she was crazy even when he was being nice.
But now, he felt like he could love even this foul-tempered sister.
Ding.
Lee Jeon-seok stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.
“I must protect them.”
Scenes that were both nostalgic and precious.
He could not lose them again.
And to do that, he had to stop his parents from dying.
Step.
With firm determination, Lee Jeon-seok began walking somewhere.
City bus, back seat.
Lee Jeon-seok sat there, lost in thought.
“The name was Yeomyeonghoe.”
The villain organization that took his parents’ lives.
Even after an immeasurable amount of time, he still remembered.
Their appearances.
Their location.
And the powers they possessed as awakened ones.
Everything came back clearly.
He could never forget.
Because their terror attack took his parents from him.
And more importantly, it was the moment he awakened the Heavenly Killing Star.
“They planted mana bombs in the department store.”
He retraced his memories one by one.
The department store his parents would visit.
The Yeomyeonghoe planted dozens of mana bombs there.
The resulting casualties reached over seven hundred and twenty.
A disaster comparable to the Sampoong Department Store tragedy occurred.
Countless people lost family members, friends, and lovers.
Among them were Lee Jeon-seok’s parents.
At that time, how much had he cried and raged?
“Oppa… what are we going to do now…?”
Even after thousands of years, he could not forget the face of his younger sister trembling as she grabbed the sleeve of his clothes.
Just remembering it made anger surge within him again.
“Hoo…”
Lee Jeon-seok took a deep breath and suppressed his emotions.
He simply organized the chaotic plans in his mind while waiting for the bus to arrive at the department store.
Then suddenly, his gaze met the silhouette reflected in the bus window.
His own faint reflection.
He remembered what his sister had said earlier.
“Why are you staring at people like that?”
“My eyes…”
Were they really that strange?
Lee Jeon-seok smiled again.
“They don’t seem strange to me.”
Maybe it was because the window was blurry.
He could not understand his sister’s words at all.
While he was thinking like that, the bus stopped.
Lee Jeon-seok stood up belatedly.
Immediately after.
A large building entered his sight.
The department store targeted by Yeomyeonghoe.
This was the place where all the hell he remembered had begun.
“There are quite a lot.”
Lee Jeon-seok looked around.
From the entrance to the inner hall, there were countless people walking around.
Soon it would become a scene stained with blood.
The bombs?
“Six in the main hall alone.”
Lee Jeon-seok quickly identified their locations and numbers.
Other people could not see them.
Even the security guards seemed unaware.
Naturally so.
Mana bombs were small and difficult to notice.
On top of that, they distorted perception through a special wave.
Unless someone already knew a bomb existed, it was impossible to detect.
“Disarming them isn’t possible for now.”
Lee Jeon-seok glanced at the bomb attached to a pillar.
It was the size of a pinky finger.
Without careful observation, it would be impossible to notice.
But its power was no joke.
Roughly ten times stronger than a fragmentation grenade.
And countless ones were scattered throughout the building.
If even one of them malfunctioned, the Yeomyeonghoe would notice.
“And then they’ll detonate them immediately.”
Disarming them all at once?
That was also risky.
If the timing was even slightly off, all the bombs were designed to explode simultaneously.
The known solution to mana bombs was simple.
The death of the controller.
Kill the person who planted the bombs.
Despite their destructive power, mana bombs had a clear weakness.
The controller had to remain nearby to trigger them.
If they moved beyond a certain range?
The bombs would stop functioning.
The controller personally supplied mana to detonate them.
That was the basic structure of mana bombs.
“Was it the underground parking lot?”
Recalling his memories, Lee Jeon-seok stepped into the elevator.
Ding.
He pressed the B2 button and descended.
Soon he arrived at the dim underground parking lot.
At first glance, nothing seemed unusual here either.
But.
Lee Jeon-seok took something out from his pocket.
It was a small yellow utility knife.
A knife he had bought from a mart before boarding the bus.
Holding it, he walked deeper into the parking lot.
The knife spun smoothly between his fingers.
He looked extremely familiar with handling blades.
Even after spending countless years in hell, the skills he had in his previous life were engraved deep within his soul.
“Here it is.”
His steps finally stopped in front of a wall.
He placed his left hand on it.
A wave of mana spread outward.
“My level reset, so my mana is low…”
But it was still enough.
A magical formula made of mana.
Symbols began to appear across the wall.
Blue letters, dots, and lines forming a massive magic circle.
Lee Jeon-seok moved his hand once.
The shape of the circle began to distort.
Like a lock being undone.
Soon.
Crash.
The circle shattered like glass.
A huge space appeared behind the wall.
An artificially carved cavity.
The wall had been hollowed out like a cave without any concern for the building’s balance.
“…What?”
A voice came from inside the cavity.
Soon a silhouette appeared.
It was a man with a rough and unpleasant face.
He sat on the floor wearing a gray cloak.
He was likely controlling all the bombs in the building from here.
“Who are you? How did you find this place…”
The man frowned in confusion.
But before he could finish.
“You’re wrong.”
Lee Jeon-seok grabbed the end of the knife handle.
A grip that maximized reach.
And then.
“You shouldn’t ask who I am. You should have killed me the moment you saw me.”
In that instant he kicked off the ground and rushed forward.
A surprise attack.
It was not extremely fast.
After all, he was only level one.
Just slightly above the level of an ordinary person.
Fast enough to see with the eyes.
But the man’s carelessness became the cause.
Perhaps he never expected an immediate attack.
Slash.
The knife sliced across the man’s right eye.
“Aaargh!”
Blood sprayed through the air along with a scream.
“You bastard!”
The man staggered and stood up.
Lee Jeon-seok wiped the blood on the knife with his thumb and stared at it closely.
“I don’t hear it.”
He could not hear it.
In the past, the moment he saw blood, a voice would have screamed in his head.
Kill.
Kill.
Rip apart the bones and muscles and drink the blood.
But he felt nothing from the Heavenly Killing Star’s instinct.
“I don’t know how you found this place, but I won’t let you die peacefully!”
The man shouted.
At the same time, flames ignited in both of his arms.
It seemed to be the man’s trait.
But before the flames fully formed.
“…?!”
The knife was already aiming for the man’s neck.
It happened in a single moment.
Before he could even perceive it.
The knife lunged like a beast opening its jaws.
“…Ghk!”
The man was startled but quickly spread the flames across his body.
A wall of fire rejecting all approach.
Lee Jeon-seok had no choice but to withdraw his arm.
“…What a shame.”
He muttered quietly.
But his words, face, and eyes did not match.
He did not look disappointed at all.
Rather, he seemed amused.
The sight of him smiling sent chills down the spine.
A drop of blood fell from the slightly scorched knife.
“…Crazy.”
The man touched his neck.
A tiny cut had appeared.
Barely noticeable.
But Lee Jeon-seok’s attack had reached him.
If he had reacted even a little slower.
His neck would have been pierced.
Cold fear crept along the back of his neck.
The man stared at Lee Jeon-seok.
His speed was not extraordinary.
His strength was not remarkable.
Yet he had completely lost sight of his movements for a moment.
An astonishing level of technique.
“Did the Association send you as an assassin?”
The man asked cautiously.
His attitude had clearly changed.
His body was filled with tension.
“Who knows?”
Lee Jeon-seok replied meaningfully while wiping the blood from his knife.
The man unconsciously stepped back.
Cold sweat was running down his arms.
He had goosebumps.
Those eyes.
Dry pupils.
The smile curling at the corners of his lips.
They were twisted.
Like a corpse that had risen and started laughing.
Lee Jeon-seok touched his lips.
Perhaps because of the man’s reaction.
He remembered what his sister had said.
“Why are you staring at people like that?”
“Are they really that strange?”
He did not know.
But it did not matter.
The gazes of others.
He was already used to them.
He had experienced them countless times in his previous life.
No matter what people said or how they looked at him, it no longer mattered.
Just then.
Boom.
The man fired a ball of flame like a cannon.
Lee Jeon-seok had looked away for a moment.
The fireball shot toward him at great speed.
Lee Jeon-seok easily dodged it.
His steps were like the wind.
The man gritted his teeth.
“Where did a monster like this come from…!”
He ignited flames across his body again.
But.
“Sorry, but I’ve had enough of fire.”
Lee Jeon-seok was already standing right in front of him.
The knife cut through the flames.
His right arm was burned black.
A horrific burning pain struck him like lightning.
But Lee Jeon-seok ignored it and pushed through the heat, slashing the man’s throat.
Earlier the man had avoided it by reflex.
This time Lee Jeon-seok intended to finish it completely.
“Ghk!”
Blood burst out along with a short scream.
The raging flames disappeared.
Thud.
The man collapsed while clutching his neck.
He trembled briefly while coughing blood.
“M-monster…”
Those were his last words before he stopped breathing.
Then a system message appeared.
“You have stolen a life.”
“You obtain one random trait.”
“You have acquired Ignition B.”
Through the effect of the Heavenly Killing Star, he stole the man’s trait.
Fire.
The very thing he despised.
Yet the first trait he gained after returning to the past was related to fire.
What an ironic situation.
“I’ll check the effect later.”
Lee Jeon-seok pushed the system window aside with a hand gesture, like swiping a smartphone screen.
At that moment.
A sharp pain throbbed in his right hand.
It felt as if it was burning.
Lee Jeon-seok looked down.
Burn marks remained where the flames had disappeared.
It seemed to be the influence of Ignition.
Pain stabbed into his brain.
But it was bearable.
He had endured the flames of hell.
There was no way he could not endure this.
Taking a short breath to calm the pain, Lee Jeon-seok turned to leave.
His objective was finished.
Or rather.
He was just about to leave.
“You have killed an evil person.”
“Virtue has increased.”
“…?”
A strange window suddenly appeared.