Flower Sword Star
[Are you human?]
[With luck that transcends humanity, you have acquired an item.]
[You have acquired 5 Land Claim Rights.]
Land Claim Rights—five of them.
Going by count alone they didn't look like much, but converted into stat points, they were worth a cool 5,000 points.
"That's insane."
There was no denying it was an excellent reward. At this rate, I'd end up owning five more plots of land on top of everything else.
I never planned on picking up land this way, though….
The DMZ alone meant I'd already gotten my hands on the prime real estate. My stats were simply too shallow to be any greedier than that.
"Those draws were definitely worth it."
I had about 200 stat points left, but I cut the gacha off there. Any deeper and I'd have been sprinting down the express lane to bankruptcy and disgrace.
"Um… Eunrang-nim?"
A voice drifted over from behind me then—it was Toh, whom I'd forgotten all about in my gacha frenzy.
"Is something the matter?"
"Draws are all well and good, but how much longer do you intend to stay here?"
My face went hot, but I forced out an answer as if nothing was wrong.
"I was just about to get moving, actually."
"I'm glad to hear it, but…."
Mask or no mask, her reaction was easy to read. Her face was without a doubt saying, Really, though?
"Then let's be off."
"Yes."
Toh and I had finally entered the poison fog, and now, at long last, we began our first proper search.
Of course, I launched straight into my footwork.
Exploration Footwork—Search.
My five senses spread out wide, sketching the terrain features and monster distribution across the interior of my own land.
So unclaimed land and other people's territory are beyond me?
I indulged my greed and pushed my senses further, but they refused to reach across into North Korea. Again and again they slammed into something and bounced right back, as if striking a wall.
Let's start by dealing with the monsters in the DMZ.
The DMZ was mine now. No way was I letting monsters run wild across my own land.
"We'll head this way for now."
"Yes."
Toh accepted my orders without a single follow-up question. Between that face and that flawless bearing, I'd have believed it if someone told me she was a robot.
Might as well put her to the test right now.
She was strong. Strong in exactly the mold of the talent I was looking for. But I had no idea how she actually fought—and I meant to use this chance to find out.
"There's a monster pack over there."
Toh spoke the instant the monsters entered her field of view. I'd already sensed them, but they were still a fair distance off.
Does she have some kind of skill that extends her vision range?
Then Toh drew her sword and stepped forward, all but announcing that she would show me what she could do.
Fine by me.
She had stepped up of her own accord to demonstrate her ability. I had no reason whatsoever to refuse.
Shing!
The blade slid from the sheath at Toh's hip with a smooth, silken ring. One look was enough to tell it was a top-grade weapon.
"Dance of the Sword, Song of the Wind, Critical Buff."
All three were A-rank skills. Those alone earned her the right to call herself A-rank.
At this rate, she might just win me over.
The monster pack that had been far in the distance was suddenly right on top of us. And at last, Toh used her skill.
"Full Bloom."
At her word, petals of every color came swirling down around us. It resembled the Sword Demon's Sakura in passing, but it was unmistakably something else.
That technique is hers. It has to be—?!
Before my regression, there had been a swordswoman whose fate was bound up with mine. One of the reclusive masters who only stepped into the light after the Demons began their rampage.
Flower Sword Star—Jin Won-ae. A woman who had been both my friend and my comrade.
Won-ae… is that really you?
If Toh was Won-ae, it explained why she'd surfaced only after the Demons appeared. There was no way an awakener belonging to the Black Market could show her face in public whenever she pleased.
"Advance."
At Toh's command, the petals surged toward the monster pack—and the storm of blossoms swallowed the monsters whole.
"Shred."
With that single word, the petals became countless blades and cut the monsters down.
[The monster pack has been cleared.]
[Experience points will be settled.]
What I gained from that fight was a sliver of experience—and certainty.
Toh is Won-ae. No doubt about it.
The chained technique she'd just shown me was the very one Won-ae used to use. That was exactly why I'd never been able to find her, no matter how many stones I turned over after regressing.
I never dreamed we'd meet again like this….
But this time, I would not let her die the way she did then. Never again.
Resolve hardened in my chest, I walked over to Won-ae.
"What did you think?"
"You were practically on par with S-rank out there."
"…Really?"
It was no empty compliment. Her skill genuinely rivaled S-rank. In my past life, she had most certainly been S-rank.
She might even be a match for Team Leader Woo Sang-shik—or beyond him.
Team Leader Woo Sang-shik had died without ever reaching S-rank. Won-ae had made it there. The only difference between the two was who had lived longer.
"Why not sit for the S-rank assessment sometime?"
"You know I'm with the Black Market…."
Officially, Black Market awakeners stood in the same boat as unregistered ones. The only reason she'd received an entry permit this time was the Association President's goodwill.
"If you're going to be working with me anyway, you'll have to operate in the open sooner or later."
"That's…."
She couldn't lean on the Association President's kindness forever. Having grasped my meaning, Won-ae lowered her head.
"Then let's hurry up and move."
"…Yes."
I let the matter drop for now. But she'd understood me all the same, and once we were out of North Korea, something would come of it.
I'll wait and see.
She was Won-ae, after all. She'd manage just fine on her own.
"Full Bloom! Advance! Shred!"
Won-ae's skills tore into the oncoming horde, and I matched her step for step, whirling my daggers and carving through the monsters.
There are far more of them than I expected.
Cut one down, and another struck from the right. Cut that one down, and one came from the left.
Not being able to use my footwork really is a pain.
Won-ae or not, right now she was neither friend nor comrade—just a party member. I couldn't carelessly bare my footwork to her.
Something's off, though.
It was after cutting down several thousand of them that I noticed it. Monsters acted on instinct. A rare few possessed intelligence, but the vast majority ran on pure instinct.
Yet the monsters attacking us now had been stripped of the instinct of fear itself.
Did someone interfere with them?
Only one kind of interference made sense here: the Demons. Poison Baron, holder of the number one spot in the land-grab rankings. Odds were high it was him.
In that case….
I set my mana in motion and stepped into my footwork.
Phantom Mist footwork—Azure Storm.
The monsters' instincts, locked fast until that moment, stirred awake with my steps. And true to those instincts, they bolted.
Azure Storm really is the safer bet.
Azure Storm's fundamental principle was to scatter mana and purify with it. Unlike my other footworks, even if someone caught me in the act, I could simply claim I'd been dispersing my mana.
"That was incredible…."
"Weren't you pretty impressive yourself?"
"W-was I?"
Won-ae, so unaccustomed to praise, seemed faintly tickled by it—which was probably exactly why I kept the compliments coming.
[You have driven out the monster pack.]
[All monsters in the DMZ have been eradicated.]
[The DMZ is hereby declared a safe zone.]
[Settling experience points…]
Oh!
My long-stuck level had climbed by one. That was a good omen.
"Looks like we're done with the DMZ. Shall we head on up?"
"Yes."
We'd spent the past several days doing nothing but circling the DMZ. Now the real 'Land of Death' was about to begin. Won-ae and I took one more step into the heart of North Korea.
[You have entered the Land of Death.]
[All stats will be reduced by 10%.]
The penalty landed the moment we set foot inside. The Land of Death lived up to its name, all right.
[Immune to All Poisons resists the poison.]
[The Conqueror resists the penalty.]
[The One Who Defies the Demon rejects the penalty.]
But the power of my achievements shook off the penalty without breaking a sweat.
"Shall we get going, then?"
"Yes…."
Still laboring under the penalty, Won-ae pulled a queasy face. I fished the holy water I'd bought earlier out of my inventory and held it out to her.
"Drink. It'll clear the penalty right up."
"What? What about you, Han Jin-nim?"
Being fussed over by the very person handing it to me—what kind of situation was this? My head hurt just thinking about it.
"The penalty doesn't touch me, so I'm fine."
"I-is that so?"
My answer seemed to fluster her; she mumbled something vague and downed the holy water in one gulp. The moment it went down, her dark expression flipped entirely.
Is having a penalty lifted really that delightful?
Wondering to myself, I walked on ahead.
"Awooooo!"
A wolf's howl rolled in from somewhere far away. There was no chance in hell a plain old wolf could exist in a land this thick with monsters.
Gnolls… or maybe werewolves?
Either way, if it was a monster, I put it down. Simple as that.
Won-ae and I broke into a run toward the source of the howl.
"Awoooooo!"
Just as I'd expected, there were Gnolls—and Werewolves. And not just ordinary Werewolves, either: there was a special breed among them.
Silver Werewolves.
A staple monster that turned up time and again in B-rank gates. She and I had both hunted Silver Werewolves half to death back in the day.
"Toh takes the right. I've got the left."
"Yes!"
We moved with Toh's answer.
"Full Bloom!"
Swish! Swish! Swish!
She unleashed the same technique as before, while I trusted my daggers alone and butchered the Gnolls.
Keghk! Krah! Kek!
Infighting had already broken out in their ranks—the pack had split between those who wanted to fight us and those who wanted to run.
Then I'll just narrow down their options.
I closed in on a Silver Werewolf in a flash and swung my dagger. I didn't need to hunt for a weak point—a blade like mine would cut through regardless.
Swish!
And as if to prove me right, the Silver Werewolf's head went flying.
Legendary, all right.
As always, it lived up to every one of my expectations.
With the Silver Werewolf dead, the Gnolls ran in circles for a moment before scattering into the forest.
[You have chased off the monsters.]
[Experience points will be settled.]
No level-up this time, regrettably. Still, a Silver Werewolf paid out rewards well worth the trouble.
I got straight to butchering the carcass.
"Whoa."
I did my best to ignore the admiration drifting over from beside me.
Once the dissection was finished, I finally came to the main event: splitting open the chest and drawing out the jewel hidden inside.
This is the true prize a Silver Werewolf carries.
Information that wouldn't come to light for another six years. And right now, I was the only person in the world who knew it.
I hurried to pull up the details of the jewel I'd extracted from its heart.
"Heh…."
And then I laughed, as if something about it was thoroughly entertaining.