Chapter 111. The Disciple of an Acquaintance.
Chapter 111. The Disciple of an Acquaintance.
At Incheon Port, everyone was drenched in sweat as they hauled cargo.
"Let's take a break. Everyone, come over here."
We handed out cigarettes to the smokers, and to the non-smokers, something to chew on while we rested.
"You all like ramyeon, right? For lunch today, we'll each get a bowl with an egg cracked in and plenty of chopped scallions."
The thought of a steaming bowl of spicy ramyeon after a hard day's work had everyone buzzing with motivation. They threw themselves back into the task with renewed energy, and before we knew it, lunchtime had arrived.
While I was cooking the ramyeon myself, I sensed a strange flow of mana. A compulsion to be summoned to a specific set of coordinates began pulling at me. I didn't resist the mana reaching out and gave myself over to it.
'Is this that artifact Terion made for me before?'
The teleportation completed, and the sight before my eyes was a man holding Chaeyeon and Jia at his sides, their clothes torn to shreds.
* * * * * * * *
(Told from Lee Chaeyeon's point of view.)
It had been barely a day since Sihu left for Incheon Port. Normally, we were together nearly all day, every day. I wondered if I was strange for feeling this lonely just from him being gone a little while, but then I looked at Jia and realized I wasn't the only one.
But I must have failed to keep my expression in check, because Jia looked at me and gave a sly grin.
"Eonni, your face looks like you're about to die of loneliness without Oppa."
"I'm not the only one; you're the exact same way...!"
"Hehe, he'll be back if we just wait a little bit."
I knew that. It wasn't like he'd be gone for days. He'd be back tonight, or at the latest, definitely by tomorrow morning. My head understood it perfectly, but my body just kept aching for Sihu.
"Hah... Jia, do you want to go for a walk?"
"Yes!"
Jia and I wandered around the village without a particular destination. It was a landscape completely different from the hellish chaos raging outside. People were farming, crafting useful goods, and hope was vividly blossoming on their faces.
"I never dreamed the world would turn out like this..."
"Me neither... But still, we're lucky we met Oppa, right?"
"That's true..."
"Anyway, Eonni, couldn't you tell me some stories about you and Oppa from when you were kids?"
I hesitated for a moment, then began to talk. I told her about our past—about Sihu getting accepted into a major company's open recruitment, and how I'd planned to take him out for a meal to celebrate when he suddenly went silent and the zombie crisis erupted.
"Oh my god...!"
"Actually, I was planning to confess to him that day over dinner and a drink."
"No matter how it happened, you still ended up finding each other and dating like this, didn't you?"
"Well, the thing is..."
Before he came to find me, Sihu had met Jia first and brought her with him. Seeing that, just how anxious I had been...
"Huh?"
"Back then, the look on your face when you gazed at Sihu was totally love-struck... At the time, I was thinking, 'Which shameless little thief dares to...!'"
"Heet, Eonni, you try not to show it, but you were incredibly jealous back then, huh."
"A thief...?"
"I was a little jealous too, you know, when Oppa said he was going to find someone precious to him."
I strode on, a dry chuckle escaping my lips, not bothering to retort. But then Jia suddenly put on a serious expression and spoke.
"I'm certain Oppa's wives will increase in number...!"
"No way..."
"Maybe not Oppa himself, but it's my gut feeling! Just imagine if the people from Titan cross over!!"
She had a point. When we lived with the elves... Adela, was it?
"Eonni, as the First Wife, you absolutely have to lay down the law!"
"Uh, right..."
We were amusing ourselves with that silly nonsense about Sihu when a message came in asking everyone to gather at the hall for a moment.
"What's going on?"
"Well, isn't it probably about distributing the goods coming from Incheon Port?"
We went straight to the hall and talked, and just as Jia had guessed, it was about sorting and dividing the supplies being brought from Incheon Port. As everyone was wrapping up the discussion and preparing to leave, a voice we'd never heard before rang out.
"Now, now, everyone, quiet down for a moment."
Setting aside how strange his voice sounded, I hadn't even sensed him enter at all. The moment I reached that conclusion, I pulled out my staff, and everyone else must have had the same thought, because they all drew their weapons too.
The President was talking to the man when he suddenly began exuding a crushing killing intent. In the past, I'd have fainted without being able to do anything, but while it was overwhelming, it wasn't enough to make me pass out now.
Min-cheol and Seok-hyeon charged at the man radiating the killing intent, swords drawn, but he casually smacked their blades away with his bare fists as if it were nothing.
Seeing them sent flying by his punches, I locked eyes with Jia, and we launched a simultaneous attack, but we couldn't inflict a single scratch on him.
The President, probably thinking Terion would arrive soon if he stalled, kept the man engaged in conversation to buy time. But when the word 'Titan' slipped from the man's mouth during their talk, our group's expressions crumbled.
He deflected an attack we'd put every ounce of our strength into, then grabbed Jia and me by the throat. That piece of trash let his filthy, snake-like eyes slither all over our bodies.
"Khk... You piece of trash... If you don't want to die, get your head on the ground and apologize..."
"How could someone like you... possibly..."
Our spirit hadn't diminished in the slightest, but he released his grip on our necks, and then suddenly tore our clothes apart and violently seized our breasts.
'You worthless bastard...! This isn't something a piece of filth like you gets to touch...!'
I wondered when Terion would arrive, then suddenly remembered: the coin-shaped artifact he'd made for us back when we were searching for Jia's parents. He'd stressed that we must always carry it on us, so I'd drilled a hole through the middle, threaded a string through it, and wore it as a necklace.
Jia must have had the same thought, because we both poured in every ounce of mana we could muster at maximum output. A burst of mana and intense light erupted from the artifact, and within it, Sihu's face appeared. The others let out sighs of relief, while Jia and I had tears streaming down our faces for no reason at all.
* * * * * * * *
The fact that I had teleported to the assembly hall was definitive proof that the artifact Terion had crafted for me had functioned correctly. But what mattered more than that was why an artifact meant only for moments of extreme danger had been activated inside the village.
The others around wore expressions of relief. However, the instant I saw an unknown man clutching the breasts of the women in their torn clothes, I kicked him without a second thought. Perhaps I had failed to regulate my strength properly, because the man went flying, smashing right through the building's wall.
"Representative, this was our failure. The intrusion was far too easy..."
"We'll talk later. First, please take care of them."
When I stepped outside, the bastard was dusting himself off and getting up from the spot where he'd landed. I'd put considerable force into that kick, but he was a fairly sturdy one, it seemed—he didn't appear to have any major injuries.
"Kuhah... that really hurts..."
"What's this? Why show up out of nowhere and start acting like a thug?"
"Don't you know survival of the fittest? The strong take everything—food, women, it doesn't matter what."
With that, he came charging at me at an incredible speed. I dodged every single one of his punches with an impassive expression. This attack pattern... it felt eerily familiar, something I'd seen a lot before.
"You're a pretty damn strong Awakened, aren't you?"
"Do you normally fight with your mouth, too?"
Stung by my mockery, the bastard began to circulate mana from his heart...
'Wait... He's using a Circle? Did the System teach him that, too?'
"Heh heh... I'm going to get serious, so if you don't want to die, you'd better pull that sword on your hip."
When I first saw the women, my fury had peaked and I'd intended to slice his head clean off in a single stroke, but now I wanted to make him suffer far more. And I wanted to see that blustering expression of his crumple. As I kept dodging without a word, he kept swinging his mana-infused fists. The shock on his face began to twist into tension.
"I thought you said you were getting serious?"
The bastard retreated a few steps and began to settle into a stance. It was a posture completely unlike any martial art on Earth, such as boxing or taekwondo. The moment I recognized his stance, I was deeply shocked. Because it was the technique of an acquaintance who had once been very close to me.
By now, the others had come outside, having gotten the situation somewhat under control. Jia, wrapped in a blanket, shouted out.
"Oppa! That man said something about Titan...!"
I see. Now I was beginning to understand how you know how to use a Circle, and where you learned that martial art.
'Is he a disciple? But that person isn't the type to teach his skills to garbage like this...'
As he came at me from his stance, I deflected every last one of his punches without missing a single one.
"Heok... hahk... What on earth is this...!"
"With that pitiful, measly power, you probably thought you were the strongest around until now."
I looked at him with genuine pity in my eyes. Realizing that a prolonged battle of attrition was pointless, he began to squeeze out all his mana, his Circle spinning ever more intensely. I, too, settled into the exact same stance as him.
"D I E !!!"
"You don't just blindly strike with brute force."
— Jiiiiiing... Fwwwwaaaack!!!
Our fists collided, and for a brief instant, a vacuum formed. Then, with our fists at the epicenter, a tremendous shockwave erupted and the wind whipped into a frenzy.
Unlike me, completely unharmed, the bastard's arm had every muscle and nerve completely burst; blood was seeping out from between the tears in his skin.
"How the hell... do you know that!!!"
"The old man not teach you very well?"
"...!!!"
"He would've taught you from the start that it's not about just stupidly smashing in with power..."
Something must have dawned on him, because the bastard began to tremble, his upper teeth audibly chattering against his lower teeth.
"A... a person who calls him 'old man'... 'the Disaster'...? But then, you went through a dimensional transfer just like me..."
I crouched down in front of the man as he hung his head and muttered to himself. I grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up, forcing him to meet my gaze.
"You and I are on an entirely different level. And from the looks of it, you haven't been here long, so was there really a reason to come here, wasting your power in the process? Earth and Titan are going to merge anyway."
"The rumors were all true... 'The Disaster' is untouchable... on a completely different level..."
It seemed he'd lost his mind, as he just mumbled to himself with unfocused pupils. I sighed and slammed my fist down onto the fingers he was bracing on the ground.
— BANG!!! Crunch!!!
"Kkyyaaaak!!!"
"For someone who looks like you, you let out a cute scream."
Only then did the light return to his pupils, and he began to stare straight at me.
"You and I are going to have a lot to talk about."