Chapter 84
Sertina stepped right up to the woman, narrowing her eyes as she thrust her face close.
"Why don't you try hitting me again?"
"······."
"Can't do it?"
The woman's face drained of color, her body trembling like she was having convulsions. This was a being who had massacred over ten million people without batting an eye. An existence that could snuff out a single life like stepping on a bug. And now, that entity's fury was squeezing her heart like a vise.
Streamer Ro-hoon's chat window was exploding too.
A cold voice sliced through the silence like a knife.
"Hey."
"Eek! Y-yes, ma'am!"
The middle-aged woman instinctively snapped to attention.
Sertina pulled a pen and notepad from her inventory and said, "Name."
"Pardon?"
"Tell me."
"I-I'm Lee Bok-soon!"
Lee Bok-soon shouted it out, her face on the verge of tears.
Sertina glanced at the gathering crowd, then extended her hand. Wooong— A transparent barrier unfurled around them.
Soundproof barrier. They could still be seen, but no voices would leak out.
Sertina proceeded to grill Lee Bok-soon for every scrap of personal info.
"Age."
"Forty-seven······."
"Residence."
"Seoul, Eunpyeong-gu—"
"Resident registration number."
"Pardon? Th-that's a bit······."
"Resident registration number."
"Hic······."
Once she'd jotted down all the necessary details in her notepad, Sertina dispelled the barrier. She nodded curtly.
"Subdue her."
Lee Min-ho and Hwang Cheol-ho rushed in, twisting her arms behind her back in an instant.
Sertina handed the notepad to the newly arrived security agents.
"Run her ID, confirm it's her."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Secure all related CCTV footage and prep for immediate lawsuit. As soon as the courts are back up, we'll file civil and criminal suits."
She turned back to Lee Bok-soon.
"Effective immediately, you're banned from Eterna Mall. Violate the ban or pull any stunts on our people and get caught······."
The air around them grew heavy in an instant. Everyone held their breath.
"I'll come find you myself and smash you."
In that moment, Sertina's eyes gleamed with a chilling menace beyond compare.
Lee Bok-soon went limp, her eyes lifeless, like her soul had fled her body.
"Drag her out."
Lee Min-ho and Hwang Cheol-ho grabbed her slack arms and hauled her away.
The onlookers parted like the sea, clearing a path.
With her personal info secured, tracking her down would be a piece of cake. Sertina was a transcendent being above the law to begin with—if she wanted to break it, she could at any time.
Of course, she'd chosen to coexist with humanity and respect them, and people appreciated that in return. So this was barely a blip.
Before long, Streamer Ro-hoon's live broadcast went viral, even hitting mainstream airwaves and spreading far and wide.
The next day, Eterna Mall's visitor graph shot through the roof.
"Such heinous depravity······!"
Bam! The fist slamming into the Pentagon ops room table sent the teaspoons rattling across it.
The screen at the front displayed photos of the completed Eterna Mall.
"What do you all think of this?"
The Secretary of Defense's grave tone shattered the room's silence. The brass began piping up, faces grim.
"Their ruthlessness defies imagination. Using civilians as shields? Unthinkable."
"Prepping defenses for potential future attacks, probably."
"How could they······!"
"Utterly horrific."
Worried murmurs and sighs rippled through.
Then someone muttered in disbelief, "Isn't it just... a mall to make money?"
The screen switched: left side, Sertina in her mascot costume; right side, unmasked and revealed.
"Spying on civilians while hiding her identity."
"The video's spread is suspicious too. Same person filming her helping that kid's parents and handling the Karen? Clearly staged!"
"Must be in cahoots with that streamer Ro-hoon."
As the mood boiled over, someone else doused it with cold water.
"Even celebrities wear masks in public?"
"What's even the problem here······?"
The Pentagon was now sharply divided between Sertina defenders and eliminators. Decisive evidence had piled up that the old man came from another world, bolstering the "Sertina demon" theory. Shouting matches between the factions never ceased.
The Pentagon brass nitpicked and trashed each other over trivia. Days later, no compromise in sight. This issue was too grave—one wrong call could doom Earth.
"No end in sight······."
The Secretary muttered under his breath, sighing deeply. At this rate, it'd drag on for a century. How long would he be stuck with this headache?
"Oh, right—progress on that mana control training?"
Bored of the deadlock, one exec shifted topics. Eyes lit up among those craving a change.
"You think it'd happen overnight?"
"That old codger's got a temper. Yelling nonstop during training. But after a week, some folks are starting to get the hang of it."
The mana control team leads reported. Joint training between Damien's Imperium Guild and Pentagon civilian agents. The bombshell that civilians could wield mana had boosted player stats too.
"Comparing before and after with Damien as baseline, overall skill power's up about 1.3 times."
"1.3 times?! That's impossible with straight grinding."
"Even geared to the teeth, 1.3x is... miraculous!"
"Guess the old man's boasts weren't hot air."
Trainees' skills improved daily. Soon, they'd break player limits and become new powerhouses. 1.5x, no, 2x stronger? Just a matter of time!
Especially civilians wielding mana—that changed everything.
"Russia's nuke incident proved mana's edge. Civilians too? Unfathomable."
"Yeah. Might not be impossible to take on Sertina during the update period."
"A shot at removing that monster?"
"Apply this to the military······."
"World conquest in a week, easy."
Straight out of sci-fi: ironclad legions shredding frontlines, fearless of bullets or bombs. Every soldier a monster outclassing high-tech. Add near-complete mana weapons...
We might actually stand a chance······?
The thought flickered through both factions' minds.
Heh heh heh, heh heh heh heh.
"······?"
A weird noise from inside the door. This was Cha Eun-joo's room······? What the hell was she doing in there?!
Sertina hesitated at the door—open it or not? They'd barged into her room plenty without warning.
She grabbed the knob and flung it open.
"Huh······?"
Contrary to expectations of something shady(?), Cha Eun-joo was fiddling intently with a translucent holographic panel floating in midair. A titan's form hovered as a hologram.
"What's this?"
"Oh, Sertina! Modding my titan. With mana capacity up 10x, the current setup feels insufficient!"
Sertina tilted her head.
"······This isn't enough?"
"Nope! True firepower's never enough—you keep stacking it forever!"
"Uh, yeah······?"
"Absolute firepower to pulverize everything—that's what decides it all!"
Cha Eun-joo panted raggedly, eyes gleaming with mania. Sertina backed away, inching toward the door.
"Heh heh heh, bigger... stronger······ more firepower······ massive cannons······."
Muttering like a madwoman, she dove back into her work. Sertina quietly shut the door and left.
"Hmm······."
·····Here's hoping she never finds something with real firepower.