Ties from My Previous Life (8)
The massive explosion swallowed both the masked man and Lee Jihyun whole. She unleashed every attack she could manage in that split second, while the assassin shifted into a defensive stance to minimize the damage.
But it was all pointless.
Most techniques become meaningless in the face of an overwhelming difference in raw power. The blast had been so widespread that any defense he attempted was simply punched through.
Of course, this alone won’t take him down.
Naturally, he wouldn’t fall from something like this. I didn’t know his exact capabilities, but he was strong enough to subdue a healthy A-rank hunter or kidnap someone at my level after killing an A-rank. So he’d still be standing. I had expected that much.
“…Magic?”
The masked man immediately recognized what it was. Even with his face covered, his shock was obvious.
“A mage…?”
Lee Jihyun had the same reaction. She pushed herself up and stared at me.
“…This is ridiculous.”
A sigh escaped the masked man. He was surprised that even Lee Jihyun hadn’t known the truth. But what did it matter? I was planning to let them live anyway.
“Do you really think a mere mage can defeat me?”
It was similar to before, yet different. When Han Yeseo had been with us, our side held the advantage in raw power. The enemy had only won by cleverly exploiting the mysterious compatibility between their abilities. But now?
The opponent outranked us. Adding one mage to our side wouldn’t change the overall power balance much. Mages could counter every type of mystery, but the price was a lack of specialization.
When using the same skill, someone who already possessed it could simply channel their magic power. A mage, however, had to draw a magic circle first. Even if it consumed less power, it took more time.
So it wasn’t exactly an advantageous matchup. But was I going to give up? Of course not!
Anyone else might have run, but this was Lee Jihyun. She couldn’t flee. That meant we had to fight together.
“Jihyun-ssi? I’m a mage. And since I’m a mage, I might be able to win. So please hold on somehow.”
“That attack just now…!”
“I used it on purpose because I figured it could reduce his combat ability. Even as a mage, my pure combat ability barely reaches B-rank. The opponent should be at least strong enough to overpower us, right? Even if he’s A-rank, that means he’s several steps above us. So I had to deal as much damage as possible.”
It was better for a rich person to become poor than for a poor person to become even poorer. I judged that it would be more helpful for this high-ranking assassin to suffer heavy injuries than for Lee Jihyun, who had only recently entered A-rank, to take a serious wound.
“Hah!”
Fortunately, Lee Jihyun hadn’t taken that much damage. It was thanks to her Unique Ability.
No matter how questionable my actions had been, she wasn’t foolish enough to start arguing about right and wrong in the middle of a fight.
Lee Jihyun began launching a barrage of skills at the assassin. I couldn’t tell exactly what they were, but they didn’t look like ordinary techniques.
The assassin staggered, clearly having taken significant damage from my earlier explosion. He could no longer dominate Lee Jihyun the way he had before.
It was unexpected. I had assumed that even if she was only lightly injured while he was heavily wounded, the gap between them would still be too wide to overcome. Yet the two of them were now exchanging blows on nearly equal footing.
At this rate, with my help, victory was guaranteed. We could return home without too much trouble.
But… something feels off.
If this masked man belonged to the same group that had attacked Han Yeseo, then he would know they had already failed once. The assassin from back then had killed himself, so no information should have leaked. Still, after failing once, they wouldn’t make the mistake of being caught off guard by a small variable again.
If their organization was that sloppy, they should have been exposed long ago and dismantled by the authorities…
Huh?
The moment that sense of déjà vu hit me, the masked man leaped backward. Having created distance during their close-quarters exchange, the assassin reached into his coat.
A bad feeling washed over me. There was definitely something there.
I hurriedly chanted the first spell that came to mind. It was a low-grade attack that wouldn’t inflict serious damage, let alone a meaningful wound. But it wasn’t meant to be an attack. It was a distraction.
I didn’t know what he was trying to do, but I was dead set on interfering.
Unfortunately, the opponent wasn’t stupid enough to let me. In the end, it happened anyway.
A strange sword slid out from inside his coat. I couldn’t identify what kind it was, but its appearance alone filled me with unease.
“Be careful! It’s probably some kind of mystery, so avoid direct engagement until we figure out what it does!”
“Got it, Sowol-ssi!”
The man who had been holding a dagger now brandished a translucent longsword and charged at Lee Jihyun. The blade traced an arc through the air. She dodged or countered each strike.
I had clearly told her to avoid direct contact, but knowing the right move and being able to execute it were two different things. Even with the assassin heavily injured, Lee Jihyun didn’t have the luxury of completely ignoring the sword he was swinging.
“Tsk…!”
She knew my warning, so her face twisted in frustration. So far the sword hadn’t shown any special properties, but that didn’t mean it was safe.
On the contrary, the fact that something that was obviously going to explode still hadn’t gone off yet felt closer to misfortune.
Ziiiing—
And then that misfortune became reality.
The sword suddenly began to resonate, growing even more transparent. The already translucent blade turned nearly invisible as it slashed toward Lee Jihyun’s arm.
She tried to block it with a body reinforced by magic power, but the defense didn’t last. The translucent sword became illusory—just like her digital phasing—and passed straight through her body.
If it had simply passed through, there would have been nothing to worry about. But everyone knew what would happen next.
Slice—
A deep gash was carved into the left side of Lee Jihyun’s chest.
“Ughhhhh…!”
Of course, she wasn’t the type to collapse from something like this. No matter how recently she had been promoted, an A-rank was still an A-rank. She must have endured countless moments of pain and hardship by now.
Lee Jihyun was not weak enough to fall from a mere wound like that.
“Ugh—!”
What she chose was simple. Instead of trying to pull out the blade embedded in her left breast, she attacked the assassin’s arm. Naturally, he tried to defend himself, but Lee Jihyun had her Unique Ability.
Her illusory arm phased through his defense and reached the sword’s hilt. The moment the illusion faded, she slammed a heavy strike into it.
Boom—
“Kuh…!”
The assassin was pushed back slightly by the blow. It wasn’t a major hit. She had attacked in a hurry, after all. But it wasn’t meaningless.
She had succeeded in disarming him.
The assassin’s sword remained lodged in Lee Jihyun’s chest. She couldn’t pull it out. Without a healer nearby, removing it now would likely cause her to bleed out and die. Blood would still leak from the wound, but it was still a huge gain. One of the enemy’s tactical options had been neutralized.
“…No matter how well you two struggle, victory is impossible. Mages… aren’t strong in personal combat!”
The assassin spoke as if urging us to give up. He was right. Mages weren’t strong in one-on-one fights. Their near-infinite versatility came at the cost of poor instantaneous adaptability.
“Just give up. If you do, I’ll spare that woman. I’ll spare you too. All you have to do is obediently follow me. Kidnapping you carries a big risk for our side as well.”
Only then did he reveal his objective. Or rather, it was no longer accurate to call him an assassin. His goal really did seem to be kidnapping me.
“So I was the target?”
“You must have guessed already, right? That you’re more important than some A-rank lackey. I wondered why you were walking around without any guards. So it was because you’re a mage? How ridiculous.”
“Hmm… Is that so?”
That information was quite valuable. At least objectively speaking, even Baek Sowol—who wasn’t a mage—had enough value to be worth kidnapping. And that was something Baek Sowol herself would have known.
I couldn’t tell exactly what angle they were coming from, but…
“So give up. If that magic of yours goes off, this woman will die. With the sword still embedded in her, she’ll take the full shockwave and perish.”
If I launched an attack like the one from earlier, Lee Jihyun would be caught in the blast radius. But if I used a high-powered spell like that, the sword lodged in her chest would be blasted out. At the very least, she would have a hard time surviving.
That was what this guy was mistakenly assuming.
“Me? Why?”
What a joke. Did he think I hadn’t considered that much?
“Are you saying you’ll abandon this woman? Even if you do, you can’t beat me. Not unless you’re A-rank!”
No. There’s one thing you’re seriously misunderstanding.
As Sun Tzu said in the Art of War, the greatest strategy is to win without fighting. What was our goal? To survive.
And to survive, there was no need to defeat the opponent. If we could just break through this wall, nothing else mattered.
While preparing my chant, I turned my body. I put the kidnapper behind me and faced the wall.
“…!”
The kidnapper seemed to realize what I was trying to do and immediately rushed toward me. If he kept that up, he’d leave his back wide open to Lee Jihyun.
But it was too late. Even if he was A-rank, he was injured. I didn’t think he could catch up in time. I completed the spell immediately.
“Explosion.”
The second Explosion I had used today. Unlike the first one, this version had its power massively amplified.
The first Explosion had weakened the wall’s durability. I had confirmed it was possible. A direct hit from the second one would be enough to destroy it completely. So I unleashed the second spell right away.
KWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!!!!
With a tremendous explosion, the wall shattered. The shockwave from the magic spread forward, sending both me and the kidnapper flying into the distance.
Of course, I was relatively fine. When using high-firepower spells like this, I always prepared defensive measures for the caster in advance. I had layered multiple protective spells, which was why it had taken a little longer.
The massive explosion brought the wall crumbling down. The obstacle that had been blocking our path disappeared.
There was no longer any barrier stopping us from escaping. All we had to do now was run.
“Let’s go, Jihyun-ssi! Fighting him any longer is a loss!”
If we went just a little farther, the C-rank hunters would be able to help us somehow. Lee Jihyun and I immediately started running toward the entrance where the other hunters were waiting.
“It’s… not over… yet…”
But a voice came from behind us.
What did he mean it wasn’t over? The opponent had ultimately lost. Not in combat, but in failing to achieve his objective.
The wall was already mostly destroyed. We could escape. Any technique meant to block our retreat would lose most of its meaning in front of a mage.
But… this uneasy feeling… what is it?
“This… is something you two couldn’t have predicted…”
He pulled an unknown button from his coat and pressed it without hesitation.
Wiiiiiiing—
Then the ground began to tremble slowly.
“This… is a weapon created by the government…”
A colossal mass began to stir. A giant monster was dragging its enormous body, blocking our path.
It moved on all fours, its brown fur swaying in the wind. Its red eyes burned fiercely, as if ready to incinerate everything. And on top of its head… some kind of mechanical device was attached, beeping continuously.
It was a sight that made no sense at all.
“What the… is that…?”
How on earth? No, even if something like that existed, how could they have brought it inside the gate without anyone noticing? If they had that kind of mysterious power, there would have been no need to struggle so hard to catch us inside the gate in the first place?
KWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Regardless, the situation had escalated. It was a giant monster similar to the one we had encountered during the E-rank gate raid before. That same enormous creature was now charging toward us with clear hostility.
The difference was that Han Yeseo, an S-rank, had been with us then. Now she wasn’t.
Lee Jihyun had also collapsed from exhaustion. That thing had to be taken down.
Baek Sowol had to defeat it.