Chapter 54
The front of Jae-i's Blacksmith was bustling with people even late at night.
Most of them were television reporters and their cameramen.
Now and then, a local resident who had come out to see what the commotion was about drifted into the crowd as well.
The station staff had gathered because they wanted an interview with Yu Jae-i, who had once been all smiles in front of the camera, talking at length about weapons, but was now saying it was a nuisance and had shut the door to hole up inside.
That attitude was enough to put a distinctly sour look on the faces of the people from the station.
"Blacksmiths, huh. Best to avoid unnecessary hostility. Why don't they understand something that simple?"
Kim Ji-yeon, who had been watching quietly, murmured that to herself and soothed the reporters.
She bought them drinks, too, and told them that Yu Jae-i wasn't in the best condition.
When a reporter asked what kind of relationship Yu Jae-i and Baek Do-woon had, she even answered, "No comment," as if there was something there when she didn't know a thing.
It was exactly the answer the reporters wanted most.
After spending a long while calming them down that way, Kim Ji-yeon went somewhere no one could see her and let out a long sigh.
"This isn't what I came here for at all...."
She was muttering a self-mocking complaint to herself when, all at once, the sky brightened.
A dawn-like gray spread across the dark as if the sun had already risen.
There was no way the sun had come up yet, was there?
She turned her head to the northwest.
Everyone in front of the blacksmith turned with her, each of them suddenly puzzled by the same thing.
"Hey! Do you see that? Do you see that?"
"Light? Why's there light?"
The crowd began to stir.
Some of them, seeing it, hurriedly got to their feet and started moving.
Like proper reporters, they were heading over to film it even though they had no idea what they were looking at.
Kim Ji-yeon stared at it with her mouth hanging open.
The massive light that drove back the darkness from the sky looked like a white sun.
"Sanctuary of Light! That's Baek Do-hee's Sanctuary of Light!"
"Sanctuary of Light?"
"Yeah, her signature wide-area buff skill!"
The reporters who had identified the phenomenon hurriedly grabbed their gear.
They were trying not to fall behind the group that had set off ahead of them.
"That's a skill?"
Kim Ji-yeon, hearing that, was stunned.
She couldn't believe that one person had created a light so bright it could sweep away the darkness and turn night into day in an instant.
Then, just as the question "How could that even be a skill?" flashed through her dazed mind, the blacksmith's door flew open with a bang.
She turned and saw Yu Jae-i, who had thrown it open in a hurry, staring up at the white sun with an anxious face.
"Ms. Yu Jae-i?"
"......"
Yu Jae-i didn't answer her.
It wasn't that she was ignoring the question as usual. She looked as if she couldn't even spare the thought to answer.
She just kept staring at the white sun.
Kim Ji-yeon asked in a low voice, looking at Shim Yoon-jin beside Yu Jae-i.
"What's wrong with her?"
"Well...."
Shim Yoon-jin trailed off and lifted her smartphone.
A news video was playing on the screen.
Baek Do-hee Activates Sanctuary of Light?
With that caption on screen, Baek Do-hee appeared, floating high in the sky.
In the video, she flew through the air and unleashed one spell after another without pause.
The sight of her hurling A-class-level magic with each strike looked as though she were facing an S-class monster.
"Did a dragon show up or something? What's wrong with that woman?"
"She's fighting Kim Mu-yeon."
"Kim Mu-yeon? Why would he be fighting Baek Do-hee...."
Baek Do-hee's cold eyes in the video.
Yu Jae-i, looking anxious beside her.
Kim Mu-yeon, the one Baek Do-hee was fighting.
The answer came quickly.
Kim Mu-yeon and Baek Do-woon must have fought, and his younger sister had come to protect him.
"Wait a minute. Is that Heart Break?"
In the video, Kim Mu-yeon was blasting silver mana from his entire body.
He looked like a stack of firewood with a flame burning through it.
Shim Yoon-jin answered by nodding.
"Damn! Why would he go that far?"
"I don't know."
"What on earth does he expect to gain by using Heart Break?"
At that moment, the camera caught Do-woon, who was radiating blue mana.
"Huh? Is he doing Heart Break too?"
"No, no! Look carefully."
Shim Yoon-jin held the phone closer.
Kim Ji-yeon stared at Do-woon on the screen, who was pouring out blue mana.
One clear difference from Kim Mu-yeon stood out.
Kim Mu-yeon's mana dispersed into the air as it left his body.
Do-woon, however, did not.
Rather than scattering, the mana he emitted seemed to grow denser and clearer as it wrapped around him.
It looked as if he were coating his body in mana the way one might coat a weapon.
She had no idea how that was possible.
"What the hell are those two doing...."
She closed her mouth and looked down at the ground.
She had felt a very faint vibration through it.
An earthquake, all of a sudden?
Feeling the tremor, she looked back at the smartphone screen.
In that brief moment, somehow, Do-woon was behind Kim Mu-yeon.
He was seated on one knee, his left hand extended.
"......!"
Kim Ji-yeon, watching the video, went pale and looked down at the ground.
She wasn't the only one. Yu Jae-i and Shim Yoon-jin reacted the same way.
They had seen the source of the tremor on the screen.
It wasn't an earthquake.
"Y-you crazy bastard!"
[84%, 84%, 84%, 83%....]
To put it simply, the photosynthesis mode was a buff skill with a time limit.
It increased my physical abilities until all the stored light energy in the leaves was used up.
Once 83% dropped to 0%, the buff would be over.
Also, photosynthesis mode wasn't affected by other buffs.
Thanks to that, my body had gone through three rounds of power-up.
My physical abilities increased because I was holding Arca, then improved again because I was inside Sanctuary of Light, and then rose once more because of photosynthesis mode.
With buff stacked on buff, I had only barely reached Tae-cheon level.
"Come on! Laugh at me again, Baek Do-woon!"
One thing I regretted was that even after powering up that much, I still couldn't reach Kim Mu-yeon.
It was only natural.
The bastard was three to six times stronger because of Heart Break.
What if he hadn't been nerfed by Sanctuary of Light?
What if Do-hee's light magic hadn't rained down at exactly the right moment?
Tae-cheon and I would have been knocked down without ever managing to block his attacks.
Kim Mu-yeon's greatsword came crashing down on me like a barrage of falling light.
"Die, Baek Do-woon!"
"Shield Throw!"
To help me barely hold back his attack, Tae-cheon hurled his silver shield.
When I first learned that such a simple action was a B-class skill, I had laughed so hard.
The silver shield, filled with black mana, flew toward Kim Mu-yeon's throat.
It bounced off easily, blocked by a thick arm.
But the reason that skill could be B-class was what happened next.
The shield that had been knocked aside did not fall to the ground. Instead, it flew back toward me and blocked Kim Mu-yeon's greatsword.
That's right.
Shield Throw wasn't for throwing at an enemy.
It was a skill that was thrown so it could reach in front of an ally for protection.
"Do you think a pathetic shield like that can stop me!"
"Urk! Do you have any idea how much that thing cost!"
Kim Mu-yeon gripped his sword with both hands and swung, and the shield was cut apart as easily as tofu on a cutting board.
It was possible only because he was pouring out all his mana without any concern for what came next.
When I got a log from the former World Tree later on, I'd have to make Tae-cheon a shield.
Saessak requests a correction. It was the former World Tree's branch.
Yeah, yeah, Saessak. A bran-
"Moo!"
After cutting through the shield, Kim Mu-yeon swung his greatsword up diagonally from below.
In the split second I pulled my waist back hard to dodge, Tae-cheon came charging in from the side.
Kim Mu-yeon followed up even faster.
Tae-cheon and I raised Arca at the same time and blocked the strike.
The greatsword that had cut through Tae-cheon's shield like tofu couldn't cut through Arca.
The force behind it was still monstrous, though, and the two of us were sent flying in unison.
"Th-that was close."
If I hadn't been in photosynthesis mode, I wouldn't have been able to dodge that.
Luckily, there was still 60 percent of the light energy left.
"Hey, this thing is solid. I'll buy you a new weapon, so give me that one."
"No, you punk!"
I kicked Tae-cheon hard when he started eyeing Arca like a thief.
In the place where Tae-cheon had been standing, Kim Mu-yeon's greatsword dropped straight down.
Crash!
The blade dug a crater into the ground.
I jumped backward and thrust my left hand toward him.
"Pebble!"
Kim Mu-yeon didn't even look at my left hand.
As if I was no longer worth watching, he kept his eyes locked on me alone.
Finally!
"Light!"
The instant he hesitated, Do-hee's light magic poured down in countless rays.
Her magic fell over us too, but it didn't matter.
Inside Sanctuary of Light, anyone Do-hee recognized as an ally didn't take damage.
The dazzling spells forced Kim Mu-yeon to stop moving.
Thanks to that, we were able to put some distance between ourselves and him.
"Hah, this isn't easy."
Tae-cheon gave Longsword a furious swing through the air.
He seemed frustrated that getting inside the bastard's range wasn't nearly as simple as it sounded.
Kim Mu-yeon knew that too, so he kept batting Tae-cheon back with his greatsword to keep him from closing in.
Tae-cheon had a hard time getting near Kim Mu-yeon.
And even if he did get close, he had no means to restrain him.
Bracing Arca into the ground, I said, "Tae-cheon, keep his attention for me."
"His attention?"
"Yeah."
I wasn't helpless.
I had a way to get close to Kim Mu-yeon.
Even inside the Sanctuary of Light Do-hee had created, there were still shadows.
And I had a means to restrain him once I got there.
"I'm going to land one proper hit on him."
"Okay."
Just then, the beam of light Do-hee had been pouring out stopped.
Without missing that opening, Tae-cheon immediately used Dash.
In his heavy armor, Tae-cheon's dash looked like a tank charging forward.
Kim Mu-yeon blocked the rush with his left hand and stabbed at Tae-cheon's throat with the greatsword in his right.
A transparent barrier appeared in front of Tae-cheon and stopped the blade.
Do-hee had blocked the attack in place of Tae-cheon's shield.
I thrust my left hand toward Kim Mu-yeon and fired a pebble.
Just like before, he ignored it completely.
Shadow Step.
My vision darkened.
Three white holes came into view.
Mine, Tae-cheon's, and Kim Mu-yeon's shadows.
Probably because Do-hee was floating in the sky, hers wasn't visible.
I sprinted toward the distant hole.
When I stepped onto it, my vision brightened again.
Kim Mu-yeon's back came into view.
He noticed me appearing behind him and swung his greatsword wide.
"You think I haven't seen that trick a few times already!"
"......!"
As expected of an A-class hunter.
His experience really did pay off.
To dodge the greatsword that had come for both Tae-cheon and me at once, I dropped low, bending my right knee as if I were about to kneel.
At the same time, I raised my left hand.
Kim Mu-yeon snorted.
Carelessness.
That was his one and only weakness.
He had been careless when he came after me alone, and this time too he was too careless to evade.
"Pebble is-"
"Pinecone!"
"What....?"
The World Tree sprout says it has been waiting for this moment.
BOOM!
A pinecone shot from my palm with a thunderous roar.
It was so powerful that my hand itself was flung backward.
No, not just that. My body was shoved down and driven into the ground.
I felt like this was probably how a missile launch felt to the launch platform.
"U-woooaaah!"
The pinecone fired from my hand struck Kim Mu-yeon in the side.
It kept spiraling upward into the sky from there.
It spun relentlessly, like an excavator boring through soil.
I could feel Saessak's fierce determination to make it rotate.
In the end, true to that determination, the pinecone drilled straight through the bastard's body.
Kim Mu-yeon, who had risen as one body, split into two and crashed headfirst toward the ground.
Saessak is satisfied and happy!
"......"
...Fine. If Saessak's satisfied, that's enough.
All light energy has been consumed.
Photosynthesis mode is ending.
Huh?
There was definitely still more than 60 percent left.
Why was it ending all of a sudden?
The blue mana that had been wrapping around my body slowly flowed back inside me.
"Hrk!"
At the same time, an enormous pain hit me.
It was the same kind of pain I felt when my body blew apart from pruning.
Come to think of it, there had been a warning written under photosynthesis mode.
It definitely said something like, "A penalty occurs after use," didn't it?
Anyway, this damn ability never lets me off easy.
Saessak expresses regret toward the manager.
Huh? N-no.
I'm not mad at you, Saessak....
Saessak becomes discouraged.
I said I wasn't, didn't I....
...Sorry, big brother was wrong.