Chapter 90
“So you’re the one in charge here?”
I asked as I stepped into the room.
The room in the basement looked like a laboratory.
There were all kinds of experimental tools scattered around, flasks and beakers among them, and everything was arranged with unsettling precision.
It was nothing like Hong Su-jeong’s Crystal Workshop.
“That’s right. I’m the owner of this place.”
“...”
Gong Woo-jae answered without a flicker of expression and took off his suit jacket. He laid it on the desk beside him, then rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt.
He was wearing a shoulder holster.
Inside it were a single dagger and three vials.
Vials, huh.
It felt fitting for the master of an organization that manufactured illegal drugs in the shadows.
“Interesting.”
Gong Woo-jae was very good at lying.
He could do it without a trace of shame.
But I knew he wasn’t the owner of this laboratory.
The style was too different.
Not just neat, but lined up with military precision, every object in its proper place.
It had the same suffocating, cramped feeling I’d had the first time I’d stepped into boot camp.
It was easy to guess that the owner of this place suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“You’re not the one, are you?”
“I’m not...?”
“No.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because my eyes aren’t pine knots.”
“Hm?”
I lifted a hand and pointed at his arm.
Both arms, sleeves rolled up over the white shirt cuffs.
Gong Woo-jae looked down at them.
The rolled sleeves were at different heights.
“What’s the problem with that?”
“The fact that you don’t think it’s a problem is the proof.”
“...?”
It wasn’t just the height.
The left sleeve was neater, too.
The right one hadn’t been folded properly and looked rumpled.
Someone who noticed that the two sides weren’t perfectly identical and felt nothing about it was the owner of a laboratory this obsessively symmetrical?
Not a chance.
This lab had another owner, and it was obvious who it was.
Yoo Hye-joo had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“Where is Yoo Hye-joo right now?”
“...”
Gong Woo-jae received my question without changing expression. He looked at me with the same lazy face he’d worn before I asked.
Even the right hand that was taking a vial from the holster moved at an unhurried pace.
He looked as relaxed as someone nursing a drink at a bar.
His attitude seemed to say he had no idea what I was talking about.
After emptying the bottle, he let the vial drop to the floor.
Thuk.
The empty vial hit the ground.
Just as my gaze shifted there, Gong Woo-jae drew the dagger from the holster and lunged.
The dagger in his left hand slashed upward from below.
I caught it with my left index finger.
Bark activated and stopped Gong Woo-jae’s dagger.
That meant bark alone was enough, unless he had used some other skill.
Had he not expected the attack to be stopped so easily?
Gong Woo-jae’s eyes widened in surprise.
For the first time, an expression other than lazy calm crossed his face.
I like that a little more.
I kicked my right foot toward his jaw.
Whoosh, snap!
The kick cut through empty air.
He twisted his face away and dodged.
Then, as if it were his turn again, Gong Woo-jae resumed the attack with ferocious speed.
One strike, then another.
While I dodged his slashes, I sized him up.
He was faster than Kim Jeong-cheol or Yong Du-sik, but slower than the werehuman.
That put him at the level of an A-class hunter.
So why was someone with this much skill living in the shadows?
Well, there was probably a reason I didn’t know about.
There’s no smoke without fire.
“Hup!”
He swept the dagger horizontally.
Maybe because he’d put force into it, the strike was faster than before.
Still, not so fast that I couldn’t avoid it.
I pulled my neck back slightly to dodge the blade.
Fssht!
“Oh...”
The bridge of my nose was nicked.
I hadn’t completely avoided his dagger.
The reason was...
“Sword Qi...”
The green Sword Qi wrapped around the dagger.
He’d momentarily activated Sword Qi to extend its reach.
A cheap trick relying on a little cleverness.
Of course, even a cheap trick becomes a fine finishing move if you use Sword Qi with it.
If he had swung just a little deeper, assuming I wasn’t the one on the receiving end, Gong Woo-jae would have taken victory right then.
My face would’ve been split open along the bridge of my nose.
“...That’s impressive.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
As he said that, he took a few steps back.
The scratch on my nose closed over, taking the itch with it.
“A recovery skill...?”
Gong Woo-jae, keeping his distance, frowned.
He’d managed to land a wound, only to watch it heal immediately, so I guessed he was thrown off.
I gave a short shake of my head and dismissed the surprise.
Then he emptied every vial in his holster and drank them all.
The green Sword Qi around the dagger grew thicker and brighter.
He’d definitely taken a potion that temporarily amplified his mana.
The dagger, now wrapped in a Sword Qi so bloated it looked enormous, didn’t look like a dagger anymore.
It was more like he was gripping a miniature Arca.
“Aren’t you going to draw your sword?”
He asked, tossing the empty vials to the floor.
The way he said it made it sound like he was telling me to pull out Arca.
In other words, he wanted a proper fight.
“Seems like I’ll be fine without it.”
At that, Gong Woo-jae gave a little snort of laughter.
He even nodded a few times, as if agreeing with me.
“Yeah. That... is probably right!”
The moment he finished speaking, he charged again.
Was it because he’d boosted his mana?
He was faster than before by an order of magnitude.
If I had to compare, it was similar to when the werehuman had charged straight at me.
But at this speed, I could dodge easily enough now that I’d used Pruning.
Swish, whip, swish!
I avoided each slash in turn.
Left, then right, then back.
When I retreated far enough to the rear, mana burst from Gong Woo-jae’s right leg.
It was a skill.
A skill meant to chase me down the instant I jumped backward.
Bang!
Gong Woo-jae shot forward like a giant bullet.
Just as I’d expected, it was a rushing skill.
As he came at me, he twisted his body.
He was probably trying to add rotational force.
Using the spinning momentum to raise both the speed and the power of the dagger slash.
And there was one more thing...
If he was the sort to fight with these little tricks, then he probably had a second purpose as well.
He reached me in an instant and swung his left hand as he turned.
I extended my left hand, ready to seize the hand holding the dagger.
But then...
“...!”
There was no dagger in his left hand.
Gong Woo-jae’s left hand slapped my outstretched left arm aside.
Then the dagger in his right hand came whipping toward me.
Just as I’d half-expected...
Thanks to anticipating it, I was able to react.
I thrust out my right hand and caught his dagger-wielding wrist.
Then I yanked it straight down and hurled him to the floor.
“Khuk!”
Gong Woo-jae crashed onto the ground on his back and spat blood.
He grimaced in pain and bit down on his lip.
Even so, his eyes stayed fixed on me.
Once enough time passed for the pain to become bearable, he asked,
“How... did you know?”
“Those little tricks...”
“...”
“That’s the sort of thing I’m good at.”
“...!”
Gong Woo-jae stared up at me with wide eyes.
He probably hadn’t expected me to admit to his own trickery.
Then he pointed at the sleeves he’d rolled up.
“And... because of the sleeves.”
“The sleeves?”
“Yeah.”
“What... are you talking about?”
“The left sleeve was folded neatly, but the right sleeve wasn’t folded properly.”
“So what?”
“It means your right hand looks more accustomed to fine work than your left.”
“...!”
In other words, Gong Woo-jae wasn’t left-handed. He was right-handed.
And someone like that was fighting with a weapon held only in the left hand?
No matter how I looked at it, it was strange.
“Come on. Why don’t you give up already? Tell me where Yoo Hye-joo is, too. You should at least pay me for the kindness of my explanation.”
“...No.”
“No, no.”
“Wouldn’t it be boring if it ended like this?”
“I was having plenty of fun alrea-”
“Phase Two, Baek Do-woon.”
“...”
At once, green mana exploded from Gong Woo-jae’s body.
It was like a mana bomb had gone off...
I knew this phenomenon well.
I’d seen it several times already.
Transformation, or monsterization...
Why hadn’t I predicted this?
Gong Woo-jae had been with Yoo Hye-joo, who was very likely one of Crowd’s people.
The World Tree sapling sensed a foul energy.
Saessak had given me the final confirmation.
“At last...!”
My fist trembled on its own.
Four days after taking on the quest, I’d finally met one of them.
A bastard who could turn into a monster.
Gong Woo-jae had no idea how long I’d been waiting for this moment.
After finishing his transformation, he looked down at me.
The neat, polished face he’d had before was gone completely.
That face was...
“...A troll?”
“Yeah. A troll.”
“...!”
“You don’t seem all that surprised after seeing this?”
He sounded baffled when he asked it.
I couldn’t read any expression on the face he’d transformed into, troll-like and all, but his voice hadn’t changed, so I could still hear the emotion in it.
He looked like he’d never met anyone who didn’t flinch or freak out at the sight of him turned into a troll.
“No, I’m surprised enough.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me.”
“It’s true. What the hell are you doing with your voice right now?”
“...So you knew that too.”
Kim Jae-sik hadn’t been able to talk, and neither had Lee Jeong-geun.
As for Lee Jeong-geun, maybe it had been because he was being controlled by that mushroom bastard...
But I hadn’t seen him speak while fully aware in monster form.
“Right... You were after Yoo Hye-joo. Of course you’d have seen this kind of thing before.”
“Oh. So you’re finally ready to talk about Yoo Hye-joo?”
“...”
The troll’s huge eyes widened even more.
On the other hand, its huge mouth pressed shut.
He had no intention of talking.
Fine.
Then I’d do what I came here to do first.
Just as I was thinking that,
The sapling confirmed a pure gaze.
a system window appeared, blocking my view.
It was easy enough to guess what that meant.
The owner of pure lightning mana.
Han Jin-hwan had finished whatever he was doing and was now watching this place.
Since I couldn’t feel any nearby presence, he was probably using some kind of related skill to keep an eye on us.
Still, what I was about to use was the World Tree Root.
Choi Hee-seok had already been told everything in advance, so there was no point hiding it.
Go ahead and watch all you want.
“Ah, sorry. Kept you waiting.”
“...”
“Though, now that I think about it, what a pain. You shouldn’t have ended up like that.”
“What?”
I stretched out my right hand toward Gong Woo-jae.
He immediately hunched his massive body.
He was preparing to dodge whatever skill I was about to use.
That judgment was right, but...
“World Tree Root.”
“Ghk...!”
The World Tree Root wasn’t something you could avoid just by trying to dodge.
Not when you were as huge as a troll.
My right hand, transformed into tree roots, seized the troll’s body in an instant.
He struggled to break free, but it was useless.
If it could be shaken off so easily, it wouldn’t have been an S-class skill.
I absorbed the energy at once.
“My strength...! This power!”
He must have realized I was draining him.
And yet... why was that?
There was no despair in Gong Woo-jae’s eyes.
“Oh.”
I tore my gaze away from him.
Black smoke was pouring out of his body.
It flew into the air as if trying to escape, but it couldn’t get far.
It came rushing back into his body, then into my right hand.
It felt like touching liquefied tar...
That energy began to be purified inside my right hand.
“Gong Woo-jae.”
“...Why, why are you calling me?”
“Do you want to become human, or stay a monster?”
“...Don’t tell me!”
At my question, Gong Woo-jae’s eyes flashed.
Even while his strength was being stolen, he wasn’t despairing, and now his eyes were suddenly lighting up instead.
What the hell was wrong with this guy?
“Human. I’ll... become human.”
“...Good.”
I held out my left hand toward him.
Using the World Tree Root, I drove it into his forehead.
Then I poured in the World Tree’s mana.
“Don’t die, okay?”
“What the hell is thaaahhk!”
Gong Woo-jae writhed in agony.
His body, wrapped in roots, twisted wildly.
Of course it did.
This skill put its target through horrific pain.
Ji Sang-wook had once passed out because he couldn’t endure it.
Before long, blue light burst out of Gong Woo-jae’s body. The work was done.
And then, just like with Lee Jeong-geun, I touched the mana in his heart.
From now on, Gong Woo-jae would no longer be able to control mana.
At that moment, my right hand returned to normal.
The purification was over.
This time, the total mana gained through the World Tree Root is 500,115.
The first fruit is now 60% complete.
Five hundred thousand...
Gong Woo-jae had even more mana than Lee Jeong-geun.
It seemed to be because he’d taken the mana-boosting potion.
Quest alert!
You have defeated a follower of the Demon Race. (7/10)
Current completion reward - a thick branch from the former World Tree.
“...Huh?”
I closed my eyes, then opened them again.
I stared at the alert window that had just appeared.
Current completion reward - a thick branch from the former World Tree.
A thick branch from the World Tree?
Then what was Arca?
What was that log I got last time?
Was that a thin branch?
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