Chapter 712: The Final Bet (3)
“Hello~.”
Mari bowed to Noah. Noah bowed his head back.
“Hello.”
“It’s running this time, so I dressed light.”
Mari had on simple, practical skorts without any frills. Her hair was pulled up high into a single ponytail and she wore running shoes. Did she bring those clothes back when she came to our world? Last time I saw her, she wasn’t that fast for an S–class when it came to running. Was that why they put her in the forest, where all the obstacles make it hard to pick up speed?
“I see.”
“How is it? Should I put on at least one ribbon?”
“Do as you like.”
“I think a ribbon would look good on you too, Mister Noah. How about one on your tail?”
“No, that would just get in the way.”
“You’re S–class~ something like that won’t bother you. I’ve done it a lot, I know. I bet one on your horns would be cute too.”
“I appreciate it, but I’ll pass.”
Noah answered politely and took a step away from her. But Mari didn’t give up and kept cheerfully recommending ribbons and frills. Honestly, I did think they would suit Noah. In that life–sim game too, whatever decorations I put on him, he sparkled.
Meanwhile, the waves were getting closer to the forest. Spinning on her surfboard to dodge Moon Hyunah’s attacks, Yerim spoke to me.
“Should I shoot the baton with a bow too?”
“No, it’ll get stolen.”
Samir’s trick was something that only worked on Peace. Other people could tangle the baton with wires, hit it with ranged skills, or just shoot their own arrows to knock it away. Maybe that meant Seong Hyunjae had guessed I’d send Peace out first.
“If Hyunah tries to shoot it, snatch it.”
“Yes, sir!”
Yerim was in the lead, but Hyunah was sticking right behind her. The water swallowed your legs even more than the desert sand, but with surface tension, it could also carry the wind. Thanks to that, Moon Hyunah was skimming over the waves with the help of wind, just like Yerim.
“Mister Noah!”
Boom! The water under the ice board exploded. With ice shards scattering in all directions, Yerim’s body was launched. She shot forward at incredible speed, like a bullet from a gun. If they crashed into each other wrong, they could both get hurt, but– fwip– Noah spread his wings wide. Then he scooped Yerim up, rolling her gently into the shelter of his wings.
“Run!”
Yerim quickly passed the baton to Noah. Noah nodded, turned his body, and took off.
“Mister Noah, for now just run with support–type skills.”
We still didn’t know anything about Mari’s skills. Before the regression, she’d manifested illusions into reality so we could drag Seong Hyunjae out, but I didn’t know exactly how that applied. Noah buffed himself and started running through the forest. Moon Hyunah arrived right after.
“I’m a bit late!”
“It’s fine!”
Mari grabbed the baton and kicked off the ground hard. As expected, she wasn’t very fast. Noah’s physical stats were on the low side for an S–class since he was originally A–class and support–type, but their running speed was about the same.
“In terms of raw stats, I feel like Mari is higher than Mister Noah.”
“Mari isn’t used to running itself.”
Seong Hyunjae spoke. It was just a regular wheeled office chair, but with him sitting there with his legs crossed, it somehow felt like the leather sofa in a chairman’s office. I half expected him to ask me for a quarterly report.
“She didn’t look like she had any real combat experience either. That why you gave her the forest?”
“The princess insisted on the forest.”
“Huh?”
What was that supposed to mean. Sleeping Princess in the forest? Snow White? Was the Swan Princess’s lake in a forest too? On the monitor, Mari was running hard. But the distance between her and Noah was slowly growing. Unlike Noah, a seasoned hunter who’d experienced all kinds of terrain, she got turned around now and then.
“This won’t do!”
Mari let out a big sigh and came to a stop. Then she shouted loudly.
“Guys, help me out~!”
Still beaming, she thrust both hands forward. …What is she doing. Then the forest began to move. The trees bent as if bowing and opened a path for Mari. Meanwhile, in front of Noah…
“Urk!”
A huge tree dropped its branches in front of him, blocking the way. Noah crashed into the unexpected obstacle and ducked.
“…What skill is that supposed to be?!”
“Mari is a princess. And the plants and animals of the forest always come to help the princess, or so they say.”
“That doesn’t explain anything at all!”
Noah pulled out his axe. He sliced through the trees in his way in one go and forced his way forward, but even so his speed had to slow down. Grass and vines even tried to snag his ankles. In a zone full of obstacles, a forced blessing like that would have been really effective, but with Mari’s path wide open, that didn’t help us at all.
“Mari, can your skill turn whatever situation you want into reality?”
“For me, this is just how it is. It has to be. If you talk to me, I’ll lose focus!”
Mari kept running, calling out, Guys, thanks~! In the end, she passed Noah. For her, things being like this was natural… So the caster, Mari, had to firmly believe that this was reality, that this was how it was supposed to be, for the skill to activate?
‘…That’d be hard to use in the middle of a fight.’
“And hard to trigger in the first place. But if she were attacked in the current situation, the dream would grow stronger.”
As in, a princess being attacked by a dragon. The forest would go wild. I’d hoped we could get through this without using it, but oh well.
‘If Seong Hyunjae gets the baton first, our chances of winning are basically zero.’
We needed to stop that bastard charging ahead somehow. I couldn’t just distract him and hold him back; we’d already agreed he’d take the game seriously. That meant we had to get our team there as quickly as possible, at least at the same time.
“Mister Noah, stop!”
Noah skidded to a halt. Felled trees piled around him.
“Get ready.”
“Yes, Mister Yujin.”
Putting the axe back into his inventory, Noah bent forward slightly. Right then, I changed the environment. To a barren, treeless wasteland and…
“Hold on tight!”
Rumble–rumble–rumble! Rocks shot up from the ground. Higher, higher, like they were going to pierce the sky. Long, pillar–like spires of stone burst up everywhere. The only limit was the surface area! Oh, there was one more: I couldn’t create anything beyond S–class environments. If I could, I’d just make an SSS–class prison–rock cage on the enemy team’s side and be done with it.
The forest of stone pillars growing like bamboo after rain finally stopped. Noah stood on the top of one pillar and shifted into his designated form. He sank four claws into the rock and spread his wings. Then I started a countdown.
“3, 2, 1!”
Zero. Environment modification: delete the bottom of the rock pillar. At the same time Noah’s wings beat powerfully. He didn’t fly. He just…
Thud! Groooan–
…tilted the pillar toward the next zone with the swamp. The base vanished and the rock slammed down, then started to topple toward the swamp. Noah’s wingbeats sped up the fall, and the swamp rushed closer. It wasn’t running, exactly, but hey, as long as we got to the finish line.
“Whoa, that’s cheating! It’s supposed to be a race!”
Mari’s eyes went round as she saw it while she ran.
“T–Trees!”
The trees reached out their trunks and tangled around the pillar, trying to hold it. But that pillar was just as absurdly heavy as it was huge. At best, they could only nudge the direction a little.
Boom! The pillar crashed down completely. It didn’t quite reach the swamp, but it wasn’t far. The trees started to hinder Noah again, but he was still way ahead of Mari. Mari chased after him as best she could, and at the entrance to the swamp, the next runners appeared.
“Oh, wow.”
Hwang Rim grinned and took a step back.
“Hey there, Jini’s little brother~.”
Yuhyun silently looked at Hwang Rim. His gaze held almost no emotion. What faint feeling was in those eyes was…
“I feel like some dust rolling around in the corner of a room.”
The sense of obligation that, yes, the dust needed to be cleaned up, just like he said. He probably didn’t have any personal grudge against Hwang Rim as a person. But that thing had hurt me, his big brother. It was probably about the same emotion as removing a nail sticking out of the furniture.
“Yuhyun, this is a relay race.”
“Yeah, hyung. I know.”
A long willow switch rested in Yuhyun’s hand. He’d used it when sparring with Young Chaos.
“He did help, so I won’t kill him.”
“Yujin! I even babysat for free!”
“I’m grateful for that. That’s why he said he wouldn’t kill you. Stop whining.”
My Yuhyun is really fair, okay. Hwang Rim could whine all he wanted; Noah and Mari had already almost reached the swamp. Noah chopped through the vines clinging to his ankles, then stretched out a long arm toward Yuhyun. The blue baton touched Yuhyun’s hand. With a flick, the baton spun half a turn and dropped into a small pouch at his waist. His sunken eyes turned to Hwang Rim.
“Someone save me!”
Hwang Rim twisted his body away just as the willow switch slashed through the air where he’d been. Flexible as a whip, it curved after the fleeing man.
“H–Hey, where are you going!”
Mari arrived a beat too late and stamped her feet at the edge of the forest. Like this, she couldn’t pass the baton. She couldn’t leave her zone, and if she just threw it, it would get stolen.
“Jini’s little brother! I treated Jini really well, you know!”
Hwang Rim shouted as he flung himself into the air. His body rose higher and higher. A flight skill?
“What, he brought a flight skill?”
Only our team had given up flight, so of course Seong Hyunjae’s team could still use it. At my mutter, Seong Hyunjae answered.
“It’s convenient to have at least one person with a flight skill.”
“Are you sure the game rules didn’t get leaked?”
I grumbled, but honestly, if I were him, I’d also tell someone to bring a flight skill. Space or teleport skills are hard to copy, and even just flight is extremely useful.
If his opponent had been anyone else, Hwang Rim could have easily dodged attacks and pulled ahead. But his luck was bad. Yuhyun kicked off a Blue Willow Leaf and leapt. Not a flight skill, but the ability to run through the air.
“I mean it! Yujin, say something!”
Hwang Rim shouted as he twisted down and dove for the ground, trying to avoid Yuhyun. Mari paced anxiously back and forth along the boundary of the forest, following his movement. Having finished the race, Noah watched her with a slightly sympathetic look.
“Well, it’s true you didn’t pull anything on me.”
He had treated me relatively nicely, in his own way. But in the end he’d still been an accomplice to kidnapping and complicit in violence.
“When a dog bites someone, the owner has to pay, you know.”
You were the owner of that bastard Cho Hwawoon. As Hwang Rim used his flight skill skillfully to dodge, Yuhyun flipped in midair, rotating a full 180 degrees. Upside down, he kicked off another Blue Willow Leaf and dove like an arrow.
Smack–!
Hwang Rim twisted his body hard. But he couldn’t completely avoid the switch that came stabbing down like a spear. The sleeve of his forearm split open and blood spattered. Just before he hit the swamp, Yuhyun spun again and landed. It was a swamp, but no muddy water splashed.
Sssss—
The water had all evaporated in the heat of the flames that sprang up right before he touched down.
“Ow, that hurts!”
Hwang Rim made a tearful face and hurriedly flew toward Mari. Mari quickly thrust out the hand holding the baton.
“Grab it and run!”
“I’d love to, princess.”
Hwang Rim took the baton and started to cross the swamp. But of course, Yuhyun wasn’t going to let him go. Whistle–! The switch sliced through the air toward him again. Unless you were very good with a flight skill, your instantaneous movements were slower than running on solid ground. Stepping on rocks scattered between the patches of swamp, Hwang Rim barely dodged the strikes. The wind from each swing slapped his face with a sharp crack.
“You’re both S–class, at least show some spirit. But if my brother gets hurt, you die.”
“Your brother’s not standard issue!”
So he did know about natural–born S–class. Well, he was contracted to a Transcendent; it would be weirder if he didn’t know.
“And he got all that love, more than anybody!”
“You can tell my Yuhyun shot up, right? He’s even taller than when we went to China. He’s almost 190.”
I hadn’t measured exactly, so maybe he’d already hit 190. I’d love it if he ended up mid–190s. There are plenty of hunters over two meters in the West. It’d be nice if he ended up taller than Seong Hyunjae. At this rate, it was possible.
I shook the maracas, chanting, My little brother is amazing, amazing. Watching Hwang Rim scramble was pretty fun too.
‘Might as well use this chance to gauge his stats.’
He was a bit ambiguous as an ally, but for now he was on our side – technically. Still, we had no idea how long that would last. Just from him dodging Yuhyun’s attacks barehanded, he seemed stronger than an average S–class.
Whooosh–
Flames began to devour the swamp. Like he meant to burn away every foothold, fire rolled everywhere.
“Let’s… talk this out, okay? Little brother!”
Riiip– Hwang Rim’s side seam tore as the switch’s tip grazed it. He jumped off the hot ground. He must have a fire–resistance skill or item, because his clothes didn’t actually catch fire, but scorch marks were left behind.
“I’ve got nothing to say.”
Yuhyun’s voice was icy as he swung a kick at Hwang Rim’s head. Hwang Rim dropped back almost lying flat, rolled, and dodged. Sparks scattered with a hiss.
“He’s going pretty easy on him.”
Just looking at the fire, it was basically normal. If he hadn’t held back, Hwang Rim would have at least first–degree burns. He had helped us, so killing him would be too much. This was just a warning. My kid is so nice.
“And the dog owner is matching that level too.”
“There’s no real benefit to a serious fight. That guy’s good at staying on the right side of the line.”
If they fought for real, I was pretty sure it’d end with Hwang Rim’s death. Yuhyun had no reason to spare him.
Even as they clashed over and over, Hwang Rim kept inching toward the city zone. The game only ended once he passed the baton. Before long they’d gone well past the halfway point of the swamp, and the fifth runners appeared.
“Hey, civil servant!”
Liette cheerfully greeted Chief Song. Chief Song answered with a small nod. As expected, he was our last runner. Out of all of us, he was the most used to fighting in a city.
“Gah! Wait!”
Hwang Rim sucked in a sharp breath and splashed into a patch of swamp that hadn’t dried out yet. As the city drew closer, Yuhyun’s attacks had gotten fiercer.
“Hyung, I’ll break his leg and head on. He probably has at least a high–grade potion, but it’ll slow him down a bit.”
“Yeah. Who knows what’ll happen later, so keep it clean.”
If we were desperate, we might end up needing his help, so it had to be an injury that was easy to heal. The willow switch curved like a crescent moon and came slamming down at Hwang Rim. Unable to hold out any longer, Hwang Rim finally pulled out a weapon. Clang! The wooden switch snapped against a metal staff. As shards of wood flew, Yuhyun’s other hand snatched them out of the air and threw them right back at Hwang Rim.
Crunch!
The stick missed full impact and just grazed his leg. For an S–class hunter, that was a light wound that didn’t really interfere with movement. Then, instead of the broken switch, Yuhyun slid off the sash belt of his ceremonial clothes and snapped it through the air. The belt coiled around the staff in Hwang Rim’s hands. Squelch– Hwang Rim’s feet sank into the swamp as he braced himself. Yuhyun stood on dry ground. The belt stretched taut between them.
“Wow, your strength is something else.”
Hwang Rim clicked his tongue and put on his best pitiful expression. Of course, it had zero effect on Yuhyun.
“I’ll count to ten and then follow. Okay? I treated your brother really well, you know. I helped him when he was hurt, fed him good stuff, even sang him lullabies.”
What nonsense. Instead of replying, Yuhyun simply tightened his grip on the belt and his arm. Crrrk, the metal staff began to bend with a grinding sound. Hwang Rim’s brows drew together slightly. Then, suddenly, thump. He let go.
They’d both been pulling, so when one side let go, the staff snapped forward straight toward Yuhyun. Yuhyun spun, drawing the belt into a tight circle. The staff tied to the belt whipped around in a huge arc and came crashing back down toward its owner.
Thud!
The end of the staff grazed Hwang Rim’s leg and buried itself in the ground. He dodged well again. But then, in quick succession–
Ping!
The remaining half of the stick shot out from under Yuhyun’s sleeve. Hwang Rim screamed and hopped on one leg, clutching the other.
“Whoa, wow. I thought you threw that away!”
Same, I hadn’t noticed he’d hidden it up his sleeve. The sash belt slipped off the metal staff. Yuhyun kicked the staff toward him. Hwang Rim staggered but caught it. Without so much as a glance back, Yuhyun turned away and sprinted off, his feet stepping on Blue Willow Leaves.
“Hwang Rim, you look like a mess.”
At my comment, Hwang Rim gave an awkward laugh.
“I was trying to let him blow off some steam, but that didn’t work out. He’s no joke~. And I’m the only one who had to pull out a real weapon. How embarrassing.”
Even so, he still hadn’t shown any of his actual combat skills. Slippery bastard. Hwang Rim downed a potion and healed his wounds, then used his flight skill and headed for the city. Seeing Yuhyun approach, Liette flung her arm up high.
–TL Notes–
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