“Dammit! It’s unfair! I’m telling you, it’s unfair! Ugh!!”
I, of all people.
I, of all people, lost to an F-rank.
Ko Young-woo, lying on his side clutching his swollen stomach filled with shadows, gritted his teeth while panting heavily. The sheets on the bed where he had caused a commotion were already a mess.
Lying on the bed, he replayed what had happened at the arena.
‘Not only losing control of my ability in front of an F-rank, not even an A-rank… Has this ever happened to me before?’
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand what had occurred at that time. He didn’t want to admit it either.
Not only was he mocked by an F-rank, but his ability also didn’t listen to him today of all days.
Could it be that the F-rank used some strange power? No, no way. No matter what, that guy is an F-rank. There’s no way an F-rank could control his A-rank shadow ability.
Although that bastard was a bit… good at dodging.
Come to think of it, well, his expression was quite relaxed too.
No, no. Let’s not think about it any further.
It must have just been an unlucky day. Damn it. If that was the case, he should have done that in a street fight instead. To suffer such an embarrassing incident right in front of other A-ranks.
“Ugh.”
His stomach ached even more, and the shadow showed no signs of coming out.
—This is the first time we’ve encountered a case like this… Hmm, it seems difficult to resolve even if you go to the hospital. For now, you’ll have to wait for it to naturally come out from the back.
Since even the healing-type hero said that, what else could he do? Ko Young-woo had no choice but to lie on the bed like this and groan until the shadow came out of his body.
Every time his stomach cramped and hurt, only his anger toward that guy rose. His mocking tone, his expression, his gaze. He couldn’t forget a single one.
Once this treatment was over and the shadow regained its senses, the first thing he would do was find that guy, Hwa-shin or whatever his name was, and finish him off…
Swish.
“Found him.”
“…What the.”
…Found me?
As he turned his head at the sound of the curtain being pulled back, Yoo Hwa-shin was waving his hand with a bright face.
“Hello.”
Oh, oh oh. Yeah. Hello.
—That’s not it!
As Ko Young-woo tried to sit up abruptly, Hwa-shin pressed his forehead with his finger. Despite thinking he couldn’t be pushed over, the thin finger’s strength was so strong that he found himself lying back on the bed politely.
“The patient should lie down.”
Hwa-shin closed the curtain again and stepped inside. With a gentle smile on his radiant face, he said,
“If I hit you, you’ll end up lying down again anyway, so there’s no need to get up, right?”
…..?
“Ah, yeah. It’ll hurt a bit if you get hit.”
What the?
Why is this bastard talking about hitting someone like a nurse saying, “It’ll sting a little~” before giving an injection?
Hwa-shin leisurely pulled out a folding chair from under the bed and sat down. His long legs folded in that narrow space.
“Well, let me explain.”
Yoo Hwa-shin pointed at Ko Young-woo’s large stomach. Ko Young-woo also stared at his own stomach, then came to his senses and looked forward again.
“Young-i’s shadow entered your body, right?”
A calm explanation followed.
“I originally tangled something inside that shouldn’t be tangled, so it won’t be expelled naturally. To remove something like that, someone has to give a huge impact from the outside. But that’s also very complicated. It’s not simply hitting with force.”
The more Ko Young-woo listened to the gentle and kind tone with an explanation that didn’t match it, the more confused he became.
‘Who is this guy, explaining one by one the reasons for beating me up?’
Unlike his perplexed expression, Hwa-shin continued his explanation comfortably with his legs crossed.
“So from now on, I’m going to hit Young-i’s stomach hard with my fist, about 3 times. Well, 2 times would be enough, but since the things you said were a bit out of line… Well, this is also karma, right? Anyway, if I hit you, the shadow will be expelled too, and I’ll feel good hitting you. Wow, killing two birds with one stone. No, killing three birds with one stone since I’ll cleanly erase your memory too?”
Yoo Hwa-shin placed a finger on his chin. Two birds? Three birds? Which should it be?
His thin fingers move back and forth.
He even asks a question nonchalantly.
In the first place, he’s still getting my name wrong.
Moreover, killing two birds with one stone? Three birds?
Is this a phrase used in this situation? At least he had never used it that way.
“Hey, you, my name is Ko Young-.”
“Well then, I’ll do it now.”
At least listen!
Before he could even grasp the situation, Hwa-shin stood up from his seat. His fists spun around following his wrists.
Ko Young-woo was surprised but not too worried. If he’s an F-rank, his physical rank shouldn’t be that high either. His own physical rank is B, so it probably won’t even hurt.
But why do I feel so anxious?
His instincts were telling him. To avoid it. If he gets hit by that fist, he’s done for. But he couldn’t move. The shadow filled in his stomach was pressing down on him with an unknown weight.
“It’ll be over soon.”
What the hell is this F-rank? No, what is this guy’s identity in the first place? Is there even a person like this? Where does that relaxed attitude come from?
“You bastard-.”
Boom.
Before Ko Young-woo’s words could continue, his vision went black.
The spot where Hwa-shin’s fist landed caved in. Ko Young-woo, who had lost consciousness, coughed and gagged. Amidst the burst of coughing, a portion of the black and sticky shadow flowed out.
“Ah, it got on me.”
***
‘You’re a wizard, but you’re good at fighting too?’
“Huh? Do wizards have to be bad at fighting?”
‘That’s not it, but… You look weak just by looking at you. And you hate moving even if it kills you.’
It was a question Dragon often asked him too. Why was he so strong despite his scrawny physique?
Originally, Elric’s body wasn’t a burly build either. So when he directly beat up the monsters that came up from the village, he often heard that.
Questions like, you’re a wizard but you’re good at fighting too? And you’re strong too?
To cut to the conclusion, it’s all manipulation.
How could he boast about being the greatest wizard of that era if he couldn’t even use this level of magic?
At that time, Hwa-shin explained to Dragon like this.
“I cast a command on my body. Just for this moment, increase the impact by several times, dozens of times, or even thousands of times. Of course, there’s a limit, right? You can only release as much as allowed. The way to know that allowance is simple. You just have to try until you die. Experiment with your body until the brink of death, fix it, and experiment again.”
Perhaps because he had recalled the past after a long time, a faint smile lingered on Hwa-shin’s face inside the infirmary.
Hwa-shin looked at Ko Young-woo, who was trembling in front of him. The coughing and gagging had ceased. Unlike the center of his sunken stomach, his lower abdomen bulged out more than before. Before long, the signal would come.
Hwa-shin, who had wiped his shadow-stained fingers on the bed sheet, brought his lips close to Ko Young-woo’s ear. He whispered softly.
「Forget everything related to me. The range is from the start of the first round match to the moment you lost consciousness in the infirmary. It’s fine if you vaguely remember that you lost badly to me.」
Above the collapsed man’s forehead, circular blue lights leaked out and burst. Turning his sore wrist, he headed back to the arena.
“It hurts, it hurts.”
It was the first time he had properly hit someone with this body, so he needed to adjust. Even the bones on the back of his hand were aching.
But even this will get better after hitting a few more times.
When he arrived at the arena, the atmosphere from the entrance was chaotic, unlike when he left.
Huh? Did the second round start already?
Hwa-shin, who had looked around and returned inside, asked Moo-eum. Moo-eum was also getting up from his seat, preparing to go somewhere.
“Did something happen?”
“We got a gate appearance warning.”
The appearance of gates was a daily occurrence for heroes. So there was no reason for the atmosphere to become so chaotic just because of that. The gates at this point were in a stabilized state. The atmosphere would change drastically as the destruction approached.
“The air is too dark for just that.”
“I wouldn’t know if it was just one gate, but several gates opened at once. For the first time, 3 gates appeared simultaneously. One of them is A-rank, and one is S-rank, so it has to be an emergency… Well, it’s still a predicted occurrence though.”
Hwa-shin’s eyebrows rose.
3 at once.
‘…That can’t be.’
Hwa-shin recalled <This Place> in his memory. In the first place, the content of this period was short as a past chapter, so there was no point in trying to remember.
But one thing was certain, at least at this time, there was no instance of 3 gates appearing at once. If there were, it would have had more weight.
Moreover, gates starting to form in the middle of the city was something that happened much later.
In the first place, the ‘Hongdae Gate Incident’ where Yoo Hwa-shin died in the original story was also the first incident with the largest scale of casualties that occurred in the city after the appearance of awakeners.
That’s why it became an even bigger controversy and the SH unit was created.
“Even hyung has things that surprise him. F-ranks didn’t get an alarm, right?”
Moo-eum waved the work phone provided by the government.
***
Notification to all B-rank to S-rank heroes of the Hero Management Department of the Gate Safety Management Division (Hero Association).
▶ Confirmation of 3 gate appearance warnings, case number pending.
Please quickly move to the incident danger locations.
〇 Expected occurrence locations: Mapo-gu, Seocho-gu, Seongbuk-gu … [View Detailed Information]
〇 Estimated ranks: 1 S-rank (Seocho), 1 A-rank (Seongbuk), 1 C-rank (Mapo)
〇 Due to the unexpected emergency, the SH unit selection matches are temporarily suspended.
※ All heroes currently at the arena, please inform the Department of Appreciation staff of your destination in advance and head to the respective locations.
***
Moo-eum put the phone back in his pocket. The calm explanation continued.
“The matches are suspended. Going to the gate locations right away is the priority. I’m going to the S-rank gate near Jiangnan. Jian-noona will also go there.”
After a brief silence, Moo-eum spoke first.
“Then we’ll have to part ways here. See you next time if we can meet again, hyung. And, don’t be too sad even if you can’t make it into the SH unit. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Sure.”
Jeong Moo-eum bowed his head in greeting and turned around without hesitation. He stumbled once as he turned, and that was so cute that it made him laugh.
Before long, Yoo Hwa-shin was left alone in the large arena. It seemed all the S-ranks and A-ranks had headed toward the gates.
He checked his work phone, but still, no alarms came for him, an F-rank. It seemed that upper-rank gate alarms only went to higher ranks.
“Hmm.”
This time, Hwa-shin stretched both arms upward. He also clasped his hands together and shook them side to side, and repeated sitting down and standing up a few times as if preparing for dispatch.
“Hmm, then now… where should I go?”
Hwa-shin grinned. He was contemplating which of the 3 given paths to take.
Even though an F-rank had no reason to go to a gate.