Cha Jaeha looked down at the floor filled with crumbled stems.
Was what he saw real?
It was unbelievable. These were the plants that 3 S-ranks struggled against. Not only was their strength formidable, but the problem was their endless numbers. No matter how much Yoo Jian tore them apart or how much he burned them, there seemed to be no end.
Of course, even now, there were stems trying to cross over from beyond the window. But they had a moment of respite. And the one who created that respite was none other than that person.
“Hyung, why are you here?”
“Hahaha.”
“Moo-eum, your hyung is amazing!”
“No, noona. Does this make any sense?”
Unlike Yoo Jian, who laughed heartily, Jeong Moo-eum grabbed Yoo Hwa-shin’s arms and shook them. Hwa-shin fluttered like paper in response.
“Well, when you said you were going this way, I got curious and came to find you.”
“No, does it make sense to come to a place like this out of curiosity? You could die.”
“Hahaha.”
Hwa-shin looked around. Excluding the SH1 unit kids, there were a total of 12 people gathered here. Since he didn’t sense any living people on his way up, this must be everyone. The cold gaze of Cha Jaeha clashed with Hwa-shin’s languid laughter.
“Haa-.”
In the end, Jeong Moo-eum released Hwa-shin and pushed his disheveled bangs back. Before he could ask a question with his blood-stained lips, Cha Jaeha intercepted and asked first.
“What’s going on?”
This time, Cha Jaeha had no intention of letting it slide easily. Not only did he make his ability disappear, but he also eliminated the monsters.
“I won’t let it slide this time.”
“Hmm.”
“Mr. Yoo Hwa-shin, what is your ability? Please explain properly.”
Hwa-shin shrugged. With one eyebrow raised and the other lowered, forming a subtle expression, he answered.
“I don’t know well either.”
Seeing Cha Jaeha’s expression turn grim, Hwa-shin waved his hands.
“Ah, don’t make that face. Do you think I would lie? I’m a passionate fan of Mr. Cha Jaeha?”
“…..”
“I’m really F-rank. However, it seems I’ve gained a new ability recently after experiencing the Hongdae Gate incident. I’m still adapting to it, but the ability itself is a bit unusual, so it’s ambiguous to say what it is.”
I didn’t intend to reveal it right away though. Hwa-shin scratched the back of his neck with an ambiguous expression.
“It seems I can manipulate things imbued with the gate’s mana to some extent. The amount and quality of manipulation seem proportional to the burden on my body, so I’m still figuring out the limits and such.”
“That kind of-.”
“Awesome! That’s amazing! Then can you make all the plants here disappear?!”
Yoo Jian’s eyes sparkled. Then she tightly grasped Hwa-shin’s hands with a force that seemed to crush every knuckle.
“It hurts, Ms. Jian.”
“Ah, sorry. When I get surprised or excited, I can’t control my strength.”
“It’s okay. Hmm, well? But I probably won’t be able to because my stamina is weak.”
In fact, it was possible. …Right, in the old days, that is. Oh well, I should quickly adapt to this body. Only then can I help the kids more.
“Um…”
One of the citizens who had been quietly listening to the heroes’ conversation approached them from behind. Only fear and terror were mixed in their eyes. But a glimmer of hope could also be seen for a moment.
- We’re all going to die now.
There was a moment when they thought that. Because it seemed like even the 3 famous S-rank heroes gathered together were being pushed back. But when a man whose name they didn’t know appeared, the atmosphere changed. Encouraged by the somewhat cheerful change in the air, she also mustered up the courage to speak.
“Can… Can we escape from here?”
“Of course.”
The first to answer was Yoo Hwa-shin.
“Do you know who’s gathered here?”
Cha Jaeha, Yoo Jian, Jeong Moo-eum. These 3 will later become heroes who rank in the world rankings. Although they may be a bit clumsy now, as the SH unit hasn’t even been formed yet.
Upon hearing that answer, she burst into tears of relief. A small child ran over and hugged her trembling back, who seemed to have just entered her early 30s.
“I’m sorry. For making you anxious.”
Yoo Jian gently knelt down and hugged her tightly.
‘Now, what should we do?’
S-rank plant-type monster. As mentioned before, the only way to eliminate this guy is to ‘burn everything.’ In fact, if it weren’t for Cha Jaeha having a good matchup, it would be a headache-inducing fellow originally.
—As it gets closer to the main body, the stems become more violent, making it difficult to predict their direction. It also creates puppets by entangling the plants it creates. If it weren’t for Cha Jaeha burning them all, we would have issued a full evacuation order. Because if this monster covered not just one building, but the entire city, there would be no answer.
Ha Cheong-won had said this.
Then for now, our protagonist has no choice but to solve it.
Hwa-shin clapped his hands and said,
“First, I think it’s best to evacuate the citizens using this opportunity.”
That way, it would be easier for Cha Jaeha to move as well.
“Jian and Moo-eum, please take them and escape the building. As you go down to the lower floors, the attacks will decrease, so the two of you should be enough, right?”
“…Then what about the monster?”
“Plant-type monsters are too much for your and Jian’s abilities in the first place. It’s not that you or Jian are weak, but the matchup doesn’t fit. For monsters like this, the correct answer is to burn the main body all at once. So, Cha Jaeha has to go up.”
Once the non-awakeners and other heroes have all evacuated, he just needs to attack the monster, so even the current Cha Jaeha should be able to sufficiently attack.
“What about you, hyung?”
“Huh?”
“What are you going to do, hyung?”
“I’m going to go up too. I should be able to control the stems with my ability.”
Intense gazes of opposition poured from Cha Jaeha’s direction, but Hwa-shin ignored them.
In fact, all the talk about control and whatnot was just an excuse. He simply wanted to see Cha Jaeha fight up close. He was also thinking of secretly taking a video of our protagonist exuding his charm with his phone.
Let’s not get caught, let’s not get caught.
“…Hyung, are you really F-rank?”
In response to Moo-eum’s question filled with suspicion, Hwa-shin smiled with his eyes narrowed. With a smile that made one wonder if a person could be this kind-hearted, he lied.
“Of course. Absolutely.”
Right now, he was indeed F-rank, so it wasn’t a complete lie, right?
—Oh my.
The sound of Dragon sighing seemed to be heard.
***
Is there a protagonist in a book who isn’t frustrating? Characters who don’t move according to my thoughts are bound to have some frustrating aspects to a certain extent.
The protagonist of <At Least Today, I’m Also a Great Wizard>, which I read about 130 years ago, was like that.
The hero who appeared in <The Past Diary of a Sorrowful Hero>, which I read about 90 years ago, was also like that.
Cha Jaeha was like that in the beginning too. Fru-stra-ting.
Even though he was a hero, he extremely avoided people. Of course, it could be like that at first. Because it was rare for gates to appear in crowded cities.
But after the SH unit was formed, the situation gradually changed. Because the gate outbreak locations shifted to the middle of the city, movie theaters, and the homes of neighbors. Disasters don’t discriminate time or place. People also had to change to match those disasters.
They had to.
Cha Jaeha became stronger. Strong enough to take out a few monsters in one shot even with people nearby.
They had to.
But the current Cha Jaeha is right before he becomes that strong. Even so,
“Ah, you fight so well~.”
He fought better than expected.
Hwa-shin and Jaeha turned their steps toward the emergency staircase. Only the two of them remained, and to move quickly, it was easier to move toward the stairs without openings like windows. Occasionally, stems that had somehow squeezed through or giant flowers attached to the walls would open their mouths wide, but when Cha Jaeha flicked his finger, they quickly burned up.
Hwa-shin blocked the burning stems that spread to other places.
“Can I record your fighting on video?”
“Don’t joke around.”
“Ehhh, I’m not joking though.”
A cold voice. Even without seeing his face, it seemed like they could see the expression Cha Jaeha was making.
“It seems you’ve missed the timing to mature.”
“You say that after coming all the way here?”
“…Just shut up and go.”
“Hahaha, shall we?”
At the end of the stairs, there was a door leading to the rooftop.
“It’s locked.”
The door was locked. As Cha Jaeha lightly pulled the door handle down, the handle broke just like that. The kicked-open door fell forward with a bang.
“Wow.”
An exclamation of admiration involuntarily escaped his mouth at the amazing sight. No wonder Ha Cheong-won was so disgusted by this monster.
Ha Cheong-won is a rational fellow. When a man like that brought up the words ‘evacuation order,’ there was a definite reason.
—The scary thing about that monster is that there’s no end to it. It endlessly takes out plants from its body until the main body is destroyed. Most of the plants are of unknown types, so we have no way to deal with them.
‘Ha Cheong-won really never says anything wrong.’
A delightful laughter naturally bursts out. The rooftop was filled with plant-shaped humans. The forms created by thin, entangled stems wandered around of their own will. As soon as the door fell, their heads turned toward this direction in unison.
“Stay here.”
“You don’t need my help?”
Hwa-shin pointed to his own face. Even with a bright smile on his cheerful face, Cha Jaeha answered without moving an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
He dashed forward. The main body was on top of a rectangular concrete storage building. That monster was different from the puppets it created or the pillar-sized vines. As one could tell from the eyes that followed their movements and the heaving center that panted with every breath, it definitely had some form.
As Cha Jaeha started running, dozens of plant humans leaped around him. Cha Jaeha struck the stomach of the plant that had run up to him with a fire-infused fist. Whoosh! The plant in human form burned up just like that.
A pierced stomach. Cha Jaeha inserted his arm into that hole and flicked his finger. Then he muttered in a low voice.
“First stage. Explode.”
Then everything surrounding him was engulfed in flames.
That place turned into a fiery hell. The wall of fire rose endlessly just like that. The plants running toward him burned up like moths to a lamp. The sight of black forms turning into powder was drawn in the air. An ability that was as beautiful and spectacular as a painting, but equally high in risk.
Cha Jaeha, who became a hero to protect,
was strongest in a place where there was no one to protect.
“Wow.”
An exclamation unconsciously escaped. Cha Jaeha’s face was glimpsed through the flames and the wind blowing around it. A picturesque scene and a picturesque face.
It was understandable why the government specifically chose Cha Jaeha as the main character of the hero promotional videos.
“Huh?”
The eyes of Hwa-shin, who was filming him, stopped at one spot. It was the storage building where the monster was located.
Come to think of it, was there a need to lock the rooftop door of a building used as a storage? Moreover, it didn’t align with the regulations related to gates left in Yoo Hwa-shin’s memory.
—Due to the risk of gate occurrence, the doors of rooftops, emergency exits, and basements where people can evacuate are not locked unless unavoidable circumstances arise.
So, considering all these conditions, there was no way the rooftop door of this department store should have been locked. Rather, it shouldn’t have been locked.
Then, someone had locked this door. Then who?
In the first place, was there really not a single person who had secretly entered the open rooftop?
If a person on the rooftop saw giant vines climbing up the stairs from the bottom of the building, wouldn’t they be gripped by fear and lock the door?
“This is big trouble.”
Beyond the building’s wall, a small life was sensed. There was a child. Right behind the building, and right below the monster.