Complete Victory Festival 5

Mana is a mysterious substance.

Humanity is ignorant about it.

They don’t know where it originates.

They don’t know how it’s generated.

All they know is that it’s an unknown substance that came from beyond the Gates.

However, that doesn’t mean humanity is ignorant about abilities that utilize mana.

While they don’t know what mana is, they’ve continuously researched its combat applications.

Abilities are special transformations of mana.

An Awakener refers to a being that can accumulate and release mana within their body.

When accumulated mana reaches the point of release, it manifests in the world as a special phenomenon called an ability, passing through the filter of the Awakener’s body.

So people often think.

What if they could block the release among accumulation and release?

Couldn’t they instantly neutralize an Awakener?

It was all theoretical.

There’s no way current humanity could know how to block the release of a substance whose very existence is unknown.

There were conspiracy theories about the Hunter Management Bureau or Firefly Group researching this, but that was the extent of it.

“This can’t be…”

But despite that.

“My strength…”

It won’t come.

The vast power that had coursed through her entire body.

Unable to muster strength, she helplessly dropped her sword.

An artifact treated with special metals.

Its weight was too much for an ordinary girl’s body to lift.

Her ability wouldn’t manifest.

That power that had been with her all her life.

“Ha, hahaha!”

Seeing the girl collapse powerlessly, Maeng Jeong-hwan laughed loudly.

“How dare something so insignificant act so arrogantly!”

The bulky man approached without hesitation.

He stretched out his stubby hand.

“You…”

Lee Ha-yul swatted away that hand.

Even without her ability, she’s a promising hunter.

Her physical condition is superior to an ordinary girl’s.

“How dare a bitch defy a soldier!”

Thwack.

She was punched.

It was an adult male’s full-power punch.

A girl who lost her ability, against the punch of a former soldier who is now an Awakener.

“…Aagh!”

Thud.

A short scream rose.

Blood droplets fell from her face.

“Ah, now do you understand your place?”

The man with his huge bulk and weight finally crushed the girl.

“Why aren’t you answering, why!”

He grabbed her hair and pulled.

The girl’s face still held a defiant gaze.

Despite the intense pain enveloping her body.

“Ha, this really won’t do.”

Barbaric punches continued.

The man’s fists pounded the girl’s body.

Thwack─.

He hit.

The girl’s face.

He hit.

The girl’s body.

He hit.

The girl’s arms, legs.

In no time, the girl became a rag doll.

“This is why these AG generation kids!”

What wasn’t he satisfied with?

What wasn’t he satisfied with that made him swing his fists at the girl?

Originally, his purpose was decapitation.

It was to kill the target.

Unnecessary torture wasn’t rational.

The decapitation operation required speed and accuracy.

“I don’t like it. Girls like you who disrespect soldiers!”

His superior didn’t order him to spout such words.

“You think you’re everything just because you’re a high-level Awakener? You think that’s all there is to the world?”

Maeng Jeong-hwan preached his beliefs as a soldier.

“Disrespecting soldiers, disrespecting the powerless, disrespecting the weak!”

If that was words, it was words.

Words from a man claiming to be a soldier and an adult male, while crushing a girl.

“There’s a reason for the unfairness of the old days. It’s because girls like you don’t listen unless you’re beaten!”

Of course, it had no value.

“You looked like a decent person, so I thought about how to make you human…”

His filthy gaze blatantly scanned Lee Ha-yul’s body.

“What? Who are you to suddenly? To me, who’s clearly an adult and superior!”

It was a base look.

At least not one befitting a soldier.

“Girls like you should die. You don’t deserve to be a soldier!”

Maeng Jeong-hwan declared with a proud face and expression.

“How much must your parents have suffered. Because of a girl like you?”

It was verbal abuse.

Lee Ha-yul gritted her teeth.

“You think your parents abused you because they were incompetent? No. Not at all! You were abused just for being you! You were the one abusing your parents!”

She could only grit her teeth.

Despite a clueless third party carelessly tearing her down.

“How does it feel? After insulting the powerless so much, to become powerless yourself?”

The man carelessly reached out his hand.

He carelessly touched her cheek.

She was defenseless.

“Huh…?”

Crunch.

“Ugh, aaaaargh!”

So she bit him.

“You crazy bitch, really!”

Intense beating followed.

It was hard to find a spot not bruised.

She couldn’t breathe.

“You’re really done for! Just die already!”

Judging by the bulge in his pants, it was easy to guess what he was thinking.

“Die! Trash like you, your very birth was a sin!”

A fist flies.

Normally, she would have easily dodged or blocked such a fist.

It was an absurd end to life.

Not enough to be abandoned by her parents, to be killed by such a would-be rapist.

She was angry.

It was unfair.

She prided herself on living harder than anyone.

She hadn’t even confessed to her precious person yet.

─I don’t think of myself as incompetent.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when death approaches.

─Calling me incompetent and looking down on me is also belittling the people who cherish me.

Strangely, what echoed in her mind was a single line from the incompetent one.

‘…What’s that.’

Why was it this incompetent one, of all people?

Did those words leave an impression somewhere in her heart?

Lee Ha-yul hates incompetents.

Incompetents who shamelessly lie despite being weak, and deceive others for their own gain.

She thought Han Seo-yeon was the same.

While defeating Carol was skill, she thought luck also played no small part.

She thought she was receiving excessive praise compared to her actual skill, and on top of that, was trying to casually violate school rules using that.

She thought everyone was being deceived.

By the con artist’s lies.

Maybe Lee Ha-yul was wrong.

Han Seo-yeon is incompetent.

But, she wasn’t weak.

Though it’s meaningless to think about it now.

‘Ah, come to think of it…’

That posture of handling the sword with her left hand.

It seemed like she had seen it somewhere before.

‘Surely when we played hunter back then…’

It was a worthless thought.

Her head would soon be crushed and she’d die.

She closed her eyes.

She prepared for the end.

─Even after some time passed, the end didn’t come.

Splash.

Blood flowed.

It was from a sword, not a fist.

“Gyaaaaargh!”

A scream like a pig being slaughtered rang out.

The girl’s back was visible.

The coat tails fluttered.

“…”

Han Seo-yeon didn’t turn around.

Lest the injured person be startled and collapse at her twisted face like an evil spirit.

Maeng Jeong-hwan couldn’t understand what was happening before his eyes.

First was Lee Ha-yul.

To talk back without even greeting an adult, let alone a superior!

Truly trash-like character.

He could understand why she was abandoned by her parents.

A girl with only a pretty face and nothing else.

He thought about at least giving her a comfort mission befitting a woman with a pretty face, but as expected of a girl abandoned by her parents, her behavior lacked manners.

Such trash shouldn’t be alive.

He could understand why the general ordered to kill this girl.

“Ah…!”

He couldn’t kill her.

Because of interference.

“Ah, aaaaargh!”

His arm was cut off.

Surely abilities should have been nullified, so how?

“Ugh, u, aaaaargh!”

It hurt.

His arm was cut off.

How could such an atrocity be committed against a sacred officer of the national army!

“Why.”

He rolls on the ground in extreme pain.

Through tear-filled eyes, he sees a girl.

Black hair.

Red eyes.

“Why.”

It was a familiar face.

“Why did you do this?”

Though familiar.

With a twisted expression unlike on TV.

Almost like a monster.

“Answer quickly. Right now.”

Han Seo-yeon spoke.

Holding a hwando in her hand.

The scene unfolding there was the opposite of what was feared.

She twisted the original work.

Players would know about the Falling Star Swordsman.

That was all.

She thought nothing else would change.

It was arrogant delusion.

Many things had changed.

The one dying was a young girl.

The young girl’s entire body was covered in dark red bruises.

Han Seo-yeon is overpowered.

But even being overpowered, she dislikes killing.

She had a hypocritical personality that refused to get blood on her hands.

It was tragic.

Now it wasn’t like that.

Rather, it was the opposite.

Han Seo-yeon cut off a person’s arm.

Cleanly, without question.

There was no hesitation.

Even with blood flowing on her hands.

Even with blood splattered on her cheeks.

Now she could kill.

She could calmly mutilate the man before her eyes.

“H-Han Seo-yeon student, right? That’s right!”

The man called her name with his dirty, filthy mouth.

“I know about you! The general is your fan too!”

TROKA, a group of mental patients who think they’re soldiers.

There was only one man called general there.

I see.

So that man had goodwill towards Han Seo-yeon herself.

Is that why the original work was twisted?

For that reason alone, did Lee Ha-yul have to fall to the brink of death?

A faint breathing sound was heard.

The breath of a frail child.

“Student! I’m not your enemy, I’m an ally!”

An artifact was visible on Maeng Jeong-hwan’s severed wrist.

An artifact that appears in the later half of the original work.

[General’s Bracelet]

[Details: General’s Bracelet. Nullifies abilities manifested by Awakeners of lower level than the current owner.]

That’s it.

An item that only appears in the later half of the original work.

She doesn’t know why it’s here now, but without it, no matter how tired Lee Ha-yul was, Maeng Jeong-hwan couldn’t have beaten her.

“You were also badly hurt by that trash girl, right? We’re comrades, aren’t we?”

She stabbed the man’s severed wrist with her sword tip.

The bracelet burned away without a trace.

“Student…!”

“I didn’t ask about that.”

Red eyes glared at the man.

“Just tell me why you did this.”

The world isn’t just a novel.

Maybe it could be different from a novel.

“That’s…!”

The man might have his circumstances too.

His own circumstances.

“It’s because her ideology is rotten to the core! You know too, right? That girl is human trash, trash! She only discriminates people by ability rank! She’s like a commie! A commie!”

It was obvious.

The answer of a clichéd minor villain.

What those one-dimensional, one-sided words pointed to was one thing.

“No.”

That he’s a minor character without any humanity, so please kill him quickly.

To slit his throat.

It seemed to tempt her so.

“You’re wrong. That’s not it.”

She won’t kill him right away.

“Discriminating people by ability rank might indeed be wrong.”

“Then…!”

“But.”

This man deserves not a quick beheading, but a terrible death.

“That can’t be a valid reason for assault and murder.”

She takes a deep breath.

“She hasn’t done anything yet. Yet.”

As an adult.

Han Seo-yeon spoke firmly.

“She hasn’t done anything yet! She hasn’t committed any crime! She’s just an ordinary student you can find anywhere!”

Lee Ha-yul was a child.

Not an adult.

“She can be corrected sufficiently. She can take the right path! Without thinking about that possibility at all, why are you trying to break it, someone like you!”

Opportunities abound.

“Why should she be killed by someone like you!”

She will never let her die.

“The possibility of committing a crime can’t be a justification for murder!”

Han Seo-yeon will make it so.

“I won’t let her die. Absolutely not!”

Because she was the protagonist.

One who saves heroines.

“─Excellent!”

Applause rang out.

Far from Maeng Jeong-hwan who lost an arm.

“Excellent, those were words I really like!”

Kim Il-soo.

The leader of TROKA.

The mid-boss of [The Falling Star Swordsman of the Academy].

That man revealed himself.