Ch.172167 – Stalker

A message flew into Yoonseul’s phone.

[I’m coming for you. Gangnam-gu Seolleung-ro 221, Building 21x, Unit 13xx.]

The unknown number made it even more suspicious.

It wasn’t a voice phishing scam, nor was it a prank from someone she knew.

Suspicion quickly turned to fear.

[(photo).jpg]

[Hello.]

It was a photo of the front door of Yoonseul’s apartment.

Her heart sank as she immediately exited the capsule and ran to the living room.

BANG-!

A man was pounding on the metal door with all his might, his fist filled with rage.

“These people… those people…”

BANG-!

“AAAAAAHHHHH!”

Yoonseul, inside the door, trembled as memories of previous nightmares flooded back.

BANG-!

The door wasn’t one that could be easily broken by human strength alone.

However, the seams were gradually widening, and as the cold air from outside touched Yoonseul’s thighs, her terror was about to become reality.

“Do you know why I’m doing this?”

A sharp voice like nails on a chalkboard pierced Yoonseul’s ears. The voice carried aura, perhaps even emotion.

She barely managed to answer through sobs that were close to screams.

“Hic… I… I don’t know! Why are you doing this! Huuuuu…”

That answer was clearly not what the man wanted. The door creaked even louder, reflecting his intensified anger.

“How can you not know! Especially you!”

BANG!

“AAAAAAHHH! Qu… quickly call the po… police…”

THUD!

The sound was different.

The door panel was completely shattered.

Yoonseul, now making eye contact with the man, dropped her phone and darted to her room as fast as she could.

After locking the door twice, three times, she collapsed against it.

“Huu… hic… huuk…. Who are you… please stop… please…”

“Open this door. Open it, you xxx!”

“This… this is a mana-reinforced door…! So leave! Please just go! Huaaaaaang…”

Yoonseul never imagined that the mana treatment she had applied to her walls and door during a period of extreme paranoia would help her in this way.

She shed tears again at the momentary relief.

This was completely different from the malice she occasionally encountered online.

This was someone who had tracked down her home address with the intention of harming her.

The malice emanating from him was like a pain that burned her entire body.

“Rika.”

Yoonseul’s eyes snapped open at the man’s murmur.

“Hayan, Rani, Yooju, and Chena.”

The names the man recited were members of the girl group Envy.

And the very first one was a name that didn’t even exist in the group.

“You’re Rika. Kariri.”

“No…”

“HOW!”

The man shouted loudly.

Yoonseul, hearing the yell through the door, reflexively hung her head.

Her hands, which were covering her head, continued to tremble slightly.

“How… Chena died… and you’re just fine? Are you enjoying life?”

He was spouting incomprehensible words.

Yoonseul felt the surrounding air getting hotter.

“Chena died because of you, Rika. And meanwhile, you went to Desireland to have fun? As if mocking Chena? Is that funny… huh, IS THAT FUNNY?!”

“AAAAAAHHH! GO AWAY! Please go away! Wh… what does that have to do with me now!”

“Desireland was Chena’s next scheduled appearance. You knew that. How could you, as a fan, do that…?”

“I… I don’t know about that! I don’t know… really huuuuk…”

Yoonseul barely understood half of what the man was saying.

How would she know about next schedules or whatever?

It was true that Yoonseul personally admired Chena, but she was someone who had ignored her messages for over 4 years.

“Ah, hot!”

Startled by the burning pain on her back, Yoonseul jumped up.

The door was gradually turning red-hot. The heat was becoming unbearable.

It wasn’t just her imagination that the air was actually getting warmer.

“How is this…?”

“You’d better open the door while I’m asking nicely. Did you think I couldn’t break through?”

“If… if I open it, what will you do! What are you trying to do to me! Kill me?”

“Kill you? Yeah, let’s all just die today!”

[3rd Circle Cast: Thermal Expansion Coefficient Control]

The door hinges fell off with a creak due to the magic used by the man.

The space between the door and wall gradually narrowed, and cracks began to form in the wall.

Whether the door broke first or the wall did,

It was clear that the unidentified man would get inside.

If only she had called the police first, or at least not dropped her phone, or at the very least tried to ask her team members for help through the capsule before the mana system activated.

‘Idiot… I’m really an idiot…’

Yoonseul hated how helpless she had become.

“Hic… huuk… save me… please save me… I’m sorry, really…”

“Open the fucking door! You murderer!”

Mana was leaking through the seams that weren’t mana-treated.

Finally, Yoonseul, having lost her grip on sanity, screamed.

“Stop… stop right now! If you continue, I’ll… I’ll jump out of here… you hear me? I’ll jump!”

“Go ahead and jump, you coward!”

“Hic huuk… damn… don’t think I won’t…!”

Yoonseul’s eyes turned toward the balcony.

She squeezed her eyes shut and opened the window.

The cold wind blew fiercely into the room, as if trying to stop her.

“Hahic… why… why… huuuuu… I don’t want to die… someone please save me… please…”

* * *

“Gangnam-gu Seolleung-ro 221, Building 21x, Unit 13xx. Yes. It’s urgent, please come quickly!”

After hanging up with the police, NoName also contacted Professor Cheon just in case.

There was no harm in having as many safety measures as possible.

Kariri’s home was only a 5 to 10-minute drive away.

She immediately hailed a taxi and headed to the main entrance of Yoonseul’s apartment complex.

Fortunately, she remembered the exact address that Kariri had seemingly dropped as a joke before.

It was fortunate, but still too early to feel relieved.

As soon as she got out of the car, she wrapped aura around her ears to capture all surrounding sounds.

She headed toward the apartment right in front of the main entrance.

‘Where’s the entrance?’

Just as she was looking around.

“%$^%$ ^&%^&$^&!”

A scream coming from the children’s playground.

She hurried in that direction.

Three or four young children were all looking up with their heads tilted back.

Following their gaze, she saw a girl precariously hanging from a railing, swaying in the wind.

“Seol Yoonseul…!”

There was no time to wonder how she ended up hanging there.

Yoonseul’s fragile body swayed mercilessly with every gust of strong wind.

[Cast: Reinforcement Interference]

“Seol Yoonseul! Can you hold on?!”

There was no answer.

Moreover, it seemed like there was someone else in the apartment.

Besides the girl’s screams, there was also noise from a man.

Could a stalker really have entered her home?

If so, the situation was much more serious.

Rather than expecting Yoonseul to hold on, she needed to find a way to save her immediately.

“Kyaaah!”

Whether she slipped or not, she was now supporting her weight with just her arms.

Think.

Since the ground was asphalt, elastic coefficient magic would be meaningless anyway.

Moreover, falling from a height of over 30 meters would result in a speed of 90 km/h.

Most magic couldn’t guarantee safety at that level, and it wasn’t feasible to deploy defensive magic around Yoonseul due to the instability of the coordinate system.

A net… a net would be good.

“Kyaaaaah!”

As soon as she heard Yoonseul’s scream, NoName had no choice but to cast all the magic she could.

If the terminal velocity when falling is 90 km/h, that conversely means the fall would take less than 3 seconds.

She stretched both hands forward and concentrated on the calculations.

[Formulation: Ridemyster Conversion]

With her left hand, she created a formulation array to determine the shape of the net.

Simultaneously, she declared three rune words and quickly completed the magic circle with her other hand.

[Sutra(4), Psyche(7), Bestial(14)]

The Arabesque Knot used to bind criminals or magical beasts.

Among them, ‘Gold’ magic was mainly used for targets that fly around quickly.

Thousands of golden threads covered the sky, weaving a dense net.

Rather than making it wide, she made it narrow, dense, and thick. The size could be forcibly increased with wide-area casting.

She slightly rotated her left wrist outward to increase the number of intersection points in the net.

At the same time, she moved her right arm to position the net directly below Yoonseul’s falling point.

[Wide-Area Cast: Arabesque Knot – Gold]

“Seol Yoonseul! It’s okay, jump down!”

No sooner had she spoken than flames shot up right above the railing where Yoonseul was standing.

An explosion? No, judging by the flow of mana, it was clearly fire-element magic.

The hand gripping the railing slipped, and her body began to fall toward the ground at a fierce speed.

“KYAAAAAAAH!”

A person falling doesn’t appear in slow motion like in movies.

Before the scream could even end, NoName wrapped her body with the magically created net.

In the blink of an eye, Yoonseul reached the ground, and NoName released the Arabesque Knot after placing her on the ground.

“Yoonseul! Seol Yoonseul, are you okay? Wake up!”

Yoonseul was limp, as if all her strength had drained away.

No matter how many times NoName tapped her cheeks, she showed no signs of waking up. Even infusing aura didn’t help.

There were burn marks on her palms, and some of her hair was singed black.

[Quick Cast: Diagnosis]

Although she used an abbreviated diagnostic spell due to time constraints, there were no major visible external injuries.

Yoonseul’s eyes gradually opened, revealing her pitch-black pupils.

“Are you conscious? Are you okay now? Does anything hurt?”

If something was hurting, she needed to treat that area as quickly as possible.

“Huuu… who… who… NoName…?”

“Quickly. We don’t have time, Seol Yoonseul.”

The culprit was probably still inside the apartment.

Breaking into someone’s home in broad daylight and using fire magic was essentially attempted murder.

He might even be trying to escape right now.

“Hic… huuk… huaaang…”

“Seol Yoonseul, quickly… if anything hurts-“

“Wh… what… why are your hands so small…! Are you hic… Namei? Are you really Namei…?”

“I’ll take that as you’re okay. Who’s in the house right now? A stalker? Or someone you know?”

Yoonseul, with tears blurring her vision, shook her head vigorously.

So it was a stalker after all.

NoName called over the children who were just standing and watching from behind.

“Kids. Yes, all of you. Come here quickly.”

At her gesture, they hesitated, but when one followed, the others came rushing over too. Most were lower elementary school boys.

“Take care of this noona until the police come. Got it?”

Where were the police?

After leaving Yoonseul with the children, NoName entered the apartment.

She needed to see the face of the person who had committed such a crazy act.