Ch.668Chapter 25. Let it Unfold (18)

“Kyaaaaaaa!!”

The moment the explosion sounded, the spectators in the stands ducked down in terror.

“What the hell! The people—”

“Don’t act rashly.”

As Battle God Lee Jun-young placed his hand on his Taeguk Watch, Lord of Radiant Wings Kim Jin-ho simply stood in place, staring ahead.

“No one died, no one was injured, and there’s not even a crack in the barrier between the arena and the stands.”

“D-did you see it…?”

Cheok Jun-gyeong pointed at the arena interior filled with light clusters and fog, his expression dumbfounded.

“Taejo, did you see it?”

“No. Yirin, what about you?”

“…I didn’t see it either.”

Something had used an incredible ability that even three S-class heroes couldn’t properly observe.

It was clearly some kind of explosive ability, and the explosion had instantly engulfed the arena—

Beep-beep-beep!!

The Taeguk Watch’s display panel, linked to the scoreboard, flashed with red lights, indicating that numerous ability users had been eliminated by “ring out.”

“My God… so easily…?”

“All those people who were determined to get a chance at advancing to the main tournament by landing a hit on an S-class… and they were blown out of the ring so easily?”

The eliminated academy students had willingly volunteered as “extras,” each with strong determination.

Virtual villains were needed to test the S-class heroes’ qualities for the World Cup preliminaries, and in exchange for playing these villain roles, anyone who could prove an S-class hero wasn’t worthy could advance to the next round.

Defeat an S-class and advance to the S-class World Cup yourself.

They had entered the arena with such powerful desire and will, but before the power of a true S-class, they were blown away as helplessly as plastic bags in a typhoon.

“Lord of Radiant Wings. What kind of ability was that exactly?”

“What kind of ability?”

Lord of Radiant Wings briefly made a sour face toward the innocent-looking Battle God, but quickly changed his expression and gestured forward with his chin.

“I just caused an explosion. An explosion that obscured vision.”

“Uh… then…?”

“The rest was taken care of.”

“Ah, I understand. Asking further would certainly… I should keep a close eye. We could be vulnerable to unknown abilities.”

The smoke gradually settled.

Through the black smoke, a boy stood calmly with his hands in his pockets.

Only one person remained standing in the arena.

The only other competitor still in the arena was Greece’s hero [Atalante], who was barely hanging on with one knee on the ground before falling out of bounds.

“Does this mean…”

“Shajo has two qualifiers…?”

Time: 2 seconds, 99.

“Whew… Lord of Radiant Wings. That was almost a broken record, wasn’t it?”

“…Perhaps.”

Despite Cheok Jun-gyeong’s consolation, Lord of Radiant Wings, like the boy, calmly stared ahead.

“Why, why are you like that? As if you’re thinking ‘that wasn’t his full power.'”

“…Just as you thought, that wasn’t his full power.”

“What?”

“He deliberately timed it. No, if I had someone like Atalante in my section too, I definitely would have exceeded 3 seconds.”

Smirk.

“…This should be interesting.”

For the first time, Lord of Radiant Wings smiled.

* * *

A massive explosion.

It wasn’t that I had bombs strapped to my body, nor did I possess explosion-based abilities.

I didn’t use a lengthy incantation to cast a spell, nor did I gather overwhelming magical power to release all at once.

What I detonated was merely an illusion.

If I had to say I used an ability, I simply created and released “black mist”—a fog made of black magical power invisible to outside observers.

Then how did all those ability users get blown out of the ring?

How could I send everyone flying out of bounds in less than three seconds?

The answer was in my two hands.

“How did you do it?”

“Rejection.”

“What? You can tell me, can’t you?”

“It’s an ability of rejection.”

Baek Seol-hee, who had been concentrating hard on maintaining the arena and was just about to take a break, tilted her head while looking at my hands.

“Rejection? What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. If I had to use an analogy…”

I scanned our surroundings.

This was Baek Seol-hee’s private waiting room, and there was no one else around for her privacy.

The fact that I, America’s hero Goblin, was here meant no one else would find out.

“No. I don’t like it. Don’t do it.”

“…What’s that supposed to be?”

“Or this: Stop!”

“……?”

“No violence.”

I took off the gloves I had worn in the arena and handed them to Baek Seol-hee.

Inside the palm of the glove, hexagonal lines glowed with magical power, and at each vertex of the hexagon sat a hemispherical piece of metal.

“…Is that Managold?”

“Yes. I used this to release magical power.”

The place where the magic power and ability manifested was in this device in the palm of the glove.

“Goblin rejects.”

And what instantly blew away those I touched through this device was my ability.

“To explain from the beginning, I combined three abilities to fight. One is super-high-speed movement.”

“I thought as much.”

First: Not time acceleration, but super-high-speed movement.

Both involve moving too fast to be seen, but it’s different from Rider’s time acceleration.

After all, we don’t call it time acceleration when Superman flies around the Earth at the speed of light.

“The second uses the repulsive force of magical power. The moment they touched my hand, they were sent flying by a powerful repulsive force.”

I pressed my hands together as if in prayer.

“Like how the N poles of two magnets repel each other rather than sticking together, I copied each person’s magical wave pattern as I touched them and repelled them.”

“…Is that possible?”

“I made it possible.”

My head hurt a little after using it, but as the brain that had once been the final boss demon Goblin of destruction and ruin in the original work, it wasn’t a major problem.

“Simply put, it’s like a ‘rainbow reflection.'”

“But how is that possible as an ability?”

“Well? … Put your hand down. Don’t try to create an ice butterfly to put on my back.”

I grabbed Baek Seol-hee’s wrist.

“You don’t feel any burden or hesitation when I grab you like this, right?”

“Of course not. Did you use that kind of emotion?”

“Something similar. I use the ‘hostility’ directed at me.”

I put the glove back on, then overlapped my hands again.

“I’ll take down Goblin. I’ll flatten Goblin’s nose. I’ll devour Goblin. Such malice or dark desires toward me are embedded in their mana. Mana carries the will of the ability user, and when that manifests as power, it becomes magical power, right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Since I have no such intention, I created a magical wave pattern that counters their will and pushed their bodies away.”

“Hmm…”

“Just think of it as creating an invisible barrier and then projecting it to push them away. That force is tremendous magical power.”

“For something like that, it doesn’t seem like it used much magical power… but I get it.”

Baek Seol-hee seemed to vaguely grasp the concept, but she wasn’t particularly trying to make it her own.

Nor was she trying to break it down.

Why?

“That must be tough for everyone. If they harbor malice toward you, like wanting to kill you, that malice becomes a force that repels them, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Ugh, I really… wouldn’t want to face you.”

Because Baek Seol-hee isn’t someone who would face Goblin.

“Atalante was completely dazed, wasn’t she? Not even knowing what happened to her.”

“She stopped just before going out of bounds because she had some willingness to cooperate with the Syndicate.”

“…That’s just the ability you showed as Goblin.”

Baek Seol-hee pinched my cheek.

“Cooperate with the Syndicate or get lost. That’s your ability, right?”

“…….”

“What? Am I wrong?”

“To summarize a technique combining three abilities in such a way…”

She’s not wrong.

She’s not wrong, but it was a bit disheartening to have my carefully explained ability theory summarized in not even three lines, but three words.

“Then aren’t you in big trouble now? With people who cooperated with the Syndicate… especially the next preliminary round, it’s team play, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Your teammates are S-class villains, and among your opponents are Syndicate collaborators? And they’re composed of genuine heroes?”

“Mm.”

My allies are those looking to betray.

My enemies are those who may be working together for the first time, but possess the unique bonds and teamwork spirit of heroes.

Tomorrow’s preliminary round 2 will be a 3-on-3 battle, an “urban warfare” with randomly matched teammates.

“Where’s your assigned area?”

“Me?”

The battlefield is a city I’m familiar with.

“Near Yongin.”

But a city that doesn’t exist in this world.

“Perhaps a place of patriotism, but simultaneously a place where demons are most likely to be born.”

“……?”

“There is such a place.”

* * *

Among registered ability users, some don’t participate in the World Cup.

They willingly agreed to use their abilities for the country to create special arenas in vast plains for the preliminary matches.

For example:

Creating exact replicas of real cities for the second preliminary match, “urban warfare.”

Building simple structures of buildings and roads inside the urban arena.

Making mannequins with electronic chips labeled “civilian” in their heads that must never be destroyed.

And conducting final inspections before the matches begin.

“Hey, Mr. Choi. Let’s wrap up and go.”

“Ah, yes. Just finishing this last part.”

The agents had created a city modeled exactly after a Seoul district and were completing their final inspection.

“Tsk. The city we busted our asses building for a month is going to be destroyed tomorrow.”

“Isn’t there a penalty for destroying buildings?”

“If someone’s willing to accept the penalty to win, what can we do?”

The agents shook their heads as they looked at the apartment building towering into the sky.

“At least it’s a metropolitan apartment. Whew, imagine if it were a Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam apartment. Even seeing a building collapse in a video might make property values drop.”

“Come on, really? How would property values drop from seeing a virtual city destroyed?”

“You never know about people’s psychology. Some might see S-class ability users easily demolishing buildings and think, ‘My home could collapse like that too!'”

The exterior wall of the apartment.

“If this apartment gets completely destroyed, I bet the property values of people who own apartments like this will drop at least 20%.”

It looks fancy on the outside, but with the name “□□ Public Housing Apartment” emblazoned on it.

The first two characters are mosaic-blurred, but someone might look at the apartment’s appearance and think, “Hey! That’s my home!”

“The person competing here is Goblin, right? Wow, if people see him self-destruct and blow everything away, even though it’s virtual, all the real estate offices will go crazy.”

“Because of anxiety?”

“Yeah. Let’s see, the name of this place is…”

The agent turned on the map on his Taeguk Watch.

“Gyeonggi-do, Hwaseong City.”

“Dongtan-myeon.”