Chapter 74.2

Chapter 74 (Continued)

Chae-won’s firearms fired off beams of energy, targeting Woo-jin.

But in the blink of an eye, Woo-jin was suddenly closer to Chae-won.

It was a spatial leap.

Woo-jin seized the opening and swung the Iron Dragon Staff.

Chae-won closed her eyes, satisfied.

CRACK!!

BOOM!!

Woo-jin gathered the last remnants of his magic, imbuing it with electricity for a final strike, and sent Chae-won flying. She crashed into the wall and slumped to the ground, unable to muster even a scream.

Her mechanical armor was completely shattered, and her body was a wreck.

Ssss….

The damaged mechanical armor and the remnants of the mechanical soldiers scattered throughout the underground facility began to dissipate as magic. This indicated that Chae-won had exhausted her magic.

Just as a server crash renders a program unusable, the foundation sustaining all her mechanical forces vanished, leading to their collapse.

“…Ha.”

Chae-won let out a bitter laugh, a laugh filled with emptiness.

Woo-jin, struggling himself, approached to put restraints on her. Even stepping forward seemed a monumental effort for him.

Thud.

Finally, Woo-jin lost his balance and fell to the ground. Without any change in expression, he struggled back to his feet and tried to approach Chae-won again, driven by a relentless determination.

‘So tenacious, so determined…’

Chae-won found herself wondering.

Why was this man fighting so desperately?

“Hey…”

Chae-won called out to Woo-jin weakly.

Without stopping his advance, Woo-jin fixed his gaze on her.

Chae-won smiled kindly.

“Why do you… fight so hard…?”

Blood welled up in his mouth as he spoke.

“Isn’t it the disciplinary committee’s duty to apprehend delinquent students…?”

“disciplinary committee, huh. Duty…? Responsibility…? Are you doing this for such laughable reasons…? Or for some cringeworthy, vague sense of justice…?”

“Someone who doesn’t even intend to achieve any of that shouldn’t belittle it as cringeworthy or laughable. But no, it’s not for such grand reasons.”

Woo-jin caught his breath and continued.

“I just want to live well…. If I work hard as a student, it won’t be bad when I become an adult, right?”

“Wow…”

Chae-won was genuinely impressed.

“So, it’s just a trivial reason…? You’re more worldly than I thought…”

“What else would I be? I’m human too.”

“I like that answer… It suits you.”

Chae-won spoke as if chatting comfortably with a friend, gazing at the ceiling.

She felt her heartbeat slowing down.

“My heart, you know, I actually reinforced it with my ability…”

She spoke weakly.

Woo-jin stopped moving.

“It was weak from birth…. The older I got, the worse it became… I was supposed to die around twelve, but somehow I managed to hold on…”

“…”

“But now my magic is depleted, so I can’t keep it up anymore…”

Woo-jin narrowed his eyes.

“…You knew, didn’t you? That you’d die if you pushed yourself to use up all your magic.”

Even when defeat was certain, Chae-won gathered the last of her magic and pushed herself.

She had willingly stepped onto the threshold of death.

In the original story, the Technomancer Moon Chae-won flees somewhere after being defeated by the player.

After that, her whereabouts are unknown.

A message appears stating that the Technomancer, one of the six sinners, has been vanquished.

At the time, Woo-jin didn’t think much of it.

It was just a game, after all.

He just thought, “I won.”

Now he understood why.

“So, what now? You couldn’t catch me…? You lost?”

“…”

“Respond, you boring bastard… Well, someone as strong as you will live well and eat well in the future…”

The severe pain was beginning to subside.

“Take care, disciplinary committee Leader…”

Chae-won slowly closed her eyes.

“I don’t want to do this anymore…”

Her broken arm slid off her thigh and dropped to the ground.

Her head fell limply, and her heartbeat stopped.

The blackened vision slowly turned white.

Chae-won felt her body becoming lighter and began to float like a balloon.

Looking around, the scenery of the underground facility was gone.

The world had changed beyond what Chae-won knew. Looking up, she could see the eerie crimson sky beyond the white world.

Chae-won couldn’t understand what was happening.

Then, a familiar voice came from behind.

[You shouldn’t be here yet.]

Startled, Chae-won turned around.

A girl in a black robe placed a hand on Chae-won’s shoulder.

Inside the hood, an expressionless face devoid of any emotion was visible.

A familiar face.

Chae-won soon realized who the girl was.

‘Ha Seo-jin…?’

One of the six sinners, the Necromancer Ha Seo-jin, who had faced penalties after losing to Ahn Woo-jin.

Chae-won tried to call her name, but no words came out.

[Go back. Fortunately, there’s someone who can save you.]

Seo-jin infused magic into Chae-won’s chest. A chilling magic flowed into Chae-won’s heart.

[And remember. Later, you must help the disciplinary committee Leader of Ahsung High School.]

Chae-won couldn’t understand what she meant.

Had Seo-jin experienced some kind of change of heart after enduring penalties following her defeat by Woo-jin?

Or perhaps, Seo-jin seemed to know something important.

Immediately, Chae-won was forcibly pulled back underground by an invisible force.

Seo-jin spoke to Chae-won as she was dragged away.

[See you then.]

…Snap!

“…!”

With a heavy jolt to her heart, Chae-won’s eyes shot open.

Her heart regained its rhythm.

The severely injured parts were temporarily treated with a magical first-aid tool.

Before her was Woo-jin’s cold gaze, struggling to catch his breath.

Chae-won was back to reality.

Her entire body was bound with restraints.

“You can’t run away.”

Woo-jin’s lips curled into a slight smile.

“You need to properly serve your sentence, suffer for the rest of your life…. Then, die and fall into something like hell, don’t you think?”

“…How am I alive?”

Chae-won couldn’t understand why she was still alive.

“The stored magic in the Lightning Rod. I used it to give your heart an electric shock.”

Currently, Woo-jin’s magic was depleted.

However, the Lightning Rod he had used to defeat the Chimera still had stored magic.

Originally, the Lightning Rod takes time to release the stored magic again. But with the Iron Dragon Staff’s effect, he could forcibly extract and use that magic.

“I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did.”

His tone suggested he hadn’t really expected it to work.

Though he said that, Woo-jin had practiced resuscitation techniques after reaching Tier 6, preparing for such eventualities. Rescuing victims was also part of the disciplinary committee’s duties.

Thus, he had used a strong direct current to completely stop Chae-won’s failing heart and then repeatedly applied electrical stimulation to synchronize with the pacemaker’s signals, making her heart beat again. It was the principle of a defibrillator.

‘It went smoothly, but the sensation was strange. Well, at least it worked.’

Woo-jin felt something odd about it but decided to let it go.

He could only think that he had luckily synchronized the electric stimulation with the pacemaker’s signals on the first try. It seemed like pure luck.

Chae-won was still in shock.

Her mind was in turmoil, and she didn’t know what to say.

“…What are you looking at?”

Thud!

Suddenly, Woo-jin smacked Chae-won’s head. She immediately passed out.

“Sleep tight.”

Woo-jin stood up, took a deep breath, and began to walk away.

‘No magic, so I can’t use the communicator…’

For now, he had to move alone.

The special task force would likely be searching for the entrance to the underground facility as per the prior orders. They might have already found it.

So, he decided to leave Chae-won’s handover to them.

Dragging his weary body, Woo-jin went to find Oh Baek-seo.

______________

Rate us on Novel Updates to motivate me translate more chapters.