Devoted Love 4

What nonsense is this?

Nam Gung-hyeong struggled to maintain his composure.

“…So, I should consider her as your friend, Miss Han?”

“That’s right. For now.”

(Girl)friend.

Though not entirely satisfying, Michaela answered as such.

The relationship between the two was outwardly a secret.

Even in a world turned upside down by Gates and monsters, same-sex love was still something difficult to accept as common sense.

Moreover, Han Seoyeon was a celebrity.

Michaela didn’t want the girl to be embroiled in unnecessary scandals.

“She has a prior engagement with me.”

However.

That didn’t mean she would tolerate the girl receiving advances from someone else.

“I am Nam Gung-hyeong.”

“Is that so.”

A name indicating origins from the Great Nation.

Even if it was the narrow land of the East, one should surely know the surname Nam Gung.

Of course, this was merely Nam Gung-hyeong’s own misconception.

News from China, blocked by the Great Wall, was cut off from the outside world.

“So. Is that all you wanted to say?”

Even if that were common sense, Michaela’s answer would have been the same.

She thoroughly ignored the man before her.

“Let’s go, Seoyeon.”

“…Okay.”

A voice close to a unilateral announcement.

Han Seoyeon willingly complied.

Truly shy, she lowered her head.

She tried hard to hide an expression where embarrassment and joy coexisted.

“Wait.”

Then,

How would this have appeared to Nam Gung-hyeong?

That figure with her head lowered in excitement.

From a distance, it could give the impression of being scared.

Moreover, the other party was an uncivilized barbarian.

The gentle girl would surely be unable to refuse his forceful advances.

“I refuse. I have no reason to listen to you.”

“Is that your thought, or Miss Han’s thought?”

And so, a story was completed in Nam Gung-hyeong’s mind.

A heroic tale of rescuing a beauty from a vicious villainess.

It was like the epic of a true hero.

“…”

Michaela was momentarily speechless, dumbfounded.

“Seoyeon. What do you think?”

“…I want to stay. With Michaela.”

Soon after, she made Nam Gung-hyeong face reality right before his eyes.

This should have been more than enough to shoo away the fly.

As Michaela was convinced of this and about to turn her back,

“Huh…!”

Nam Gung-hyeong flushed red, as if indignant.

“Do you think such obvious trickery will make me, Nam Gung-hyeong, back down?”

“…”

This time, Michaela was truly at a loss for words, dumbfounded.

It went beyond a lack of empathy, bordering on a kind of delusion.

An unyielding belief in what one considers right.

All the descendants of China’s prestigious families are raised to become such righteous heroes.

Wouldn’t that make them easy to hate?

Wouldn’t that make them easily obsolete?

“Attempting to resolve everything through dialogue with barbarians like you is meaningless.”

Everything was the hero’s arrangement.

And that arrangement manifested as the result before his eyes.

China’s future generations were raised to be arrogant, self-righteous, and to act as if they were the center of the world.

Never to be able to harmonize with others.

“I challenge you to a duel.”

Resolving matters through words with barbarians was meaningless.

Nam Gung-hyeong rightfully took up the rod to educate the barbarians.

“If I win, you will no longer force anything upon Miss Han.”

It was a contradictory statement.

The young man of the Great Nation, who claimed to be the world’s model more than anyone else, was arguing for violence instead of civility, solely because the other party had a different origin.

“…What a meaningless proposal.”

Michaela couldn’t help but sneer.

There was nothing else she could do besides sneering at this point.

How ridiculous was it for a man she had met just a day ago to speak as if he knew everything about them?

“Fine.”

Michaela easily accepted the man’s proposal.

There was no other reason.

“However, if I win, you too will never approach Seoyeon again.”

Dialogue is a time-consuming method.

Merciless violence is easy to understand and yields results quickly.

Michaela didn’t want the ruffian before her to bother Han Seoyeon even for a moment longer.

For that purpose.

She had no intention of holding back, even if her opponent was weak.

…How did it come to this?

Han Seoyeon briefly reflected on the original story.

Nam Gung-hyeong, a young man with black hair (dyed) and black eyes (contact lenses), was a villain who briefly passed by.

Just someone steeped in a distorted Sinocentric ideology.

Like Maeng Jeong-hwan, a one-time disposable villain.

He had no value beyond that.

Han Seoyeon knew everything Nam Gung-hyeong would do, all the evil acts he would commit in the future.

And she had the ability to resolve them all by herself.

If there was one miscalculation, it was that her lover didn’t view this favorably.

‘Well, I guess it’s understandable in a way…?’

Han Seoyeon, in some sense, ended up accepting this.

There probably isn’t a type of person in this world who can quietly watch as another man makes advances on their lover.

“The rules are simple.”

In Nam Gung-hyeong’s hand, dressed in proper training clothes, was a special wooden sword he often used for practice.

On the other hand, Michaela, wearing her usual Academy uniform, held an ordinary wooden sword used for sparring.

“We’ll continue until a result where one side can acknowledge defeat. However, killing is not allowed. Other than that, anything goes.”

“Fine.”

With killing restricted and only a wooden sword in hand.

Normally, this would be an absolutely disadvantageous situation for Michaela, an elemental ability user, but.

──────────

[Nam Gung-hyeong]

Lv. : 43

Exp : 974/2874

HP : 80

MP : 60

[Status]

Strength : 60(Rank : B)

Agility : 40(Rank : C)

Intelligence : 10(Rank : E)

(Remaining distributable points : 0)

[Special Skill]

Supporting Star – Grim Reaper of the Great Nation{Rank : ■}

[Original Skill]

Innate Ability/Enhancement Type – Body Enhancement(Rank : A)

[Normal Skill]

Martial Arts(Rank : E)

──────────

…As long as her opponent was just a player, not even a named one, she wasn’t worried at all.

“Enough talk.”

Michaela gestured casually.

“Let’s begin already.”

“Huh.”

Nam Gung-hyeong clicked his tongue briefly.

“Quite a relaxed expression you have.”

How dare such a barbarian race, not even equal to the East, utter such nonsense to him, the heir of the Nam Gung family!

“Don’t regret…”

Suddenly, something entered Nam Gung-hyeong’s vision: a status window.

The divine eye that only the chosen ones could possess.

──────────

[Michaela Ernst von Wittelsbach]

Lv. : 100

Exp : 125000/125000

HP : 200

MP : 250

[Status]

Strength : 80(Rank : A)

Agility : 100(Rank : A+)

Intelligence : 80(Rank : A)

[Original Skill]

Innate Ability/Special Type – Sword of Winter(Rank : Ex)

[Normal Skill]

Swordsmanship(Rank : A++)

Tracking(Rank : D)

Storage(Rank : C)

Contract(Rank : E)

──────────

“…this.”

That divine eye was telling him.

The overwhelming difference.

Nam Gung-hyeong blinked several times.

Nothing changed.

Level 100.

The ability’s rank was something he had never heard of before.

“I said enough with the chatter.”

Was it fortune that should be called luck?

Michaela didn’t use the power of winter against someone like Nam Gung-hyeong.

“Let’s end this quickly.”

“…!”

No strange power mangled Nam Gung-hyeong’s body.

Just simple, primal violence struck Nam Gung-hyeong’s body.

In an instant.

As if wasting any more time than that would be a shame, Michaela’s wooden sword struck fiercely, beyond Nam Gung-hyeong’s range of perception.

He couldn’t tell if it was coming from above or below.

He didn’t even know from which direction or in what form the sword strikes were coming.

Only one thing was certain.

Nam Gung-hyeong’s body, without even letting out a single scream, became like a rag doll.

After being one-sidedly beaten, the pitiful body falls.

“Do you understand.”

A chilling word that makes one’s spine shiver pierces his heart.

“Never approach Seoyeon again.”

Who was that word directed at?

Her gaze seemed to be looking somewhere far away, not at Nam Gung-hyeong.

In some secluded corner.

A pink-haired girl bit her lip.