episode_0134

“No way.”

Cheon Soyul groaned softly, muttering, and I responded. Immediately after the explosion, the train jolted violently and stopped on the tracks.

Most of the passengers in the carriage were flustered, trying to move away from the windows, while the crew members tried their best to calm them.

Amidst them, Cheon Soyul and I carefully rose from our seats.

An explosion. Familiar. The lingering scent of artificial ‘mana,’ not gunpowder.

This was the aura of a mage. Therefore, it was right to assume this wasn’t a simple explosion accident or a fire, but rather a terrorist attack by a mage.

“Hey, if it’s in that direction, then maybe…”

And I wanted to share a fact I had belatedly noticed with Cheon Soyul.

Similarly, she too realized the same thing as I did and let out a groan.

Just a short walk across from Busan Station lay the harbor and the sea. The explosion had reverberated from beyond the land, from the sea…

What did that mean? Cheon Soyul and I probably simultaneously thought of the artificial island located off the coast of Busan Station.

The Red Tiger Academy campus.

The explosion had occurred there.

The moment we realized that fact, Cheon Soyul and I moved immediately with a single glance.

We quickly disembarked from the train, blending in with the evacuating passengers. Most were heading into Busan Station.

But we weren’t. Quite the opposite. We walked directly towards the source of the explosion, and first, I touched the wall of a building and moved my mana.

A deep hum…!

The waves rippled significantly, touching the building, then the ground, and spreading even further.

In my mind, a degraded map created by those waves was imprinted…

“…Hah.”

Soon, I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh, expressing my genuine absurdity.

“These crazy fanatics finally caused trouble.”

I swore briefly. Hearing my words, Cheon Soyul flinched, and as if she had a hunch, she asked me.

“Hey… fanatics, you don’t mean those guys, do you?”

“…Yeah.”

I nodded, affirming her thought.

“Those idiotic Lunar Cultists are here.”

It was at that very moment. Boom!! With a rather grand roar, a hulking man burst through the side of the building and charged at us.

“Khahaha…!!”

He was a fellow swinging a hammer as large as his own body.

Cheon Soyul and I immediately split in two directions, and immediately after, half a beat later, the man’s hammer fell, crushing the ground.

A booming crash-!!

The vibration alone was enough to make one’s eardrums ring.

I subtly frowned and extended my hand.

Crackling, sizzling…!

Cheon Soyul did the same. She and I each wielded Heavenly Lightning from the right and left, and then simultaneous flashes of lightning struck.

A deafening thunderous roar!!

For a moment, everything turned stark white. It was the result of two pairs of Heavenly Lightning clashing, and at the same time, the pungent smell of burning flesh permeated the air.

No matter how large his body was, being scorched this much should have turned him to charcoal immediately…

“Keup… Heup!!”

Wham! The man merely announced his continued vitality by greatly expanding the muscles in both his arms.

His entire body was blackened and singed by the lightning, but conversely, it meant that he had endured both my and Cheon Soyul’s Heavenly Lightning simultaneously, and that was the extent of the damage.

“My, how tough.”

I twisted my lips and stomped on the ground. After all, awakened abilities with unusually developed magic resistance were rare but did exist.

If so, there was only one target. Obviously, just like mages, his weakness was close combat.

Wham-!!

Instantly, I closed the distance, folding the ground, and launched an uppercut towards the man’s chin.

For a fleeting moment, the man, who was directly struck in the lower jaw, seemed to stagger.

“K-heh-heh. Heheheh.”

Soon, he proved he hadn’t lost consciousness by laughing as if out of his mind. I kicked his side with a disgusted expression. Thwack! My kick landed properly. But.

…There was no impact. More accurately, no significant impact. It didn’t seem to have no effect at all.

‘Is he a Bishop-level?’ This was troublesome. Clicking my tongue, I naturally retreated to Cheon Soyul’s side and nudged her shoulder.

“That guy, he looks like a Bishop, no matter how I look at it. They’ve deployed a rare asset here, one of only three in the entire cult?”

“B-Bishop?”

And at my words, Cheon Soyul’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, as if she was agitated.

It was understandable. A Bishop of the Lunar Cult was a position with considerable notoriety.

I had only seen one once before… but if I recalled that memory, the fanatic holding the title of Bishop was—.

‘At minimum, S-class. Perhaps even higher.’

He was a villain on par with S-class Awakened individuals, of whom there were fewer than a hundred in the entire world.

Truly, a strong individual on the same level as Korea’s Archmages, or even my own mother.

He roared!!

At that moment, the man, presumed to be a Bishop, threw himself forward again, charging at us.

It was surprising how he wielded such a massive hammer without staggering.

I deftly dodged out of the way, and Cheon Soyul hastily cast a Blink spell to create a suitable distance between herself and the man.

Fortunately, compared to his body’s insane durability, his attack capabilities didn’t seem particularly impressive.

Still, he was undoubtedly a threatening enemy. Even for me, with my various abilities, I still couldn’t quite grasp how to put him down.

‘But, it’s doable.’

In other words, it wasn’t impossible. If I could mix and combine ice, Heavenly Lightning, and flame well, it wouldn’t be impossible to take down a boar-like guy like him in one blow.

Instead, it would require a bit of time.

“Don’t run away-!”

The man screamed, practically howling, as he furiously swung his hammer at me.

Even if his attack abilities seemed subpar, if I were hit squarely by a hammer of this much power, my body would just ‘burst’ from the sheer physical energy.

Naturally, I couldn’t afford to take such a grotesque hit, so I performed various evasive maneuvers, occasionally harassing the man with ice.

While I couldn’t inflict significant damage, I could certainly annoy him.

I continued to accumulate small amounts of damage, coordinating with Cheon Soyul.

I used ice and flame, while she used consistent lightning magic.

He shrieked! “Don’t run away!! Just don’t run awayyy!!”

“Is your intelligence a bit low?”

I returned a noncommittal answer to the man, who was shouting indiscriminately.

What madman tells a mage not to evade and to face them head-on?

We had our own ways of excelling.

In this case, it was an attack method sometimes called ‘chip damage.’

“Let’s see, to blast away his consciousness, what should I target first…?”

It was then that I was about to begin calculating the minimum power needed to take him down. Would it be better to focus on flame, or perhaps lightning—.

A chilling sensation.

“…!”

For a moment, a chilling aura grazed my spine, and I sharply raised my head.

I felt something. But it was blurry. Cheon Soyul looked at me with bewildered eyes as I kept turning my head in all directions, unable to feel certain.

“Hey, hey…! What are you doing right now?!”

From her perspective, it must have been absurd for me to suddenly be distracted in the middle of a battle.

But for me, it was serious. This wasn’t an intuition I could simply ignore.

What I actually felt… In conclusion, it wasn’t a mere illusion. Killing intent. A purple gaze aimed directly at me.

“…Ah.”

I looked up at a spot in the sky.

Directly perpendicular to the sea in front of us. Above that.

“—”

There was a girl there. In the sky. Her light blue hair was tied into twin braids, and she exuded a mystical aura as if walking on clouds… A girl who looked to be in her teens.

-Ahahaha.

She let out a delicate laugh. It was a charming and alluring smile, enough to make one’s heart pound just by looking at her…

But the reason my heart was pounding at this moment was definitely not because I was enchanted by her.

Dangerous. Dangerous. Dangerous. Dangerous.

My instincts screamed a terrible warning.

That was not a level I could contend with. S-class, no. Could something like that even ‘dare’ to be evaluated in such grade units?

My body began to tremble as if by reflex, and the thought of wanting to quickly lower my head, finding it difficult to keep looking, overwhelmed me.

“Ha…ru…”

I let out a trembling voice.

A short word, two syllables.

But as if she had clearly heard that faint sound, the girl, who had been gracefully walking on the clouds, stopped and subtly turned to look at me.

She spun around with her hands charmingly clasped behind her back, sending a bright smile my way.

There was no mistake. It was her. The Lunar Cult Leader.

-You, I like you.

-Next time, I’ll come see you myself, okay?

The woman who once dispatched a subordinate to Cheongsong Academy and attempted to overturn the entire campus with a terror plot, but was blocked by me.

And the one who, after I dealt with a cult member disguised as a faculty member, sent one of her Bishops and exchanged a brief greeting via a holographic video.

Haru, the Lunar Cult Leader. She herself had appeared directly in Busan.