episode_0138

For a moment, I thought I had returned to my past life, before I was reborn.

I had heard something so unbelievable that I couldn’t help but be confused.

■■■ ■■■■■ ■■. That was undoubtedly the core element that built this world. Of course, at its essence, this place was a world from a novel.

Having lived for decades after my transmigration, I couldn’t be certain whether the novel came first, or this world did…

Ultimately, I had never heard the title of that book from anyone living in ‘this world’.

It was only natural. They were people who couldn’t even confirm the existence of other dimensions.

At most, they only had contact with the world of monsters connected by gates.

This world had absolutely no relation to the ‘previous’ Earth I used to live on.

“…”

It should have been that way. I swallowed, staggering in place. A sudden dizziness rose, making it hard to keep my balance.

In a way, it was giving the enemy the perfect moment for a surprise attack—.

“You seem quite surprised.”

Haru watched me like that, yet didn’t lift a finger.

She simply nodded, as if understanding my feelings, and spoke.

“It’s only natural. I understand your wariness of me saying such things so suddenly. But, one thing I’d like you to know is…”

I remained silent, and Haru, whose words had trailed off for a moment, continued with her eyes shining.

“Lee Hyunjin-kun. I am very happy to have met you right now.”

“…”

“Will you believe that? We might end up opposing each other, but after enduring decades in this world, I don’t want the very existence of my hometown to be denied by the first person from my hometown I’ve met.”

There was no falsehood in her voice. Perhaps I simply failed to see through her act, but at least to my perception, those words were genuine.

No… There was no need to doubt from the moment she knew the title of that novel.

She, Haru, the Moonlight Cult Leader. Without a doubt, she was someone who had ‘crossed over’ from the same world as me.

As I properly acknowledged that fact, I felt something, a hot emotion, welling up from deep within my chest.

‘…Damn it.’

My heart wanted to regain control and not be unnecessarily agitated, but if I could control it as I wished, it wouldn’t be an emotion.

Let’s be honest. I might be quite shaken right now.

On one hand, I should be happy.

Because I met someone from my hometown.

And on the other hand, I must have felt relieved.

Because my past life wasn’t a lie.

‘But.’

…What good would thinking about that do now? I closed my eyes for a moment and steadily regulated my breathing.

When I lifted my eyelids again, all agitation had been completely erased from my gaze.

Get a grip. The woman in front of me is undeniably the leader of a villain group, and an antagonist who has a history of trying to attack me and the Academy I resided in, even if not specifically today.

Even if we share the same hometown, that shouldn’t be a reason to hesitate.

Rumble rumble!!

I used Heavenly Lightning to drop a bolt. Not directly aiming at Haru, but a method of drawing the power of that golden lightning itself towards me.

Crackle, crackle-.

The lightning, mixed with ice magic and starting to glow a faint blue, filled my hand.

I gently gripped it and looked at Haru with unwavering eyes.

She seemed to flinch for a moment, then nodded once as if understanding.

“That, then, is your answer.”

“Don’t misunderstand.”

I let out a short laugh and said.

“I’m genuinely happy about meeting someone from my hometown. I never thought I’d be able to talk about that very novel in a world from a novel.”

“…So, despite everything, a villain is a villain, and what you have to do hasn’t changed?”

“Thanks for explaining it for me. So, I’ll make sure to visit you in prison once a month.”

“Haha! Are you saying it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll be sent to a detention center…?”

Haru let her words trail off with a meaningful smile. The moment I confirmed her eyes darkening, I moved without hesitation.

Slam!! I stomped down with enough force to shatter the ground, then charged straight towards Haru.

My current full power, objectively speaking, had already far surpassed the level of a student.

It might even be that I had gone beyond the original Special A-rank, approaching S-rank.

I couldn’t say for sure without fighting her, but… Deep down, with my confidence alone, I felt I could have quite easily suppressed someone like the recently defeated Eileen Lewis.

Anyway, while paying attention to her now-gone presence, I reached Haru’s immediate vicinity and swung my lightning spear widely.

Boom!

With that single swing, a fierce wind pressure erupted, engulfing the entire atmosphere in golden thunder and lightning.

Haru leaned back by a hair’s breadth, and a thin strip of fabric from her chest was cut, fluttering down.

Crraaaack…!

I immediately fused ice magic to unleash my unique magic at maximum output.

Its power was so strong that even most melee-type awakeners would have to avoid a direct collision.

“…There’s no way I’d let something like that hit me.”

But Haru was calm. She simply extended her hand, creating black, black-hole-like fissures along the spear’s trajectory, and when I exerted force to cut through them, the lightning was redirected to a useless spot.

The spear clearly slashed forward, yet the aftermath of the lightning shot up into the sky, things like that.

‘Space magic.’

I meticulously analyzed the phenomenon with narrowed eyes. Magic, or a personal characteristic.

In any case, that power, which interfered with all space around her, was extremely overpowered.

No matter how I tried to make contact and attack, she parried everything, leaving no way to inflict damage.

Of course, the power of my fusion magic, combining Heavenly Lightning and ice, was formidable…

But even then, it only inflicted shallow damage through the aftermath of explosions and such. Of the dozens of attacks I’d launched so far, the only successful hits were at most three or four scratches on her limbs.

Even those quickly healed as she used a potion, seemingly pulled from subspace.

Witnessing that infuriating sight right before my eyes, a vein throbbed on my forehead.

“You fight like a damn cheat, seriously.”

“High praise, thank you?”

Haru giggled and took a large step back. Then, as if it were her turn, she extended her hand and conjured mana.

How would this woman attack? As I imagined various attack patterns that could be performed with her spatial abilities in my head…

Grrrroaannn-!

“What the, fuck.”

From the rift in space, torn open like a gaping maw, a dark blue beast sprang out.

An aberrant monster, seemingly a suitable mix of a lion, a wolf, and a crocodile.

It was an utterly grotesque attack method, entirely different from what I had imagined.

I gasped in shock and hastily bent my leg to kick its head. Thud!!

Whimper!

Fortunately, its durability didn’t seem great; it quickly clutched its head and fell to the ground, but the problem was their numbers.

Screech!

Caw! Caw!

While I was dealing with one beast, Haru had opened five or six more spatial rifts.

Now, bizarre beasts of unknown form began to roar and charge.

“You acted as if you had nothing more to say, but that’s not the case for me. I still have many things I want to say, many conversations I want to have.”

As I scattered cold air in all directions, turning each of them into ice statues, Haru spoke in a remarkably relaxed tone.

She continued to summon otherworldly beasts and continued speaking.

“So, you’ll have to be subdued willingly and then listen to me. I’d prefer it if you understood my intentions as well.”

“That won’t happen, I don’t think?! Hmph!”

Clang!! I swung an icicle like a baseball bat, knocking down a leopard, and gradually advanced towards Haru.

And I simply disregarded her words.

‘Understanding, my ass.’

My position was already clear to react leniently just because she was from the same hometown.

I was clearly a transmigrator… But where I had rooted myself now was undoubtedly this world.

In my childhood, my father and mother; in my youth, Seol Hayeon; in my early adulthood, Cheon Soyul. As long as they held me here, there was no way I would understand her just because we shared the same hometown.

Well, unless the actions of the Moonlight Cult she leads had a ‘rational grand justification’.

It was highly unlikely that a cult-like villain group would have such a thing.

I scoffed and once again stomped a large step forward.

Thud!

“!”

“…I’m here.”

Haru’s eyes, by then, could no longer hold complete composure. She opened her eyes wide once, then quickly narrowed them and suddenly extended her arm towards me.

Seeing space distort beyond her pristine white palm, it was clear she was aiming for a direct attack.

From this moment on, it was ultimately a head-on confrontation.

I unleashed my mana at full power.

What I needed to use was literally all the power currently allowed to me. Mixing ice, lightning, fire, and all other miscellaneous powers.

That power, which could be called a hodgepodge, was paradoxically my full strength at this moment.

Crunch, Craaaash—!

The strongest power permissible for a single strike began to converge in my grasp.

The moment my eyes were engulfed in blue light, and Haru’s eyes were engulfed in golden light.

BOOOOOOM!!!

A massive explosion erupted in the middle of Red Tiger Academy’s campus, sending the seawater surrounding the artificial island soaring high into the sky.