Chapter 147: Hellfire Peninsula (4)
At that time, at Incheon Port.
Thud.
At dusk, as the port in Incheon slowly darkened, a small boat arrived.
The boat, which normally wouldn’t have arrived, was enveloped in some kind of magic.
“Hey, brother. It’s total chaos here.”
“Shut up. It’s because of this chaos that we could enter.”
Two men with sharp features disembarked from the boat, followed by a small girl who didn’t seem to be more than ten years old.
“Kid. Sink the boat. Let it sink naturally in the Yellow Sea.”
“…cough.”
The girl coughed out. Blood flowed between her fingers, and the relatively larger man quickly checked on her.
“Brother, she’s exhausted. It’s been a winding journey from Shanghai to here. The kid needs rest.”
“Idiot. That’s a monster. It can beat you one-on-one. That’s nothing for her. She’ll recover soon.”
The man coldly pulled something out of his pocket and strapped a watch to his wrist.
“I don’t know why such chaos has broken out in Korea, but the important thing is that this is an opportunity. With ability users scattered all over the country, it’s the perfect time to approach them. So, we are going to…”
“Recruit for the Chilryun Society?”
Flash.
Lights at Incheon Port flickered, shining on the group of men who had disembarked from the boat.
“Damn…! How…!”
“Even if you sneak in with a boat cloaked in mana, you can’t escape the Clairvoyant’s eye.”
“Damn…! Is Korea’s surveillance capability that monstrous…!”
“You’ve watched too many movies from before the 2010s. Sneaking in from the west in a small boat, that doesn’t work anymore.”
“You…! [Crater]!”
“Yeah.”
A-grade hero, Crater, clenched his fist lightly and threw a punch towards the man.
“As chaotic as it is, if you guys make a scene here, it’ll be a huge mess. Will you be caught quietly, or shall I make your organization disavow the Chilryun Society?”
“Impudent… Thinking you’re strong just because you’re a Korean ability user!”
“Yes. That’s part of it.”
Clap clap.
As Crater clapped his hands, soldiers in black suits lined up behind him in formation.
“We’re stronger than you guys now.”
“Damn…! Getting strong just because a meteor fell…!”
“So what? Whether or not we got strong that way, you guys should get as strong as us. Ever heard of the Miracle of the Nakdong River?”
“Shut up!”
The man pulled out two sashimi-like knives from his pocket.
“Wang hyung!”
“Jangga! Take that kid and run! We’re done! You must take her back to the mainland!”
“Don’t let them escape! These child abusers are making a 10-year-old child use magic till she bleeds!”
Crater clenched his fist, and magic solidified over it like a glove.
“You might look human on the outside, but you’re no different from demons, you Chilryun Society scum!”
As Crater dashed forward, the soldiers behind him simultaneously fired their rifles.
“You Chilryun Society demons in human skin! We’ll arrest you all!!”
Crack!
A giant ice pillar, 5 meters in length, formed in the middle of a school playground. The ice pillar was so thick it could be compared to a 500-year-old zelkova tree in a rural village, often talked about as a local landmark.
Crackle.
Inside the white ice pillar, a demon, which had its arms spread out as if preparing some ultimate move, was frozen solid, its sharp teeth exposed.
“Sigh.”
Baek Seol-hee calmly surveyed the inside of the ice pillar that sealed the demon. The demon’s eyes were fixed on her. Right before freezing, its eyes, filled with rage and murderous intent, were undoubtedly looking at her.
“Are, are you okay…?”
“Yes, I’m fine. The seal will hold as long as it’s not broken by a force stronger than my own.”
“Phew, that’s a relief…!”
A person who seemed to be a staff member let out a sigh of relief and sat down. It was one of the high school staff members, not from the Academy.
“Really, thank you so much. Instead of evacuating when a demon appeared, these kids kept taking out their smartphones to take pictures…!”
“……”
Click, click.
Camera flashes twinkled from the direction of the classrooms. The people stuck to the windows were students in uniforms, relentlessly taking pictures of Baek Seol-hee and the sealed demon in the middle of the playground with their smartphones.
“What about the evacuation broadcast?”
“It was broadcasted. But then this student…”
“……”
A high school girl with a wounded face quietly stood with her head down. She was in a regular high school uniform, not the Academy’s, and magic was flowing from her clenched fist.
“Ah, headquarters. Please confirm.”
Baek Seol-hee immediately raised her hand to the Taeguk Watch.
“Is it what I think?”
[Yes. She’s a civilian. A student who has been hiding her ability.]
There were many people in the world who lived openly with their abilities.
But rarely, there were those who hid their abilities and lived in secret.
There was no time to delve into their reasons now.
Baek Seol-hee approached the high school girl and took her hand.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, Ye-jin, we were able to seal the demon safely. No one died.”
“… What’s going to happen to me now?”
“Hwang Ye-jin, right?”
“Yes.”
Baek Seol-hee glanced at the name tag, then lightly patted Hwang Ye-jin’s shoulder.
“You did nothing wrong, Ye-jin. You acted to save people. People may talk about hidden ability users as if it’s a crime, but it’s okay. I, the Association, will help you.”
Baek Seol-hee hugged Hwang Ye-jin and patted her back. She also subtly used scattered ice crystals on the ground to scan the area so that the others’ cameras couldn’t see them.
-Wow, unbelievable. Snow White just hugged her! This is huge, huge!
-Shouldn’t we report this? Wow, that’s really creepy. She’s been living among us like it’s nothing. With just a flick of her finger, she could have killed us.
-Hey, didn’t you pick a fight with her last time?
-I didn’t know! Ah, damn…! Why is an ability user secretly living in a regular high school…!
-Hear this. Haha. Be careful, right? If you let the wrong word slip, you might turn into a demon.
She understood their fear.
For them, ability users were like bombs that could explode at any moment.
“It’s okay, Ye-jin. Your life might change a lot from now on, but you did nothing wrong. You tried to save people, right?”
“…That demon.”
Hwang Ye-jin pointed at the demon with a face about to cry.
“Is it… dead?”
“I don’t know yet. Whether it dies or lives. That’s… her choice.”
Baek Seol-hee looked up at the sky for a moment, then stepped away from Hwang Ye-jin.
And then-
Whoosh!
She lightly kicked the ground, creating a circular barrier of ice taller than the high school walls.
Wow!
Even the mere use of her ability caused people to cheer. Baek Seol-hee ignored them and raised her hand to the Taeguk Watch.
“Ye-jin, I want to talk more, but there are demons stirring in other places. There might not be someone like you there, so I have to go help. Let’s talk more later, okay?”
“…Yes!”
Seeing Hwang Ye-jin’s face gradually regain color, Baek Seol-hee smiled and spread her wings again.
Flutter.
Creating wings of ice, she leaped up and lightly stepped on the ice pillar. The pillar, which seemed unstable, stopped vibrating as soon as Baek Seol-hee stepped on it, and she soared high into the sky.
“This is Snow White. An A-grade demon sealed in Daejeon. You know the situation, so come quickly to manage it. Don’t make an A-grade hero exhausted.”
[Ah, understood! We will dispatch personnel and take care of it right away! The demon is…]
“For now, sealed.”
Baek Seol-hee took out her smartphone and checked the map.
She had been to a total of 19 places.
In each place, demons were sealed in ice pillars, and so far, no one had died.
But…
“How many demons… have died?”
[About 20… have been confirmed dead.]
“…Tsk.”
Baek Seol-hee fluttered her wings faster and headed south.
“I’m heading to Jindo right now, so please handle the C-grade demons on the way to the headquarters! I’ll… go to deal with an S-grade demon!”
[Yes! Snow White! Right now, ‘Dodjirider’ is also heading to Jindo along the southern coast!]
“What did you say?”
For a moment, Baek Seol-hee halted her wings.
“Dodjirider? Crazy, did all the demons get killed by Dodjirider?”
[Not all of them. Dodjirider, too… well.]
The agent from the headquarters continued with an incredulous tone as if facing an unbelievable reality.
[Dodjirider is currently subduing demons. However, demons that have eaten people are being killed…]
“……!”
Something resonated deeply in Baek Seol-hee’s heart.
“Dodjirider is subduing demons?”
[It’s somewhat violent, but right now, after beating demons with a bat…]
“…Beating demons?”
[Yes. And now, this is, it doesn’t seem to make sense, but…!]
A video sent by the headquarters’ agent appeared on Baek Seol-hee’s smartphone.
[Right now, Dodjirider is sealing demons in talismans and moving around!]
“……?”
No.
“That doesn’t make any sense-”
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