[System: Heightened Vigilance activates.]
[System: Heightened Vigilance activates.]
[System: Heightened Vigilance activates.]
An urgent message blares.
"Kim Sinhwa, hurry!"
A voice jumps out of my mouth on its own.
"Hold on, I know!"
So now, the moment I’m even a little unfocused, they steal control of my mouth.
I already know what the problem is. And what I have to do.
"If you know, move!"
Frrrrrrrip—
The flap of my wind-whipped coat throws off noise. My view shifts at a tremendous speed.
Rrrrrrrrrrrumble!!
The sky overhead. A roar rolling from above.
Darkness widening by the second.
A threat on the edge of the surreal is eating the sky and growing.
Rrrrrrrrrrumble!!
It’s not an entity of the abyss descending.
A mountain is collapsing.
Specifically, Ulsanbawi— that colossal rock-mass— is slowly tilting this way.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrumble!!
"Who on earth did something that horrific?"
I said it like a joke, but yeah. The culprit is me.
Pretending to be chased by a monster (I was actually chased),
pretending to be delirious (it’s true I was confused),
pretending to wander aimlessly while I prepared magic—
I used the armored trucks and heavy equipment I’d launched skyward as bullets to destroy the base supporting Ulsanbawi.
Rrrrrrrrrrumble!!
People around Seoraksan may come to condemn me one day.
But there was no choice.
This is the most certain and fastest way to resolve in one stroke everything happening here— and everything that will happen in this place.
"Aaaargh! The sky! The sky!"
"It’s collapsing!"
"If you’ve got time to scream, run!"
"Aaaah!"
Screams and commotion burst from all directions.
I did pre-stage an evacuation, but there are still many who haven’t gotten out.
"Ugh, did I set it off too fast?"
No— it was unavoidable timing.
Crack— grrrrrk—
The sound of the shoggoth I froze starting to move, little by little.
"Tekeliliririririri!!"
A monstrous howl from Mun Gyeongnam, his mind drowned in delirium as his body swells.
If I’d set it off any later, one of those two would have sparked a new problem.
Therefore—
I.
Right now, in this moment.
Dropped Ulsanbawi.
It’s an act of force majeure.
" Mage! Seonbin! Please— save Seonbin!"
Mun Seunghee’s voice comes from afar.
"I know. Don’t worry— just get out first!"
Mm. But I’m short on time.
They say time can’t be bought with gold.
But right now, I can buy time itself.
[L-grade Weapon ‘Blade of Flesh’ unique function ‘Time Stop’ activates.
// Time Stop: Time halts. Duration scales with Will.]
[Time Stop]
Tt-tt-tt-ttk—
With the sound of time freezing, my vision washes gray.
Ulsanbawi, which had begun to tilt and was on the verge of a full fall; the fragments already spilling first; the dust billowing up to the sky; the people sprinting in all directions—
Everything in the world turned into gray inanimate stillness, and all motion and change ceased.
Not only color and movement vanished.
A silence so deep it’s chilling.
'Too quiet.'
Out of habit I moved my mouth, but no voice formed.
You can’t speak inside stopped time.
The din that had been crashing in from everywhere— shouts, cries, curses, screams—
All gone, leaving a world of serene hush.
The split-off personas can’t interfere here, and the injected madness pauses for a moment.
Yes— here, there is no madness.
If I wanted, I could even throw off the mask.
'Can’t keep it frozen forever, so move fast.'
[Flight]
I forced mana— frozen along with time— to move and wove spells.
Mana-lines, runes, and figures flared on all sides, sketching fragmented diagrams.
'The flow of mana isn’t natural.'
To cast inside stopped time, it takes far more power and effort than usual.
[Invisible Hand]
[Forced Ejection]
[Swift Escape]
[Chains of Dominion]
Spells trigger everywhere at once.
Effects fire without so much as a whoosh or a flash.
People who’d have been flung in parabolas to the ground instead pop safely out of the danger zone and hang suspended in the air.
With inertia offline, they move only as far as I push them.
'When [Time Stop] ends, they’ll finish flying.'
[Feather Fall]
I ward them further against the sudden drop, then keep gliding over the site.
'What a mess.'
A diorama of pandemonium, seconds before a surreal act of violence hits.
'Mm, that’s the office Mun Seunghee was using.'
A temporary office built from containers. We need that for the future. More precisely, the documents inside.
[Chains of Dominion]
[Giant’s Grasp]
The container sails over the wall.
And I keep flying busily, firing off spells in all directions.
Buffs to kindle specific people’s courage or leadership; a few attack spells to break obstacles that would snag evacuees.
In the midst of it, I spot a group moving the wrong way.
'Hey, if you run that way you’ll hit the wall.'
Saying it won’t help. I’ll have to move them all...
'Ugh, hassle. Just delete the wall!'
[Great Upheaval]
It almost feels like I can hear the crackling rip— fractures spider so fast.
Once [Time Stop] ends, that wall will rupture in an instant and open a way out.
'This area’s mostly handled?'
Without stopping my flight, I spread my senses in all directions.
There— someone still hasn’t gotten out, but Curtain Call is close, so she’ll deal with it, right?
In that case, I can call the worst fire out.
'Rescue Lee Seonbin and exit.'
Without even a whoosh or flapping, I shot up— and had to stop, unable to move on at once.
'Damn. Back again.'
Normally, [Time Stop] alone wouldn’t trigger this problem.
But I chose regression to correct last run’s mistake, and this world has a special system to punish foolish regressors.
"Krryrii-ririk!"
A grotesque noise shatters the peaceful silence of stopped time.
The Hound of Tindalos.
A lethal pursuer sent from [Tindalos], which exists outside this ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) spacetime.
Because it doesn’t belong to this spacetime, it can ignore [Time Stop].
"Kwiriririk!"
Which is why it can make sounds like that.
Emitting an unnamable screech, the Hound of Tindalos charges.
'U-cha-cha-cha-cha!'
[Mirror Image]
[Spell Boost: Multiple Cast]
I scattered hundreds of [False Kim Sinhwa] illusions to confuse it, while—
[Celestial Gaol]
[Blazing Flame]
—hurled flame and lightning to fence its routes.
And...
'Busy, so let’s catch up later!'
I drew on mana and shot toward where Lee Seonbin was.
'Come to think of it, why can Gong Isu make sounds? Are time travelers treated as entities from another spacetime? No, then...'
Before the thought could complete, I had to stop flying.
"Krrye-reuruk!"
'Oh come on, slipped out and came back?'
The Hound of Tindalos burst up from between containers sprawled on the ground.
[Dimensional Step].
A unique trait of the Hound of Tindalos.
If there’s a nearby corner subtending a 120-degree angle, that thing can flee this spacetime at any moment.
Normally it would take a good while to return, but does [Time Stop] reset that cooldown?
Meaning: no matter how I shake it, if I stop time, it can pop back immediately.
'Ugh, I’m sick of this.'
Even without the madness, the Hound of Tindalos isn’t an easy foe.
It’s got [Immune to All Physical Attacks], [Hyper Regeneration], [Combat Reflexes], and so on—
Magic works, but it even dodges incoming lightning.
'Can’t handle it with simple emission-type spells. And the spells that would work on it are mostly...'
...unusable while time is stopped.
'Ugh, fine!'
I ran through a few options in my head, then released the time stop.
Kwarrrrrrumble!
A roar from the sky.
Changes erupt everywhere at once.
"Aaaargh!" "Kyaaa!" "Where are we?!" "This way!" Whip! Thud! KWA-BOOM! The wall collapses, people and containers fly, obstacles shatter, and those emboldened by buffs lead others out.
"Kwiririririk!"
"Ugh, damn!"
And the moment [Time Stop] ends, my [dog phobia] comes racing back.
"Seriously, what about that looks like a !"
A geometric body slathered in blue slime.
Appendages that look like legs or a tail— moving in ways far beyond imagination.
A hideously warped, loathsome maw.
A monster whose form resembles no mammal— no lifeform on Earth.
Even so, my unconscious— or the madness injected into me— tags it as something tied to my phobia, and so I fear it.
"Damn it, if you’re going to do this, at least be scary enough to pop the madness!"
Maybe because it sits in an awkward gap from any real animal, the madness doesn’t flare— I only get a compulsive urge to run.
But that also means I can attack it!
Agile enough to dodge lightning?
How about an instant-cast area attack, then?
[S-grade Weapon ‘Butcher’s Hook’ unique function ‘Proof of Slaughter’ activates.
// Proof of Slaughter: Power of Necromancy-line spells increases by 100%.]
[Ring of Death]
Uwooooo! Uwooooooo!
Wails of the dead surge from all sides.
A bluish ring snaps around the thing in an instant.
"Kwye-ririk!"
The cringes, compressing itself in a grotesque way.
"It’s getting eaten!"
While its speed sagged, I whipped out the [Butcher’s Hook] and chained necromancy spells.
[Spectral Impact]
[Wail of the Dead]
[Cold Gesture]
"Kwerrigiriririk!"
Ugh, that’s vile!
"Kim Sinhwa, focus!" "It’s hiding in another corner again!"
"I can see it too!"
I wrestled my legs, which were trying to backpedal, and forced my mind to focus.
"If you know, do something! If you can’t, swap out with someone else!"
"Looks easy with you back-seat driving, huh? You think you’d do better!?"
[Invisible Hand]
[Gale Strike]
[Transmute Matter]
Crack-crack-crack-crack!
Before that could try anything else, I cleared, flung, and shaved away everything within five meters of it.
No corners left to flee to, right?
"How’s that, you freak! I’ll cinch you down and finish this!"
I amplified my mana, kept it fully bound, and swung around—
[Flight]
Frrrrrrrip—
Pouring all mana into flight, I streaked to Lee Seonbin, scooped her from the ground, and lifted her.
All that’s left is to exit!
That’s it! Done!
I’ve resolved every problem that could arise here— every problem I had to handle!
All that remains is the cleanup!
Assuming we can get out from here!
[System: Heightened Vigilance activates.]
"Ah, what now!?"
Grind-grind-grind—
Mun Gyeongnam lurches toward me, body grotesquely swollen.
"Tekeliliririririk!"
I’d meant to try saving the man if I could, but he’s gone too far. There’s no way.
[Rapid Freezing]
Krrrrrk!
In an instant, Mun Gyeongnam becomes a giant pillar of ice.
"Kkirueririririk!"
The Hound of Tindalos thrashes to break my binding— oh, I’m really going to lose it!
"Sit. Stay. I said stay!"
[Grasp of the Dead]
Rrrrrrumble!!!
It’s really down to the last moments.
The enormous Ulsanbawi, blackening the sky.
Do you know how fast that’s falling right now?
I’m not joking!
[Time Stop]
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—
A hideous detonation.
A world-shaking roar.
"Aaaaah! We lived!"
That one’s me.
I cleared the danger zone with Lee Seonbin— and right in front of me— Gwak Daeyong—
"I can’t believe it, Producer Kim!"
Gwak Daeyong moves in to hug me, all relief.
"Out of the way! No— run! Secondary collapse! Secondary collapse!"
Skreeee— Kzzzzak—
Ulsanbawi, driven straight down into the ground, tilts with an ominous groan.
"What? Wh-what?? Aaagh! Everyone run!"
A brief spell of clatter-thunder, hustle-bustle, then clatter-thunder again.
After a trainwreck of developments—
I, and then we, finally got to do the actual cleanup.
Nothing is over until everything is over.
Everyone involved was shell-shocked for a long while, and even so, we had to get the people who needed to move— moving.
I too had to keep flying around handling a hundred things, and only after dozens of calls...
Fweeeeeee—
A dry wind blowing from far away.
"Ah, the view’s nice."
At last I could talk with Mun Seunghee, whose face had the look of total exhaustion.
"Mage..."
Mun Seunghee’s voice wavered far more than usual.
"Yes. Go ahead."
"Do we really... have to talk here?"
I smiled and answered her.
"It’s a secret conversation. Plus, I’ve got something to do up here anyway."
We’re on the top of the gigantic rock shot straight down into the site— three kilometers tall.
In other words, the very top of Ulsanbawi.
"I’ve got a lot to say, but here’s the urgent part first."
"Okay."
Mun Seunghee answered, sounding a bit steadier now.
"As soon as this is wrapped up..."
I spaced my words out, then said:
"Seize Yeonam Construction."
"...What?"
Unsteady emotion flickered back into Mun Seunghee’s face, which had only just calmed.
"Mage, what are you—"
Mm. I hadn’t considered this route— but to clean up after this mess, there’s no helping it.
It’s the fastest, cleanest route.
"Take Yeonam Construction. If you need funds, I can lend you some."
