[whoooooom—]
The explosion starts.
[System: ‘Heightened Vigilance’ trait activates.]
My danger-sensing brain fires an alarm, and an Intelligence stat of 30 answers in kind—triggering traits like [Parallel Thought], [Accelerated Thought], [Instant Casting], [Expanded Vision], [Keen Senses], [Improved Detection].
Perception flares to the extreme. A brain working at high speed beyond bodily limits. Thoughts ticking in 0.00-something—no, 0.0000-something—seconds.
The whole world looks almost frozen.
[whoooooom—]
Wooden containers split apart in flame.
Fire spreads like slow motion.
Detection tallies the fire’s shape, the mana packed in the containers, the blast’s destructive yield, and the additional damage from shrapnel.
[whoooooom—]
The threat level isn’t low. This is truly dangerous. Done wrong, I could die.
The predicted damage radius from the explosion is—abnormally large.
‘Seriously—this much?’
[System: Penalty trait [Feast’s Offering] activates. The power of an abyssal being intervenes.]
‘Ah, hell. Of course.’
Chances are, Yang Seoho didn’t load only gunpowder into those containers.
It looks like she set mana-stones along with the charges so the blast would trigger the moment Akiyama tried something with the gold.
“U—aa—”
Akiyama’s mouth opens slow. His face twists in panic. So he truly didn’t know.
But the abyssal being, the [Source of Life], anticipated Yang Seoho’s trap—and decided to turn it to advantage.
[viiiiiii—]
Abyssal mana surges far too strongly toward the exploding containers. Mana glows fluorescent with the power of life—
That interference runs through the mana-stone detonators—then sparks an inexplicable synergy in the cursed gold. This will be a blast on a scale no mere gunpowder rig could make.
[whoooooooooom—]
Flame expands.
Yang Seoho’s expression warps—too late.
She and I share a few similar traits.
With something like [Heightened Vigilance] or [Danger Sense], she’s realized things have gone wrong.
Yang Seoho—about to spit something like “damn it”—(to me it sounds like “jjyeeeeee—” in this hyper-time) moves her body.
Vwooooom—
She drives a fist toward the explosion—within this ultra-perception world where everything crawls, only my thoughts and her actions rip along at speed.
[KAAAAAA-THOOOOOOOM—]
An absurd sonic boom blooms from her punch. Good try, but that alone can’t stop it all.
My body can’t move like hers—but I’m a mage.
I can do plenty by thought alone.
[Protective Array] [Immovable Earth Net] [Barrier of Force]
[Veil of Sand] [Distortion Field] [Flame Control]
[Evil Eye] [Permafrost Ward] [Wanderer Wind’s Sigh]
[Spell Boost: Multi-Cast]
[Spell Boost: Maximize]
Pressure like my skull will burst.
Firing a single spell isn’t hard, but letting multiple simultaneous castings complete cleanly without interfering—or better yet, chain into superior synergies—demands computation far beyond one plus one.
[viiiiiiiii! shrrrra-ra-ra-ra!]
A storm of magic circles unfurls, wrapping the entire room.
[KAAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOM!]
“GRAAAAH!”
Akiyama’s scream completes.
[rrrrrrumble! rrrrumble!]
[KA-KA-KA-BOOM!]
Cursed gold from the containers blasts outward—acting as shrapnel that amplifies lethality.
“—damn it!”
Yang Seoho finishes the word and streaks across the room at an unbelievable speed.
Wow. I can’t believe my eyes.
She’s snatching the flying gold out of the blast with her bare hands!
[KA-KA-KA-KA-BOOM!]
[System: Penalty trait [Feast’s Offering] activates. The power of an abyssal being intervenes.]
Fweeeeeee!!
Even so, some of the gold shards, steeped in abyssal mana, punch through our defenses and the walls beyond.
[zzzzzt— crackle!]
[thud! KRA-BOOOOM!]
Explosions roll on and on.
Part of the building collapses.
If all I’d wanted was to save myself, I could have dodged far more simply, or thrown up a clean, intact wall. But to blunt a blast spreading in all directions, I had to split focus and mana—
I took several layers of very dangerous gambles.
No joke. I nearly died.
“Kim—are you all right?”
“Haah—hoo—aaah! Thanks to you!”
If Seo Cheonseul hadn’t slipped in during the one-tenth of a second window, we’d have been in real trouble.
“Thanks, thousand-gold captain. Ugh!”
“Bahahahaha! Legs giving out?”
Seo Cheonseul hooked an arm at my waist and hauled me upright as I was about to buckle.
“Augh—back—my back! Easy!”
“You stopped it?”
Yang Seoho stared at me, aghast.
Looks like the blast exceeded what she’d expected.
“Hey, Ms. Yang. You almost turned the whole of Gijang County into Gijang Bay!”
Clinging to Seo Cheonseul, I still snapped, “This is what you get when an amateur without certification as mage, alchemist, or even mana-stone handler fools around with mana-stones!” and so on—
But Yang Seoho kept repeating the same line like a broken robot.
“You stopped it?”
“Yeah!”
Truth is, she stopped it too. Most of the shrapnel my improvised wards didn’t catch—she did.
“Did we stop all of it?”
“Can’t you see? Not all!”
It was a blast augmented by an abyssal being. Two people alone can’t block that perfectly.
The ceiling gapes wide.
I shoved most of the force upward, but this wasn’t a one-story building.
Those missing upper floors will have flown out and caused serious damage across the area.
The surrounding walls are punched through with horrific holes—crumbling as they rumble—starting to come down.
“Civilian casualties?”
I tried to push my detection outward, but it won’t reach past the building.
Damn it—my link with Red is cut too.
Scattered deep-sea gold is flooding the area with brutal noise. Even without detection, I can roughly guess the situation.
“Depends how you define ‘civilian,’ but if you mean Korean nationals—yes, probably.”
For the first time, Yang Seoho looked troubled.
“Because of me?”
I was about to answer simply yes—then stopped.
‘Careful.’
Her face had gone bloodless; her eyes wavered; the skin under her eyes looked dead black. Her fingertips crept toward her lips.
[crunch—]
Yang Seoho bit into and mashed her own fingertips with her teeth.
“......Was it me again?”
Her voice sounded shredded.
The voice itself was the same as ever, but the timbre felt like a dry rasp from a terrible corpse’s mouth.
“Hey. Yang Seoho.”
She flinched back.
For some reason, she took a reflexive defensive posture—like a child about to be scolded—no, like a child brutalized so long she does it without thinking.
“Why’s Kim acting like that?” Seo Cheonseul asked.
“Because her mind is ill.”
In truth, this wasn’t her fault. The abyss interfered, clearly.
“Again... me...?”
“No.”
I spoke for her.
“You were deceived. This was a trap set by an abyssal being.”
“I...”
Her eyes flicked anxiously around.
“You loaded gunpowder, right? You calculated the blast yield. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Right.”
“That plan wasn’t bad. The thing backing Akiyama was just smarter. It cranked the firepower.”
“The abyssal being...”
“Yeah.”
Her expression settled. The trembling in her hands had stopped at some point. Her color looked much better.
“Right.”
She answered me again—firm.
“Foreigners are enemies, after all.”
...Huh?
“The unknown—what we can’t know—is evil. For the endless future and peace of this country, we must exclude all that’s alien. Exterminate what’s unlike us, kill what came from another world, smash the surreal monsters. Those monsters... I’ll kill them all.”
Ah, for crying out loud.
“Kim, she looks unwell,” Seo Cheonseul said.
“You don’t know who Yang Seoho is?”
“No.”
“Fair enough.”
He may have lived on this land since Silla or earlier, but there’s no way she’ll consider that.
To Yang Seoho, a heteromorphic nonhuman is a target.
[System: ‘Heightened Vigilance’ trait activates.]
I know, buddy.
And of course, I’m being treated as a cultist or alien myself—so I’m just as endangered.
[prrrrk— brrrrk—]
She didn’t take any obvious stance, yet cracks spidered under her feet. Probably shifting her center of gravity. Leaning on Seo Cheonseul, I prepared ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) for her sudden strike—
“Grrrrrr— I’ll beat you to death!”
The Japanese line came in at perfect timing from one corner.
Neither of us spared a thought for his safety.
He’d been outside the range of our protections, so he should’ve taken the explosions full-on, and yet—
“You vile beasts! My plan—my plan, ruined!”
Akiyama stood untouched, not even singed.
“Good.”
I murmured low to Seo Cheonseul.
“Hm?”
“Because someone just volunteered to take the hit for us.”
“What are you whispering! Kim Sinhwa! You think I don’t have a next plan!”
Akiyama jabbed a finger at me and shouted.
“What now—what’ll you do to make Freud happy this time?”
At my line, Akiyama burst into laughter—“Khahahaha!”—and went on.
“You, Kim Sinhwa! Foolish Kim Sinhwa! With you here, there’s no need for sacrifices, rites, or a medium! You’ve prepared everything! The moment you arrived here—the [Source of Life] will have no choice but to open its eyes!”
“Me? Don’t tell me you mean that.”
“Yes! [Blade of Flesh], [Soul Pyxis], and [Mirror of Wisdom] have gathered in one place!”
[Blade of Flesh] is an artifact containing a part of the [Great Source]’s flesh—power to interfere with time and space—able to replace the “medium” among the needed triad of medium, sacrifice, and rite for his descent.
[Soul Pyxis] is an artifact containing a part of the [Source of Corruption]’s soul—power to interfere with the deaths of living things—able to replace the necessary rite.
[Mirror of Wisdom] likewise holds a share of the [Source of Life]’s wisdom—knowledge of life’s birth and profound arcana—and can replace the necessary sacrifice.
In short—
If those three objects gather in one place—you can skip medium, rite, and sacrifice and bring down the [Great Source]—
Or his avatarlike aspects, the [Source of Corruption] or the [Source of Life].
“Mm... Sorry, Akiyama, but I didn’t bring that.”
“W... what?”
You think I’m an idiot?
Though to be fair, the “this replaces that” information is top-tier secret you only learn by actually playing the game.
“W-why...? Why would you leave artifacts of such might behind... You—alone—could have brought the august [Source of Life]... Stopped me... stopped Cure Medical Care...”
“Mm, I’ve pretty much stopped you anyway, haven’t I?”
There were hiccups, but his ritual is already in shambles.
And I didn’t come alone. Just counting heads I drew in, you’d need three digits.
I shrugged as I said it—and Akiyama spat a few Japanese curses, then growled:
“Damn! Damn it! Then I need none of it! I’ll kill you all with my own power, amass sacrifices, make myself the medium, and finish the rite! Grrrrrr!”
Black smoke gushed off his body. Mana packed with hideous force. Akiyama’s physique swelled in an instant.
Like the other cultists of Cure Medical Care—his body began to change.
“Yang Seoho! Look there! Priorities just shifted, didn’t they?”
“...His registered biometrics at permanent residency issuance deviate significantly.”
You could argue that’s not the pressing issue, but to her it’s the most important task in the world.
[thud!]
[pop!]
A shockwave rolled with her words. Great—no protections for us either, since we’re “nonhuman.”
“Kim!”
Seo Cheonseul yanked me by the waist out of the shock radius.
“If you yank me like that, I’ll die!”
No helping it; he’s truly nonhuman and has no idea how a human body is put together.
[Protective Array]
Barely, I cast and shielded myself from the shockwave (and from Seo Cheonseul’s hydraulic-press grip), and tracked Yang Seoho with my eyes.
“Gurkh!?”
Akiyama cried out, startled.
Yang Seoho was already at his face—or his nose? Why the nose?
“Y—you beast!!”
“I told you.”
Murmuring something I didn’t catch, she pulled.
[crrrrra-CRACK!]
...oh hell.
