When the battle began,
and the Awakeners who had belonged to the Assault Team started revealing themselves one after another.
‘He’ll definitely be here too.’
Yunseong looked around.
And only after a little time passed,
he was able to realize one fact.
‘I can feel it.’
From somewhere not far ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) from here.
The person he was searching for was calling him.
‘My heart....’
The energy embedded in his heart.
It was connected to that faraway place.
He moved by following that energy’s guidance.
For some reason, not even the monsters blocked the path he took.
How long did he walk like that.
“It’s been a while, Yunseong.”
“...Yes, sir.”
A gigantic Black Curtain that covered the mountain range.
In front of it, an old man standing there spoke to him.
“I called you just in case... but since you bothered to answer that call, you must be prepared too.”
“Yes.”
“Then I won’t waste words.”
The old man nodded calmly,
then lifted a blade so massive it didn’t fit his frame.
“I’m sorry.”
And then.
The enormous greatsword swung down.
“...!”
Yunseong clumsily swung his own sword, trying to block the blow—
but it was impossible.
KRAK!
The sword he’d raised to stop the attack snapped in a single strike,
and the old man’s greatsword, breaking through the shattered blade, ripped a deep gash across Yunseong’s chest.
“If I can give you one piece of advice, don’t think of this as eternal death.”
The old man walked up to Yunseong, who had collapsed onto the ground,
and spoke as he reached a hand toward his body.
“Just... think of it as being reborn.”
“COUGH....”
“If you do, you’ll feel a little better.”
That hand.
At the very moment it was about to touch Yunseong’s body—
“...Hm?”
KAAANG!
The old man pulled his hand back,
and knocked aside the daggers flying at him.
“And you are?”
From the direction those daggers had flown.
“Nice to meet you.”
A young man with sharp features
was walking over with an unhurried stride.
“...Chair.”
*****
‘...Huff, huff....’
Yunseong, collapsed on the cold snowfield, brought a hand to his chest.
Drip....
Sticky blood that had been circulating inside his body smeared his palm.
That liquid that should have been warm rapidly cooled from the surrounding temperature.
As the blood left him,
his vision blurred, and he could feel his mind growing hazy.
In that state, Yunseong
looked at the two men
talking.
“Your face... no matter how I look at it, you seem like someone I’ve never seen before. Do you know me?”
“Yes. I’m seeing your face for the first time, but I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Hm. Well, that could be. But even so, there’s one thing I’m curious about.”
“What are you curious about?”
“You said you’ve heard a lot about me.”
The Chair asked with a tilt of his head.
“And yet... you came alone?”
“...Haha.”
The tone made it sound like he couldn’t understand why someone would come alone to face him.
It wasn’t hard to feel the confidence inside those words,
but Shin Youngjun only laughed lightly.
“Seeing me here and not being flustered, and looking that relaxed... I see. Sounds like you’ve already figured out we’ve been dominated by them as well.”
“Well, yeah. That’s what happened.”
“Those brothers of mine wouldn’t have opened their mouths easily. How much did you hear?”
“If I had to sum it up, the Assault Team got captured by monsters, and about eighty percent of them are being controlled by the monsters’ souls. And that control works well on people with weak mental strength—that much.”
“...You know pretty much everything worth knowing.”
At that,
the old man let out a hollow laugh with a powerless expression.
“Right... and how did everyone react?”
“What reaction?”
“How they reacted to me ending up controlled like this. There must have been a lot of disappointed people.”
“Ah, no. Not really.”
“Hm?”
Toward the old man,
Shin Youngjun spoke with a warm expression, as if telling him not to worry.
“No one thinks someone like you would’ve been controlled. Everyone in the Expedition Force believes you wouldn’t have fallen under a monster’s control.”
“...Is that so. Then I’m even more sorry.”
Pointing at his own body, the old man said,
“I’m sorry to the people who trusted me. But anyway... this is what happened.”
“...”
“Me... should I call it that? The owner of this body, separate from his power, didn’t have mental strength that was that strong. Rather, while people with strong mental strength were somehow enduring, he was the one who fell first, like this.”
The old man looked at Shin Youngjun and asked,
“What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you’d heard a lot about me... and nine times out of ten, it was probably wildly exaggerated hero stories. So are you disappointed? That the great Chair ultimately yielded to the monsters’ mental attack?”
At that question,
Shin Youngjun shook his head.
“No, I’m not disappointed in that sense at all.”
“...Is that so. Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me?”
“For you, it might be hard to understand why the ghost clinging to this body is saying things like this. But one way or another, I’m the owner of this body right now. There’s a sense that the memories this body had become my memories.”
“Ah, I heard those ghost bastards are heavily affected by the body.”
“Which is why, this body’s reputation collapsing... and disappointing others... is a little painful for me. Painful enough that I even feel a bit of relief that you aren’t disappointed.”
“Ah... that’s what you meant?”
At the old man’s serious words,
Shin Youngjun turned around,
then knelt in front of Ha Yunseong, who had been watching.
“Mr. Yunseong.”
“...Mr. Youngjun.”
“You know, I told you to leave it to me. Why did you come anyway?”
Even as Ha Yunseong’s consciousness grew hazier,
he clenched his teeth and spoke.
“I... thought... I had to... COUGH....”
“Man, what a stubborn old guy you are.”
The old man simply watched him without expression.
“Well, at this level, he won’t die.”
“...I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what. Just watch.”
After confirming it wasn’t a fatal wound,
Shin Youngjun stood up and said,
“Yeah. More or less.”
“Then can we continue what we were saying earlier? What did you mean when you said I don’t need to thank you?”
At that,
the young man calmly brought a hand to his waist,
and drew a blade hanging there.
“It’s because when I said I wasn’t disappointed, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“...?”
A blade whose shape made it hard to tell
whether it was a small sword, a long dagger,
or a long kitchen knife.
“Sir, do you know why I’m speaking politely to you?”
“Well... maybe it’s courtesy toward the former Chair?”
“That’s right. But there’s something you need to understand.”
His gaze
fixed on the old man.
“If it’s a stray specter I’m dealing with, I’ll call it a stray specter. It’s not something worthy of polite speech.”
“...”
“So... stop acting.”
At the same time,
the blade extended toward the old man’s throat.
“Controlled by monsters? Because your mental strength was weak compared to your power?”
“...”
“Looks like you do know what you did was filthy and dirty. That’s why you’re trying to gloss it over like that.”
Right.
You got controlled by monsters because your mental strength was weak.
“But still... this is too much.”
This.
All it does is turn you into a victim who suffered at a monster’s hands.
“Shouldn’t you take proper responsibility for what you did, huh?”
Having weak mental strength was never something to blame.
Among the Assault Team members cooperating with the enemy,
those who were simply dominated had no guilt at all.
“This traitor bastard.”
Except—
for exactly one person.
“...Hm!”
The old man, who just moments ago had looked like he was being wrung by a strange sense of guilt,
spoke with a gentle smile.
“I thought I’d sealed Yunseong’s mouth shut nicely. You figured it out anyway.”
Watching that,
Yunseong’s wounded eyes slowly closed,
and like a spinning lantern—
memories of the past began rising in his mind.
*****
“It’s cold as hell... but it’s weird. There’s nothing here.”
“Mm... yeah.”
The Assault Team dispatched to investigate the cause of that cold.
They advanced southwest at tremendous speed,
but there was no threat like what they had expected.
Instead—
“...Before we got close, there were at least monster packs, but around here the cold’s so strong even the monsters are gone....”
“Are we sure this is the right place? If we go farther, we’ll hit the border of Gyeonggi... the Wall.”
The closer they got,
the fewer monsters appeared.
“...Is it possible it’s nothing?”
Maybe
hunting down the cause of the cold wasn’t a big deal after all.
If it was something like a powerful item with no will,
just lying there,
then breaking that item would end it.
“Well, we’ll know if we go farther. For today, we rest around here.”
They’d advanced fast, but it wasn’t a distance they could reach in a day or two,
so they decided to set up camp nearby and rest for the night.
‘I thought it might be like the Demon Realm, with impossible enemies swarming.’
And then.
‘...Maybe it really was something trivial.’
Yunseong, holding onto that hope,
lay down in the uncomfortable camp bedding.
If the cause was nothing special, removing it wouldn’t be difficult,
and if that happened,
Gyeonggi’s unstable situation could improve in an instant.
But...
‘Will it really?’
A strange anxiety that kept blooming deep in his mind whenever he tried to fall asleep.
Because of that anxiety,
Yunseong couldn’t fall asleep easily and kept shifting inside his sleeping bag.
-$!@!...--....
“...?”
Because he couldn’t sleep,
there was a sound he ended up hearing.
Even though it was a time when everyone was asleep except the guard on watch,
a strange voice was coming from nearby.
It was such a small sound
that even an Awakener wouldn’t normally be able to hear it clearly—
but it was coming quite close to Yunseong,
and since Yunseong couldn’t fall asleep, his ears, regardless of his will, focused on it.
-This power... what in the world...!
‘...Chair?’
And only then could he realize something.
In the direction that sound was coming from, there was a tent,
and that tent belonged to their Chair.
Hwang Boseok.
‘Who are you talking to?’
Inside.
The Chair, as if he’d just come out of a grueling battle,
was talking to something while panting.
-That can’t be.
-Humanity can’t possibly overcome something like this...!
He couldn’t hear the other voice,
but the Chair was so flustered
that he kept talking without even realizing someone might be listening.
-So why are you showing me this...! Are you telling me to fall into despair and die? You want to see an old man who lived for his own pride die that miserably!
Only then did Yunseong realize the content of the conversation was strange.
He held his breath and concealed his presence as much as he could.
What Yunseong was able to understand
was only three things.
-Is it... really, truly?
-You’ll... seat me there?
First.
That unheard voice had made the Chair some kind of offer.
-If that’s the case...
Second.
-What do I have to do?
The Chair
accepted that offer.
-...Yeah, it’s true. I was too excited to notice.
-You don’t need to rush.
Third.
-Even if you don’t say it, I’ll remove him myself.
“...!?”
Toward him.
A terrifying killing intent began pouring down.
*****
‘...I’m going to die!’
A split-second instinct.
Yunseong jerked his lying body and rolled across the ground.
It wasn’t that Yunseong was skilled—
he was just lucky, and that luck made such a fast reaction possible.
Then—
RIIIP...!
Where Yunseong had been lying,
a massive sword groove split open.
‘He attacked me...? The Chair?’
It was only a brief moment,
but it wasn’t hard to grasp what was happening.
‘Why?’
But
he couldn’t understand at all why it had come to this.
He hurriedly opened his mouth to shout—
but...
“...?”
Even though he opened his mouth,
no proper sound came out of his throat.
The moment he tried to force the words out,
“Ghk....”
in his heart,
an overwhelming pain surged.
‘This is....’
When he lowered his gaze to the ground,
around where the attack he’d barely avoided had struck—
a dark energy was creeping up.
‘The Chair’s Skill....’
He hadn’t been hit directly,
but he hadn’t been able to avoid that dark energy invading his body.
[Blade of Silence]
[A cursed blade that takes root around the heart and suppresses the target.]
[A person marked by the curse becomes unable to speak any words that could apply unfavorably to the caster.]
[Blade of Silence possesses an ability to read the heart’s beat and grasp the target’s will.]
[If the target shows the will to speak information to others that could apply unfavorably to the caster, the blade charges straight toward the heart and attacks the target.]
[However, the cursed target becomes able to track the caster’s location at any time through the curse link.]
A curse that made it impossible, by one’s own will, to utter anything that could interfere with the caster.
If used on a mage-type enemy who required incantations,
it could seal the incantation itself—a truly powerful Skill.
‘So it could be used like this too....’
Realizing he couldn’t scream to call for help,
Yunseong threw himself out of the tent.
Another tent nearby.
Or the Awakeners standing watch—he meant to reach them for help.
But.
‘...It’s far.’
Physically, the distance wasn’t far at all.
Even though the tents had been pitched with some spacing, for Awakeners it was practically right there.
But.
In Yunseong’s eyes, those nearby tents...
looked unbelievably far away.
Because.
SHWIIIK!
Trying to flee while dodging the Chair’s attacks
was a distance that felt like eternity.
‘Ghk...!’
Less than a second after bursting out of the tent, the second attack flew in,
and Yunseong’s thigh was sliced open.
A minor wound that would heal quickly with a healer’s touch.
But.
For someone trying to run,
it was also the kind of wound that stole hope.
“Yunseong....”
Step.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
In that brief span, only two slashes.
And with just that, the old man had successfully subdued a combat-class Awakener in the twenties.
He walked toward Yunseong with an unhurried pace.
“Chair...? Why....”
“I don’t think I can give you a detailed explanation. You probably wouldn’t believe it. But....”
The old man
calmly lifted his sword.
“If you were in my situation, you’d understand.”
“...”
“I’m sorry.”
And then.
Right when Yunseong thought he was about to meet death without being able to do anything—
KAAANG!
Blocking that weapon,
two humans appeared.
