The chat window froze. After a moment, the messages began to race upward like mad.
- Are you insane? lolololol
- As if we’d go around memorizing lottery numbers!
- Good grief, this fool. To think this lady believed in someone like him—how lamentable.
- Sigh.
“Ah, sure. Is that so.”
It was a little disappointing, but there was nothing I could do.
Come to think of it, why would they ever bother memorizing lottery numbers in the first place?
Thinking that, I looked at the lightning coiling around both my hands.
Far from dying down, it was spreading little by little.
Crackle—
A spark that shot from my fingertip struck the monitor on my desk.
With a popping sound, the monitor’s screen shattered and smoke began to rise.
“Aaagh! My monitor!!”
- Is the monitor the problem right now?! You’re about to go berserk!
- Hurry and withdraw your mana! If you don’t, this is going to be bad.
At their shouts, I hurriedly tried to pull my mana back in.
But the current ignored my control and began to run wild.
The fluorescent light flickered violently, then burst with a sharp pop.
“Hey, hey! How do I stop this?!”
- Calm down first!
- Don’t try to force it down. Let yourself go with the flow!
- You’re not supposed to gather the mana. You need to scatter it through your whole body.
- Argh, you idiot! What are you doing treating a natural-type ability like ordinary mana?!
“How am I supposed to know?!”
- First, clearly recognize that you yourself are lightning. Do not try to confine it. You must let the flow be.
…I had no idea what they were talking about.
I was lightning?
Their explanations were so abstract that I couldn’t understand them at all.
“What kind of bullshit is that?!”
The moment I shouted, the range of the discharge began to expand.
The floor’s linoleum was scorched black, and flames rose from the wallpaper.
At this rate, my studio apartment was going to turn to ash.
- You have to perceive yourself as lightning. Cast aside the fixed notion that the body making you up must be human.
- Controlling a natural-type ability isn’t done through physical force.
- You mustn’t try to fix mana inside your mana circuits.
- Think of your body not as a vessel, but as a conductor. Imagine that current flows instead of blood, and lightning forms your spine instead of bones.
- You’re not controlling a superpower. You have to become nature itself.
A conductor. Current instead of blood.
In the end, their conclusion was one thing.
I had to perceive the thing that made me up as current.
I closed my eyes and calmed my mind. Then I repeated the words in my head.
I am lightning. I am lightning. I am lightning. I am lightning. I am lightning.
I suggested it to myself like I was chanting an incantation.
The moment I erased the idea that my body was made of organic matter, and thought of only current as the essence that made me—
A strange floating sensation washed over me, as if my body had become infinitely light.
I slowly opened my eyes and looked down at my hands.
Before I knew it, my body had become electricity, crackling away.
The skin, organs, arms, and legs that had made up a human.
All of it had transformed into lightning. As if I had lost my form.
- Ooooh! You did it! That idiot actually did it!
- As expected of the one this lady chose. Splendid indeed.
- This is where it gets important. Lightning is the fastest and most destructive attribute, but there’s a reason it’s that rare. You have to move the force being discharged with your own will.
“What? You told me not to control it earlier.”
- That was before you achieved lightning transformation.
- Now that you’ve achieved lightning transformation, you have to control it.
“…Ah.”
That was when it happened.
With a sudden surge of pain, the current began to run wild again.
- This won’t work! For now, you need to use that power somewhere!
- Get outside first!
In the end, unable to contain the rampaging power, I threw myself straight through the window.
I thought I had jumped normally.
But with the sound of shattering glass, my body shot into the air and fired off as a bolt of lightning.
“U-uuuuuaaaaaaah!!”
- That! Let’s go there!
Amid the unreal sensation of speed, a suitable target came to mind.
The collapse of the tower at old Seoul Station, which I had just seen on the news.
If it was there…!
Kwaaaang!!
With the sound of a lightning strike, I turned toward Seoul Station.
My field of vision narrowed grotesquely, and every landscape I could see stretched into long bands of color.
The sensation of speed as I cut through the air as lightning was something human eyesight couldn’t keep up with.
Even so, an indescribable exhilaration was spreading through my whole body.
Racing through the rain, I was literally fired toward my destination.
The time it took to reach the target point was only a few seconds.
With a flash, I plunged into the middle of Seoul Station Plaza, which had become a scene of chaos.
Bang!!
Fragments of asphalt flew and dust rose.
When the rain washed away the dust, what entered my vision were dozens of monsters crawling out while letting out grotesque cries.
I looked around.
The hunters had yet to arrive at the scene.
All I could hear were the screams of ordinary citizens fleeing while bleeding.
I slowly straightened my bent knees and rose to my feet.
When I clenched both hands, blue currents once again flowed out with a pleasant sound.
- Ooooh, that entrance was insane.
- Now it’s real combat!
- Don’t let your guard down. Real combat is another matter entirely.
And then, the monsters began to charge at me.
Watching a monster rush in, drooling, I shouted.
“Wait, how am I supposed to fight with this?”
Reflexively, I thrust both hands forward.
Then, recalling the sensation from my studio apartment, I tried to release lightning.
I expected to cause a discharge all at once and electrocute the monsters, but—
Crackle.
“Huh?”
Blue sparks seemed to leap from my fingertips a few times, then scattered weakly.
Flustered, I tried to release it again, but the current only thrashed around inside my body.
- You fool! What are you doing just scattering it when you can’t even control it?!
- I forgot you were F-rank!
- Dodge!
I rolled across the ground by a hair’s breadth. Then, rolling through the mud, I said,
“Hey, you guys.”
In front of me, a monster was approaching while swinging an axe.
But instead of feeling fear at that, I spoke calmly.
“Teach me how to fight.”
- …Of course.
- We’ve been doing that since earlier.
I barely dodged the axe cutting through the air and rolled backward.
As if it had been waiting, another axe came flying in.
“Hurry!”
- You’re letting mana and lightning act separately, so the power is crumbling!
- You have to think of coating the surface of the lightning with mana.
Letting mana and lightning act separately? Coating it?
So because I was generating lightning without using mana, I was losing control?
Breathing roughly, I corrected my stance again.
I glared at the orc approaching while swinging its axe once more.
Then I rotated the mana circuit in my heart and drew up mana with all my strength.
And I overlaid that mana on top of the lightning that made up my body.
“Urgh…!”
An unknown pain washed over my whole body.
Gritting my teeth, I forcibly drew up my mana and began holding the rampaging current in place.
- That’s it! Wrap the lightning in mana!
- Using mana as a vessel to contain your superpower—that is the foundation of martial arts and the core of controlling abilities!
I dodged axes and repeated the process of holding the current in place with mana.
The sparks that had been leaping out uncontrollably gradually subsided.
“So I wrap this around it…”
Little by little, I drew up mana and coated the electricity making me up with it.
- You did it! It’s a little crude, though.
- Mm, a truly excellent application.
- Now drive that fist into its head!
“Just like this…”
I kicked off the ground and sprang forward.
When I charged in instead, I threw my fist with all my strength at the face of the orc that hesitated in confusion.
“Drive it in!”
The moment my hand touched the orc’s face—
It literally began to break apart into current.
Pazzzzzzz—
The current exploded, and the orc’s head evaporated on the spot.
The headless torso collapsed powerlessly to the ground.
The aftermath of the torrent even sent the remaining orcs flying backward.
- Did you see that?! Gathering your energy and making it burst from within at the moment of impact! That is the true path of martial arts!
- Commendable!
- His control is F-rank level, but the raw damage is so high that even sloppy hits are insane.
Of course, even I was staring blankly at the fallen orc corpse.
It had only taken one blow.
And I had been the one to take down an orc in a single blow.
When I lowered my gaze to my hands, I could still see blue sparks faintly circling them.
How to use my mana and lightning by fusing them together.
When I recalled that sensation, it felt as if something that had been blocked was opening up.
And confidence boiled within me.
“…This is fun.”
A deep smile spread across my lips on its own.
- That’s exactly how you do it. Don’t forget that sensation.
Looking down at the orcs that were still unable to shake off the shock, I clenched my fists.
The sensation of current flowing from my hands now felt familiar.
“Hey, ghosts.”
I nudged the headless orc corpse with my foot and raised my head.
Staring at the translucent chat window floating in the air, I smiled.
“How should I beat them up next?”