On the road as he ran, abandoning the person he was supposed to protect,
Lee Seojun cried.
He could not stop the tears that welled up endlessly from shame and helplessness.
It felt as though the helplessness he had felt long ago in middle school, when he had been bullied by the delinquents, was coming back like trauma.
It was an emotion he had never once felt since awakening as an A-rank mage...
Yet before someone stronger, the wounds he had thought had been cleanly healed reared their heads again.
‘The guy holding the Ethereal Blade...’
Not only did he possess the S-rank item, [Aether Core Hilt], he was also a Sword Saint-class swordsman capable of skillfully drawing an Ethereal Blade from it.
On top of that, as far as Lee Seojun knew, there was only one S-rank who moved in a pair and was vicious enough to attempt kidnapping with malice.
‘Edge, the swordsman Ryuji Takeda... The Ashen Oath Enforcement Corps (OAE) has moved...!’
If it was Ryuji Takeda, known as the Sword Saint...
Even without the woman beside him—presumably the ice mage Frostbite, Ingrid Johansson—the five A-ranks of Sanarae would never be able to handle him.
They would have been torn to pieces without lasting a single exchange.
It was to the point that they could not thank Suho enough for arranging this agreement in advance.
Ryuji Takeda could not have been stopped even if Lee Danbi, who was also a swordsman class, had been there.
‘To think even OAE got tangled up in this...’
Since Suho’s ability was dazzlingly brilliant, it was no surprise that people like them would be drawn to him. However...
‘The timing is too bad. At a time like this, when none of the S-ranks are at Suho-nim’s side...’
Blood flowed from Lee Seojun’s lip as he bit down on it.
* * *
“Hooah, hooah, hooah...”
As soon as Suho entered the subspace warehouse and sprawled out, Rabi flew over to him.
“You seem especially busy today.”
“Huaa... huaa... Rabi, I, I almost died. Uwaa...”
“You almost died? Why?”
The moment he merely thought about entering the subspace warehouse, dimensional movement occurred in less than 0.001 seconds, so what on earth could have killed him?
Rabi tilted her head.
“Haa, anyway, something happened. Hooah... hooah... I’m going to rest a bit.”
“Yes.”
Resting in the subspace warehouse where time had stopped, Suho soothed his startled heart.
He drank something, closed his eyes for a bit, and rolled around here and there for several hours.
Once he had calmed down, he remembered the things he had left behind at the scene.
First, he thought he had to retrieve the Ovelun he had poured down as Steel Rain and the Magrite Cage.
Those were substances that could not yet be revealed to the world, so they could not fall into someone else’s hands first in this manner.
“Rabi, you know the dimensional gate point where I last entered the subspace warehouse. The coordinates for that are still there too, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then open that place for me... Haa, I have to go out there again, but ugh, it’s too scary.”
As Suho hesitated for a moment, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.
“By any chance, Rabi, is it possible not to open the entrance gate to that point, but to half-open it so I can look...?”
Suho asked cautiously, feeling as though Rabi’s nagging might come flying at him.
Unexpectedly, Rabi’s answer was affirmative.
“It is possible. You need only turn the relevant dimensional gate point into a ‘portal window.’”
“Ooh...”
The point Rabi opened preserved the scene exactly as it had been when Suho entered.
The dark alley, two parked bulletproof vehicles and one overturned vehicle, as well as the Magrite Cage and the Ovelun Steel Rain that was falling.
Even the falling Ovelun was suspended in midair.
Eh?
“Uh, uh, w-wait, the screen is frozen? Is the screen broken? No, it’s been hours since I came in here, so why hasn’t the Ovelun over there even fallen yet...”
Rabi furrowed her brow with an expression that said, Are you stupid?
“That is obviously because of the time ratio.”
“Ah, right. Right. That’s how it was.”
After pondering for a moment, Suho made another request of Rabi.
“Then set the time ratio here to 1:1, the same as outside.”
“Understood.”
The moment Rabi adjusted the time ratio, the Ovelun Steel Rain poured down.
Dudududududududududu────
“What the hell is this!!”
The woman, Ingrid Johansson, screamed as she frantically blocked the falling dropped weapons with an ice shield.
In the blink of an eye, the combat androids had rushed in, and before they knew it, they were trapped inside a cage, with something pouring down from the sky.
It was enough to drive one mad.
Kakakakakagagagak────
The Ovelun Steel Rain Suho had dropped, each about 2 centimeters in diameter and about 10 centimeters long, was designed with its lower end, where the center of gravity was concentrated, sharp and pointed, and each was a powerful dropped mass weighing a staggering 63.3 kilograms.
Fortunately, it did not pierce the ice shield. The problem was the quantity. Steel Rain fell endlessly, like a true torrential downpour.
Once Ovelun had piled up thickly atop the shield Johansson had spread, the pieces that continued to fall on top of it were no longer a threat. It was one less worry.
“Edge! What are you doing? Hurry up and cut through the cage!”
The man whose sword had been stolen by Suho, Ryuji Takeda, still could not accept the current situation and stood there with a dazed look on his face.
Only then did he come to his senses at Johansson’s shout and concentrate aether along the edge of his hand. If he had no teeth, he would have to use his gums to get out of this situation.
Sssssng── Kwagagak──
He honed the aether sharply and thrust it out, but whatever metal the cage was made of, it did not receive even a scratch.
Takeda’s eyes widened at the unbelievable result.
“Shit! Move!”
After Johansson blocked all the Ovelun with the ice shield, she summoned her usual ice spikes and attempted to clear away the cage.
But it was impossible. The ice spikes had easily flipped over a five-ton vehicle, but far from pushing the cage away, they could not make it budge.
Only the ice shattered uselessly.
“Haaah... haaah...”
Having consumed a tremendous amount of aether in a short time, Johansson took out an aether potion and drank it.
“Frostbite! Breaking the cage is impossible. Dig into the ground!”
Takeda covered both hands fully in aether and drove them into the asphalt floor.
Then he tore up the asphalt with tremendous strength. It was a sight that transcended common sense.
Crouching in front of the gate that had been turned into a portal window and watching the situation outside as if enjoying an entertaining movie, Suho suddenly grew uneasy.
Because if he left them like that, it seemed the two attackers would dig through the ground like moles and escape.
Growing anxious, Suho slipped out through the gate.
And before they could even fully recognize Suho’s appearance, he placed a lump of Ovelun on top of the cage and then bolted right back, switching to spectator mode.
The man began digging at the ground with his aether-covered hands, and the woman with her ice skills, but it was not soft soil. It was a floor made of concrete and asphalt.
Unless one was an earth-related ability user, there was no way digging through the ground with bare hands could be easy, no matter how strong an Admiti was.
Takeda even picked up an Ovelun fragment that had fallen to the ground, wrapped it in aether, and desperately dug at the floor.
Blood poured from his skinned fingers.
It was then.
Guuuuuuuk── Gagagagagak────
With a terrifying sound, the cage began to sink.
What Suho had placed on the cage was a small Ovelun cube he had cut to an appropriate size to avoid damaging the surrounding residential area.
It was merely an elongated lump of Ovelun measuring roughly 20 meters wide, 20 meters long, and 40 meters high, a mass weighing about 32.25 million tons, but that was enough.
When the unbreakable Magrite Cage and the thirty-million-ton lump of Ovelun met, the surface of the ground was crushed like pudding, and the cage dug into the asphalt.
Kwagagagagaga────
“Uuuhhh...... Wh-what is this...!”
“Kyaaaaaaak!”
The woman frantically created ice spikes toward the collapsing ceiling, but it was not enough.
It was a futile struggle, like trying to stop a falling dumbbell with a spiderweb.
In that desperate moment, it was a horrifying situation, as if humans had been trapped inside a hydraulic press with nowhere to flee.
Though Suho had caused it himself, he could not bear to see the gruesome result that was about to come, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Hmm, someone else is coming.”
Unlike Suho, Rabi, who had continued watching the situation through the gate screen, muttered.
“What?”
Startled, Suho’s tightly shut eyes flew open.
Wiiiiiiiing── Screeech──
Sure enough, a black van came racing out of the alley, and a man jumped out as if flying.
The two, who had been digging at the ground and waiting only for the moment they would die, recognized him and shouted.
“Specter!”
As the cage sank rapidly through the ground and ice without any resistance, the man who got out of the car ran over swiftly, dematerialized his body, and passed through the cage.
Then he grabbed the man and woman trapped inside and pulled them out in the same way.
The moment the three of them came out of the cage, the Ovelun mass passed them all and sank into the ground.
If he had been even one second late, he would have had to pull out only pieces of his comrades’ bodies.
Gurururu, ururung, urururu───
Even after everyone had survived, the sinking Ovelun mass and cage continued to create a deep pit like an elevator descending underground, then disappeared into the darkness.
“Haa, haa, haa. Th-thanks, Specter.”
“Kuhuk, kuhuk, kahak... Specter, I owe you my life...”
The two, who had escaped death by a hair’s breadth, collapsed onto the ground and panted heavily, while the man called Specter looked down at them with cold eyes and clicked his tongue.
Pale-faced, both hands covered in blood, and caked in dirt and dust, the two looked no better than beggars.
The S+-rank spirit master, “Specter” Khalid Al-Farsi, the man holding the third highest position in OAE, spoke in a chilly voice.
“What the hell is this mess... Where is the target?”
“Th-that’s......”
Ryuji Takeda and Ingrid Johansson looked at each other, then lowered their heads.
“I will report this failure to Steelshade. We withdraw for now.”
Soon, more black vans arrived, took them all aboard, and disappeared.
* * *
“As expected, those two weren’t the end of it... Phew, I’m glad I ran away.”
Only after confirming that everyone had completely disappeared did Suho cross through the gate to retrieve the lump and fragments of Ovelun, as well as the Magrite Cage.
Then he returned home through the subspace warehouse, confirmed that the other five had escaped safely and were unharmed, and informed them that he was safe as well.
They agreed to gather again at the penthouse, and he contacted the Administration Bureau to file a report. Foreign S-rank Admiti had attacked him.
The Administration Bureau replied that they would immediately send a response team.
And then, he entered the subspace warehouse again.
“Hoo... It’s such a shame I couldn’t finish them off... Those bastards will come again, won’t they?”
“Hmm...”
Rabi, who had seen the forces attacking Suho for the first time, also hardened her expression quite seriously.
The repeated threat of kidnapping filled him with irritation.
“Damn it! How am I supposed to live when it’s this filthy and miserable? This bastard and that bastard, everyone is after me! Am I the neighborhood punching bag!? Some easy mark?! This is all because I’m weak... Ah, damn it. This is so damn miserable...”
“Why are they targeting you, Suho-nim?”
“Why else? They want to capture me and use me as a human vending machine.”
At those words, Rabi’s eyes went round, and she giggled.
“A human vending machine—what an interesting idea. In any case, that is absurd. They cannot capture or confine you, Suho-nim, so they would not be able to use you as a vending machine, would they?”
“Hoo... The problem is that those bastards don’t know that.”
“Then wouldn’t it be enough for you to move only through dimensional gates, so that fact becomes obvious to everyone?”
“I’m the only one who can use them. The security personnel and the rest of my party can’t come with me.”
“Is going together important? It may only put them in even greater danger for no reason.”
“No, it’s just that this time was a bit special... Usually, it’s not like that. With four S-ranks moving together, what danger could there be... It’s just that they’re all gone right now... Ahh.”
“Hmm.”
“Besides, I’ve got a lot of things I have to do. I’ve started so many things that I have no choice but to go here and there...”
“Well, all of those things are like playing house. Must you really do them? If you stop those miscellaneous activities and stay only in the subspace warehouse, there will be no danger at all.”
“No, I have to do them. I said I have to.”
“Why?”
“I told you before. If I don’t even do this, then what exactly am I supposed to live doing?”
“Hmm, so... they are important hobbies?”
“Th...at’s right?”
“And you are risking your life for those hobbies?”
“......”
“It seems extremely inefficient.”
“Ugh, forget it. What’s the point of talking to you? How would you understand how I feel?”
His relationship with Danbi, Taewoong, Joshua, and Thomas, who followed him around under the pretext of guarding him, as well as the Elysium Heights construction, the TDM business, Real SimCity, and various other things Suho had started—
They were no longer meaningless, worthless games to kill time.
Now, in their own various ways, they were things that gave meaning to Suho’s days, and they were people who did the same.
Suho, who had been sitting there sulking, sprang to his feet.
As if he had made some grave decision, resolute will filled his eyes.
“I really can’t go on like this. I’m going to awaken too. I just have to awaken, that’s all. I’ll awaken no matter what!”
“As I have already told you, there is no substance in the universe that causes awakening.”
“Hmph, I don’t need one. If exposure to large amounts of aether raises the probability, doesn’t it? Then I’ll expose myself to a large amount of aether. Just you watch.”
Gritting his teeth, Suho rose and headed toward an empty lot in Dream Village, inside the subspace warehouse.