Chapter 106
Shin Seha's room was still dark.
Thanks to the thick blackout curtains covering the windows.
Time didn't seem to pass in this room.
Seha liked that.
It didn't feel like the day had been wasted for nothing.
“These days, the phone isn't ringing.”
Seha's mood hadn't been so bad lately.
Because she hadn't heard from Association Chairman Park Sangcheol in a while.
The voice that had been pestering her to join the protests and strikes.
Even just that call stopping made her feel like she could breathe again.
“He's not the kind of person who'd stay quiet all of a sudden….”
She didn't know why he'd suddenly gone so quiet.
She didn't want to know either.
She just hoped this peace would last as long as possible.
Her mind wasn't completely at ease.
Just imagining the phone ringing again someday left her palms sweaty.
This anxiety would continue until she was sure she'd been completely freed from Park Sangcheol.
To forget her anxiety, she looked back at the monitor.
She had nothing else to do anyway.
Seha blankly read the text on the monitor.
The Mage Gallery was bustling again today.
Because of Newbie, who had stirred up yet another new incident.
“That newbie really is overflowing with energy….”
When Newbie first said they'd be giving out items.
Seha hadn't originally planned to accept it.
She would never climb the Tower again.
Besides, what use was a shield if she never even left the house?
But seeing everyone in the Mage Gallery decide to take a shield changed her mind.
No matter how you looked at it, in a few days the item topic would start rolling around.
And if she alone couldn't join in?
That would be far too unpleasant.
“I'm really childish, aren't I.”
Seha thought that side of herself was childish.
No different from an elementary schooler who watches a show they don't even like just to join in on their classmates' conversations.
“…Should I open it?”
The box was still sitting in the corner of the room.
She had no intention of trying it out.
Despite its excellent performance, it was destined to sit unused and gather dust.
Just like herself, shut away in the corner.
“Huh?”
That was when it happened.
A new comment was posted on the article she was reading.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(33R.33Y): (@Pkkatju) Did you get your parcel okay too? If you did, leave a review.
It was Newbie.
Come to think of it, since everyone else had left reviews and only she was quiet, it made sense they'd be curious.
Seha slowly turned her head to look at the parcel box in the corner of the room.
“If I got something like this and said nothing, that wouldn't be right.”
Seha hesitated for a very long time.
And at last, she forced her heavy body up.
Her joints made a groaning sound.
She brought the box into the living room and carefully peeled off the tape.
“…….”
Seha swallowed hard and took out the shield.
A shield heavier than she'd expected.
The touch of cold metal felt eerie.
“Huu….”
She set the shield down on the floor and stepped back.
She intended to test whether it could block her magic and report the result.
Shin Seha very timidly raised her right hand.
Crackle.
A tiny spark jumped from her fingertips.
But it was difficult.
Controlling her mana was far too difficult.
It hadn't been like this before.
A weak, unstable spark that was hard to believe came from an A-rank lightning mage.
“Weakly… really weakly….”
Seha muttered like she was chanting a spell, controlling her mana.
The spell she used was a basic lightning bolt that could be cast without any skill assistance.
That was the exact moment.
‘Aaaah!’
A scream flashed through her mind.
Burning corpses. The eyes of a teammate filled with despair.
Unconscious fear interfered with her control over mana.
“Ah… no….”
It had nothing to do with her own will.
A massive spear of lightning was fired, completely beyond her control.
BOOM!
With a deafening roar, a blue flash filled the room.
The shield was perfectly fine.
Whatever it was made from, the Unique-grade shield took the A-rank mage's spell head-on without a single scratch.
The problem burst elsewhere.
The spell blocked by the shield bounced back and spread through the entire room.
Fzzzt-!
The TV screen burst, and smoke rose from the computer.
The fluorescent lights on the ceiling shattered, showering glass shards down.
Soon the entire house was plunged into darkness.
Shin Seha opened her eyes in the darkness.
Her body was fine.
Of course it was.
Because it was impossible for a lightning mage to die from electrocution.
But the surroundings weren't.
The air was thick with the smell of burning.
At her feet were shards of unknown origin.
The house was a total wreck.
Seha froze at the sight.
It was exactly the same as back then.
When she had slaughtered her comrades.
“Ah… ahh…….”
Panic swept over her.
***
A few years ago.
When she challenged Floor 40 of the Tower.
Her team was fighting the boss.
The boss was a knight riding a skeletal horse, the Dark Knight.
At the time, Shin Seha was one of the world's few precious lightning mages.
Up until then, climbing the Tower had posed her little difficulty.
Most enemies turned to ash and vanished before her lightning.
She truly had overwhelming talent and skill.
She thought Floor 40 would be no different.
There was already one team in Korea that had cleared Floor 40.
She had already gotten the rough information from that person.
“This is enough.”
Because she was strong.
A fight that would end easily with a single spell.
And then she would go back outside the Tower and give an interview in front of countless reporters.
The youngest A-rank Hunter, Korea's fastest to clear Floor 40.
Grand titles and accolades were waiting for her.
Just imagining it made her heart race.
“Seha, ready?”
The tanker asked, tapping his shield.
All her teammates turned their eyes to her.
Their gazes were full of expectation and trust.
“Of course. I'll go all out from the start.”
Shin Seha nodded confidently.
As she reached her hand toward the sky, dark clouds began to swirl.
“Heaven's Punishment (天罰).”
With the spell, countless bolts of lightning poured down as if the sky had been torn open.
Power so immense that the night sky blazed as bright as day.
But back then, the boss monster's patterns had not yet been fully analyzed.
No one could have anticipated what would happen next.
Countless bolts of lightning fell on the skeletal knight's head.
But the enemy did not fall.
The Dark Knight raised its shield while mounted on the horse.
Seeing that it seemed to have taken no damage at all, Seha bit her lip.
“I'll fire again!”
Seha gathered her mana to prepare the spell once more.
That was when it happened.
“Uh… that….”
One of the teammates muttered in an uneasy voice.
Everyone's eyes turned to the Dark Knight's shield.
All the lightning was being absorbed by the shield.
The next moment, the shield shattered and spat out light.
Magic Reflection.
Once again, blinding light filled every direction.
The spell she had launched came straight back at her allies.
The allied tanker instinctively raised his shield and used a skill, but it was useless.
“Block it! Dodge!”
The tank's shield was torn apart like paper.
A bolt of lightning, melting through the armor and piercing the body.
The healer, who had been prepared for any emergency, was no different.
Before she could even use a skill, the healer's clothes had burned black.
“Aaaagh!”
Everything happened in an instant.
Screams and the smell of burning flesh.
The teammates slumped to the floor.
The comrades who had trusted her just seconds earlier turned into black lumps of charcoal before her eyes.
“W-what is this…?”
In the midst of it all, Seha survived.
A lightning mage doesn't die from electrocution.
Instead, she absorbed the lightning that had killed her comrades.
Seha felt her power growing even stronger.
She wasn't happy at all.
“Ah… ahh….”
Her mind went blank.
She couldn't think of anything.
All that remained before her eyes were the still-standing Dark Knight and her comrades' bodies strewn across the floor.
The Dark Knight slowly began walking toward her.
“Die…!”
Shin Seha's emotions exploded.
A torrent of pure power, mixed with rage, sorrow, and self-loathing, swept across everything in the form of lightning.
Apparently the boss could only use that damn shield once.
The Dark Knight vanished into dust without even being able to resist.
[You have successfully cleared Floor 40.]
“….”
A cold system message appeared before her eyes.
Even after defeating the boss, only silence remained.
There were no more comrades left to cheer and shout for victory.
A heavy, dreadful silence.
Seha stood blankly, staring at her comrades' corpses.
Bodies that couldn't be taken out of the Tower, since they weren't items.
“I-I should at least collect their keepsakes….”
The smell of burning flesh stabbed her nose.
Nausea rose in her throat, but she didn't even have the strength to throw up.
Like a madwoman, she rummaged through the bodies, just to gather even their keepsakes.
Then, with a familiar feeling of weightlessness, she was expelled from the Tower.
“Ah… no….”
Outside the Tower, countless people were waiting for her.
Because her interview had been scheduled.
Bright lights and noisy murmurs.
Reporters rushed at her, flashing their cameras.
“Hunter Shin Seha! She's out!”
“Congratulations on clearing Floor 40!”
“You've set the youngest-ever record! Please share your thoughts!”
“Ah…….”
People congratulating her. Voices cheering.
But Seha couldn't say anything.
The crowd's voices buzzed in her ears.
Seeing Seha's dazed expression, some people sensed that something was off.
“Huh? What about the other teammates…?”
Someone's question.
At that one word, a terrifying silence settled over the noisy scene.
People's gazes turned to the empty entrance of the Tower behind her.
No way? Their expressions hardened in an instant.
Questions rose on everyone's faces.
“Ah….”
Seha couldn't endure those gazes and collapsed right there.
After that day, Hunters learned the hidden pattern of Floor 40's boss, the Death Knight.
A one-time attack reflection activated when struck by a fatal attack.
Countless reports and new strategies were prepared.
But by then, they were already of little use to Shin Seha.
Seha holed herself up in her room from that day on.
Swearing she'd never use magic again.
***
Several days passed.
No reply came back from Pkkatju.
Since that day, Pkkatju hadn't posted anything in the gallery, let alone left a comment.
“What is going on?”
Maybe real life was just keeping them busy, but the timing was too perfect.
Besides, the unusual reactions they sometimes showed had been bothering me.
It seemed I wasn't the only one who thought so; the others were starting to sense something strange too.
ㄴBeetle: Maybe we should contact them, just in case.
ㄴFridge: Reaching out in real life over a few days of ghosting? Isn't that a bit much?
ㄴBeetle: I just have a bad feeling about it.
I was puzzled by Pungdengi's reaction.
ㄴㅇㅇ(222.222): Do you know something?
ㄴBeetle: Sorry, it's not something I can go around talking about…. I brought it up for no reason.
That answer made me even more uneasy.
I sent a text to Pungdengi's private number.
[Could it be related to the shield I sent?]
It took a long while before a reply came back.
A text that showed traces of hesitation.
[Maybe it could be.]
[It was something that happened a few years ago. It never went out on the news, so almost nobody knows about it….]
Kim Sooho cautiously began to talk about Pkkatju and Shin Seha's past.
A horrific accident that had happened on Floor 40 a few years ago.
And how the aftermath of the accident was handled, and what state Shin Seha was living in now.
“…This happened?”
I was quite shocked by that backstory.
To think there was such a reason behind Pkkatju's always-playful side?
I reached for my phone to hear a little more detail.