Chapter 14
Baek Shin-hoo looked around with a crooked smile.
'The stage is set….'
The onlookers had backed away, piloting their drones and raising their phones.
Now all he had to do was put on a good show on the stage he'd prepared.
People called him an uncontrollable mad dog, but he'd never once gone on a rampage without thinking.
Becoming an S-rank hunter wasn't something you could achieve through luck or blind madness.
Baek Shin-hoo had already carefully watched and analyzed the NPC's combat footage.
He was confident in his abilities.
The blazing red fireballs it flung around looked like overwhelming firepower, but they were non-targeting skills.
They were slow, and their trajectories were simple. Any hunter ranked B or higher could easily dodge them.
The daggers attached to strings, on the other hand, were target-locking, but their speed wasn't beyond human limits either.
At least, by Baek Shin-hoo's standards, the NPC should be an easy opponent against his assassin build optimized for fast combat.
The only question was that greatsword the NPC was holding now.
The moment it was drawn, a crimson aura burst forth.
An ominous red gleam shone in the NPC's eyes.
It seemed to have entered a new phase, like some of the monsters did.
'A sword that big must be slow. So what?'
A matchup advantage didn't change easily.
He'd poured all the money he'd earned so far into the skill build he'd carefully put together.
Baek Shin-hoo earned hundreds of millions of won with every hunt, but he'd invested all his assets in developing his skills.
After all, in this Tower, the system ultimately favored whoever had the means to get ahead.
The word 'system' might sound impressive at first, but in reality, it was almost disappointingly straightforward.
You acquired skill books, which dropped from the Tower at an extremely low rate.
That was it.
If a skill book you picked up didn't suit you, you could sell it and use the money to buy one that did.
Most hunters filled out their skills to suit their own inclinations.
Baek Shin-hoo's build consisted of skills related to rapid movement and skills that increased his power.
An assassin type who could reliably overpower an opponent one-on-one.
He had no need to withstand an enemy's attacks, so the NPC's attacks posed no threat to him.
Even if something unexpected happened, he could deal with it on the fly, drawing on his experience.
That was the situation now, too.
Having finished his calculations, Baek Shin-hoo slowly shifted his position, keeping his guard up.
GOAT-chan slowly turned to match Baek Shin-hoo's movements.
The air tightened with tension, as if they were locked in a fight to the death.
At last, when he had the perfect angle he'd been waiting for, Baek Shin-hoo smiled crookedly.
'It pissed me off seeing some NPC get called the G.O.A.T.'
Those damn nobodies were praising it like they'd found a savior.
'How about I ruin its life first?'
Baek Shin-hoo didn't attack first. He waited calmly.
He simply stared, keeping track of its movements.
He deliberately let the other side make the first move because he was hoping for one particular outcome.
'Fireball! Fireball! Please, fireball!'
He kept repeating it like a prayer.
At last, GOAT-chan seemed to raise a hand, and a single blazing red fireball appeared.
The corners of Baek Shin-hoo's mouth curled up at the wavering fireball.
'Just one? That's a shame. A barrage would've been best.'
While Baek Shin-hoo clicked his tongue, the fireball shot through the air.
At the sight of it, Baek Shin-hoo smiled with a wickedness worthy of a demon.
'I knew NPCs were stupid.'
He casually shifted one step to the side, twisting his body out of the way.
That was all it took.
The fireball passed through the spot where Baek Shin-hoo had been standing and flew onward without stopping.
'There's no way an NPC can think. It doesn't matter who's behind it….'
The fireball was headed straight for the gathered onlookers.
The hunters who'd been chattering noisily and praising it without a thought just moments ago.
Exactly as Baek Shin-hoo had planned.
A way to get rid of both the risk of killing an NPC and the risk of monopolizing it in one move.
The NPC had to kill a hunter.
Then public opinion would change.
After that, even if Blitz monopolized the NPC forever, people would forget about it, and it would fade into the background.
Just as he'd expected, when the fireball reached the hunters, they screamed in alarm.
"Aaaahㅡ!"
"Wha… What?!"
Dopamine surged through him as his plan fell into place.
His heart began to pound.
'You're going to die at the hands of the GOAT-chan you love so much.'
Baek Shin-hoo immediately drew a dagger.
The moment their screams threw the crowd into confusion.
He planned to take the NPC's head in one swift strike.
Just as he was about to use their screams as his signal and unleash the muscles in his thighs—
'Huh?'
The scream that was supposed to be his signal never came.
He couldn't smell burning flesh or feel a wave of heat spreading.
Puzzled, he turned his head, only for a blast of heat to wash over him from right in front of him.
'What the hell!'
The fireball was already surging toward Baek Shin-hoo again.
'Wasn't that a non-targeting skill?'
Baek Shin-hoo twisted his body on instinct.
But he couldn't dodge it completely after being caught off guard.
ㅡ Sssizzle!
Heat seared his elbow.
A fleeting touch.
It was the sort of magic he should've been able to defend against.
But the flames caught at terrifying speed, as if doused in oil, and swallowed his jacket.
"Kgh!"
Baek Shin-hoo panicked and tore off his jacket as if ripping it away.
The jacket peeled off like a shed skin and vanished completely, without leaving so much as a handful of ash, in less than a second.
'Shit. That was a 300-million-won designer jacket….'
He cursed, but somewhere inside, he felt relieved.
For the first time, fear filled his eyes.
'Even if it's a system effect, isn't that too much? It burned through leather like that?'
It was a luxury item made specifically for hunters.
It wasn't the sort of thing that burned easily.
Equipment that could even stop bullets had burned up like a scrap of paper?
But he didn't have time to collect his thoughts.
As he reeled from the sudden turn of events,
the killing intent he felt made his body stiffen.
A silver flash suddenly pierced Baek Shin-hoo's vision.
A dagger was already right in front of him.
"Fuck!"
Baek Shin-hoo instinctively turned his head to the side.
As it grazed his cheek, he heard the wind whistle by his ear.
ㅡ Whoosh!
He'd dodged by a hair.
It wasn't over. He didn't have a moment to rest.
The dagger that had cut through the air banked like a plane, then tightened around Baek Shin-hoo's neck like a noose.
'Shit, how does a dagger get to use a string, too?!'
He'd thought it would simply fly toward its locked-on target.
On instinct, he ducked low, nearly flattening himself against the ground, and dodged the noose.
'I'll get hit if I stay like this.'
Baek Shin-hoo grabbed the red string in an instant.
'Got it!'
If he grabbed the end of the string as if seizing a viper by the head, the dagger wouldn't be able to fly anymore.
There was no way he'd lose a contest of strength to a little runt like that.
Just then,
the knot came undone by itself, and the dagger floated leisurely back into the air.
"Huh?"
While he stood there, stunned, the freed dagger came hurtling at him faster than before.
It was no longer just a thrown weapon aiming for one point. It slashed at him as if an invisible person were wielding a sword.
It felt like fighting a person as he parried, dodged, and blocked.
ㅡ Clang! Clang-clang! Clang!
'Shit! What kind of skill is this?!'
Baek Shin-hoo desperately fended off the dagger as it rushed at him relentlessly.
The impacts were so heavy that his hands began to go numb.
Just as all his attention was fixed on the dagger's trajectory,
the red string lying on the ground wriggled toward him like a snake.
It reached Baek Shin-hoo's legs, then wrapped around his ankle like a snare.
"Huh? What is this now?!"
Then it hoisted his body up and slammed him into the ground like a swinging club.
ㅡ Boom!! Boom!! Boom!!
"Gah!"
The ground cracked like a spiderweb, as if it were about to cave in, and clouds of dirt billowed up.
His insides twisted, and his bones creaked as if they were screaming.
At this rate, he would lose without getting a chance to fight back.
Even as an S-rank hunter, he dredged up his remaining strength and threw his dagger as he was slammed into the ground.
ㅡ Whoosh!
The dagger cut through the air, aimed precisely at GOAT-chan's heart.
It was a desperate last struggle. He couldn't die like this.
But GOAT-chan just stood there, staring blankly.
No, GOAT-chan stood behind a greatsword larger than their own body.
Not even a hem of clothing poked out. There wasn't a single spot he could hit.
The dagger aimed at the heart struck the greatsword and bounced off uselessly.
ㅡ Clang!
"Ah……."
Now all he felt was despair.
The emotion he hated most. The one he never wanted to feel.
ㅡ Boom!! Booooom!!!
The red string kept slamming him around, as if it knew nothing of human emotions.
His vision darkened.
His mind grew hazy, and it felt as if every bone in his body had broken.
Pain gnawed away at his entire body.
'I'm really… going to die.'
Just as he was overcome by the fear of death,
the red string and dagger stopped moving and returned to GOAT-chan's side, as if summoned by their master.
Meanwhile, the masters watching the fight seemed somewhat excited.
ㄴTaebaek Sword Lord: How did someone at Qi Refining reach the Foundation Establishment realm?
ㄴJade-Cold Ice Empress: Controlling inner energy released by someone at Qi Refining? Is that also because of the demonic sword?
ㄴTaehyun Zhenren: The Pseudo-Foundation Establishment realm…
ㄴFive Azure Demon King: He's fake Foundation Establishment right now? I'd heard the rumors, but… Did he level up because of the demonic sword?
ㄴBlood River Patriarch: That's right. That guy's at the Transcendent Realm, so Foundation Establishment makes sense.
ㄴTaebaek Sword Lord: If his opponent had been at the Profound Realm…
ㄴBlood River Patriarch: Then he'd have reached the Golden Core stage.
ㄴTaebaek Sword Lord: That's absurd! I thought it'd only make him stronger within his own realm… At that level, isn't it a magical treasure?
ㄴJade-Cold Ice Empress: The price… What is the price?
ㄴBlood River Patriarch: Don't worry. A fight that short doesn't count as a price.
ㄴJade-Cold Ice Empress: Can I trust what you're saying?
ㄴBlood River Patriarch: For someone with the title Jade-Cold Ice Empress… It seems you've taken quite a liking to the little one, haven't you?
ㄴJade-Cold Ice Empress: Answer my question!
ㄴBlood River Patriarch: In their current state, there's no price to pay.
1.
The heavy air pressed down on the field.
A long silence followed.
Before the dust had even settled,
Baek Shin-hoo's eyes snapped open as he regained consciousness.
He sprang up from the ground like a beast and immediately took a guarded stance.
"Kgh!"
His body was battered and throbbing with pain, but he didn't let his guard down.
It was the instinct of a hunter who'd faced death countless times.
'I passed out in the Tower?'
To lose consciousness in the Tower…
In a place where even looking away for a moment could cost you your life, he'd passed out.
That was more horrifying than the pain of bones that felt ready to break.
He looked at GOAT-chan again.
Baek Shin-hoo's face twisted viciously once more.
'What's with that look?'
Anger, hatred, hostility. He couldn't sense any of them.
Those eyes were simply empty.
A stone rolling along the roadside.
A bug crawling underfoot.
The sort of gaze one gave things like that.
The gaze of someone looking at a worthless creature.
It made him feel sick.
The humiliation made his head feel like it was about to burst.
The people looking at him should always have been afraid and in awe.
Garbage who forced smiles, flattered him without meaning it, and clung to him as if begging.
He'd mocked and trampled those people on his way to becoming an S-rank hunter.
And some damn NPC from the Tower was looking down on him like that?
"You fucking bitch! Don't look at me like that!"
The last thread of his reason snapped.
An explosive fighting spirit wiped away the pain.
Baek Shin-hoo threw everything he had into the fight.
ㅡ Flash!
His figure blurred in an instant.
It was the fastest he could move as an S-rank assassin.
He closed the distance in a flash, moving so fast even the Tower's bosses would have trouble noticing him.
Then he began swinging his dagger like a madman.
"You fucking bitch, die! Die!!!"
He poured every ounce of skill he'd learned into his attacks.
He slashed, stabbed, and threw…
He feinted a stab at the collarbone, then used the opening to slash at GOAT-chan.
He threw a dagger to block GOAT-chan's vision, using it as bait to slip into their blind spot.
He even kicked a dagger off the ground with the top of his foot, sending it flying like a bullet.
A flurry of attacks that surpassed human limits surrounded GOAT-chan.
But.
ㅡ Clang! Clang! Clang-clang-clang!
"Sh… Shit…"
A groan slipped from Baek Shin-hoo's lips.
It was an unbelievable sight.
The NPC took all of his attacks without moving a single step.
GOAT-chan simply stood behind a greatsword larger than themself, looking up at him impassively.
What drove him even crazier was that the damn NPC wasn't even holding the sword.
'Shit, why is the sword floating by itself and blocking like a shield?'
If GOAT-chan were holding the sword, he could at least cut their wrist or fingers.
The greatsword floating in midair blocked all of Baek Shin-hoo's attacks perfectly, as if it were a bodyguard.
"Sh… Shit! Shit!!!!"
In the end, Baek Shin-hoo had no clever way to break through, and his meaningless flurry of attacks soon slowed.
His whole body began to pant, as if gasping for oxygen.
At last, his arms fell limp.
The moment his movements stalled,
the greatsword that had been holding its ground in front of him rushed into GOAT-chan's hand.
Then it cleaved through his vision at a monstrous speed.
'What kind of speed…'
The attack seemed to embody death itself.
Screaming, Baek Shin-hoo desperately twisted his body to evade it.
"Aaaaargh!"