Chapter 2245 – 2245. Rezo
KWA-AAAAANG!
With a deafening roar, my body was forcefully thrown into the air.
Thanks to Mireyeong’s brief warning just before the explosion erupted from the ground, I instinctively reacted, surrounding my body with mana to minimize the damage. It wasn’t my first time falling into a trap, so I wasn’t particularly flustered. Annoyed, yes, but not flustered.
“Agh, damn it.”
I picked myself up from the ground. Even with mana protecting me, I couldn’t completely escape the shockwave. My head was ringing, and my vision was blurry. Looking around, the ground was overturned, and trees and rocks were shattered and scattered everywhere. If a regular person, not a hunter, had been there, they would have died instantly.
‘Where’s Mireyeong?’
She was lying face down, covered in dirt.
“Mireyeong, are you okay?”
Mireyeong’s unfocused eyes flickered, then locked onto me.
“Yes. Yes, somehow. I managed to protect myself with magic before the explosion. But I couldn’t do anything about the ringing in my head.”
“We’re in the enemy’s base, so this kind of trap is to be expected. I wasn’t careful enough.”
There was a reason I wasn’t careful. Lee Yeon-sook. With an S-Class hunter leading the way, I had been complacent, thinking nothing could possibly go wrong.
I belatedly looked for Lee Yeon-sook. As an S-Class hunter, she should be in better shape than us. Especially since she always had dozens of barriers around her body. There was no way she would be affected by such a small explosion.
But my expectations were wrong. She was lying on the ground. She looked fine on the outside, but her eyes were bloodshot, and blood was flowing from her mouth and nose.
“…An S-Class hunter got taken down by an explosion like this? Was her retirement because she lost her edge?”
“Shut up. Damn it…”
Lee Yeon-sook glared at me. She tried to push herself up with trembling arms but lost her strength and collapsed again. This was an S-Class hunter? It was pathetic. Lee Yeon-sook’s gaze turned to Mireyeong.
“You know what’s going on… Can you help?”
“I have to help. Things will go wrong if I don’t. Unfortunately, we can’t run away either. A barrier was activated at the same time as the curse explosion. We’re trapped on this mountain. Of course, my husband might have a way out.”
I knew she was talking about the teleportation scroll. But was it right to leave Lee Yeon-sook behind and run? There were people who knew that we were moving together with Lee Yeon-sook. If Lee Yeon-sook were to die here, the responsibility would likely fall on us.
And more importantly, now that we were in the base, there was a high chance that we had become Rezo’s target. That meant Rezo could come after us later. It was best to help Lee Yeon-sook and finish this.
“What exactly is going on? There’s no way an S-Class would be taken down by an explosion like that.”
“This was a curse explosion. The physical explosion was just a bonus; the real deal was the curse it inflicted.”
“It doesn’t seem like you or I are cursed.”
“It’s a curse targeting one specific person. Curses are born from hatred. ‘I hope you’re miserable,’ ‘I hope you die,’ and so on. They start from feelings of hatred. A world-class curse master spent ten years hating the enemy who killed his son and created this curse. That curse is destroying Lee Yeon-sook’s barriers and affecting her body. Ah, the barrier is still being eaten away by the curse. If we leave her like this, she won’t last ten minutes.”
“An S-Class curse master’s curse prepared for ten years. Just hearing about it is terrifying.”
Unlike my words, I wasn’t afraid. A curse prepared for ten years? So what? Even if it was prepared for a hundred years, it wouldn’t be able to kill me. I had complete recovery and the Heart of Heaven. For a curse master, I would be the worst possible match.
“Luckily for Lee Yeon-sook, I’m here. I can’t completely remove the curse on the spot, but… I can neutralize it to some extent. The problem is that it takes time.”
I understood what she meant.
“That means I have to deal with Rezo.”
“You’re the only one who can. Or should we abandon this woman and run? It wouldn’t be bad to hand her over to Rezo and guarantee our safety. Judging by the curse, Rezo seems to hate this woman a lot.”
Mireyeong smiled faintly. The aura of a villainess was oozing out of her. I looked down to check Lee Yeon-sook’s expression. As expected, it was contorted. She must have realized that I was the one who had the power to decide, and she opened her mouth with difficulty.
“I always repay my debts. Even though I’ve officially retired, you’ve seen that my influence is still significant. I’ll fulfill your requests, even if they’re a bit illegal. Help me.”
Even in this situation, she was still giving orders, making me wonder if I should just hand her over to Rezo. If Rezo finished his revenge, he would probably leave Korea and return to Europe.
‘…Let’s think about the practicalities. Lee Yeon-sook’s influence is real. I saw Kim Ji-hak, the director of the Magic Corporation, groveling in front of Lee Yeon-sook.’
An S-Class. And someone who was unofficially working under the government.
If I incurred a debt now, I could use it later when I needed it.
“Alright. I’ll help you.”
“That’s a wise choice. Don’t think about defeating Rezo, just hold him off and buy time. I’ll go as soon as my body recovers.”
“This is separate from the debt, but if this is successful, please promote me to A-Class. I’m too lazy for the promotion test.”
“I will. It’s something that can be done with a little pressure on the association.”
That was something only an S-Class could do.
I focused my mind for a moment and released electromagnetic waves in all directions.
Thunder Sky Style (雷天流) Electromagnetic Wave (電磁氣波).
The invisible electromagnetic waves swept through the mountain. Information about the surrounding area entered my mind, and a map of the terrain was drawn.
I found him. Rezo was standing in front of a small cabin on the mountainside. He wasn’t even trying to hide. He must have been aware of the situation, but he wasn’t coming this way… Either there was something important inside his base, or he was preparing something else.
I needed to go and draw his aggro before Rezo launched another attack.
“Husband, take this.”
She handed me a metal badge about half the size of my palm. It was a badge shaped like a fox’s head.
“What’s this? Did you make it yourself?”
“It’s a charm. It will protect you from the curse to some extent.”
“Thank you.”
I attached the badge to my outer garment and headed towards Rezo’s location. On the way, I summoned the Hwaryeon Flying Blades and held them in my hand.
I was a little nervous about facing an S-Class.
Of course, I had experience fighting an S-Class in America. The opponent was Chad Lovell. His nickname was Bloody Drake. He was a guy with mutation abilities.
‘That guy was hardly a real S-Class. He became an S-Class because of the president’s backing.’
He wasn’t even a pseudo-S-Class. If he had been a real S-Class, his stats would have been much lower than they were now, and I wouldn’t have been able to win.
‘But even back then, I barely won with equipment.’
I arrived.
Rezo’s appearance was completely different from what I knew. I knew Rezo was an African-American, but the man in front of me was a middle-aged man in his forties with a beard. He was wearing a modified hanbok, looking like a recluse.
“Are you Rezo?”
“Yes. I am Rezo.”
“The information I have is different. Weren’t you originally black? Could you even change your race with plastic surgery?”
“Do you believe that living beings have souls?”
“That’s already been proven. Souls exist. But is that important? Or what? Are you trying to say you moved your soul into another body?”
“When the body dies, the soul disappears. It hasn’t been revealed where the soul disappears to. But there is a brief moment before it disappears. I used this body to possess a nearby corpse. The corpse was in good condition, so I was able to survive. I was very lucky.”
“That’s impossible. Just because there’s a body doesn’t mean the soul will settle in it. If you could move your body like that, all the mages would have obtained immortal bodies.”
“This body is a medium. It turns out he was the son of a shaman. His lineage was special. Moreover, I am a master of voodoo. Coincidence piled upon coincidence, and a miracle occurred. It was already fate. It was bad luck for him, who was caught in a curse and died while traveling in Europe.”
“Thanks for rambling about what I was curious about. Now, die.”
Fzzzt.
Red lightning crackled on the blade of the Hwaryeon Flying Blade. I threw the lightning-wrapped Hwaryeon Flying Blade at Rezo.
Rezo didn’t react. It wasn’t that he couldn’t react, but that he didn’t need to. The thrown Hwaryeon Flying Blade stopped in front of him, lost its power, and fell to the ground.
‘Is it telekinesis? Or some kind of sorcery?’
[Opening the Heavenly Eye (天眼).]
Things that were invisible became visible. The mana surrounding Rezo and the mana spreading in all directions. I had entered his domain. And some of it was directed at me. So subtly that it didn’t register with my senses.
“You’ve been looking around, and you’ve finally found me. You weren’t caught in the illusion.”
“Did you secretly cast a curse?”
“I did. The purpose was to shake your mind and scatter your senses with a curse. That’s my fighting style. But it didn’t work. That charm alone shouldn’t have been able to completely block my curse.”
“Maybe your curse is just pathetic.”
“Maybe. And Lee Yeon-sook, who was affected by that pathetic curse, must be even more pathetic. I don’t want to waste my energy, so I’ll make you an offer. Leave Lee Yeon-sook and leave this place with your companion. I don’t have much interest in Korea. Once I achieve my goal, I’ll leave Korea and go to Europe.”
“The guy who committed the subway terror attack this afternoon has no interest? Yeah, right.”
“I was originally planning to approach it differently. I didn’t have any particular grudge against Korea. But a variable occurred a few days ago, and I changed my plan and decided to go ahead with it.”
“What kind of plan is blowing up a subway? Wasn’t it just for fun?”
If that were the case, I would have understood it immediately. If I had a bomb in my hand, I would want to use it at least once. Of course, that’s in fictional stories. There’s no reason to do such a thing in reality.
“Terrorism is a means of communication. You can communicate with words? That’s a joke. Even if you raise your voice, you’ll be ignored if you don’t have power. To avoid being ignored, you have to show that you’re not to be trifled with. The reason why civilized people are more rude than barbarians is that their heads don’t get split open. If we don’t do this, they won’t even try to understand us.”
“Hmm. I still don’t understand. Terrorism is basically for fun, right?”
“……Are you crazy?”
“I’m normal, and you’re the crazy one. Human bomb Rezo!”
“……Indeed. So you’re already so crazy that mental curses don’t work on you. I know what crazy people are like, I’ve dealt with them a few times. No matter what you do, you can’t reason with them. It’s a pity.”
Kwarurururung.
A blue lightning bolt struck Rezo’s head from the dark night sky.
