Chapter 30 Why he shouldn’t be here b 3}

His fingers and toes were pulled out, and his ears and nose were ripped off. But the shock didn’t kill him.

Lee Chang-hoon was a challenger that surpassed ordinary people in every way.

“..”

However, if the bleeding continued, it would be difficult no matter how strong a challenger you were, so Yoon-seok collected some waste materials to create a bonfire. Then he heated an iron rod in it.

Lee Chang-hoon’s face turned even paler.

“..What, what are you going to do?!”

“Aren’t we supposed to stop the bleeding?”

Yoon-seok rubbed his fingers and toes with the heated iron rod.

“Argh! Argh! Argh! Stop! I’m sorry! Stoppppp!”

Although he screamed like crazy, he wondered if he would make it even if the bleeding stopped. When his nose and ears become the next target, Lee Chang-hoon couldn’t scream or cry any longer and fainted.

Yet Yoon-seok woke Lee Chang-hoon up. It was time to wrap up.

“Ha, don’t do it! Seriously, please. D-don’t!”

Yoon-seok grabbed Lee Chang-hoon’s head. Then, he poured the burning waste into his ear. He struggled weakly, but Yoon-seok was able to ignore it due to his immense physical strength.

“Ahh! Ahhhh! Ahhhhhhh!”

Lee Chang-hoon screamed. Although it is incomparable to his face, Yoon-seok’s hands were also on fire, so he could sense somewhat what pain he was going through. But he remained expressionless. This much pain was nothing. In other words, the days where he was bullied by them were more painful for Yoon-seok.

Shortly, Lee Chang-hoon’s screams stopped. He died from burning alive.

“..”

Yoon-seok was calm even though he’d done such a horrendous thing with his own hands. His heart rate was normal. He once tried to tear his body apart while training with b Blood Pact}, and when he fought the Heavenly Devil at the start, he had been repeatedly stabbed. His mentality wasn’t weak when he decided to break his fingers and toes.

What he did was reasonable. Lee Chang-hoon was trash which carried a grudge and tried to kill his parents.

‘I would become like him if I were not powerful or sharp enough.’

Yoon-seok was able to protect his parents and punish Lee Chang-hoon only because he was strong. The strong prey on the weak. Whether it was the Tower or here, you would be eaten up if you weren’t strong enough.

‘There is too much trash in this world.’

Yoon-seok thought he should grow stronger. There was too much trash in this world that was stronger than him. In cases like Kang Hyung-woo and Lee Chang-hoon, trash was unavoidable. Like a car accident, it happened unexpectedly as they stepped all over others’ lives with their dirty feet. In previous years, there was a bare minimum of being protected under the law, but the modern world itself was a chaotic mess.

If what Ragna predicted were true, monsters would begin to enter the real world. There would be a time where force became greater than law.

‘It’s not over once I return; I have to prepare for the next one.’

His return to stop Lee Chang-hoon’s revenge. Thanks to this incident, he had a stronger sense of purpose. He wouldn’t escape from the Tower but accept everything and grow stronger. Enough to not get bullied ever again and protect everyone he loves.

「Returning in 13:27:04.」

After checking the remaining time, Yoon-seok used the skill he prepared.

‘Dismantlement.’

Magic spread evenly over Lee Chang-hoon’s body and began to gnawing away at it rapidly. Indeed, the adjective completely was worth it. Three minutes later, not even a sliver of bone remained. Yoon-seok wanted to get out of there quickly since he finished cleaning up the mess.

But then, in the abandoned site where no presence was detected before, an intruder entered.

“..?”

An abnormal signal caught within the scope of the twenty-five-meter radius search. The color indicating danger or enemy was red. However, it wasn’t a human.

The outline resembled a wild dog.

‘Huh? Is it an abandoned dog?’

A moment of thought struck Yoon-seok’s mind. It was strange enough that a dog appeared in a place like this, and it wasn’t just a normal dog. The size and shape were similar, but the dog had three tails. Yoon-Seok quickly turned around and checked its identity with his eyes.

He confirmed it. This dog creature was one of the monsters Ragna mentioned.

‘Did it come after smelling blood?’

Yoon-seok reached for his waist out of habit and grew embarrassed when he realized there was no sword. At some point, the wolf had approached with ten meters.

“Growlllllllllllllllllll!”

The wolf bent its front feet as if it would leap at any second. Yoon-seok leaned his upper body in a defense position in response. But something unexpected happened.

Crackle!

Electricity blasted from one of the three tails. Regardless of his defense, yellow lightning hit him.

‘What? That’s it?’

The sense of frustration that he was attacked first with a hasty expectation was also over with the short thrill after being shot. He was troubled by the blatant attack for a second but ended with nothing more than a brief sense of tingling from being electrocuted.

「Magic Resistance was successfully achieved.」

He finally knew what was going on after reading the late announcement.

‘Let’s catch it first.’

Yoon-seok immediately ran to the wolf. Realizing the attack was ineffective, the confused wolf raised its tail again to strike a second blow. But..

His abilities combined with the additional skill of b Heavenly Body}, Yoon-seok, having achieved agility of D Rank, was a few steps ahead.

Boom-!

As Yoon-seok’s body stopped mid-air, he swung his hand. He was bemused by the scene that followed. He didn’t expect the wolf’s head to explode without having the time to react. Plus, he wasn’t even using his left-handed sword that amplified his strength.

‘Except for using strange abilities, it’s no different than a wolf. Are monsters like this..?’

He felt somewhat empty after refining his goals and dealing with the creature. He changed his mind about Ragna’s words that only challengers could deal with monsters, where magic and sword skills would work on them.

‘If guns don’t work..’

Then the Earth would be overrun by monsters. Yoon-seok focused on something else.

‘She said monsters started appearing one year after challengers showed up, but already..?’

He had several assumptions. Maybe Ragna was mistaken, maybe it was a different case this time, or maybe a year had passed, and Yoon-seok was the only one who didn’t know. As if to show his disturbed state of mind, he gradually frowned.

“What about the bio-signal? Is it still the same?”

“..There might be an error; the signal disappeared.”

“What about its last location?”

“Here.”

“We need to be sure, so don’t let your guard down; shields up!”

Unexpectedly, there was a sudden bustling sign of presence. Yoon-seok looked out through the gaps to the ground floor. At some point, dozens of people in riot gear had started to enter the construction site.

‘What’s going on..?’

A plain black riot suit without a logo or any indication of organization. That fact alone was strange enough, but what they said was also very unusual. Although he had Complete Invisibility, Yoon-seok still headed to the rooftop if there might be a challenger amongst them. Not far from his hiding spot, he could hear the voices of those who headed upstairs.

“Sir, we’ve found the subject! Looks like someone’s already shot it!”

The agents who found the wolf’s body made a fuss over their radios. After a while, the man who seemed to be in charge arrived and let out a deep sigh.

“Why did this wolf come to an empty construction site again? Whew, I’m going crazy. Just how many challengers keep popping up in this small land?”

Listening to the man’s murmur, he was certain. He could easily guess these people were from some organization related to challengers. Yoon-seok listened with bated breath. He was learning a lot of useful information.

“Ah, seriously. I wish we were able to read challenger’s wavelength like we can monsters. There’s no end to finding them, fuck.”

Reading the wavelengths of challengers? Judging from what they said, it seemed like it was just a coincidence that the monster found Yoon-seok. They followed the monster and detected the existence of an unidentified challenger.

“Hey, get all the CCTVs footage around here. And that thing on the floor, it looks like human blood. Why are you just standing there?”

Agents packed Lee Chang-hoon’s blood in a vial under the company’s instructions. They seemed to think that he was injured while fighting the wolf.

“Move, move! We need to capture the unidentified challenger before they get dragged back to that fucking place! Aren’t you going to do it?”

It was clear that they were looking for him. That was why Yoon-seok was worried. If he showed up and talked to them, they could talk about the Tower. It was likely they might’ve already met other challengers in person.

But still, he decided not to do it. Seeing how they used the word capture, they didn’t seem too friendly. It felt like he might find himself with a lot of little trouble in his hands if he revealed his identity.

“Hey, what about the roof? Did you check?”

“Oh, not yet!”

“No one here knows how to do their job. Tsk, tsk, I’ll go check it out.”

The man who seemed to be in charge lit a cigarette and climbed the rooftop stairs. As a result, Yoon-seok became restless. Although the Invisibility skill was activated, he might recognize Yoon-seok if he was a challenger.

Yoon-seok glanced at the hill behind the construction site. The distance was about twenty-five meters. The width of the fall was more than that. If he jumped over there and couldn’t reach it, it would be no different from falling from a nine-story building.

But why didn’t he think it impossible even though it made him a little dizzy? Yoon-seok threw himself off without hesitation. If he landed properly, his legs would shatter in the worst-case scenario, but that could be cured quickly with {Blood Pact}.

Thud!

A tingling sensation surged from his feet up to his spine. However, it wasn’t bad enough to need {Blood Pact} to heal. He took a twenty-five-meter leap to land on the hill.

‘Now, I can’t even call myself human.’

Yoon-seok took off in a hurry with a self-mocking smile.

* * *

「Ticket b Rank F} has expired.」

「Please proceed to the waiting room on the fourth floor.」

There was nothing to do, nor something he wanted to do. Even on Earth, Yoon-seok just meditated in an invisible state in a quiet place, and before he knew it, he returned to the waiting room.

He reported the results to Ragna first as promised.

-Predator: The problem is resolved.

-Canola flower: That’s a relief.

Canola flower was Ragna’s nickname. It was surprising that the same flower exists in another dimension, but the bright blonde color matched her well.

-Predator: What about you? Did you win?

-Canola flower: Yes. Luckily, there aren’t a lot of monsters like you.

He was worried about Ragna’s advice, but it did work out well. Yoon-seok chatted with her a little more before turning off the chat room to enter the [Information] window next. [Challenger Information]

Name Choi Yoon-seok 4th floor)

History: 8 wins, 0 losses, 0 draws

*Power

Physical Strength b E}, Agility b D}, Fitness {E}, Durability b F}, Magic b D}

*Unique Skills

b Predation}, b Weapon Enhancement}, {Flash}, {Non-verbal Magic}, b Blood

Pact}, {Heavenly Body}, {Merchant of Death}

*Acquired Skills

historical

Backstep b F}, Magic Resistance {E}, Sword Mastery {E}, War Stomp b F}, Iron Mastery {E}, Invisibility {F}, Tracing b F}, Tracking b F}, Eyes of Truth b E}.

*Total score: 256,000 AP

*Coins held: 6

The difference in description between now and his humble first day was immense, and he could become even stronger if he used the remaining 96,000 AP. Because of that, a strange feeling of appreciation bloomed within him, but Yoon-seok tried to dismiss it.

One. If he won one more duel, he would have 256,000 AP in his hands. Then he could finally buy his original goal, a Full Return C-rank Ticket.

At that time, the point that seemed only vague and distant was already around the corner. However, Yoon-seok’s eyes were blank. He wouldn’t have known this before. That his goal had changed since his last trip to Earth. This wasn’t the end.

「The purchase has arrived.」

「Please check the lower part of the statue for your new product.」

It was just the beginning.