Chapter 55 - Choi Jiwon Is Too Strong (6)

“...”

Time to regress.

There couldn't have been a clearer sign.

Choi Jiwon was too strong, and she had fought too well. Well enough to back the city's ruler into a corner.

That was the problem.

It might have been different if Jiwon's final strike had landed. Instead, the cornered ruler had played her hidden trump card: Lightning Heart.

-Lightning Heart [S]

Upon activation, consumes all existing mana and replaces it with lightning-aspected mana. Greatly enhances all physical abilities, including reaction speed, and adds lightning damage to every attack. The user takes continuous damage for the duration. Lightning Heart remains active until all lightning-aspected mana is depleted.

I didn't know whether the ruler's Lightning Heart was identical to my trait.

But... one thing was certain. There was no beating that woman as she was now.

Really, the moment Jiwon's last strike missed, this attempt had to be considered a failure.

Just as I gave up and resolved to bite the inside of my cheek to regress, someone caught my eye.

“Jiwon... Damn it...”

It was the firefighter, Park Cheoljin, agonizing over what to do.

Then I saw Choi Jiwon slowly getting to her feet, her arms trembling.

“...”

Suddenly, I felt ashamed.

They were giving this everything they had.

They could have simply turned their backs on the residents of Floor 2 and moved on to Floor 3.

Yet they were pouring everything they had into fighting for the common good.

And what about me?

The instant I decided we'd lost, I started thinking about regressing.

Come to think of it, I'd been like this ever since arriving on Floor 2.

In the tutorial, I was more often forced to regress, but here, thanks to the rule against violence, I could choose when to do it.

“... I've lost my desperation.”

What had happened to the me who took risks right down to the last moment, trying to scrape together even one more piece of information? In his place was someone complacent, someone who thought he could always just try again.

Someone ready to casually tear down everything Choi Jiwon, Park Cheoljin, and the residents had worked so hard to build.

I couldn't give up like this. I had to try something.

‘Don't stop thinking. Don't give up.’

Think. There had to be a workable solution.

A way...

A way to turn this situation around...

“Ah.”

There was one.

“Mr. Park.”

“Hmm... Oh, what is it?”

“Please wait here a moment. Baron Licht, come with me.”

I turned and started running deeper into the winding alleys.

The full suit of leather armor I'd discussed with the tanner.

I needed that armor—the one Jiwon had said she didn't need.

“Give up.”

Choi Jiwon's arms were trembling.

“Just run away.”

She had clenched her teeth so hard she could taste blood.

“...”

Jiwon could feel firsthand just what an absurd monster she was facing.

She knew that the moment that being truly unleashed her power, she would be reduced to ashes.

And yet she refused to back down.

Slowly, she assumed a middle guard and tightened her grip on Whoosh.

That was the kind of woman Choi Jiwon was. Once she set her sights on something, she never gave up.

“Hah!”

Drawing on every last scrap of strength she had, Jiwon charged the city's ruler.

“If you insist on learning the hard way.”

Before she could take even a single step, a flash of light blazed.

A bolt of lightning plunged from the sky straight down onto her head.

“Ah.”

Park Cheoljin gasped.

Choi Jiwon was falling. Even Whoosh had slipped from her hand.

“I won't kill you. The Archangel wouldn't like that.”

One blow.

A single blow had been enough to bring Choi Jiwon down.

“You're next.”

The ruler's gaze shifted to the Players watching the battle from the alleys.

“Oh, fuck...”

“Aaaaargh!”

Only then did the Players try to flee, but divine punishment fell from the sky and knocked every last one unconscious.

“Did you think I was some animal in a zoo?”

A clear blue sky. A cluster of clouds drifting lazily overhead. Warm sunlight.

KRA-BOOM!

Lightning hammering the square. Ear-splitting thunder. Shards of stone flying everywhere. Screams.

A disaster. This was a disaster.

How much time had passed?

The city's ruler was the only one left standing in the square. Most of the Players had long since lost consciousness.

“Ugh... Uuugh...”

A few Players with high stats and levels, including Park Cheoljin, had managed to stay conscious... but that was all.

They could barely twitch a finger. They had been utterly incapacitated.

“... That's more like it.”

The ruler savored the silence. She had won. Victory was hers.

Perhaps the technique she'd used had been excessive, but it was still better than losing. She was the city's ruler, after all.

“Now, then, how should I clean this up...”

STEP. STEP.

Her brow furrowed at the footsteps breaking the silence.

“... The one who ran away earlier?”

Thick leather armor covered the figure so thoroughly that not a patch of skin showed. An oversized hood concealed his face.

The man in full leather armor slowly walked toward the center of the square, drawing the eyes of every spectator still conscious.

“... Mr. Kim?”

Park Cheoljin recognized the armor immediately.

Kim Junho had suggested it when they discussed ways to oppose the ruler: wrapping someone in leather from head to toe to protect them from lightning.

“Right... With leather armor...”

“I wasn't a science major, but even I know leather doesn't conduct electricity...!”

The fallen Players gave small nods, agreeing that it was a good idea.

“...”

Cheoljin, on the other hand, was skeptical.

Their opponent was too powerful.

Would leather armor mean anything against the city's ruler, who radiated the majesty of a lightning god?

She was far too strong to confront with nothing but a thick suit of leather armor to rely on.

“...”

But Cheoljin couldn't stop the man before him. Some things could be understood without words.

His steps were filled with resolve. Even if Cheoljin told him to stop, he probably wouldn't listen.

STEP. STEP.

The man walked up to the ruler, a sword in hand.

Then, in a sudden burst of speed, he charged straight at her, his longsword at the ready.

What was courage?

It was the emotion that let someone do what anyone could do, but not just anyone would.

To challenge a monster spewing wild lightning from her entire body with nothing but a sword.

Simply because he believed it was right.

At this moment, he was truly brave.

“Mr. Kim...!”

Just as Cheoljin instinctively reached out a hand—

“Get lost.”

KRA-BOOM!

A bolt of lightning dropped from the sky, blinding him.

“...”

A brief moment passed.

By the time Cheoljin's vision returned through his tightly narrowed eyes...

“Ah...”

A man lay sprawled pathetically in the middle of the square, smoke rising from his body.

“You didn't actually think that would work, did you?”

Their last thread of hope was gone.

Cheoljin's head drooped. Tears fell in droplets, wetting the dry stone pavement.

It was utter defeat.

“Whew...”

At ease again, the ruler massaged the back of her neck. Had she ever used this much mana before?

Perhaps she'd used far too powerful a technique. Even the sparks dancing over her armor had vanished.

‘That was dangerous.’

Her body ached fiercely all over, the price of activating Lightning Heart in a moment of anger. If she hadn't deactivated it early, a few days of recuperation probably wouldn't have been enough.

Normally, Lightning Heart couldn't be deactivated until all the user's mana was exhausted.

But the ruler's mana was entirely lightning-aspected to begin with. By expending enough mana, she could quell the lightning energy and deactivate Lightning Heart.

It had cost her almost all her mana... but that was fine. She had taught the climbers a lesson.

“You should have learned the difference between courage and recklessness.”

She walked toward the fallen man. The closer she came, the stronger the burnt smell grew. Still, she'd controlled her power, so he should merely be unconscious.

“Let's have a look at that face, shall we?”

She wanted to see the face of the fool who had dared oppose her with nothing but a scrap of leather to rely on.

She rolled the facedown man over with her foot and pulled back his hood.

Just as she'd imagined, an unimpressive man's face was revealed.

“What a lovely sight. That beard of yours, all singed and curled.”

The ruler sneered.

“... Huh?”

The tearful firefighter's expression twisted strangely.

A beard? Did Kim Junho have a beard?

Cheoljin barely managed to push himself up, then hurriedly checked the fallen man's face.

“... The tanner?”

The tanner who had said he was willing to die if it meant bringing down the ruler lay unconscious.

It wasn't Kim Junho.

Then where was he?

Cheoljin's eyes darted about in search of Junho, then abruptly stopped.

Everyone had been so focused on the man in leather armor that no one had paid attention to the narrow alley behind him.

“...”

Inside the dark alley stood Kim Junho, knees bent in a ready stance, glaring at the city's ruler.

“Hah... Hah...”

Baron Licht stood behind him, panting heavily with a hand pressed to Junho's back.

Only after noticing the two did Cheoljin sense the terrifying force of their presence.

An intensity that seemed to draw in the space around them. Eyes that seemed to blaze.

“That's...”

The stronger fighters, Cheoljin among them, recognized that stance.

It was the one the ruler had used to drive Jiwon into a corner.

The technique that let her move too fast for the eye to follow.

“No way...!”

Had he learned the technique just by watching it in that brief span of time? By any reasonable standard, it was impossible.

“But...”

Considering what he had shown them in the tutorial...

If it was the man who had beheaded the seemingly invincible Minotaur in a single stroke...

Somehow, Cheoljin felt it might be possible.

“This is the limit. There's no point gathering any more mana.”

Blood streamed from Baron Licht's nose.

“... Huh?”

At last, the city's ruler turned her eyes toward the mouth of the alley.

“You let your guard down.”

Kim Junho vanished from his stance.

A single long line cut across the open square.

Silence.

Utter silence settled over the square.

“...”

Cheoljin's mouth opened and closed as though he'd forgotten how to breathe.

One Player kept rubbing his eyes, apparently convinced he'd imagined it.

Junho had passed the ruler and stood some distance beyond her.

“Hah, hah, hah...”

But his legs were trembling violently, and his face was pale as he gasped for breath. He looked to be in terrible shape.

The ruler, by contrast, stood tall and proud.

Her armor was intact except for the dents Jiwon had made earlier, and there were no visible wounds on her skin.

“Did he fail...?”

Had the attack missed?

As the Players struggled to make sense of what had happened...

“Whew... Heh...”

Junho managed a faint smile on his pale face.

“... Huh?”

Only then did Cheoljin realize what had changed.

Junho was holding a brown object that hadn't been there before.

Its design was familiar. It was the very pouch that had hung at the ruler's waist.

He eased open its mouth and peered inside.

“... Is this an item too? It's roomier than I expected.”

After checking its contents, he immediately turned the pouch upside down and shook it out.

CLATTER.

A small, diamond-colored box fell out.

It was identical in shape to the bronze, silver, and gold boxes they had seen so often.

“...”

The city's ruler stared expressionlessly at the box.

Then she slowly sank to her knees and whispered, her voice thick with tears.

“Thank you...”

In the battered square, where dust drifted through the air and the smell of burning lingered, the woman's sniffling was the only sound that broke the silence.

A Word from the Author (Afterword)

Floor 2 is nearing its end...

To be honest, I have a lot of regrets... This floor really should have appeared later, perhaps in the latter part of the story... It was a planning mistake...

I like the concept of Floor 2 itself, but the problem is that its atmosphere was different from the tutorial's.

It doesn't have the appeal of the protagonist getting unfairly screwed over... The plot is a little bland...

After changing things up with the modern-day section, I should have returned to a familiar flavor and tried to win you over with that... I do regret changing things up twice in a row. I went too far with trying to be different...

I'll be back with a Floor 3 storyline that's both familiar and new. Thank you, as always, for reading!

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