Chapter 112
“Hahahat!”
From far away.
The laughter of Thunderstrike echoed out.
“Brat! No matter how you fly or crawl!”
‘Pzzzzzt!’
Currents of electricity sparked from all directions.
From beneath the ground, from behind the trees.
Others struck down from the sky like lightning bolts.
“All you’ll ever find are my afterimages! And remember this! As long as you can’t see me with your own two eyes, there will be no special privilege!”
“…”
I furrowed my brow.
Floa, that girl.
She’s blatantly showing off her presence now.
Is an examiner even allowed to do this?
“Heup!”
I let out a groan and moved my feet.
I had no time to harbor such complaints.
Floa’s attacks were fiercer than I thought.
Whenever I brushed past a spot where the electricity had passed, I could feel a heat so intense it made my face flush.
‘Kwa-dududuk!’
If I took even one wrong step, I felt like it wouldn’t be that rock splitting apart, but my own body.
“Heh.”
‘Pajijik!’
“Ugh.”
Every time I ran, the rocks and trees beside me collapsed and bent powerlessly.
Fragments of the sandy ground scattered in all directions.
‘Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!’
The entire area was shaking as if it were collapsing.
And dust and dirt filled the air.
‘Still, one thing is for sure.’
My eyes glinted.
The reason I could withstand this.
Even though these were the attacks of a double-digit Ranker.
The reason I could endure it.
‘Floa, that one.’
She clearly wasn’t attacking me.
She was only pounding the surroundings, as if I were something that must never be touched.
Not a single direct hit was coming my way.
“That airhead… It seems your chances of winning have gone up.”
The Elder, who was following beside me, muttered.
I smirked.
‘I can feel it too. After all, physiognomy is a science.’
“Physiognomy?”
The Elder tilted his head.
I nodded.
‘Yes, you remember what she looks like, right? First of all, her nose is ridiculously high. You know what they say, right? People with high nose bridges absolutely hate being looked down on.’
“What are you talking about? You… you learned physiognomy as well?”
‘On top of that, her eyebrows are arched way up, right? And her mouth is twisted into a sneer. I’ve heard that faces like that have hated losing since ancient times.’
“Kekeke, just like you, you mean?”
The Elder grinned teasingly.
‘Hmm.’
Is that what my face looks like?
I don’t think so.
Well, one thing was certain.
I, too, hated losing more than death.
You could say Floa and I were similar in that regard.
And, that.
‘It’s the same for you, Elder. You have quite the pride, don’t you?’
“Well, for both you and me. Isn’t there a saying, like master, like disciple?”
‘…Wasn’t it ‘like father, like son’?’
“Anyway, you brat. You must understand that the pride of the strong is a sentiment they are entitled to wield, so it cannot be compared to the arrogance of the weak.”
‘Then what is she wielding right now?’
“Arrogance, of course.”
‘Just as I thought, right?’
The Elder and I met eyes.
We looked at each other and grinned.
“The result is for you to make. Look at that airhead. She could have just run away. Don’t you see the answer just by looking at how she fell for your provocation and is acting like that? No matter how much power she possesses, an airhead is an airhead. You know it too, don’t you? That I have a knack for reading people.”
‘You did. That’s why you chose me back then, after seeing my skeletons, right?’
Even now, at this very moment.
I was constantly moving my feet.
My vision was already a mess from all the dust and dirt.
It was a state where finding Floa’s figure would not be easy.
‘Hmm.’
What should I do?
“How much time has passed? It should be about time for a reaction.”
The Elder asked as he rotated his wrist.
‘It hasn’t been that long yet. But.’
“Are you going to start?”
‘Yes, just as you said, Elder, it’s time to start tightening the noose.’
‘Twitch!’
The Toxin Mist hidden in my gut stirred.
A few minutes ago.
Thankfully, it had provided a few of the toxins that the Elder and I wanted.
That’s right.
You can’t expect to live in a cozy home for free.
This.
I’ll count this as one month’s rent.
—
‘What’s this?’
Floa, who had been meticulously attacking, frowned.
Joo Donghoon, who should have panicked and stopped his advance by now.
‘He keeps sticking to me?’
Indeed.
Are Ranker candidates different from the get-go?
How could he charge forward even after seeing such a powerful attack?
“…”
But he was just a sprout.
He was nothing more than a brat who hadn’t fully grown yet.
Besides, was she just any ordinary Ranker?
She was ranked 84th in the world.
One of the strongest, who received VVIP treatment wherever she went in the world.
The probability of losing in a fight against him would converge to almost 0%.
‘The problem is.’
This wasn’t a fight where they were betting their lives.
She couldn’t directly strike Joo Donghoon.
But he could strike her at any time.
No, he didn’t even need to strike her.
It was a fight he would win just by ‘discovering’ her with his own two eyes.
“Really…”
It was hilarious.
Even considering the penalty.
How could a mere participant be in a ‘game’ with her, a double-digit Ranker!
“Ahahat!”
It was so funny that a smile naturally formed on her face.
Just how long had it been since she felt this kind of excitement?
“Hey, who the hell are you?!”
Floa used radio waves to make her voice reverberate.
By shouting this way, she could communicate without revealing her location.
“Where the hell did you pop out from? Do you have a master?”
Questions she threw out of sheer curiosity.
“You can answer from right there. No matter how you speak, my hearing transcends space.”
“Who the hell am I?”
Joo Donghoon replied indifferently to this.
“I’m the guy who’s about to catch you and get the special privilege. Why.”
“Uhahahaha!”
Floa burst out laughing.
What Hunter in the world would dare speak to her like this?
She found the man’s audacity before her rather likable.
No, rather than likable, it was a bit fascinating.
He was a type of human she had never seen before in her life.
“You? You’re going to catch me?”
A sneer formed on her lips.
It was a feeling mixed with disbelief and a trace amount of interest.
“Yeah? Go on, try it. If you can find me when I’m fighting seriously, then I’ll call you Oppa.”
“Oppa?”
“Yeah, you bastard. But you don’t have to worry about that. Because it’s never going to happen.”
It was certainly a meaningless promise to her.
Since she didn’t think there was even a 1% chance she would lose to a participant.
But.
The arrogant man took it a step further.
“I don’t want to be called Oppa by an airhead like you…? How about a Slave Bet instead?”
“What?”
Floa asked back with a scoff.
What was he saying now?
“Slave Bet?”
“Yeah, a Slave Bet, literally. The loser immediately bows their head and submits. They have to do whatever they’re told. How about it? Surely a Ranker at 84th place isn’t scared, right? Well, if you don’t want to, then don’t.”
“Hey, hey, hey. Are you crazy, for real?”
Floa placed her hands on her hips in disbelief.
“Fuck, no matter how many times I’m told I’m thoughtless. My value and your value are on completely different levels. You want to make such a ridiculous bet? The math doesn’t add up!”
“Why.”
Floa let out a short laugh.
“Weren’t you confident you wouldn’t lose anyway? Besides, if you look into it, I’m worth quite a bit myself, you know?”
“You are?”
Floa tilted her head.
Well, assuming he became a single-digit Ranker in the future, he would be worth a tremendous amount, but.
That was a story for later.
Not now.
Becoming a single-digit Ranker wasn’t as easy as falling off a log.
“Yeah. I’m pretty rich. I can also make S-rank items. If you’ve been a Hunter for any time, you must have heard about the Dmir Workshop recently, right?”
“…Dmir Workshop?”
Dmir? Dmir…
She’d heard that name somewhere…
What was it again?
“Ah?”
Floa’s pupils widened.
“Dmir, you mean that workshop that makes S-rank weapons? The one that’s a hot topic in South Korea these days?”
The value of an S-rank weapon was immense.
Because of that, the Dmir Workshop incident had spread worldwide.
As a high-ranking Ranker herself, she was very interested in weapons, so she had heard of it.
The Berserker had received a weapon from there, she’d heard.
“Huh, I thought the owner of that Dmir Workshop was a Necromancer… Don’t tell me that’s?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Hoh.”
Floa’s round eyes blinked rapidly.
A reaction that would make her look extremely innocent to anyone who didn’t know better.
“Now that would be interesting.”
Something about the calculation was adding up.
First, the probability of her losing was virtually nonexistent.
That meant the money and items would come to her for free.
‘Plus, I can make him keep making exclusive items for me, right?’
This is a total jackpot!
Her mind raced.
And after a short moment, she made her decision.
“Okay!”
She nodded her head.
“Bring it on! I’ll show your endlessly arrogant self just how big the world is… Hmm?”
‘Sniff, sniff!’
It was then.
A strange smell caught Floa’s nose.
A terribly foul and dreadful scent.
“Ugh? What the fuck?”
Soon, Floa froze with her eyes wide open.
“Poison?”
And it wasn’t just any poison.
It felt like an ultra-powerful neurotoxin, with dozens of Class 1 deadly poisons complementing each other.
‘Since when?’
The distance between her and Joo Donghoon was at least 500 meters.
But, for a poison of this level, he would have had to start administering it at least five minutes ago…
“N-No way? This bastard!”
That guy.
Was this why he had been dragging out the conversation with wordplay all this time?
At Floa’s reaction, Donghoon grinned.
“You definitely said okay, right? Someone who’s a Ranker wouldn’t break a promise so shamelessly. I’m trusting you and coming to get you, okay?”
At that moment.
Joo Donghoon’s form began to approach at an explosive speed.
“Ha.”
Floa let out a hollow laugh.
She was dumbfounded.
So dumbfounded that she couldn’t even speak.
Her lips, which had been forming a bewildered expression, parted.
“It was a trap?”
“Instead of a trap, can’t you say I was utilizing my abilities?”
“You dirty, cheap bastard.”
“Yep, thanks for the compliment.”
“Dammit.”
Floa quickly kicked off the ground.
To put some distance between them again as he got closer.
However.
‘My body is getting heavy.’
She could feel her nerves gradually dulling.
My god, what kind of powerful poison did he use for it to even work on her, a Ranker?
Furthermore, her vision was getting dizzy.
‘My god, he even released an Illusion Toxin?’
A single path now looked like two.
The sky looked like the ground, and the ground looked like the sky.
Her stomach churned with a stuffy feeling.
She continuously ran an electric current through her body.
A process to burn away the toxins that had infiltrated her system and lingered in the surroundings.
Her gaze sank into seriousness.
‘Poison is just poison.’
That’s all it was.
She was in a position where she absolutely could not lose to a participant.
‘I was just a little surprised, but I’m not someone who’d get caught by mere poison.’
That was the pride of Floa, the Ranker.