Episode 81. Difficulties always happen at once (4)
-Anyway, keep that in mind and prepare yourself. I’ll head over there, too!
And with that, I couldn’t hear anything else. It was the first time that Han Yeon-soo hung up on me. I could feel how urgent the situation was.
‘…Things are getting more and more complicated.’
Why was Kim Min-jae coming here? Did he even know how serious the situation here was?
‘I just wish he doesn’t do anything stupid.’
Boooom!
A thunderous noise came from inside the Fields. It looked like the Flame Queen and Seol Ah-rin had started to fight. Since a fight between the two was unlikely to end quickly, I could probably leave them alone for a while.
“Hyun-woo, send me inside again, please.”
Then I only had one thing to do. Cleaning up the messed-up facility, exterminating the monsters that were invading, and rescuing the innocent staff.
And at my request, the landscape around me changed.
“Grrr, grrr!”
I could see Orcs gnashing their teeth and running wild, along with Goblins and growling Ogres. The staff cafeteria floor was covered in food and utensils, and the monsters were gulping down the scattered food ingredients.
I grabbed a long iron chopstick and jumped towards them. For now, my priority was to normalize this bizarre state.
“Grrrrrrr!”
“Argh!”
The long chopstick lodged itself into the green head. Red blood splattered, and Sung Hyun-woo’s telekinesis swept away the tangled monsters who fell over backward.
They probably came here thinking it was a nice restaurant full of food, but they didn’t know it would become their grave.
Crack, thump!
The helpless monsters died one after the other.
* * *
“Ugh, this is so annoying… What the hell!”
Seol Ah-rin touched her tangled hair and shouted, annoyed. She was still confused by what had just happened.
Someone suddenly appeared behind her, hit her over and over before she could respond, then grabbed her by the hair and sent her here.
She had never witnessed such an ability. She had seen Awakeners with teleportation abilities before, but it was impossible to teleport that much in a short time.
Even the world’s best Espers could reuse teleportation only after resting for about three minutes. But to use teleportation dozens of times over approximately three seconds, and even forcibly teleport someone?
‘When did I get tricked?’
Seol Ah-rin thought someone had caused her to hallucinate or tricked her somehow. She thought of potential suspects, but so many places had a grudge against her. She counted up to about 20 possibilities before she quit.
Attacks like that couldn’t cause decisive damage to her anyway. But the way he grabbed her hair and threw her had been extremely unpleasant, so she was irritated.
‘Whatever. I’ll put that on the back burner for now.’
Seol Ah-rin bit down on her lower lip and lifted her head.
That didn’t matter right now.
“You, you, you crazy bitch.”
“You’re the crazy one. Why don’t you act your age instead of shouting insanely and causing harm?”
Seol Ah-rin replied, looking at the Flame Queen, who was so angry that she couldn’t speak properly. Seol Ah-rin’s favorite sweater was already burnt black from colliding with the Flame Queen.
“Ah… So many annoying things are happening today.”
She was angrier than when she was grabbed by her hair and beaten without knowing why.
“Old lady, you can’t buy this anymore. It was so hard to get something made out of natural material. They make clothes out of damn monster leather nowadays! Do you know how much I paid because I couldn’t stand the disgusting smell?”
Seol Ah-rin screamed angrily.
“Shut…up!”
The Flame Queen immediately shouted without bothering to listen. Seol Ah-rin frowned, displeased by the loud voice filled with mana.
Flames flared around the tiny old woman. Mana flames that could burn everything away. They hit Seol Ah-rin like a blazing tsunami.
“Ugh, so noisy.”
Facing the fierce heat, Seol Ah-rin clicked her tongue and moved her finger.
Whoosh!
With that simple gesture, the flames pouring onto her faltered. Or, to be exact, they were swept away by a more powerful force.
Like a collapsing sandcastle, the flames died out helplessly in the face of a bigger flame.
The Flame Queen’s face hardened. If anything else, she had never been defeated in terms of powerful flames. No matter how old she was, the fact that she lost in a head-to-head confrontation came as a shock to the Flame Queen.
“What….”
“Aargh, I can’t calm down. Ah!”
Seol Ah-rin shouted hysterically as she furiously scratched her head. At the same time, she pointed her finger at the Flame Queen and spoke quietly.
“Old lady, let me hit you until I feel better. Okay?”
* * *
“Don’t worry. We’re safe here!”
Fortunately, it didn’t take long to rescue the people at the facility. It was thanks to the unharmed hunters other than me who rushed in and because many monsters were swept up and killed in the battle between the Flame Queen and Seol Ah-rin.
“Ugh… Owww.”
“What’s going on…….”
But that didn’t mean the damage was small.
There were hunters that Seol Ah-rin killed while moving along. And some civilians collapsed, unable to bear the Flame Queen’s mana, who were defenseless and eaten up by monsters.
In total, nearly 20 percent of the facility’s personnel died.
“Hey, what is this? Why did you have to die like this…? You poor bastard….”
Because of it, the mood inside was very somber. Some cried, some were silent, and others looked lost.
They hadn’t even died fighting bravely against monsters. Some people couldn’t overcome the Flame Queen’s mana. They collapsed and died, and people who tried to save others were caught up in the two women’s battle and burned to death…… The reasons they died were too absurd.
“Si-woo, go rest for a bit. You don’t look well.”
“…No, I’m fine.”
There was no way I was okay. I hadn’t felt like this in a long while. No one around me died after I came back in time, and I only experienced success without failure. So I was mistaken. I thought that the world was helping me this time; that I was lucky this time.
‘There’s no way that can be true.’
This damn world didn’t help anyone. It constantly tested people and took away the lives of the weak. It took families away from children and made them hungry and thirsty. That was the world I lived in.
“Mr. Jeong Si-woo?”
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