Chapter 18 - The Practice (3)

The Practice (3)

Il-hyun cleared his thoughts as much as possible and focused on the monsters before him.

It hasn’t happened recently, but it evoked memories from the past. Soon, the influence of the predation ability revived his mind.

Il-hyun ran into the hallway.

The first monster he encountered was the one that had punched him in the stomach. He twisted the monster’s arm and cut it off its body. After kicking the monster, it fell powerlessly to the ground.

He looked at the monsters running from all directions.

The place he needed to focus was the front.

“Argh-!”

Standing behind Il-Hyun, the wolf protected him by fighting with the monsters on the opposite side. There was not an ounce of hesitation, even though his body felt like it was broken into pieces. Il-Hyun shoved his sword into the wide-open mouths of the monsters. He added more pressure to split their heads in half.

Next, he transformed the floor and knocked over the feet of the running monster. He quickly finished the monster that had fallen in front of him. Then, he twisted his sword around and held it straight, piercing the monster that jumped from the side.

The monster that was stuck in the sword was thrown at another monster, and then he rolled his feet to make a speedy maneuver on the ground.

The two monsters that had bumped into each other squirmed in the air.

Il-hyun continued to kill all the monsters that ran continuously towards him. It took a moment before the blood from the monsters soaked the floor and heated up.

The Golem shattered, and debris bounced everywhere.

“What?”

Surprised, Il-hyun looked blankly at it.

It was a conjured creature made of his abilities, and he didn’t see any signs of how it collapsed.

Suddenly, an attack broke.

It was ridiculous, considering that it was a summoned creature, made with particular attention to durability. However, if a B-ranked monster had appeared, the story would have been different.

A blue monster appeared at the gate and was about to pass over to the other side. It was the monster that first collided with Ghost.

The gate had spat out its entire quota, and the last thing it called up was gone.

“Crazy!”

Il-hyun hesitated and retreated. If it was a B-ranked monster, he couldn’t face it.

Tentacles approached at a pace that he could barely react to.

Bang!

Il-hyun rolled over the floor in shock as the tentacles hit him.

He survived thanks to the defensive coat. Although the coat was on the verge of being broken, the electricity remained intact.

The tentacles moved again immediately, and Il-hyun couldn’t move fast enough to avoid it.

At that crucial moment, Ghost suddenly broke through the floor and stopped the attack, while at the same time cutting off the tentacles.

Then he grabbed Il-hyun’s shoulders and went into the ghost state. The two penetrated the floor at the same time and descended downstairs.

“Huh! That was dangerous!”

“Wait, if we run away, what about the monster?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

Boom!

There was a loud explosion upstairs. All the walls came down, and now the outside world could be seen.

One-quarter of the building was blown away.

All the monsters, including the Ace Monsters, became corpses at once.

“Are you okay?”

Lee Soo-yeon pushed her head between the blown ceilings.

Suddenly, she was on the 17th floor and had jumped down to the floor that Il-hyun and Ghost were located.

“Huh.”

The tension of the battle eased up, and Il-hyun sat down on the floor.

Lee Soo-yeon patted Il-hyun on the back.

“Good job! I never expected you to stop a gate. Ghost, go ahead and do some scouting. Report back to the squad.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Lee Soo-yeon glanced at him, Ghost saluted humorously, then became a ghost and slipped down the building.

“I almost died from my first mission.”

“This isn’t common. I had no idea that things would turn out this way. I just brought them here to conduct a light test, to see how they fight. Anyways… you didn’t now I called. Right?”

“You called?”

Il-hyun suddenly remembered that he was wearing a transceiver.

He had totally forgotten about the transceiver all through the battle.

Lee Soo-yeon and Ghost had been communicating with each other, and only Il-hyun did not pay attention to his radio transceiver and therefore did not answer it.

“I had no idea that you contacted me.”

“What exactly are the names of the abilities you have?”

“It is Summoning, Predation, and Transformation.”

Il-hyun answered freely.

He had to hide the level of the abilities, but he disclosed the type since he had already shown it before anyways.

“Hmm…”

After hearing the three abilities that Il-hyun told her, she fell into thought.

Lee Soo-yeon quickly cleaned up the lower gate and climbed to the 17th floor.

Then suddenly, the responses stopped, and she saw Il-hyun fighting violently with dozens of D-rank monsters. Not only did he not notice how he moved, but he was also in a state of battle where he was unable to hear any communication.

Lee Soo-yeon had seen a lot of such cases, and could roughly guess Il-hyun’s status.

“Summoning and Transformation’s capabilities are already roughly known. So is it the effect of Predation? Abilities that can affect one’s mind can be dangerous. Especially if they affect the moral part.”

After awakening and gaining abilities, even those who have lived well have become severely affected by bad influences and became criminals. Many world-class criminals became criminals only after acquiring their abilities.

It wasn’t like Il-Hyun hadn’t heard this before. However, he never thought that he would be that way. It wasn’t until he heard it from someone else that he began to doubt some of his past actions. Everything aside, he would do any and everything to obtain the ether.

“Is that the case?”

“Okay. But you don’t have to worry. I don’t think there was anything that badly affected me mentally. However, it can be more dangerous to keep fighting like that.”

“You should be as restrained as possible.”

“No, practice will help me adjust better. That way, I don’t get so excited. I will keep my view wide, and I will lessen my immersion from the battle.”

Lee Soo-yeon picked up the sword that Il-hyun dropped.

Then she grabbed Il-hyun’s hand, raised it up, and passed the sword.

“If used properly, this might be your biggest weapon.”

* * *

The situation ended without much damage, and Aegis’ squad arrived and took over the site.

Team A, who had finished their work despite the unexpected situation, was returning to headquarters.

“I was wrong once again last week, and now I have to say something to the analysis team.”

Lee Soo-yeon murmured inside the transport plane, sitting opposite of Il-hyun.

The analysis of the gate information was an essential part of the Awakening Operation. From determining the number of people to dispatch to knowing the power required was based on the data.

But what if that information was completely wrong?

It was not strange when a major accident broke out. Because of this, the awakened people who were risking their lives were forced to take it sensitively.

Moreover, dangerous sites such as B-rank gates were even worse.

“The other team was also dissatisfied, but I think there are a lot of mistakes lately.”

“I never had this before. What could be the problem?”

Most companies rely on government awareness.

In the case of Aegis, however, it was increasing its detection network and was confident that it was the best in the world. But these days, there has been a lot of misinformation.

Even after a major replacement of the Analytical Equipment a week ago, the problem persisted. Because of this, the Analysis Team was in a state of emergency.

“But if you look at it, the government’s disaster monitoring department seems to have a problem with the gates that are emerging these days?”

“Hah, the way that Team 1 was shoveling… It’s such a shame. We should’ve seen their shitted faces.”

Lee Soo-yeon and Ghost laughed.

Team 1 was said to have had the highest skills of the awakened amongst the government. It was comical how the E Rank Gate came out, despite the Observation Department making a big deal about them reporting here.

The South Korean Government’s Awakening and Aegis’ awakening had a strange rivalry.

Even when they needed to collaborate, they were never in good terms.

The government’s awakenings viewed Aegis as humans without a sense of mission, while Aegis viewed the government’s awakenings as crazy, dumb jerks.

Il-hyun asked, wondering.

“Are things that bad with the response team over there?”

“What? Not that much.”

“They are all idiotic.”

“You may soon be working with them a lot, so don’t say that.”

“It’s the people like that who go against the government that are beaten up as it happened ten years ago. Or what do you say?”

“It’s different now.”

Even so, Ghost and Lee Soo-yeon seemed to have no good feelings for them.

Il-hyun watched with a lot of interest.

He wasn’t prejudiced against any of them. He didn’t consider either of them as too good or too bad.

However, if it was ten years ago, Il-hyun knew what the difference would be.

It was a fact that everyone knew. When the gate first appeared 20 years ago, the awakened people appeared and blocked the monsters from creating a crisis.

At that time, the awakened were treated as heroes, and all societies were enthusiastic about them.

But the story changed when the first cycle ended, and the next cycle came.

It was probably the most peaceful cycle in the last 20 years. When the number of monsters generated dropped drastically, and most of the nations’ restoration plans succeeded. There was room to spare.

At this time, there was an emergence of criminal gangs from the awakened population. They were feared because of their power, which was difficult to control.

Unlike before, public opinion about the awakened was now much less favorable.

Nine years after the gate appeared, the Korean government first proposed various regulations aimed at the awakened people.

From the Awakening Registration System or the Ability Display System to the Information Inquiry so that the location can be tracked at any time, and the disclosure of new information, everything was enacted.

The awakened strongly resisted these moves, but their opinion, which was only an insignificant number, was rejected, and the government proceeded with their actions.

Until then, there was no corner on the political side where the awakened could use their power.

At that time, a number of awakened weapons were mobilized against several awakened opponents.

After the cycle was changed, weapons were made using ether—special EMP bullets and various anti-personnel weapons that temporarily neutralized the coat and abilities.

The conflict became even more intense when it became known that they were developing weapons to neutralize the awakened people who fought and risked their lives for the government instead of weapons that they could use to deal with monsters.

But the dispute ended in vain.

It was then that the fifteen-year cycle, which was unknown before, became known.

When the monsters soared again, it was on the third cycle that high-ranking officials, including the President, were smashed.

They apologized several times to the next regime and the next one, and such discussions were not repeated or mentioned twice.

“It was absurd.”

Il-hyun was a Junior High School student at that time. But still, it was stupid when he thought of it.

Even now, when the problem was resolved, the distrust of the awakened and government remained.

There were opinions that the position of the old regime was still reflecting, and so the government was completely changed so that it did not matter anymore.

Instead, there was a perspective that looked more favorably at the shifting and intensely working government awakened than those of private companies interested only in the profits.

The government awakened were paid huge basic salaries through taxes.

“So, because I am orderly and have a sense of mission, I should squeeze out everything from the unfortunate? Be careful. You’re treading.”

“Um…”

Il-hyun mumbled.

Lee Soo-yeon still did not seem to be complaining about the analysis error.

In fact, even if it was a little too late, Il-hyun was in a dangerous situation, and as a team leader, she was angry.

“Well, anyway, what are you going to do? Because we’re anxious about a poorly analyzed site. The Analysis Team should normalize it quickly. The gate analysis pattern has changed a few times.”

Lee Soo-yeon looked at her watch and then opened the door by pressing the button of the transport.

The journey back was also quick, just over the outskirts of Seoul.

And below that, the most prominent building was visible.

The second view was the headquarters of Aegis.