Chapter 271:

Chapter 271:

When Yu-hyun tore through the air and came out, he was greeted by the association staff who were about to clean up the scene.

They had rushed to the site after receiving a report that a mental realm had appeared, but when they arrived, they only saw traces of a cleared mental realm.

They were puzzled by what had happened, but the nearby CCTV cameras were strangely out of order.

And they had no way of finding out who the reporter was.

The case was stalled, and the association was about to conclude that the incident was over and clean up the scene.

“What, what is this?”

“The space, it split open?”

Suddenly, the air ripped open and eight people came out of it.

No, four of them were so strangely dressed that they doubted if they were human.

Their fashion was all black, but the bizarre masks they wore on their faces made them look anything but human.

The staff who saw the man in front, wearing a mask with four red eyes, froze in their seats without knowing it.

“Ah, this is rude.”

Yu-hyun understood their reaction and quickly took off his mask.

The atmosphere that had pierced his skin like a needle melted away like frost in the spring breeze.

The staff belatedly recognized Yu-hyun and realized that the three behind him were from White Flower Management.

“Ka, Kang Yu-hyun Teller? What on earth is going on here...”

“Ah, we cleared the Mental Realm that just appeared on the scene. We just came out right now.”

“What? But when we got here, there was nothing...”

“No. You saw it right. The Mental Realm was cleared just a while ago. And we just came out. You haven’t reported it yet, have you?”

“No, no. We were just finishing up the cleanup and about to report it...”

“Then that’s fine.”

Yu-hyun patted the shoulder of the person in charge and gave him a light smile.

The person in charge met Yu-hyun’s eyes and his pupils relaxed slightly.

The same was true for the other staff who had been watching the situation behind him.

They were seeing a different fantasy right now.

When they arrived at the scene, the mental realmt was open, and as they were about to check it out, Kang Yu-hyun Teller came out of there.

They heard a ‘mental realm’ that there was nothing inside but it was hard to clear because of the difficult conditions, and it would take days to do so.

The staff nodded their heads.

“That’s good then.”

Truth and falsehood.

Reality and fantasy.

He showed them freely as he pleased.

The devil of Descartes.

As his power spread around him, the staff believed that the fantasy they saw was real.

Yu-hyun thought that this was enough and immediately released Descartes’ power.

The staff’s eyes regained their light after being blankly relaxed.

“Oh, oh? Ouch. I need to check my sanity. Kang Yu-hyun Teller. You’ve worked hard.”

“Not at all. You guys are working harder.”

“Hehe. This is really something. Thank you for worrying about us. Oh, by the way, who are those people in black clothes behind you?”

“Oh. They are my acquaintances.”

“Acquaintances? Oh. I see.”

If they were acquaintances of a teller, then they had to be tellers themselves.

The person in charge agreed with Yu-hyun’s words right away.

Even their bizarre outfits and appearances could be accepted with one word: teller.

Yu-hyun said goodbye to the staff on the scene and left his seat.

The group following him did not say a word until then.

They were all too confused by what had happened today to sort out their thoughts.

That Yu-hyun was human and had a past, and that he overcame it and awakened a new power.

It should have been a happy thing to learn new facts about this mysterious man they had known until now.

But why?

Even though he was within reach of their hands, he felt like he would drift away at any moment.

Yu-hyun spoke with his usual smiling face, but the more he did so, the more his anxiety did not fade away like a stain.

But no one dared to say anything about it.

The moment they brought it up, they felt like the man in front of them would disappear like a mirage.

“Alright. Shall we go home then?”

“...”

No one answered Yu-hyun’s words.

They were still unable to process everything that had happened today.

Everyone deliberately ignored that fact.

***

After returning from the Mental Realm, a wind of change blew over the three people, except for Yu-hyun.

Kang Hye-rim diligently read the books that Yu-hyun often recommended to her.

She tried to cram various sources of stories that might happen in the Mental Realm into her head and remember them as much as possible.

It was a hard task for her.

‘Remember. The old me.’

I had always failed, without any skill or talent.

But I never gave up and kept walking.

To the end of madness.

Flash!

Kwon Jia’s eyes widened and her whole body tensed up.

Behind her back, a huge purple beast rose up.

And, 10 minutes later.

The collectors who were resting were kicked out of the story realm with a message that it was cleared.

“Wha, what? What’s going on?”

“Could it be... she cleared it by herself?”

The collectors muttered with stunned faces.

***

In a quiet training room where no one was around, Seo Sumin sat still in her place.

She closed her eyes and rotated the inner qi in her body.

She circulated her inner power through her meridians and her breathing became longer and fainter.

She felt her physical body improving day by day with the fullness of inner power in her body.

However, her mind was not as calm as before.

She thought of her previous life and compared it to his life.

‘I thought I had nothing precious. I thought my power was the source of my greatest suffering. Power was like a curse to me.’

Seo Sumin had always thought that power was meaningless, and that there was a separate value that was truly precious.

But reality was, truth was not like that.

‘Because I had power, I was able to come this far.’

She did not care about the words of those who had no power.

That’s why she was shocked by the sight of the man who was swept away by the evil of the world without anyone to help him.

‘If you have no power, you can’t protect even what is truly precious.’

She thought that her power had taken away everything that was precious to her, but that was not true.

Because she had that power, she did not fall and endured until there.

Because she had that power, she met many people and earned their respect.

How weak humans are without power.

And, how beautiful is the sight of someone who does not give up even knowing their weakness.

The moment she realized the fact that she vaguely knew, she felt her vision expand much more.

What was truly important was not how strong you were.

It was not giving up until the end, not bowing down.

That was the appearance of the man she had to emulate most.

Whoosh.

The air around Seo Sumin swirled more strongly.

As if blessing her who had matured mentally one step further.

***

Yoo Young-min noticed that the atmosphere in the office had changed lately.

A few days ago, Yu-hyun took Kang Hye-rim, Kwon Jia, and Seo Sumin out and came back a little late.

Unlike what he thought that they were late because they cleared a story realm, their mood was quite different from usual.

‘Yu-hyun-hyung seemed fine, but the others looked restless.’

Even Seo Sumin, who usually did not lose her composure, seemed anxious enough to meditate quietly these days.

Yoo Young-min wanted to ask what had happened, but he desperately suppressed his curiosity.

He instinctively felt that he was still lacking to know the truth.

‘When I get stronger, hyung will tell me then, right?’

Yoo Young-min decided to think positively.

After all, his first priority was to collect points and get stronger quickly.

He could make skills with points, and getting stronger with them was not a problem.

He originally wanted to make a cool skill that could rival a finishing move, but he thought he should make a skill that would help his teammates first for later.

***

While people were making their own thoughts and efforts.

The terrorists of Unleashed moved quietly in the darkness for their purpose.

“Remember this well. Even if this is just a rehearsal, don’t let your guard down.”

The Unleashed members waited at their designated spots with their own items.

“We got help from Pentagram Teller who controls this area for this. We can’t fail.”

Everyone’s eyes captured the scenery outside the alleyway, the cityscape of Tokyo’s Shibuya.

A place with a lot of floating population.

People were busy moving around without knowing what would happen next.

“It begins.”

With that word,

Unleashed released the seeds of stories they had prepared in advance.