Chapter 50

Our lives over the next week could be summed up simply. We ate well and rested well.

“Heek… heek…”

And exhaust ourselves like there’s no tomorrow, only to get beaten up by Lee Se-eun. I stuck my spear into the ground and wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth.

To win a fight, you had to do three things.

First, figure out how much performance your own body could give. Next, gauge how much performance your opponent could produce.

Finally, compare the two and find a path to victory.

“Easier said than done…”

As I rolled to the side to dodge a swinging greatsword, the ground exploded with a dull boom. I’d managed to avoid the strike itself, but couldn’t avoid the shockwave that rippled out from it.

The feeling of my insides flipping brought bile rising up my throat. When I glanced sideways, it looked like Han Sang-ah wasn’t feeling too great either.

“You’re going to keep going, right?”

“We’re not done yet.”

It was still morning. If we gave up now, what were we supposed to do for the rest of the day?

We had two goals. Get stronger and learn to sync up. Han Sang-ah and I shared the same objective. That meant we would be fighting together a lot.

If we didn’t fully adapt to each other, we couldn’t work in sync during real combat.

“We are going again.”

At my words, Han Sang-ah nodded and poured her mana into her sword. With a crackling sound, a faint spark flickered along the blade.

“Reduce it more.”

Han Sang-ah’s ideal was a one-hit kill. Like cutting a beast’s throat in a slaughterhouse, she had to end it in a single strike.

To walk that path, a few conditions had to be met. One of them was that the results had to be flashy, not the preparation process.

Han Sang-ah grit her teeth at my words.

“I know it’s hard. But syncing up is simple, right?”

I created the opening. Han Sang-ah landed the hit. If her blow finished the opponent, good. If not, I followed up to end it.

That was the basic structure of our cooperation.

“Finished your little meeting?”

Lee Se-eun puffed a ring of smoke into the air and spun her greatsword with one hand.

“Yes. You can continue beating us again.”

She gave a brief laugh, knocked the ashes from her pipe, then charged.

I watched her movements, estimated the power of the strike based on the speed and the amount of mana infused in the swing, and decided what I had to do to minimize damage.

“She’s fighting well alright, but something still feels off.”

From the look on Lee Se-eun’s face, she was deep in thought. After about a week of sparring with me, she was clearly picking up on something unusual.

You didn’t always have to be stronger than the other person to help them.

As the greatsword crashed down, I instantly analyzed the speed and mana used.

I was able to deflect the strike. But I couldn’t avoid the shockwave, so I had to tank it. After deflecting the blow, I stomped on the sword with my foot even as my vision wavered from the impact.

“Han, cover me!”

As if waiting for that cue, Han Sang-ah sprang forward and slashed. Despite the faint spark and small crackling noise, the power of her strike surged down like a waterfall.

“Hah.”

Seeing the blow coming, Lee Se-eun immediately let go of her sword and dove into the storm of slashes. The way she dashed through the flurry, closing the distance to Han Sang-ah, looked like a fish swimming upstream.

“Where are you going? You’re supposed to play with me.”

Before she reached Han Sang-ah, I forced myself through the aftershock and wedged myself between them. Han Sang-ah swiftly retreated.

“What a pain.”

Just because she let go of her sword didn’t mean she was any weaker. Every strike she threw could total several trucks.

We continued in the same pattern. I created openings, and Han Sang-ah took them.

“How about this?”

Suddenly, Han Sang-ah stepped between me and Lee Se-eun and swung her sword at her. The lightning riding along the ground leapt like a demon.

“What do you mean how?”

Lee Se-eun gave her a flat look as she suppressed the bolt streaking across the earth. If she wasn’t aiming for an opening, Han Sang-ah’s attacks couldn’t touch her.

She stared at Han Sang-ah with a disappointed expression.

“Not bad, but...”

I approved too. The moment Lee Se-eun neutralized the attack, I dashed in with blue trails behind me and fired off a cannon strike.

Originally, I created the openings and Han Sang-ah struck. But this time, our roles reversed. She landed a blow that made a split-second gap, and I exploited it.

“…”

Lee Se-eun’s movements momentarily faltered for an instant.

“It was a good try.”

But the disturbance didn’t last long. She quickly recovered her stance and balance. Soon after, the alarm went off.

“Time for a radio check. Let’s stop here. I’ll be back.”

Lee Se-eun’s sword vanished with a flick. Han Sang-ah and I both lowered our guards and took deep breaths.

“That last attempt wasn’t bad.”

“Just hiding behind you and waiting for openings isn’t enough after all. But if you hadn’t followed through, it wouldn’t have meant anything anyway.”

I tossed Han Sang-ah a towel and took a sip of water.

“I judged it was worth taking, so I did.”

Crack. A sound popped from somewhere in my body as I stood still. A groan escaped me. I hadn’t even taken a clean hit, but my whole body was screaming from the shockwaves.

Han Sang-ah asked,

“Do you really think we’ll be able to take down a first-class Erosion Core like this?”

“How would I know?”

I had no experience with one. But I was taking what I believed to be the fastest route to get stronger.

“Pick up your sword.”

I raised my spear as I spoke.

“Number guessing?”

Han Sang-ah asked, and I nodded. I charged and swung my spear upward.

“30.6?”

“Wrong.”

The strike landed on her blade. Her knees buckled and she let out a small groan.

“15.7.”

“Close, but still wrong.”

The beating continued. We were practicing estimating the relative strength of attacks. Assuming 100 was the max, Han Sang-ah had to guess how powerful each blow was. She hadn’t gotten one right yet.

By the time Lee Se-eun returned from her report, Han Sang-ah had taken fifty strikes.

“Switch.”

Han Sang-ah nodded and, battered and bruised, began her own round.

“5.1, 6.3, 3.3… what the hell. If you don’t want to do it, just say it and leave.”

All her attacks needed to fall within a narrow range, with only 0.2 difference from the goal of 5 percent of her max power.

“Use your mana to strengthen your body. If you can’t even control yourself, what are you trying to do?”

I slammed a punch into her stomach after another mistake. She bent in half, lifted off the ground slightly, and collapsed while gagging.

“Get up. Unless you want more of that.”

Han Sang-ah staggered upright. As she did, Lee Se-eun returned from her check and clicked her tongue.

“Still beating people, huh.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

I knew this wasn’t easy. Matching power wasn’t just about using the same amount of mana.

Attack angle, stance, footwork, speed, positions… countless factors played into it every time.

And our goal required mastering all of them while sparring, not just solo practice. If I saw a gap, I hit her.

“Hey, get up. Can’t you hear me?”

Han Sang-ah took another hit to the head from my spear and crumpled. I kicked her, and with a heavy sound she rolled a few times before dragging herself up again.

Lee Se-eun watched this and gave me a look of disbelief.

“…Interested in training the junior Hunters at Jannabi?”

“Didn’t I already tell you?”

I was only helping Han Sang-ah because we shared a goal.

She took three hours of beating from me.

“That’s it.”

She let out a low groan and collapsed onto the stairs of the lodging.

“Is it my turn now?”

“Please.”

Now it was my turn to get beaten. I trained Han Sang-ah, and Lee Se-eun trained me. It was the cycle of violence.

And though I wasn’t sure she realized it, Han Sang-ah looked extremely satisfied watching me get beat up.

Honestly, I’d probably enjoy it too. The guy who used her like a sandbag is now becoming the sandbag himself. It would be weird not to find that satisfying.

“I did a radio check fifteen minutes ago. Don’t forget to keep up with them.”

“Got it.”

Han Sang-ah replied immediately, took a sip of her drink, and used her mana to recover her fatigue and injuries.

“Want me to go easy?”

Lee Se-eun asked as she drew her sword again.

“Not at all. Just hit me like you’re relieving stress.”

Going easy isn’t training, it’s playing.

“Really? Alright then.”

And with that, she swung.

Fighting Lee Se-eun wasn’t too different from what Han Sang-ah went through.

The only difference was that Han Sang-ah was learning something new, while I was reviewing what I already knew.

Well, the result was the same, which was getting absolutely wrecked.

“Let’s eat dinner.”

“…”

I lay flat on my back and stared blankly at the darkening sky. I felt like I was dying. But then I smiled to myself.

“She’s super fast.”

Even in her beatdowns, Lee Se-eun was controlling her strength. It would take Han Sang-ah more time, but after just a few days, Lee Se-eun was able to maintain a margin of error within 0.4.

“The item I asked for should arrive in about an hour.”

Han Sang-ah’s words during dinner made me brighten.

“Great. I was about to run out.”

Korean Hunters were going wild trying to collect potions, so the quality of elixirs available in England was relatively poor.

But that made them more useful to me.

After dinner, before sleeping, I crammed those lower-quality elixirs into my body to strengthen my veins.

By the time I was ready to take on a first-class Erosion Core, I’d be able to burn far more with my Paradoxical Flame, and both output and control would be way higher.

“Three months should be enough.”

Han Sang-ah said. I smiled as I responded.

“Do you think the Dangun’s Descendants are sitting at home playing games with popcorn?”

Whenever it happens, they’ll definitely try to go after the shield generator again. Lee Se-eun stirred the inside of her canned food with a fork, a bitter look on her face.

“To host this clinical trial, the UK sold five overseas oil fields and thirteen mines to Korea at a bargain price, with 30-year contracts.”

“I guess the Korean government never intended to honor it.”

They must have planned to steal the shield generator during the Siberian crossing all along.

There was no official link between the Korean government and the Dangun’s Descendants, so they could always claim it was a terrorist attack.

No doubt they would come after the generator again, before any meaningful data is collected.

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