<Episode 84>
It wasn’t a sound heard through my eardrums. It was a spine-chilling sensation, as if someone were speaking directly into my brain.
“W-Who are you?!”
Startled, I hurriedly looked around, but there was nothing nearby. Only Hanyang is lying unconscious on the ground, and the blue lake is rippling beneath my feet.
[Foolish child. To save someone, one must possess power worthy of doing so.]
“As if I don’t know that already…! Agh!”
A horrific headache surged through me, like someone was stirring my brain with a sharp needle. Staggering, I clutched my head with both hands. Amid the wave of icy pain, a clear and elegant laugh echoed out.
[Hahaha! To raise your voice at me. How brave.]
Grinding my teeth, I summoned a handgun from my inventory. After releasing the safety, I aimed the barrel toward the unseen enemy whose location I couldn’t even determine.
“Stop hiding and come out right now! Using mental manipulation skills like a coward!”
[You misunderstand amusingly. I am not the monster you seek. Quite the opposite, in fact.]
“…The opposite?”
[Look carefully beneath the lake.]
Without lowering my guard, I only shifted my gaze downward and stared at the lake’s surface. Deep beneath the blue-tinted water, a gigantic and grotesque shape flickered faintly.
“…Bones?”
[Yes. A fragment of what once composed me. Though now only my soul remains, fading dimly away.]
Like someone entranced, I lowered my gun and blankly stared into the depths of the lake. Before I knew it, the voice that had been piercing through my mind had softened into something endlessly gentle and benevolent, whispering beside my ears.
[I have long awaited a child bearing a soul like yours. And now that you have finally come to me yourself, I shall grant you the power to reach and protect all that lies beneath my name.]
My head snapped upward. Was it offering me power?
[In exchange, grant me one request.]
“A request…?”
[Purify this place in my stead. It has become far too noisy and disorderly, making rest difficult.]
Purify? Rest?
But before I could ask further about those vague words, the humming voice inside my head abruptly cut off. At the same moment, a sacred silver beam of light descended from the impossibly high ceiling, illuminating the center of the lake.
The water became transparent like glass, revealing a single dazzling blue scale embedded at the bottom in perfect clarity.
“…So that’s the power the voice spoke of.”
Instinctively, I knew. That thing could grant me power.
But the scale lay embedded at the bottom of a lake so deep I couldn’t even estimate its depth. An instinctive fear of water and terror of the abyss wrapped heavily around my ankles.
Right then…
“GRAAAAAAAAH—!!!”
From the darkness far away came a restrained scream filled with unbearable agony. It was Hunter Lee Hyunwoo’s voice. That scream sounded exactly like the desperate howl of a beast whose final thread of reason had snapped completely.
There was no longer time to hesitate. I tore off my cumbersome outerwear and removed the hair tie whose shield uses were nearly exhausted, carefully placing it beside the unconscious Hanyang.
The fear of entering the water was nothing compared to the fear of losing Hunter Lee Hyunwoo forever.
“Alright. I can do this.”
Splash.
Without hesitation, I threw myself into the freezing lake.
‘Nngh…!’
The moment I sank beneath the surface, a vicious cold that seemed capable of freezing my bones wrapped mercilessly around my entire body. Flailing for a moment, I soon clenched my teeth, steadied my mind, and desperately began swimming toward the glowing blue lakebed.
But the deeper I descended, the stranger things became.
‘…I can breathe?’
Even underwater, my breathing wasn’t obstructed.
In fact, it felt far more comfortable than breathing on land. I couldn’t feel the crushing water pressure from all directions, and my body felt feather-light, as though gravity itself had vanished. The deeper I dove, an indescribable exhilaration coursed through every nerve in my body.
Woooong, wooong.
It felt as though some unknown thing crouched deep within my soul was resonating violently with that blue existence lying at the bottom of the lake.
Finally, I reached the deepest point. A chillingly blue scale, half-buried in the dirt. I stretched out my hand toward it.
The instant my fingertips touched it…
Crackle
“Aaagh!!”
Agonizing pain twisted through my entire body and slammed into my brain. It felt as though every muscle in my body was being torn apart and stitched back together by razor-sharp blades.
My nose stung, and muddy crimson spread through the once-clear lake. I was terrified. I wanted to give up everything and flee back to the surface even now.
Then, one face surfaced in my mind. The person who tried to protect me, even while drenched in blood.
‘I want to save him.’
The person who always prioritized me over himself and reached out whenever I was struggling.
Grinding my teeth, I tightly grasped the blue scale. I didn’t want to run away anymore. I didn’t want to give up just because I was weak.
‘I want to become someone who can help Hunter Lee Hyunwoo too!’
As if responding to my desperate cry, at that moment, a sacred and overwhelming blue light exploded from my hand like the sun itself. The chilling radiance that threatened to burn my retinas turned my vision pure white.
As my consciousness dimmed toward blackout, I thought I heard someone’s low laughter.
“…Ugh.”
When I opened my eyes again, pushing up my heavy eyelids…
The deep, cold lake that had seemed ready to swallow me whole had vanished completely like a mirage. I was lying on solid ground.
Only the faintly pulsing blue scale clutched tightly in my right hand proved that the terrible pain from earlier had not been a dream.
“…What in the world is this?”
Blankly, I repeatedly opened and closed my fist.
An indescribable force I had never felt before surged through my veins. It was as though the floodgates of a massive dam, clogged shut for over ten years, had suddenly shattered open… hot and destructive currents rushing violently from head to toe.
At the same time, translucent system windows began flooding my vision.
—
[!! Warning !!]
[A powerful external force has been detected.]
[Internal synchronization in progress.]
—
Ding—!
—
[Adjusting Awakened One ‘Jung Haneul’s rank.]
[Rank: F → Unmeasurable]
[Error detected. Attempting rank reassessment with administrator privileges…]
[Rank reassessment in progress.]
—
Dozens of windows flashed on and off frantically in red and blue light. Then finally—
—
[Rank measurement complete.]
[Jung Haneul’s rank is SS-class.]
—
I stared blankly at the system window floating in the air.
“No need to be surprised, nya.”
Hanyang, who had regained consciousness at some point, stretched lazily as he continued speaking. He seemed to know everything that had happened to me.
“It seems the divine beast sleeping here took quite a liking to you, nya.”
“The owner of that voice… was a divine beast?”
“That’s right, nya. Well, you already possessed latent potential, so you would have awakened eventually anyway.”
Still, since it had left behind a request, Hanyang swished his tail and said it would be best to quickly remove the trespasser occupying this place without permission.
“The divine beast clearly hated having corrupted demonic energy mixed into the place where it resided, nya. Considering it endured in this disgusting place for so many years.”
I looked down at the brilliantly glowing blue scale.
“…Thank you, Divine Beast. I’ll definitely use the power you gave me to protect the people precious to me.”
As if responding to my vow, the scale briefly flashed with light before dimming again. I carefully stored the scale inside my inventory.
Now, it was time to go save Hunter Lee Hyunwoo.
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