The short-haired girl led Yonghoon deeper into the forest. She moved without hesitation through the thick woods, as if she knew the terrain well, and soon arrived at a small cave.
Yonghoon examined the cave.
The cave, not very deep, seemed heavily altered by human hands. It looked like an excavation site that had been abandoned midway.
Yonghoon and the girl decided to rest just inside the entrance without venturing deeper.
As soon as they reached the cave, the girl collapsed against the wall as if drained. Her face was pale, and cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
Sitting in front of her, Yonghoon asked a question. Though her dazed appearance was pitiful, judging by the way she had been chased, time was likely running out.
“What exactly happened? I’d like to hear the situation.”
At Yonghoon’s words, it seemed her blank mind finally returned.
She bit her lip hard.
The girl answered Yonghoon’s question.
“It was a few days ago. That day too, I sneaked outside the wall without Oppa knowing and visited Janggun Tomb-oh, in South Korea, it’s called the Tomb of King Jangsu, right? I dropped by there, and the ground was glowing. So I ran straight to tell Oppa…… I should have just ignored it.”
As she spoke, her face blurred with sorrow.
From her story, Yonghoon realized that the girl in front of him was the one who had unintentionally set everything into motion, contrary to his expectations.
Her story continued.
“When Oppa and the other Awakened men came, the ground was still glowing, so everyone worked together to dig it up. And we found this sword.”
The girl pointed to the sword she was wearing.
The sword, hidden in its scabbard, emitted an antique yet subtle glow that seemed to lure Yonghoon.
Her brother had apparently been fascinated by the sword that could amplify an Awakened’s power. So he had used the city’s only satellite phone to contact various people.
She seemed to think that Yonghoon had come here after receiving one of those calls from her brother.
She kept talking.
“It was this morning. Since the New Year, no one had been able to enter the city except from North Korea, but three Awakened came from the west.”
Remembering their appearance, she clenched her fists tightly.
Two of the Awakened were white men, and one was Chinese. Upon entering the city, they said they had heard about the museum and came to check the sword.
The townspeople, surprised by the rare appearance of outsiders, guided them to where the sword was kept.
The sword was with her brother.
He was the city’s strongest Awakened and a master swordsman. It was only natural for him to have the sword.
When the Awakened from outside arrived, the city’s Awakened were holding a meeting at the village hall.
As soon as the visitors entered the hall and saw the sword her brother had, a bloodbath ensued.
The moment they saw the sword, the outsiders revealed their true colors.
Her brother and the city’s other Awakened resisted the villains’ sudden attack by joining forces. But the difference in abilities quickly became apparent.
The city’s Awakened fell one by one, and her brother handed the sword to the girl and told her to run.
As she escaped from the hall, the last thing she saw was her brother being pierced through the neck by a spear.
Finishing her story, the girl finally broke down in sobs. It seemed the tears she had been holding back had burst forth.
Yonghoon waited patiently for her tears to subside. After some time, the girl, who had been sniffling for a while, finally stopped crying.
Once she stopped crying, Yonghoon asked her a question.
It was a harsh thing to ask someone who had just lost her brother, but it was extremely important.
“They supposedly used two abilities. What were they?”
This was the most crucial point. He needed to know the Linkers’ abilities. If they had hidden powers, he could easily get caught off guard.
Fortunately, she answered Yonghoon’s question properly.
“The tall white guy seemed like a Strike-type Awakened who used a spear, but midway, he turned blurry. And the Chinese guy with the shield blocked for a while, then pointed forward, and an explosion happened in midair. Once they started using weird abilities, the men couldn’t stop them.”
One was a Linker with Strike-type abilities and an innate invisibility skill, essentially an Assassin-type. The other had defense abilities and a special skill that gathered Dimensional Power in the air and detonated it.
She said she didn’t see any special abilities from the third one, who also used a spear.
Her information was quite helpful to Yonghoon.
After listening for a while, Yonghoon raised his hand to stop her. Leaving the bewildered girl behind, he stood up and gazed into the forest.
“Is the last Linker’s ability tracking? Or something related to the ground?”
Whatever his ability was, Yonghoon and the girl were being tracked. The Awakened were heading straight toward them.
Yonghoon could sense the Awakened approaching by releasing Dimensional Power all around from more than 500 meters away.
Since they didn’t know Yonghoon could detect their Dimensional Power, they made no effort to hide it.
Yonghoon looked back at the girl. If he could sense their Dimensional Power, it was highly likely they had also picked up on hers.
Staring at the girl’s confused face, Yonghoon fell into thought. This place was not ideal for facing them. Moreover, fighting while protecting her drastically lowered his chances of winning.
Yonghoon decided to retreat for now. Pointing in the direction from which Dimensional Power was approaching, he spoke to the girl.
“Looks like we’ve been found. They’re coming straight this way. Seems they have some tracking skill.”
She, still bewildered, followed Yonghoon’s pointing finger, and her face darkened. Between the dense trees in the distance, figures flickered in and out of view.
The girl looked up at Yonghoon’s face.
‘Can I trust him?’
The man before her had come after hearing her brother’s call. She couldn’t let him get caught up in her troubles and die here. She decided to trust Yonghoon.
After a brief hesitation, she untied the sword, still in its scabbard, and handed it to Yonghoon.
“I’ll try to lure them away. If they chase me, take the sword and get out. Even if I die, I don’t want that sword falling into their hands. Oh, my name is Ri Hyangseol.”
Bowing her head to Yonghoon, she started running in the opposite direction he had indicated.
Yonghoon watched the direction she ran while holding the sword she had given him.
Yonghoon could have stopped her from leaving.
But he didn’t stop her from acting on his behalf.
“Innocent and kind. Almost as much as my teammates……”
Thinking of his teammates’ behavior, Yonghoon gave a small laugh.
Even though she had come to believe he was connected to her brother, giving him the sword was a reckless move.
But remembering her young age, Yonghoon could only nod. She was still just a young girl.
Yonghoon looked at the sword now in his hand.
Ridiculously, without doing much, the sword had ended up in his possession. If he returned to Korea like this, he would have achieved all his goals for coming here.
He felt as if a stern-faced lover was glaring at him from the front.
“Don’t worry. I was planning to take her back to Korea as repayment for the sword anyway.”
Yonghoon muttered as he stared ahead.
He couldn’t fight while protecting the girl. If she became the bait, it would be the best situation for him.
Yonghoon gave a bitter smile at his own thoughts. As expected, he wasn’t such a good guy.
Yonghoon tossed his backpack into a corner of the cave and strapped the sword to his waist. Gripping the sword, a chilling sensation made him shiver.
Holding a spear in one hand, Yonghoon smiled at the corners of his mouth.
“Alright then, shall we go greet them?”
He vanished silently into the forest.
“Something’s off.”
The white man with a dark expression, called Snake, frowned as he looked ahead.
“Shouldn’t we catch her quickly? She’s running away right now.”
The tall white man grumbled as he watched their hesitant companion. The young girl’s Dimensional Power, which had been stationary until a moment ago, was now fleeing rapidly.
Soon, she would move beyond the range where they could detect her Dimensional Power. Snake might be able to track her, but thinking they could finally catch her now, he grew impatient.
“Yeah, Devil Dog has a point. If we keep chasing this slowly, who knows when we’ll catch her.”
The Asian man also seemed to be getting annoyed.
“But after the first signs of an Awakened near the pit, there have been no traces since. I’ve never seen anyone in this world evade my ability like that.”
Though Snake tried to restrain them, he immediately faced a rebuttal.
“How many Awakened have you even seen in this world? There’s a country full of soldiers across the river. Maybe one of their stealthy soldiers became an Awakened.”
“Then that’s even better. A stealth-type Special Ability User? Practically free loot. Or maybe they just left?”
Devil Dog and the Asian man clearly had no intention of listening to him.
In the end, they decided to catch the girl.
They picked up their speed and started chasing the fleeing girl. The trees blurred past them. Judging by the closing distance of her Dimensional Power, they would catch her soon.
Unlike the two men running ahead with gleeful expressions, Snake’s face grew darker as he followed behind. He clearly didn’t like the current situation.
But with no alternatives, he could only raise his Dimensional Power to the maximum and monitor the surroundings.
Something caught in his surveillance net.
“Stop! Enemy!”
At his scream-like shout, a person dropped from a tree ahead of them.
It was Yonghoon.
‘Tch, did they notice?’
As he landed in front of the Awakened, Yonghoon could only click his tongue inwardly.
Yonghoon had been hiding atop a tree ahead, planning to jump down the moment the Awakened passed by.
However, it seemed the Awakened’s special ability wasn’t ground-based. Having been spotted early, Yonghoon had no choice but to reveal himself before they arrived.
But he couldn’t just retreat like this.
The moment he hit the ground, Yonghoon threw himself forward. The spear in his hand shone brightly.
Yonghoon hurled himself toward the tall white man holding a spear. In an instant, he reached the man and swung his spear swiftly.
Kang!
Yonghoon’s spear was deflected by the Awakened’s spear, which had assumed a defensive stance in that brief moment. Overpowered, Yonghoon was flung backward.
Seeing this, the white man smiled and lunged after Yonghoon.
But the smile vanished from the white man’s face almost instantly.
“Did he get pushed back on purpose?!”
Yonghoon, who had been flung backward, twisted his body and collided with Snake, who had been following from behind. The two tumbled to the ground together, and Yonghoon immediately sprang up and vanished into the forest.
However, Snake was left sitting on the ground, bleeding from his leg where he had been stabbed by the spear.
The other Awakened hurried over to Snake.
Devil Dog stood nearby, keeping watch, while the Asian man inspected the injured Snake.
“It’s lucky it hit your leg. This much won’t be life-threatening.”
But Snake, clutching his leg, gritted his teeth and said,
“That bastard’s a pro! He aimed for my leg. He deliberately tried to pin me down here!”
At his words, the expressions of the other two Awakened changed. Their demeanor shifted in an instant.
The Awakened called Devil Dog asked him with a blank expression,
“By the standards of the other world, how strong is he?”
At his question, Snake answered politely.
“There’s a high probability his stats are C-Rank. In terms of ability utilization, he’s nearly top-tier.”
At Snake’s words, a blue light flashed from the Asian man’s eyes. He grinned, baring his teeth.
“Looks like I’ll finally get a real fight.”
The tall man called Devil Dog stared expressionlessly at the forest where Yonghoon had disappeared.
Playtime was over. Any further would be dangerous with their personalities from this world.
It was now time for Lieutenant Colonel Devil Dog of the Special Brigade and his team members to move.