125
* * *
Doun stared at the body sprawled on the floor. If someone had been injured this badly during tower conquest, he would have immediately sent them to the rear for treatment.
But Doun’s expression was emotionless. Those wounds were made by him, and the opponent was Choi Jeongwook. However, even after beating him to a bloody pulp, his heart didn’t feel relieved.
Just a few months ago when he was wallowing alone, hadn’t he boasted that if he met Choi Jeongwook, he’d drag him to a dark alley and beat him up? But when he actually carried it out, he only felt disturbed.
Perhaps there were still lingering attachments to their shared past.
‘Don’t worry too much about our Doun. Though I’m not blood-related, I’ll really take good care of him and help him from the side.’
These were the words he heard when he first brought Choi Jeongwook to the memorial hall where his family was enshrined. He cried so much after going home and hearing those deliberately loud words meant for him to hear.
Having lost his family at too young an age, Doun always thirsted for affection. Twenty-three. He was too young to be properly independent. Even now at twenty-six, not much had changed.
‘Hyung was going to eat alone but thought of you Doun, so he bought it. You only have hyung, you brat!’
‘You can make mistakes during conquest. Hyung will handle everything. That’s what guild masters are for, man.’
‘Hyung will block contacts from other guys. You should only give your number to guild members. No, just to hyung and Sani for now. What if other guys call bragging about being close to you and you hear weird things?’
When exactly had it been sincere versus pretense? Despite being a long-standing concern, he couldn’t easily come to an answer.
‘How did it come to this…’
Doun slowly closed and opened his eyes. If he hadn’t awakened as a hunter, at least this wouldn’t have happened.
‘Ah. Fuck, enough.’
This was a place he came to finish things. Before pathetic and depressing thoughts could grab his ankles again, he forcibly comforted himself. Thinking depressing thoughts would only worsen his mood. Having miserable thoughts wouldn’t make that bastard suddenly reflect, so it was only his loss.
He thought beating him until his anger subsided would make him feel better. But instead, his feelings became stranger. Just as he was about to tell him to forfeit.
“What the fuck makes you, so pitiful and wronged all by yourself?”
Choi Jeongwook, who spat bloody phlegm on the floor with a “ptui,” sneered.
“Have you lived your whole life, huh? Without making a single mistake? Did I use your mana to fuck you over? You said it yourself with your own mouth. That your mana capacity seemed to increase because of the mana link.”
“…”
“There were a few shitty incidents in between, but looking at the results, didn’t I contribute to your mana pool getting bigger? Huh? Answer with that gap in your mouth.”
Even through the continued verbal abuse, Doun just listened quietly as if accustomed to it. Then Choi Jeongwook, growing arrogant, twitched his throbbing cheek and laughed.
“Now that everyone around you worships you for being number 1, life’s worth living, right? The whole world seems yours and your pathetic number 1 position seems like it’ll last forever?”
“…”
“Frankly speaking, if your ranking drops, do you think Slope, that fucking bastard, will keep sucking you off saying you’re amazing? If you weren’t number 1 from the start, would that bastard have even glanced at you?”
“…”
“You stupid bastard, don’t even know the grace of being raised… Kek!”
Choi Jeongwook was choking when his collar was grabbed again.
“Who raised who… I grew up by myself.”
A chilling voice burrowed into his ears. Instead of grabbing his throat and twisting, it seemed he grabbed his collar, and his neck was choked by the clothing pulled up by the strongly clenched hand strength.
“Kuk, let, let this go…”
His breathing gradually became labored. Blood kept surging from inside making breathing already difficult, and now his collar was tightly grabbed too.
‘If I faint here, I’m fucked…’
If he lost consciousness here, he couldn’t walk out of the tower. If he got bounced outside the entrance while unconscious, people who found him would morally call 119. The problem was that his petty pride wouldn’t allow it.
He never thought he’d beat Magnetic from the start. But he at least wanted to walk out on his two feet. For someone who once received everyone’s envy to get bounced out of the tower unconscious was unthinkable.
CRACK!
The spark that Choi Jeongwook shot after gathering all his mana flashed. The high-voltage current that flowed along Doun’s body contours disappeared futilely without even the slightest effect.
“…Kek!”
“When did you tell me to go in front and tank, and you already forgot I have immunity?”
Genuine feeling dripped from Doun’s uncharacteristically sneering voice. Because he had nakedly felt the bottom, true nature, and level of the opponent who had made his life difficult all this time.
The more pathetic Choi Jeongwook was as a human, the more he felt like his own worth, having been influenced and troubled by him, was also plummeting. As if someone was whispering in his ear that he wasn’t much different for being swayed by such a guy.
‘Even my feelings are wasted on that bastard now.’
Doun let go of the hem of Choi Jeongwook’s hunter outfit he’d been gripping. Then the body that immediately collapsed to the floor writhed. Choi Jeongwook, who had been pouring out meaningless skills at Doun with a face full of spite, lay sprawled on the floor with a disgusted expression.
“Is that all?”
Doun asked in an indifferent tone, and Choi Jeongwook just babbled strange mumbling. With almost all his teeth missing and blood being vomited, the exact words couldn’t be understood, but he had the intuition they were curses.
‘Fine. I don’t even want to be here anymore.’
Just putting the final period to this bad relationship with his own hands in this place was satisfying enough. He’d never thought about wanting someone else to take revenge for him. Borrowing others’ hands for revenge while just watching from behind would prove his own incompetence.
It was a problem even public authority couldn’t solve, and personal grudges and emotions were heavily entangled. Without resolution between the parties involved, it would just remain an unsettling matter.
‘I need to finish quickly and go to the beach with Samin.’
Doun thought of his lover who would be waiting for him at a cafe near the tower. Recalling how he had anticipated and supported this revenge more than anyone, his mood quickly refreshed.
Doun, who shook off the blood eerily staining his white hands, took out two Grade 2 stamina recovery potions he’d prepared in advance from his inventory. Then he threw them in front of Timer’s face.
“Forfeit. If you don’t want to get beaten more here.”
Choi Jeongwook forced open his eyes that had swollen grotesquely. Seeing the two potion bottles sprawled in front of him, shame rushed in like a tide. This really made him look like someone receiving charity.
He was planning to forfeit anyway. But if he forfeited here, it would seem like he was doing it because he was scared of threats, and just as stubbornness was rising, a pretty face approached closely.
Choi Jeongwook, who was tensely worried he might spit in his face, heard Doun whisper in his ear.
“You haven’t figured out why the duel isn’t ending yet, have you?”
Hearing those words sent chills down his spine.
‘This bastard has been calculating and beating me at exactly the level that won’t trigger a defeat judgment this whole time? Crazy bastard!’
What had happened in the past year to make him act like this? He’d tried to contact him several times to apologize, but he kept blocking his number! He didn’t know he’d make such meticulous calculations to beat someone who came out to apologize directly.
Choi Jeongwook nodded, firmly believing his trembling hands were due to pain. He who tried to forfeit by opening the system window dismissed the annoying notification that blocked his forfeit.
[Notification: Some errors collected by the Veritas System administrator’s authority will be corrected.]
Error or whatever, what was important to Choi Jeongwook now was getting away from the spine-chilling Magnetic. It didn’t say exactly what error was corrected, and he wasn’t curious either. If he got beaten more here, he definitely wouldn’t be able to walk out on two feet.
When he manipulated the system window as if declaring forfeit, an alarm appeared before Doun’s eyes.
[Notification: The duel achieved using ‘Duel Opponent Priority Designation Rights (L)’ ends. ‘Magnetic (S)’ wins due to ‘Timer (A)’s forfeit.]
[Notification: Congratulations on your victory. 300,000 points are awarded as reward.]
Reading the notification with a strange expression, doubt appeared on Doun’s face.
‘Isn’t this an error?’
300,000 points. The unit of points awarded as reward was much larger than expected. According to his research, if the duel opponent’s grade or ranking was low, the points gained even from victory weren’t that significant.
‘There are speculations on the bulletin board that you get more points if you duel unusually or entertainingly, but it’s not certain. There are so many guys going around talking about unverified things like they’re real…’
Samin, instead of Doun who was estranged from communities and SNS, scoured the Veritas bulletin board and gathered information related to duels through personal connections. Though trying duels directly would be good, he strangely seemed reluctant to go personally.
He filled his personal desires while teaching Doun various beating techniques on the training floor. The act of directly teaching something to someone he admired was thrillingly exciting.
‘Ah, I’m glad I became a hunter.’
Samin was so happy he said such things and showed a smiling face day after day. However, after learning practical beating techniques, Doun had many thoughts. Suspicion arose that Samin’s family might be a gangster family.
Doun only vaguely knew about Samin’s family members, aside from knowing his family was wealthy and harmonious.
Being able to beat Choi Jeongwook to a degree that didn’t meet the system’s defeat judgment criteria like now was all thanks to Samin.
‘Should I subtly ask Samin about his family members when I get out…?’
While Doun pondered inwardly, the wrap-up time given after the duel ended finished. A cool sensation enveloped his body. And when Doun came out of the tower, the first thing he saw was the face of the person he’d just been thinking about.
“Samin. You said you’d be at the cafe, so why…”
Just as his particularly gentle-looking eyes melted into an eye-smile from joy at the reunion.
“Hyung. Let’s go straight to the car first and talk.”
Samin grabbed Doun’s hand with a flustered expression. Some hunters who recognized Samin had gathered, but it wasn’t that crowded, so why was he acting like this?
Doun suddenly became anxious. Worried that something big might have happened.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
