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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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I erased the other two villains from my mind.
If those villains were who I thought they were, the others wouldn’t be defeated.
And I wasn’t in a position to worry about anyone else right now, anyway.
Even if she was weaker than usual, I wasn’t arrogant enough to let my guard down against the woman in front of me.
I had poured enough innate qi into my Enhancement to kill an ordinary person, but my physical abilities were still inferior to hers.
She was a complete superhuman, and I was just a half-baked superhuman who had just recovered and started entering that realm.
If that black energy also enhanced her physical abilities, then I wouldn’t be able to win in terms of specs.
So, what I had to exploit was what she had lost.
All of her honed techniques, sharp as a famed blade, were gone.
What stood before me now was just a disaster that wielded violence without any skill.
That meant I had a slight chance of winning.
The disaster, shedding black tears, charged at me and swung her arm.
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Cathy didn’t want to fight.
But her will wasn’t really important anymore.
She had long lost control of her body to another being.
A small, beast-like black something flickered before her eyes.
The small, beast-like thing, seemingly enraged by something, charged at her.
He wouldn’t be able to win. He should be scared right now.
The difference in power was clear to anyone. He wouldn’t be able to survive if she just pressed down on him a little harder.
-‘Annoying, isn’t it?’-
The something that had taken control of her body muttered, but Cathy didn’t want to harm this small, weak child.
However, her body, against her will, raised its fist.
-‘It’ll be easier if you break it.’-
She forcibly twisted the arm that was trying to crush the flickering black thing.
Her posture faltered, and the perfect straight punch became a movement that couldn’t be called a punch, but it still had enough power to crush the black thing.
She shouted for him to dodge, but her mouth wouldn’t move, and the small, black child in front of her didn’t dodge.
Cathy closed her eyes.
She didn’t want to see him crushed by her fist.
The moment she felt her fist strike something, her body tilted.
Huh?
Before she could even question it, her body fell.
The following kick was still clumsy, but it was definitely a movement she remembered.
There was no way she could forget it.
It was a movement she had taught him, a movement she had drilled into him, while saying that it was important to maintain a proper stance, even if it wasn’t fast.
The kick, which had been a mess at first but had become quite decent, landed on her jaw as she was losing her balance and falling.
A strong impact shook her brain.
It hurt.
Seeing the decent kick, she seemed to recall some of the things she had forgotten.
Cathy looked at the person in front of her again.
At first, it had seemed like a black blob, then a small child or an animal, but now it was taking a human form.
It didn’t look very mature, but it wasn’t a child anymore, and it definitely wasn’t a blob.
Something red shone within the flickering black form.
Something…
Something she had forgotten was there.
She felt like she would remember if she touched it.
So Cathy, for the first time, took a proper stance.
She took a deep breath and checked her body’s condition.
She was dizzy from the strong blow to her jaw, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from moving.
She wasn’t trying to destroy him.
She just wanted to touch that red thing, grab it with her hand, and hold it close.
She leaped acrobatically and kicked in a familiar stance.
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“Ugh…!?”
It was good that I received Professor Cathy’s charge and then landed a kick to her jaw.
It was good until then, but her movements suddenly changed.
A slight sharpness returned to her movements, which had seemed like mindless flailing without any technique before, and a clear purpose emerged in her previously thoughtless actions.
A kick.
She perfectly replicated the move she often used, and that I had clumsily imitated just moments ago.
There was no option to block.
I threw myself to the side to avoid the fierce blow that would cost me at least one limb if I failed to dodge.
Bit by bit, sharpness returned to her movements.
Her movements, now with a clear purpose, were no longer something I could keep up with.
Conversely, her openings gradually disappeared.
The gaps I had been exploiting, the openings that had been there just moments ago, gradually disappeared, and the flow from one movement to the next became increasingly natural.
Her eyes, still stained black, were fixed solely on me.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
I poured in enough innate qi to kill an ordinary person into my talent, but it wasn’t enough.
Then a little more.
Don’t underestimate me.
Thanks to the fortuitous encounters I had consumed, I was confident in my total amount of innate qi.
Something surged from deep within my body.
As she took a stance, my movements also sharpened.
I dodged her straight punch and leaped forward.
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Hey, don’t run away.
-‘What are you doing?’
An annoying voice in her head interfered, but she didn’t care.
For some reason, her body was moving according to her will again.
Since that was the case, she thought it wouldn’t be difficult to reach him.
She had, in fact, cornered him several times.
He was desperately dodging, and he looked too exhausted to even think about counterattacking.
But even so, she couldn’t catch him.
Like the moon reflected on the water’s surface, he seemed within reach, yet at the crucial moment, he slipped away.
She wasn’t trying to hurt him.
She was just curious about what she had forgotten.
She just wanted to hold him close.
The black thing, which had seemed so dear and lovely to her, felt a little hateful for the first time.
Annoyed, she threw a slightly stronger punch.
At that moment, while dodging her fist, the black thing transformed again.
It had changed from a black blob to a human shadow, and now it had a fairly decent human form.
As the form was completed, she finally realized what the red thing she had been searching for was.
Ah, those red things were eyes.
Eyes that were red like burning flames, staring at her with a viscous, blood-like gaze.
Her heart was at ease at the familiar gaze.
Cathy tried to remember.
The name of the black thing, which she had barely remembered before it shattered.
“What was your name?”
But she couldn’t quite remember.
She had remembered it just now, but she felt sorry that she couldn’t recall it.
So she asked, but the black thing didn’t answer.
It just flickered and approached her, as if it couldn’t hear her voice.
“Ugh…!?”
Its momentum was sharper and fiercer than before.
It was quite difficult to deal with, as it approached using not only the martial arts she had taught him, but also knife techniques.
It exploited the openings created by her increased strength but slightly slower speed.
It prevented her from making large movements and immediately closed the distance whenever she tried to escape.
She should have been annoyed, but she felt strangely proud.
-‘It’s interfering.’-
‘No.’
-‘Get rid of it.’-
‘I don’t want to.’
Clink.
“Ah!”
The moment she let her guard down, the knife in his hand grazed her arm.
-‘See? He’s dangerous to you.’-
‘No, I wouldn’t have been hit if you hadn’t interfered.’
Cathy realized why she couldn’t reach him.
The black thing surrounding her was the problem.
It made her stronger, but it messed everything else up.
So she decided to get rid of the energy that was interfering with her.
-‘What are you doing?’-
The black energy resisted, but she was able to suppress it surprisingly easily.
As the creeping black energy disappeared, her body finally felt lighter.
Her balance returned, and her speed returned.
As she stepped lightly, as she usually did, she finally heard a cheerful sound.
She took a stance.
With this speed, she could definitely catch that hateful black thing.
Since she was suppressing the energy that was trying to control her body to its limit, her strength was only slightly stronger than usual, but it didn’t matter since it wasn’t hers in the first place.
Ah.
It felt like she could replicate that day’s strike.
Her fist was light.
The fundamentally sound strike that annihilated the goblin in a single blow in the cave where she was trapped with someone that day.
The strike that allowed her to understand a fragment of martial arts and surpass her limits.
As if sensing danger, the fiercely flickering black thing instantly closed the distance and charged at her.
She wasn’t trying to hurt him.
She just wanted to reach him and hold him close.
“Hehe, I caught you.”
She extended her fist.
The black thing was swallowed by the fist she extended cleanly for the second time in her life.
And it lost its balance.
It stopped moving.
The black thing, finally caught in her hand, no longer ran away and leaned against her quietly.
And for some reason, the noise that had been constantly bothering her mind quieted down a bit.
She would have held him close, but for some reason, it was gradually growing cold.
The fading warmth felt strangely lonely, so Cathy held it even tighter.
As if to hold onto the disappearing warmth.
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“…Huh?”
Whose voice was that?
Lilac? Cheon Yoo-hak? Or perhaps someone else’s.
Ah, seriously.
Thud.
It was impossible to win just because I was angry and charged at her.
Right.
She hugged me.
It was a familiar sensation I had experienced before.
Drip.
I thought she had regained her senses for a moment, but it seemed like she hadn’t.
Her eyes were still stained black, and something alien was mixed in with her movements.
The black energy surrounding her had lessened considerably, but the more it disappeared, the more she regained her original strength, so it was natural for things to turn out this way.
I didn’t feel much pain.
Rather than pain, it was hot.
Things that shouldn’t be escaping were escaping from the large hole in my stomach.
Ah, this is bad.
I couldn’t maintain my balance.
I seemed to have heard a scream, but I didn’t know whose it was.
As my body slid down with a thud, Professor Cathy’s embrace came closer.
I smelled a fragrance.
Professor Cathy’s scent and the floral scent emanating from my own body mixed, creating a scent I had never smelled before.
It was a strangely comforting scent.
A soft touch brushed against my cheek.
Haha, damn it, I missed this.
How long had it been?
It would have been better if it wasn’t in this situation.
Her black-stained eyes seemed to be looking at me with worry.
-Your mind…!
-The Saint’s…!
“Professor.”
I called out to her, but there was no answer.
Of course.
“It’s time to snap out of it. The others are worried.”
The hot thing.
The red thing that had been circulating inside my body.
Almost all of it had flowed out.
I lost my strength, and my consciousness faded.
Right before I was completely swallowed by the darkness.
-One Coin?
The last insurance I had put in place was activated…
How could the conditions for a relic contract be like this?
You damn coin.
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No.
This wasn’t what she wanted.
She just wanted to hold him, but he was getting colder.
It was difficult to recall what that meant with her hazy mind, but it was definitely not a good sign.
She couldn’t hear the noise.
“…you”
The black thing seemed to be saying something.
“It’s time…”
She didn’t understand, but she focused on his form as much as possible.
“It’s time to snap out of it. The others are worried.”
Snap out of it?
Did he just say that?
She felt an instinctive sense of rejection, a feeling that if she resisted now, there would be no turning back.
Even so, Cathy resisted to fulfill the request of the cooling black thing.
Her darkened vision returned to normal, even if only slightly.
Clarity gradually returned to the blurry world, and she began to recall what she was holding in her arms, what she had forgotten.
“…A relic?”
The villain confronting Lilac muttered.
“…Oh.”
Red.
The thing she thought was black was stained endlessly red.
She thought she smelled a strong floral scent, and it was the scent emanating from him.
Because of the strong floral scent, different from ordinary blood, it seemed to have taken her a while to realize that the red staining him and her was his blood.
It was too sweet to be the scent of blood, and it was faint, not unpleasant at all.
But what was flowing from the hole in his abdomen was undoubtedly his blood.
Their scents mixed, creating a fragrance she had never smelled before.
It was an ominous and sorrowful scent.
Why?
What happened?
Her memories were muddled.
Her consciousness wasn’t clear.
But she knew who was responsible for this tragedy.
Because her fists were stained endlessly red.
Only after seeing the life gradually fade from his eyes…
“No.”
…did she begin to realize what she had done.
Cathy recalled the name of the boy growing cold in her arms.
“So-hyun…!”
The End…
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T/N – Hey guys! I’ll be unlocking 2 chapters today to account for the one that was supposed to be unlocked last Thursday. Enjoy!
Obviously not. The novel is still ongoing, after all, and it has like 800+ chapters currently.
Though my blood pressure continues to spike this chapter. Does the MC’s author friend really want him to die that badly? He pulled his friend into this world just to kill him? What a f*cking fine friend.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
hard agree with TL – That’s not a friend but an enemy
I should’ve expected the author to be a dick. Imagine making a character based on your frail friend and killing that character off.
Bro was letting the intrusive thoughts out.
Friend is not the F word I’d describe the author tbh.
The ending was kinda abrupt but amazing novel while it lasted lol