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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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The rehabilitation period given to me was about a week.
Actually, I could move my body and go around without much trouble even now, so I considered going to the academy, but I couldn’t due to Ye-na’s dissuasion.
[Absolutely. Focus only on taking care of your body for a week. -Ha Ye-na-]
I received a text from an unknown number, so I checked and found that Ye-na had figured out my number too.
Ye-na had shown a 180-degree change in attitude since the invalidated finals.
Maybe the appearance she had shown until now was an artificial one, and this might be closer to the Ye-na I knew.
From the moment I realized she had memories of her previous life, all the cold treatment she had given me started to make sense.
Especially when I recalled the MT, it was dizzying.
If Ye-na had no memories, Si-hwa would have just been Friend 1 of In-wook, but from the perspective of having memories, she would have been one of the people she couldn’t stand.
In many ways, I thought I had done terrible things.
If I had known this fact in advance, I would never have done that.
I probably wouldn’t have even joined Deforme.
Did Ye-na know that I had returned?
It was a bit ambiguous.
I had no way of knowing what had happened after I lost consciousness.
Even if I wanted to ask, I couldn’t readily contact anyone who was at the scene.
Neither Si-hwa. Nor Ha-rin.
Suddenly, the last image of Ha-rin running out of the hospital room came to mind.
“Sigh…”
A deep sigh escaped.
There was a saying that the world was wide and there were many women.
It was a common phrase exchanged between single guys, but I had become a body that definitely couldn’t date just anyone.
If my child was to be reborn as a hunter who would save this world, I thought they should at least have an S-rank qualification.
I thought it would be the right decision to have a child with the person with the highest combat power, but then I felt it was wrong.
Of course, getting a second chance at life was a great fortune, but I didn’t want to live a life where I bred with someone I didn’t love just to produce results.
I wanted to get married to the person I wholly wanted.
The person I loved.
My last wish in my previous life was none other than ‘I hope to have a happy married life’.
That was the one thing I couldn’t give up.
Then my head started to ache again.
Then who on earth should I do it with…?
Getting involved with one of the people I had ties with meant inevitably leaving indelible wounds on the other two.
On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine dating someone I didn’t know at all.
Above all, even though I was pushing them away, the problem was that I had too much lingering attachment to them.
My relationships with each of my ex-wives were so sweet.
Each of them was a charming person.
It was just that things became a mess after marriage.
Unable to come up with an answer no matter how much I racked my brain, I left my room and went to the living room.
Mom was watching TV on the sofa.
“When did you wake up?”
“Just a while ago.”
“How’s your body?”
“I think I’m just fine.”
Late morning, 11 o’clock.
I sat next to Mom and blankly stared at the screen.
[They say the Yangjae Mado Tool Workshop is launching tomorrow!]
Even just seeing it on the screen, I could tell that a complex of a huge scale had been built.
[It’s said to be the largest workshop ever in our country’s history! I’m really looking forward to it!]
[Yes. Starting this Wednesday, if you apply for a tour, even the general public can look inside, so I highly recommend going at least once~]
The Yangjae Mado Tool Workshop was a place where very active work was carried out even after the period when I was active.
I think we also went on a field trip there in our second year or first year…
Suddenly, an incident came to mind.
Right…
The very next day after the launch of the Yangjae Mado Tool Workshop.
That incident happened.
It wasn’t our academy, but an unprecedented incident where an entire class from another academy located in Seoul went missing.
The reason I remembered it so vividly was because I was the one who discovered those missing students.
I found those missing students 5 years from now.
Moreover, the request I received wasn’t even to find them.
It was a mission to search a base that seemed to be a strategic point of the Seolhwa Church.
Seolhwa Church.
After the appearance of the gates, they had been operating stealthily in the shadows, but gradually, they started baring their fangs at the Hunter Association.
Although they had never officially appeared in public, the leader of the Seolhwa Church was revered as a god, just like any other cult.
The method of becoming a god that the leader discovered was none other than…
A way to steal mana from other humans.
The Hunter Association had conducted various tests from a humanitarian perspective to see if it was actually possible, but they all failed.
Therefore, the most dominant theory within the association was that it must be a special ability possessed only by the leader of the Seolhwa Church.
I recalled the operation I had been in charge of at that time.
The base of the Seolhwa Church that I had infiltrated was emitting a foul stench.
A nauseatingly rotten smell that pierced my nose.
When I opened the door and entered, there were rotten corpses all over the place.
Unable to detect any particular signs of people, I quickly took photos of the scene and returned to headquarters.
Later, after receiving the report, I found out that the identity of those corpses was the students who had gone missing from the workshop.
It was a feeling that couldn’t be described in words.
So many young students had all become cold corpses after having their mana exploited…
I remembered the panic that hit me even more when I heard that all the students were the same age as me.
Naturally, it was right for me, who knew the mastermind and the outline of the incident, to prevent it in advance.
Even though I was a first-year now, I had specs that were incomparable to the small fry of the Seolhwa Church.
Under normal circumstances, it should have been easy for me to prevent it…
The Egeon bullet I took in the finals was unexpectedly holding me back like this.
It wasn’t a problem for living an adequate academy life, but preventing the incident was a separate story.
I didn’t know what variables there might be.
Returning to my room, I turned on the computer and accessed the workshop’s official website.
The schedule… There must be an explanation of upcoming events somewhere…
Found it.
[Sehwa Hunter Academy Group Tour.]
[Tuesday 2 PM – 6 PM]
It was tomorrow, but…
What should I do?
I was filled with hesitation.
I considered asking Si-hwa for help, but that was something I shouldn’t do.
I couldn’t keep asking for favors without giving her a clear answer about her feelings.
Could I do it with my current physical condition…?
Tapping my fingers on the desk, I soon made up my mind.
What choice would leave me with no regrets?
The answer was clear.
…Let’s go.
I didn’t want to face the sight of their dead bodies again.
I had to believe in myself.
No matter how little mana I could use, it wouldn’t determine the success or failure of the task.
My countless experiences of crossing the line of death would become my weapon.
I didn’t want to tell stories to my child, who would be born someday, about the people their father couldn’t protect.
Yes. For the sake of my child, I had to be an upright person.
There was no time.
I needed to find out the bottom line of the mana I could draw out, even now.
Ignoring the words of Ye-na and the doctor, I began to channel mana to my fingertips.
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Since I didn’t know the exact time when the commotion would occur, I had to arrive there early.
12 PM.
There were still a little over 2 hours left until the students arrived.
I successfully infiltrated the facility naturally.
It wasn’t a very difficult task because many of the missions I had in my previous life required this kind of stealth and infiltration.
The basics of infiltration. First. Don’t touch any security devices.
Second, make sure the moment of infiltration is never captured by recording devices like CCTV.
The second clause was tricky, but I finally found a blind spot and lightly jumped over the fence.
If I just used mana to leap, I could easily cross a fence of this level.
And in the first place, the place I was aiming for wasn’t where mana stones were heavily deployed, but near the waste disposal site, so the level of security was relatively low.
Having entered the workshop complex, I took out the prepared white gown and put it on.
In this workshop, various mana experiments were conducted, so it wasn’t uncommon to see people wearing gowns.
Honestly, it wasn’t a great disguise, but I had also prepared a wig and glasses.
I thought it would be difficult to associate my appearance in the mirror with Choi In-wook.
Trying to grasp the spatial structure of the facilities here as much as possible, I luckily discovered a facility guide map for outsiders.
Great… From here, the entrance was to the north.
The mana stone refinery was this way…
The mado tool lab was right next to it.
After roughly putting the locations of the places the students would likely tour in my head, I wandered around the complex without letting down my guard.
No suspicious movements of outsiders had been detected yet…
How on earth did those Seolhwa Church bastards kidnap so many people without a sound?
They weren’t ordinary people, but students from a hunter academy.
It’s not like they wouldn’t have resisted.
They must have done something in advance.
Unable to figure out their plan, I ended up just watching the students start their tour from a distance.
The students looked around with interest, as if the workshop was fascinating to them.
Each building required an access card to enter, but I, wearing a gown, naturally followed them from behind, keeping a distance that made it seem like I was part of the group but not quite.
When we arrived at the mado tool lab, exclamations of amazement naturally flowed from the students’ mouths.
[This is the mana control room that we invested a huge sum of money to design this time!]
Light poured down from the circular window in the dome-shaped ceiling.
In the middle of the falling sunlight was an emerald-colored mana stone of a size I had never seen before.
The researcher, who was proudly explaining the mana stone emitting a brilliant light, stopped for a moment and looked in my direction.
“Excuse me. Teacher over there, where are you from and why did you come in here?”
I, who had momentarily lost focus on maintaining distance due to the mana stone, hesitated and tried to answer.
“I am…”
That’s when it happened.
Fine particles began to fall from the white ceiling like snow.
“Wow!!”
The students must have felt that the scene was very beautiful, as they cheered, but not to my eyes.
I had to get out of here right away.
Because the particles falling now were…
Finely ground Egeon particles.
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