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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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Mind Sword.
Literally, the sword of the mind.
Since it was, in the end, a sword of the mind, it had no form, and at the same time, since it was a sword of the mind, distance was meaningless as long as the mind could reach the target.
It was a realm where, as long as one could think of cutting down a target one could perceive, it was possible to cut down the opponent.
Of course, I couldn’t perfectly use Mind Sword as I was now.
In fact….
‘…Quite a few people survived.’
In the first place, since it wasn’t a proper Mind Sword, but one forcibly implemented using word-command magic, it seemed that quite a few people had resisted it.
Though all those who had resisted the magic still fainted.
Thinking that, I said to Yeon Mi-rae, who was next to me.
“Let’s go in.”
“What? But the hostages….”
“The hostages are safe.”
Since the criminals in the supermarket had all died or fainted before they could do anything, there was no way the hostages would be in danger.
If something like a bomb had been installed on the hostages, it might have been a different story, but the criminals hadn’t gone that far.
They had just been threatening and monitoring the hostages with weapons like firearms.
So there was no problem.
It was a hassle to explain all that one by one, and since she would roughly understand my words once we went inside anyway, I opened the door of the large supermarket and went in first.
“…W-wait a minute…!”
The Awakeners who were surrounding the supermarket were flustered as they saw me do that.
Did they think I was being too reckless?
Or were they flusttered because they thought I was acting without considering the hostages’ lives?
Either way, since they couldn’t stop me anyway, it didn’t really matter.
Therefore, Yeon Mi-rae and I ignored them and entered the supermarket first.
“Uh… what should we do, Team Leader?”
“…We’re following them in.”
Whether it was because they couldn’t just leave us alone, or because they had judged that they should follow us in and save as many hostages as possible…
The Awakeners who had been surrounding the large supermarket followed us into the building.
What they saw upon entering the supermarket was…
“What… what the?”
“Why are those guys….?”
…The sight of all the criminals either dead or unconscious, having collapsed on the very spot they had been standing on just a moment ago.
…The sight of the civilians, who had been held hostage by those criminals, flustered by the sudden collapse of their captors.
And….
“The cleanup is finished, so I’ll leave the rest to you.”
My doll, the Artist, saying that to them.
After that, my doll erased its presence along with Yeon Mi-rae and left the place.
Since I had also confirmed that my mother was safe, there was no longer any reason to stay there.
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“No….”
The Artist, who had disappeared after saying he would leave the rest to them…
The team leader, who had entered the supermarket while being prepared to take full responsibility for this matter, was at a loss for words.
The cleanup was finished?
He understood that the Artist had subdued the criminals on the first floor in an instant without giving them a chance to respond…
But the criminals in the large supermarket had divided the hostages into several groups and had placed them on each floor.
So even if some of the hostage takers were subdued, the Awakeners wouldn’t be able to think of recklessly entering and subduing them all because there were still hostages on other floors.
‘But what’s the use of subduing only the criminals on the first floor….’
He let out a sigh while thinking that things had become more complicated because of this.
At this rate, he couldn’t guarantee the safety of the other hostages except for the ones on the first floor.
The team leader, who had judged that he could safely rescue all the hostages upon seeing the Artist confidently entering the building just a moment ago, felt a headache.
It was when he was looking for some headache medicine…
“Hey, Team Leader!”
“Hm?”
An Awakener who had been checking the criminals’ corpses called out to him.
“This… Isn’t this strange?”
“What is? You have to tell me what’s strange, for me to understand.”
The team leader, who already had a headache from the thought that the Artist had only taken care of the criminals on the first floor and left, asked back with irritation.
“Well… The corpses are clean.”
The corpses alwere clean.
Then should they be dirty instead?
The team leader thought that, but at the man’s following words, his expression couldn’t help but harden.
“There are no external injuries at all….”
“…Are you sure? No external injuries at all?”
“Yes! I haven’t checked all of them, but I’m pretty sure! At least in the parts that lead to a person’s vital points, there are no external injuries whatsoever!”
These corpses died as if….
“As if they had a sudden heart attack… they died cleanly without any warning.”
“……”
Hearing those words, the team leader pondered.
No external injuries?
How could that be?
Whether aura or magic was used….
If one had tried to kill an opponent, there would definitely have been a wound….
Of course, there were ways to kill in a way that wasn’t obvious, such as bursting the brain with mental magic, psionic powers that directly touched the mind, or poisoning, but….
‘…This guy has seen a lot of corpses too, so if they had died in that way, there’s no way he wouldn’t have recognized it.’
So, it was unnatural.
Everyone had died in an instant, as if they had had a heart attack?
“…Ah.”
At that moment, the team leader remembered…
When he had faced the Artist earlier.
‘…When I faced that existence… When I faced an existence that made me doubt if he was really the same kind of living being as us….’
He had felt as if his own heart was stopping.
Perhaps it was that kind of technique.
‘…To put it another way, it also means that when we faced him earlier, we could have died at the Artist’s hands.’
Thinking that, the team leader felt a chill run down his spine, but he didn’t show it…
Because there was no reason for him to kill them.
It was because of that vague belief…
“…Anyway, everyone, prepare to enter the second floor.”
What was important now wasn’t the criminals’ cause of death.
It was to end this hostage situation.
If they were lucky, the other criminals on the upper floors might not have figured out what had happened on the first floor yet.
Although it was close to wishful thinking, if that were the case, the team leader thought that they had to do something before they noticed anything.
Whether the others had similar thoughts, everyone gathered by the team leader’s side, leaving only a few to handle the corpses and untie the bound hostages on the first floor.
“…We’re going up.”
The team leader said that and began to carefully climb the stopped escalator.
While being careful of where the criminals might be monitoring the hostages so as not to be discovered by them…
They realized that their efforts were unnecessary.
“What…?”
“Wait, here too…?”
Those who had come up to the second floor felt as if they were experiencing déjà vu.
The sight of all the criminals dead or unconscious, having collapsed on the very spot they had been standing on…
The sight of the civilians, who had been held hostage by those criminals, flustered by their sudden collapse…
The only thing missing was the Artist and his companion saying that everything was over and asking them to take care of the aftermath. Other than that, it was a scene not much different from what they had seen on the first floor… That is, the scene they saw as soon as they entered the supermarket.
‘…Wait, don’t tell me…?’
The team leader who saw that entrusted the securing of the hostages to a few Awakeners and then went straight to the upper floors.
He faced the same scene on the third floor.
Beyond the third floor, on the fourth floor as well….
Beyond the fourth floor… on the top floor as well….
The criminals on all floors were dead.
No, he had to correct that thought.
There were definitely living criminals.
Though they too were, for some reason, unconscious.
“……”
“…Team Leader?”
“Gather the fainted ones in one place and watch them. Gather the dead ones in one place too… And let the hostages out.”
The team leader had a hunch.
All of this was the Artist’s doing.
He had entered the large supermarket… No, perhaps even before that, he had already subdued all of the criminals.
‘Would it have killed him to explain this a little more clearly…?.’
No, that wasn’t it….
He had definitely said that the cleanup was finished.
It was the team leader and his subordinates who hadn’t believed him.
“Hoo… Still, it’s a relief that there were no victims….”
The team leader muttered that and faced another problem.
How on earth should he, who had seen all of this, report about this incident to his superiors?
‘…The only thing that’s certain is… that with this incident as a catalyst, the number of people who want to uncover the Artist’s identity will increase much more.’
Some, because they purely admired him.
Some, in order to investigate what had happened in this incident.
Some, in order to learn about the abilities of the unidentified Artist.
Some, in order to abuse his power.
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After Yeon Mi-rae and my doll finished the rescue, they were briefly questioned by the police before returning home before I did.
And Yeon Mi-rae, who had come to my house like that….
“Cough…. Ptui….”
“Wait… What are you spitting out right now….?”
She witnessed me spitting something into the toilet bowl.
She turned pale upon seeing that.
She didn’t know what I was spitting out, but she thought that it was definitely not a normal situation.
And for good reason….
‘If the water in the toilet bowl is bright red… anyone would think that.’
What I had spat out was my internal organs that got damaged from the backlash of using the Mind Sword.
Swoosh….
The water in the toilet flushed, and the red water became clear.
But blood was still flowing from my mouth.
I had been holding onto the toilet and doing this for several minutes.
It was the process of spitting out all the completely damaged internal organs and creating new ones in their place.
“…Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
To be honest, I had felt considerable pain at first, but since the treatment was as good as finished, it didn’t hurt now.
However, it seemed that I would need to rest well for a few days and replenish the energy consumed in creating the new internal organs.
“Did you use that power while knowing that this would happen?”
“Well, to be honest, I didn’t expect it.”
The one who had used the Mind Sword wasn’t my main body, but the doll.
I had thought that if there was a backlash from the Mind Sword, the doll would tank it for me.
I had judged that the doll, made of the World Tree’s branch and ten-thousand-year-old cold iron, would be able to withstand the backlash of a forcibly created Mind Sword.
But my prediction was wrong.
It wasn’t a problem of the doll not being able to withstand the backlash.
In the first place, I hadn’t thought that the backlash would be directly transmitted to my main body instead of the doll.
‘…Well, when I think about it now, it’s only natural….’
The Mind Sword was the sword of the mind.
But would a doll have a mind?
No matter how much I tried to draw the Mind Sword through the doll, that sword of the mind was, in the end, a sword drawn by my mind.
It was a sword created by the mind of the individual named Han Geon-woo.
Naturally, if a backlash occurred, it was only right for it to go directly to my main body.
“…You must have had an easier way to resolve that situation, Mr. Geon-woo.”
“That’s right. There would have been easier ways.”
But this was the safest and most certain way.
“A way to kill them simultaneously so that they couldn’t react to ensure that the hostages, including my mother, wouldn’t see the criminals’ blood, and a way that left no trace, this was about the only one.”
“……”
At my words, Yeon Mi-rae closed her mouth and approached me.
And then she wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth with her hand and said to me.
“Don’t do this in the future.”
“…Hm?”
“No matter how certain the method is, it’s a technique that harms your body, Mr. Geon-woo, right? Don’t use such a technique in the future.”
However….
“Answer.”
Yeon Mi-rae looked me straight in the eye and demanded an answer.
And in her eyes, I saw it…
…Her eyes that were only worried about me.
“…Alright.”
At her words, I could only answer that I understood.
“Good.”
“……”
“I’ll clean up the blood left in the toilet, so please rinse your mouth first.”
Since Yeon Mi-rae’s words were filled with nothing but worry for me, I decided to do as she said.
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T/N – The glazing was really too much for this chapter. Did the author really need to make the whole scene of team leader A going through all of the floors take half of the chapter? 😅
For the backlash, I’m actually glad that it happened to the MC. It shows that he’s still learning as everything he does after completing the Divine Art of Harmony is all new to him (after all, he couldn’t do stuff like this before since his technique had still been incomplete pre-regression). Hopefully, he learns from this experience and doesn’t make the same mistake again.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
