Chapter 100
Park Song-min entered the auditorium and took a seat in the back, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
“Phew…”
Park Song-min’s true identity was that of a special ability user belonging to the ‘Free Ability Users Liberation Alliance’.
He was a man who had come to seek revenge after the Kangshin Guild, which had been in charge of Korea, collapsed.
“How dare they mess with the Alliance… Kang Hyeon. I’ll make you regret it.”
The Free Ability Users Liberation Alliance was an anti-state organization centered in Russia.
It emerged as a reaction to Russia’s forceful control of ability users by the state.
-For now, the Kangshin Guild is enough.
The Alliance wasn’t initially interested in Korea.
It started in Russia, but now they were a global organization.
Korea, which had adopted a policy of freely allowing ability users from the beginning, wasn’t particularly appealing prey for them.
They were already working in many other countries that required their attention.
However, when the World Dungeon Summit incident occurred, it became widely known that Korean ability users were strong.
-The level of ability users in the Republic of Korea is more impressive than expected.
The Alliance leader greatly increased support for the Kangshin Guild, which had been planted in Korea as a precaution.
At the same time, he dispatched Alexei to control Chairman An Moo-seok, who led a global corporation.
Alexei was a talent specially managed by the Alliance due to his unique ability of mental domination.
The Great Revolution.
He was an essential figure for achieving that grand dream.
But Alexei died.
And with him, the entire Kangshin Guild that they had painstakingly nurtured.
Not to mention the loss of famous capitalists that Alexei had already been controlling.
-We’ll make them pay the price.
The Alliance leader was furious.
And he vowed revenge.
In fact, it was An Yu-seong who had dealt with Alexei and Gangshin, but they didn’t know that.
After the incident, Kang Hyeon’s name spread publicly, and it was much easier for the Alliance to believe that Kang Hyeon, rather than An Yu-seong, had carried out such an act.
‘Today will be your last day.’
Thanks to this, Park Song-min, who was being secretly nurtured by the Alliance, moved in person.
The information that Kang Hyeon would attend this training was obtained through a spy, so it should be certain.
‘He’s here!’
As soon as Kang Hyeon appeared, a fairly strong magical power was felt.
‘I heard he was a martial artist, but his magical power is higher than I expected.’
Park Song-min, who could sense magical power, sharply lit up his eyes at the strong magical power emanating from Kang Hyeon.
‘From what I’ve heard, he’s said to have a knack for detecting magical power… But it doesn’t matter.’
The Alliance provided equipment that could somewhat conceal magical power as a precaution.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to make the chances of Kang Hyeon noticing him close to zero.
“Then I’ll end this without dragging it out. From now on…”
Everything seemed to be going smoothly, but Kang Hyeon wasn’t as easy as expected.
“You. Yes, you. You know, don’t you? Don’t lower your head, come out.”
For some reason, Kang Hyeon had recognized him precisely.
Park Song-min carefully stepped forward, hiding his surprise.
‘Is his detection ability much better than the information suggested…?’
As he walked towards Kang Hyeon, Park Song-min’s mind raced quickly.
‘This is a place where students, who are practically civilians, are gathered. He won’t be able to move rashly.’
Most of the people here were 18 years old.
Under Korean law, unless in special cases, they were still minors.
He didn’t think Kang Hyeon would act recklessly in front of such young students.
“This bastard is still acting until the end. If you think you can be cocky because there are a lot of people here, you’re mistaken. I don’t care about that kind of thing.”
Park Song-min hoped Kang Hyeon was mistaken and continued his act until the end, but ultimately failed.
Kang Hyeon was already completely certain that he was suspicious.
‘First, I’ll pretend to move to another place. Then I’ll take him by surprise when he’s off guard and escape.’
He was strong.
He was a warrior among warriors who had undergone rigorous training with all kinds of support from the Alliance.
If it came to a fair one-on-one fight, he was confident he could win against Kang Hyeon.
But Shin Seong-a, a member of Kang Hyeon’s guild, was here, and there were many other instructors gathered.
Creating an opening was important first.
“Instead of doing this here, why don’t we move to another place?”
However, Kang Hyeon’s reaction was completely different from Park Song-min’s expectations.
“You know, I recently watched an interesting wrestling cartoon ? There was a line that went like this.”
What is this guy suddenly talking about? – Park Song-min thought.
“Face. Ground. Perfect!”
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
A word he had never heard before.
For a moment, Park Song-min was taken aback, and that surprise created a small opening.
“Your face is perfect for planting in the ground!”
At the same time, Kang Hyeon lunged forward.
‘This crazy…!’
He couldn’t have imagined that an attack would come at this time, in this place.
Without even a chance to dodge, the enormous hand approaching grabbed Park Song-min’s face.
‘What monstrous strength is this!?’
Even though Park Song-min was among the top in terms of physical strength within the organization, Kang Hyeon was far beyond the normal range.
Despite desperately resisting, Park Song-min’s body was tossed around like a scarecrow according to Kang Hyeon’s will.
‘Ah, damn…’
His face was getting closer to the wooden floor.
***
Ippotranslation
***
“Kyaaah!”
“Did he really just plant him on the floor?!”
The trainees went into an uproar at the sudden turn of events.
“Kuhaak!”
“You shouldn’t lose consciousness already!”
Before Park Song-min could regain his senses, Kang Hyeon slammed his face into the floor again.
And then he scraped it across the floor with all his might.
-Kwajik! Kwadeudeudeudeu!
Park Song-min’s face shattered the wooden floor, sending splinters flying in all directions.
Along with it, blood spurted out.
Some students fainted on the spot at the grotesque sight they had never seen before.
“Kuaah! Let go of this!”
“Oh? You’re quite tough, aren’t you?”
But Park Song-min was still struggling, not losing consciousness.
‘This is the end if it continues. First, I need to use my skill…!’
“This bastard. Can’t you come to your senses?”
-Kwajik!
“Don’t move your magical power. You’ll die.”
-Kwadeudeudeudeu! Kwang!
Kang Hyeon never let go of Park Song-min’s head.
‘If I make a mistake, other trainees might get hurt.’
In fact, this was Kang Hyeon’s plan from the beginning.
He was confident that once he got his hands on the guy, he could immobilize him completely.
Moreover, showing such a horrific scene in front of the trainees would surely make them tremble in fear.
‘They’ll get a bit of a reality check.’
If Choi Yeon-hwa left after being shocked by this, everything would be resolved.
It was literally killing two birds with one stone.
“Kuaaah! Let go of this!”
“Why are you so tough?”
If there was one thing different from his expectations, it was that Park Song-min was much tougher than Kang Hyeon thought.
In fact, he had controlled his strength a bit at first, but now he was striking with almost full power, and Park Song-min was still enduring.
“Kuuu! If you let go now, I’ll spare your life…”
-Kwajik!
“Where do you get off being cocky? You’re gonna die.”
As a result, a much more grotesque scene than Kang Hyeon had originally intended unfolded.
Park Song-min’s face, which had already been slammed into the wall several times, was barely recognizable.
Naturally, the surrounding walls and floor were all shattered.
“Keu, keuhek…”
“Are you thinking of calming down now?”
“Ju, ju…”
“Ju? Ju what?”
“Kill me. Ptui!”
Park Song-min mustered his last bit of strength to spit.
Kang Hyeon wiped off the sticky mixture of saliva and blood on his face and smiled savagely.
“Alright.”
Kang Hyeon grabbed Park Song-min’s head with both hands and slammed it down with full force.
-Kwaaaaang!
With a thunderous sound, the building’s outer wall shattered, and Park Song-min went limp, all strength drained from his body.
“This bastard. Trying to act cool? Does he think he’s some kind of protagonist?”
Merciless and overwhelming violence.
Kang Hyeon’s appearance as he threw down the collapsed Park Song-min was enough to make even a demon shake its head.
“Umm… Are you alright…?”
As the situation settled, Jeong Jong-ho and Shin Seong-a approached.
“Yes. But what should we do about the destroyed auditorium?”
“It’s fine. We have many other places for training. More worrying is the state of the students…”
“Ah, it was a bit much for the kids to see, wasn’t it?”
“Yes…”
Everyone here was an awakened one who had passed Tutorial Stage 2.
In other words, they had experienced combat, albeit within the tutorial.
Moreover, combat videos were so common these days that most had developed a tolerance for seeing violent scenes.
Nevertheless, this was violence that far exceeded the student’s common sense.
The fact that the target of this violence was another human also contributed to their shock.
“Hmm, was it a bit too much?”
Some students could be seen collapsed on the floor.
Most of the remaining students were also contorting their faces as if feeling nauseous.
“Well, it can’t be helped. Those who can’t handle it will drop out on their own.”
While Kang Hyeon was smiling, thinking that although it had proceeded a bit more extremely than intended, the goal had been achieved, it was then that:
“Kyaaah!”
Far away, Choi Yeon-hwa was screaming repeatedly with her eyes completely rolled back.
“Kang Hyeon! You’re so cool!”
“Huh…?”
Something seemed to have gone very wrong.
***
Ippotranslation
***
That evening.
Choi Yeon-hwa, who had returned to the dormitory, was still in a state of unabated excitement.
“Uuuu! Isn’t Kang Hyeon so cool?”
Choi Yeon-hwa exclaimed with a flushed expression.
“To be honest, I found it a bit scary…”
“Me too.”
“Why? Wasn’t it totally cool?”
“It’s cruel. Not just hitting someone, but in that way…”
“So what?”
Choi Yeon-hwa was taken aback when her friends showed an unexpectedly lukewarm reaction.
In a way, Choi Yeon-hwa’s question was natural.
In this reality where battles with monsters have become everyday occurrences.
Every day, countless ability users lives are snuffed out meaninglessly.
And that’s while being torn to pieces.
Compared to that, what Kang Hyeon did today could be seen as lenient, since he didn’t actually kill his opponent.
Although the visual effect wasn’t so.
“Wasn’t it less cruel than what we see in videos?”
“The videos have mosaic censoring.”
“Ah… Is that so?”
Videos of Kang Hyeon’s battles were particularly widely circulated among the public.
But most of them were processed videos with mosaic censoring.
In contrast, Choi Yeon-hwa always used money to obtain the original versions, so she naturally developed a stronger stomach for such scenes.
“Still, it was cool. They say that man who got beaten today was from a really dangerous criminal organization, right?”
“Yeah. You know that incident that happened on the Seoul-Yangyang Expressway recently? They say he’s from the same organization as the main culprits of that incident.”
“Kang Hyeon is certainly amazing.”
“Right? Hehe.”
Finally in a better mood, Choi Yeon-hwa laughed lightly.
“I’m glad I asked Dad. After this training ends, I should ask him to get me into the Badass Guild.”
“Badass… Can you? I heard it’s incredibly difficult to get in there.”
“Badass doesn’t care about your current level or ability, they only look at mental strength, right? I may not look it, but I’m a talent who passed up to Tutorial Stage 5. Couldn’t I get in even without Dad’s backing?”
“Thinking about it again, Choi Yeon-hwa, you’re right.”
“Yeah. Choi Yeon-hwa, you can definitely do it.”
“Right?”
While Choi Yeon-hwa was all excited, her friends exchanged glances among themselves.
‘Let’s just humor her.’
In truth, these girls weren’t hanging out with Choi Yeon-hwa because they genuinely liked her.
They were only together because their parents had insisted that they follow Choi Yeon-hwa and keep her in a good mood.
-It’s a connection you’ll definitely need when you climb to a high position later.
-You need to make a good impression on Choi Yeon-hwa. That helps your mom and helps you too. You understand what I mean, right?
These girls had been thoroughly educated about society since they were young.
Is the other person stronger than you?
Are they beneficial to you?
If these two conditions were met, they were prepared talents who could flatter at any time with thick skin.
Of course, the ability to look down on and ignore those weaker or unhelpful to them came as an option.
“Alright. Let’s sleep for now. I’m already excited for the next training session, but we need to replenish our energy to make a good impression on Kang Hyeon.”
“Yeah. Let’s sleep.”
“Good night, everyone.”
And so another day passed at the ability user cultivation school.