The Hero Returns

Step, step, step—

Splosh, splash—

Almost 100 strong combatants walked on the ground as sticky and thick as mud. Hak-joon felt like he was treading on a bed of nails and not mud, though.

<>

The way Jordan looked at him ever since they stepped into the dungeon had changed; it probably had something to do with Su-hyeun’s disappearance.

<>

The other S-Rank who also disappeared together with him didn’t want to return, either. The raid party waited in the same spot for over one hour, but when the disappeared duo showed no signs of reappearing, Jordan seemed to have finally decided to abandon the missing people and move on.

Since Hak-joon couldn’t really stay and man the position all by himself, he had no choice but to tag along with Jordan, and by extension, the rest of the raid party. As he was an A-Rank, he was at least considered to possess skills around the higher tier within this group.

<>

Before entering the dungeon, Su-hyeun often told Hak-joon about several important points the latter needed to be aware of. At first, he figured this was simply because of the worries regarding the blue-colored dungeon, but now, he was beginning to think that maybe all that talk was to get him prepared for situations like this one.

<>

Only sighs escaped from his lips.

“Halt.”

Jordan walking in the front-most position raised his hand and brought everyone to a stop.

He spoke in simple-enough English so it wasn’t hard to understand him, and since the rest of the raid party also came to a stop, Hak-joon didn’t find it difficult to follow the leader’s order.

Jordan then proceeded to issue a complicated-sounding set of orders for a while, before turning towards Hak-joon who couldn’t understand him and said one word.

“Fight.”

Swiiish, swiiiiiiish—

Right at that moment, Hak-joon felt numerous presences prickling his skin.

Monsters were appearing for the first time since their entrance into the dungeon. Jordan had detected their presence early and got the raid party ready for combat.

Hak-joon had been feeling rather uncomfortable here, so the emergence of monsters actually helped with alleviating some of pressure. With his sword gripped tightly, he began rousing up his magical energy. “Right. Let’s just get the hell out of this freaking dungeon first.”

Kki-riiik, kkik—!

The type of monsters that leaped out of everywhere was huge monkeys.

These creatures’ unique points were that not only were they powerful, but they were also quite agile despite their large bodies. Plus, the four fangs jutting out of their mouths were at least as long as a person’s hand.

This type of monster had never been witnessed before. However, their overall appearance did present general clues on how these creatures would fight their battles.

Siii-iiit—

Bang, boom, ka-boom—!

Hak-joon quickly turned his head as the flames powerfully spread out. Jordan’s body had turned into a walking flame, and he was sweeping past the monkeys leaping out from everywhere.

Crack, craaack—

On the other side, sheets of ice approaching absolute zero suddenly appeared with Chloe as their center.

Not only their personalities, but even their abilities were on the opposing ends of the scale, too. However, one thing was for certain: both of them were truly amazing.

<>

Hak-joon glanced at the two, gripped the sword in his hand tightly and muttered to himself. “I won’t lose to them.”

Shwuu—

He took a large stride forward while directing his magical energy all the way to the very tip of his sword.

Kii-riik, kii-ririk—

The concentrated magical energy spread throughout Hak-joon’s body and enveloped his sword. His eyes glowed brightly in blue, and everything within the surroundings could be sensed vividly as if he could easily grab them.

Su-pahk—!

His figure jumped up high.

Utilizing the Leap skill, his sword descended on top of a monkey monster’s head.

Sliiiice—!

* * *

Boom, ka-boom—!

Monkey monsters trying to pounce on Jordan were scorched pitch-black.

There were plenty of awakeners capable of manipulating fire, but Jordan was a special case among them — from possessing a rare skill from the fire-type skill tree, to several passive skills that aided in that rare skill itself, plus his sky-high magical energy reserve, too.

It didn’t matter what anyone said; Jordan was still a world-renowned awakener.

<>

His eyes observing Hak-joon gleamed brightly.

The man who tagged along with Su-hyeun was an A-Rank awakener. The kid was still young, and his experience as an awakener wasn’t all that extensive, either. Even then, he possessed a considerably high rank as well as magical power.

In a way, he resembled Su-hyeun. The only difference would be who was taller than the other one.

Jordan had already confirmed both Su-hyeun’s skill level and his guts before entering the dungeon. But the latter simply vanished, leaving behind Hak-joon all by himself. Jordan was inwardly curious about the kid’s abilities, anyway.

He was keeping his eyes on the kid, but as it turned out, this Hak-joon guy also possessed skills far exceeding his expectations, just like how it was with Su-hyeun.

<>

This textbook battle style should be shown to the D-Rank or lower awakeners that had awakened only recently.

However, it was only the overall framework that seemed similar to a textbook example. Hak-joon’s skills were on another realm altogether. While being faithful to the basics, he only used the minimum required physical strength to load his sword with maximum destructive power.

Also, he had no opening whatsoever.

<>

Hak-joon’s current skills should easily put him in the upper tier of A-Rank. And with such a level of talent and skill, Hak-joon should be stepping into the same rank as Jordan not too long from now.

<>

America and Korea.

They might have been the same awakener powerhouse, but the differences in the awakener manpower that followed the superiority in the population numbers were quite clear.

However, one more S-Rank appearing in South Korea would greatly change the story. From that point onwards, the Americans wouldn’t be able to say that they were in a superior position than Korea.

That was how great the prestige each S-Rank carried.

The attacks of the monkeys were taken care of soon after.

Awakeners with healing-type skills looked after the injured while Jordan and Chloe checked out the party’s overall losses.

“Not as difficult as expected,” observed Jordan.

A total of five were injured in the end. And the wounds on only one of them could be called anything serious.

“That’s because the raid party itself is incredible. Where would you ever find a party of this size composed of this many high rankers?”

Jordan nodded his head at Chloe’s words.

Although he didn’t want to agree with her, she was correct in this case. For sure, no raid party of this scale had ever been created before. He might not like it, but Chloe was an awakener with a similar level of abilities as him.

“I was worried, so what a relief this is. We’ll take a short break before departing again. Everyone, focus on recovering your depleted stamina and magical energy.”

With those words, Jordan turned around to leave.

Shudder—

It happened right then.

Ka-boom—!!

Crack, craaack—

A massive explosion went off between Jordan and Chloe. Just as the entire surroundings were blanketed by heat and coldness, awakeners began screaming out loud.

“Aaaaah—! My arm!”

“Mick! Sherry!!”

“W-what the hell is going on here??”

“Mister Jordan and Miss Chloe, they….”

Just as the surroundings became rather noisy….

Stab! Stab, slice—!

Booooom—!

“Aaaaahck!”

From the gaps of the steam spreading all around, screams began resounding out one after the other.

<>

Hak-joon stood there utterly frozen and panicking.

It wasn’t just Jordan and Chloe. Countless awakeners were pointing their weapons at each other and wildly firing off their skills. No, more correctly, one faction was attacking the rest in a one-sided fashion without a warning.

The event happened completely out of the blue.

There was no such thing as a timely response, either. No, there were only the one-sided attacks, which were met with tepid resistance.

Jordan quickly retreated to a distance and glared at Chloe beyond the rising curtain of steam. Their surroundings had already turned into a pandemonium.

“Chloe, you…”

“One arm and a leg, is it? You got away pretty unscathed, then.” Chloe smirked and gradually roused up her magical energy once more. “I told you this before, haven’t I? You’ll die by my hands sooner or later.”

“Must you do this now?”

They were currently trying to attack a blue-colored dungeon. Not only that, but they couldn’t even escape easily from this dungeon either. Even if their bad blood had become really untenable, this was no time to squabble among themselves.

“Yup. I really have to do this now,” Chloe replied.

“Even then, you should mind the situation and….”

“It’s exactly because of the situation.”

“What was that?”

“Isn’t this perfect? You have no place to run away, and the raid will end in failure, too.”

Chloe scanned Jordan’s frozen arm and leg, then grinned brightly. “Plus, you let your guard down since the monsters’ attacks had just come to an end, too.”

“So, you were planning to do this from the very beginning?”

“Yup.”

“Your aim was to fail in the raid? And also to kill me?”

“Now you get the general idea?”

Jordan deeply furrowed his brows.

This was a completely unexpected turn of events.

He figured that, with Chloe’s personality, she might really cross the line and start something like this, but still, he expected her to be able to separate the public and private matters.

<>

The moment she made her move, even the awakeners from the guild that came with her made theirs as well. Not to mention, their situation didn’t call for an internal battle of such a scale, either. This had to be a pre-planned assault.

“It can’t be…” Jordan shifted his gaze over to Chloe as well as to other awakeners and asked. “You were with the Dump?”

“Bingo.”

Chloe grinned brightly while making a circle with her hand.

This was the worst.

With things like this, he couldn’t even attempt to make peace with her. Jordan checked the current status of his body.

<< I can’t move one arm and leg. >>

The injuries inflicted during the initial sneak attack were proving to be fatal.

Chloe’s ability was to freeze her targets. Because of her ability, Jordan’s arm and leg were currently frozen stiff. He could use his own ability to somehow melt the ice down, but if he did, he’d have to risk inflicting serious burn wounds on himself; he wouldn’t be able to use his limb either way.

“I can hear your brain kicking some gears. No need to sweat over it, though. Just die quietly, alright?” Chloe mocked him loudly.

“But won’t us dying will make the raid that much harder?”

“We only need to last ten days. And also….” Chloe looked around her surroundings leisurely before making her reply. “How can you be so dense? That’s precisely our aim, you know.”

“…This is your aim?”

The complete failure of the raid.

The Dump Guild.

The moment those two concepts were linked in his head, Jordan’s eyes quaked powerfully. “It can’t be…”

“The dungeon appearing in LA, the failed raid, the outbreak, the absence of S-Rank awakeners, as well as deaths of numerous high ranked awakeners.” Chloe continued to grin brightly as the mere thought alone excited her. “So, what do you think? Can you picture the whole thing in your head now?”

“So, your aim wasn’t this side from the get-go?”

“LA will fall. And when a dungeon of this scale goes off, the surrounding cities will meet the same fate, too. Just how many will die, I wonder?”

“You all are f*cking insane.”

“This will be the Dump Guild’s first official operation. A city like LA should serve as a perfect sacrifice, don’t you think?”

The Dump Guild was finally revealing itself in the light. It seemed that this event would be the starting point of that.

Jordan knew the Dump Guild as a garbage organization full of crazed criminals, but never did he imagine that they would start a crisis of this caliber.

<>

Jordan never felt so thankful for Chloe’s chatty nature like today. He was slowly freeing his frozen arm and the leg while she continued to yap away.

“Just what could you possible gain by doing something like this? You all are….”

“I told you to stop getting smart with me, didn’t I?”

Craaack—!

“M-mm…”

Chloe extended her hand, and Jordan’s arm and leg were frozen hard once more. He could only scowl deeply at his failure to even react as his body became imprisoned in ice.

“Not much of a hotshot now, are you? You know, I never really liked you from the start,” said Chloe.

“…You don’t even have the guts to fight me fairly.”

“Say whatever you want. One of my charms is to play dirty, you know.”

Jordan furrowed his brows deeply and scanned the unfolding situation around him.

The situation was dire.

The difference in the combatants dwindled through the sneak attack. Although his side still had the advantage in numbers, the moment Chloe finished him off, the story would drastically change.

As an S-Rank Awakener with the ability to attack a wide area, Chloe possessed the necessary power to overturn the advantageous number on the head in an instant.

<>

They’d all die.

<>

He needed to melt down his frozen arm and the leg at the risk of severe burns. He simply had no leeway to slowly melt this ice off of him.

Rumble—!

When flames lit up on Jordan’s frozen arm and leg, Chloe’s brows shot up high. “Your petty tricks won’t…”

“Hey, auntie.”

It was right then that a voice both Jordan and Chloe had forgotten filled the space between the two people.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“You..!!”

Chloe’s head hurriedly shot up.

There was a tree between the two people.

Su-hyeun was standing on top of it.