Translator: Wan ED/PR: Solarin
61. Rival (7)
The space that was otherworldized and became the Fomori Demons’ Garden.
Because of the space’s unpredictable changes, tracking of the two people prolonged.
Every time I ran into the Enemies inside the otherworld or became sure that the inside structure was different from the map, I had to use Mun Saeron’s derivative skill ‘Focus Coverage’ a few times.
‘There are almost no cases where the information gathering goes as planned in the first place, right?’
Mun Saeron acquire the derivative skill to use it for articles.
Because Mun Saeron was going to personally gather information in changeable environment, she developed a skill to match such coverage environment.
As such, it was possible to deal with hazards and freely calculate best tracking route in a situation where information was limited and variables appeared suddenly.
Like in the situation right now.
‘The accuracy rate is lower when compared to personally seeing with your eyes, like with Cheon Dongha’s ‘Eyes embracing the heaven and earth’, but efficiency is much better.
As result, I moved while modifying the tracking route a few times.
Even when I used ‘Focus Coverage’ a few times again, it pointed to only one direction.
‘I feel the Phantom Thief Neon’s superpower wave!’
The moment when he broke the window glass and Phantom Thief Neon appeared was the first time when I felt that special superpower wave, as he sprinkled it in the air like fireworks.
The Phantom Thief Neon made even his superpower wave bounce, saying that the superpower wave also had a phantom thief-like character, and you could immediately feel the heart and soul he put into it.
In the direction where from I felt the superpower wave, my Playable Characters were standing.
“When everyone is pretty both inside and outside, they will be able to become true phantom thieves.”
“I told you I’m not a phantom thief.”
“You don’t have to deny it. You can make an excellent phantom thief like me!”
I guess Phantom Thief Neon was singing the same song about the phantom thief in front of Gu Seulbi in the meantime.
Because the Phantom Thief Neon was active outside of Eungwang School in PMH, he didn’t have contact with Gu Seulbi.
Even so, it was easy to predict that the Phantom Thief Neon would be rambling about phantom thieves.
Even if the other party wasn’t Gu Seulbi, the Phantom Thief Neon would go on to talk about and advocate his logic with an introduction.
My head was slowly getting dizzy, as he explained his phantom thief philosophy with such extravagant tone, I felt like my fingers were going to break down and be no longer.
‘The Phantom Thief Neon is great, worthy of my Playable Character, but he really has no foundation, huh?’
The phantom thief the Phantom Thief Neon admired and adopted a motif, was the ‘Gentleman Phantom Thief Arsène Lupin’.
Arsène Lupin was a gentleman thief who practiced no-killing and had thousands of faces, and appeared in the novels of the French writer, Maurice Leblanc.
The motif for the phantom thief was a Frenchman.
But the place that he sent official notice letter which gave him a nickname was the United Kingdom.
On the other hand, the dazzling traje de luce he was currently wearing was a traditional Spanish attire.
‘However the Phantom Thief Neon is Korean. Really… the setting is all over the place.’
Though the setting was silly, the Phantom Thief Neon was dashing[1], and Gu Seulbi faced him without being swayed by that phantom thief philosophy.
“I’m not a phantom thief! And druidesses are cooler and more graceful than phantom thieves!”
Saying that, Gu Seulbi showed off a druidess’ magic.
From the elaborate magic circle drawn on the ground to the flow of mana with exquisite movements, a tree of light was sharpened.
Under its power, the Enemies died in vain.
Even after displaying such powerful might, Gu Seulbi wasn’t tired, and the Phantom Thief Neon wasn’t discouraged.
‘The strength of the both of them is outstanding. If it was a simple otherworld, the two would be enough to conquer it.’
But this was a den of Fomori Demons, and the person currently standing at top of the Fomori Demons didn’t offer mercy.
Through the notice letter, the Fomori Demon’s secret auction was revealed to the whole world, and when the party fun reached its peak, the two appeared, pouring cold water on it.
The Demon King wouldn’t be generous enough to let the infiltrators out alive, or be carefree enough to capture them alive to dig for information.
‘They extensively smeared the Fomori Demon’s reputation, so they would want to quickly eliminate them.’
As if matching my predictions, I felt powerful superpower pressure and presence.
Usually, the most powerful existence in the garden was the owner who dominated the Garden, but the something that was displaying power right now didn’t seem to be the garden’s owner.
The power pressing on the surrounding right now was much greater and heavier, incomparable to the Garden’s size.
‘Is that like Hwang Jiho isn’t the owner of the Garden owned by the Ho tribe, among the Fomori Demons, the one managing the Garden is not the demon king, but a different Demon…!?’
Kieeek! Creaaak…!
The sound of a pulley moving rang out loudly.
At the same time, the wall moved up.
The origin of the power was behind the wall.
The Fomori Demons’ demon king.
The otherworldized space.
The powerful power that unfolded at the same time as the wall opened.
The animosity towards the two people.
As I considered all those things, I drew a conclusion.
‘… The one-eyed demon king Balor is opening his eyelid!’
The one-eyed giant, Balor’s Eye of Death.
The Balor’s eye held a powerful power, which was said to destroy and put everything in death’s grip.
Because this extremely powerful power, Balor was said to always keep his eye closed, and to raise Balor’s eyelid, over four young men were said to be needed.
‘At the same time as the wall is raising, the eyelid opens behind it with a pulley.’
I couldn’t abandon my Playable Characters, who fell into an unknown crisis.
I jumped in front of the opening wall and shouted:
“Close your eyes!”
Balor’s Eye of Death displayed its greatest effect power when making eye-contact.
Being physically in range of the eye carrying out destruction was itself dangerous, but if the eyes met, one would be captured by the Eye of Death and face death.
‘First of all, I have to build a new wall…!’
〈Using Gwangrim ‘Player’s Trajectory’. 〉
I immediately came up with what ability to use with Gwangrim to block this crisis.
Among my Playable Characters, there was one person, who displayed his ability properly for the first time to save his rival.
That said, that ‘rivalry’ was one-sided, and only he titled himself and him that.
‘Usually, he couldn’t summon even a blade of grass properly.’
The one who called himself Yeom Junyeol’s rival, Ma Jinseung properly displayed his Gwangrim at the moment when Yeom Junyeol’s life was targeted.
That day, the Dark Mastermind summoned rain to cut down Yeom Junyeol’s power.
When Hongryong and his flames couldn’t properly display their power, and Yeom Junyeol’s life was hanging by a thread, Cheon Dongha made a certain suggestion to Ma Jinseung.
Ma Jinseung accepted Cheon Dongha’s suggestion without hesitation and used his Gwangrim.
‘Those words were a suggestion, but they were no different from them just offering to die in his stead…’
The 3rd year Cheon Dongha and Ma Jinseung knew about the existence of the conspiracy targeting the Eungwang School and the Korean Peninsula.
And that Yeom Junyeol was more qualified than them to fight back against that conspiracy.
So considering the location of the assassins seen through Cheon Dongha’s ‘Eyes embracing heaven and earth’ and Yeom Junyeol’s escape route, they made a grass wall and arranged a maze, Ma Jinseung become a bait himself.
In the end, the grass walls he summoned and the maze he made covered the Dark Mastermind and the assassins’ eyes, blocking the tracking and opened a way out for Yeom Junyeol.
Ma Jinseung collapsed at the hands of the assassins instead of Yeom Junyeol, and he received the alias of ‘Meadow Prince’.
After his death, the walls and maze that became vines disappeared, but it seemed he got such an alias, thanks to the meadow remaining over a vast plain that became fertile because of the rain.
〈Using the target character’s Gwangrim ‘Meadow Summoning Shout’.〉
Aaaaa!
At the same time as I activated the Gwangrim, Ma Jinseung’s particular loud voice flowed out of my throat.
Ma Jinseung’s Gwangrim summoned Gwangrim to places based on the shout he let out.
Usually, Ma Jinseung only had a loud voice and couldn’t properly activate his Gwangrim, and couldn’t control Eungwang School’s rascals at all.
But after he became determined to use his Gwangrim for his rival, a meadow appeared using Ma Jinseung’s voice and he succeeded in saving his rival.
Like me, who was currently summoning the meadow to protect my Playable Characters.
Paaaat…!
From under my feet, vines and grass sprouted at a frighting speed, forming a meadow and creating a wall of vines.
The pulley was raising the eyelid of the demon king and the wall between us just like before, but I created a new wall faster than that.
Following my words, the Phantom Thief Neon and Gu Seulbi, closed their eyes, and when they realized that a meadow wall formed, they opened their eyes again.
“Amazing…! The scene of changing scenery in a blink of an eye feels like a dream! Is it magic? No, if it’s this size, it’s probably a Gwangrim!”
Gu Seulbi looked at the scenery changed by the ‘Meadow Summoning Shout’ with admiration.
The grass filled with superpower wave was sturdy enough to endure a degree of shock and superpowers, but its weakness was fire.
It could buy us time to flee, but even if one didn’t know about this ability, it was easy to figure out its weakness based on its outer plant appearance, so we needed to leave this place fast.
“Let’s go. The maze became complicated, so the escape route is long. Move fast…”
“… I knew you would appear.”
The Phantom Thief Neon spat out to himself.
The Phantom Thief Neon, who was always ready to advocate for his phantom thief philosophy and rules of gentlemen, would never rudely cut someone off, so it seemed he spat it out without knowing.
He belatedly apologized, saying ‘I was rude’.
“What? You. Do you know that person in the crow mask?”
“Of course. There is no way that we don’t know each other.”
No, we don’t know each other.
Those words rose to the tip of my tongue.
I one-sidedly knew him through PMH, and through the Phantom Thief Neon’s notice, but we didn’t know each other.
But before I could deny it, Neon said ‘that word’!
“He is a phantom thief more famous in the Korean Peninsula than me, and the one fated to become my rival. Red Wall Phantom Thief!”
I resolved myself to it, but hearing ‘that word’ from the Phantom Thief Neon was more cringey than I imagined.
If the meadow wall I summoned right now was being greatly influenced by my superpower waves, it would wither.
No, looking closely, its surface was a bit curled up, so it seemed to be influenced by my cringe feelings.
When I couldn’t create a stance because of the suffering, Gu Seulbi, who was looking at me with admiration, said with a disappointed tone.
“What… another phantom thief? Red Wall Phantom Thief? Ah, now that I think about it, there was such a thief…. The Phantom Thief of Red Wall, I thought it was a particular name.”
“Compared to the Phantom Thief Neon, the name Red Wall Phantom Thief lacks romance and class.”
“It seems that you’re very conscious of the Red Wall Phantom Thief? Looking back, compared to you who still didn’t accomplish anything, the Red Wall Phantom Thief already made a name for himself a long time ago.”
Why can’t those two have the conversation without ‘that word’?!
With the Phantom Thief Neon, I believed that if he didn’t use the word ‘phantom thief’, half of the meaning of his existence would disappear. But even if he was like this, I had no idea why Gu Seulbi kept getting on that phantom thief game.
The topic turned to me again.
“It seems that we were in great danger a moment ago. Thank You for saving us, Red Wall Phantom Thief. However, as a phantom thief, I have no plans to give up on victory!”
I wasn’t thinking about such victory from the beginning.
Can’t I just tell the Phantom Thief Neon that he won and not to say ‘that word’ again?
“… Let’s prioritize leaving this place first.”
*~*~*
[1] dashing — I can’t tell if Jo Uisin means his appearance was good or his character was confident.
Translator’s note: Jo Uisin’s true fated rival, the Red Wall Thief.
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