EX-rank’s Replay (178)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 
38. Youth training camp (8)

The sweet melody pierced the storm, and then spread along the coast.
 

Paaaa!
 

Then the two superpower waves clashed, brightening up the dark night sea.

A shock wave exploded with a flash of light.
 

“Uuk….!”
 

Maeng Hyodon who instinctively covered his body with a superpower wave and stood in front of Kim Yuri and Kwon Lena, swallowed a groan.

He took damage even if it was far away, but Kwon Jane, who was the closest and facing the sea, didn’t move even a single step and continued her performance.

Kim Yuri’s Gwangrim, which called the madness of sea god[1].

Kwon Jane’s Gwangrim ‘Humming Surface’ which made water touched by melody sing.

The two Gwangrims clashed in a tight fight.

Because the enormous sea’s wall was blocked by the violin’s melody, it couldn’t move any further.
 

“… Ah, can’t!”
 

At that moment, Kwon Lena, who was pushed behind Maeng Hyodon, shouted.

When the sea wall couldn’t move, the Enemies, which weren’t swallowed by the sea, began their march forward.

Kwon Jane was exposed and defenseless in front of Enemies during the performance.

When she was covered by the shadow of an Enemy, two or three times bigger than her.
 

Peuk!
 

With a spectacular smashing sound, the Enemies, which approached Kwon Jane’s vicinity, were swept away.

One attack parted the blocked sea and cleaned up the high rarity Enemies standing at the forefront.
 

“… Ascetic grandpa?”
 

Maeng Hyodon mumbled as he doubted his eyes.

In front of Kwon Jane stood Tak Geosan.

He had his hands clasped behind his back as if asking ‘When did he ever attack?’.

His posture was full of gaps, but facing against hundreds of Enemies, who just reached the land, his surrounding was filled with the spirit of one man army.
 

Chwaaak!
 

At that moment, as if to eliminate Kwon Jane, who interrupted the attack, a dozen of enormous water streams struck towards her.

While repeatedly uniting and splitting, the water streams, holding a powerful superpower wave, moved to swallow Kwon Jane.

Kwon Jane changed the preformed music’s tune to try to block that fierce movement, but it seemed impossible to control, when compared to the wall of the whole sea, the water she moved was the size of a needle.

The rogue waves that rose from the sea wall aimed at Kwon Jane and pounced.
 

Chwaaa!
 

Tak Geosan, who was cleaning up the Enemies who approached Kwon Jane, took a stance.

He, who until now used movements almost invisible for the eyes and was relaxed, for the first time let down the hands behind his back, took one step back and clenched his fist.
 

‘What the hell? What are you trying to do….?! Are you not going to grab that violinist and run even now?!’
 

Tak Geosan was skillful, but he wasn’t a special type like Kwon Jane.

Maeng Hyodon heard countless times about Tak Geosan’s personal achievements and abilities when he bragged about himself while insisting on taking Maeng Hyodon as his disciple.
 

‘That pseudo ascetic has similar abilities to me. Both the skills and Gwangrim. How are you going to block it?!’
 

But as the veteran Tak Geosan didn’t move from that place right now, Maeng Hyodon thought that he had some kind of move and shut his mouth.

When the rogue wave, which was approaching while destroying Enemies, got very close to the two honorary teachers.
 

Kwakwakwa!
 

Tak Geosan struck one blow loaded with a superpower wave, and a tornado shot out from his fist.

The fierce tornado crushed the swept up rogue waves like a fog.

In the middle of water droplets raining from the sky, they saw Tak Geosan put his hands behind his back again.

Before that powerful attack, as the saying went, tear the wind and split the sea, Maeng Hyodon swallowed his breath.
 

“There are Enemies passing through the coast!”
 

Maeng Hyodon, who couldn’t take his eyes off of Tak Geosan’s attack movements before, looked in the direction Kwon Lena pointed to.

The coast stretched out for roughly 1 km.

In addition, there was a gap during the fight, when Kwon Jane and Tak Geosan faced against the hanging-wide sea wall to break through the siege.
 

“What to do, if we let them go here, it will be difficult to chase them…!”
 

It was as Kwon Lena said.

Seongmo Island spanned around 42.84 km2.

It would be difficult for Maeng Hyodon and Kwon Lena, who weren’t familiar with this place, to chase Enemies in the darkness, and if they let even one slip, the other side might stay hidden to attempt another attack.

Kwon Lena and Maeng Hyodon were about to run, but someone blocked them before that.
 

“Wait, students! You, the students over there!”
 

It was a middle-aged man with a gentle impression.

It was an old model item, but from the superpower weapon, he looked to be a Player.
 

“It seems like there are injured, so where are you going!”

“However, if we leave it, Enemies will go towards private houses!”

“That grandpa… no, teachers-nim are currently busy, You know?!”

“You don’t have to worry about that!”
 

Swwwwish!
 

As if adding to the middle-aged male Player’s words, the mass of the superpower wave poured down towards the ground.
 

Kiiiiiik….!

Keuuuk!
 

The Enemies on the sandy beach collapsed and started to dissipate.

The Enemies with pierced necks couldn’t even let out dying screams and turned into particles of lights, and Enemies that let out roars, had their vital points pierced and gradually disappeared.
 

“That’s…!”
 

The mass of superpower wave, which pierced Enemies’ weak points, was shaped like arrows of light.

Maeng Hyodon could recognize the owner of those arrows straight away.
 

‘Teacher Ham Geunhyeong-nim…!’
 

Those were the arrows of light that protected Maeng Hyodon on the day when he fled from hell and ran towards the Eungwang School.
 

“Because the famous ‘Great Archer of Blue Sky’ is protecting this place, students don’t have to worry!”
 

The middle-aged male Player spoke like this while laughing loudly.
 

***
 
Class 2’s female students’ lodgings.

Song Daeseok opened his mouth wide and couldn’t even say a stupid word, and then he finally uttered:
 

“I’m okay… Teacher-nim and other kids’ states aren’t good…!”
 

Hwang-ho, who examined the interior, narrowed his eyes.

He guessed it when he read traces of presence outside the building, but it was worse than he thought.
 

‘I acted so confidently, but I have no face now, eh?
 

The 1st year class 2’s students, who collapsed because of the Superpower Poison.

No Yeongmi, who was injured and passed out.

Song Daeseok, who was the only one conscious but slightly injured.

There was no person who was unharmed.
 

“… That- thanks for the rescue, ah, hey, you… that, weren’t you going to the instructors? There is some poison or a curse or something here right now! You have to move quickly! Where are the instructors?”
 

Song Daeseok, who first breathed out in relief with a halfwit expression, then thanked him, and then lost his mind, shouted urgently.

Hwang-ho glanced at Song Daeseok as he spoke:
 

“No longer here.”

“What?”

“It would be difficult to find them.”
 

Hwang-ho’s expression sunk when he thought about the events’ moment ago.
 

‘I didn’t expect them to be this rotten.’
 

The youth training instructors’ lodgings were close to the central shelter.

When Hwang-ho arrived, some of the instructors were moving towards the central shelter.

After arriving at the central shelter, they, who were moving as if they knew about the situation, set something up.

The identity of that something was a superpower bomb item which activated with a superpower wave.
 

‘You say there are many more people who didn’t participate, but isn’t it so absurd, eh? What did they believe in to try to turn this Eungwang School into an enemy?’
 

Because of that, besides beating up the instructors, who participated in this matter, Hwang-ho was eliminating the bomb, so some time had to be taken.

To reduce time, he used an ignorant method of creating a barrier and exploding all bombs inside of it, but as the Superpower Poison antidote given by the Nok tribe was melting his organs, even now he had to allocate part of his superpower wave to regenerate his body.

Because he consumed a lot of his power, his movement speed ended up decreasing.
 

‘Is this fucker saying he couldn’t find them? What makes you so relaxed then? Moreover, what is with that tone? Did you watch a period drama last night before sleep?’
 

On the other hand, Song Daeseok had such thoughts while looking at Hwang-ho who made a displeased face as he recalled the instructors.
 

‘… No, thinking about it, it seems that this lunatic fucker’s tone was usually dogshit. There is no trace of it, because before he laughed much more than he spoke!’
 

Song Daeseok was thankful to his classmate, who saved his life a moment ago, but at the same time he was amazed by his lunatism.
 

Paaat!
 

Hwang-ho, who had no way to know Song Daeseok’s thoughts, started to change his superpower wave into magic and moving.

After he moved his hand, the golden magic wrapped around the injured and raised each one of them up.

Song Daeseok, who saw Hwang-ho’s magic control, was shocked.
 

“You, how are you doing that…!?”

“Changing superpower wave into magic to move. Let’s go. I’ll back you up to the central shelter.”
 

Song Daeseok unknowingly to even himself nodded his head and started to run following Hwang-ho.

Even while holding twenty people with magic and move them in the air, Hwang-ho’s running speed was much faster than Song Daeseok’s.
 

‘Amazing concentration! Even though this lunatic is overflowing with superpower, it would be difficult to dash like this while controlling it so meticulously!’
 

Song Daeseok asked Hwang-ho, who was running ahead of him.
 

“How are you moving like this?”

“Are you talking about my usage of magic? They say it comes with age, eh?”
 

What kind of sound was this fucker making when they’re the same age?

Song Daeseok was about to spit out words like this, but when he thought that was the lunatic who saved his life, no rough words came out from his mouth.
 

“Were you perhaps born early?”
 

Was the reason because he was born 11 months earlier than the classmate, so it was long? If you nitpicked on that, you could say he was much older.

Hwang-ho indifferently answered Song Daeseok, who thought like this.
 

“Birthday? From the beginning, the family register says my birthday is on October 3rd[2].”
 

That lunatic’s birthday wasn’t particularly early.

Song Daeseok started to think it was absurd.
 

“… Okay? So you use that speech tone[3] because you’re so very old?”

“This speech tone? Hahahaha! Originally I was using a speech tone matching this appearance, but there is a punk in the same class who knows my age, so I decided to let it go.”
 

The lunatic didn’t respond even a bit to Song Daeseok’s sarcasm.
 

“Even though he overcame a life-and-death crisis a moment ago, he’s quite bold, huh? He talks even though he was poisoned and injured. Like a copy of Iron Arm in his younger days, eh?”
 

The sound of his mumbling, as if uttered to himself, reached Song Daeseok’s ears.
 

‘… There is no way I resemble the great hero in his younger days. Only our faces resemble each other.’
 

Hwang-ho was talking as if he saw his grandfather when he was young, but Song Daeseok thought that bastard was probably like that because he was a lunatic.

When the central shelter entered Song Daeseok’s field of view.

Because of the relief, strength left Song Daeseok’s body, and his vision started to rapidly turn dark.
 

“The Superpower Poison will be absorbed faster if there is a wound. You have quite an impressive spirit to endure all the way here, even with such a wound on your back, eh?”
 

He faintly heard the lunatic’s voice.

Song Daeseok was about to ask back Hwang-ho what was he talking about a moment ago, but he ended up losing his consciousness before that.
 

***
 
When making a plan for this event, I assumed there would be variables.

Because as a result of my choices, there were a lot of differences from the scenario in the game.

Kim Sinrok survived and Choe Pyeondeuk disappeared.

The person colluding with Dark Mastermind and hiding in the Player’s Association was tracked down.

Kim Yuri didn’t hold hands with Nabiryeong at the day after the final exams ended and the Gwangrim Sealing disappeared.

There was not only one person from the 1st year class 0 participating.

Besides that, there were numerous outcomes and butterfly effects scattered everywhere.
 

‘That is an outcome I didn’t want to encounter like this.’
 

The superpower wave full of murderous intent was restraining me.

Currently, I didn’t have a skill to differentiate between humans and Jin people, but was it because I met with numerous Jin people in this world?

There was no basis for it, but it was certain.

The owner of this murderous intent right now was a Jin.

The Jin’s sharp voice rang in my ears.
 

“Put down ‘that thing’ on your back.”
 

I was carrying sleeping Sawol Seeum on my back.
 

‘I presumed there would be a Jin besides the Ung aiming for Kim Sinrok. I also thought that I’d run into them, but…’
 

I ended up running into the leader of this raid.

But unlike in the plan, I wasn’t able to make Sawol Seeum take shelter and wasn’t able to join with anyone among Jeok-ho, Yong Jegeon, Kim Sinrok or Hwang Jiho.
 

*~*~*
 
[1] madness of sea god — the raws sentence could be interpreted as either the madness of sea god or the madness of sea and god

[2] October 3rd — it’s South Korea’s National Foundation Day, aka ‘Gaecheon Day’.

[3] speech tone — Hwang-ho is using a plain form here. In my current understanding, in the past it would be a form used by people of high position when speaking to people of lower status (like a king towards his subordinates). But I didn’t watch enough period drama to have a good feel for it, so I’m probably wrong somewhere x.x But to put it into perspective. It’s a tone that is quite detached and feels quite cold. But when Hwang-ho speaks to his friends or Jo Uisin, he uses a casual tone, which shows that they are quite close.
 

Translator’s note: Look at all those old (and younger) Players protecting the kids! Beautiful.
 

Did you see a mistake? 🐞


5 responses

  1. Nishicchi

    Hm. Hmm! I see. Hwangho uses a casual tone with Uisin but that kind of tone to the other kids in class?

    Ahehehe. Hehehe. Hehe.

    Thanks for the chapter, Wan <3

    1. Thanks for reading <3

  2. Livon Saffron

    Ohhhh I hope the others are able to save Uishin and Sawol. Ayo you piece of shit you better not hurt Uishin extremely badly or a lot of people and jin will be mad.

  3. Rosalyn

    The cat’s out of the bag… or tiger (yeah, dad joke)

    Uisin’s in a pickle. Hope he doesn’t faint this time around, though it seems unlikely?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *