WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Max-Level Swordsman of Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 16
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"Holy. Shit."
The man from Team 5 muttered as he stared down at Park Jinwoo's head.
At that moment.
Wham!
A powerful blow struck his side.
His body bounced off the floor and flew into the door of a parked car, leaving a deep dent in the metal.
"Gah!"
The Team 5 leader, still on the stairs, immediately raised a hand. A red glow spread across their palm.
"Kang Doseok!"
Kang Doseok walked out through the acrid smoke that had risen in an instant.
Blood dripped from the sword in his hand.
The Team 5 leader aimed their raised hand at Kang Doseok. Then,
Whoosh!
Red flames burst from their palm.
Kang Doseok simply swung his sword.
Slash!
The blade cut through the flames. Split in two, the fire scattered to either side of him.
The Team 5 leader's eyes widened. In that brief moment, Kang Doseok closed in until he was right in front of them.
Slash! Slaash!
Blood burst from both wrists and ankles.
"Aaaaagh!"
The leader's limbs went limp, their tendons severed.
Kang Doseok caught the falling leader by the face and shoved them straight into the wall.
Thud!
The back of their head slammed into the concrete.
"Gah!"
The Team 5 leader's eyes rolled back. Their body slid down the wall, both hands and feet hanging limp.
Smack!
Kang Doseok backhanded the leader across the cheek.
"Cough! Gaaagh..."
Their head snapped to the side. The Team 5 leader's chest heaved as they struggled to force out a breath.
Kang Doseok waited in silence.
A little later, the Team 5 leader caught their breath and glared fiercely at him.
"Kang Doseok. We're... Cheongmyeong. Do you think you can touch Cheongmyeong and get away with it?"
"You guild bastards really do think you're the chosen few. Spouting that shit even in a situation like this."
Kang Doseok chuckled.
His relaxed smile made the Team 5 leader's face stiffen. Their gaze shifted past Kang Doseok's shoulder.
Hundreds of cars had been sliced through in the same direction. Concrete dust poured endlessly from the smashed ceiling. In the middle of it all, Park Jinwoo's severed head rolled across the floor.
"..."
The Team 5 leader swallowed hard.
"I'm curious."
Kang Doseok rested his bloody sword on his shoulder.
"Why do you keep fucking with me? Sending people after me twice just because I took one Skill Star doesn't add up. It's not like you have anything to gain by coming after me."
He tilted his head slightly.
"So I tried doing a little thinking."
Kang Doseok slowly studied the Team 5 leader's face.
"Come to think of it, your guild leader was a swordsman."
Gulp.
The leader's throat bobbed again.
Kang Doseok caught that tiny reaction and chuckled.
"You guild bastards are always so predictable. You couldn't be any more petty."
Kang Doseok crouched in front of the fallen Team 5 leader, bringing them eye to eye.
"That eye of yours."
As he reached toward the eyeball, the leader hurriedly turned away.
"D-don't touch it!"
"Don't feel like listening."
Kang Doseok slowly grabbed the leader's hair and turned their face forward again. His rough grip forced the leader's head around.
"It seems to be standard equipment for you. All the others had one too."
He tapped the metal component embedded at the edge of the leader's right eye.
"So, what? Is it connected to some command and control room?"
Kang Doseok spoke while looking at the eye, not the Team 5 leader.
His words were meant for whoever might be watching through the eye-mounted cyberware.
"Let me show you just how far I'm willing to go."
His sword tip pointed at the man lying on the floor.
"All you Cheongmyeong people who came in here."
Kang Doseok smiled.
"I'm going to kill you. Every last one. And as soon as the storm ends, I'm coming straight to your headquarters. We can sit down and talk after I've had a little fun with my sword. You can count the dead yourself."
At that moment.
Bzzzzzt!
The metal component embedded in the Team 5 leader's right eye flashed blue.
Bzzt.
[Instead of doing that, why don't we talk now, Kang Doseok?]
An unfamiliar man's voice came from the ocular cyberware.
Kang Doseok looked at the tiny lens moving inside the eye. He could tell that someone on the other end was watching him.
"Stepping forward to talk to me yourself? Good. Saves me the trouble of coming to find you."
[Yes. Since I've opened a dialogue first, stop hurting our guild members.]
"I'll decide that after we've talked."
Thwuck!
Kang Doseok drove his sword into the fallen man's thigh.
"Aaaaaagh!"
The unconscious man screamed and writhed.
The light in the ocular cyberware flickered wildly.
[...Kang Doseok.]
Kang Doseok chuckled.
"Looks like you're some kind of Cheongmyeong officer."
He stared straight into the groaning Team 5 leader's right eye.
"State your name and position."
A brief silence followed. Then a voice came from the eyeball.
[...Kim Ryushin. Deputy guild leader of Cheongmyeong, the Korean Cooperative guild.]
The lens shifted slightly inside the metal component.
[This is the first time we've spoken like this. Good to meet you, Kang Doseok.]
"Kim Ryushin."
Kang Doseok rolled the name around in his mouth a few times.
"I've heard of you. Made it all the way to deputy guild leader at a young age, I hear."
Kang Doseok looked straight into the lens.
"There's something I want to know."
[All right. What is it?]
"Why were you having me followed?"
Kim Ryushin's voice came from the eye component.
[To determine whether you posed a threat to us. We were also considering recruiting you, if possible.]
"You tried to kill me. Doesn't that mean you'd already made up your minds?"
[No. Not at all, Kang Doseok.]
Kim Ryushin's voice was calm.
[You attacked first in the underground parking garage. Our people were only observing you, but you ambushed them.]
"That's funny."
Kang Doseok chuckled. Yes, nothing Kim Ryushin had said was wrong.
They had started following him. Kang Doseok had noticed and ambushed them.
But.
Kang Doseok brought his face closer to the right eye.
"Deputy Guild Leader. I've got something to tell you."
[What is it?]
"I know you sent Kim Hanrim to kill me."
The faint static coming from the ocular cyberware stopped.
"That's one hell of a flimsy excuse. You send a sniper to kill someone you want to recruit?"
[Kim Hanrim's actions have nothing to do with us...]
"I've already secured all the evidence. You paid the ammunition dealer Kim Hanrim uses through a few shell companies."
[......]
"Besides, even a little digging would've told you I don't join groups. You wanted to recruit me? An elementary school kid could come up with a better excuse. And..."
Kang Doseok continued.
"I met the police chief not long ago. I heard all about how you brought me up while you were entertaining the chief."
[......]
"Isn't it obvious you're trying to funnel stars to someone? While keeping me in check, too."
Star funneling.
Any player who knew this world had once been a game, and knew the conditions for obtaining stars, could think of the method.
The entire guild worked together to find the Skill Star someone needed.
Whether the star appeared after certain conditions were met or belonged to someone else, the method was much the same.
Guild members risked their lives to take down the target.
They handled all the most dangerous and difficult work. The person chosen to receive the star only had to show up at the last moment and finish the target off.
That was the star funneling that commonly took place in guilds.
"Is this round of star funneling for your guild leader?"
Kang Doseok knew who led Cheongmyeong.
Few players who had survived for a long time would be unfamiliar with that name.
The leader of the first-generation guild Cheongmyeong.
Kim Taegun, the Crimson Flame Sword Saint.
A swordsman said to turn battlefields to ash with a blazing sword.
"Once Shabel's Storm passes, Kairos Biofields' closed laboratory will be exposed aboveground. You must know there are sword-related Skill Stars in there too."
Kang Doseok tapped the ocular cyberware with a finger.
"You tried to get rid of me beforehand because you didn't want me taking them from you."
He smiled.
"Because you aren't confident you can beat me."
[......]
A long silence followed.
There was no denial or argument. That silence itself was an admission, and Cheongmyeong's answer.
"It's always obvious what you guild bastards are thinking."
Kang Doseok moved the tip of his sword sideways.
Shhk.
Still buried in the fallen man's thigh, the blade slowly moved to the side.
"Aaaaaagh!"
A piercing scream echoed through the underground parking garage.
"Pay the price for what you've done."
[...What do you want?]
"Now we're finally getting somewhere."
Kang Doseok pulled out his sword.
Blood gushed onto the floor.
"Shall we start negotiating?"
He wiped the blood from his sword on the Team 5 leader's clothes.
"When I went to get that Skill Star last time, your werewolf stood in my way. That animal stink put me in a bad mood. Three billion."
He folded down one finger.
"For getting someone to snoop into my movements and personal details without my permission. Five billion."
A second finger folded down.
"For hiring Kim Hanrim to kill me. Twenty billion."
Kang Doseok's eyes shifted for a moment as though he were doing the math.
"You shot up the area outside my home and even blew up a building, wasting an entire day. Another ten billion."
[...You were the one who blew up the building...]
"These people here."
Kang Doseok pointed in turn at the blood-soaked Team 5 leader and the man lying on the floor.
"The price for sparing their lives instead of killing them. Ten billion."
The lens inside the metal component trembled slightly.
Kang Doseok folded down his last finger.
"And ten billion for emotional distress."
He unfolded all his fingers as he added it up. Once he had finished, he looked straight into the ocular cyberware.
"I am formally billing Cheongmyeong a total of fifty-eight billion relic."
No answer came for some time. The tiny lens inside the ocular cyberware flickered briefly.
After a long silence, a voice came from the eye.
[And if I refuse?]
Kang Doseok smiled at that.
He answered.
"I'll kill you."
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