WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Seven-Time Hero Goes Live ◈
Chapter 16: Mana Punch (1)
──────
On the outskirts of a villa complex in Myeonmok-dong.
The boy clearing goblins with ice magic was Seo Jin-seo.
Seo Jin-seo, a name that read the same backward.
He had just had an absurd experience.
‘He killed them all... with melee attacks?’
A strange masked man had passed through here earlier.
It looked like he was walking into a death trap, so Seo Jin-seo had tried to stop him.
Instead, every goblin that charged at him had died.
‘I only caught a glimpse, but they were all melee attacks.’
A truck had passed by, so he had not seen clearly, but it had certainly seemed that the man had swung a weapon glowing blue.
‘I heard melee classes can barely fight...’
Seo Jin-seo used the Gaksalbeop community too, so he already knew plenty about this.
They said melee classes could barely hunt unless they formed proper parties.
Maybe they would all fail this Awakening Maintenance Quest.
But then what had he just seen?
‘Then who was that... Could he be?’
It was only a community rumor.
But there was supposedly one person who had killed goblins in close combat.
Someone who had nearly wiped them out.
‘The Goblin Slayer?’
Thinking that, Seo Jin-seo hurried after him.
“E-excuse me! Hyung!”
Tap tap tap tap!
He thought he ran pretty fast.
“Huh?”
But the man had vanished.
“What the...?”
Then it happened.
Bump.
A tall man came up behind him and bumped into him.
“Let me ask you something.”
Why was it?
Seo Jin-seo felt something hot coming from this person and unconsciously took several steps back.
“Ah... Okay.”
He was huge.
Was he nearly six foot three?
He was a little scary too.
Then the man spoke.
“Is this the place posted on Gaksalbeop?”
He was a Gaksalbeop user.
The world really had changed a lot.
He did not look like someone who would use a community site at all.
“Y-yes, that's right. Are you going in?”
“Yeah. I have to.”
Crack.
The man casually rolled his wrists.
It was a talent of its own to speak so casually about walking into a death trap.
Was that confidence because of...?
“Are you, um... S-rank?”
Seo Jin-seo cautiously asked his rank.
“Huh?”
The man looked down at him as if asking what he meant.
“Ah, I mean your rank. Someone said an S-rank was coming to save us...”
“Oh. That?”
The man grinned, showing white teeth.
His eyes looked fierce, but his smile had a boyish mischief to it.
“Rank is just a number.”
“...What?”
“What matters is the desire to save people. Right?”
Tap.
The man lightly thumped Seo Jin-seo's chest as he said something that sounded like it belonged in a public service announcement.
Then he ran off toward the goblin horde.
Seo Jin-seo blankly watched him go and muttered.
“Ranks are letters, though...”
He rubbed his chest.
“Damn... That hurt.”
* * *
Narrow alleyways, red-brick villas, cars packed into every open corner.
It was the kind of villa neighborhood commonly found on the edge of the city.
On the rooftop unit of one building, a man screamed at the top of his lungs.
“S-save meee!”
He had good reason to.
The ground below was packed with goblins.
“Skreeee! Skree!”
“Skree! Skree!”
The goblins gathered as if the place had been coated in honey. More kept appearing from somewhere, and their numbers seemed to keep growing.
There were already hundreds. It looked like they might even pass a thousand.
Bang! Bang!
The goblins repeatedly rammed the entrance to the villa where the man was trapped, making threatening noises.
“Skreeee!”
The man in the rooftop unit muttered in panic.
“When the hell are they coming?”
He had already called 119 and 112 several times.
There had been no response at all.
They had no way to deal with this.
Only Awakeners could use their abilities to fight goblins.
The police and firefighters' old manuals were useless against them.
That was why he had posted a rescue request on the Gaksalbeop community.
It had been a very good choice.
Many people had replied right away, and a Good Samaritan with S potential had appeared.
“I'm starving to death by now...!”
Maybe he had been unable to leave because of the goblins for a long time.
The man looked like he was losing his mind.
Then...
‘Huh?’
Fwoooosh!
Red flames rose through the goblin horde.
“Skreeee!”
“Gehk!”
Several goblins burned to death in an instant.
“O-oh... You're here!”
The man on the rooftop rushed to the railing, eyes wide.
As the massive flames died down, a man stood at their center.
His clothes were torn in several places.
“Are you the S-rank? The one who commented!”
The man could not answer.
Goblins charged him and wildly swung their blades.
Slash!
But he failed to dodge and was wounded.
‘What? He couldn't even dodge that?’
The gash was large enough to see from here.
Bright red blood should have poured out.
But it did not.
Red flames rose in place of blood.
Fwoooosh!
‘W-what is that? A fire person?’
The flames wrapped around his entire body and gathered in his fist.
Then the man threw it forward.
KABOOOM!
An even stronger blast of fire shot out.
“Gehk!?”
“Kek...!”
The flames exploded, turning more than ten goblins into black ash.
An enormous wave of heat rushed up to the roof.
The rooftop man's hair fluttered in the hot wind.
His eyes widened.
“Wow... Holy shit.”
Excited, he ran to the railing and leaned over it.
“Excuse me! Sir! What rank are you!? Your rank!”
Only then did the man wreathed in flames look his way.
“Were you the one who requested rescue?”
“Y-yes! Please break through to here!”
“What's your main skill?”
Main skill.
Every Awakener had a skill they used as their main one.
It was a kind of unique ability.
Of course, F-ranks did not have one.
“I...”
The man hesitated.
“It's too pathetic to say! It won't help at all! That's why I'm trapped here!”
Boom!
As the man wreathed in flames drove back the goblins again, he shouted.
“Then I'll break through to you! Stay where you are!”
As soon as he said that, cries came from other buildings.
“S-save us! We're here too! Please!”
“...Huh?”
People who had not dared to call out because they feared drawing the goblins' attention.
There was even a mother and baby.
“T-there's a child here! A child!”
“Me too! Sob! Mister, save me!”
“What... There are more people? No one said anything about that.”
There were still so many people here.
Even while fighting the goblins, the man wreathed in flames looked around for more people who needed rescue.
‘Can I handle this alone?’
This was too much for one person to rescue.
Then...
“Is this the place!?”
“Break through!”
KABOOOM!
An Awakener party appeared from the other side.
“Power leveling! Fuck!”
Everyone except one of them was a mage.
One person blocked the goblins with a shield at the front while the mages behind them fired spells without pause.
“Reinforcements.”
The man wrapped in flames joined the fight again, knocking down goblins.
Boom!
The goblins were pushed back faster than expected.
“W-wow... Thank goodness!”
“Oh, thank God.”
The citizens trapped in different villas cried out in relief.
“Slowly! Slowly! Trust the tank! One at a time! Take turns firing! Never stop the barrage!”
“Yes, sir!”
One side advanced like a trained raid party, working perfectly together.
The other broke through with overwhelming individual firepower and momentum.
-But what the hell is Moon Jun-il doing? lol
-Why is he just watching?
-Huh?
-What is he doing?
Moon Jun-il, who had entered first, was nowhere in their sight.
‘Hmm...’
Surprisingly, he was hiding atop the tallest villa, doing nothing but watching the situation below.
It was quite unlike his usual attention-seeking behavior.
-Is he a war correspondent? lol
-Why isn't he showing off for once?
-Then why is he even wearing a mask?
-What is he doing?
The Constellations seemed to have expected him to wipe out the goblins in spectacular fashion.
‘I thought I would too.’
Jun-il had thought so as well.
Until he saw the goblins' behavior here.
‘This isn't normal.’
The goblins were acting strangely, and there was also the Hidden Quest that had appeared for him.
Something else was behind this.
The objective was to rescue the VIP.
But who here could that be?
The man in the rooftop unit who had first sent the rescue request?
Or the child and mother in the semi-basement apartment across the way?
The high school-aged brother and sister on the second floor beside them?
There was no way to know.
But Jun-il did know one thing.
The goblins' behavior was completely abnormal.
They seemed busy.
But they had no real intention of attacking the people inside these homes.
With this many goblins, they should have climbed into that semi-basement apartment, and even the rooftop unit by now.
Yet everyone was still alive.
After coming up high and looking down, he was even more certain.
‘Now then... who is it?’
Someone was controlling this.
Only a Goblin King or a Dark Mage type could do something like this.
But if a Goblin King were nearby, it would definitely make its presence known.
Monsters steeped in demonic energy did not bother hiding if they had power.
They displayed their command directly and flaunted it.
That was the monster way.
A commander hiding behind the scenes like this was...
‘A Dark Mage.’
That was a Dark Mage's way.
* * *
Ram and Sam watched the screen.
They chuckled excitedly.
“Everyone else is bound to take the bait here.”
The Goblin Swarm Event they had prepared with great ambition.
But simply clearing out a horde of goblins would be too boring, would it not?
There was a trick to this.
But most people would not notice it.
“Most Awakeners are desperate to level up, so they'll be obsessed with killing goblins.”
Awakeners would lose their powers if they could not level up quickly.
If they could kill a lot of goblins right now, they would not question anything.
“Humans don't think much when things are going the way they want. Kihihi.”
They would only think there were too many goblins and that it was difficult.
They would not question the situation itself.
“But Hae-il is different.”
Kang Hae-il, however, was different.
Was it because he was smart?
Well, that would have been nice, but... no.
It was because of his special Class.
[Class: Flame of Conviction]
A Class granted as a proper noun.
Its ability was as follows.
==== ====
The inheritor inherits the power of the mythical “Flame of Conviction.”
When the inheritor wishes, flames envelop their entire body, granting explosive force to every part of it.
The more damage the inheritor takes, the stronger the flames become. If their conviction does not break, there is no limit.
The inheritor can instinctively recognize those who oppose their conviction and becomes stronger when facing them.
==== ====
The last line was important.
“Can instinctively recognize those who oppose their conviction...”
This had been Ram's work.
Sam, their assistant, had written the ability's details, of course.
Still...
“With this, he can't help but figure it out.”
“Exactly. Especially because Kang Hae-il has it.”
Kang Hae-il possessed upright, powerful convictions that could not be found in this era, no, in this dimension.
Those convictions seemed like they would never waver under any circumstances.
And he could recognize anyone who went against them at a glance?
Then he had no choice but to break through this situation immediately.
“L-look! Hae-il! Our Hae-il noticed!”
Sam excitedly pointed at the monitor.
The skill Sam had stayed up all night making in Ram's place was finally about to shine.
[What is that...? Something feels strange.]
Kang Hae-il had met the eyes of the man on the roof and muttered those words.
-Huh?
-For real???
-You're the strange one, Hae-il...
-Why?
-He's a total idiot. Why is he acting like he noticed something?
The Constellations watching Hae-il were skeptical.
But they would soon find out.
“Kihihi. Watch closely.”
Now Kang Hae-il would climb up to the rooftop and punch that guy in the face, revealing the Dark Mage's true identity...
“Huh?”
Ram's eyes widened.
“Ah...?”
Sam froze as well.
Flash!
A black silhouette shot through the air and landed atop the rooftop unit.
“W-what the fuck!?”
Ram's face twisted viciously.
“It's Yulian!?”
Yulian.
He had made the first move.
And was he not saying this?
[Hey. Dark Mage.]
-?
-Huh?
-Dark Mage?
-Damn.
-What?
“Ahhh! Don't spoil it!”
No matter how loudly Ram screamed here, Yulian up there could not hear them.
Footnotes:
Seo Jin-seo's Korean name is a palindrome, which is why the narration notes that it reads the same backward.
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