The Second Step, Reverse Scale

After a long wait, the main gate of the Rebound Legion House opened, and Naruan, Hugo, and Shumix climbed into the carriage.

Even on the short ride, Naruan’s chirping laughter rang out several times, lifting the whole party’s spirits.

A continent-born onlooker watched Naruan’s bright demeanor from afar and waved the departing carriage off with a proud smile.

Opposite them, on the road where Kim Han’s mansion gate could be seen, stood a teahouse.

A smiling man watched the carriage drive away. But his smile wasn’t contentment; it was a killing grin, faintly tainted with blood.

The teahouse owner, who had caught only a glimpse, tilted his head in puzzlement, but the man had already left, and the owner couldn’t pursue his suspicion.

At that moment, a man whose muscles twitched—big enough to be mistaken for a giant—clutched his bald head and groaned.

Accidents happen in unintended situations. Representative Lajo had absolutely not intended this one. It was an accident.

It began trivially, like a joke—drunken bravado at a drinking table. Yet, surprisingly, the reaction wasn’t bad.

People gradually gathered, and the number of representatives secretly offering support easily exceeded three hundred.

Only then did he realize he’d painted himself into a corner: he had to make it succeed to save his own skin. It was a belated realization.

Before he knew it, he had become the leader of a group and was leading the ‘accident’ he’d caused. The only saving grace was that someone existed to assist his sloppy plan.

“They’re moving out?”

“Yeah. Apparently one rookie, one kid, and a single knight who looked like a bodyguard.”

“That’s consistent with the target we had in mind.”

“Right.”

Lajo stood and ‘ordered’ everyone to assemble at the agreed point. The squad-level representatives moved in unison.

Forgetting his earlier headache, he held back a laugh as he imagined more than five hundred representatives moving at his command when this was over.

The carriage carrying Shumix’s party crossed the square heading west.

Then someone blocked them.

A continent-born in shabby clothes. A child.

The boy knelt before the halted carriage, pressed his forehead to the ground, and wailed for his life.

The embarrassed coachman explained the situation, and Hugo stepped out.

“What’s wrong?”

His voice was gentle and his expression warm—uncharacteristically calm for the usually boisterous Hugo.

“Sob sob… P-please save my mom and dad. The Messenger, the Messenger… says he’ll kill them.”

Hugo couldn’t hide his disbelief.

So despite Kim Han’s warning, representatives in Exorsus were still harassing continent-born people? In broad daylight?

“Where?”

“Over, over there.”

The boy pointed to the southern avenue.

Hugo tried to put the boy in the carriage to move him, but the boy refused and instead sat beside the coachman, offering to guide them.

He crossed his arms as if cold, tucked a hand into his coat, then pulled it out again.

While the carriage moved, Hugo announced the situation to the entire legion on the group channel.

Strangely, none of the members replied, but in the urgency he had no time to ponder that.

The carriage sped off and stopped before a shabby house on the mercenary street to the south.

Naruan and Hugo hurried out and rushed forward following the boy’s guidance.

But Shumix hesitated, sensing something odd, and couldn’t easily get out. They tilted their head.

“Shumix?”

Though Hugo called, Shumix kept tilting their head, then closed their eyes and muttered; their expression changed abruptly.

At that moment, the boy who had been watching anxiously shouted, his voice echoing down the alley.

“We’re spotted!! Start!”

“…Seal!!”

At once, the flow of divine power shifted dramatically. The once free, proud current of magic became fixed, and a suffocating pressure settled over the three.

Naruan’s face didn’t change, but Hugo turned a grave look toward Shumix.

“Shumix?”

“It’s a trap. Communications probably won’t work either.”

“Damn!”

Unlike the other two, Naruan was utterly relaxed.

As always, she pulled ‘True Flame’ from her magic pouch.

“Why so serious? Just kill them all.”

Perhaps because she was a squad leader, Naruan, unusually composed, summed up the situation neatly.

Hugo snorted at her words.

Shumix, as if their training had not been in vain, began chanting spells around the carriage and drew a talisman from their pocket.

“Right. I’ll protect Shumix, so Naruan, you go rip them apart.”

“Okay.”

They decided instantly.

As Naruan stomped the ground, Shumix’s talisman flew into the sky.

“Deadly Force!!”

The talismans shot toward the roughly twenty representatives that had appeared.

Then it immediately became clear why her skill was called ‘Deadly Force’ rather than ‘Kill.’ Ordinary attacks missed. Magic misfired. It felt as if inexplicable misfortune had been seeded in them.

As the situation unfolded, Hugo—the defender—grew more flustered than the attackers.

In less than an hour, exactly twenty-seven representatives—mages and warriors—were turned into cold corpses, their hearts offered into the three people’s hands.

Smiling as innocently as if she’d just jogged through a pleasant park, Naruan quickly excised the hearts, divided them into three equal parts, and ‘absorbed’ them.

Her face, already perpetually smiling, took on an even more childlike grin.

“Gyaa!!”

Just as Naruan was about to return to the carriage, a piercing cry from the Purple Dragon in her arms rang out. Strangely, Naruan’s expression, which had been fixed on the Purple Dragon, turned cold.

“Hugo.”

“Yeah?”

Hugo looked at her in puzzlement at the deep, low voice from Naruan he had never heard before.

“You know that thing the leader taught? Sending an emergency signal with the cloak.”

“Huh? Ah… yeah. Why? …Damn!”

Hugo cursed and hurriedly took off his cloak.

Shumix’s face stiffened, Naruan tightened her grip on her True Flame, and a Ja-ryong rose above their heads.

Beyond the twenty or so corpses, on roofs, walls, and around the alley, an endless procession of people advanced.

At the very front, a large man appeared, wearing a triumphant, vile grin.

“Kuhahaha, Rebound rookies. I am…!”

Before Lajo could finish the grand line he’d rehearsed for three days, Hugo—having removed his cloak—activated it as Kim Han had taught, and a brown pillar of light shot into the sky over Exorsus.

“Damn! Hit, hit! Kill them! Tell them to kill!!”

“Whoa!!”

“Die!!”

Watching hundreds of representatives charge with murderous intent, Naruan said softly to Hugo.

“Hugo, hold. Shumix, stay behind Hugo as long as you can. Just hold on. Then the leader will come. Ja-ryong, you… run!”

The Rebound Legion House filled with screams and shouts again today. The intensity swept even complacent mages into a training craze.

Members who joined late trained more fiercely and held nothing back.

Yet, as if on cue, the movements of all the legion members engrossed in training came to a halt.

The cloak’s built-in emergency signal and location-tracking function had activated; a magical alarm rang for every representative wearing a cloak.

“Who the hell’s pulling a prank this time?!”

No one was singled out, but every gaze turned to Merus.

Previously, Merus had tinkered with a cloak to check some mechanism and caused a big commotion.

“N-no! This time it’s not me!”

Merus turned and showed his cloak was intact.

One by one they checked their cloaks and found nothing wrong. Only then did they realize Naruan and Hugo were absent.

“Try contacting Hugo.”

If it was Hugo or Naruan… Kim Han appeared and had Lee Hyo-ju check it with tentative understanding.

In the brief moment she pulled out the comms device without a word, the Rebound Legion members who saw Kim Han’s grim face felt an ominous chill run down their spines.

A tide of people—no, a tide of formidable representatives—advanced. Hundreds pressed forward, and the pressure was immense. It felt like trying to hold back a wave with human strength.

Hugo swallowed hard, tense without realizing it.

Naruan’s cute voice sounded clearly in his ear.

“Don’t be nervous! Kim Hanii—no, our leader’s not even half that strong. Not to mention Talis and Bioss. You’ve weathered attacks from monsters like them countless times. Just block them. I’ll do the attacking.”

“…Tch. Who does this brat think she’s talking to!”

Hugo retorted at Naruan’s brazen advice, then checked the human tide again. This time, unlike before, it felt hardly intimidating.

They streamed in chaotically, unable to form proper ranks. A snort of laughter escaped Hugo.

As Naruan had said, holding off a single Kim Han would be far harder.

“Tears of the Iron Wall.”

At Hugo’s mournful command, the shield he held began to vibrate irregularly.

With the vibration, force oscillated and spread. There was no wave of light like when they faced the Shade Knight earlier, but a milky barrier formed, covering Naruan, Hugo, and Shumix.

Even though the defense held, Hugo didn’t move. As the representatives drew near, he dropped to one knee and poured more force into the shield.

“Lament of the Iron Wall.”

Vuuum— Vuuumvuu— Vuuuuum—

With Hugo’s whispered words, the shield vibrated louder.

Around them, the milky veil pulsed as if breathing, expanding and contracting into a white membrane.

Krooang—! Boom—! Krooang—!

“Aagh!”

“Ack!”

“Gah!”

Ten or so attackers struck the breathing membrane at once and were repelled, spurting blood and flying backward with screams.

One would expect Hugo to be in trouble after so many attacks, yet his face remained calm.

Those foolish enough to enter within range of Naruan’s long side attacks had their throats sliced before they realized what hit them as a flaming scythe passed.

“…Possession.”

At that moment, an intensity rose from Shumix that made Naruan hesitate mid-rampage. Even the charging representatives flinched.

Only Hugo held his stance.

“Hmm… Indeed, even the air is different from the Underworld. I haven’t called in a while… Why are these trash people spouting murderous intent and making a fuss! You bastards! Have you ever heard the sound of the wind crying?”

To whom was she speaking? From the androgynous, graceful Shumix came the neutral-toned voice of a man.

She raised both arms and clapped her palms together.

Whoooooom— whoooooom—

The wind danced, making a strange, wailing sound as it passed through the narrow space.

The raging wind became a vortex, lifting clustered representatives into the sky and dropping them far away.

“When the wind cries, fire dances, the earth grieves, and the water goes mad. Child, therefore do not make the wind cry.”

Was she mad? Naruan flinched and stepped back at Shumix’s strange words.

Her mouth soon fell open at the sight before her.

Just as it had sounded mad, the wind raged, lifting and scattering the representatives, and flames sprang up within that gale.

As the ground trembled and attackers toppled, water—of unknown source—poured down like a waterfall.

The more incomprehensible phenomenon was that the falling water did not flow away but rose and fell in place, trapping the representatives and drowning them.

“Madness! What is this… Kill that bitch!!”

At Lajo’s shout, the representatives who had barely recovered glittered with murderous intent and battered the milky barrier with renewed vigor.

Seeing that, Naruan spat and burst out beyond the shield.

An enemy who’d been inside the sturdy shield rushed out. Naturally, most of the representatives’ gazes fixed on Naruan.

Even so, they couldn’t understand why this tiny, threatening girl had leapt out—until a moment later, when Shumix, wielding a strange harmony of wondrous arts, lost consciousness and fell.

Naruan’s talent, Struggle, shone. She slashed, stabbed, and smashed with the flats of her side blades. Her swift movements were beautiful and lethal.

But overwhelming numbers win out. One by one, wounds began to appear on Naruan’s body.

Hugo, carrying the unconscious Shumix on his shoulder, approached Naruan slowly, hot tears streaming down his face.

A lightning spell swept across Naruan’s side and the small body staggered. The color of Hugo’s tears turned red.

Staggering, Naruan braced her hands on the ground and sprang up like a spring, charging back into the enemy lines.

She cut down five more representatives, then rolled on the ground with a thigh wound deep enough to show bone.

“Naaruaaaaan—!!”

Kooong—

A monster not meant for Exorsus appeared above them: a dragon. An enormous one, seemingly adult-class.

The flustered representatives, trusting their numbers, began to attack the unheard-of purple dragon.

Brilliant magic and sword energy struck the Ja-ryong’s body, cutting it here and there, but the Ja-ryong took every blow while clutching Naruan tightly.

Hugo, eyes weeping blood, maintained the milky protective barrier as he approached Naruan.

Naruan, cradled in the Ja-ryong’s embrace and repeating the same words, changed what she said.

“The leader… will… definitely… hehe. You… are… now… dead.”

Perhaps it was Naruan’s oddly cheerful smile and vacant gaze; the representatives who had been gleefully attacking the Ja-ryong turned to where she looked.

Hugo’s gaze shifted there as well.

“…Th-that’s an enemy reserve!”

“I-it’s Mr. Kim Han!”

“Mr. Kim Han!”

Where everyone’s eyes converged, a man in black leather armor and a red cloak—Kim Han—stood as if stepping on the air, looking down at the representatives.

Kim Han ignored the surprised crowd and the tearful Hugo, who had collapsed to his knees repeating “Naruan… Naruan…” weakly.

Slowly descending through the air, he ignored the surrounding chaos and walked straight toward Naruan.

“Good job.”

“…Heh, heh. …I’m tired, leader.”

“You did well. Take a nap and you’ll feel better when you wake.”

“…Yeah.”

Naruan’s body turned to light and vanished.

At the same time, Kim Han’s surge of energy rose as if to pierce the Exorsus sky, forming an ascending black dragon.

“Struggle with all your might.”