Sinuiju Free Market (12)

Hyeonseong did not take her eyes off her opponent’s attack. Aside from his arm being covered in some rock, the attack itself was exactly the same as what she had seen so far.

‘That attack itself is easy to dodge. The problem is if he uses another skill on top of that.’

While tracing the trajectory of the attack, Hyeonseong soon stepped slightly to the side. At the same time, she quickly withdrew the pickaxe she had thrust forward.

‘If it were me, I’d use another skill here.’

The moment she made that judgment, Hyeonseong caught a strange gleam in her opponent’s eyes.

Right afterward, Hyeonseong felt her movements grow sluggish. The second skill was a debuff that inflicted Slow on the enemy.

‘Then the last one is… I can more or less guess it.’

For the last skill, Hyeonseong expected either a sudden change of direction or physical enhancement. To land the attack perfectly in this flow, adding one of those two would be the right answer.

—Whoosh—

And just as Hyeonseong expected, the direction of the arm her opponent had thrust out suddenly bent.

An abrupt change of direction that would normally be difficult, along with the faint white glow trailing behind it.

It was clearly a direction-change skill.

—Kkaang—

Her opponent’s fist and Hyeonseong’s pickaxe collided. Because she had pulled the pickaxe back before the Slow debuff took effect, she was barely able to defend in time.

‘Good, I’ve figured out his whole skill setup.’

Unless the other side intended to cheat openly, the three skills she had just identified were the end of her opponent’s kit.

‘With a combination like this… from here on, I’ll have to make sure not to leave openings if I can help it.’

Soon, the Slow debuff on Hyeonseong wore off. Hyeonseong gripped the pickaxe firmly.

The exchange continued in much the same way as before. And the longer the fight dragged on, the louder the boos from outside the arena became.

In a way, that reaction was only natural. There were not many spectators who would find a fight entertaining when it had no flashy skills, no fierce clash, and no overwhelming firepower.

Of course, from Hyeonseong’s point of view, it felt a little unfair. She was in quite a desperate situation herself, doing her utmost just to dodge and hold out.

‘Setting aside not getting hit, it’s really not easy for me to find an opening either.’

The pickaxe she swung toward the golden point on the martial uniform missed. Hyeonseong’s attempts to attack kept ending like this.

‘I don’t need some grand attack chance. I just need enough time to break his equipment or threaten a vital point…’

Hyeonseong’s gaze briefly shifted to the pocket where she had put the skill cards.

But it was still not time to use the Light Bullet skill. The timing had not yet come when she could maximize its effect.

‘I need to angle things a little more.’

Hyeonseong quickly surveyed the arena’s environment as she moved her feet. Pretending to dodge attacks, she gradually shifted direction toward the side with less light.

‘It has to look natural.’

As she slowly changed direction, Hyeonseong steadily checked her opponent’s reaction.

Fortunately, her opponent did not seem to find the gradual change in direction particularly strange. Hyeonseong had moved her position many times already while dodging attacks, so he seemed to be taking this as more of the same.

‘This spot… should be good enough?’

After moving to a relatively dim area, Hyeonseong held her ground there and exchanged a couple of attacks and defenses.

And when the tip of the pickaxe and the knuckles collided once, Hyeonseong activated the Light Bullet card.

Exactly as she intended, four Light Bullets were generated and shot toward her opponent’s face. Her opponent tried to avoid the attack by leaning his upper body backward. But what Hyeonseong intended was not a direct hit.

It was right before the Light Bullets that had flown right up to the bridge of his nose were about to collide with one another. Hyeonseong immediately shut her eyes. At the same time, a powerful flash burst even through her eyelids.

‘Got it.’

As soon as the light faded, she opened her eyes again at once and gripped the pickaxe tightly.

Then she kicked off the ground and rushed forward. Using that recoil, she swung the pickaxe with all her strength.

—Kaaang—

The pickaxe and the knuckles collided again. But this time, a different result appeared from before.

—Jjaeng—

The knuckles that had clashed with the pickaxe shattered into pieces and fell to the floor. Her opponent’s right hand was now bare. Just from the gaze visible through the eyeholes of the mask, Hyeonseong could tell that he was dumbfounded.

Taking advantage of her opponent’s shock, Hyeonseong swung the pickaxe again. The flying tip of the pickaxe aimed precisely at his temple.

“Uh…?”

A startled voice slipped from her opponent’s mouth. It seemed he had never expected this kind of situation to happen.

‘Well, I wasn’t expecting this to work in one shot either.’

But whether he had expected it or not, the match was decided. A beat late, an announcement thundered through the arena speaker saying that Hyeonseong had won.

The quest set by the Constellation was also processed as a success. Along with the Constellation’s arrogant message, the reward was paid out.

‘Then with this, I somehow filled my three consecutive wins too…’

Thinking that, Hyeonseong gave her opponent a rough greeting and tried to leave the arena.

“Hey…?”

It was just as Hyeonseong was about to speak to her opponent. She saw that his tightly clenched fist was trembling.

‘Uh… this is giving me a really bad feeling…’

She could not read his expression because of the mask, but even just from the way his fist was shaking, she could tell. He was very angry right now.

If she offered him some kind of greeting in this situation, nothing good would come of it.

‘I’d better just read the room and leave.’

Hyeonseong slowly backed away while watching her opponent’s reaction. Each time she moved one step, his gaze followed her.

Fortunately, he did not seem to intend to come after her immediately, and merely kept staring from where he stood. Once enough distance had opened between them, Hyeonseong left the arena without looking back.

‘He didn’t look in very good shape.’

As she ran quickly toward the waiting room, Hyeonseong thought. Nothing had happened immediately. But considering the way her opponent had looked at the end, there was a high chance that some kind of problem would break out soon.

‘If he just chases after me saying he can’t accept the result, that would actually be the better case. The worst case is the ones behind him deciding to flip this whole board over.’

That worst-case assumption was also entirely plausible. You could guess as much from the atmosphere from the very first attempt at contact until now.

‘No matter what, they probably don’t usually set the auction-house entry-ticket mission up like this. It wasn’t just moderately suspicious or difficult—they openly set a mission that, judging from our visible group composition, had a high chance of failure.’

But Hyeonseong’s group had succeeded at the mission the other side had wanted them to fail. From their point of view, that had to be a very unfun development.

‘…Hyeonyeong achieved it first and even got written proof, so they can’t take it back now. But if an unfortunate accident happens after the mission ends, then they no longer have to keep their promise, right?’

At least, if Hyeonseong herself did not want to hand over the entry ticket, she would target either right now, after the mission had ended, or the moment the ticket was being handed over. Those would be the moments when the other side was most likely to let their guard down.

‘And if they attack while giving the ticket, it also makes it easier for them to insist they kept the contract anyway.’

Hyeonseong soon arrived in front of the waiting room and threw the door open.

“Get ready to move, now.”

Before Hyeonyeong and Haesu could say anything, Hyeonseong spoke first.

“Huh? Why?”

Haesu asked with a bewildered face. Beside him, Hyeonyeong, as if she understood, picked up the sword she had rented.

“Because of the person who fought you last, right, unni?”

“Yeah, that’s right. You saw?”

“Before the camera pulled away. So where are we going?”

“Good question. Even if we leave, we still have to secure the entry ticket somehow.”

“Then our destination’s decided. Let’s go.”

As Hyeonyeong opened the waiting-room door, she threw out a kick with all her strength. Along with an “Ugh!” came the sound of a person’s body being hurled away.

“Eek…!”

Haesu jolted in shock at the sudden situation.

“Wow, how can they never fail to do exactly what I expect?”

Watching Hyeonyeong’s back as she beat down the attackers and opened a path, Hyeonseong clicked her tongue. There was nothing pleasing at all about this obvious prediction coming true.

“W-What in the world is going on? Why are those people after us?”

Haesu still seemed unable to understand the current situation.

“Isn’t it obvious? It means they don’t want to hand the entry ticket over to us. You remember the man back at Yeolha General Mall who told us the place where we could get the coordinates, right?”

At Hyeonseong’s question, Haesu nodded, then soon widened his eyes.

“Since back then, really?”

“Yes. They were probably weighing things from that point on. Whether they should give us the ticket, or whether they should decide not to and attack instead.”

“So they concluded they shouldn’t give it to us, and that’s why this is happening.”

“Well, yes.”

“Then what are we supposed to do…?”

“What do you mean, what do we do? I told you earlier we were taking the ticket with us, didn’t I?”

“No way…”

—Crash!

“Urgh!”

“Stop them!”

Even while Hyeonseong was answering Haesu’s question, Hyeonyeong subdued the enemies without hesitation.

Because she was swinging the sword without drawing it, no one died. But seeing the enemies sprawled on the floor with foam at the mouth, it did not look like they would come back to their senses anytime soon.

“W-Where are we supposed to get it from?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Answering Haesu briefly, Hyeonseong unfolded Infinite Corridor in front of Hyeonyeong. An arrow that flew in from afar was sucked into Infinite Corridor.

“We need to find that guy from earlier.”

It was obvious where the entry ticket was. In the pocket of the manager running this arena, or in the office the manager used.

‘It’s not like the office can run away… no, even if it does run away, if we grab that guy we saw earlier and shake him down, we’ll find it. Better yet if it comes out of him without us even needing to go all the way to the office.’

Hyeonseong’s group pushed back the enemies who kept rushing at them and escaped the waiting-room area.

“But the people who attacked us… I think some of them were the same people who were fighting matches in the arena earlier.”

Haesu said, glancing back at the path they had come through.

“That’s obvious too. Either they offered extra pay for capturing us, or they were people employed by the arena from the beginning.”

Hyeonseong was certain that not everyone who appeared in the arena matches had been pure outside participants. There was no way that things like steering the mood a certain way or match-fixing would not happen in a grimy arena like this.

‘And… the one I fought at the end was probably one of the ones employed here too. He must’ve gotten that angry because he was supposed to eliminate me as the manager ordered, but failed to beat me.’

—Puh-eong—

Hyeonyeong thrust forward the sheathed sword toward the front. The current generated with the thrust pushed back the enemies rushing toward them.

“What was that just now?”

“Uh, what’s going on over there?”

Because they had come out behind the spectator seats, onlookers who were relatively close noticed the commotion and turned their heads.

“Can you tell where that guy from earlier is?”

Without caring whether the onlookers were watching or not, Hyeonseong asked Hyeonyeong.

“He’s not around here for now.”

“Inside this arena?”

“He’s still somewhere inside.”

As she answered, Hyeonyeong swung the sword to the right. One enemy who had been aiming for a surprise attack from the side got struck in the waist by the sheath and was sent flying.

“Can you track him?”

“I found the direction.”

Hyeonyeong moved without hesitation. Hyeonseong and Haesu followed behind her.