Arena - Chapter 101

As expected, Chairman Han Mang-young’s treatment was finished after 20 days. Taking into account how long it took to treat Chairman Park Jin-seong, I had figured 20 days would be plenty of time.

Chairman Han Man-young must have been satisfied too because I didn’t hear any complaints from his end either.

The important thing for me now was not healing someone else.

Chinese examinees are making a play for me.

They may use dirty tactics, first off I requested aid from Chairman Park Jin-seong.

“I need to ensure the safety of my family.”

-I’ll leave it to my chief secretary.

After talking to the 3rd office chief secretary Lee Jung-shik, my mom, noona, and Hyun-ji were all going to have a person tailing them to keep an eye out for any trouble.

On the off chance that something bad does happen to my family, I would be notified immediately and other examinees aligned with Jin-seong group would come to help as well.

‘For now this should be plenty.’

This was as much as I could do. After this, the problem was up to me.

I had some level of confidence.

The Chinese bastards are bound to look down on me because I’m a 6th turn examinee.

But I have intermediate spirit summons and an absurdly powerful gun shooting ability.

With this much, I can fend off an attack from the average middle level examinee.

As long as I’m not unexpectedly ambushed and am prepared to counterattack, I can reverse the situation and be the one to beat the corrupt examinees.

Any time I was out, I summoned Sylph and kept her hidden.

Sylph always looked in all directions and kept an eye on me to see if anyone was following me every second.

‘If I can check it from my end first, it would give me a great advantage.’

Because it was possible for me to shoot.

As long as I discover the enemy first, I can beat the other one and begin the fight.

Betting on that scheme, I purposely went out every evening.

I went to dark and unpopulated areas so that the bastards would have a lot of good opportunities to approach me.

***

“I wonder if there is a need to be this careful.”

“If we want to take care of it discretely then there’s no other way.”

Two middle aged men were conversing in Chinese.

They were sitting at a window seat in a café and were looking at a big condominium across the street.

“If we can’t take care of it quietly, it gets complicated. Since this isn’t China.”

Chinese examinees had a bad reputation for doing all kinds of things for making money.

But the place that they could do whatever was only in China.

From the moment they left China, they hid their identity as examinees and had to move about quietly.

Because to the foreign examinees, corrupt examinees like themselves were a good target for karma hunting.

When you killed a corrupt examinee, the corrupt examinee’s minus karma returned to you as plus karma.

At the very least you could gain the karma equal to clearing one or two exams!

To examinees, there was no hunting target as lucrative as this.

Because of that, the Chinese examinees had to take extra care to hide their identities and move in secret.

It’s just better not to step foot on foreign soil.

But this time the circumstances were different.

The target this time was the goose that lays the golden egg. A target absolutely worthy of the risk……

“Even so, didn’t they say the target is just a mere 6th turn examinee?”

“That’s why the two of us came. After we capture him without killing him, stowing away and escaping isn’t an easy thing to do.”

“That is true.”

“We can’t let our guard down. He has spirit summons and guns.”

“It’s just a gun.”

The short and skinny examinee smirked.

The examinee with a bulging belly reprimanded him for it.

“According to the information we were given, using spirits he has a 100% accuracy rate with his guns. You might not have any worries but I have to be careful.”

The two were teammates that worked together in the Arena.

Starting from the 2nd exam, only the two of them had survived and now their harmony was perfectly in-sync.

“We can just go with our normal routine. I will be the bait that is obviously following him around to get his attention and you can use that time to approach him from his blind spot.”

“It’s going to be difficult to try and not kill him. It limits the poisons we can use.”

The reason these two haven’t died and survived to the 21st exam was because of their individual strengths.

The short examinee had a steel like body along with a defense skill.

The fat examinee could move about without making a sound and a poison kill skill.

Because of that, even though all their other teammates died, these two ultimately survived and became veterans.

Of course, they did give up on the exams after the 17th turn, but surviving to the 21st turn was an incredibly difficult thing to do.

“He’s out.”

Said the fat examinee.

Looking out the window, their target was indeed standing outside the studio apartment. The 6th examinee Korean, Kim Hyun-ho.

“It’s good we didn’t have to wait long. Let’s go.”

The two got up from their seats.

They came out the café and followed Kim Hyun-ho from a far distance.

***

‘There they are.’

Sylph had identified the two examinees. Using her special communion skill, she delivered an image of the two to me.

The greatest point of the intermediate spirit summons was this communion.

As if sending an image file through messenger, it was possible to personally give me a simple image straight to mind.

Before, the veteran elf warrior Cob showed a communion skill similar to that with his own Sylph.

Of course, I was now an intermediate level 1 so it is impossible to freely communicate with Sylph the way Cob did.

The spirits can send me images but I couldn’t send images to the spirits.

I think it’ll become better as the level increases.

Anyway, the images of the two examinees was planted in my mind. Their short hairstyle and looks and clothing, they’re Chinese for sure.

‘I’ll lead them to a good spot for a fight.’

A spot good for fighting was definitely the mountain.

All this time I had done my exams in forests and mountains so that environment was geographically familiar to me.

Not only that, I could feel the power of nature from the mountain much more strongly than I could in the city.

I got a taxi on the street.

“Please take me to Wonmi Mountain.”

“Shall I drop you off at the museum?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

The taxi driver answered energetically and departed.

Sylph SENT me an image of the two middle-aged men getting into a taxi. As expected, they’re following me.

We drove for about 15 minutes. I got off at the city library halfway up the mountain.

Starting from there, I began to go up.

I looked behind me for a second and I could see the two middle-aged men getting out of their taxi that arrived a bit later.

‘They’re moving about so obviously.’

I can’t see a hint of stealth. It just looks like they’re out here on a hike.

Even though it is 2 to 1, this was the reason I chose to fight.

They were just sitting there chatting in broad daylight in the café across the apartment.

‘They’re corrupt examinees.’

If they were examinees clearing their exams, they wouldn’t have lost their tensions and caution.

It made me think that they were examinees that had given up on the exams a long time ago and instead started focusing on the safe work of collecting majeong.

But they have still passed a lot of exams which was why they there underestimating me, a 6th turn examinee.

This was a chance.

‘I’ll get you both and take your karma.’

A corrupt examinees minus karma would become a sweet plus karma for me.

There was no reason to lose such a great chance to gain so much karma.

Sylph, who had been watching them, sent me another image.

The short one was coming up the mountain trail behind me.

And the fat one was moving through the mountainside.

There was no need to overthink this. I could guess their attack pattern.

‘The short one will try to get my attention and then using that distraction, the decisive blow will be from that ajusshi with the belly.’

Unlike how they appeared, the one that seemed confident in defense was the short one.

Even knowing that I use guns, he follows without any fear or hesitation. It means he’s not scared of getting hit with bullets!

‘It means he has something that makes his body like steel or something of that sort.’

On the other side, the fat man seemed to be the one with the better attack skill.

These two men probably use this pattern when hunting for majeong.

‘That means the one I have to go after first is the fat one.’

Unlike the short man, if the fat one is shot with bullets, he won’t be safe.

Dusk was setting which was why perhaps no one was on the Wonmi mountain trail. There was no one I could see in the area so I figured the fight could start now.

“Sylph, Kasa.”

-Meow.

-Bark!

Sylph and Kasa showed themselves.

I summoned my Mosin-Nagant and handed it to Sylph and said.

“First, I’m going to attack that short man. Then the fat one will use that as an opportunity to try and attack me. At that time, you two shoot at him.”

The spirits nodded their heads and disappeared into the mountain.

I took out the two Neilson H2 guns and held one in each hand and dove into the mountain to find and attack the short one.

‘Here we go!’

I had been hiding behind a tree and as the short one approached closer and closer, I suddenly lunged forward while dual wielding my guns.

“……!”

Taang-

Without hesitation, I pulled the triggers. Thanks to the shooting skill, within a 10 meters distance, my accuracy was 100%.

“Kuk!”

The short man was hit with the bullets and stumbled.

But then that’s it. As expected, even after being hit with the bullets, his body was strong enough to withstand it.

He reached out with both hands and shouted something in Chinese. As he did so, a large square shield and long sword appear.

And that wasn’t all.

Pa pat!

Gloves, helmet, armor, boots, he was heavily armed in gold colored armor from head to toe! His whole body was covered in armor and then there was still the shield.

A defense reminiscence of a steel tub. He probably had a couple more skills that increased his defense.

‘Definitely not an opponent that I can finish off quickly.’

The one that needs to be taken care of first was the fat one.

The short man smiled and then attacked me.

Boong!

The long sword was flung in all directions.

It’s just a simple attack. I easily took a step back to avoid it.

He continued to come at me while flinging his sword around and I swiftly shifted left and right and dodged them all.

‘Is this all?’

It’s an attack that was far crappier than I expected and it actually flustered me.

With my double guns, I aimed and shot at his forehead and shoulders.

Then, something incredible happened.

Ta tang – Ddaang, ddang!

At incredible speeds the square shield moved and caused the two bullets to ricochet away.

‘What is this, this speed?’

The shield moved so fast that is was nearly impossible to see with the naked eye.

‘A skill.’

Probably a skill attacked to using the shield.

Like my shooting skill that boasts a 100% accuracy. He too has a 100% accuracy skill for his shield.

But a 100% defense skill doesn’t make sense. If that’s possible, that means this man is unbeatable.

There has to be some weak point hiding somewhere.

For now, I tried to continually attack with the guns. And every time I did, the square shield instantly moved to ricochet the bullets off.

But then.

Sylph sent a certain image into my mind via the communion.

It was a scene, the fat man was aiming at my back from behind me.

And at the same time.

“Cha ha!”

Paat!

From behind me, the fat man jumped out and onto me.

Sylph sent me the warning so I threw my body out of the way to the left.

When the fat man reached out both his hands, a green murky smoke covered me.

At the same time, from the fat man’s head, blood exploded out like a fountain. Sylph and Kasa had hit their mark.

‘Success!’

But at the same time I couldn’t feel a sense of accomplishment. The second I breathed in the green smoke, a breath stopping pain swept over me.

A pain like my throat was burning!

I recalled the time we did the CBR training in the army.

‘Poison?!’