Final Exam (5)

Jin Seon-ung, a B-rank sorcerer currently working as a freelancer—that is, a mercenary—not affiliated with any guild in the industry, considered himself a pretty successful case, even if the image wasn't always the best.

He had a certain level of recognition in the mercenary world, and, in fact, was skilled enough to join any guild he wished if he ever decided to do so.

Especially since his signature sorcery, the 'Domain Sorcery', while supportive, was such a great asset to any team of sorcerers that he was one of the most sought-after mercenaries wherever he went.

So then, why did someone as successful as him take a job that, by all appearances, seemed shady from the start?

The answer, without a doubt, was money.

'Money.'

Mercenaries who weren't affiliated with a guild basically chased after money.

After all, the entire reason he made a living doing mercenary work as a sorcerer was to make money.

Of course, normally he would never have taken a shady request, like those from the criminals of the Pantheon, even for a lot of money.

Mercenaries made money to survive, and taking such a request would only get you tangled up in troublesome matters.

However, in the case of this particular request from Go Seung-jun, despite the dubious nature to a certain extent, he had paid an enormous sum upfront.

On top of that, there was no need to risk his life, and the job was easy—just restrain a student, not kill him, even with over six sorcerers on the team.

At that point, the balance was tipped, he accepted the job, and up to the midpoint of carrying out the mission, he thought it was a good decision.

Yes, up to the midpoint.

"Ugh, kgh, uu—"

Jin Seon-ung couldn't even comprehend what was happening.

All he could barely recognize was that every time Kim Dojun moved, the sorcerers who tried to use their sorcery were slammed straight into trees.

― And that he himself had also been pinned to a tree in the same way.

'What... the hell...'

Twisted up in agony, Jin Seon-ung desperately tried to figure out what had happened.

But his body was already bound to the tree, unable to move.

In this way, Kim Dojun had dispatched all the sorcerers Go Seung-jun had brought in just a few seconds, then took out his smartphone and snapped photos of each of the sorcerers nailed to the trees.

"What, what the—!"

With a twisted smirk, Kim Dojun looked at Go Seung-jun, who was standing there in utter shock, then planted his phone on a nearby rock.

"I was already fucking pissed—this is just perfect, you bastard."

"Wha—"

"Just die, you son of a bitch!"

Kim Dojun charged straight at Go Seung-jun and began to beat him senseless.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Grabbing his hair, Kim Dojun kept smashing his face, while Go Seung-jun desperately struggled to get away.

But Kim Dojun refused to let go.

"You! Fucking! Bastard! I was already losing my mind! Why! The fuck! Did you have to show up and make things worse?!"

He shouted, matching each blow to his words.

Go Seung-jun, dazed from the relentless blows, realized that he could really end up dead if this kept up. Trembling, he managed to pull out the club he'd brought to beat Kim Dojun.

"You want me to hit you with this?"

"Wa–wait—! Kyaaaa!"

Kim Dojun snatched it away just in time and started beating Go Seung-jun even more ferociously with the club—left, right, up, down, both arms—nowhere was spared.

Crunch—crack!

He beat him so hard that the club started to break apart.

'This fucking bastard...!'

Sensing mortal danger, Go Seung-jun tried to stealthily pull out the dagger he'd only intended to scratch Kim Dojun's face with—

Clack—!

"A knife? You little shit?"

"Gasp."

"Die, you bastard!"

Kim Dojun hurled the broken club away and now beat Go Seung-jun with the hilt of the knife instead.

Some time later—

"I... bribed Instructor Miyatsu for information and hired outside mercenaries to take down Kim Dojun."

Kim Dojun captured every word of Go Seung-jun's confession on video with his smartphone.

"Okay, everyone, say kimchi~"

He then gathered all the mercenaries who'd come to help Go Seung-jun beat him up, identified their personal details, and tied everyone—including Go Seung-jun—to a tree.

Tsk!

He took another photo.

"Well then, I'll see you all after the finals."

Thwack!

He finished the business by smacking Go Seung-jun's head, knocking him unconscious.

Watching the lot of them hanging with their heads down from the trees, Kim Dojun smirked with relief.

'The timing couldn't have been better.'

The truth was, before he met Go Seung-jun, Kim Dojun was confused and couldn't figure out what was going on.

But now?

'Whatever, fuck it~'

Nothing was really solved.

You can only sort things out or think about them when you have some kind of foundation, but he'd been given nothing—how was he supposed to get a handle on things?

So Kim Dojun simply decided to accept the situation.

'No matter how things get twisted, my goal doesn't change.'

Ultimately, Kim Dojun's objective was escape.

Any road to Seoul would do—so to speak.

'Still, I should look into this situation and the matter of Blue Eyes, while I'm at it.'

In conclusion, nothing about the current situation was to Kim Dojun's disadvantage.

'Actually, this is fine. If I make what I'm planning, I'll be able to use that skill Revi of Reverie used.'

Smiling at the thoughts he organized while beating up Go Seung-jun and his crew, Kim Dojun said,

"Well then, after a little rest, should I go get my second lucky chance?"

With a satisfied smile, he came to his cathartic conclusion.

####

After one night, about eight hours remained until the end of the final evaluation.

Now, instead of hunting shikigami, the students were busy stealing talismans from others in the same predicament.

Most participants in this final evaluation hadn't caught many shikigami.

Was it because they didn't want to?

Absolutely not.

The reason students started targeting each other at this point was simple—there just weren't enough shikigami loosed on Doryong Mountain.

There were far fewer shikigami than students, and the number was purposely limited even further to filter out the better students.

As a result, most teams suffered through three brutal days but didn't collect enough points, leading to the current situation.

In these circumstances, students not only targeted each other but also—

[Krrrk!]

—started challenging the Grade 4 shikigami they hadn't dared approach until now.

Teams were now challenging 'White Ghost Wolf', a Grade 4 shikigami and the shikigami temporarily lent for this exam by top domestic S-rank sorcerer Choi Yuron.

But naturally, they never dreamed of actually defeating a Grade 4 shikigami.

How could students—barely even sorcerers—defeat a Grade 4 shikigami?

Those confident in their own skills had already gone solo or in small groups to collect enough talismans, avoiding such reckless attempts.

That meant the remaining challengers weren't the top students but the mid, lower-mid, and low-ranking students, whose interests became aligned.

Teams with too few talismans agreed to gather as many numbers as possible to face the shikigami together.

Failing to secure enough points meant expulsion anyway.

Even if they couldn't defeat the Grade 4 shikigami, maybe they could snatch abandoned talismans from fleeing students during the fight—this desperate, selfish thinking led them to join the raid.

Thus, a party of over seventy students challenged White Ghost Wolf—

[KWAANG!]

"Uaaagh!"

"Hey there! Block properly! If you don't, the entire front line collapses, damn it!"

—only to be slaughtered in the attempt.

'We're fucked...!'

As the raid required a leader, just like what they'd learned at the Sorcery Institute, the makeshift leader, Shin Oh-jae, watched as his line collapsed and despaired.

Thud!

One swipe of White Ghost Wolf's paw, towering over five meters tall, shattered the front line.

If the students' attacks even landed they could maybe keep the fight going,

But—

'Our sorcery isn't connecting at all!'

Grade 4 shikigami don't have spiritual power.

Which means that if you hit them with sorcery, damage goes through.

But White Ghost Wolf was so fast despite its size that it dodged every student's sorcery, putting them at a one-sided disadvantage.

"D-dammit!"

"Hey, run!"

"Screw the talismans, who cares—survival's more important!"

Overwhelmed by White Ghost Wolf's display, students ripped their talismans or ran in all directions.

Shin Oh-jae also thought,

'Shit, I better run too—!'

But then—

Thunk—!

The White Ghost Wolf that had been rampaging only moments ago suddenly froze.

"...?"

Students who were fleeing in panic looked back in confusion.

But Shin Oh-jae, positioned atop a tall boulder for command, realized faster than anyone why White Ghost Wolf had stopped.

"...?"

Or had he?

'What... is that?'

Shin Oh-jae blinked hard.

He couldn't tell if what he was seeing was real.

White Ghost Wolf, who'd been manhandling the students, now appeared to be restrained by a young man wearing a student uniform.

As Shin Oh-jae wondered, can that be possible? his gaze narrowed.

Trying to confirm the man's identity—

And then—

"Kim Do...jun?"

The moment Shin Oh-jae confirmed the student holding down White Ghost Wolf's paw—

[Kyaaaaak!]

Furious at being unable to move, White Ghost Wolf lunged to bite Kim Dojun—

And what Shin Oh-jae and the others witnessed next was White Ghost Wolf's massive body lifting up into the air.

####

The city of San Pedro Sula, honduras, naturally became a mercenary city after Guatemala fell and spiritual entities and possessed entities began to swarm.

And the most famous guild in that mercenary city was the Quadro Guild.

Quadro Guild.

Formed after Guatemala's collapse, they had survived over the long years and possessed over a dozen A-rank sorcerers.

But the reason Quadro could claim the title of number one in the mercenary city was because of its guildmaster Evan.

At only twenty-eight years old, he had already achieved what only S-rank sorcerers could accomplish: creating a Divine Construct.

In addition, thanks to his signature sorcery, 'Mutation', and the godly accomplishments of having massacred hundreds of spiritual entities and possessed entities, quadro became famous.

And now, inside the grand headquarters of the city's strongest, renowned, and respected guild—

Squelch!

—corpses were strewn everywhere.

"Hagh—!"

The place, styled like a classic mansion, was littered with nothing but corpses.

Here,

There.

Nothing but corpses.

And the bodies scattered throughout the mansion had been crushed or exploded grotesquely.

"Krrrk—!"

Yet the two men responsible—one in a red robe, the other in a blue robe—stared emotionlessly at a sorcerer's body slowly twisting and being crushed to death before them.

Snap—!

As the next body exploded and blood flowed, the red- and blue-robed men, having finished slaughtering all humans and sorcerers within, climbed to the second floor.

There, they saw—

"S-save me...! Please...!"

Evan, the supposedly strongest sorcerer in the mercenary city, known also as the 'Omnipotent Beast', was groveling in a miserable state.

And before him, a man smiling flawless and unscathed.

"Ugh... ngh..."

Evan's right arm, the one he used for Mutation, was missing. Bleeding, wounded all over, he tried to crawl away with his remaining hand.

But the man crouching before him just sneered.

"That won't do."

With an obvious sneer, he stabbed the knife into Evan's neck.

"Guh—rrrk, khak—!"

Evan's body convulsed, then hung limp like a puppet with its strings cut.

The man turned to the robed figures.

"Is it done?"

"All the A-rank sorcerers are dead."

"And the others too."

"No one survived."

The way they spoke, it was as if two people were one.

But the man nodded knowingly, as if used to their speech.

"Good, then we're done here. Let's move on."

He said.

"What's next?"

Asked the robed man.

"Seoul, Korea."

The man—his pitch-black eyes unreadable even in the brightest light, no—

"Probably—"

The world's top wanted criminal, infamous as the 'Sorcerer Killer' for murdering two S-rank sorcerers—

"—It's about time I paid a visit there."

He muttered, a smile twisting his lips.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
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