Chapter 208
Lee Pyeong-won rushed towards Seo Sumin as soon as the duel began.
The weapon he wielded was a huge sword that matched his size.
The weapons for the duel were specially treated to have no lethality, but that didn’t mean they didn’t hurt when hit.
The sword was especially dangerous because of its heavy mass.
Lee Pyeong-won was confident of his victory.
‘She only brought a baseball bat? There’s a limit to how much you can disrespect someone!’
At first, he approached her with the intention of making her his girlfriend, since she had a decent face.
But when he recalled her tone, behavior, and gaze towards him, he gritted his teeth.
She not only ignored him, but also came up with a baseball bat instead of a proper weapon in the duel arena?
What a cheeky bastard.
Lee Pyeong-won, who was steeped in elitism and meritocracy, had never felt such humiliation in his life.
“Haah!”
He swung his sword with all his anger.
The sword fell down as if to split Seo Sumin’s head.
The power of the sword was very threatening, even in his own opinion.
Seo Sumin had no reaction until he swung his sword. Was she scared? Or, was it too fast for her to react?
Lee Pyeong-won shouted in his mind.
‘I won!’
He felt that he had won, that he was above her.
But then.
Boom!
“Huh?”
His sword did not touch Seo Sumin’s body.
Just before his sword touched her head, Seo Sumin’s body moved slightly to the side.
His sword missed by a paper-thin margin and hit the ground, cutting the air in vain.
“What…?”
He couldn’t understand what was going on. He had the initiative. He was sure he could hit her. But he failed. Why?
Seo Sumin pointed at him with her eyes that were indifferent and languid.
“You put your emotions into your sword.”
“What?”
“Your posture is also sloppy. Do you know what happens when you swing your sword with your weight on your upper body? This happens.”
Seo Sumin muttered and approached Lee Pyeong-won, pushing his shin with her toe.
Just a push.
It was barely touching his shin with her toe.
“Ugh!”
Thud!
But Lee Pyeong-won’s leg was pushed back and he knelt on one knee.
He couldn’t understand the situation. Seo Sumin didn’t hit him with great force, she just pushed him lightly. But this happened.
This can’t be.
His face turned red with anger.
“Y-you!”
“And, you shouldn’t attack recklessly with a weapon you can’t handle properly.”
Lee Pyeongwon’s attempt to pick up his greatsword again failed. Seo Sumin’s foot was stepping on his greatsword.
‘I can’t lift it!’
With his strength, he could have swung the greatsword even if Seo Sumin was standing on it. But the sword didn’t budge even though she only had one foot on it. It was as if it was pinned down by a boulder as big as a house.
Lee Pyeongwon gave up on the sword and threw a punch at Seo Sumin. He was determined to knock her down with his bare hands.
His fist cut through the air with ferocity. It was a punch that could easily break a person’s bones with the magic power it contained.
Seo Sumin looked at it calmly and dodged it lightly.
The countless punches that flew at her didn’t even touch her hair.
Seo Sumin gave him some sincere advice.
“You won’t catch a fly with such hunched and sloppy movements.”
“Shut up!!!”
As Lee Pyeongwon raised his voice and tried to approach her, he felt a sharp shock in his neck.
It was Seo Sumin’s slender finger that hit his Adam’s apple.
Lee Pyeongwon staggered back, clutching his neck with one hand. His eyes trembled without rest from the intense pain.
Seo Sumin approached Lee Pyeongwon with ghost-like steps.
Thwack.
Her baseball bat tripped his leg and made him fall backwards.
Lee Pyeongwon’s body fell to the ground. Seo Sumin looked down at him and gripped her baseball bat tighter.
Thud thud thud thud thud!
And then, what followed was a merciless beating.
The silver baseball bat left a trail of afterimages as it hit Lee Pyeongwon’s whole body.
Each hit made his bones rattle and his muscles shake.
The spectators who watched the scene couldn’t close their mouths.
‘Ah.’
Lee Pyeongwon read Seo Sumin’s eyes in the midst of losing consciousness from the pain.
Even as he was being beaten up like this, he couldn’t feel any emotion from Seo Sumin’s indifferent gaze.
He shivered.
It wasn’t just fear from the physical pain.
It was something more fundamental, something that felt like a stake had been driven into the core of his soul.
In less than five seconds.
After receiving more than a hundred blows, Lee Pyeongwon couldn’t overcome the pain and fear, and fainted with his eyes rolled back.
“Seo, Seo Sumin student wins!”
The safety officers who had to intervene and stop the fight in case it got too violent were too late to react.
He blew the horn belatedly and announced the end of the fight, but Seo Sumin had already shaken off her hand and stepped back.
“What, what is this!”
“Crazy. Lee Pyeongwon couldn’t do anything and got beaten like a dog?”
“Did you see how fast she swung that bat?”
Everyone was shocked by the overwhelming victory, while Lee Pyeongwon was hastily carried away on a stretcher.
Seo Sumin recalled the feeling of hitting him with the baseball bat, and squeezed and released the handle of the bat.
‘Hmm. It feels just right.’
She chose this weapon not on a whim, but after some deliberation.
‘I was curious about the cudgels that those openers use.’
The openers used weapons called cudgels. They were literally clubs for catching dogs, but modern baseball bats were much better balanced and felt nicer than those cudgels.
She didn’t like using weapons in general, and if she had to use one, she preferred swords. But in this life, she wanted to use only this baseball bat.
I nodded in satisfaction and stepped down from the arena.
“Hey! Pyeong-won! Wake up!”
Among the people in black suits, Jeong Gang-san, Pyeong-won’s training master, shouted desperately. But Pyeong-won, who had been beaten up badly, showed no signs of waking up.
“You!”
Jeong Gang-san clenched his teeth in anger and glared at me as he got up from his seat.
It was not anger over his disciple being ruined so miserably.
‘Damn it! If Pyeong-won gets smashed like that, it will damage my career!’
Jeong Gang-san was a collector in his forties, but he was afraid of fighting with phantoms, so he pretended to teach his juniors under the pretext of education.
He was still a collector who had stepped on the sixth-grade barrier, which was considered the lower limit for collectors, so he caught the eye of the chairman of a large company and got to teach Pyeong-won.
‘Of all things, he got smashed by a girl I’ve never heard of?’
It would be different if the opponent was someone like Gu Seo-yoon, Larina, or James, who had been famous before.
Seo Sumin was a student who had never been mentioned until this moment came. And she beat Pyeong-won like a dog in front of everyone.
How did she get this far? If this goes on, it won’t end with just being broken by the chairman.
Jeong Gang-san’s head spun quickly. He had to somehow cut down the opponent in this situation.
“You! Are you kidding with the test?! Huh?! Where did this bastard do something sneaky and act like that!”
Jeong Gang-san’s scream drew everyone’s attention to this side.
I frowned. It was a look that said what kind of trick this was.
Jeong Gang-san raised his voice as if he was right.
“Where are you looking at me with your eyes wide open when an adult is talking to you?!”
“What is it.”
Of course, my voice was not good either.
When I answered curtly, Jeong Gang-san seemed to think he had caught me and decided to corner me.
“What is it? Hey, you. How old are you? How old are you? Huh? How can you talk back to an adult like that? Is that how your parents taught you?! Huh!”
No one stopped Jeong Gang-san.
The men in suits didn’t like me for smashing Pyeong-won, so they deliberately let Jeong Gang-san go, and the others were watching this situation with interest.
My expression only became colder.
“You did some kind of doping or something, right? Huh? Tell me honestly. You did doping!”
What Jeong Gang-san brought up was the possibility of doping.
He wanted to cut me down somehow.
‘Yeah. It’s impossible to do that without doing something special.’
He thought his own words that he spat out as if he was yelling were convincing. It was impossible for him to accept that Seo Sumin, who was still young, could move like that.
“Don’t we have to test this?”
“Are you doing this because you’re embarrassed after getting smashed by me? Don’t you think it’s really pathetic?”
But I didn’t flinch in this situation.
I rather spoke loudly so that everyone could hear. Jeong Gang-san’s face turned red and blue in an instant.
“You, you little bastard! How dare you talk to an adult like that…!”
He approached me with big strides.
I didn’t look away from Jeong Gang-san until the end.
My confident attitude only fanned his anger more.
What he wanted was for me to be scared and avoid his gaze or stutter.
When I came out like this, Jeong Gang-san felt like he was being ignored.
“Did I say anything wrong?”
“Look at how this brat talks…!”
“Enough.”
The one who ended the situation was Yu-hyun’s single word.
And, at the same time.
Boom!
A white harpoon flew and pierced between Seo Sumin and Jeong Gang-san.
A fierce wind blew. Jeong Gang-san stumbled back without realizing it and hit his hip. He shivered and looked at the harpoon stuck in the ground.
“W-what…”
Then the harpoon was pulled out. Jeong Gang-san’s eyes followed the hand that held the harpoon. The owner was a man in a black suit. Jeong Gang-san pointed at Yu-hyun with his trembling hand.
“Wh-who are you? Did you just attack me?! Huh?!”
“An attack is when you tried to hit our lady.”
“What?!”
The black suits who were watching the situation stepped forward. Some instructors tried to calm down the serious situation, but the men in suits stopped them.
“What are you doing?”
“Hey, wait a minute. It’s not like they fought that badly.”
The instructors backed off slightly. The opponents were people affiliated with Celestial Corporation.
Celestial Corporation was one of the largest companies in the country, and there was no instructor who wanted to unnecessarily offend them.
Jeong Gang-san got up from his seat. His quivering lips showed how angry he was.
Then someone tapped Jeong Gang-san’s shoulder. It was a giant man wearing sunglasses.
“Mr. Jeon, team leader?”
“Mr. Jeong. Let’s stop here and back off.”
“Oh, okay.”
Jeon, the leader of the black suits who had exchanged glances with Yu-hyun, stepped forward and Jeonggangsan nodded and lowered his head. Jeon moved past Jeonggangsan and approached Yu-hyun.
“I warned you that you would regret it.”
“Oh. Are you finally speaking up?”
“You crossed the line. Do you think Celestial Corporation is a joke?”
“You’re the one who crossed the line. You lost miserably and now you’re saying it’s unfair, it’s doping, it’s this and that. Do you think everything will be solved if you raise your voice?”
“What?!”
Jeong Ggang-san reacted violently from behind, but when Jeon glared at him, he shut his mouth again.
Jeon sighed.
“Hoo. Let’s just end this moderately. Moderately. You know what I mean, right?”
“Nope. I don’t know what you mean.”
“What?”
“I let go of your previous rudeness, but not this time.”
Yu-hyun pointed at Jeong Gangsan with his free hand.
“That guy over there. Kneel down.”
Then his finger moved and pointed at Jeon in front of him.
“And you too, kneel down.”
Snap!
A vein popped out on Jeon’s forehead.
Yu-hyun was demanding an open apology from them in front of everyone, and that too by kneeling down.