Chapter 34

Chapter. 34

“Ghk, cough.”

By the time I had finished reading the will, Lee A-un woke up with a painful cough.

‘It worked.’

[H-He came back alive…?]

Deep shock clung to Snowy’s voice.

Lee A-un coughed up the pooled blood and seemed to barely regain his breathing.

“Kgh. Ghhk. Hhk.”

Then he began pounding his chest and rolling around on the ground.

It seemed the backlash of revival was rather severe.

“Ghhk, hnghhhk. Aaaagh!”

…I was watching that happen when it evolved into a scream filled with pain.

“Uh, hey. What is wrong with him?”

Should I feed him another one?

I was just rummaging through my clothes for another elixir.

“Hm?”

Something was strange about the surroundings.

WOOOOO—

The Mana was far too still.

…This was not an ordinary flow.

Mana flowed constantly.

Just like air, or like water.

It gathered in empty places, and once they were filled, it flowed toward other empty places.

But the Mana around Lee A-un had stopped.

‘No, rather than stopped…’

It had been seized.

It was a situation that made no sense.

“Aaaagh!!!”

[This is serious!]

Snowy’s voice rose.

[Lee A-un’s ability, Backflow, seems to be going berserk! It is a seizure caused by Mana Reflux Syndrome!]

‘A Mana Reflux Syndrome seizure?’

At this rate, Lee A-un, whom I had barely managed to save, was going to die for the same reason all over again.

‘He was not cured?’

Why?

The Red Elixir had definitely worked. Had it not revived a dying person?

And if it was an injury, emergency treatment should have been completed.

[Warning. Estimated time until critical point breach: 12 seconds. The estimated explosive force is enough to blow away the entire Incheon area! Survival probability: 0 percent. Immediate evacuation is advised… No, it is too late to evacuate! You must resolve it!]

‘…The Red Elixir worked properly.’

Mana Reflux Syndrome had probably not been completely cured.

A miracle medicine at the level of the Red Elixir did not have enough potency for that.

‘But it recurred immediately after healing?’

That made no sense.

Even if it was low-grade, it was still an elixir. A legendary medicine.

Its medicinal efficacy was not so cheap that it would evaporate the moment it was drunk.

Even now, Lee A-un’s skin was repeatedly splitting open and healing again.

He was alive because the medicinal effect remained.

I had seen this kind of case before, though it was rare.

Lee A-un’s Mana Reflux Syndrome.

It had not been a disease.

Then what was the true cause?

‘There is only one.’

[The core of the rampage is Lee A-un himself! You have to resolve the Mana stagnation phenomenon quickly!]

As if reflecting Snowy’s urgency, arrows appeared in rapid succession around Lee A-un.

A mass of Mana began to envelop him as though protecting him, then lifted him into the air.

…For now, I had to focus on resolving the situation.

At this rate, I was going to be caught in the explosion and die.

[Like dismantling a bomb, quickly, but carefully!]

Right. Snowy’s advice was correct.

Halfway, at least.

The standard method was correct.

But it took too long.

Backflow.

This ability, which the system had judged to be S-rank, was so rare that even Snowy had difficulty figuring out exactly what kind of ability it was.

That was probably why even clever Snowy had misread it.

But I knew what mechanism this ability had.

Because I had seen it before.

That was why I was certain.

There was a better answer.

This was it.

WHOOOOOM!

When I concentrated my Mana, a single ice sphere rotating at super-high speed floated behind my back.

Han Seol-ah’s ultimate technique.

Permafrost.

I sent it flying straight into the tightly condensed lump of Mana.

In other words, straight toward Lee A-un.

[Agent?!]

Snowy cried out in surprise.

It must look insane.

Because if I did this, the condensed Mana would swell and explode like a bomb.

If that happened, at least Seoul would be turned cleanly into ruins.

But I was doing this precisely so it would burst.

Ssssshh—

The moment Permafrost touched the highly concentrated Mana mass, it vanished like melting snow.

‘Its Mana efficiency is poor, but that is actually helpful here.’

Thud.

Lee A-un dropped to the ground.

At the same time.

BOOOOM!

With a heavy sound, the “empty air” visibly swelled.

[No, what are you doing!!!]

Snowy, whose usual mechanical calmness had vanished without a trace, fell into an extreme panic and screamed urgently, even forgetting the AI’s basic settings.

Ignoring Snowy’s noisy shouting.

I focused my mind.

I slammed every last bit of EX-rank Mana overflowing inside me into my brain and eyes.

[Cra—zy—]

Snowy’s voice slowed like a stretched-out tape.

My perceived time was slowing.

When I drove Mana into my eyes, each and every flow of Mana began to appear strand by strand.

It was a small trick that allowed me to see Mana, which normally could not be seen, as if it truly existed.

How did I know something like this?

I had tried it before I became an Awakening Failure.

[Baa—st—]

Snowy’s voice stretched even further.

My brain was hot.

I looked at the mass that had begun to explode.

The Mana was tangled at random, like a hopelessly knotted ball of thread.

From now on, I had to unravel this.

I twitched my finger and flicked one strand of Mana.

Sssrk—

The connected line of Mana immediately trembled, slid out of the tangle, and melted into the air.

Success.

Now I just had to repeat this.

Until when?

Until that enormous knot was completely unraveled, without stopping.

“Kgh…”

The inside of my nose suddenly grew hot, and soon blood began dripping down.

A terrible pressure, as though my head might burst at any moment, came rushing over me.

It was an inevitable side effect of forcefully overclocking my nervous system by pouring in Mana of tremendous concentration.

Since the outer edges of my vision were turning red, it seemed several blood vessels in my eyes had burst as well.

Damn it. Once I released Synchronization this time too, I would suffer hellish aftereffects.

Sssrk— Sssrk—

Swallowing the pain that threatened to burst out of me, I continued unraveling the Mana threads.

Sssrk— Sssrk—

I unraveled the threads.

Again and again.

***

As if time had stopped, the atmosphere in a certain space had congealed like jelly.

An unprecedented Mana stagnation phenomenon.

Snowy’s calculation ability immediately predicted the worst-case scenario.

According to standard procedure, one had to approach Lee A-un, the core of the stagnation, and carefully disperse the Mana.

Like dismantling a bomb, one strand at a time, with extreme caution.

It was a dangerous operation with a slim chance of success and a long required time.

But the Apostle lightly ignored the standard procedure Snowy had presented.

[Agent?!]

Instead, he did not hesitate to launch his ultimate technique, Permafrost, toward the condensed Mana mass—the core of a time bomb that could explode at any moment!

It was like pouring oil onto a burning warehouse.

[No, what are you doing!!!]

Every circuit in Snowy screamed.

This was insane! Was this person actually a villain?

BOOOOM!

The moment Permafrost touched the Mana mass, the expansion became reality.

Space itself screamed and twisted, and the energy readings detected by Snowy’s sensors announced that disaster was imminent.

Time remaining until explosion: 0.5 seconds… 0.4 seconds…

[Cra—zy…]

Snowy screamed with all its might.

[Bastard…!]

But the Mana that should have exploded did not burst.

[…Huh?]

Instead, something unbelievable occurred.

With abnormal movement, threads of air flowed. Every one of those threads was “Mana.”

Based on that judgment, Snowy swapped in a new pattern, and the Mana became visible.

That was why Snowy could clearly witness the magnificent spectacle unfolding now.

The Mana mass that had been chaos itself surged, then the tangled ball of thread unraveled, and tens of thousands of Mana lines separated and embroidered the air.

It was like a majestic river of Mana unfolding across the night sky like the Milky Way.

And at its center stood the Apostle.

The Apostle was gesturing elegantly, like the conductor of an orchestra.

With each subtle movement of his hand, the strands of Mana responded and found their proper places.

The method Snowy had proposed was correct, but it had never looked anything like this.

To accomplish this so easily!

[‘Th-This… This is impossible. A human interfering with Mana on this scale…?’]

Controlling tens of thousands of Mana strands simultaneously, and in an unstable state just before explosion at that, could not be explained by any law of physics Snowy knew.

It was a miracle itself, something unimaginable in a world made of zeros and ones.

And that was not the end.

Sssrrrrk…

The released Mana strands were not scattering into the air.

As though drawn by a powerful magnet, they all turned in unison and began being sucked toward the Apostle.

It was the sight of an energy storm swirling around him and being absorbed.

SHOOOOSH!

When even the final strand of Mana seemed to be absorbed by the Apostle and disappeared, the sky regained its calm as if nothing had ever happened.

The disaster ended just like that, in the blink of an eye.

A task that should have taken several minutes—no, several hours—had been completed in mere seconds.

[‘…What in the world just happened?’]

Snowy checked the Apostle’s condition in confusion.

His vital signs were terrible.

Every figure was hovering near the limit required to sustain life.

Apparently, the miracle from moments ago had not come without a price.

[Agent! Are you all right? Your current condition is…!]

Snowy expected the Apostle to start writhing in terrible pain and coughing blood at any moment.

“…”

However, the Apostle was calm.

He casually shook his head a few times and took a deep breath. Then, as if it had all been a lie, every one of his vital signs returned to normal.

The Apostle murmured languidly.

***

At the same time, at the Republic of Korea Hunter Association Mana Observatory.

“Director! A calamity-class Mana rampage has been detected from the direction of Incheon! The readings are at least S… No, they are immeasurable!”

“What did you say? Issue an evacuation order immedia—!”

Beep. Beep.

“…Huh?”

The alarm that had been ringing as though it might explode stopped as if it had all been a lie.

The Mana wave that had stained the control room screen red evaporated in an instant, as though someone had pulled out the power cord.

In the control room swept by silence, someone muttered blankly.

“What… just happened?”

***

“That was absurdly delicious.”

[…Pardon?]

This abnormal Mana stagnation had been a phenomenon created by Backflow running rampant.

Backflow, to put it simply, was an ability that could change Mana into the nature the user desired.

And for the sake of that, it also granted a secondary ability that allowed the user to absorb and release Mana very freely, as naturally as breathing.

This incident was the result of Backflow, an ability that reached S-rank, doing its best to respond to its user’s single-minded will while repeating Mana absorption and emission until just before its master collapsed.

‘That will was probably not wanting to die.’

To restore its user’s body, Backflow converted Mana into the “recovery” attribute with all its strength.

But the user, Lee A-un, had a chronic condition: Mana Reflux Syndrome.

That was the problem.

It was a strange illness in which Mana rotated backward.

If things had been normal, the ability should have absorbed Mana, converted it into the recovery attribute, and restored the body.

But now?

It must have absorbed Mana and converted it into the recovery attribute. It would have gotten that far.

But it failed to restore the body and released all of it instead.

‘If he had been able to seize the entire backward-flowing stream of Mana, things would have been different.’

It seemed Lee A-un’s talent for handling Mana had not reached that level.

A pity.

In any case.

I gulped down the massive amount of recovery-attribute Mana that Lee A-un had prepared.

“I feel great.”

Thanks to that, the old Internal Injuries that had layered upon one another and made my insides ache were washed away very comfortably.

The “minor” damage I had taken from overexerting myself just now had also completely recovered.

“Whew.”

With this, I had prevented the Republic of Korea from being destroyed.

Just how many times had I saved this country now?

‘I am far too amazing.’

Should the president not give me an award or something?

Of course, there was no president right now.

‘And…’

I looked down at Lee A-un, who was lying sprawled on the ground.

[Um, Agent. Should you not administer the second elixir?]

Snowy’s opinion had become noticeably cautious.

I had fed him an elixir, but he had not recovered.

Therefore, I should feed him one more bottle and heal him…

It was an extremely reasonable opinion.

“No.”

But I could not.

“Lee A-un’s condition is not something like Mana Reflux Syndrome.”

If it had only been Mana Reflux Syndrome.

He should have been healed when I fed him the first elixir earlier.

But the result?

A seizure had occurred, as if his condition was saying, “How dare you try to heal me?”

As if trying to heal him was the same as stepping on a land mine.

There was only one case like this.

Because the result appeared as Mana Reflux Syndrome, the system, Snowy, and even I had been fooled at first.

“It is a curse.”

Lee A-un was under a curse.

And a very vicious one at that.