The Hero Returns

The middle of Su-hyeun's forehead split open and his third eye revealed itself. That eye then glared straight at Petro, who was looking at Su-hyeun from an unknown location.

And in that very moment, the ends of Su-hyeun's lips widened into a smirk. "Found you."

It took him a little bit of time to locate his target. Petro must've been waiting for the perfect timing to join the fight while cautiously observing Su-hyeun's status, but that only gave the latter enough time to discover the former's position, instead.

Pow—

Su-hyeun smacked the face of an awakener trying to pounce on him from the front. Right after that, he strengthened his leg muscles and kicked the ground, dashing towards a certain direction.

Step, fwhoosh—

He stepped on the rooftops to dash forward and scanned the passing scenery. Petro wasn't too far. Rather wisely, he was staying just beyond the edge of Su-hyeun's detection range to observe the proceedings.

Swiiiiish—

A narrow, deserted backstreet in the city's outskirts.

Su-hyeun's feet stopped moving there.

"And so, here we are."

"You! When did you…?"

Petro shot up from his spot and glared at Su-hyeun at full alert. His eyes hurriedly glanced at the crystal ball now rolling around on the ground. A few moments ago, the scenes reflected on the ball were changing in a very disorienting fashion, but now, it was displaying a view taken from above his own head.

Now being confronted head-on, Petro could only swallow back his dry saliva in sheer nervousness.

It was not important how Su-hyeun managed to track him down. No, the moment he saw that third eye, Petro realized that his opponent for today was in possession of some kind of a special ability.

"If it's Blending you want, I can supply you with as much as you want."

Now that things had come this far, what needed to happen was a negotiation. Petro wasn't confident in defeating Su-hyeun as things stood currently.

"How about it? As you may well know, Blending is…"

"Don't need it," Su-hyeun flatly replied.

"…What was that?"

"I didn't climb up here to become a junkie. And also, you don't have to be so tense. I'm not planning to kill you right away."

Su-hyeun kept his gaze locked onto Petro while lazily leaning against a nearby wall. It sure was the sight of a man at ease, one that was completely content with the current situation.

"Of course, depending on how things turn out, I may just kill you," said Su-hyeun.

"…What are you scheming?"

"You should be asking about what I want in times like this. If you don't want to die, obviously."

The gleam in Su-hyeun's eyes abruptly changed.

The moment Petro stared into the third eye, he was overcome by this creeping chill akin to a terrifying monster wrapping itself around his entire body.

As it turned out, he couldn't even be considered as an opponent here. He had been making a huge mistake.

<<This…this is not an S-Rank level!>>

Actually, he had never personally met an S-Rank awakener before. However, he was still aware of the minimum standard needed to meet that criteria. And Petro was definitely skilled enough to meet that standard.

That's why he was under the assumption that there wouldn't be too much of a difference between an S-Rank and himself up until this very moment.

However, he thought he now could understand something after encountering Su-hyeun — he understood that he couldn't even touch the latter's foot.

"W-what is it that you want?"

"Looks like you're finally ready for a chat."

Rather than a chat, this was more like an intimidation, instead.

Su-hyeun stared at Petro gritting his teeth in humiliation and continued on. "I only want one thing. To stop the distribution of Blending."

"Are you telling me to stop selling Blending?"

"Even if I tell you that, you probably aren't going to play along nicely, anyway. Bastards like you don't hesitate to say one thing while meaning something else completely, after all."

"In that case, just what do you want from…"

"Since I don't trust your word, I might as well find another way to control you."

Su-hyeun approached Petro and extended his hand. The latter flinched and tried to back away. "W-wait, what are you…"

Sssssss—

The moment he looked into Su-hyeun's eyes, Petro momentarily froze up. It felt as if his entire body suddenly morphed into a dry log.

"Keok, keo-uh…."

Su-hyeun's hand gripped Petro's neck tightly. The grip's strength increased gradually, and his fingernails dug into Petro's neck.

Blood vessels bulged in Petro's eyeballs.

<<I-I'm dying…>>

Su-hyeun let go, and right away, Petro grasped his own neck while coughing and wheezing. His eyes were bloodshot. Initially, he could only think about how he managed to survive, but not too long after that, he realized something was wrong with the condition of his body.

"What-what did you do to my…."

"It's kind of like a poison."

"Poison…?"

"Technically, it's not a poison. No, it's simply a strand of magical energy with a different nature to yours. Still, it will act like a poison in the end."

This was one of the abilities Ouroboros's third eye possessed — injecting a portion of the gigantic snake's magical energy currently in Su-hyeun to his opponent and having it react like a real poison.

"Unless you become as strong as I am, that power will eat away at least half of your body in less than a month. No need to mention what will happen after that, of course."

"You lie!"

Petro had never even heard of such a thing being possible before. If this thing was really some kind of poison, fine, but using magical energy like this was an impossibility.

He just couldn't believe it.

No, more correctly, he didn't want to believe it.

"You'll know after a while. So, choose wisely. I'll give you enough time to figure it out, okay?" Su-hyeun then turned around to leave. "I'll be staying in the pub from earlier, so if something happens, come find me there. I'm sure experiencing it first hand will be best for a guy like you."

He left with those words as his parting gift.

Petro's eyes staring at the departing back were trembling powerfully. He thought he'd be killed by Su-hyeun's hands, yet something out of his expectation happened just now.

<<He's leaving, just like that? Really?>>

If Petro wanted to, he could go into hiding. If he really chose to do so and hide back in the real world, then not even someone like Su-hyeun would be able to track him down.

However, there was a problem. That would be what Su-hyeun said just now proving to be true.

<<But that's just not possible.>>

Petro rubbed his neck where Su-hyeun's hand had been digging into only a few moments ago.

<<There's just no way….>>

<hr />

Three days later.

Petro came to find Su-hyeun sitting in the pub as he promised.

"You showed up one day quicker than I thought," said Su-hyeun as he turned the chair he was sitting on around to face his visitor.

The latter's complexion was ashen in the extreme. "My body…just what the hell did you do to me?"

"Did you forget what I told you? Should I explain it again?"

"That was all real?"

For the past couple of days, Petro kept sensing that something was wrong with himself. It felt like the blood coursing through his body was now going in the wrong direction. He tried to control it somehow, but it just didn't want to listen to him.

It was all because of that strand of magical energy Su-hyeun had injected in him. That energy really acted like poison to gradually eat away at Petro's innards.

"I figured that you'd hold out for at least one more day. I thought you'd be tenacious enough to do so, but…I guess you're a lot more attached to your life than I thought."

Su-hyeun's mocking words caused Petro to grit his teeth.

The former shifted his gaze away from the latter busy grinding his teeth and looked outside the window. Quite a lot of spectators could be sensed now.

"A b*stard who managed to get this far with his own strength has morphed into a coward who can't do anything by himself now, huh?"

Petro didn't come alone to find Su-hyeun. He also brought along numerous other awakeners with him. It seemed that he was planning to use force if things went down the drain.

"If you don't remove this poison from my body right now, I…"

"Your skills have gotten rusty, and you even lost your instincts, too. On top of that, you get scared more easily now, and your ego has swollen up to an unnecessary level, too." Su-hyeun looked back into Petro's eyes and spoke. "Okay, so? If I don't remove the poison, what then? You are going to kill me?"

A mocking grin floated to his lips.

"What, you? Kill me?"

Petro's body froze up stiff once more.

It happened again.

This ominous killing intent. This intense pressure that made it almost impossible to stare into the eyes of his opponent.

He came here after telling himself many times that he'd not get scared and stare into Su-hyeun's eyes head-on, but too bad, everything was for naught.

<<Dammit, what's going on here?>>

He could already tell the end result without even starting a fight.

A silhouette of a gigantic snake could be seen right behind Su-hyeun. A snake with jet-black scales and vivid-yellow eyes. Just the sheer pressure emanating from that thing alone was enough to force Petro to lose his fighting intent.

He stood there, his legs shaking, before dropping his head low. "J-just what is it that you want?"

"I also told you that before, didn't I? It's to stop the distribution of Blending."

"If it's only that…."

"I don't believe in verbal promises. But then, even if I do kill you here, a second, third Petros will pop up sooner or later to continue distributing Blending. In the end, what we need is a sure-fire way to prevent that from happening," said Su-hyeun, before pointing at Petro. "And you're precisely it."

"Me?"

"Unless it's me, no one on the 31st floor is capable of doing anything to you, that's why. Since you were the first one to start distributing Blending, I'm sure you can also restrict the others from doing that, too."

Blending was created out of grass commonly found on the 31st floor's world. As the ingredient could be found so easily, the disappearance of Petro wouldn't necessarily result in the disappearance of Blending itself.

In the end, what was really needed here was to declare the manufacture of Blending illegal, and then possess a power strong enough to enforce that.

There was no one better suited to that role than Petro himself.

"You…want to use me as your tool? With my life as collateral?"

"From the distribution of Blending to intimidation and murder related to this racketeering operation, to the countless loss of lives, you being executed right this instance wouldn't be strange at all, so never forget this. You don't have any rights as a person to stand there and keep breathing this air."

The straightforward judgment caused Petro to lower his head while gritting his teeth once more. None of those assertions were wrong. He was without a doubt a criminal currently being carefully observed by the various awakener associations out in the real world.

If they had a way to arrest him, then well, he probably didn't have anything to say even if they passed judgment on him.

"You make the decision. Wait for your death, or step forward voluntarily to stop the distribution of Blending," said Su-hyeun.

"This…rather than a negotiation, it's more like an ultimatum."

"From the beginning, I never negotiated with criminals. No, I kill them right off the bat. The only reason why I haven't done that with you is because you still have your uses."

"You're different from what I heard. The things is, everyone thinks of Kim Su-hyeun as a man who serves the world without expecting any rewards in return, or at least that's what I heard. A hero who saves regular citizens and fights against the Dump Guild, stuff like that."

Su-hyeun definitely had a different side to him compared to other awakeners. The majority of S-Ranks conquered dungeons and let the world know of their existence by showing their faces in various media outlets.

However, Su-hyeun had never acted on his own self-interest. He didn't seem to be interested in either wealth nor prestige. Even then, he rescued regular citizens and collided against the infamous Dump Guild. He even raided a blue-colored dungeon to prevent a possible outbreak, too.

The whole world thought of Su-hyeun as a real hero.

"So, this is your true face, then?"

"Neither side is fake, actually." Su-hyeun shook his head. "I answer kindness with even bigger kindness, but toward bad people, I reply with an even harsher punishment. Meaning…"

Su-hyeun's glare shifted outside the pub's window and landed on Petro's underlings, currently staring back at him. "To punks like you lot, I'm not such a nice guy. Get my drift?"

"A-attack him!"

"Uwaaaah!"

Was it because they thought Su-hyeun had discovered their presence? Petro's underlings began rushing towards the pub one by one.

It was right then that Petro raised his head and cried out. "Stop!"

His yell caused those attacking with deeply tense expressions to freeze up right there like a bunch of dolls.

This was one of Petro's abilities.

"….G*ddammit."

He was clenching his fists so hard that fingernails were digging into his palms. He was initially planning to use Su-hyeun's public persona to get out of this situation, but with things like this, he didn't have a choice anymore.

"Okay, fine. What do I have to do specifically?"