The Hero Returns

* * *

Su-hyeun was staring at the living room's ceiling while lying on the couch.

Miru was huddled on the floor of this dim living room, illuminated by the faint orange light cast by a lamp above.

He kept recalling what Song Hyeong-gi told him earlier.

"One more thing, it's not like there is no other way to accelerate this awakening period. What was it called—the dragon's divine artifact? If you have that, then yeah, it's possible."

"Are you perhaps talking about the Cintamani?"

"Yeah. You know what it is?"

"Yes. Miru already has it and for a good while now."

"Seriously? Hey, man. Can you lend me that for a bit? I wanna give it to my Yong for a little while."

"No can do."

"Really? It's fine if you don't want to. In any case, it'll be possible with that item. The Cintamani does maximize a dragon's abilities and accelerates its growth, after all. It also increases its lifespan."

"But is it normal for the growth to be accelerated by this much?"

"What do you mean? Miru's already so big, isn't he? Well, it's still not comparable to my Yong, though."

In the end, Song Hyeong-gi started boasting about his own divine beast, Yong. Of course, Su-hyeun didn't plan to criticize such doting and dumb father-like behavior, neither did he feel bad listening and playing along. No, his real concern had to do with what would come after the awakening period had lapsed.

"The awakening period is like when a dragon fully awakens its latent potential. It will be easier to understand if you look at it as a caterpillar's process of morphing into a butterfly."

"Miru isn't going to shed its skin or something, right?"

"I was speaking figuratively, man. Honestly, I also don't know the details since I've only heard about it. I can't tell you what kind of transformation a dragon will go through after the awakening period."

"Okay, then how long will Miru remain in this state?"

"Maybe around three days? Normally, a dragon going through an awakening period is protected by its parent, but Miru only has you now."

While still lying on the couch, Su-hyeun picked up the red marble resting on top of the coffee table. It was the Cintamani, which was noticeably smaller than how it looked in the past.

"Even though this isn't a candy, did Miru really melt and eat this thing?"

This so-called dragon's divine artifact, the Cintamani, had significantly shrunk. Despite it ultimately being a good thing, he couldn't help but worry as Miru was still too young to go through the awakening period.

Su-hyeun continued to watch over his dragon even at the expense of his sleep.

And so, three days went by, and then four.

On the fifth day, he ended up dozing off.

* * *

Lick—

He felt a familiar sensation on his cheek.

The first thing Su-hyeun realized was that he had fallen asleep. He wasn't planning to, but it seemed that forcing himself awake for too long was to blame.

He snapped his eyes open and looked around him.

Gya-ong—

He spotted Miru's face. It was slightly bigger than before but only slightly.

Meaning, the change wasn't big.

"You're awake."

Of course, he wasn't complaining. From the very beginning, he thought that Miru waking up without suffering from any problems would be good enough for him, anyway. What he wished for was that nothing bad would happen to his dragon.

Su-hyeun finally sighed in relief and reached out. Miru growled and formed a content expression when he rubbed its head.

"Do you feel better?"

Gya-ong—

"In that case, it's all good."

Gya-ong—!

Miru replied energetically.

Before it fell asleep, it sweated profusely from all over its body. But now, the red dragon seemed positively overflowing with energy.

I can't tell what has changed about it, though.

Despite having gone through an awakening, Miru didn't display any hints of what had changed about it, at least on the outside. Its cries sounded the same, and its built had increased by only a tiny bit. That was it.

There was no immediate way to confirm the dragon's magical energy. He had no method of estimating Miru's total reserve without it spitting out a Breath or something.

"Hey, take this."

Su-hyeun pushed forward the Cintamani, which he held onto despite falling asleep himself. Miru bit the red marble again, swallowed it, and formed a rather pleased expression.

"Do you really see that as candy or something?"

Su-hyeun lightly rubbed Miru's head and checked his phone resting on the table. Its battery had run flat, so he left it plugged on the charger. The power light was blinking, perhaps to inform him that a text was waiting for his attention.

- Remember this year's Ranking Wars scheduled for December? You won't be too busy since you'll only start during the main matches, but I thought that I should remind you at least.

The text came from Lee Ju-ho.

It was October, so about two months were left before this year's Ranking Wars got underway.

It was the stage of the stars where the S-Ranks from all over the world, as well as the rankers from the previous tournament, would compete.

As he was supposed to go straight into the main matches, he didn't need to waste too much of his time. As long as no "special circumstances" would happen like the last time, he figured one or two days should be sufficient for the tournament.

This year is going to be bursting at the seams with all the participants.

The number of awakeners continued to shoot up every day.

As a matter of fact, the overall number of newly awakened low-ranking awakeners was so much greater than the records from several years ago, and as for the S-Ranks' number, it was 1.5 times higher than last year.

This rate of growth was far steeper than what Su-hyeun remembered. As such, this year's Ranking Wars should be rather crowded compared with last year.

Didn't someone say that Mister Gordon's been chomping at the bit?

It shouldn't be just Gordon Rohan, though. Hak-joon should've reached the 100th floor by now.

As long as he could make it out of there alive, he might get to smash past that wall, just like what he said earlier.

As for Thomas… I also haven't seen him in a while.

Thomas's talent was the best among everyone Su-hyeun knew.

Back when he was still Kim Sung-in, Thomas was a problem child that caused all kinds of headaches. No one could control him, and he often caused serious issues. As he wasn't in full control of his "darkened world," he even ended up driving countless people to their death.

However, the story was different in this lifetime.

Thomas' talents had been set upon in a new direction, and now, he was striding toward a brighter future.

Two months, huh.

It wasn't all that long. However, one couldn't say that it was extremely short either.

Su-hyeun's gaze drifted toward the second text Lee Ju-ho had sent him.

- Oh, by the way. I heard something pretty amazing will be put up as the prize for the winner of this year's Ranking Wars. I'll tell you the details later on cuz even I don't know it yet.

The victory prize.

This was different from the last time when Gordon Rohan simply put up some money as a reward. It could be that a wealthy elite interested in this massive event called the Ranking Wars decided to put up a prize.

Su-hyeun was never all that interested in the money, to begin with, but that didn't mean he wasn't curious about what this prize could potentially be.

If the prize is that thing I'm thinking of…

If the victory prize was that very item given out during one of the Ranking Wars back in his past life…

Su-hyeun couldn't participate in the tournament back then as he was occupied with an indigo-colored dungeon that showed up at the same time, and ever since then, he had been feeling rueful about it.

Moreover, Gordon Rohan who ultimately won the prize ended up losing it during one of his trials later on.

Let's go and take a look.

Two months still remained. It was pretty clear what he needed to do in the meantime—increase both his Death Aura and stamina stats.

His task now was to increase the proficiency of his newly acquired skills and then climb the tower as quickly as possible.

Rip—

Su-hyeun opened the doorway to the tower. Miru followed right behind him.

This was the beginning of the next trial.

* * *

As expected, the 51st floor's trial was straightforward.

Since the 50th floor was that difficult, it was almost as if "they" were telling him to take it easy at least on this floor.

The other floors with numbers ending in one were all like this. The composition of the trial would always be simpler and its difficulty lower than the preceding floor.

That was why Su-hyeun wasn't particularly concerned about the 51st floor's trial. And as it turned out, he was right. This trial was way too easy. So much so that he didn't really have much to do.

Gya-ong, gya-ong—!

The biggest reason for that was none other than Miru's contribution. Every time monsters showed up, the red dragon spat out its Breath immediately and took care of all potential threats. Su-hyeun watched this scene repeat itself over and over again in pure astonishment from the sidelines.

"R—right, you did great."

Gya-ong—!

As if it wanted him to praise it some more, Miru continued to circle around Su-hyeun.

Monsters' corpses littered the ground around them.

The goal of this trial was pretty simple.

[Stop the corruption of an angel.]

The place Su-hyeun was standing in was worthy of being called the den of devils.

All of the monsters that appeared happened to be devil-types. Of course, that didn't mean they were the real devils. No, they were far closer to demonic beasts raised by the devils.

Even if a real devil showed up, it would still not present any problem whatsoever, yet here they were, confronted by demonic beasts only. Therefore, the situation was almost disappointing for him.

The only potential issue could have been the sheer number of the creatures, but even then, they all collapsed powerlessly when struck by Miru's Breath.

His attack power is much greater than before, but…

Su-hyeun studied Miru with a somewhat puzzled expression.

I don't really see anything that qualifies as the effects of the awakening.

It wasn't as if nothing about Miru had changed. However, they were all minute changes ultimately—only on the level of being just a little more noticeable, that was all.

It was quite different from the earlier "growing pains" stage.

Miru's overall physique had grown by several dozen times after the growing pains stage, and the number of times it could use Breath or skills had shot up noticeably as well. But this time…

Have I been expecting a little too much?

When Miru suddenly collapsed without warning, he thought that he was okay with his red dragon waking back up all healthy and unaffected. However, it seemed that he had been hoping for something amazing to happen deep in his heart.

Well, it's already pretty good enough like this, anyway.

Whatever the case might have been, the number of Breaths that Miru could fire seemed to have increased by a lot. It must have wanted to boast about its abilities during this trial because it began to take care of the monsters even before Su-hyeun gave out his order.

He didn't really try to stop Miru, though, since he wanted to confirm the dragon's abilities after it went through the awakening period.

Su-hyeun and Miru didn't need a lot of time before arriving at their destination. They could already see a large statue resembling a devil's arm and an angel tied to it in the distance.

Su-hyeun called out, "Are you alright?"

The angel's complexion was ashen, while its wings were dyed in a grey hue. Without a doubt, that couldn't have been its normal appearance. That had to be the goal of this trial—the corruption of an angel.

"A human, huh?"

The angel spoke, and a distinctly manly voice resounded. With the winged creature's refined facial feature, Su-hyeun wasn't initially certain whether it was male or female, but it seemed to be, unmistakably, a man.

"Why are you here?"

"I came to rescue you."

Su-hyeun reached out toward the ropes binding the angel. Even at a casual glance, the ropes made out of blackish threads looked very tough.

"Who sent you?"

"I wonder. I don't know the details myself. But it's not that important, anyway. But you must be feeling more or less okay, I presume?"

"Well, I'm not in any pain. Still, I do feel slightly strange. I'm beginning to understand what an evil heart is, after all. They wished to corrupt me, and it seems they have succeeded."

"Out of everyone who realizes they are evil, only a few are truly evil. By the way, it's going to be difficult to undo these bindings. Looks like I'll have to cut them off."

"You should stop. How can a human cut off the threads made by a dev—?"

Swish—

Snap—

Even before the angel could finish, the ropes restricting his body came loose and fell to the ground.

"Huh?"

"Why are you standing around dazed like that? We don't have much time."

"How did you—with just one stroke…?"

The angel stared at the rope on the ground with a stunned expression. The bindings that got cleanly sliced off was definitely not that easy to sever. Indeed, he shouldn't have spent all this time tied up if that were the case.

"But what do you mean, we don't have the time—?" the angel asked.

"It's too late."

Shu-wuwuwu—

The moment Su-hyeun replied, a dark fog suddenly spread out everywhere. It contained minute traces of toxin that could blind and numb one's olfactory senses, as well as dull one's entire body.

The angel knew about this fog better than anyone. "Isn't this…?"

"I was wondering why it has been so easy up until this point."

Su-hyeun had been thinking that the trial's low difficulty level was strange even if he did pass the 50th floor. He looked beyond the fog by gathering up his magical energy in his eyes. That's when he spotted the number of monsters.

"One, two, three, four… Well, they sure came in force."

He counted the number of devils mixed among the monsters. They were the creatures with two horns on their heads, sporting black wings that were in contrast to that of the angel's.

Five of such devils had shown up. Considering that the species called devils was rated as one of the higher grades of monsters, the number that stood before him was indeed was quite a lot.

Well, now the difficulty is more or less appropriate.

Rather than being scared, he began thinking that the difficulty had finally become suitable for the level. Several hundred monsters appeared, along with five devils to boot.

Miru might find this a bit too much to handle alone.

Su-hyeun thought so and was about to activate his trait. But then…

Growl, grrrrr—

"Huh?!"

A large shadow had cast over Su-hyeun's entire figure and then something even bigger completely filled up his view.

He raised his head and took a look at the head of a gigantic dragon.

It was Miru.