NOVEL NEXT Chapter 20
- 'Slam!'
"Sword Demon? What brings you here so suddenly...?"
"Everyone except me, get out of this room."
Startled by the sudden, nonsensical demand, the doctor retorted.
"What are you talking about? The Young Miss's condition is worsening in real-time..."
"I'll give you three seconds. If you're not out by then... things won't end nicely."
- 'Gooooooh...!!!'
"Hi-Hieeek?!"
- 'Tadadak!'
"...Using killing intent against civilians, has he gone senile?"
However, looking at the tumbler held in his hand, the reason for his actions would become understandable.
"You can heal the disciple I think of as a daughter... she said."
At first, he thought it was just empty boasting.
The fact that his disciple had collapsed, was dying in real-time, and was afflicted with a curse so severe that modern medicine could only slow its progression, never cure it, was quite well-known.
Most Heroes likely knew that this situation stemmed from Lee Cheon-ma's own excessive greed and a misjudged Gate.
She was a young girl barely rescued from a burning civilian house, set ablaze by a criminal organization venting their anger.
She resembled so much the child—his own son—who had impulsively rushed into a Gate to save people, only to have his identity as the Sword Demon's son exposed, leading to him being intentionally abandoned by a group that disliked Lee Cheon-ma, dying alone inside the Dungeon.
Seeing his own son in that girl, Lee Cheon-ma decided to raise her.
However, there was a problem.
At that time, Lee Cheon-ma was a colleague of the then Sword Saint, Kang Jinmyeong, and belonged to the Myeonggeom Guild together.
If he took this child in, he wouldn't be able to fully dedicate his time to the Guild of Kang Jinmyeong, his colleague with whom he had shared countless battlefields, thus becoming a burden.
Therefore, he declared he would take the child in, even leaving the Sword Saint's Guild, and vowed to raise her strong enough to never fall, no matter what.
Fortunately, the Sword Saint understood his feelings and told him to call if he needed help, allowing Lee Cheon-ma to return to his hometown with a more peaceful heart.
He managed to fully heal the collapsed child's body by requesting the help of top-tier healers and using the highest-grade Potions, but... there was one problem.
The shocking doctor's diagnosis revealed that the young girl's eyes had already lost their light due to the effects of thick smoke and toxic gas.
However, the girl possessed a terrifyingly genius talent for the sword, enough to make even the 'Sword Saint' click his tongue in amazement.
As if born to wield a sword, she could roughly grasp the sword's position even without sight, and even with only verbal explanations, she could perfectly execute swordsmanship like a swordsman who had practiced it for at least ten years.
Unfortunately, she had the significant drawback of being unable to sense terrain features other than the sword, so he first taught her 'Gigamsul' (Energy Sensing Technique), which blind people often used.
Luckily, a member of the Guild he previously belonged to was blind, so that Sword Saint fellow immediately sent that Guild member as a teacher.
She learned to expand her 'Gigamsul' to the point where she could perceive terrain features within about 50 meters.
Seeing the young child absorb all knowledge like a sponge and grow, thinking she might even surpass him, Lee Cheon-ma became excessively harsh towards her.
However, the young girl never once showed any sign of hardship.
So, thinking, "Indeed, this child is a genius," he took her to a mid-to-low-rank Gate that even capable B-Rank Heroes found difficult to conquer.
For him, it was a simple Gate where he could kill everything up to the boss monster with a single sword strike, but there weren't many people, including himself, an S-Rank hunter, who could do such a thing.
Curious to see how much talent this young child would display before the trial of a B-Rank Gate, the decision was also half-unplanned.
- 'Swish!'
"Kieeeeeek!"
The young girl, with her overwhelming talent, sliced through the low-level monsters as if cutting tofu.
Lee Cheon-ma was expectant.
The only person on record to have cleared a B-Rank Gate in their teens was Thomas Andrea from the United States, who held the title of the World's Strongest Shield.
Even Thomas Andrea was said to have cleared a B-Rank Gate at the age of 19.
If the girl before him cleared this Gate, she could significantly shorten that record to 14 years old.
Furthermore, since he hadn't significantly interfered in the Dungeon conquest, she would become the world's first teenager to conquer a B-Rank Gate solo.
However, perhaps he was too overjoyed by this fact and let his guard down.
Lee Cheon-ma couldn't react.
In an instant, a top-tier A-Rank monster, a High Lich, flew past him towards the young girl.
It was definitely a mid-rank Gate where the boss monster was supposed to be low B-Rank level.
But somehow, an A-Rank monster, a High Lich, flew towards the girl before him.
Lee Cheon-ma hastily swung his sword, cutting the High Lich's body in half, but...
- 'Puuuk!'
The young girl was pierced straight through by the High Lich's scythe.
High Liches could carry their life source, a Life Vessel, separately.
The Life Vessel of the High Lich he had cut down wasn't in its body.
The moment he saw the limp, lifeless girl, Lee Cheon-ma immediately lost consciousness.
When Lee Cheon-ma regained consciousness, the sight before him was the fading form of the High Lich, lacking even the Mana to regenerate despite having no Life Vessel, and the young girl slowly dying in his arms.
As soon as he exited the Gate, Lee Cheon-ma's first action was to fly straight to his former colleague Kang Jinmyeong's Guild and beg him to save the young child's life.
Naturally, Kang Jinmyeong, being Lee Cheon-ma's irreplaceable colleague, employed the nation's top healers and even used the highest-grade Potion, said to be produced by the Yuseong Group at a rate of only one bottle per year.
However, far from improving, the girl's condition began to worsen further.
The reason was simple.
That young child had been pretending to be fine, arduously enduring the burden placed upon her body.
Her body, already broken down from overexertion, had been pierced through the abdomen by a Lich's scythe imbued with a powerful curse.
And so, spending 20 billion won per year on medical expenses, clinging to the faint hope that the child would wake up, he had watched over her bedside for four years already.
Watching his disciple, who might never wake up, and her ever-worsening condition, Lee Cheon-ma was gradually growing weary.
Amidst this, he received a support request from Eve Meitner, a colleague and the Chairman during his Academy days. In the Dungeon he flew to instantly, he met a certain girl.
A girl who collapsed right after unleashing magic powerful enough to annihilate a potent Demon—one that had even incapacitated the S-Rank Hero Eve Meitner—without a trace, by drawing a dazzlingly beautiful constellation.
Her appearance strikingly resembled his own disciple.
Determined to save her this time, he kicked off the air and flew at the fastest speed of his life.
Thanks to him, the girl woke up safely, but seeing her immediately start vomiting black lumps from her entire body, Lee Cheon-ma sensed his own expression twisting into madness.
Fortunately, the girl woke up fine.
His heart sank when he heard she had embedded a part of the 'Demon King'—an unidentified monster the Demon had come looking for inside the Gate—into her eye, but he was slightly relieved to see the side effects weren't severe.
After getting information about the magic that had erased the Demon, he intended to leave, but... the sight the girl showed him was truly shocking.
She drew something in the air, and the hospital room ceiling instantly turned black like the night sky seen from space.
Above it, a beautiful constellation adorning the sky transformed into the shape of a water pitcher.
Seeing the girl collect the rainbow-colored liquid pouring from the pitcher into a tumbler and suddenly hand it to him, he thought it was merely a reward for saving her, but...
"I heard you have a disciple you think of like a daughter. If you give her this, her condition should improve quite a bit."
The moment he heard those words, there wasn't even time to ask about side effects or how the liquid in this tumbler could possibly neutralize those curses.
He flew swiftly to the child's hospital room, even breaking the window in his haste. Seeing a text message that arrived mid-flight, his pace accelerated even further.
[Old Man]
[The potion's efficacy seems guaranteed, at least according to
- 'Gulp...'
He slowly poured the liquid from the tumbler into the young child's mouth.
She was old enough to have entered Raon Academy and be looking forward to her second year, but perhaps because she had been bedridden, only her body had grown while she lay there, his disciple.
".........Seoyun."
- 'Gulp!'
As she finished drinking all the liquid in the tumbler, Lee Seoyun's body, lying collapsed on the bed, began to glow brightly.
The ominous marks that had appeared like brands on Lee Seoyun's body began to vanish instantly, and her complexion rapidly returned.
And then, into the ears of Lee Cheon-ma, who had squeezed his eyes shut, caught between the desperate hope that this medicine would work and the guilt that prevented him from looking directly at his disciple's face...
"..........Master? Why are you covering your eyes like that?"
It wasn't the thin voice he'd thought cute before she collapsed, but the voice of a mature young lady.
Yet, just by hearing it, he could instinctively tell it was her voice.
"........."
- 'Drip, drop!'
"M-Master?!"
"...I'm sorry. I..."
A reunion that wouldn't have happened without someone's help.
The sight of Lee Seoyun awkwardly scratching her head amidst the bright light streaming in as the curtain by the open window fluttered in the strong wind...
Truly, it was nothing short of a 'miracle'.