Chapter 12

The Returning Archmage Is a Max-Level Player Chapter 12

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He thought things were on an upward trend.

They had formed a stable party, and their income had noticeably increased as well.

They had even been lucky enough to get a Mana Core right from the start of today’s hunt.

It felt like a day that would be filled with good things.

That was the problem.

‘I knew things were going too well...!’

Jung Taeho gritted his teeth.

Villains.

Criminals who had Awakened. Or Awakened who had turned to crime.

Most of them lived in cities while hiding their identities, or abandoned society altogether and wandered around.

The worst of the worst.

And those bastards had attacked them.

“Hehehe. Your equipment looks pretty decent. Should fetch a good amount of money.”

The appearance of the men approaching with sinister laughter was ominous at a glance.

It was a dangerous situation, but they could not give up.

Didn’t they say that even if you enter a tiger’s den, you can survive as long as you keep your wits about you?

Jung Taeho cautiously shifted his eyes and assessed the enemies.

‘There are four.’

Judging by the weapons in their hands, there was a high chance they were all martial-type fighters.

That meant there was a chance to win.

Jung Taeho urgently shouted.

“Everyone, get behind me!”

But the situation was worse than expected.

Perhaps they had laid a trap and waited, because the encirclement had already been completed.

Front, back, left, and right. There was no opening to escape through.

The fortunate part was that the mage Han Sora was a member of the party.

‘We can break through.’

Her magic was powerful, so once she finished casting, a path would open.

Trusting only in that, Jung Taeho gritted his teeth and held out, while Han Sora also desperately condensed her magical power to live up to that expectation.

But there was no way the villains would simply stand by and watch.

“Stop the mage!”

One of the villains facing them from the front urgently charged toward Han Sora.

In his hand was a sharpened longsword.

Jung Taeho’s eyes lit up.

‘Too late.’

The spell was already complete.

From what he had personally witnessed, charging barehanded into Han Sora’s magic was close to suicide.

Fwoosh-!

The completed flame magic erupted from Han Sora’s hands and blasted toward the charging villains.

The flames and the longsword collided head-on.

“Did we get him...!?”

It was the moment Jung Taeho looked on with hopeful eyes.

Slash-

It was cut apart.

The magic.

“What...!?”

Jung Taeho’s eyes widened in shock.

The moment the flames touched the longsword’s blade, they split apart and vanished into thin air.

The magical power was forcibly severed, and the backlash returned to Han Sora.

“Cough-!”

Red blood poured from Han Sora’s mouth.

Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the ground.

Their only hope had crumbled, and the momentum of the battle decisively shifted.

“I paid quite a bit for this sword. It has an option that lets it cut through magic.”

Weapons known as magic tools or artifacts.

Jung Taeho had failed to take that into account.

Naturally.

Jung Taeho had no experience fighting people.

Compared to that, the villains were men accustomed to violence and habitual plunder.

In the first place, allowing Han Sora enough time to complete her spell had itself been a kind of trap.

It was meant to remove the mage from the battle through the backlash caused by having her magic destroyed.

The difference in experience was inevitably reflected directly in the battle, and it proved fatal.

“Now that we’ve dealt with the annoying mage. Let’s finish this.”

“Hehehe. Hyuntae hyung, wouldn’t it be better to keep the woman alive and take her with us?”

The villains, certain of victory, revealed their murderous intent and lust as they slowly closed the distance.

Crackle-

Along with static electricity, faint electrical currents began to form in the air.

Just as confusion spread across the villains’ faces at the sudden phenomenon.

Flash-!

A burst of light erupted.

Crackle-!!

Sharp currents of electricity pierced through the villains one after another.

All four collapsed to the ground with their limbs sprawled out, unable even to properly scream.

In front of them.

A young man stood there, though no one knew when he had approached.

Calm, cold eyes beneath black hair.

The man who had come to deal with the jackals.

It was Kim Dohyun.

Kim Dohyun looked over the battlefield and inwardly sighed in relief.

‘Fortunately, I’m not too late.’

When he arrived at the battlefield, it had not been difficult to distinguish the bad side from the side being harmed.

The situation was obvious at a glance.

One side had surrounded the other, and one side had been cornered.

Their appearances and words as well.

And decisively, the Archmage’s intuition that he had honed over fifty years on the battlefield had also come into play.

Any one of those things alone might have been uncertain, but with everything matching, the reliability of his judgment was close to one hundred percent.

Indeed, the party he had saved was merely cautiously watching him and gauging his intentions.

The atmosphere was tense, but Kim Dohyun did not particularly care.

More precisely, his attention was elsewhere.

‘That is...?’

The longsword held by one of the villains lying on the ground.

It was familiar.

“Grip.”

Grip, a spell that used mana to remotely pull objects, drew the longsword on the ground into Kim Dohyun’s hand.

Once he held it, he became certain.

[Rusted Otherworldly Sword.]

Grade: Rare / Usage Restriction: Strength 2 or higher.

Can cut through magic below a certain rank.

The System’s explanation was concise.

It listed neither the source nor the place of manufacture.

But Kim Dohyun immediately knew where the sword had come from.

‘This is a sword from Grundal, isn’t it?’

The engraving of a crossed anvil and hammer near the base of the blade. It belonged to Grundal, the world of the Meister, Thorgen.

Although its quality was only on the level of a third-rate sword.

What mattered right now was not its quality.

‘Are swords from Grundal circulating on Earth?’

Why?

Countless hypotheses surfaced in his mind, but he calmly organized them.

‘No jumping to conclusions.’

No matter how much he thought about it, there was no way to derive an answer from the information he currently possessed.

‘The reasons I need to investigate Babel just keep increasing.’

It was just as he quickly finished organizing his thoughts.

“Thank you for saving us!”

Jung Taeho bowed deeply at the waist.

“I’m Jung Taeho. The younger guy over there is Seo Minjun. And the woman is Han Sora.”

“I’m Kim Dohyun.”

Naturally, he had not completely lowered his guard without thought.

Jung Taeho’s gaze had already checked Kim Dohyun’s wrist.

‘Awakened registration ID.’

It meant he was an officially registered Awakened.

Just knowing that he was different from the villains who had attacked them earlier was enough to ease his wariness considerably.

No, in the first place, there was little point in remaining tense.

Considering the power of the magic that had instantly subdued four villains just moments ago.

If that man had harbored malicious intent, they would already have ended up in the same state as the villains.

It meant they had no choice but to trust him.

Jung Taeho raised his head, sincerity filling his eyes.

“Once again, thank you very much. If it weren’t for you, Dohyun, all of us would have died. Once we return to the safe zone, we’ll definitely repay this favor.”

“I didn’t do it to be repaid, so don’t worry about that. More importantly, can you make it back to the safe zone?”

The party’s condition was serious.

They had suffered quite a few injuries from the raiders’ attacks, and Han Sora looked as though even taking a single step was difficult because of the magical backlash.

If they were attacked by monsters while moving like this, they would not be able to respond.

Jung Taeho seemed to know that as well, because he could not easily answer.

‘I guess it can’t be helped.’

He would feel uneasy sending them back like this.

He could just hunt monsters on the way back to the safe zone.

There would be some loss, but it would not be significant.

At most, around one Mana Core.

‘It might actually be more beneficial.’

Because Mana Cores had so many uses, there were quantity limits on purchases, but it was still possible to buy them with money.

And raiders. The people called villains on Earth had bounties on their heads.

Judging by their movements, they were clearly low-rank, but there was still a chance they had bounties.

Moreover, traveling with Jung Taeho’s party would help with transporting the villains.

Kim Dohyun placed handcuffs made of magical power on the villains lying on the ground and looked at Jung Taeho.

“I’ll deal with any monsters that approach while we’re moving to the safe zone, so just keep an eye on these guys.”

“...Yes. Understood.”

Kim Dohyun nodded and took the lead.

Jung Taeho’s party began following behind him.

______________

An area lined with abandoned buildings.

It had once been called the Kaesong Industrial Complex, but now it had fallen into ruins, exposed and defenseless.

In one corner of those ruins.

From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a collapsed factory building, but inside, a crude living space had been set up.

An E+ rank Awakened and the leader of a villain group known as the ‘Iron Claw’ around the border region.

Yoon Jaeseong narrowed his eyes in disbelief.

“What?”

His gaze toward the man standing in front of him was filled with displeasure.

“The money is short. I’m sure I told you last month that the price would increase by twenty percent.”

“A twenty percent increase? How does that make any damn sense...!”

A villain standing beside Yoon Jaeseong, Park Dogyeom, stepped forward to protest, but Yoon Jaeseong raised a hand and stopped him.

“Kuhahaha. It sounded so ridiculous that I naturally thought you were joking. You were serious?”

Yoon Jaeseong let out a mocking laugh.

“But what a shame. That’s all the money we have.”

“If there is no money, there will be no further transactions.”

At Kang Cheolmin’s cold words, Yoon Jaeseong’s expression rapidly hardened.

“You’re ending the deal? Says who?”

“I am making a reasonable demand.”

“A reasonable demand...”

The corner of Yoon Jaeseong’s mouth twisted into a cold smile.

“I suppose there is some logic to that.”

“If you understand, then that is enough.”

“Fine. Just as you said, our dealings end today. But this situation is rather close to a unilateral breach of contract...”

Yoon Jaeseong trailed off, his eyes lowering coldly as his figure rapidly blurred.

“So I’ll collect the penalty fee on my side.”

Appearing together with his voice, Yoon Jaeseong swung a sharp sword toward Kang Cheolmin’s neck.

E+ rank.

It was a rank worthy of some pride, but even that was a thing of the past.

Through continued hunting and growth, he had become even stronger, to the point that he could hold his own against D-rank Awakened.

Because of that.

He was certain that at this distance, Kang Cheolmin would be unable to react to the attack.

“Your head. And all the money you’ve saved up!!”

Soon, the blade would cut through Kang Cheolmin’s neck.

It certainly should have.

Whoosh-!

The air was split.

There was no sensation transmitted through his fingertips.

“This is why idiots are hopeless.”

Behind Yoon Jaeseong, whose eyes had widened.

Kang Cheolmin’s low, calm voice sounded.

“They run wild without knowing their place.”

Those were the last words Yoon Jaeseong heard.

Slash-!

With a short sound, Yoon Jaeseong’s head rolled across the floor.

“...!”

The villains’ faces turned pale at the gruesome sight.

No one could speak.

No, they could not.

Because they could not understand what had just happened.

Yoon Jaeseong, whom they had believed to be strong, had died without even being able to react.

Amid that silence, Kang Cheolmin slowly put away his bloodstained dagger and pointed a finger at the villain Park Dogyeom.

“You. Starting today, you are the new leader of the Iron Claw.”

“Y-Yes...! Understood!”

Park Dogyeom hurriedly bowed his head.

“If you understand, clean up this lump of meat. Then go and bring me more money.”

Park Dogyeom hurriedly moved Yoon Jaeseong’s corpse lying on the floor into a corner, then opened a hidden compartment and took out all the money they had concealed inside.

“Th-This... this is everything!”

“It’s still not enough.”

“I’m sorry. Yoon Jaeseong. That idiot wasted too much on luxuries...”

Kang Cheolmin’s expression twisted.

For a moment, the air inside the hideout froze.

Fear pressed down on them, because they had no idea whose head might roll across the floor next.

Fortunately, nothing like that happened.

“I’ll collect the rest next month, so prepare it.”

Kang Cheolmin rose from his seat and was about to leave.

“B-Big trouble!”

A man hurriedly ran into the entrance of the hideout.

“Jo Hyeontae’s group attacked some Awakened and not only got beaten instead. It looks like they were captured alive and dragged away!”

“What!?”

Park Dogyeom’s face twisted.

They were already short on the money they had to pay the monster standing before them, Kang Cheolmin.

And if the men who had just been captured revealed the location of the hideout, forcing them to relocate their base.

Then they would never be able to make up the payment.

Which meant.

Just like Yoon Jaeseong in front of them.

‘I’ll die.’

Park Dogyeom was anxiously biting his thumbnail when.

“An additional ten percent increase. In exchange, I’ll cleanly take care of this matter for you.”

It was literally a devil’s proposal.

The amount they had failed to pay this month.

And if the additional amount was added on top of that, the total would increase by nearly forty percent compared to before.

It was insane.

Even if the hideout was not discovered, it was an amount that would be nearly impossible to cover.

But there was no other choice.

Now that they had been branded as villains, there was nowhere for them to run.

If they wanted to stay alive, their only option was to hold out in their current hideout and continue dealing with Kang Cheolmin.

“P-Please... I’m begging you!”