LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 35 - A Coincidence for the NPC
Translator: FenrirTL
Editor: ford53
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< Chapter 35: A Coincidence for the NPC (6) >
‘…What the hell?’
Yeomyeong frowned. He hadn’t sensed any mana or presence while being followed.
When he belatedly focused his senses, he felt a very faint presence.
Just as he tried to turn his head a bit more to confirm his pursuer, a cold gun muzzle pressed firmly against his cheek.
“Uh-uh, don’t think about turning your head any further. Quietly raise your hands above your head.”
The threatening tone was quite overbearing, but the playful voice made it sound less like a threat.
“While I’m speaking nicely, relax your grip and raise your hands.”
Yeomyeong frowned while pressing down on the rat’s throat. Should he let this guy go?
The decision didn’t take long. He decided to probe his opponent first.
“…This is a personal matter. You’d best not get involved.”
“It’s a personal matter for me too. Saving people is my hobby.”
The gunman spoke as if she were some kind of righteous savior, but her words were clearly a lie.
Because on the face of the rat, who was being strangled to death, there was a faint trace of relief.
Yeomyeong squinted his eyes and continued speaking.
“What’s your relationship with this guy?”
“…Nothing at all?”
A moment of silence fell between the two. After a while, a long sigh broke through the heavy silence.
“Hah, I really can’t lie. Actually, I know Wallard as an acquaintance. Satisfied?”
Yeomyeong contemplated what to do while gripping Wallard’s neck. Snapping his neck right now wouldn’t be a bad idea, but the gun aimed at his face was a problem.
He sighed and threw Wallard to the ground.
“Gah, cough, wheeze, wheeze!”
Wallard, who rolled on the ground, lay limp, gasping for breath.
Frothy spit dribbled from his mouth, and after watching this sight for a moment, the gunman opened her mouth.
“You said it was a personal matter? What on earth did that man do to you for you to try to kill him like snapping a chicken’s neck?”
“…He tried to kill my mentor.”
“Ah, a rightful revenge?”
Wallard, who had been listening to the conversation, interrupted in surprise. Spit sprayed from his still gasping mouth.
“No, cough! Absolutely not! It’s all a misunderstanding, I swear. Huh, his mentor was also my mentor. I just had a bit of a misunderstanding with him…”
“Hey.”
Misunderstanding. The moment that word came out, Yeomyeong interrupted him and drew up his mana.
Underneath his golden eyes, an emotion of fury swirled.
“You call ambushing a normal human with five armed men and a superhuman a slight misunderstanding?”
“No, that’s not… it wasn’t intentional, I didn’t mean…”
“Shut your mouth.”
Even Wallard, who couldn’t sense mana, and the gunman remained silent for a moment. Yeomyeong glared at the culprit, ready to pounce at any second.
The atmosphere was tense, ready to explode. After a brief silence, the gunman sighed and spoke.
“Ha, that guy really is a bastard.”
The rat lowered its head without replying. Yeomyeong gathered mana and initiated Pyangyeol.
‘The joke ends here.’
As he spread his hand to prepare for the next strike, the muzzle pressing against his cheek turned in a different direction.
Bang!
The gunman aimed and fired at Wallard’s calf. There was no warning that it was about to happen.
Both Wallard, who was shot, and Yeomyeong, who was watching, blinked in confusion.
“Aargh! Damn it! My leg! My leg!”
Wallard grabbed his leg and screamed in pain as he finally felt the agony.
The bullet must have been specially treated, as it pierced cleanly through the calf bone and flesh. Blood gushed from the hole in his calf, soaking the ground.
“…What the hell are you doing?”
Yeomyeong asked in a subdued voice. The mana for Pyangyeol was dispersing due to the sudden interruption.
“I have a condition where I can’t help but shoot bastards… Well, at least it’s not murder.”
“…With a wound like that, he’ll bleed to death.”
“If he gets treated within three minutes, he’ll be fine.”
The gunman spoke confidently, as if they had done this before. Only then did Yeomyeong turn his head to check the gunman’s appearance.
The spot where the gunman should have been standing was empty.
In Yeomyeong’s view, there was only a delicate hand floating in the air, holding a revolver.
‘…Invisibility magic?’
Yeomyeong instantly recognized the type of magic and furrowed his brows slightly.
It was the same magic Freya Khan had used to hide her twin swords.
He didn’t know how difficult invisibility magic was, but it was certainly not easy to cloak one’s entire body with magic.
This gunman was either a formidable magician or someone with an even more formidable magical tool. Either way, they were not an opponent to be underestimated.
‘Should I fight? Or…’
As Yeomyeong’s mana stabilized, the sound of hurried boots and shouts echoed from the other end of the alley.
”Which crazy bastard is shooting during meal time?!”
”Let the military police have lunch too!”
It was the voices of the military police responsible for maintaining order in the mercenary district. The proximity of their voices suggested it was only a matter of time before they reached this alley.
‘Did he shoot on purpose, knowing this would happen?’
Yeomyeong glared at the invisible gunman. He… or rather, she, based on the voice, twirled the revolver theatrically.
“Oh dear, the military police will be here soon. Shall we go our separate ways now? If we leave him like this, he might really die.”
“What if I say no?”
“Why? Are you going to leave him to die? But, you know, there’s no need to kill him.”
“….”
“His shinbone is pierced. Even if he gets treatment, his bone will ache for the rest of his life. Isn’t that enough punishment?”
“Every time his bones ache, he might be reminded of his revenge.”
“Well… that’s true, but I swear he won’t. I promise you, the Blue Rats will never come near you or your mentor again.”
If her face had been visible, she might have winked. Yeomyeong glared at the spot where the gunman was likely hiding instead of answering.
After a moment, she added in an awkward tone.
“Ah, seriously. Isn’t this enough to believe?”
“Do I look like an idiot who would trust someone who doesn’t even show their face?”
“Geez, trying to believe only what you see. Even religious people believe in gods without ever seeing their faces, you know?”
“I don’t go to temples.”
“Oh really? Must be nice being a non-believer, huh?”
While the two bickered, the abandoned Wallard panted with half-closed eyes. It was a typical symptom of someone on the brink of death due to excessive blood loss.
“Damn, he’ll really die like this.”
Seeing this, the gunman sighed and flicked her gun. Was she going to shoot? Yeomyeong tensed his muscles.
Clack.
Contrary to his expectation, she threw the gun to the floor.
Then, raising her now free arms, she grasped something in the air and “pulled it apart.”
A magically formed transparent curtain parted, revealing what had been hidden behind it.
Someone’s chin and the space between their neck… a smooth jawline, a sleek neck, and something large.
Ready for battle, Yeomyeong frowned, wondering what she was doing.
Ignoring him, the gunman reached between her breasts and pulled something out.
It was a pendant engraved with the symbol of a bleeding heart above crossed swords and axes. Although it was not of Earth, it was a symbol familiar even to Earth’s inhabitants.
The red god of war and struggle, Ledox, praised by warriors beyond the dimensional gate.
‘Why a god’s symbol at a time like this?’
As one of Yeomyeong’s eyebrows arched, mana began to flow from the pendant.
It wasn’t the mana infused by the gunman, but mana emitted by the necklace itself.
“…A sacred relic?”
Unlike magical tools that required external mana to operate, this was an object blessed by a god, exuding mana on its own.
Proof of Faith and Reward for Belief.
“It’s a relief you recognized it at once. Yes, it’s a sacred artifact.”
The mana emanating from the sacred artifact was so heavy it made his skin tingle.
It was not merely the type of sacred artifact distributed to ordinary priests, but one of the high-level sacred artifacts that could only be seen on TV.
“…You’re a cleric, not a gunslinger.”
“I’d rather be a gunslinger than a cleric.”
She grabbed the pendant and tore it off her chest with a snap.
Then she handed the sacred artifact to Yeomyeong.
“Here, take it.”
“…What?”
“It’s a token of our vow. If, by any chance, your benefactor gets hurt because of the Blue Rats, take this to the Ledox Temple and ask for revenge. I assure you, the order will exact proper revenge on those who break their vows.”
“….”
“Isn’t this trustworthy enough?”
Yeomyeong alternated between looking at the pendant in his hand and the empty air before him, then obediently accepted the pendant.
He did it not because he trusted her, but because he trusted the sacred artifact and the Ledox Order.
The order was known for personally wielding their swords against those who tarnished their name.
Yeomyeong, having taken the pendant, stepped back to clear the way.
The gunslinger hid his large torso back into the invisibility spell and hurried towards the rat.
“Wallard, you idiot. Can’t you withstand a single bullet?”
A bright white light flickered from the hand floating in the air. It was not the fake light shown by frauds but the true divine light that performed miracles. Even the clerics from the Incheon diocese he remembered couldn’t emit such light…
‘Why is a cleric of that caliber working with the Blue Rats?’
The question lingered but never formed fully.
Yeomyeong’s ears caught the shouts of the military police as he watched Wallard and the invisible cleric.
“Check alleys 3 and 11! Those are the only ones left!”
Yeomyeong turned and walked towards the opposite side of the alley. He didn’t know how this encounter would unfold… but now was the time to leave.
As he left, a loud voice echoed behind him.
“Hey! It was disgusting to meet you, and I hope we never cross paths again!”
Saying things like that usually meant they would meet again. Yeomyeong shook his head.
* * *
Kim Mansoo and Cheon Yeomyeong met right in front of the mercenary corps’ base camp road.
“How did the guy who left first arrive at the same time as me?”
Yeomyeong’s clothes were covered in dust. Although Kim Mansoo instinctively felt that something had happened, Yeomyeong’s expression was excessively calm.
“I got lost.”
“Got lost? Where did you leave the map?”
“I lost it.”
As he watched Yeomyeong respond calmly, Mansoo’s eyebrows furrowed deeply.
He wanted to snap at him, but he couldn’t say anything since he had been dozing off in the car.
“Ha, well, at least we made it to the base camp.”
In the end, Kim Mansoo entered the base camp without saying another word.
Creak.
As soon as he opened the door, an old doorbell screeched.
Whether it was meant to serve as a doorbell or not, a dozen or so mercenaries inside the camp simultaneously turned to look at the two of them.
“Huh? Deputy leader? Weren’t you being disciplined?”
The first to speak was a man with a strikingly bushy beard. He seemed to be in the middle of cleaning his firearm, as a neatly disassembled automatic rifle lay in front of him.
“Yes, I’m still under discipline. Mansoo is here as an instructor.”
“Instructor?”
Only then did the middle-aged man glance at Yeomyeong standing behind Kim Mansoo.
Perhaps Yeomyeong looked younger than expected, as the man chuckled and said, “I’ve always told you to control your temper. Being a babysitter at your rank…”
“Cut the crap. When’s the next deployment?”
“Deployment? Well… You arrived just in time.”
“Just in time?”
The middle-aged man grinned as he skillfully reassembled the rifle.
“Today, in fact, in just three hours. We’re heading out to support the team on an expedition to North Manchuria.”
Kim Mansoo sighed. “Going into action on the first day, the rookie has great luck.”
“Do you think an expedition support mission is a joke? How can a rookie on his first day go along?”
“Joke? Deputy leader, I went on my first mission just two days in.”
“You had military experience, you fool. The rookie has none, so he should just…”
As Kim Mansoo tried to refuse, Yeomyeong, who was standing behind him, interrupted.
“I’ll go.”
Kim Mansoo’s face twisted. Seeing this, the middle-aged man burst into hearty laughter.
“Haha! It’s been a while since we’ve had a decent recruit! That’s the spirit! If you’re in the mercenary business, you should be proactive!”
With a click, the middle-aged man finished assembling his rifle and stood up. He slung the automatic rifle over his shoulder and stood in front of Yeomyeong.
“Rookie, what’s your name?”
“Cheon Yeomyeong.”
“Yeomyeong, welcome to Team 3 of the Seonjook Mercenary Corps. I’m Tian Lin, the team leader. As for the other guys’ names…”
Tian Lin glanced around the base camp and shrugged.
“If you don’t die on your first mission, I’ll introduce them to you.”
Amidst the chuckles of the mercenaries, Kim Mansoo rubbed his throbbing forehead.