Sigh- Haaa-
Yeon-hee opened her mouth after taking a deep breath.
“Noh Ha-yoon, this welcoming greeting… was completely off the mark. Therefore, I cannot party with you. I will report the breach of contract to the office and the Vision Guild.”
Yeon-hee spoke firmly, suppressing her emotions, and only then did Noh Ha-yoon start to backtrack.
“Ah! That’s a bit problematic… I promise I won’t pull a prank like this again, please let me off just this once. I was just trying to see how strong you really are. I only aimed gently so the summoned creature wouldn’t get hurt!…”
‘If that was aiming gently, you should have been at C-rank by now.’
As I watched Noh Ha-yoon floundering to clarify, I shook my head in disbelief. This was someone who had become a key figure in a large guild in the future. There’s no way she could be so careless.
Yeon-hee glared at Ha-yoon for a moment, then turned to discuss with Helen and Jin-kyeong.
‘Is this even something that needs a meeting?’
I was puzzled, but decided to wait.
Tap-tap-
“Yikes!!”
While waiting, I playfully tapped her chin with a dagger.
“Can you please tell her to put that knife away?!”
But Yeon-hee acted as if she didn’t hear and continued the conversation.
“You… what exactly are you? Are you perhaps a Hunter with [Mimicry]?”
“………”
I slightly pressed the edge of the dagger against Noh Ha-yoon’s throat, still alive and kicking.
Swoosh-
The self-defense dagger smoothly sliced her skin, like it was a very easy task.
Drip-drop-
Blood droplets formed along the line of her cut, and I gazed into her eyes as if to say I could do worse.
“Ugh- Okay, okay, I get it, please stop-!”
‘Is she being overly pampered by the Vision Guild? Something feels off about her.’
I don’t know if Noh Ha-yoon’s future changed due to the dungeon break being pushed up a week, but from what I saw now, the charismatic figure I had seen in videos seemed far from reach.
After a brief meeting, the surprising conclusion was to let it go this time.
If her intention was to check a teammate’s abilities, then if that was all, it didn’t seem like valid grounds for breaking up the party.
Besides, she had attacked a summoned creature, and it actually was so.
But the main reason, of course, was that Noh Ha-yoon was affiliated with the Vision Guild. She was someone deemed the next ace in the largest guild in our country. It wouldn’t be bad to keep her on a leash.
“Due to such reasons, I would like to impose a penalty concerning the settlement… Do you have any objections?”
‘Well, she did well enough. It was a bit stuttering, but still…’
Although Helen was supposedly the party leader, I didn’t understand why Yeon-hee was taking charge of the negotiations, but regardless, the current situation was favorable for me.
When Yeon-hee presented the terms, Noh Ha-yoon’s face lit up, and she nodded vigorously.
“I’m okay with that! You don’t have to worry; it won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”
‘You should apologize properly.’
Noh Ha-yoon’s underlying perceptions that slipped through slightly irked me, but since she was somewhat useful today, I decided to overlook it. After all, the decision came from the party members.
So… it was a decision made by three people.
My opinion, of course, was not reflected…
Hmm… something…
The more I thought about it, the angrier I felt.
Was I frustrated because I couldn’t voice my thoughts?
‘That’s part of it, but it’s not the only reason…’
Suddenly, the villain Lee Young-chul crossed my mind.
‘Lee Young-chul, Noh Ha-yoon too… We didn’t do anything wrong…’
From the beginning, I have despised people who bully others for no reason. Lee Young-chul was one such type, and Noh Ha-yoon had similarly rubbed me the wrong way.
The growing ball of fury within my chest swelled up, and in a fit of rage, I grabbed Noh Ha-yoon’s flowing hair and punched her in the gut.
[Slam]
Thwack-!
“Ugh-!”
Noh Ha-yoon’s slender waist arched like a bow due to the blow to her stomach.
Gah-hah- Hah-!
“Wow…”
“Huh…?”
Helen and Jin-kyeong turned to Yeon-hee with stunned expressions, and Yeon-hee looked at me in shock.
All of the summoned creature’s actions would fall under Yeon-hee’s responsibility. People thought we acted on Yeon-hee’s orders. I had always kept that in mind while acting, but…
‘If I have to put up with this kind of thing, I’d rather just die.’
Smack! Thwack-!
“Please, spare me-”
I stopped the attacks after delivering two more hits to her stomach.
“Il-wol! You can’t do this… this is not right…”
Yeon-hee said that to me, but did I imagine it, or was the corner of her mouth slightly upturned?
Noh Ha-yoon, perhaps once again caught off guard by my unexpected attack, looked up at me with heavy breaths, her gaze intense.
‘… Should I kill her…?’
The emotions I had briefly raised with [Calm] quickly subsided, but her expensive equipment tantalized me, flickering before my eyes. If I even got lucky and dropped just one…
Whoooosh-
For a moment, that thought genuinely crossed my mind.
Yikes!
“Really! Cough-cough- I’m not doing this again, I swear! Forgive me!”
Noh Ha-yoon exclaimed, looking at me, pleading for forgiveness with sincerity.
Tsk-
‘Should have asked Yeon-hee for forgiveness; that would’ve been a perfect score. Well, I might let it slide this time.’
I released the hair I had grabbed and started moving away.
“Haaa… Hah… Crazy…”
Her bright red face and bloodshot eyes followed me, her ragged breaths tickling my ears.
At that moment…
“Can I add something to what Yeon-hee just proposed?”
Helen slipped into the gap left by Noh Ha-yoon’s drastically changing mood.
Three minutes later.
“Do as you like… I was in the wrong first anyway.”
Helen bombarded Noh Ha-yoon with words while standing beside me, resulting in the previously discussed settlement ratio being dropped to 10%. It had originally been agreed that Noh Ha-yoon would receive 40%.
Additionally, the dropped runes would all be collected regardless of contribution and distributed based on two with the highest values; that item was also removed.
“Instead, the runes will go to Ha-yoon first. Is that okay?”
“Just tell her to volunteer.”
“What happened is up to you, Ha-yoon.”
“I. got. it.”
Realizing it would make matters worse if they pushed Noh Ha-yoon further, Helen and Jin-kyeong wrapped things up. I merely observed the scene, watching silently.
“Il-wol… Would you come over here?”
As I moved beside her, Yeon-hee examined my arm that had blocked the first attack.
“I think you’re okay, huh? What’s your health?”
“Tap-tap-tap!!”
“That’s a relief…”
‘It was a bit dangerous, to be honest.’
There was still a lingering vibration in the arm that blocked the ice attack.
Health: 104/105(+20)
With just the shockwave from blocking the attack, it managed to penetrate the Chain Mail’s defense.
Fast, sharp, and full of strength.
Simple yet thus more beautiful.
Ice Mage Noh Ha-yoon.
She was an uncut diamond.
“Before we depart, please clarify your reasons…”
As my roiling emotions began to settle, Yeon-hee once again asked Noh Ha-yoon the reason for her attack. Noh Ha-yoon shrugged it off as if it didn’t matter and pondered for a moment.
“I told you, it was just a test.”
“… But you said to contact you first, so tell us why you were testing us now.”
‘Oooh…’
Seeing Yeon-hee’s increasingly articulate speech made me inordinately proud.
“Alright. Let’s get to the point. I wanted to see what kind of abilities this newly rising deity had. YouTube said you have a higher growth potential than I do, and that’s all.”
– Huh?! I knew this would happen; I told you it was nothing special.
– No, YouTube is ruining the world. They’re acting like middle schoolers or something.”
Helen and Jin-kyeong whispered in disbelief, and upon hearing that, Yeon-hee’s expression brightened instead.
‘……?’
In any case, Noh Ha-yoon’s answer was entirely different from what I had expected, and I accepted it with the implication that she just didn’t want to say.
“Then, shall we set off?”
“Guess so.”
Regardless, we set out, positioning ourselves with Noh Ha-yoon and me at the front, Jin-kyeong in the middle, and Yeon-hee and Helen at the back.
Usually, mages wouldn’t stand at the forefront, but Noh Ha-yoon’s combat style was completely different from ordinary mages, and she had requested to be there.
Of course, I stood at the front, not Helen, to apply silent pressure on Ha-yoon.
After about twenty minutes of moving, the first battle of the day began.
Nineteen Lizardmen was a daunting number for our four-member party, but the outcome was a decisive victory.
“Ice Field!”
Krashhh—
…
Thanks to Noh Ha-yoon’s incredible performance, she inflicted a deadly debuff on all the monsters in the area.
‘She’s pushing it too hard.’
The Ice Field Noh Ha-yoon used was an area spell that froze all monsters within a 20-meter radius.
Given the excellent effects, it consumed a massive amount of magic power, making timing critical for using it.
Of course, even still, as a D-rank spell, not all nineteen monsters were completely frozen, but it was truly astonishing that she displayed such talent in an area spell even while focusing on strong single-target attacks.
Despite being a battle mage who primarily engaged in powerful single or close-range combat, she chose to use this area spell for one reason only.
She likely wanted to show off her abilities early on and recover some of the trust that had hit rock bottom.
“Snowflake-!”
Crashhh!
[Slam]
We swiftly struck down the monsters, who had either completely stopped moving or fallen into comparable status abnormalities before being released from the debuff.
“Haha, this really makes it easy.”
“Right… there’s no way to deny it.”
The victory in battle wasn’t so surprising, but the clear time and conservation of health and magic made her the best partner I had personally experienced, which made Helen nod in satisfaction.
‘Still, we can’t keep fighting like that.’
But the next battle and the one after started with the same magic as the first, and as expected, Noh Ha-yoon collapsed after the third fight.
*Sigh… this is taking too much effort.*
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