The Friend Who Returned Is Not Normal (1)

A chill swept through the entire party hall.

A huge storm broke out at a party where everyone had gathered to avoid relationships with the opposite sex.

Their immense sense of betrayal was now directed at the boy who had once been their comrade.

“Ma Seongjin. Do you have any last words you want to leave behind?”

Go Donghyuk asked in a low, subdued voice.

It sounded just like the boss of a gang ruling over a back alley—no, like the voice of an orc who might just trample a person without a second thought.

As a Mutamit of the bat lineage, his teeth grew sharper and his eyes glowed red.

‘Seongjin, this is all your own doing.’

Seeing the chilling scene, Sang-ah muttered inwardly in a dry, emotionless manner.

She was about ready to give up even thinking about this.

Her brain felt like it might whither if she tried to reason through this mess any further.

‘Accept your punishment meekly.’

Above all, Seongjin was an obvious traitor.

He had acted as if he was the vanguard of the singles, but instead crushed their hearts.

For once, she felt no desire to stand by his side and defend him.

But then again—who was he? He was Ma Seongjin.

It just felt natural that he would find a way to get himself out of this.

“Last words? I don’t really have any.”

Seongjin replied, wearing a bright, innocent smile.

How could he possibly smile so carefreely in this situation?

“But, I can show you something instead.”

“What is it?”

When Go Donghyuk asked with a fierce expression, Seongjin held up a card pack he was gripping.

It was an item handed to him by the girl who had earlier called herself his girlfriend.

It looked simply like a zipper bag full of cards.

“Donghyuk hyung, you like Duel Masters, right?”

“So what if I do?”

“Would you be able to say that after seeing this?”

“Huh…?”

Go Donghyuk gasped when he saw one of the cards Seongjin pulled out.

“That… that’s…!”

“You’ve heard of the Phantom Demon (환마) series, haven’t you?”

Three cards rumored to be extremely hard to obtain in Duel Masters.

One of those Phantom Demon cards was in Seongjin’s hand.

“Are… are you saying you’d give me that?”

“Depends on how you act, hyung.”

I want it.

I want it like crazy.

I want it so much I might die.

The last time Phantom Demon was up for pickup was three years ago.

Back then, countless players bought packs by the box to get a Phantom Demon card.

But only one in three thousand actually pulled it.

He didn’t even remember how many card packs he’d opened in vain trying to get that card.

Even if you tried to buy it after-market, the price was ridiculously high.

He couldn’t risk his poor family, which ran a struggling church, just for a few pieces of cardboard.

There was an overwhelming sense of regret right before his eyes. But…

“And what did you plan to do… with just that one card?”

Go Donghyuk gathered his patience to the absolute limit.

Even so, his hands and feet shook from the desire.

Just one card? That was nothing but a defense mechanism.

So many players had gone mad, suffering in vain for just a single Phantom Demon card. To brush it off as ‘just one card’ was nonsense.

“One card? How about this, then?”

Another card was pulled out from Seongjin’s pack.

No way—seriously?

“That’s…!”

An earthquake shook Go Donghyuk’s eyes.

Now, not just one, but three Phantom Demon cards were right before him.

The three cards he had struggled so much, but failed to obtain.

Seeing them with his own eyes, Go Donghyuk drooled unconsciously.

“Those monsters…!”

“They’re not just monsters. They’re gods!”

Seongjin pushed the three god cards right up to his face.

Go Donghyuk’s eyes spun dizzy, as if drunk.

His fierce expression changed instantly to the look of a man desperate for water in the middle of a raging fire.

The devil was tempting him.

Someone was shouting not to give in—but it didn’t reach him at all.

“I… I greet the gods!”

In the end, he knelt before the devil—no, the gods.

Receiving the three cards, Go Donghyuk became so overjoyed he burst into song, like someone trying and failing to quit smoking, who finally grabs a cigarette again and loses his grip on sanity.

“Sang-ah, you saw that? This is what negotiations are all about.”

“…”

Seongjin walked up to Sang-ah, gave that one line, and headed outside.

Hearing him, Sang-ah pressed her forehead with her hand and repeated to herself,

‘What did I just witness?’

****

After hastily settling the controversy, I stepped outside.

I’d enjoyed Duel Masters then and now, so I occasionally collected rare cards, too.

Even though I’d just spent a Phantom Demon card, I didn’t particularly regret it.

I could always get better cards than those if I tried.

“Seongjin! Over here, over here!”

As soon as I came out, a girl’s voice called out to me.

In that direction stood a pink-haired fox demi-human girl waving at me.

“Have you been well? Are you feeling alright anywhere?”

Seeing Ah-rin for the first time in a while, she looked completely different from before.

I wondered if she was really the same girl who couldn’t do anything when I first met her.

In a good way, you could say she had grown up quite a bit.

“You’ve changed a lot since I last saw you.”

“Yeah. I worked really hard to change while you were gone, Seongjin.”

I chatted with Ah-rin as we entered the forest with a mineral spring.

After we climbed the uphill trail making up the hill, a quiet open area with a nice evening view lay before us.

Normally, people would come here to exercise. But perhaps because it was Christmas Eve, no one else was around.

“By the way, I just want to make sure…”

As soon as we sat on a bench at the clearing, Ah-rin suddenly made a sympathetic face.

“Seongjin… did you come looking for me?”

She asked, her voice mixing in concern.

It was the complete opposite of how excited she’d seemed moments before.

“I didn’t look for you.”

“….”

“I figured—you’d be able to live just fine without me.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t at least try.

I never heard where Ah-rin had moved to that day, so I would have needed my father’s help to search.

But my dad was overwhelmed dealing with a surge of juvenile sex crimes, so I couldn’t burden him.

I kept putting it off, and as time passed, she faded from my mind.

Honestly, my only real interest in finding her was just to check how she was doing. I hadn’t intended to meddle in her life.

“That’s a relief.”

Ah-rin didn’t react badly to my answer.

She smiled even brighter.

“If you’d tried to find me, you would’ve just had a harder time yourself, Seongjin.”

“Why’s that?”

“Actually, I… wasn’t in Korea.”

Ah-rin went on to tell me what had happened to her.

The place she moved that day turned out to be Shanghai, China.

Apparently she’d said before that they were moving to her grandfather’s hometown—which meant her grandfather was from China.

‘Not sure about her grandmother, though.’

After settling in China, Ah-rin enrolled in a new school.

With the help of her grandfather’s friend, she had no trouble fitting in, and trained in the use of magic power under that person.

‘The magic power she possesses now is incomparable to before.’

If before her inner magic was like a grain of sand, now it looked like a massive boulder.

It was an almost suspicious, disproportionate rate of growth.

“You met a really good friend.”

“Yeah, honestly—it’s all thanks to that friend. After our family’s problems were settled, they contacted us.”

When I had beaten up that child abuser bastard and recovered Ah-rin’s family fortune.

That was when her grandfather’s friend had reached out and told them: come here to China, and we’ll help you in every way.

He was someone whom her grandfather had been close to since their youth, so it was trustworthy.

“Thanks to that, I’m doing well now.”

Ah-rin smiled again as she wrapped up her story.

From what I heard, it didn’t seem like anything particularly bad had happened since then.

Which, in itself, seemed a little strange—almost like she’d left out something important.

“So—nothing bad happened then?”

“…”

The story she just gave was all upsides.

It wouldn’t make sense if nothing bad happened at all.

There are things you can say, and things you can’t.

If someone has no major traumas, they fall into the former group; if not, it means something so bad happened that you’re afraid to speak of it.

“Not really? Nothing happened at all.”

“…?”

“Seriously! As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”

And yet, Ah-rin’s expression looked perfectly natural.

I couldn’t sense the slightest whiff of a lie.

“How are your grandfather and grandmother doing?”

“They’re both healthy.”

Throughout our conversation, I felt nothing odd from Ah-rin herself.

It was true her magic power was abnormally high, but that alone wasn’t enough to be suspicious about.

Just…

‘It seems like she’s got a lot more friends since I last saw her.’

Starting a while ago, there had been people tailing us through the area.

Since I didn’t sense any killing intent, it probably wasn’t an ambush.

If anything, it seemed closer to someone lingering in secret to provide protection.

‘I’m probably not the one being guarded.’

If so, it was obvious who their target was.

“And Seongjin. Do you know the Sura Guild by any chance?”

“The Sura Guild? Of course I do.”

Why bring them up?

“My grandfather’s friend is connected to that guild. So I’ve been affiliated with them, too.”

“Then you’ve basically realized your dream, right? Your goal was to be a Hunter.”

“Oh, right, I said that before?”

Did she actually join?

But Ah-rin was much too young for that.

You’d generally have to at least be in high school to earn a Hunter license.

“I have one last question, though…”

Suddenly, Ah-rin took a deep breath.

Her voice trembled as she asked,

“Have you ever come face-to-face with people from the Sura Guild?”

“In what way?”

“For example…”

Ah-rin’s tail drooped.

Her voice grew quieter and quieter.

“Like if… you fought them.”

“…”

As soon as she asked, a powerful presence emanated from somewhere in the woods.

An atmosphere that felt like they could attack at any moment.

In reality, I had fought those guys before—even to the point of killing one.

I was now in complete opposition to that organization.

And Ah-rin—she had been quiet for six years, only to suddenly appear before me.

‘And in this Hand, of all places.’

In a few days, the Golden Gate event would be held in Hand.

I’d heard major figures from Sura Guild would be present.

What’s more, Ah-rin was now abnormally strong.

On a hunch, I asked,

“Are you… Sura?”

Ssssssssss—!

The instant I voiced that question, a great wind whipped up.

A dagger appeared before my eyes, aiming straight at my face.

A Hunter who’d been tailing us this whole time leaped out from the bushes and swung their dagger at me.

Slash—!

At the same time, magic power arrows flew in from every direction.

A dagger from behind, a barrage of arrows from the front—all focused on me alone. It seemed impossible to dodge.

But honestly, this attack wasn’t anything special.

My reflexes were more than enough to avoid them, and none of the attackers were particularly strong.

But there was something else worth being shocked about.

Slice—

“Huh?”

Suddenly, the dagger veered off course.

The arrows all ricocheted harmlessly as if blocked by an invisible wall.

The wrist of the Hunter holding the dagger floated in midair.

At the same time, blood splattered on my face.

“Uwaaaargh!”

The Hunter with the severed wrist screamed.

Except for getting blood on me, I wasn’t hurt at all.

I hadn’t done a thing.

Instead, I saw—standing atop the bench, a pink-haired girl holding a sword.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The girl looked down at the Hunter who’d taken a swing at me.

Instead of fighting back, he just looked up at her with a look of injustice.

“I said, what are you doing?”

“Hiiik…!”

Red blood soaked the snowy ground.

The girl’s sword reflected the moonlight chillingly blue.

The kindness of a moment ago was gone.

With a sword in her grip under the cold night sky, her eyes locked on her target—she was Sura, through and through.

“It must be him… the one who killed the guild members we dispatched to the Korean church… it’s him!”

“….”

“And he… he called you Sura, miss Sura! If you let him live, he’s Tang—”

Slice—

“Kyaaaagh!!”

Ah-rin’s sword flashed, cutting off his other arm.

“Who are you… who are you to try and kill Seongjin? What are you people?”

Now, madness filled Ah-rin’s face as she hacked off her own guildmate’s arm.

The bloodthirsty, ferocious energy she radiated was only just beginning.

“Come out.”

At this cold command, bodyguards who had been hiding emerged into view.

They were the ones who had just fired arrows at me. They seemed shockingly obedient to Ah-rin’s orders.

But the recent events had left them thoroughly shaken—their faces pale.

But the real shock was still to come.

“Commit suicide.”

What?

“All of you.”

With trembling hands, they gripped their portable daggers.

Were they really going to obey that command?

No matter what, this seemed to be going much too far.

Shlaaaaaash—!!

All those Hunters slashed their own throats.

Blood gushed like a fountain, turning the white ground even redder.

The Hunter whose hands were cut off, unable to hold a knife, bit his own tongue as he ended his life.

They weren’t being controlled—they did this of their own free will.

Shiiink—

As the situation ended, Ah-rin sheathed her sword and spoke.

“Seongjin, are you alright?”

She sat back down on the bench, her sweet smile back on her face.

“You don’t have to worry. I’ll protect you—no matter what.”

————-= Clacky’s Corner ————-=

Damn, that was intense…

【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】

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