Chapter 157: The Second Skull Pt. 3

“Are you a Sponsor?”

Elfame’s face was strangely distorted at Lee Jun-Kyeong’s question.

It first seemed reminiscent of anger, but soon turned to ridicule.

"Hahahaha..."

Elfame laughed with an unpleasant sound as Lee Jun-Kyeong continued to keep an eye on him in order to stay alert.

‘I don’t know when he’ll attack.’

Although he was having a conversation with Elfame, the being was still the enemy.

An uncompromising enemy.

Considering he was a being who ate humans and enjoyed himself while doing so, Elfame was an enemy that Lee Jun-Kyeong had to slay.

Moreover, it was clear that this bastard would also aim to kill him as well.

Nevertheless.

'I need to get information.’

The reason why Lee Jun-Kyeong didn’t immediately attack him was so that he could get information about the existence of a ruler that he had encountered for the first time.

“Sponsor…you’re asking me if I’m one of those bastards, the ones in black,” Elfame chuckled.

After he finished laughing, he was once again cast in a shadow of unknown emotion.

“To give you a simple answer, no, I’m not one of those bastards,” he continued.

“...”

“Though, I did almost become one of them.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong felt goosebumps appear across his body.

‘I almost became one of them.’

There were many kinds of information that could be uncovered from that single sentence. However, the reason that Lee Jun-Kyeong got goosebumps was because the ruler was no longer trying to talk to him any further. Instead, he had begun to exert his strength.

Crack!

An intense strength overwhelmed the space.

“However, I can’t tell anymore,” Elfame said, his face shifting between red and blue, conveying his anger and palette of intense emotions.

He spoke as he caressed one of the thousands of wooden arrows floating in the air.

“If I eat you up, then maybe I can become one of those bastards…”

Swish!

Arrows began to plummet down upon Lee Jun-Kyeong like rain.

However, as if he had prepared in advance, Lee Jun-Kyeong faced the thousands of arrows by piercing forward a single time with his spear.

Swick!

***

Baldur, who had been hosting Asgard's meeting, was sitting at the desk in his room with a subdued expression.

The Heroes' quarters had been hastily arranged in the Association, and Baldur was no exception to this rushed accommodation. He sat there at his desk, sighing.

The room was a mess, as if it represented the anger he felt.

“Whew…”

As if his rage still hadn’t subsided, he let out a deep sigh.

He, who had hosted Asgard’s meeting, just looked out the window with empty eyes.

'Odin is back.’

The leader of Asgard had suddenly disappeared at an important moment without notice. Then, he came back just as unannounced as when he had disappeared.

Returning to the isolated Seoul, he didn’t even explain whether he had been in Seoul all along or if he had really gone somewhere.

He just came back and then suddenly revealed a secret not meant to be exposed.

'My son.'

The first words he had uttered when he returned.

Odin had revealed something that he had wanted to keep a secret for the rest of his life.

“Ha…”

Baldur sighed again.

It wasn’t something that he had necessarily wanted to hide. It was simply something that had become a secret because Odin refused to acknowledge it.

But, why would he suddenly come back and reveal it?

‘Bring me the Apple of Idunn.’

Moreover, Baldur wondered why he would suddenly ask him to bring an Apple of Idunn first without any other explanation or formal processes as soon as he returned.

The Apples of Idunn were difficult to harvest, and the quantity was limited, so it was something that would take time.

Odin was sitting naturally and holding the domain over the office of the president.

Also, the meeting had ended.

“I…”

He wondered what he was trying so hard for.

That was the source of Oh Hyeong-Seok’s anger.

He had worked his whole life, even trying before he had become a Hunter.

Since he was an abandoned child, he tried several times to be recognized by a father who refused to.

But…

“Just like this…?”

It was such an empty ending.

No matter what enemy he toppled, no matter what he had tried, the man had never called him a son. But, suddenly, Odin just came back and casually revealed it in front of everyone.

“Damn it…!”

Although he had received recognition, it was infuriating.

Although he had been recognized, all that was left was even more confusion, anger, and shame.

Oh Hyeong-Seok’s anger was overwhelming the room.

But then.

Soon.

Knock, knock.

There was a knock on his door. A man was standing in front of his door, and it was a man he hadn’t sensed a single trace of before the knock.

"My son."

He heard the voice again.

Odin was here.

***

Thousands of arrows flew toward Lee Jun-Kyeong. He tried to protect himself by either using fire to burn them, using mana to break them, or by quickly avoiding them.

However, they continued to chase Lee Jun-Kyeong, regenerating from any damage, even if they were burned, broken, or otherwise battered.

More importantly, they weren’t slow.

No, they moved faster than any arrow that Lee Jun-Kyeong had ever seen.

They flew through the air in elaborate curves, trying to subdue him.

“Ugh…!” Lee Jun-Kyeong groaned.

He felt extreme pain, as if he had been poisoned, when a wooden arrow just barely brushed past him.

Quickly using the mana stream to drive out the invading aura, he continued to move his body.

There was only one enemy in this space, the King of Alfheimr.

However, it was almost as if he was dealing with an army.

The arrows the Elfame controlled were like living creatures, and they felt like his soldiers.

Each one’s movement, trajectory, and even speed were different.

Lee Jun-Kyeong wondered if that could all really be controlled by one person.

‘No, that’s not a person.’

Even still, something of that ability was ridiculous.

Clang!

Moreover, the ‘wooden’ arrows only looked like wood, as its material was so hard that it couldn't even be compared with ordinary iron.

The arrows he hit using Muspel’s Spear didn’t break but instead bounced off, and, finding their trajectories again, they would eventually fly back toward Lee Jun-Kyeong again.

"Hahaha..."

Behind the army of arrows, Elfame had a bizarre laugh, a nasally sound, almost as if he was excitedly waiting for his dinner.

Lee Jun-Kyeong looked up at him while measuring the gap.

‘He said he could become a Sponsor if he eats me, right?’

Elfame had said that if he was able to eat Lee Jun-Kyeong, he could become them.

Moreover, even before he had said that, Elfame had mentioned that he had almost reached that level.

‘What are the identities of the Sponsors…’

Lee Jun-Kyeong’s mind moved constantly.

‘The rulers that only the Demon King could kill…’

He tried to derive an answer based on ambiguous information, but there was still one thing lacking.

“Have you ever met any other Hunters?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked Elfame while still under the attack of the arrows.

Elfame seemed to think of all of this as a game and a meal.

Therefore, he showed an attitude of being fine with talking to Lee Jun-Kyeong leisurely, even before the start of the attack.

Although Elfame’s attacks had started, Lee Jun-Kyeong wasn’t nervous yet.

“Well…”

Lee Jun-Kyeong had been deliberately hiding his strength.

He had been avoiding and moving around using as little force as possible, making Elfame think that this was all he was capable of.

Merlin’s Necklace, as well as the mana stream, were working brilliantly to deceive his perception.

Thus.

"It’s nothing," replied the bastard. “I’ve only eaten several of those Hunter brats.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong thought to himself that he wanted to punch the bastard who just spoke of eating humans like nothing was wrong with it in the jaws, but he still had to hear an answer.

“But,” he said.

Avoiding another arrow, he surrounded himself in flames like a barrier.

“Are you saying I’m different? That there is something different between me and those Hunters you called brats?”

There would be no reason for this monster to show such interest in him if the monster was able to simply eat any Sponsor-sponsored Hunters to become similar to those bastards.

If he had met with other Hunters, then this monster was telling him that he was different from them.

“Kekeke…”

A dismal laugh penetrated the barrier of fire as arrows headed for Lee Jun-Kyeong again.

“Do you think you’re just like any ordinary warrior of the second world?” Elfame asked a question. “Do you think I, the ruler of the mighty forest empire, would deign myself to mix words with just any warrior of the second world?”

“...”

“There is a reason why you are able to have this conversation with me.”

ZZt.

Thousands of arrows that had been spread through the space suddenly stopped moving in unison. As if they were messing with him, they stopped in position, points facing him.

“It’s because I’ve acknowledged that you are in an equal or similar position to me.”

“What…?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

“You are different from the other warriors of the second world.”

The arrows morphed from their previous shape, no longer taking the form of arrows.

Crack.

Their appearances changed with a horrifying sound. The condensed density of the wood began to release and inflate into a larger figure.

The arrows.

“You’re different.”

They had become soldiers.

The thousands of arrows had become things that resembled Elfame, looking down at Lee Jun-Kyeong with bows and swords in hand.

Step.

At last, Elfame took a step forward as if to announce his participation in the battle.

“You are a king.”

The bastard was saying something Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t understand.

Creaaaak.

Then, he finally began to explode out with his condensed power, his mana spreading out like thunder.

Lee Jun-Kyeong was the same.

Flicker!

Flames began to erupt from all over his body.

Monarch of Fire.

He was a lord of fire.

The moment that all of the flames had gathered at Lee Jun-Kyeong’s feet, Lee Jun-Kyeong also said something mysterious, “I’ll bestow you a name.”

As Elfame was about to move, an energy that hadn’t appeared so far in the space raised its head. A dark aura emitted from Lee Jun-Kyeong’s bracelet, and the mana, shining with a purple light, wrapped around his arms and mixed into the flames.

Soon after.

“Hel.”

Crack!

The bracelet had broken.

***

Seoul was a city that could still say that it was safe amid the cataclysm occurring all around the globe.

Outside of the city, people were standing on the road to Gyeonggi-Do.

There was a beautiful woman with long straight hair flowing down her back, holding a puppy in both hands, and some men with a strange sort of appearance.

A man who looked like he was Chinese, and a man who wore a hood pulled deep over his face, and even a child with white hair.

They were walking toward Gyeonggi-Do, where the cataclysm was already occurring, rather than toward the safe Seoul.

In principle, it was impossible to leave Seoul.

However, they had snuck out of the city, even going so far as to walk on their own feet rather than use a car.

Then.

Suddenly, the hooded man and the white-haired child stopped.

“What’s wrong?” asked the woman with the long straight hair. It was Ungnyeo.

“...”

However, there was no answer.

Like a robot that had stopped working, the two just stood there, staring blankly somewhere.

“...”

In response, Ungnyeo looked in that direction as well. As she had studied hard while she was in Korea and was sensitive to geography, she knew what was in the direction that the two had stopped to look toward.

‘Incheon.’

That was where

he

would be.

These two were sensitive to any changes that he might have had.

“Is there something wrong with him?” Ungnyeo asked anxiously.

However, the white-haired child and the hooded figure shook their hands.

“Jookyung has.”

“My master has.”

They answered her at the same time.

“Found me a new sibling.”

“Given me a new sibling.”

Ungnyeo could only look at where they were indicating after hearing the indecipherable answers.

There seemed to be darkness cast over the place where they had been looking.

“Let's go. To find Jookyung's house.”

The first one to move among them was the white-haired child, Fenrir.

He had become more familiar with the human language than before, and with the correct pronunciation, he spoke as he stepped forward.

They were headed to Gyeonggi-Do.

The reason why they had left Seoul and were heading to a dangerous place was simple.

“Okay, let’s go find the house.”

It was because their house was in that direction.

They knew that Lee Jun-Kyeong would return well without their worries. Therefore, Ungnyeo and the others had decided that they would have to protect the house he would return to.

For him, who was always going off to leave for somewhere.

They wanted to make him a place he could come back to.

Of course.

“We also have to save the families.”

The family members of the White Tiger Clan were still there, and so the party was leaving for Gyeonggi-Do for their safety as well.