Something was strange. Her enemy was far too confident. Did he have some trump card he was counting on?

Wariness deepened in Lee Seoyun's eyes.

'His level? No.'

He had entered his first gate just a few days ago. Leveling took time. Even by the most generous estimate, he would be below level fifty.

His equipment was nothing to worry about, either. With very few exceptions, equipment performance scaled with level. Those rare exceptions weren't easy to obtain even with money, so her gear was bound to be overwhelmingly superior.

'It can't be consumables, either...'

He was rich, so he might have taken stat-boosting potions. Those could make up some of the level gap. Assuming they were top-grade, they would give him roughly fifty levels' worth of stats. That put him at level one hundred at the absolute most.

Compared to her level three hundred, the gap was almost embarrassing.

The only potential wild cards were his unusual summon, Cedric, and his swordsmanship. But summons couldn't exceed their summoner's level. Even if it came from an S-grade skill, what could a mere low-level summon accomplish?

His swordsmanship was equally unlikely to change the outcome. Lee Seoyun had heard the rumors about Kim Minwoo sparring with the Sword Immortal.

'They said the Sword Immortal matched his physical abilities.'

Mana, skills, and stats—the difference between using them and not using them was night and day. Naturally, she had no intention of handicapping herself like the Sword Immortal. With an overwhelming stat advantage, technique meant nothing.

"Scared?"

"... Bullshit. You're bluffing."

Yes. It was a bluff. Lee Seoyun was certain of it. Only then did she relax.

"You're not getting out alive anyway."

They had already seen each other's faces. There was no reason to leave him alive.

"Then quit flapping your lips and come at me."

He beckoned with a finger.

"Die!"

Lee Seoyun lunged.

'Nice.'

Kim Minwoo's eyes gleamed. He could use his skill to find a way through the fight, but there was nothing he could do about the stat gap. If Lee Seoyun fled, he had no way to catch her. At best, he could have her thrown in prison back in the real world.

'That won't do.'

Never mind that it would expose the identity he had gone to such lengths to disguise. Shadow, the secret organization she belonged to, would probably break her out.

To finish her off, he had to get her to fight. Fortunately, Lee Seoyun had chosen combat over escape. Then again, the level gap alone was over two hundred. Normally, that meant an utterly one-sided slaughter. Of course she would be confident.

'But level isn't everything.'

If it were, he never could have killed an orc royal guard at level one. Of course, as a named character of some standing, Lee Seoyun would be far stronger than that guard.

'I've gotten stronger, too.'

He had reached level thirty killing gorillas before she arrived. And he had Cedric with him.

'I'll finish her in one rush while her guard is down.'

Kim Minwoo's eyes gleamed. Assassins were a class that went all in on offense. Their defense was downright pathetic. Unlike the orc royal guard he had faced before, she wouldn't be impervious to his blade.

This fight would be decided in an instant.

The armed skeletons raised their shields and blocked Lee Seoyun's path. She swept her dagger forward, cleaving the skeletons directly in front of her in half.

"Haha! You think this crap can stop me?"

As Lee Seoyun advanced, slicing through skeletons as easily as chopping vegetables, Minwoo charged out with Cedric. The distance closed in an instant.

"Die!"

She thrust her blade.

[Using Vital Thrust (B)!]

Skills increased attack power. But they weren't without drawbacks: using one locked the user into a fixed animation.

In other words, a hopelessly hardcore veteran like Kim Minwoo could identify the skill and predict the attack's direction just by watching the user's movements.

'Vital Thrust.'

It was an assassin-exclusive skill that dealt heavy damage to a single target. Using it locked the attack into one of three paths: the head, the neck, or the heart. In exchange for that predictable trajectory, it dealt greatly increased damage if it landed.

'Too hasty.'

She would have been better off using an area-of-effect skill. Instead, she was thrusting straight at him, assuming he couldn't possibly dodge. Such a simple attack path was easy to deflect.

He raised his sword. The dagger was aimed at his head. The instant his longsword met it, he subtly angled the flat of his blade. The dagger skimmed past his head by a hair.

He drove a kick into Lee Seoyun's body. She faltered for a moment, and Cedric, who had already moved behind her, thrust his spear. Minwoo saw her swiftly twist aside.

Apparently, she thought a casual dodge would suffice against a low-level summon.

'That won't work.'

SHUNK!

The spear tracked her precisely and skewered her torso. Its blade slipped through a gap in her armor and sank deep. A serious wound.

"...!"

Her eyes widened in horror, and her body jerked with pain.

Skeletons were already being summoned at her feet, grabbing wildly at her ankles. Kim Minwoo didn't miss the opening. His longsword swept toward Lee Seoyun's neck. Stat gap or not, decapitation would kill her all the same.

She hurriedly raised her dagger.

'Nope. Down here.'

Unlike skills, normal attacks could change course naturally with proper control of force. His sword plunged into her side, the longsword sinking deep into her waist. As she flinched in pain, mana gathered around her dagger.

'Murderous Sword Dance.'

He released his sword and stepped back. Cedric pulled out his spear and retreated as well. In contrast, the skeletons—nearly numbering in the hundreds—charged at Lee Seoyun.

An instant later, blades engulfed the area.

Murderous Sword Dance (A).

It was Lee Seoyun's Awakening Achievement skill. For assassins, who had few area-of-effect attacks, it was a godsend of a skill.

Blades burst out in every direction, cutting down the skeletons. They crumbled, but their sacrifice was worth it. Every collision with a skeleton rapidly sapped the blades' power.

'Too late.'

Judging by her use of an area attack, she was finally starting to shit herself.

'If you were going to use it, you should've done it from the start.'

He immediately pulled a weapon from his inventory and charged. As a B-rank awakener, she would have a few potent potions. He couldn't give her time to drink one.

Sure enough, Lee Seoyun held a potion, already bringing it toward her lips.

He couldn't stop her from this distance. The instant he reached that conclusion, he threw his sword. The potion she was raising to her mouth shattered.

Meanwhile, Cedric's spear pierced her body once more.

"You motherf**ker!"

Her face twisted with rage as she slashed her dagger at Cedric.

CLANG!

CLANG!

Cedric deftly parried her dagger with his spear. Like Minwoo, he was exceptionally skilled at deflecting weapons.

'Game over.'

The particles kept her from using stealth. She was already badly wounded and surrounded, so she couldn't create any distance, either. Her only option was to drink a potion, recover, and resume fighting.

But she wouldn't get to drink one now. She wouldn't have enough mana for a skill that could give her breathing room.

'You'd need to be at least A-rank to use Murderous Sword Dance twice.'

At her current B-rank, Lee Seoyun could only use it once. Resorting to lower-grade area attacks would only trap her in a vicious cycle: heavy mana consumption without gaining any distance.

Drawing yet another sword from his inventory, he thrust at Lee Seoyun. Attacked from both sides, she was quickly driven onto the defensive.

* * *

'Impossible!'

Lee Seoyun was horrified. She had realized something was wrong the moment she unleashed Vital Thrust.

Their stats differed by hundreds. Her equipment was overwhelmingly superior, too. His sword should have shattered on impact.

But it hadn't. Instead, he had deflected her attack. It was incomprehensible. Just how refined did someone's technique have to be to pull that off?

Everything had gone wrong from that point onward. The skeleton called Cedric was just as shocking. Dismissing him as a mere summon had been a fatal mistake. How could a mere summon possess such astonishing spearmanship?

He had left her seriously injured in a single blow.

'Damn it! These bastards are countering every skill I use!'

Whenever she used a skill, they moved to counter it as though they knew what was coming. Even high-ranking awakeners would struggle to move like that. How could anyone do it without memorizing every skill's animation?

She couldn't begin to understand how a mere low-ranking awakener could move that way.

'I need to get away...'

The endlessly summoned skeletons hampered her movements. Meanwhile, Kim Minwoo and Cedric kept inflicting more wounds. She couldn't escape, as though she had fallen into an ant nest.

Nor could she counterattack.

Cedric and Kim Minwoo. Whenever she attacked one, the other struck at her opening. She kept missing them by a hair. All she needed was a single scratch with her poisoned blade!

But she couldn't land it. As a result, her entire body had been battered and torn.

'Fk... This bastard... isn't S-grade.'

That skeleton called Cedric was not something a mere S-grade skill could summon. She was learning that firsthand.

He was far, far beyond that.

Lee Seoyun's eyes trembled. She had picked the wrong target today.

'I'm going to die in a mere E-rank gate?'

So pointlessly? No. She couldn't let that happen.

She opened her trembling lips.

"... Stop! It was all my fault! Just this once, please spare me!"

"My friend. Would you spare me if you were in my shoes?"

"I-I have information! I'm sure you'll find it interesting!"

"What information?"

"Th-there's an organization I belong to...! I'll tell you everything!"

"Oh. An organization? This had better be interesting."

Kim Minwoo's eyes sparkled as though his curiosity had been piqued.

Thank goodness. If she could buy even a little time by talking, that would be ideal.

"It's an organization that..."

SHUNK!

Lee Seoyun stared blankly at the spear buried deep in her side.

"Why..."

"It's Shadow, isn't it? Why listen to something I already know? It'd just hurt my ears."

"How... do you... know... that...?"

"You don't need to know. Goodbye."

If you were prepared to kill others, you had to be prepared to die yourself. Left alone, she would murder countless people. He had no hesitation about killing her.

He cut off Lee Seoyun's head.

[You have defeated an awakener over 200 levels above you!]

[You have acquired the title 'PK Expert'!]

[Your level increases by 10!]

Her body collapsed in a heap. Killing awakeners, not just monsters, also granted levels. Perhaps because of the enormous level gap, he had shot up a full ten levels.

Cedric stared at Lee Seoyun's corpse and spoke.

"She is fairly promising material. She should make a useful undead later, Master."

"That's the plan."

Level was one of the most basic measures of an awakener's strength. Did that mean anyone could eventually become an S-rank awakener if they kept leveling?

'Not quite.'

Everyone had a different level cap determined by their individual potential. What happened if that potential was low?

As they approached their cap, leveling slowed to an agonizing crawl before stopping altogether. As though to say, This is as far as you go.

'For Kim Minwoo, that was level two hundred.'

C-rank. A mid-ranking awakener. His leveling had stopped around that point. Nothing he did could take him any further. It had made his attempts at the Dragon Lord a real fucking nightmare.

Lee Seoyun, on the other hand, was a promising talent with the potential to reach S-rank given enough time. She was still B-rank—still far from her full strength. That, along with her extreme overconfidence and falling for his mind games, was why he had killed her so easily.

Meeting her after she became an experienced S-rank would have been quite a headache. By then, he would have grown considerably himself, and she wouldn't have been nearly as careless around him.

'A body of this caliber should be useful for creating a high-ranking undead later.'

Kim Minwoo knew a high-ranking undead perfectly suited to an assassin. First, though, he would help himself to her gear...

That was when it happened.

● You are humanity's 'One Who Opened New Horizons'!

● You perceive changes in the world!

● You have hunted down 'Lee Seoyun,' a supporting villain!

● Parts of the story are beginning to change!

● As a reward, the Achievement Shop is now available!

● You are awarded a small amount of achievement points!

"... Huh?"

What the hell was this now?