Honestly, Kim Hyeonoh thought his life was absolute dogshit.
He wasn't just whining. Even looked at objectively, his life had been quite the tragic tale.
Without any flowery rhetoric to sugarcoat it: he had suffered like a dog only to face death in the end.
"Ah, that was a good fight."
"'Good fight' my ass. Eat shit, you bastard!"
[Crunch!]
Kim Hyeonoh kicked the head of Varche, the Master of the 'Tower of the End', exploding it instantly. As if to shut up the villain trying to wrap up a battle that left nothing behind with a cool final line, Kim Hyeonoh crushed his face and collapsed, annoyed.
Simultaneously, a System window floated up.
[You have defeated the Master of the Tower of the End, 'Varche'.]
[The destruction of the world, accelerated by the Tower of the End, is stopping!]
[Rumble—!]
As soon as the window appeared, the Tower of the End began to collapse in an instant.
However, Kim Hyeonoh remained motionless, sitting in front of Varche's headless corpse.
No, to be precise, he wasn't staying still; he couldn't move.
"Ha."
There was a massive hole in his chest.
A gaping void that seemed impossible to fill with anything.
If he were an ordinary person, he would have died from shock the moment the hole was punched through. Escaping the Tower of the End with such a fatal wound was next to impossible.
And even if he managed to escape, the probability of survival was low.
"Ha… Just when I thought I could finally suck some honey and live an easy life."
Honestly, Kim Hyeonoh felt wronged.
Since childhood, he had suffered every hardship imaginable. Even as he aged, he lived a life of constant brawls with monsters just to make ends meet.
Eventually, he managed to save money, gain some honor, and prepare retirement funds to create an environment where he could live comfortably. But then, the Tower of the End suddenly appeared and ruined everything.
[Rumble—!]
'This detestable bastard, seriously…!'
Feeling the Tower collapsing faster and faster, he glared at Varche, the culprit behind all this.
However, knowing that the Destruction King, Varche, was already dead, his head blown apart by that final kick, Kim Hyeonoh turned his gaze away.
"Ha, my shitty life."
Watching the Tower begin to crumble completely, Kim Hyeonoh suddenly thought of his disciples.
The disciples he had taught with painstaking care, stitch by stitch. The ones he never doubted would support his retirement fund.
'…Maybe I should have brought them to the final floor after all.'
He briefly recalled the disciples he had sent back on the previous floor because it was too dangerous, but he soon shook his head.
Aside from the situation being shitty, the Destruction King Varche clearly possessed power outside the norm. It was obvious that even if his disciples had come up, they would have only died a dog's death.
So, pushing aside that strange regret, Kim Hyeonoh closed his eyes as he watched the Tower go beyond collapsing to utterly shattering.
Right. This is the end.
The life of Kim Hyeonoh, called the Martial God by the world, placed its period here.
He certainly thought so.
But.
"...."
Kim Hyeonoh reincarnated.
Into the body of a 17-year-old brat named Kim Joohyuk.
'Well… honestly.'
Up to this point, it was fine.
On top of that, realizing that he had reincarnated exactly 300 years into the future from the moment of his death was a bit confusing, but he could understand it.
After all, even though 300 years had passed, the result of checking information with the general knowledge remaining in this body showed that this world wasn't hard to adapt to.
Basically, monsters existed, and there were Hunters who disposed of them… no, the terminology had changed. Now they were called 'Contractors.'
Right. From Kim Hyeonoh's perspective, that was enough.
Even if this physical body was excessively weak, the knowledge inside his reincarnated brain, knowledge that once earned him embarrassing titles like Martial God or Supreme King, remained intact.
In short, Kim Hyeonoh was actually pleased with this reincarnation.
He thought that once he adapted, he could finally live the 'honey-sucking life', the easy life, he had always wanted.
However—
[In 5 years, the Tower of the End will appear! Prepare for it!]
"Fuck."
The translucent window in front of his eyes was enough to make a curse burst from Kim Hyeonoh's lips.
'Did this bastard seriously form a blood feud with me or something?'
It felt sudden, but Kim Joohyuk had reincarnated after 300 years.
Yes, 300 years. Three centuries!
He had luckily reincarnated with his memories intact after 300 years and was just about to try living a life of ease. But the timing of his reincarnation overlapping with the reappearance of the Tower of the End?
'What kind of bullshit is this….'
Kim Hyeonoh—no, Kim Joohyuk—seriously regretted not stomping on every inch of Varche's body to thoroughly pulverize it before he died.
'No, I shouldn't have just smashed him. I should have shoved him into the lava on the 4th Floor.'
But regretting it now wouldn't change anything.
He had already reincarnated into Kim Joohyuk's body.
And the System window was informing him that the Tower of the End would appear in five years.
In that case, there was only one thing to do.
'Block the Tower.'
Of course, Kim Joohyuk didn't make this decision because he possessed love for humanity, nor did he do it to gain tremendous honor or some secondary reward.
The reason he made such a decision was purely and simply this:
'You want to interrupt me again? Not a chance.'
Kim Joohyuk wanted to live a 'honey-sucking life.'
And to live that easy life, the world must not be destroyed.
If the world ended, he naturally couldn't enjoy the ideal slacker life he envisioned… the life where he could live doing absolutely nothing.
So, he would stop it.
'Anyway, this time, I won't even let it appear. The moment we meet, I'll disassemble his limbs and bury him like Exodia.'
Thinking that, Kim Joohyuk immediately thought of what he had to do next.
'First, enter Valhalla.'
The first thing he had to do was gain admission to Valhalla.
Of course, Kim Joohyuk wasn't trying to enter without knowing anything about the place.
Rather, he had spent several days searching for information and possessed the basics regarding Valhalla.
The world's best contractor training institution, Valhalla.
Looking just at that, there was no particular reason for Kim Joohyuk to enter.
There was not a single thing for him to learn there.
Nevertheless, the reason he insisted on entering Valhalla was:
[Find the Armament and Memories.]
[Valhalla Constellation's Room, Basement Level 3, 5th Room on the Right]
[■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■ ■]
[■■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■ ■■ ■■■]
It was thanks to another System window floating before his eyes.
'Armament and memories, huh….'
He could roughly guess what the armament was, but honestly, Kim Joohyuk didn't know what the 'memories' referred to.
However, he felt an instinctive certainty that the System window in front of him was connected to his reincarnation.
'Well, actually, there is another reason besides that one, but….'
After checking the map several times, Kim Joohyuk confirmed there was something he needed to secure within Valhalla's vast grounds.
'I don't know if it's still there, but I can check that after I get in.'
Thinking this, Kim Joohyuk smirked.
"We will now begin the 4th Day TOP 10 Selection Match! Would those scheduled to fight please come up to the arena!"
Hearing the staff member's voice, he rose from his seat.
The 4th day of Valhalla's Entrance Ranking Battle was a significantly large event in the contractor industry.
This was because the TOP 10 Selection Match produced a number of freshmen that scouts could recruit, excluding the children of the Five Great Families whose paths were already decided.
Aside from that, since the children of the Five Great Families were frequently mentioned in various media, they had high public recognition, drawing ordinary citizens and reporters to the stadium.
Naturally, the TOP 10 Selection Match was bound to be a major event.
However, Lee Sang-cheol had never seen a crowd of this magnitude flock to a TOP 10 Selection Match before.
'There's a tremendous number of them.'
Certainly, there were many issues surrounding this year's Selection Match.
The first issue was that the children of all Five Great Families were included among this year's freshmen.
Usually, even if children of the Five Families entered Valhalla, they wouldn't all be the same age. Cases where all five entered Valhalla at once were nonexistent, so it became a hot topic.
And the second issue arose because of the freshman currently standing in the arena.
A man standing in the center of the hall, where now only a single arena remained.
On the opposite side stood Oh Se-hyuk, the legitimate heir of the Oh Seon Family, one of Korea's Five Great Families.
However, the 'freshman' at the center of the second issue wasn't Oh Se-hyuk, but the ordinary freshman standing before him, Kim Joohyuk.
He had no physical characteristics that stood out.
A physique that wasn't bulky, yet not frail either.
A face that wouldn't look out of place anywhere, but wasn't exactly handsome.
Furthermore, if one looked for special details in his personal file, there were none.
An orphan with no parents.
The only other information recorded was that he barely passed the written exam.
A freshman where literally everything was a question mark.
[30]
Watching the countdown with only 30 seconds left, Lee Sang-cheol focused his gaze on the arena where the world's attention was currently concentrated.
Oh Se-hyuk, the eldest son of the Oh Seon Family, had grown up hearing that he was a genius.
Of course, some might say those words were merely exaggerated wrappers to flatter the eldest son of the Oh Seon Family or to elevate the family name, but that was not true.
Oh Se-hyuk was a genius.
That was a fact.
Granted, he wasn't bright when it came to academics.
He wasn't particularly bright in strategy either. In fact, even in the martial arts the Oh Seon Family boasted of, he was only slightly better than his peers, not significantly superior.
Then what made Oh Se-hyuk a genius?
It was his body.
Yes. His physical body.
Not something supported by effort, but purely determined at birth.
Oh Se-hyuk's body boasted tremendous performance to the point one could say it was effectively something beyond talent.
Movements that others needed mana to perform, he could execute casually without using a drop of mana. Even with just a little physical training, he became strong in an instant.
Like a character straight out of a game.
Was it because he possessed such an absurd body?
As he grew older, he became arrogant and neglected the training of his family's martial arts. Yet, no one criticized Oh Se-hyuk for it.
No matter what anyone said, he was the eldest son of the Oh Seon Family and a bona fide genius with a physical body that defied logic.
Therefore, he was arrogant, and he looked at the first victim of his brilliant career.
A freshman with no particular distinct features.
However, Oh Se-hyuk had heard that this freshman was creating quite a buzz for defeating Yoo So-yeon of the Yoo Shin Family on the first day, and for knocking out every subsequent opponent in a single strike.
But Oh Se-hyuk wasn't afraid.
No, he actually liked it.
After all, Oh Se-hyuk believed that beating down such an issue-maker was the perfect opportunity to make his name known in one go.
"I'll give you a 'grind-kill'."
Oh Se-hyuk smirked as he spoke.
At that, Kim Joohyuk, who had been watching him quietly until a moment ago, asked with a strange expression.
"Grind-kill? What's that?"
"...."
At the question, Oh Se-hyuk looked at him with an incredulous expression for a moment, then smirked and explained.
[5]
"It means I'm going to grind you up and kill you."
[4]
"Ah~ What, is it like an abbreviation?"
[3]
"That's right."
[2]
"Then I'm a 'shut-tard'."
[1]
"What?"
[Match Start.]
"Shut up, retard."
Kim Joohyuk smirked and raised the middle finger of his gauntleted hand.
(End of Chapter 2)
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