EX rank supporting role’s replay in a prestigious school-Chapter 964: Consciousness (12)

Starting with Hwang Bo-yoon, it wasn't long before the veteran players noticed a street fight unfolding in the town.

Impatient Tak Geo-san tried to rush toward the town, but before he could take a single step, he sensed something unusual.

Tak Geo-san quietly glanced at the others.

All the players stood there, feeling uneasy.

Hwang Bo-yoon used his insight skill and spoke.

"His grandson was blocking the fire pillar. You must be dealing with the wanted criminal."

"Though the words are the same, they seem to fit."

"Are you saying that the son-in-law’s grandson didn’t help with the search on the mountain and instead went that way?"

"Couldn’t that extraordinary young man have discovered him before us and headed in that direction? It’s a bit strange, but..."

On the mountain, the Hongcheon gunmen were still clearing the fire pillar.

None of them seemed to notice that the wanted criminal was in the village.

If Seong Guk-eon hadn’t gone to the town, it was certain the wanted criminal would have caused significant harm to the villagers.

"The village is far from where they say the criminals escaped, but how did they end up there?"

"They likely created a fire pillar remotely to cause chaos in the village, throwing many players into confusion..."

"Though the escort process was sloppy, it wasn’t something that a player of that caliber couldn’t manage. It’s strange."

Though unspoken, Seong Guk-eon had decided not to join them.

He believed that Seong Guk-eon, who would someday carry the country on his shoulders, wouldn’t fail to stop the wanted criminal.

They trusted Seong Guk-eon’s integrity, so instead of heading to the town, they focused on identifying the source of the dissonance.

Hwang Bo-yoon, who had been scanning the surroundings and checking the ley line status rather than engaging in battle, quickly came to a conclusion.

"There is an accomplice who can use intelligence. That much is true."

"Do you think it’s near here?"

"Is it? Intelligence is useless if it’s too far from the ley lines."

Everyone agreed with the hypothesis that there was an accomplice.

No, it wasn’t a hypothesis; it was simply a fact.

Players with experience in all kinds of battles knew that a bounty couldn’t challenge something of this magnitude alone.

The problem was that they couldn’t identify who the accomplice was or what their goal was.

"The Jinn who have settled on the Korean Peninsula establish their own territories and manage their intelligence. There are Jinn living nearby. Do you think Man-seok and Gyeong-bok know anything about it?"

Hwang Bo-yoon asked Song Man-seok and Hong Gyeong-bok.

Though Hwang Bo-yoon was also from Hongcheon, he didn’t know the area as well as Song Man-seok or Hong Gyeong-bok.

Song Man-seok and Hong Gyeong-bok chose their words carefully.

This was a matter of determining whether the demons settled in the area were the accomplices.

"The locals are not foolish enough to not understand what might happen if they do something like this."

"Man-seok agrees with that. The Jinn are very cautious; they wouldn’t act recklessly in their own territory. They seem sensitive and don't like drawing attention, but right now, this situation has created a lot of noise around them."

Song Man-seok and Hong Gyeong-bok, both of whom had experience with Dark Horse, spoke calmly.

The two couldn’t say with certainty that Dark Horse wouldn’t target humans, but they believed it was unlikely that would happen here.

Hwang Bo-yoon didn’t have enough data to judge the correctness of either opinion and wanted to ask more questions but swallowed his words.

It seemed right to trust what the two had said at this point.

Hwang Bo-yoon nodded.

"If the Jinn isn’t the accomplice, there must be someone trying to make him appear as one."

"Anyway, let’s move. If there’s an accomplice, this won’t end here!"

Tak Geo-san urged.

As he said, we had to hurry now.

Hwang Bo-yoon, holding a map over the hologram, pointed to one spot.

"Let’s go check the ley line point connected to this mountain but far from where the Jinn live. If they want to make the Jinn an accomplice, they’ll target a place within their reach, but it would be hard for the Jinn to notice."

They moved quickly, wordlessly.

Among the four, Song Man-seok led the way.

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

Though he wasn’t in his prime anymore, the great hero Iron Arm was still the strongest among his peers.

Tak Geo-san followed closely behind, but the distance between them didn’t close.

As the three of them pushed ahead, Hwang Bo-yoon followed at a reasonable distance, keeping a rational gap.

'If we’re right, the enemy must have tried to incite a conflict between the Jinn and humans, who manage this place. This reminds me of the Dark Ages.'

Players on the Korean Peninsula had to deal with not only the enemy from another world but also the Jinn, who came for intelligence and impulsively changed their behavior toward humans.

Typically, Jinn, being so warlike, preferred direct combat with ordinary humans, but there were some who enjoyed watching fights.

Such people were crafty, cautious about revealing themselves, and adept at hiding and fleeing.

Thus, those who had already executed an exclusion plan were likely to retreat.

Even if the task took a long time, the broadcast station’s helicopter would likely be nearby, so they’d have hurriedly hidden before the filming began.

Hwang Bo-yoon, knowing this, didn’t mention it.

Even if it might discourage the morale of the members, it wasn’t a completely hopeless situation yet.

Right now, there were many players on the mountain. If one of them catches the enemy’s ankle...

When they arrived at the designated ley line point, the players saw 'someone' immediately seize the enemy’s ankle in the situation.

That person was Jo Eui-shin, a 2nd-year student from the Silver Mine class.

The four players arrived on time, just as I had expected.

Veteran heroes familiar with the area had the opportunity to meet Dark Magic, and with the intelligence expert Hwang Bo-yoon, I believed they would find an answer quickly.

Time delays due to battles were an issue, but I took charge of solving it.

Seong Si-wan believed the four would arrive, but he didn’t want to be the one to stop them.

However, Seong Si-wan couldn’t use the command words, making it difficult for him to handle the situation.

More than anything, my involvement would have significance.

The youngest on the household registry had to step in to make it effective. The younger they were, the greater the chance the opponent would underestimate them. I was the youngest among the three.

Even if there were someone younger than me here, Eui-shin would never let go of this role.

When Seong Si-wan replied, I couldn’t immediately respond.

If there were juniors here, I wouldn’t have given them this role.

I can go, but why should juniors have to do it?

But if I denied that, I wondered if Seong Si-wan would step in, and I couldn’t speak my true intentions.

But not wanting to lie to someone like Seong Si-wan, I decided to answer with conditions.

Even if a junior had the skill to face the true species, I doubted I could send them to such a dangerous position.

In the end, I pressured Seong Si-wan to take this position.

Thanks to that, I could feel the power of Song Man-seok’s punch up close.

'Quick and heavy.' Couldn’t even Maeng Hyo-don or Joo Su-hyuk return that punch?

Song Man-seok came out from a distance and spotted the demon priest. He swung his fist between the two.

The distance was considerable, and if an unskilled player had done that, it would have ended in vain, or at most, the wind pressure would have been felt, but that wasn’t the case for Song Man-seok.

The ground that the fist didn’t touch flipped, and the soil and supernatural waves mixed together to block the demon priest.

The demon priest, seeing that Song Man-seok was still far away after being struck by the punch, doubted his eyes.

Boom!

Before the demon priest could respond, the next attack began.

This time, a waterfall suddenly appeared and poured over his head, forcing the demon priest to quickly turn back.

As he dodged to avoid the splash, smoke from the demon priest spread across the floor, turning the scene into chaos.

"Such a beautiful view, but you’re writing ugly graffiti on the ground. Fortunately, it can be erased with just water."

From the beginning, Hong Gyeong-bok seemed to have aimed at the supernatural abilities the demon priest was using.

Priests used special abilities that leveraged their faith in the demon, but they seemed to be wary and tried to erase the strange-colored smoke.

Like veteran players, they responded perfectly even without knowing the opponent’s identity.

As strong players began appearing one by one, the demon priest attempted to escape.

"The elders urgently used their abilities from afar, but there’s still distance. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss it."

Though the demon priest likely wanted to provoke me and leave, he was more wary of the elders standing farther away.

It wasn’t as if he was suddenly pretending to be a priest; his judgment of the situation was quick.

But something seemed to be forgotten.

Shh!

A stiletto was shot at the demon priest’s ankle, and a punch flew into the pit of his stomach.

Considering the direction the elders would come from, Seong Si-wan had already hidden in a place where retreat was expected from the start.

Seeing Seong Si-wan suddenly emerge, the demon priest calmly swung his weapon, looking bewildered.

Seong Si-wan’s martial arts weren’t bad, but compared to Iron Arm’s punches, there were no issues with blocking or dodging.

However, it wasn’t easy to shake off, and it was enough to catch his ankle.

"At least one!"

If he got caught here, escaping would be difficult, and maybe the demon priest was trying to kill Seong Si-wan?

The demon's eyes and the demon’s robe were glowing.

The demon priest’s symbol, the one he worshiped, was death.

The curse’s power was directed toward Seong Si-wan.

You have to stop that. Even if it’s not a death curse, it seems like he plans to use equivalent power."

Beyond the power left by Song Man-seok’s punch, a supernatural gun was aimed at the demon that could be seen.

Seong Si-wan didn’t dodge in time, or if the elders’ contacts didn’t reach in time, I immediately wrote a command.

But before that, someone intervened.

Whoosh!

A two-handed hammer was fired like a cannonball, aiming at the demon’s back.

It was certainly thrown from quite a distance, but despite the distance, it flew without losing speed or strength.

To avoid it, the demon priest stopped chanting the spell and rolled on the ground, watching the hammer flying toward him.

"Someone..."

Gye I-dam, seemingly exhausted, was standing there, panting.

If he had fired the gun from such a distance, he would have missed, but the hammer flew straight toward him.

It might have been better to use Gwanglim, but maybe he judged that he couldn’t focus enough to control it at the moment and threw the hammer.

He narrowly avoided the immediate danger, but his reckless attack didn’t account for his stamina, leaving Gye I-dam empty-handed.

"Yeah, there was one more!"

Instead of Seong Si-wan, the demon priest threw a chain sickle, powered by supernatural abilities, toward Gye I-dam, who was the easiest target.

Gye I-dam stumbled and tried to dodge, but his movements were slow to avoid the blade cutting through the wind.

It was when Seong Si-wan changed his expression and leaped toward Gye I-dam.

Thud!

Before the sickle blade touched Gye I-dam, the weapon lost its momentum and veered off in an unintended direction.

Tak Geo-san, having grabbed the chain part of the weapon, altered its trajectory.

Tak Geo-san had been close enough to grab the chain.

"I'm hot too, so don’t get mad at the kids."

Tak Geo-san pulled on the chain as if engaged in a test of strength.

The demon priest was surrounded.

Song Man-seok and Hong Gyeong-bok also blocked the escape route and prepared to unleash their impressive abilities.

It seemed the demon priest had no escape.

Still, I wasn’t completely at ease.

"Hwang Bo-yoon isn’t visible. The headmaster isn’t an aggressive person, and with the current power, it’s enough, but if a student is facing the demon priest, we should confirm that..."

As if answering my thoughts, Hwang Bo-yoon shouted loudly.

"Watch below!"

I could feel a huge surge of energy stirring beneath the ground.

The source of the energy was in the center of the ley line point where the demon priest had set up his altar.

Several long strands of hair encircled the altar.