Chapter 119 – Exposure (2)

Sun-woo froze stiff at the sound he heard.

[I was momentarily startled. I’ll be careful.]

The voice heard again carried some embarrassed tone.

Sun-woo who was glaring at the bracer with suspicious expression decided to trust it for now.

He continued checking the bracer’s functions.

Sun-woo filled the bracer with mana and soon a translucent shield emerged above his arm. It was <Mana Shield>.

Regrettably it was a not-so-large shield barely covering his upper body, but looked like it absolutely wouldn’t break against ordinary attacks. However, mana consumption was quite large so maintaining it for long was difficult.

Still, if he crouched his body he could somehow fit inside the shield, so it looked useful for blocking explosions and such.

The bracer’s own defense was continuously maintained by mana flowing little by little from Sun-woo’s body. Since it was a minute amount of loss, he decided to let it keep flowing.

Moreover, while mana flowed in, he could feel his skin, muscles, and bones all becoming more solid. This was what increased body defense meant.

Sun-woo who somewhat confirmed the bracer’s functions left the most important task for last.

Sun-woo stood in the center of the training ground, placed his hand on the bracer, then closed his eyes.

It was time to acquire the bracer’s experiences, the reason he chose this bracer abandoning the sword called one of the ancient empire’s 5 great treasures.

Sun-woo’s skill activated consuming his inner strength and Sun-woo’s mind began rushing into the bracer’s memories.

The years and battles the bracer experienced were truly long and rough. Countless combats and even more deaths scratched Sun-woo’s heart, but the scenes those battles showed became Sun-woo’s own experience.

“Need to read little by little. The content is too rough to endure easily.”

Sun-woo who had been tracing the bracer’s memories for quite a while frowned and cancelled the skill. This time it wasn’t cancelled due to insufficient mana but because he couldn’t endure the excessively violent memories.

With a pale face he pressed his temples firmly. Indeed there was no easy task. He chose the bracer for more field experience, but that field experience far exceeded Sun-woo’s expectations.

Not elegant combat like martial arts, not quick death by modern weapons, but messy medieval weapon combat and death accompanied by various magic severely injured even Sun-woo who thought he had accumulated much experience.

But since he gained even more experience than what Sun-woo had gone through, he couldn’t give up just because it was difficult.

Another thing, thanks to checking the memories he learned that the bracer’s ego Mary’s words were merely excuses.

Seems the ego itself developed that way thanks to growing while continuously receiving attacks.

It was an object that had been considerably scorned by owners since making moans even when it couldn’t speak properly. There was a separate reason why it couldn’t get a name until now.

[Ugh…]

Fortunately during the subsequent practice, the strange moans heard before didn’t come. Though occasionally restraining sounds echoed, this degree was no problem.

If moans kept being heard, he was thinking of giving it to someone else regardless of evolution or whatever, so it was fortunate.

Several peaceful days passed after that.

Rest time was given commemorating stopping the dragon.

Sun-woo fell into gaming obsession for the first time in a while except for training time, and Yeonhwa went around various places with Caroline.

Though Sun-woo came to live alone with a woman under one roof, no plausible events occurred at all.

It was because of Yeonhwa who had off-point conversations, and they didn’t have much time to meet each other while living their respective lives.

Moreover, Caroline who constantly barged into the house and spent time there didn’t give them time to talk alone.

‘Would it be different if it was Nanseol instead of Yeonhwa?’

Sun-woo was imagining Nanseol cooking in his house and eating food together when he came to his senses at a voice heard beside him.

“What are you imagining to smile like that?”

Caroline who was watching TV threw a curious question at Sun-woo. Yeonhwa sitting beside her was blinking while looking at Sun-woo.

Sun-woo swept his face with his hand making a troubled expression. His tension loosened from spending comfortable time for several days.

Caroline who came home to Sun-woo’s house today also occupied the living room sofa after dinner watching TV with Yeonhwa.

When Sun-woo lived alone there was no justification to visit, but these days Caroline frequently came and went using Yeonhwa as an excuse.

So Caroline, Yeonhwa, and Sun-woo often had time gathering in the living room watching TV after meals.

Sun-woo also came to feel comfortable in this situation.

“It’s nothing special.”

That didn’t mean there was reason to talk about the thoughts that just came to mind. Sun-woo roughly brushed it off and the two women tilted their heads but didn’t ask further.

Just then unexpected news was delivered as breaking news on TV.

[Breaking news from Prague. Animals that escaped Prague Zoo several hours ago are roaming Prague city causing great damage. A reporter at the scene has sent footage.]

The switched screen showed scenes completely different from what people expected.

Instead of deer or zebras running between vehicles and police chasing them, broken vehicles, destroyed buildings, and blood and corpses scattered everywhere.

Scenes that looked like a city hit by terrorism were spread on screen.

[Prague here now looks like a battlefield from the escaped animals’ rampage. When news first came that animals escaped, everyone thought it was just a fun event, but even after three hours passed now, few of the escaped animals seem to have been killed and numerous people died by the animals.]

The reporter’s voice delivering news beyond the shaking screen was full of tension and fear.

[Kill orders were issued but they couldn’t kill many? Was it hard to find the animals?]

The announcer’s voice hearing the reporter’s call was full of questions. Viewers had the same thoughts as the reporter.

“No way?”

“How is this being broadcast?”

But everyone present had one possibility flash through their minds.

[All the animals have absurd ferocity and monstrous strength. A few gunshots don’t make them budge, so the Czech government decided to deploy the military.]

Along with the reporter’s words, a huge bear appeared on screen and began smashing cars.

Though bears were originally strong, they couldn’t overturn cars with one front paw strike.

The bear shown on screen wasn’t red-eyed or murky-colored, but was definitely contaminated.

Surprised Sun-woo looked at Caroline and she was urgently on a call.

“Did you see the news? What happened?”

Caroline got up from her seat and went outside the living room. After talking briefly she came back and told Sun-woo.

“Seems we need to go. Need to check the situation more but information control about contamination seems to have failed. Contamination occurred at multiple places at the same time and information control failed at places where missions failed. Probably happened because control personnel was reduced by more than half and people who recently turned their backs on the association.”

“Will it be okay?”

At Sun-woo’s worried question, Caroline rather showed a smile.

“Maybe it turned out well. Summoners were forcibly blocking it so we kept it secret until now, but it was something that would burst someday. Keeping secrets in a world with such developed communication was unreasonable to begin with. Of course the world will be chaotic, but it’s time to end playing secret organization protecting Earth without reward while hiding.”

Caroline finished speaking and hurriedly took a car heading to the company.

“Is it because her world is suffering?”

Caroline’s bold thinking might be because of her empire that was devoured by contamination while acting as a secret organization like now.

And Sun-woo’s thoughts weren’t much different from hers.

If fighting only in other worlds, there would be no need to reveal being a summoner, but with this world also continuously being attacked by contamination and contaminated summoners, couldn’t keep it secret from everyone.

“Hmm, seems rest is over here.”

Sun-woo who confirmed Prague’s still chaotic situation on TV went into his room and changed into outdoor clothes.

“Where are you going?”

At Yeonhwa’s question, Sun-woo pointed his finger at the sky. A mission came to Sun-woo after Caroline left.

[Will be summoned to Prague region in 5 minutes. Please prepare.]

Yeonhwa saw Sun-woo’s finger and understood a mission came.

“Fortunately they didn’t call me. I’ll watch the house. Have a safe trip.”

Yeonhwa waved her hand at Sun-woo then immediately changed the TV to martial arts channel and began watching drama.

At that appearance Sun-woo shook his head and soon disappeared from the living room.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Roar!

Police using several police cars as barricades shooting forward had faces white as sheets at the leopard continuing to charge despite being shot.

When they first heard animals escaped from the zoo, no one knew things would turn out like this.

But the moment they learned all the first encountered animals didn’t respond to tranquilizer guns and many animals withstood bullets, the zoo surroundings became a battlefield.

Many people and police died and eventually the animal killing operation changed to urban warfare form.

Even after that many people died and eventually, the police here were the few remaining Prague police.

When the leopard approached right before the police, they fired all their guns forward but untargeted guns couldn’t hit a fast-moving leopard. Even lucky hits couldn’t pierce the leopard’s hide.

The leopard that reached before the police car immediately stepped on the police car and leaped up. There was nothing behind this police car to stop the leopard.

Bang!

Then a heavy gunshot pierced through other gunshots echoing on the road.

Yelp!

With the gunshot, blood spurted from the leopard’s side unlike before. The leopard couldn’t leap over the police car and rolled on the car.

Bang!

The gunshot echoed again but only an innocent car was destroyed. The leopard had already jumped into a roadside building while bleeding.

“Tsk, even mana-loaded bullets can’t do it in one shot.”

“If it were that easy, all our branch association members would have caught them.”

At Michael’s regretful words taking his eye off the scope, Cheska from Cleaners Prague branch support team answered with a tired voice.

Prague branch which originally didn’t have many personnel lost more than two-thirds in missions during the recent incident, making the branch nearly stopped.

With grade 3 or higher contamination occurring where such a branch existed, there was no way to endure.

Perhaps because there was a local branch, Summoners only issued missions to Prague branch and the combat team that left to solve the mission was annihilated at the zoo.

The incident spread like wildfire and now association members from other regions were summoned to exterminate contaminated animals with surviving support teams.

“But is it okay to let it escape like that?”

Cheska looked worriedly at the building the leopard entered and spoke.

“Absolutely won’t fight a beast inside a building. No matter how much you became a summoner, it’s impossible for humans to follow beast movements in narrow spaces like inside buildings. Moreover that’s a beast strengthened several times by contamination.”

“But leaving it like that will kill everyone inside the building.”

Though understanding the situation, Cheska’s voice was very gloomy with worry for people who would die.

“Don’t worry, there’s someone separately in charge of over there anyway.”

Crash!

Thud!

The moment Michael answered, the second floor glass window of the building the leopard entered shattered and the leopard fell to the ground.

The leopard that fell to the ground was already dead and its body size was gradually shrinking. Though ordinary people wouldn’t know, the murky color was also gradually returning to original color. Contamination was disappearing with death.

Sun-woo holding a sword could be seen through the broken window.

The moment the leopard that entered the building came to the second floor, Sun-woo who had grasped its location with sorcery and inner strength and was waiting thrust his sword killing the leopard.

“300 meters north, target at 500 meters southwest, I’m heading east.”

Sun-woo who informed Michael of contaminated animal locations grasped by sorcery through cell phone headed toward the next target.

Sun-woo who threw his body out the window and climbed onto the opposite rooftop continued running jumping over rooftops, and Cheska watched that appearance with mouth open.

“Could it be martial arts? How can someone who isn’t from the martial world use martial arts?”

Michael who sighed at the question always heard when proceeding missions with Sun-woo folded his phone and looked up at the sky.

“Now it will become a different world from before.”

At Michael’s words, Cheska who looked up at the sky nodded.

In the sky, a broadcasting station helicopter was floating continuously filming.