Arena Chapter 101:
Chapter 101 Corrupt Examinee(s) (Part 1)
As expected, Chairman Han Mang-young’s treatment was finished after 20 days . Taking into account how long it took to treat Chairman Park Jin-seong, I had figured 20 days would be plenty of time .
Chairman Han Man-young must have been satisfied too because I didn’t hear any complaints from his end either .
The important thing for me now was not healing someone else .
Chinese examinees are making a play for me .
They may use dirty tactics, first off I requested aid from Chairman Park Jin-seong .
“I need to ensure the safety of my family . ”
-I’ll leave it to my chief secretary .
After talking to the 3rd office chief secretary Lee Jung-shik, my mom, noona, and Hyun-ji were all going to have a person tailing them to keep an eye out for any trouble .
On the off chance that something bad does happen to my family, I would be notified immediately and other examinees aligned with Jin-seong group would come to help as well .
‘For now this should be plenty . ’
This was as much as I could do . After this, the problem was up to me .
I had some level of confidence .
The Chinese **** are bound to look down on me because I’m a 6th turn examinee .
But I have intermediate spirit summons and an absurdly powerful gun shooting ability .
With this much, I can fend off an attack from the average middle level examinee .
As long as I’m not unexpectedly ambushed and am prepared to counterattack, I can reverse the situation and be the one to beat the corrupt examinees .
Any time I was out, I summoned Sylph and kept her hidden .
Sylph always looked in all directions and kept an eye on me to see if anyone was following me every second .
‘If I can check it from my end first, it would give me a great advantage . ’
Because it was possible for me to shoot .
As long as I discover the enemy first, I can beat the other one and begin the fight .
Betting on that scheme, I purposely went out every evening .
I went to dark and unpopulated areas so that the **** would have a lot of good opportunities to approach me .
***
“I wonder if there is a need to be this careful . ”
“If we want to take care of it discretely then there’s no other way . ”
Two middle aged men were conversing in Chinese .
They were sitting at a window seat in a café and were looking at a big condominium across the street .
“If we can’t take care of it quietly, it gets complicated . Since this isn’t China . ”
Chinese examinees had a bad reputation for doing all kinds of things for making money .
But the place that they could do whatever was only in China .
From the moment they left China, they hid their identity as examinees and had to move about quietly .
Because to the foreign examinees, corrupt examinees like themselves were a good target for karma hunting .
When you killed a corrupt examinee, the corrupt examinee’s minus karma returned to you as plus karma .
At the very least you could gain the karma equal to clearing one or two exams!
To examinees, there was no hunting target as lucrative as this .
Because of that, the Chinese examinees had to take extra care to hide their identities and move in secret .
It’s just better not to step foot on foreign soil .
But this time the circumstances were different .
The target this time was the goose that lays the golden egg . A target absolutely worthy of the risk……
“Even so, didn’t they say the target is just a mere 6th turn examinee?”
“That’s why the two of us came . After we capture him without killing him, stowing away and escaping isn’t an easy thing to do . ”
“That is true . ”
“We can’t let our guard down . He has spirit summons and guns . ”
“It’s just a gun . ”
The short and skinny examinee smirked .
The examinee with a bulging belly reprimanded him for it .
“According to the information we were given, using spirits he has a 100% accuracy rate with his guns . You might not have any worries but I have to be careful . ”
The two were teammates that worked together in the Arena .
Starting from the 2nd exam, only the two of them had survived and now their harmony was perfectly in-sync .
“We can just go with our normal routine . I will be the bait that is obviously following him around to get his attention and you can use that time to approach him from his blind spot . ”
“It’s going to be difficult to try and not kill him . It limits the poisons we can use . ”
The reason these two haven’t died and survived to the 21st exam was because of their individual strengths .
The short examinee had a steel like body along with a defense skill .
The fat examinee could move about without making a sound and a poison kill skill .
Because of that, even though all their other teammates died, these two ultimately survived and became veterans .
Of course, they did give up on the exams after the 17th turn, but surviving to the 21st turn was an incredibly difficult thing to do .
“He’s out . ”
Said the fat examinee .
Looking out the window, their target was indeed standing outside the studio apartment . The 6th examinee Korean, Kim Hyun-ho .
“It’s good we didn’t have to wait long . Let’s go . ”
The two got up from their seats .
They came out the café and followed Kim Hyun-ho from a far distance .
***
‘There they are . ’
Sylph had identified the two examinees . Using her special communion skill, she delivered an image of the two to me .
The greatest point of the intermediate spirit summons was this communion .
As if sending an image file through messenger, it was possible to personally give me a simple image straight to mind .
Before, the veteran elf warrior Cob showed a communion skill similar to that with his own Sylph .
Of course, I was now an intermediate level 1 so it is impossible to freely communicate with Sylph the way Cob did .
The spirits can send me images but I couldn’t send images to the spirits .
I think it’ll become better as the level increases .
Anyway, the images of the two examinees was planted in my mind . Their short hairstyle and looks and clothing, they’re Chinese for sure .
‘I’ll lead them to a good spot for a fight . ’
A spot good for fighting was definitely the mountain .
All this time I had done my exams in forests and mountains so that environment was geographically familiar to me .
Not only that, I could feel the power of nature from the mountain much more strongly than I could in the city .
I got a taxi on the street .
“Please take me to Wonmi Mountain . ”
“Shall I drop you off at the museum?”
“Yes . ”
“Okay . ”
The taxi driver answered energetically and departed .
Sylph SENT me an image of the two middle-aged men getting into a taxi . As expected, they’re following me .
We drove for about 15 minutes . I got off at the city library halfway up the mountain .
Starting from there, I began to go up .
I looked behind me for a second and I could see the two middle-aged men getting out of their taxi that arrived a bit later .
‘They’re moving about so obviously . ’
I can’t see a hint of stealth . It just looks like they’re out here on a hike .
Even though it is 2 to 1, this was the reason I chose to fight .
They were just sitting there chatting in broad daylight in the café across the apartment .
‘They’re corrupt examinees . ’
If they were examinees clearing their exams, they wouldn’t have lost their tensions and caution .
It made me think that they were examinees that had given up on the exams a long time ago and instead started focusing on the safe work of collecting majeong .
But they have still passed a lot of exams which was why they there underestimating me, a 6th turn examinee .
This was a chance .
‘I’ll get you both and take your karma . ’
A corrupt examinees minus karma would become a sweet plus karma for me .
There was no reason to lose such a great chance to gain so much karma .
Sylph, who had been watching them, sent me another image .
The short one was coming up the mountain trail behind me .
And the fat one was moving through the mountainside .
There was no need to overthink this . I could guess their attack pattern .
‘The short one will try to get my attention and then using that distraction, the decisive blow will be from that ajusshi with the belly . ’
Unlike how they appeared, the one that seemed confident in defense was the short one .
Even knowing that I use guns, he follows without any fear or hesitation . It means he’s not scared of getting hit with bullets!
‘It means he has something that makes his body like steel or something of that sort . ’
On the other side, the fat man seemed to be the one with the better attack skill .
These two men probably use this pattern when hunting for majeong .
‘That means the one I have to go after first is the fat one . ’
Unlike the short man, if the fat one is shot with bullets, he won’t be safe .
Dusk was setting which was why perhaps no one was on the Wonmi mountain trail . There was no one I could see in the area so I figured the fight could start now .
“Sylph, Kasa . ”
-Meow .
-Bark!
Sylph and Kasa showed themselves .
I summoned my Mosin-Nagant and handed it to Sylph and said .
“First, I’m going to attack that short man . Then the fat one will use that as an opportunity to try and attack me . At that time, you two shoot at him . ”
The spirits nodded their heads and disappeared into the mountain .
I took out the two Neilson H2 guns and held one in each hand and dove into the mountain to find and attack the short one .
‘Here we go!’
I had been hiding behind a tree and as the short one approached closer and closer, I suddenly lunged forward while dual wielding my guns .
“……!”
Taang-
Without hesitation, I pulled the triggers . Thanks to the shooting skill, within a 10 meters distance, my accuracy was 100% .
“Kuk!”
The short man was hit with the bullets and stumbled .
But then that’s it . As expected, even after being hit with the bullets, his body was strong enough to withstand it .
He reached out with both hands and shouted something in Chinese . As he did so, a large square shield and long sword appear .
And that wasn’t all .
Pa pat!
Gloves, helmet, armor, boots, he was heavily armed in gold colored armor from head to toe! His whole body was covered in armor and then there was still the shield .
A defense reminiscence of a steel tub . He probably had a couple more skills that increased his defense .
‘Definitely not an opponent that I can finish off quickly . ’
The one that needs to be taken care of first was the fat one .
The short man smiled and then attacked me .
Boong!
The long sword was flung in all directions .
It’s just a simple attack . I easily took a step back to avoid it .
He continued to come at me while flinging his sword around and I swiftly shifted left and right and dodged them all .
‘Is this all?’
It’s an attack that was far crappier than I expected and it actually flustered me .
With my double guns, I aimed and shot at his forehead and shoulders .
Then, something incredible happened .
Ta tang – Ddaang, ddang!
At incredible speeds the square shield moved and caused the two bullets to ricochet away .
‘What is this, this speed?’
The shield moved so fast that is was nearly impossible to see with the naked eye .
‘A skill . ’
Probably a skill attacked to using the shield .
Like my shooting skill that boasts a 100% accuracy . He too has a 100% accuracy skill for his shield .
But a 100% defense skill doesn’t make sense . If that’s possible, that means this man is unbeatable .
There has to be some weak point hiding somewhere .
For now, I tried to continually attack with the guns . And every time I did, the square shield instantly moved to ricochet the bullets off .
But then .
Sylph sent a certain image into my mind via the communion .
It was a scene, the fat man was aiming at my back from behind me .
And at the same time .
“Cha ha!”
Paat!
From behind me, the fat man jumped out and onto me .
Sylph sent me the warning so I threw my body out of the way to the left .
When the fat man reached out both his hands, a green murky smoke covered me .
At the same time, from the fat man’s head, blood exploded out like a fountain . Sylph and Kasa had hit their mark .
‘Success!’
But at the same time I couldn’t feel a sense of accomplishment . The second I breathed in the green smoke, a breath stopping pain swept over me .
A pain like my throat was burning!
I recalled the time we did the CBR training in the army .
‘Poison?!’