"This is bad..."
Chae Da-seon clicked her tongue as she watched Son Min-hyuk standing in the arena.
The situation was drifting further and further in a direction she did not want.
All three members of the Red Chasers had lost, and now Son Min-hyuk himself had stepped forward...
And on top of that, Yu-han was watching the whole scene with a big grin on his face.
As if he had been waiting for this exact moment.
'I want to punch him.'
That was Chae Da-seon's brief assessment.
Meanwhile, Alice, who was standing in the arena, had also begun to feel an urge to punch Yu-han.
She had never imagined he would make her fight the leader.
Yu-han had declared that she could win easily, but could she really handle Son Min-hyuk, the leader of those three powerful women?
"...Son Min-hyuk C. I have a question."
"What is it, this late in the game?"
"Why are you so intent on bringing me into your team?
To be honest, those three women look stronger than me."
At Alice's question, Son Min-hyuk gave a meaningful reply.
"Ha! Because those women are absolutely not on my side..."
Alice found his words strange, but before she could ask further, the match began.
[The fourth match will now begin.]
As the dry voice of the announcer program ended, a wide plain appeared before her eyes.
Alice and Son Min-hyuk had started at close range.
"This is a battle between leaders! Let's cut out every other factor and settle this with pure ability!"
Alice tensed at Son Min-hyuk's confidence, but soon steeled herself.
She was a leader. She could not show everyone the pathetic sight of herself running away and losing.
Besides, she had promised herself that she would become stronger than Yu-han.
"Here I come!", Min-Hyeok shouted.
Alice calmly observed Son Min-hyuk.
As he charged at high speed, she could see openings in his movement, but they might have been elaborate traps.
Above all, she did not know what kind of magic he used.
'First... I'll keep him in check and draw out information!'
Alice calmly widened the distance and tried to stop his movement with a light electric spell.
But... even after seeing the electric magic, he did not stop...!
"Ow. That stings."
"?"
Son Min-hyuk had been hit by the electric magic.
Alice could not understand it.
Could it be that spell she had read about in a paper, the one that converted damage received into strength and magical power...? If so, this was even worse.
'Then I don't have time to drag this out!'
Alice attempted the strongest attack she could currently use.
She wrapped pure magical energy around her fist and struck him.
"Guh...!"
"???"
But Son Min-hyuk allowed the clean hit far too easily.
Of course, he must have been using basic physical enhancement and defensive magic... but he looked like he was in so much pain that Alice almost felt bad for hitting him.
***
Kim Ga-eun chattered excitedly.
"Yu-han C! I think our opponent was a total 'fucking scrub'!"
"...Ga-eun. What happened to your cute image?
You sounded like some middle-aged guy."
At Yi-Rang's comment, Kim Ga-eun drooped and muttered, "M-Middle-aged guy...?"
Meanwhile, Lee Sang-deok also raised a question.
"Still, how can the leader of a global dungeon raiding team be that weak?
He looks weaker than the tiger on our side!"
At Lee Sang-deok's question, Yu-han suddenly picked up a megaphone.
"An excellent question. Allow me to explain the answer..."
Meanwhile, the Red Chasers' side had the atmosphere of a funeral.
"That idiot...! This is exactly why we tried to stop him!"
"How are we supposed to spin this to the media now...?"
As the women were thrown into confusion, Yu-han and his megaphone entered their field of view.
[Shall I deduce why Son Min-hyuk C is weaker than expected?]
"That bastard... What is he scheming this time?!"
Chae Da-seon cursed, but as an ominous feeling crept over her, her face gradually turned pale.
[There were once three women.
They wanted so badly to become 2nd Grade Contributors that... they decided to seduce a suitable man!
To make him into a hero, they supported him from behind and even handed over relics to win his favor...
But oh no! He ended up obtaining too many relics and became impossible to control!
And that brings us to the present day...]
At Yu-han's deduction, the three women fell into a state of panic.
Then, scenes from the past flashed through their minds.
What? The other two already gave you some too?>
<...illegal transfer of relics? Are you threatening us now? If that comes out, we're all finished!
If you're going to act like that, then spit out all those relics!>
The relationship up to now between Son Min-hyuk, who had clung tightly to the relics, and the three women, who had desperately needed to get them back...
If that came to light, they would not merely become the subject of scandal. They would not be able to avoid legal punishment either.
When Chae Da-seon saw the shocked expression on Yi-Rang's face from the other side, she could not bear it any longer.
"That's defamation! I'll sue you for defamation!!"
[Ah, Chae Da-seon C? What we were doing was merely whispering privately among our own team, so it hardly qualifies as defamation.
And if you're going to sue, please distinguish whether you mean false-statement defamation or truth-based defamation.]
In Korea, defamation can apply even when the statement in question is true.
"That crazy fucking brat!!"
There was no longer the slightest trace of composure on Chae Da-seon's face.
And just then, the fight between Alice and Son Min-hyuk began to take a strange turn...
***
Alice was still punching Son Min-hyuk.
Then something hard collided with her fist.
It was a relic in the form of armor...!
"Hey, wait. You know this is supposed to be a no-relic match, right? That's a rule violation!"
"Rule violation? What are you talking about...? Relics are part of my body!
So I haven't violated any rules at all!"
Suddenly, all sorts of relics began bursting out from within Son Min-hyuk's body.
Countless hands extended from him, each one gripping a relic and swinging it at Alice.
By this point, it was clear that he was already losing his human form.
"Mana overdrive...!"
As the monster that had once been Son Min-hyuk began to rampage, even the realm could not withstand it and burst apart.
He returned to the arena in that same monstrous form.
Yu-han did not miss the opportunity.
[When someone possesses relics far beyond their capacity, they often fail to handle the mana and turn into monsters!
This is exactly why the law forbids relic transfers, and I must say, I'm disappointed in the Red Chasers for committing such an act!]
But the women of the Red Chasers no longer had even a moment to spare for him.
"Did getting beaten up break his mind...? Of all times, he had to go berserk during a live broadcast!!"
"It's over... We're finished..."
Eurel and Shim Yun-seol fell into complete despair.
But Chae Da-seon apparently had not given up yet.
Though her eyes were starting to look a little unhinged.
"No! It's not over!
We'll bury Son Min-hyuk and those Cheongam bastards with our own hands!
Then we'll say the Cheongam people were killed by the monster!"
Hearing Chae Da-seon's insane idea, the other two women began to laugh in spasms.
"As expected! You really are good at coming up with crazy ideas!"
Chae Da-seon immediately used air magic to destroy all the nearby cameras.
Eurel, Chae Da-seon, and Shim Yun-seol openly brought out their relics.
"Don't kill that tiger! If you touch her, I'll kill both of you!"
"You rotten— So you lost on purpose earlier?!"
"This isn't the time to argue about that!"
Eurel immediately fired an arrow toward the Cheong-am side.
The arrow erupted into a magnificent explosion.
It seemed certain that everyone had been killed instantly.
But what lay collapsed there were only the remains of dolls modeled after the Cheong-am members.
"As expected, once cornered, your true colors come out."
The Cheong-am members had already predicted their last desperate struggle and were now circling around behind them.
Yu-han charged first toward Shim Yun-seol, the opponent with the most unpredictable variables.
"Ghh—you're not getting past me!"
Chae Da-seon pulled out a shield relic and protected her teammates from Yu-han.
That was the beginning of a chaotic melee between the two organizations.
Even Son Min-hyuk, whose body had become a mass of countless hands, swung relics around indiscriminately without telling friend from foe.
"Huh!? Why are those people attacking us now too?!"
Alice shouted in surprise when attacks began flying toward her as well.
Yu-han quickly moved over to Alice and explained.
"I exposed their crimes, and now they're trying to kill us."
"Yu-han! You!!"
In the midst of that chaos, Chae Da-seon was facing off against Yi-Rang.
"Yi-Rang, go hide somewhere for now.
I'll at least try to save your life!"
"Da-seon, were all those things they said just now true?
And now this...? Where did your pride go?!"
"Can pride put food on the table?!"
Just as the two were arguing, Kim Ga-eun stepped in.
"Yi-Rang C. I'll handle your friend."
Seeing the wolf-eared girl suddenly intervene, Chae Da-seon's expression darkened in displeasure.
"And who are you to say you'll handle me? A mere wolf beastkin should stay out of matters between bears and tigers."
"Uh... Da-seon. She's not a wolf beastkin."
"What?"
At that moment, a gigantic chimera fist slammed down on Chae Da-seon without mercy.
She had been completely off guard when the blow landed, leaving her in a horrific state with bones broken all over her body.
At that point, she looked less like a bear and more like a fly that had been swatted...
Yi-Rang looked down at her with a mixture of pity and exasperation.
Meanwhile, Eurel and Shim Yun-seol had also been subdued by the others.
Alice tried to calm down the rampaging Son Min-hyuk.
"Everyone, destroy his relics!
Then he should return to normal!"
The Cheongam members began taking the relics from Son Min-hyuk's many hands one by one, breaking them, burning them, and smashing them apart.
"No!!! My Moonshadow Bow!!"
"My Sage's Robe!!"
Shim Yun-seol and Eurel screamed as they watched it all happen.
But every single member of Cheong-am was smiling.
'Destroying other people's stuff is surprisingly fun.'
Alice, smiling while thinking that, looked like a demon in the eyes of those two women...
Only after every relic had been destroyed and Son Min-hyuk had returned to human form, curled up on the ground, did everything finally come to an end.
***
In the end, the Red Chasers later reached a humiliating settlement with the Cheong-am members.
They could not demand compensation for the relics.
With public suspicion toward the Red Chasers growing, it was better for them to bury the relics, which were evidence in and of themselves.
Chae Da-seon, who had suffered full-body fractures, had no choice but to attend the settlement meeting from her hospital room via video call.
She was diagnosed with injuries requiring two weeks of recovery.
"Damn it... Damn it all...!"
Chae Da-seon lay in bed, cursing the world and Yu-han.
Then the hospital room door opened, and someone appeared.
It was Yi-Rang, the person she had thought would never come.
"Yi-Rang... You came to laugh at how ugly I look after hitting rock bottom, didn't you?
And while you're at it, you're here to cut ties with me too."
"What the hell are you talking about? It's just a normal hospital visit. We're friends.
And you still have plenty of money, so stop whining."
"...Friends? Why? After everything I did?"
"It was pretty ugly. And filthy too.
But I still want to stay friends with you.
Do you not?"
At Yi-Rang's words, the tears Chae Da-seon had been holding back began to fall.
"I'm sorry, Yi-Rang!! I kept sayin' I was protectin' ya, but I never even looked at how you felt! Like a damn idiot, I just beat you up instead... What the hell was wrong with me?! I swear I ain't ever doin' that again. So please... please stay my friend till the end, will ya...? Please, Yi-Rang..."
Overwhelmed by emotion, Chae Da-seon began rambling in her native Busan dialect.
Seeing her reveal her true feelings, tears welled in Yi-Rang's eyes as well.
"Ah, forget it already. Like I ain't seen you act like an idiot before. Still, you're my friend, ain't ya? Without loyalty, I'm dead in the water. How the hell am I supposed to throw you away?"
The two women embraced each other and, for the first time in a long while, poured out all the feelings they had kept buried inside.
As if they had returned to those childhood days when they knew nothing and simply played together.
Yi-Rang remembered what Yu-han had once told her while training her.
Even now, it was absurd advice.
But in the end, after beating her up, she had indeed found out her true feelings.
'Thanks, Yu-han...'
Yi-Rang thought that to herself, but in the end, she was too embarrassed to ever say it to Yu-han directly.