Blood-colored light filled the inside of the cramped hiding place.
This goddamn diamond spinning round and round above my head was advertising me like a lighthouse on a dark sea at night: 'There's a bundle of cash here, come and take it'.
Listening to the sounds coming from around me, I chewed up the last of the chocolate bar in my mouth.
The sweet rest was over.
Rustle— rustle—
One, two, three......
At least five people were closing in, as if to surround me.
'Every one of them has a nose for money, I'll give them that.'
When I looked out through the gap in the tree roots, I could see several people.
They no longer seemed to care in the slightest about staying hidden.
The way they came running, breathing hard, as though whoever arrived first owned the prize, was exactly like a pack of starving hyenas.
"Found him! Over there!"
"Out of the way! First to take him owns him!"
At the same moment as the shout from the big man with the axe, I kicked off and out of the hiding place.
My chest was pounding.
The excitement and killing intent of the guys coming for me filled my chest with a rush.
At times like this, I felt alive.
And at the same time my head went cold.
It did not feel bad.
'Might as well have some fun.'
The closer the enemies came, the more paradoxically quiet my heart rate sank.
"RRRAAAGH!"
The big man with the axe, who had charged in first, roared and brought his weapon down.
A red trajectory drew a vivid diagonal through the dark.
I twisted lightly to the side as if sneering at that line.
A whoosh of cut air brushed past my ear.
Before the huge axe-head could bite the spot where I had been standing, I was already driving into his blind angle.
SQUELCH—!
The point of my sword ran deep through his flank, precisely at the junction where spine meets organ.
Taking a sword and then counterattacking with superhuman strength is a fantasy that only happens in films.
The instant the core muscles and nerve bundles that hold a human body's center are severed, a man can't stand properly, let alone walk.
The big man screamed and pitched to the ground.
"Haha, all that noise and look at you now! You're mine!"
Another guy who had been following behind came in swinging. A man who looked South Asian.
But the line of his sword, broken up by excitement, looked far too slow to me.
I flowed through the pouring attacks like a ghost.
Thrust, cut, thrust again.
Three attacks, exactly.
Blows without a shred of unnecessary ornament tore through the man's vital points in order.
In a heartbeat his left thigh, his shoulder and then his throat were opened, and he dropped to the ground like a bundle of straw.
[You have eliminated Pro Warrior 'Abhishek'.]
There was no time to soak in the feeling of victory.
Rustling noise was rolling in from every direction like waves.
As long as this red lighthouse above my head stayed lit, I was nothing but an enormous target wherever I went.
I moved on at once without even shaking the blood drops off my sword.
Toward the outer edge of the jungle, where there were at least fewer signs of people.
A moment later a keen red line cut across my field of view, tearing the darkness of the forest.
'Somebody's hiding, then?'
At the same moment a blade burst out of the undergrowth to one side like lightning and rushed for the line of my throat.
I tipped my head reflexively, letting the attack slide past, and swung my sword level at the same time.
In the instant we crossed, the sensation of the blade sinking smoothly into his throat traveled up through my palm.
"......Hee, hiik."
The man slumped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
The sound of a deflating balloon came whistling grotesquely out of his punctured windpipe.
A single exchange.
A spare, simple blow with nothing wasted.
[You have eliminated Pro Warrior 'Gavin'.]
I moved on through the undergrowth and took stock of my own condition.
'Strange.'
Normally the hunted burn far more stamina than the hunter.
The psychological pressure of not knowing when or from where a blade will come is bound to eat several times the usual energy.
And yet, oddly, the longer time passed the fresher my body felt.
My ragged breathing settled quickly, and the fatigue that had been pulling my muscles taut had vanished at some point too.
'So it's true that a mark holder's stamina recovery rate rises sharply.'
At this point the thought even came to me that getting the mark was lucky after all.
My position gets exposed?
Who cares. I only have to kill them as fast as they come.
'The board's been laid out, so I may as well stir it properly.'
I started walking, far off, toward another red lighthouse.
***
The deeper the night went, the hotter the heat of the battlefield burned rather than cooling.
The red beams of light crossing the darkness of the primeval forest were no longer fleeing marks.
They were closer to predators rushing in to devour one another.
Go Tae-min's progress in particular, crossing the jungle in his demon mask, was more than enough to take the spectators' breath away.
Instead of shaking off the crowd chasing him, he was cutting down the warriors who blocked his path without hesitation and running in a straight line toward another mark holder.
The commentators poured praise on his performance.
-Good heavens! Everyone, can you see Demon's movement right now? He is still hunting! With a Red Diamond on him, he is going after another Red Diamond!
-Thanks to which today's match is flowing in a truly unexpected direction. Five warriors stand out at present. The overwhelming destructive power of Juggernaut, the Human Butcher Joaquin, and the Ashen Ghost Christopher! These three are dominating the battlefield as their reputations promise. And on top of that, two more are showing unexpectedly good form! Demon and Antonio!
-Antonio's showing in particular is extremely impressive. His skill is good, but stamina has tended to be pointed out as his weakness. And yet the stamina-recovery buff he gained by holding a Red Diamond has erased that weakness completely! He is showing us in person how frightening he is with no weakness left! Antonio without his flaw is a small typhoon on that battlefield right now!
-Ohh, look at this! Haha, the match is flowing in a truly, truly entertaining direction! Demon and Antonio, two red marks, are closing on each other at tremendous speed!
-It will be a collision between the hunter and the small typhoon! Which of them becomes the predator, and which becomes the bonus prize!
Go Tae-min, meanwhile, was sprinting without hesitation between the dense trees, knowing nothing of any of that.
At some point the horizon far off had begun to stain red.
The pitch-black night had passed and dawn had come, and before long it was time for that same sun to vanish beyond the horizon again.
With the burden on his stamina gone, he had concentrated on nothing but combat the whole time, and as a result the match too was crossing past its midpoint.
Then a new notice window appeared in Go Tae-min's field of view.
Ding!
[36 hours have passed since the match began. The second Hidden Rule is being revealed.]
[Hidden Rule: Crown of Honor]
[A special reward will be paid to the warrior who holds a Red Diamond the longest.]
[Special reward: Waldstein Series No.113]
Another Hidden Rule had been revealed.
The content of the addition was simple.
A special reward paid to the warrior who endured the longest while holding a mark.
But complicated messages like that did not register in Go Tae-min's eyes.
His gaze was fixed on a single line only: the name of the special reward item.
'......Wha, they're giving away a Waldstein Series?'
Go Tae-min's feet came to an abrupt halt the moment he read the notice.
Waldstein.
One of the most highly regarded smiths in the entire world.
The swords he makes are called the 'Waldstein Series', and each is given a unique number according to the order it was made in.
This reward, No.113, meant the 113th sword he had made with his own hands.
Weapons made by Waldstein were such masterpieces that one blade went for tens of millions of won at minimum and, depending on condition, could be priced in the hundreds of millions.
'Insane. I have to take this, no question.'
This was lottery territory.
With tens of millions in prize money floating right in front of his eyes, there was no way he could keep his cool.
Go Tae-min checked the current rankings with eyes gone cold and still.
The man who had been so pleased with himself over an 8 million won bonus a moment ago was nowhere to be found.
[Current mark-holding rankings]
[1st. '惡鬼' - 28:04:33]
[2nd. 'Juggernaut' - 23:18:13]
[3rd. 'Antonio' - 12:37:55]
[4th. 'Big Rabbi' - 06:24:47]
[5th. 'Ashen Ghost' - 00:09:38]
'So who's in first...... huh? I'm in first?'
Go Tae-min gave a sheepish laugh.
Carrying around a mark everyone else was desperate to tear off in terror, treating it as a stamina potion, had come back to him as an unexpected windfall.
Simply hold on to it as he was, and that enormous reward would soon be his.
Go Tae-min roamed the jungle in high spirits.
A special reward was a special reward, and the bonus in front of his eyes was a separate domain entirely.
He had not the slightest intention of neglecting the work of hunting Red Diamond mark holders while he defended first place.
'I'll keep busy picking them off until it ends.'
A moment later.
Go Tae-min was able to encounter another red lighthouse wavering beyond the undergrowth.
The man gave off a dissonant air.
With his hair neatly combed back and even a pair of intellectual-looking glasses, he looked like a model student who belonged in a laboratory.
But in contrast to that decorous face, the body showing faintly between the panels of his leather armor was tremendously muscled.
And more than anything......
The man in glasses was in the middle of fighting four other pro warriors who had blocked his way, and despite being outnumbered 1 against 4, he was overwhelming them instead.
'Not bad at all?'
A red line carries more information than you would think.
The consistency of the speed the sword travels at, the precise distribution of force, and the trajectory running true with nothing wasted.
In that sense, the red lines the man in glasses produced were holding an extremely stable line.
SHHK—!
"G-Guh......"
Before long the man in glasses brought down the fourth and last warrior too.
He shook the blood off his sword and slowly turned his head, and then his eyes met Go Tae-min's.
"......."
"......."
Go Tae-min did not look away.
A mark holder's position is shared in real time.
Hiding was meaningless in any case.
He pushed through the undergrowth and walked slowly toward the man.
A moment later the two of them had closed to within a distance where a stumble would bump their noses together.
Go Tae-min stopped his feet at the exact edge of where the man's red lines would reach.
'He's certainly no ordinary one.'
His opponent didn't so much as twitch even with Go Tae-min right in front of his face.
That unwavering posture was proof that the man in glasses understood his own measure perfectly.
Equally, the man in glasses put on a loaded expression when Go Tae-min stopped precisely outside his reach.
It was the look of someone saying, 'So you're not bad either?'
"......."
A taut standoff in which neither trespassed on the other's ground.
Two red diamonds faced each other at close range, pressing heavily down on the jungle's silence.
The spectators watching poured out their admiration.
└Wow, the distance control is insane. I've got chills. Looks like they both know their reach exactly and stopped on it?
└That Antonio, he looks like a nerd in glasses, but I knew it from the moment he started carving up other warriors. He's definitely going up to the World League.
└So 1st-place Demon and 3rd-place Antonio are squaring off? The winner takes Waldstein No.113. Please, I don't care who takes it, just fight already! I'm suffocating here!
Shff—
The one who moved first was Antonio.
He stared steadily at the demon mask, then drove in with a short, spare movement and thrust his sword.
A red line extending in a straight line.
A thrust precise enough to make your skin crawl rushed for Go Tae-min's heart.
CLANG—!
But Go Tae-min angled his sword and let the attack slide away lightly.
In the instant sparks flew, Antonio used the recoil of being deflected to twist his wrist straight into a follow-up.
Tremendous speed.
It was a blow that came in supple past all belief for a body that bulky, and from an angle he hadn't anticipated at all.
But Go Tae-min was already reading that trajectory.
Without any unnecessary movement he simply tipped his head to one side and let the edge pass him by at the width of a sheet of paper.
"......!"
Behind the glasses, Antonio's eyes went wide.
'He dodged that?'
His thinking stopped for a moment at a reaction speed that fell completely outside his calculations.
SHHK—!
But his thought didn't get to continue any further.
Go Tae-min's knife drove into the momentary opening and opened up Antonio's throat deeply as it passed.
A grisly sensation spread through the man's whole body.
With that, a heavy silence settled over the jungle.
Insect sounds filling every direction.
Inside that quiet, the man in glasses' huge frame at last lost its balance and pitched to the ground.
For a warrior who had stood out while ranging through the forest, it was an empty death.
[You have eliminated Pro Warrior 'Antonio'.]
[You have eliminated a Red Diamond mark holder. (Cumulative holder kills: 14)]
[Time remaining until match end: 34:32:17]
└Insane, what did I just watch? Antonio's combination gets dodged with a tip of the head?
└Wow.. look at the speed he draws the knife. He deflects with the longsword and takes the throat right after. This is a different class? That wasn't seeing it and dodging, that was moving because he already knew.
└Crazy.. this isn't a dream, right? I never imagined Antonio would lose that helplessly. That reaction speed, at that distance.
└However much he's out of the Japanese league, a warrior who promoted undefeated really is a different class 😱😱😱
Go Tae-min sheathed his sword and let out a thin sigh.
'Phew. That could have gone badly.'
On the surface it looked as though he had put the man down easily, but the reality was different.
At the last moment, seeing the red line bend at that bizarre angle, he had been inwardly startled.
Thanks to the red line he had been able to dodge with a fair margin, of course, but without a talent like his, which made an opponent's trajectory visible, taking that attack would never have been easy.
That aside.
'So that man was Antonio.'
Go Tae-min glanced at the spot where the man in glasses had scattered into a haze of light, then opened his status window.
Then he checked the rankings and froze exactly as he was.
'What is this.'
[Current mark-holding rankings]
[1st. '惡鬼' - 29:17:52]
[2nd. 'Ashen Ghost' - 01:22:57]
[3rd. 'Viktor Ivanov' - 00:37:46]
[4th. 'Chen Xiu' - 00:18:11]
[5th. 'Rafael de Santos' - 00:03:26]
In the meantime the rankings had changed drastically.
Juggernaut and Big Rabbi, who had been holding the upper places, had vanished without a trace, and the Ashen Ghost, who had been sitting in 5th, had climbed all the way to 2nd at some point.
Which meant one thing.
'2nd and 4th are dead too.'
Juggernaut in particular, whose name had been listed in 2nd, was one of the three named warriors competing in this match.
And yet that Juggernaut, the man they called a title favorite, had evaporated off the rankings.
The eyes of a Go Tae-min who had been giddy with bonus hunting a moment ago turned serious in an instant.
With only the information in front of him, there was no way to tell whether the men who had vanished off the rankings had gone down to attacks by numbers of warriors, or to a single strong one.
Only, if it was the latter......
And if that one strong man was the Ashen Ghost, who had been sitting in 5th a moment ago, the story changed entirely.
That a monster who had come up by bringing down 2nd-place Juggernaut and 4th-place Big Rabbi one after the other would be calling on him shortly was as plain as day.
Rustle— rustle—
Go Tae-min's prediction did not miss.
The undergrowth parted along with light footsteps, and a beautiful boy revealed himself.
"Oh- hello?"
Comfortable jeans and a white short-sleeved tee. In his hand, a sword with blood dripping from it.
His height might have been around 160 cm.
The blond boy, still carrying the look of someone very young, gave off an air dissonant enough to make you forget this place was a battlefield.
"Did you wait long? The toys in front of me held out a bit stubbornly. It took a while to clear them away."
It was a face he knew.
The three profiles his senior had shown him with a warning.
One of them had been that very boy.
The Ashen Ghost, Christopher.
"So the only red one left around here is you now. You're 1st, right?"
The boy came toward him, smiling brightly.