“It’s identical to Wind-Thunder Fist Art.”
After leaving behind his life as an Awakened and spending so many years as the Guild Master of White Lotus—
Baek Yulheon had nearly forgotten that name.
‘……How in the world?’
His words trailed off as he stared once more at Kim Wigang’s jaw.
The blackened scorch marks.
The torn skin.
And the deep indentation left by the impact.
Those were unmistakably the results of a technique he had used dozens of times in real combat.
Could it simply be a similar ability?
Was he being overly sensitive?
‘No way.’
He had spent no small number of years living as an Awakened.
He could confidently say that he had researched abilities more thoroughly than most.
There was no possibility he would mistake a wound caused by his own ability.
‘Could there be another Awakened who awakened the same ability?’
It was not completely unheard of for Awakened to possess overlapping abilities.
Take Hyeon Chae-rin’s ‘Acceleration,’ for example.
He had once heard of an overseas Awakened who manifested a superior version of it called ‘Swiftness.’
The same applied to Elemental-Type abilities such as fire or lightning.
And Physical Enhancement-Type abilities.
When viewed broadly, similar abilities were not especially rare.
‘But mine is different.’
Baek Yulheon’s ability—
Wind-Thunder Fist Art did not belong to either the Elemental-Type or Physical Enhancement-Type categories.
‘It’s Martial Arts-Type.’
A category of ability said to manifest only rarely among East Asians.
Jeong Sohyeon’s Heaven Split was also Martial Arts-Type.
In fact, her ability had been a major reason Baek Yulheon recruited her immediately after founding White Lotus.
‘That’s why this situation is so strange.’
Martial Arts-Type abilities had one particular characteristic.
As long as the current user remained alive—
the exact same ability would not appear again.
Kim Yugeon cautiously spoke.
“Hyung, did you secretly have a kid or something?”
“Stop talking nonsense, you bastard.”
“Yes, sir.”
He had said it jokingly—
but Kim Yugeon’s remark was not entirely unreasonable.
For an ability to resemble his this closely, the other person would practically have to be his own child.
‘……What the hell happened inside that supermarket?’
Hyeon Chae-rin.
She had personally claimed that she was the one who defeated Kim Wigang.
Why had she lied to him?
Jeong Sohyeok.
He had supported Hyeon Chae-rin’s story and testified that she was the one who defeated Kim Wigang.
Why?
For what reason?
‘Was there another Awakened inside the supermarket?’
That was possible.
Perhaps some Awakened other than Hyeon Chae-rin had defeated Kim Wigang.
‘But…….’
When it came to Hyeon Chae-rin—
that possibility was almost nonexistent.
‘Hyeon Chae-rin is a perfectionist.’
There was no way she would take credit for something she had not done.
She was the kind of person who would rather risk her life than do something she considered shameful.
Then Baek Yulheon suddenly remembered the interview he had seen while visiting Jeong Sohyeok’s hospital room.
‘……The interview?’
She had hidden it fairly well—
but her expression had looked strangely sour.
And then there was what she had said during the interview.
‘I received a great deal of help from an ordinary civilian who happened to be inside the supermarket.’
“……I need to confirm this.”
“Huh? Confirm what?”
THUD!
Before Kim Yugeon could even finish speaking—
Baek Yulheon rushed out of the room.
“Geez…… Hyung, seriously.”
Always so impatient.
“Then I suppose I should get back to my own work.”
Kim Yugeon stretched as he prepared himself.
What exactly was he preparing for?
At some point—
a scalpel had appeared in his hand.
“Kim Wigang. Welcome to the Special Awakened Detention Center. You probably won’t enjoy your stay very much.”
SLICE.
I had been discharged.
The doctor told me I should remain hospitalized for another week, but I somehow managed to shake him off and escape.
“Mmm! Freedom tastes wonderful.”
I smiled as I climbed the stairs of the shabby apartment building.
“I’m hooome∼.”
The metal door had grown stiff after being left unopened for several days.
I put a little strength into it and pushed it open.
The familiar smell immediately made my nose twitch.
“Wow…….”
A difficult-to-describe mixture of fragrant fruit and damp soil.
A month ago, I never could have imagined seeing something like this here.
“……I wonder if the little guys are doing okay.”
Before entering the house—
I checked on my plants first.
They had gone three days without water or the blessing.
It would not have been strange if they had wilted.
“Please…… Please……!”
The cherry tomatoes could survive whatever happened.
But at least let Azure Breeze be okay……!
“Oooh……!”
The unexpected result left me genuinely impressed.
Far from wilting—
Azure Breeze had grown another fruit.
[Azure Breeze]
―Rank: SR (Super Rare)
―Freshness: High
―Blessing Type: Mana
‘The Freshness dropped to High.’
Apparently, leaving a plant unattended for too long caused its Freshness to decrease.
There did not seem to be anything visibly wrong with it—
so I happily harvested the fruit.
‘I’ll put this in the refrigerator for now…….’
I crammed the enormous fruit into the already crowded refrigerator.
There was not much actual food inside.
It was simply packed with uneaten cherry tomatoes.
‘The stock is starting to pile up…….’
No matter how delicious an ingredient was—
eating the same thing every day would eventually become tiresome.
‘Should I hand a large batch over to Sis or the Guild Master?’
It was not a bad idea.
With my sister’s appetite, they would disappear in a matter of days.
And Baek Yulheon would probably find a useful way to distribute them throughout the guild.
‘But…….’
For some reason, that did not appeal to me.
There was still one desire I had not abandoned.
‘Making money.’
That had been one of the reasons I joined hands with Baek Yulheon in the first place.
Sell the blessed plants.
Make a profit.
But I had heard absolutely nothing about the business side of things so far.
‘Should I bring it up myself?’
People said timing was important in business.
If I waited too long, another Awakened with a similar ability might eventually appear.
‘Being first to market.’
More than anything else—
that was what mattered.
“Heh…… Just imagining it feels pretty good.”
I could not suppress my excitement.
“At times like this……”
Rustle.
I took out a bag I had brought back from the hospital.
Then I dumped its contents onto the table.
Dozens of packets spilled out—
covering the table in green.
‘The basil and perilla leaves I bought at the supermarket burned up in the fire, but…….’
Baek Yulheon had separately prepared replacements for me.
He had said I should have told him if something like that happened.
“I won’t have to worry about running out of seeds for a while.”
There were dozens of different varieties.
I could not plant all of them at once—
but if there were such a thing as a gacha where the draw tickets never disappeared, perhaps it would feel like this.
There were no Tower Plants among them.
But he had even given me seeds from plants I had never heard of in my life.
“What should I plant first∼?”
Before launching the business—
would it not be more advantageous to have as many different products as possible?
“Hmm……!”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Then I randomly grabbed three packets.
I was eventually going to plant them all anyway.
I might as well leave the order to luck.
And then—
“Urgh……!?”
My expression immediately soured.
The first packet in my hand—
was none other than perilla leaves.
‘Is this fate or something……?’
If I had to step on a landmine, why did it have to be an anti-tank mine?
“There are so many delicious-looking things here…….”
I sighed in resignation.
Fine.
At this point, it really did feel like fate.
“The next one is……”
In order—
lettuce.
Chicory.
‘……What is this, a leafy-wrap vegetable special?’
Out of all these seeds—
I somehow drew nothing but leafy greens.
Was that lucky or unlucky?
“……Fine. Let’s plant them.”
Whether I liked them or not, I intended to grow all of them eventually.
Better to get the unpleasant part over with first.
‘At least lettuce and perilla leaves are easy to grow.’
I picked up a large sack that had been resting beside the doorframe and carried it outside.
I shifted the cherry tomato planter slightly to one side—
then cleared as much space as possible.
“This should be enough, right?”
And then—
WHOOSH!
I emptied the entire sack onto the rooftop.
“Heh. This is actually kind of fun.”
RUSHHHH―!
A huge amount of soil poured out of the sack.
Growing every single plant individually in washbasins would be far too inconvenient.
So I planned to turn the entire rooftop into a vegetable garden.
‘At this point, it’s practically a Botanical Garden.’
The entire building belonged to my sister anyway.
Eventually, I might even consider expanding down into the lower floors.
“Hup!”
I spread the soil as evenly as possible until the surface was flat.
Normally, I would have needed to add compost, base fertilizer, and all sorts of other things.
But I had the blessing.
So I skipped all of that.
‘They’ll grow fine.’
Even a Tower Plant had grown perfectly well here.
What chance did an ordinary plant have of resisting?
“Ugh…… My back…….”
While I was spreading the remaining soil—
a sudden ache ran through my lower back.
Normally, this level of physical strain would have been nothing to an Awakened.
“……Aftereffects?”
Maybe my sister had been right that staying hospitalized for a little longer would not have been such a bad—
“No. That would’ve been terrible.”
Freedom was still better.
Besides, while I was hospitalized, my sister kept showing up without warning.
There had not been a single peaceful moment.
“Done!”
I finished spreading all the remaining soil over the open sections of the rooftop.
Then I left myself a narrow path to walk through—
and watered the soil.
All that remained was planting the seeds.
I divided the garden into three separate sections.
Then I made signs by attaching paper labels to plastic water bottles.
After that—
I repeatedly dug shallow holes, dropped in seeds, and covered them.
Scatter.
Cover.
Scatter.
Cover.
Scatter again.
Cover again……
‘……This is exhausting.’
Spreading the soil had been fine.
But planting every seed manually was torture.
Not physically—
mentally.
‘Repetitive labor is awful…….’
In the end, the sun was already beginning to set by the time I finished planting all three varieties.
“I’m dooone!!”
The problem was—
the most important task still remained.
“…….”
Step, step.
With exhausted footsteps, I returned inside.
First, I prepared my bed so I could collapse onto it immediately afterward.
I smoothed out the wrinkles in the pillow.
Spread out the blanket.
“Whew…….”
Then, after mentally preparing myself—
I approached the garden again.
Everything until now had merely been preparation.
The most important action—
bestowing the blessing—
still remained.
‘I’ll never finish if I do them one by one.’
I needed to spread it over a wide area.
Enough to cover the entire garden.
After using the blessing at least once every day, I had developed a rough sense for how to control it.
But if I did this—
Mana depletion was practically guaranteed.
“……Blessing of the World Tree.”
WHOOOSH―!
Light seeped from my hand and scattered across the garden like a gentle drizzle.
I felt something draining out of my body.
My strength gradually disappeared, almost like the onset of anemia.
‘Ah, here it comes.’
Once I confirmed that the blessing had permeated every part of the garden—
I immediately rushed inside.
Mana exhaustion.
“Urgh…….”
My consciousness grew hazy.
The world spun around me like I had been suffering from seasickness for days.
PLOP!
I threw myself onto the bed I had prepared.
My body sank into the soft mattress as though falling into a pit—
and I promptly lost consciousness.
Click, click.
The sound of a computer mouse filled the room.
An irritated groan followed.
Deep shadows had formed beneath Baek Yulheon’s eyes.
The glow of the monitor illuminating his face in the dark room only made them more pronounced.
“Damn it…… There’s nothing useful.”
Videos filled the monitor.
Dozens of them.
Each screen showed a blurry image of the supermarket burning like kindling.
One week had passed since Baek Yulheon visited the detention center to examine Kim Wigang.
Immediately afterward—
he had gone to the supermarket and asked the management for its CCTV footage.
The result—
had been rejection.
It was not because they refused to show footage to an outsider.
They could hardly refuse the Guild Master of the guild that had minimized the supermarket’s casualties.
The actual reason was much simpler.
―The CCTV cameras were all damaged by the fire…… Reporters came by several times too, but once they saw the condition of the footage, they just left.
“Ugh…….”
Of course.
There was no way electronic equipment could have escaped a fire of that scale unscathed.
Baek Yulheon had wondered why the news stations, which loved sensational footage, had not shown Hyeon Chae-rin defeating Kim Wigang.
He had never imagined this was the reason.
“There really isn’t a single intact recording…….”
Even so, Baek Yulheon had taken copies of the footage.
Some of the recordings were still faintly visible.
And a few even contained images of Kim Wigang.
In the end, what he needed to do was simple.
‘Brute-force it.’
Keep searching—
until he found a useful recording.
That was all.
For reference, only around a dozen videos remained.
Not a single one he had checked so far had been useful.
Then he played the next recording.
“……Hmm?”
The screen was broken.
Most of the other recordings had become cloudy from the excessive heat.
This was the first one that was physically distorted.
And within the fragmented image—
‘……Sohyeok?’
He could not be certain.
The picture quality was terrible, and the section showing the man’s face was damaged.
But judging from the circumstances—
Jeong Sohyeok was probably the only man in his twenties who would have been there.
On screen, Sohyeok appeared exhausted, his body swaying unsteadily.
He also seemed to be staring at something.
As though someone were standing directly in front of him.
‘Chae-rin?’
It did not look like it.
Jeong Sohyeok had taken what could only be called a combat stance.
‘……?’
A combat stance.
The posture looked strangely familiar.
It was full of openings and far from polished—
but still.
‘Did Sohyeok ever learn martial arts?’
Baek Yulheon had heard that Sohyeok devoted himself to baseball throughout high school before shutting himself away after Awakening.
Where had he learned a stance like that?
‘He’s moving.’
With unsteady legs—
Jeong Sohyeok slowly advanced.
Little by little, he moved beyond the CCTV camera’s field of view.
Just as half of his body disappeared beyond the edge of the screen—
“……!”
WHAM!
A powerful air-splitting impact came through the recording.
“……He punched something?”
Half of Jeong Sohyeok’s body was outside the frame, making it impossible to see exactly what had happened.
But his posture had changed.
Baek Yulheon slowly rewound the footage frame by frame.
Frame one.
‘No movement yet.’
Frame two.
‘Still nothing.’
Frame three.
“……?”
Click, click.
Baek Yulheon repeatedly moved backward and forward through the footage.
Only a single frame.
Jeong Sohyeok’s entire body stiffened for an instant—
and in the very next frame, his fist was already extended.
‘……Fast.’
Looking more closely, even the flames surging behind Sohyeok momentarily died down.
A mere punch—
had generated enough wind pressure to affect the surrounding fire.
‘Is that really the physical ability of an E-Rank Awakened……?’
No.
More importantly—
who had he punched?
According to Jeong Sohyeok’s account, he had remained hidden somewhere within sight of Kim Wigang.
But this footage made it look as though—
‘Jeong Sohyeok fought Kim Wigang himself.’
Baek Yulheon once again remembered Kim Wigang’s condition at the detention center.
The twisted jaw.
The unmistakable imprint of a fist.
The traces of Wind-Thunder Fist Art.
“…….”
The video ended.
Baek Yulheon was already gone from in front of the monitor.