[Skill: Self-Awareness Puppet]
┕ Duration: 20 minutes
└ Strengthens physical abilities by driving a Puppet Needle into your own body.
└ The enhancement increases according to the number of needles used.
Self-Awareness Puppet dramatically amplified my physical abilities for a limited time by driving Puppet Needles directly into my own body.
Its drawbacks were the short duration and severe aftereffects, but the enhancement itself was overwhelming.
Simply put, each needle doubled all my physical abilities. I had just used two.
In other words, I was currently Kim Daram at four times my normal output.
Even in the best-case scenario, I’ll be bedridden for a week.
Just thinking about the aftereffects made me grimace.
But even if I had to suffer for a month instead of a week, I would have made the same choice.
I could not continue training while remaining locked in conflict with Sa Jeil. Once our theoretical instruction ended, we would soon begin practical Stage deployments. Inside a Stage, every petty clash with him could escalate into a crisis that directly threatened our survival.
Establishing the hierarchy was essential.
Even though we were the same age, I needed to burn the fact that there was someone he could never surpass into his mind.
Sa Jeil probably still refused to accept his previous defeats.
He likely dismissed the first as a surprise attack by an unknown Trait and considered the second a meaningless fight in which he had not activated his own.
Now, on his third attempt, Sa Jeil intended to crush me using every Skill available through his Trait, Blood Sword.
I’ll give you credit for that unyielding tenacity.
But the one getting crushed here would not be me.
It would be you, Sa Jeil.
Even if you were destined to become Korea’s most infamous Hunter twenty years from now, you were still only a nineteen-year-old rookie.
If I beat you often enough, even the great Sa Jeil should eventually settle down, right?
The two Puppet Needles embedded in my neck dissolved into my body.
An electrifying sensation raced through me like a current, followed by an uncontrollable surge of energy.
Sa Jeil must have sensed something unusual, because he charged without hesitation, crimson armor enveloping his body. His movements were incomparably fiercer than before.
Lee Hasol, watching from the sidelines, let out a cry of admiration.
The System loved ranking people. It maintained standings for the top one thousand Awakened across the entire world.
Strangely enough, however, it assigned no grades to Traits.
Of course, considerable time had passed since the System first intervened in reality. The vast amount of data accumulated since then had produced several standards for estimating the relative value of different Traits.
The simplest method was to examine how many auxiliary Traits were linked to the primary Trait.
Every Trait had related auxiliary Traits. The more exceptional the primary Trait, the greater the variety of its auxiliaries, and their effects grew considerably stronger as the primary Trait Leveled up.
For example, Sa Jeil’s Blood Sword was linked to numerous auxiliary Traits, including greatsword mastery, enhanced agility, enhanced strength, vital-point detection, weapon defense, and blood absorption.
Every one of them helped the Awakened draw out the full combat potential of the primary Trait, Blood Sword.
My [Unique] System Observer was still only LV 3, so I could not view a target’s auxiliary Traits.
Blood Sword, however, had been thoroughly analyzed in my previous life, exposing its entire auxiliary Trait tree.
Sa Jeil had made as many enemies as his infamy suggested.
When a primary Trait gained even a single Level, the dozen or so auxiliary Traits linked to it could rise by at least one Level—and sometimes several times that.
That meant Sa Jeil with Blood Sword LV 1 and Sa Jeil with Blood Sword LV 2 were on completely different planes.
The same principle applied to me.
Unfortunately, Puppet had a rather pitiful number of auxiliary Traits by comparison.
Unlike Sa Jeil’s Blood Sword, which summoned a weapon for sustained combat, Puppet consisted primarily of Skills with immediate effects.
At least, that was what I told myself for comfort.
In any case, I effortlessly deflected Sa Jeil’s first attack. No matter how much faster he had become, his movements remained well within my expectations.
More importantly, Self-Awareness Puppet had quadrupled my physical abilities.
In this state, I wouldn’t be outmatched by any Awakened at my Level.
When his first strike missed so easily, surprise flashed across Sa Jeil’s face.
He immediately recovered his stance and lunged again.
The ominous greatsword, swirling with crimson energy, swept horizontally toward my chest.
I had no intention of prolonging the fight.
Using Flash, I closed the distance and slipped inside his reach in a single burst. Dragon Surge followed, slamming into Sa Jeil’s chest.
The crimson armor surrounding him ruptured, and his body was launched into the air.
I did not wait.
I used Flash again to leap after him, twisting through a full rotation before driving my heel into his back.
KABOOM—!
Sa Jeil slammed into the ground with enough force to shake the sparring room.
I immediately threw myself on top of him and drove my knee into his back, pinning him down. His spine arched like a bow, and blood gushed from his mouth.
CRACK!
The crimson armor enveloping him had completely shattered below the neck.
I rolled him onto his back and began pummeling his face.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
It took only four punches to shatter his helmet.
Shock filled Sa Jeil’s crimson eyes.
“It’s too late to apologize. You still need a longer beating.”
Even under the most optimistic estimate, the aftereffects of Self-Awareness Puppet would last five days.
I intended to teach him a lesson severe enough that he would not even consider challenging me again during that time.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
The heavy impact of my fist striking Sa Jeil’s face echoed through the sparring room.
Lee Hasol watched from a short distance. Most people would have been frightened enough to intervene, but clearly, he was not entirely normal either.
A short while later, I rose and left Sa Jeil unconscious on the floor, his eyes rolled back.
The beating had sounded worse than it was. I had carefully avoided every vital point. At that level, he would regain consciousness before sunrise and crawl back to his room.
Then Lee Hasol raised a hand and pointed behind me.
I turned to see the battered Sa Jeil somehow forcing himself upright. He spat out a mouthful of blood-flecked phlegm.
“You son of a bitch. This isn’t over.”
A small knife had appeared in his hand.
He dragged it across his chest, cutting a long gash through his flesh. Madness gleamed in his eyes.
“Sa Jeil, it hasn’t even been a full week since you Awakened. You can’t let your Trait consume you already. Like you said, the Hunter who survives the longest is the one who’s truly strong. If you let your Trait’s madness control you, you’ll never last.”
I meant every word.
I was advising him as a veteran Hunter with years of experience.
Then again, Sa Jeil would become powerful and survive for a very long time even without my advice.
His strength would simply become twisted in one way or another.
For the first time, I felt as though I had glimpsed the private darkness inside him.
“Shut up. If it lets me kill you right here, I’ll do anything.”
“Think clearly. You aren’t normally the kind of person who charges ahead without considering the consequences. What could possibly make this fight worth risking everything? You’re not thinking straight. That alone proves the madness is consuming you.”
No answer came.
Instead, both of his eyes turned entirely crimson, the pupils and whites disappearing alike.
Words would no longer reach him.
Sa Jeil violently plunged a hand into the split flesh of his own chest.
“DIE!!”
Our childish scuffle between two nineteen-year-olds was over.
From this point on, it was a rescue operation for an unfortunate rookie Hunter who had lost his mind to his Trait.
I leaped toward Sa Jeil and drove a newly summoned Puppet Needle into the back of his neck.
“GRAAGH—!”
Perhaps the powers of our Traits collided inside his body.
Sa Jeil’s eyes rolled back. He lost consciousness and collapsed on the spot.
I took a handful of Red Fruits from my System Pouch and crushed them into a pulp. I spread some thinly across the wound on Sa Jeil’s chest and shoved the rest into his mouth.
That should heal the injuries caused by his blood loss without difficulty. As an added benefit, it would also reduce his soaring Encroachment Rate.
“Ugh…”
A short while later, Sa Jeil groaned quietly, apparently responding to the fruit.
I lightly slapped his cheek a couple of times.
“Hey, you lunatic. Are you awake?”
Sa Jeil barely managed to lift his eyelids.
“Y-Yeah. Kim Daram, I’m fine.”
Judging by his docile answer, the Puppet Needle had driven away his madness and taken effect.
“Vice Class Rep Sa, control your temper. I don’t know what you were about to pull out of your chest, but if you’d actually done it, your Trait might have completely consumed you. You almost crossed the Rubicon.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. And thank you so much. You saved my life, Kim Daram. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.”
“Good. I sincerely hope you remember it forever.”
Of course, once the Puppet Needle wore off in three hours, he would forget all that gratitude and fly into another rage.
“Yeah. Don’t worry. How could I forget after you helped me this much?”
Sa Jeil gazed steadily at me.
This was the same man who had surrendered himself to madness and tried to kill me only moments ago. Seeing him act like this sent chills across my entire body.
It was especially unsettling coming from Sa Jeil.
“Right. Go back to your room and sleep. Put a cold compress on your face first, unless you want everyone to know you got the shit beaten out of you when morning comes.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure to use a cold compress. I’ll head back first, then.”
Sa Jeil limped out of the sparring room.
Lee Hasol, who had been watching him in fascination, walked over to me.
“Kim Daram, that was awesome! Did you make Sa Jeil nice again?”
“Hmm… I suppose you could say that.”
“I’m just asking because I’m curious, but could you make me nice too?”
I ruffled Lee Hasol’s hair.
“This Skill only works on bad people. It’s useless on someone who’s already nice.”
“Oh…”
Lee Hasol’s expression grew complicated.
He was probably trying to calculate his own moral score.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him along.
“Let’s go eat some noodles. Fighting made me hungry.”
“Sure, Kim Daram. I want black bean noodles!”