After Returning, My Abilities are Infinite

Episode 106. Robbing an Empty House (1)

-You can’t just demand help like this! I need some kind of justification to order people around……!

“Just do it. You’ll be better off if you’re criticized right now.”

-It’s not that simple. This isn’t just any guild. The Tower is a massive group, one of the top three guilds.

“The Association will also take action. That’s why I’m telling you in advance, so get moving. You won’t regret it.”

-What? T-t-he Association? The Association is participating? Are you sure…….

Beep.

I hung up as soon as I heard her pouncing at the word ‘Association’. It was the Archmage of the Tower, Ma Top-joo. I had established a top-down relationship with her, but I neglected her for a while because I had no use for her.

She probably thought I forgot about her because I didn’t keep in touch for a long while. But unfortunately, I wasn’t about to just let someone as useful as the Archmage of the Tower rest.

‘That makes it two large organizations.’

The Archmage always jumped at any chance of profit. Could she really stay still after hearing that the Association was getting involved? She would probably poke around a few times and then jump in as soon as she finds out I was telling the truth, which meant almost entirely supplementing the shortage of force and firepower.

As long as the two organizations come through, I guess there will be enough Awakened people to protect civilians from the outpour of Returnees.

‘If need be, I can always bring up the Five Heroes.’

I still had letters that could provoke the other Heroes, just like I did with the Flame Empress. But that was the last resort. It was a one-time method, so it would be better to save it until the end.

“Then… I guess I’ll go help Mr. Zhang Wei or Han Yeon-soo.”

It would be quite difficult for them to observe and sort the Returnees on their own. Now that I dealt with the issue of manpower, I had better join them and get moving…….

“What are you talking about?!”

“……?”

I thought so until I heard someone shouting down in the main street. I turned my head to see a man in tattered clothes holding onto a passerby, making a ruckus.

“What’s going on?”

What is this situation? I approached with a frown. People nearby were trying to stop the man, but he pushed them away with the flick of his hand, no matter how many men clung to him.

Was he an Awakened person or a villain? It seemed like a difficult situation for civilians to deal with. I pulled out Mirage from my hand. I should subdue him first…….

‘Wait a minute.’

Something was weird. The man standing upright in the crowd of people looked familiar. He wasn’t a stranger to me. I had definitely seen him somewhere in my past.

The limp in his leg. His left hand holding onto a cane-like object. The two puzzle pieces occurred to me. And the small pieces drew a faint, large image.

Someone’s voice rang in my memory.

-This guy is the reason for the name ‘Returnee’.

-Everyone thought it was crazy Awakened people creating chaos, but because of him, we learned that it was the Fourth Disaster.

-Status didn’t matter. He was a monster who really told us what it meant to be a Returnee from a different world.

I remembered. My eyes widened. I can’t leave him like that.

That’s a bomb.

“Get out of the way! Get away from him!”

I yelled hurriedly. But no one listened to me. Some were confused and didn’t know what to do, and some simply found the situation interesting as they laughed foolishly or filmed with their smartphones.

It was a mess. There were no Association staff members to control people, nor were there any fellow Hunters.

“Everyone run away…!”

So it was inevitable that the incident eventually happened similar to the way it did in the past. Before I could even finish speaking, the person closest to the man floated up into the sky. And like a piece of paper in a shredder, the person began to disintegrate in the air, starting from the tip of his toes. Crushed flesh and blood scattered everywhere.

“Aaaarrghh!”

A person in the crowd screamed. And people in the main street started to panic. Those who were filming slammed their phones into their pockets or dropped their phones and fled.

They pushed each other, trample on the people who fell, and screamed. They bumped and got tangled, making it take longer to flee the scene.

“What! Happened! To! Sokcho!… Explain!”

At the center of it was the crazed guy who was unleashing his power. The first registered ‘Danger-Class Returnee’. An individual who can only be dealt with by at least three 1st class Awakened persons and classified as a highly-dangerous person face to face. Solely in terms of killing ability, he was a top-ranking murder weapon.

There was a strong smell of blood. The man covered in red blood, the Returnee, raised his hand one more time. It looked like he was about to wipe out the entire noisy crowd of people.

The surrounding mana quivered slightly. My Information Access and Outstanding Insight create information based on past analysis records and his current appearance that I was seeing with my own eyes. If I leave him like that, everyone here dies.

Snap!

I snapped my finger once. Absorbing the mana I drew up, the reinforced Mirage flew through the atmosphere, shining brightly.

He has no Characteristics or skills. His body structure changed while he lived in a different world, and he earned the instinctive, monster-like ability to control mana and robust strength. I wasn’t dealing with a human being. I was dealing with a monster that looked like a human.

[‘Excellent Magic’ has been activated.]

The Mirage emits a tiny bit of mana and disturbs the flow of the surrounding atmosphere. Weak vibrations shake the whole place, and small holes appear. The murder weapon-like mana that he deployed started to collapse.

“Ugh…huh?”

The man’s face stiffened. He looked like he couldn’t believe why his power was disabled or why the people around him were still alive.

Watching him, I squeezed through the crowd and approached him.

I clenched my fist, and the Mirages that had flown here and there gathered toward me again. Colorful light swirls, and mana condenses.

Snatch!

I push my hand through a gap in the crowd and grab the Returnee by the back of his neck. Then, I reach my fist filled to the brim with mana towards the Returnee’s fixed head.

“If you’re going to ask for an explanation, just say it.”

Craaack.

The fist moves forward, accompanied by the sound of a skull being crushed.

* * *

“This is where a Returnee appeared most recently, right?”

“Yes, he appeared out of nowhere and asked me how to get to Daejeon. So I told him it was a long way from here, at least two hours by car, and he asked what direction Daejeon was.”

“Direction?”

“Yeah. So I told him to go straight up, and he kicked the ground and shot up dozens of meters into the sky and disappeared!”

“…Ha.”

Yoo Ji-yeon nodded in admiration. The person talking to her was the first person to report the appearance of a Returnee. Looking at Yoo Ji-yeon listening to the informant, Han Yeon-soo sighed as she spoke.

“Why are you listening so seriously? Come over here.”

“What? Oh, I haven’t heard it all yet.”

“Their stories are not objective. You learned this from Si-woo. The most important thing is to analyze the evidence left at the scene and the existing traces to figure out what happened. The information in a person’s head changes every second and becomes less accurate as time passes.”

“Wait, you mean that I’m lying? What I told you is what I saw with my own eyes. My God, this is ridiculous!”

After hearing what Han Yeon-soo said, the informant clicked their tongue and complained loudly.

“Ridiculous? So what? If you don’t like it, go back to your house. You just reported it because you heard there was a reward. You’re shameless.”

“…….”

“This is why there shouldn’t be a reward. There are too many money-crazy people in this world.”

“No, it wasn’t because of the money…….”

“What? You have anything else to say?”

The informant, who was about to say something, looked at Han Yeon-soo’s eyes and backed away. Han Yeon-soo ignored the informant and turned towards the scene. Yoo Ji-yeon awkwardly joined her.

“Hey.”

“Ye…yes?”

Standing awkwardly, Yoo Ji-yeon flinched at Han Yeon-soo’s voice.

“Don’t believe everything people say. If you’re going to be working with Si-woo, if you can’t be better than him, you should at least not be a bother.”

“…….”

“Sure, being innocent is nice. But if you’re going to protect innocent people, you can’t be innocent yourself. Do you understand? You don’t want to be someone who needs protection. You want to protect someone else. Then you have to be tougher.”

“Okay.”

Yoo Ji-yeon nodded. The two analyzed the scene, using Search magic from the place the Returnee appeared to the place they disappeared, and also by Characteristics.

“Is this a waste of time?”

And they couldn’t find anything.

“If Si-woo were here, he would have figured it out right away…. I don’t think I’m very talented at this.”

“Of course, Si-woo would have found them right away.”

Han Yeon-soo grinned. She worried about him every day, but she always ended up looking for his help in situations like this.

“Oh, let’s take a break. My head hurts.”

“There’s no time to rest. Hey, get up.”

“Just for a little while—”

Yoo Ji-yeon, who had been agonizing over the case, put her head on the ground and laid down. Seeing her grinning comfortably, Han Yeon-soo sighed as if she couldn’t help it,

But then.

“…Huh? What? There…that.”

“What, why?”

Yoo Ji-yeon, lying down, suddenly pointed her finger at the sky, her eyes wide open.

“Can’t, can’t you see that? That’s weird. It’s not a Rift, judging by the flow of mana. What….”

“What the hell are you talking about? There’s nothing in the sky.”

“Do you have any characteristics related to ‘Mana Detection’?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I guess that’s why you can’t see it. Oh, that’s why the other Hunters that came here couldn’t see either. I think you need at least an S-level Mana Detection Characteristic in order to see that.”

“What exactly are you seeing? Stop being so frustrating and tell me.”

“Hm, how should I explain this?”

Yoo Ji-yeon had her hand perched on her chin, and she slowly started to talk.

“The hole.”

“The hole?”

“It’s similar to a Rift but different. There isn’t a single Monster inside. And it looks different from the ugly Rifts that look like a rip in the sky. The hole looks very beautiful and mysterious.”

“What do you mean?”

“So… ah!”

Yoo Ji-yeon, whose eyes were closed as she searched for words, slapped her knee, and spoke up.

“It looks like a passageway to another world. Beyond the hole looks like a scene from novels or movies… And it looks like something spilled out of it because mana is scattered here and there.”

“……!”

Han Yeon-soo’s eyes widened as she listened to Yoo Ji-yeon.

“Passageway, a different world, mana scattered here and there.”

“Yes. Why?”

“Don’t those three things remind you of anything? What Si-woo said earlier.”

“What Si-woo said?”

“Yeah. You should know what I’m talking about.”

Yoo Ji-yeon looked confused, and Han Yeon-soo smiled at her before she continued talking.

“Returnees, or in other words, people from a different world.”

“…….”

“You found something worth reporting. Something more important than distinguishing between who can be our ally and who will be our enemy.”

Han Yeon-soo looked up at the sky.

“The passageway to where they have been staying, to the other world the Returnees were sucked into. Si-woo will love to hear about this.”