From Today, I'm a Player

Chapter 138: The Desert’s Sun Pt. 3

A huge tremor shook his whole body.

“You crazy bastard…!” Baldur shouted at Lee Jun-Kyeong.

A huge typhoon of mana sprang into existence around them, coinciding with the disappearance of the black sun. Baldur had ordered him to use the Bifrost to prevent it, while Lee Jun-Kyeong had used the Bifrost to trap the typhoon in place before it exploded.

“Are you trying to make me die with you?!”

Bifrost’s restriction enveloped the explosion, with Lee Jun-Kyeong and Baldur trapped together with it.

It was an unavoidable decision.

“Then what? Are you saying you want everyone else to die in our place?” Lee Jun-Kyeong said to Baldur scathingly, his voice betraying his contempt for the first time.

If he hadn’t formed a restriction and trapped the typhoon right before it exploded, then many people in Cairo would have been swept away.

Although he wasn’t sure what would have happened to the Hunters, it was obvious that all of the ordinary humans would have died.

That was why he had made this decision.

“This was an inevitable decision, you dog bastard,” Lee Jun-Kyeong spat at Baldur.

Thud.

Baldur let go of Lee Jun-Kyeong and cursed.

“You cheeky bastard,” said Baldur after he saw the small smirk forming around the corners of Lee Jun-Kyeong’s mouth as the Hunter criticized Baldur with a scathing tone.

There were only the two of them trapped within the explosion.

Lee Jun-Kyeong had deliberately formed the restriction in this manner, excluding the rest of the Hunters.

"Open it. Quickly."

Boom. Boom. Boom. BOOM!

He had to escape this place before the typhoon of mana intensified.

Eventually.

Ahhhh.

With the slight sound of musical harmonies, the space before Lee Jun-Kyeong’s eyes distorted.

In front of him wasn’t Cairo, Egypt. No, this was the city of lights.

‘Breidablik.’

This was Baldur’s Territory.

Breidablik was supposedly the most beautiful Territory of them all, but, the Breidablik in front of him was worlds apart from the beauty it was rumored to have. Wherever they looked was destruction and fire.

Lee Jun-Kyeong murmured, “The state of this place is…”

“This is because of Set,” Baldur said as he quickly began to move. “You crazy bastard… because of you…”

Ahhhh.

As they heard the sound of musical harmonies from here and there, something was beginning to change.

The black sun was on the precipice of exploding, and in the midst of the typhoon of mana, they had been transported to Baldur’s Territory.

Originally, the restriction should have been destroyed during their transport because of the simultaneous activation of Breidablik with the Bifrost, but, Lee Jun-Kyeong had manipulated the Bifrost to connect Baldur’s Territory with the area in which they had formed the restriction.

That meant.

“Breidablik is going to…”

In other words, the aftermath of the explosion would force its way into this Territory.

“But we can still survive now, right?” Lee Jun-Kyeong said as he slumped down.

He was finally able to breathe a little.

BOOM! BOOM!

Breidablik began to be swept away by an explosion.

***

“Mr. Lee…”

Won-Hwa strained his eyes as he looked forward.

There was a fierce battle between Set, Horus, and Lee Jun-Kyeong. In the end, both Set and Lee Jun-Kyeong had disappeared.

“...”

In their place was a rainbow-colored restriction, and within it, something black was continuously exploding outward and expanding. Still, the rainbow-colored restriction was constantly blacking the black mass, keeping it from crossing over into where they were.

“Mr. Lee…” Won-Hwa said again, strained.

He was sure that Lee Jun-Kyeong was inside of that thing in front of him.

That man had fought tirelessly to the end and had shown them an incredible miracle. He was also his companion, but he was in there.

“Mr. Lee!” Won-Hwa eventually shouted as he tried to run forward.

But.

Clench.

Jeong In-Chang grabbed onto Won-Hwa's wrist and didn’t let go.

Won-Hwa tried to shake off his hold while shouting at him, “Are you completely fine with this, Mr. Jeong? Mr. Lee is inside of that thing!”

Lee Jun-Kyeong held great significance to him.

Simply put, Lee Jun-Kyeong was the benefactor who had dragged him out of the hellish landscape known as China. Furthermore, he was a disciple of his who had learned internal qigong and also a teacher who had taught him countless things.

He was also the companion that had allowed Won-Hwa to live like a human again.

Thus.

“We have to save him!”

Won-Hwa eventually shook off Jeong In-Chang’s hand and ran forward, but suddenly stopped when he heard Jeong In-Chang’s voice.

“There’s no need.”

Won-Hwa turned around to look at him.

“We don’t have to go save him.”

Jeong In-Chang wasn’t actually okay with this situation. In fact, his hands were clenched tight, his lip quivered, and there was a slight tremble to his voice.

He was also worried about Lee Jun-Kyeong.

But.

“You have to get used to this.”

Jeong In-Chang didn’t go forth to try to save Lee Jun-Kyeong.

“That person…”

Jeong In-Chang forced himself to smile and spoke reassuringly to Won-Hwa.

“He’ll be right back, like he always does.”

Only then was Won-Hwa able to see around him. His companions had surrounded him, and they were people who had been with Lee Jun-Kyeong longer than he had.

Jeong In-Chang, the princess, even Fenrir and Hyeon-Mu, Lee Jun-Kyeong’s Familiars.

They, too, were looking out at the rainbow-colored restriction with sunken eyes, but none of them made any moves to go forward.

They were clearly more worried about Lee Jun-Kyeong than even he was.

“That’s because he’s that sort of person.”

Won-Hwa turned around to look at the restriction himself.

He could hear Jeong In-Chang continue to speak, “The restriction is still there, right?”

Won-Hwa could hear a hint of a smile in Jeong In-Chang’s voice.

“That means he’s still alive. That’s the trust we have in him.”

Won-Hwa nodded as Lee Jun-Kyeong's entire party looked over.

"Horus...!"

On the other side of the battlefield, the Hunters of Egypt, the Nile, were moving quickly. The Nile had been clearly defeated.

Set had matched Horus and Lee Jun-Kyeong to the very end even amid their relentless barrage of attacks, and he had even endured the almost miracle-like power of Lee Jun-Kyeong’s final attack.

Still, Set was in that restriction now, and they had to take care of the still-breathing pharaoh candidate that was there in front of them.

“Lord Horus.”

However, the majority of the Hunters of the Nile were looking at the rainbow-colored restriction with their mouths firmly shut, biting hard on their lower lips.

“...”

It wasn’t that they were waiting for Set.

‘Just how…’

Instead, they were waiting for a foreign stranger.

Moreover, that person was from another secret organization, the Underdog.

They were waiting for him.

He had been bestowed the glory of Ra.

‘Could he be another pharaoh candidate…’

All of them, regardless of what they were doing, were filled with a deluge of emotions.

***

“Gasp…gasp…”

Baldur was shuddering as he let out heaving breaths.

Breidablik.

There had been countless explosions that blasted through his Territory, disaster after disaster.

The black sun that had appeared briefly on the battlefield, and the energy that it had emitted as it disappeared had been led to Baldur’s Territory using the restriction formed from the Bifrost.

“You fu…”

The most beautiful Territory had been ruined.

“Still, you did good holding it back,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said from behind Baldur.

He had worked with Baldur to reduce the impact of the explosion, but to be honest, he just mainly focused on recovering. Even if Baldur’s Territory were to be ruined by this, it was not like it affected him in any way.

After all, Baldur was a close ally of Odin, a close confidant who had absolute blind loyalty to the Asgardian ruler.

Therefore, Lee Jun-Kyeong actually hoped that Baldur would weaken as he would have to be on opposite sides with Odin someday.

‘As for what’s left…’

Lee Jun-Kyeong realized there was something left in the aftermath. Although he hadn’t been able to obtain it during the fight against Set, it was better than nothing.

“I’ll collect this debt for sure,” Baldur said to Lee Jun-Kyeong in a cold and angry voice.

The explosion had been endured, and the shock that they had withstood through the Bifrost had also disappeared.

“It’s time to go back,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said as he ignored Baldur’s words.

Baldur’s Territory was different from the Bifrost.

It had no ability even remotely to move through time and space.

Ahhhh.

The land that they stepped on with the sound of musical harmonies was back to where they had originally left, the middle of the devastated Cairo.

“...”

“...”

Lee Jun-Kyeong and Baldur looked over the land where they were standing.

It was devastating.

‘Is this something a human…no…’

This was a scene that he himself had brought on.

A huge hole had appeared on the ground. The stones had disappeared almost as if they had been deleted like a file. Even though the typhoon of mana had supposedly dissipated, the aftermath of the trauma on the surroundings still weighed down on one’s body.

The lava that had been created through the use of King Yan, the King of Hell, was still there and burning through the ground.

All of the remnants of the collapsed pyramid had disappeared.

It looked as if a meteorite had fallen from the sky.

Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t believe that this devastation had been at the hands of man, and that he had been a part of what had caused such destruction.

“Let’s go find Set,” Baldur said, moving first.

Although the possibility of the Hunter still being alive in this place was remote, they still had to look just in case.

Lee Jun-Kyeong also moved.

Because the Bifrost’s restriction was still active, if he could find even the slightest clue, that alone would have been enough for him.

However, the two didn’t have to move very far.

“I guess there’s no reason for us to even look for him.”

There was nowhere for them to even search. After all, nothing was left in this enormously vast hole, and not a single trace could be found.

At that moment.

[Mana stream has been activated.]

Lee Jun-Kyeong used a method that Baldur wasn’t able to–chasing the mana trail that had been left behind. The flow of mana was something that Baldur couldn’t see, but Lee Jun-Kyeong could even sense the flow of the atmosphere, so he was able to use that method to search for any clues.

Concentrating, he soon felt a huge bunch of mana.

The abundant mana around them was pushed aside by a trajectory of mana with a constant flow.

Step.

"Did you find something?"

Lee Jun-Kyeong shook his head at Baldur's voice, but then secretly picked something up.

"This is..."

It was a piece of black cloth.

This was something completely ridiculous–what was this piece of cloth made of such that it could be left in this devastation?

‘The stone around us, or even the earth… In a place where nothing survived, to think something like this could be left here?’

Lee Jun-Kyeong secretly put the cloth away into his inventory.

He would have to inspect the scent of mana that was imbued into the piece of cloth later on his own.

“I’m going to release the restriction,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said to Baldur. He had dropped all formalities and spoke roughly, looking down at the Hunter.

At a moment of crisis, Baldur had come running to him only to save himself.

‘He was fine with sacrificing everyone around us.’

The bastard had asked him to use the Bifrost to take them away, thinking only of his own safety in the advent of the explosion.

Although it wasn’t necessarily a wrong thing to value one’s own life, considering his position and power, it wasn’t a choice he should have made.

Even though he was someone with a Territory, even though he was someone with enough strength to at least find some way for everyone to survive, Baldur had chosen to let all of the ordinary people around them die for the sake of preserving his own Territory.

If Lee Jun-Kyeong hadn’t intervened, then the citizens of Cairo would have all been slaughtered.

“Tsk.”

As if he felt Lee Jun-Kyeong’s gaze, Baldur also had dropped all pretense.

There was a subtle harshness to the air between the two.

The rainbow restriction was lifted, and in its place stood Lee Jun-Kyeong, who had ended the restriction after obtaining the piece of black cloth.

Slowly, countless gazes drifted over to their location. Countless people were looking at where they were.

Even among those gazes.

“Snort.”

His companions stood out to him.

As Lee Jun-Kyeong looked back at them with a welcoming expression, a voice cut through the air.

"What did I tell you?” Jeong In-Chang said.

“I told you he’d come back in style.”

Of course, apart from his loud and boisterous voice, there was a gross stream of snot running down his face.