Chapter 537

Based solely on the ability to sense aura, Saetbyeol was much more sensitive than I was.

She instinctively flinched.

Killing intent.

It was truly a rare sight to find killing intent within aura.

It was because if one was dominated by surface emotions, like anger, the aura heart would cease to function properly.

I turned into an alleyway, breaking the path I was headed on.

“NaeMe… Are you going? It’s dangerous!”

“Who? I’m not someone who goes around wielding violence anywhere. I’ll try to talk it out.”

She still seemed to think of me as a walking time bomb, huh?

I had undergone years of advanced training and had become a civilized person.

Saetbyeol let out a deep sigh and clung tightly to me, following closely behind.

There couldn’t possibly be a normal human unleashing meticulously calculated killing intent.

This only fueled my curiosity.

I thought I could guess who the owner of this aura was.

“Ugh…”

A man collapsed in one corner of the alley, letting out a sound that was either a burp or a groan.

A sharp scent of alcohol emanated from his regular breaths.

I relied only on the faint moonlight to assess the drunken man’s condition.

His white shirt was stained a deep red with blood, but I could find no wounds.

“Ah! What, what is that?!”

Saetbyeol jumped in place.

There were others collapsed around her like corpses.

“Now that I look closely, there are quite a few people.”

“They’re not… dead, are they?”

“As far as I can see, they all seem fine.”

“How can you tell?”

“As long as their limbs are attached and their pulse and breathing are normal, they’re fine. Let’s go ask those people what happened.”

“Ah! No! I don’t want to go alone!”

[Cast: Light]

Fwooosh-

I opened the path with a magic circle.

On the way we passed, about a dozen people were sprawled out carelessly.

At the end of the narrow, long alley, three shadows loomed large.

“Au secours! M’aider moi!”

A rough-looking tattooed young man called out for help in a hoarse voice.

Thud-!

The girl who had been holding him in the air swiftly took him down with a single strike, knocking him unconscious.

It happened too quickly for me to even see what hit him.

It must have been aura. An external manifestation at that.

Immediately, a person who seemed like an attendant rushed out from behind her and cast healing magic on the man.

The Black man coughed up blood a few times before sliding into a peaceful sleep.

The girl, who momentarily seemed to lose focus, looked at me in shock.

“Ah! W-why, why are you here?”

That’s when it happened.

The attendant suddenly grabbed the girl’s neck with a burly arm.

“Gck…!”

Despite struggling with her legs, he showed no signs of releasing her.

The man uncapped a glass flask lying on the ground and roughly shoved it into the girl’s mouth.

The girl, writhing in pain like a goose being force-fed, protested,

“Ugh…! Gag… Ugh…!”

She lay facedown on the cold stone floor, retching.

However, all that came out was clear saliva.

The attendant walked up and stood tall in front of us.

“Hmm.”

“Ah! Run away!”

I gripped Saetbyeol’s sleeve tightly as she tried to flee without looking back.

“Wait, don’t go.”

“Ugh!”

The man seemed to deliberately position himself to cover the girl’s face.

As if she must not be revealed.

However, I already had a good idea who she was when I entered the alley.

“Giselle Fisher.”

A frown formed on the man’s forehead.

“Or I’ll call the police right now.”

“… Can we pretend we didn’t see today’s events?”

“Are you an attendant?”

“Something like that. I’m currently in a coaching position.”

“Oh…”

“Huh? What kind of nonsense is that?”

The glass flask that had fallen to the stone floor didn’t break.

Black sediment lay spread across the ground.

I brought the flask’s opening right to Saetbyeol’s nose.

“Want to take a whiff?”

“What is this…? Ugh…!”

She reacted just like the girl had.

“What kind of potion is this? Are there still people who believe in the myth of doping effects?”

Of course, there were, around 50 years ago when Nintendo was popular.

“You’d better speak properly. In France, the penalties for child abuse are quite severe, you know?”

The coach shook his head.

“Don’t misunderstand. It’s strictly for treatment.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You can’t possibly not know. Restakaya Syndrome.”

Shadows draped across the coach’s face.

I glanced at Giselle, who was still retching.

“Mana addiction?”

“Something like that.”

“Cough cough! Ugh…!”

For some reason, Saetbyeol’s complaints were more pronounced despite only catching a whiff of it.

* * *

“Are we just going to leave her here on the ground? She’s fine, right?”

These people had no sense of the law.

Isn’t that a bit too irresponsible compared to the crime committed?

“Anyway, it’s summer, so there’s no worry of freezing to death.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“What do you mean it’s true! Call an ambulance!”

Saetbyeol insisted vigorously.

“Got it.”

However, the coach called for a police car instead of an ambulance.

The men and women, who hadn’t woken despite the ruckus, sprang up reflexively to the sound of the siren.

“What’s happening? Why are those people getting arrested?”

“It’s a real French gang. They operate out of Pyuto and Courbevoie.”

“I lured them in through Telegram.”

Giselle shyly showed her phone, making a peace sign.

“Oh, really…”

“Why are they coming to another country to act as vigilantes? They’ve gone mad!”

“Isn’t there some quiet place where we can talk?”

Nearby, a cocktail bar with nice ambiance was off the table due to age restrictions.

France hardly has any restaurants open at midnight.

In front of a 24-hour convenience store,

We sat at a creaky wooden table, quietly enjoying ice cream.

“So, what brings you here?”

By chance, I met Giselle Fisher, who was wildly beating up gangsters while taking a walk near my accommodation?

Argentina’s base camp is at least 10 kilometers away from here, so it didn’t make sense.

I arrived at the conclusion that she must be here for some reason related to me.

Giselle tightly gripped the hem of her dress.

The coach looked at Giselle, who had her head lowered, with concern.

“Are you still unable to do it?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, if that’s how you feel, then there’s nothing we can do. Our Argentina is planning to forfeit the next semifinals. I thought it would be courteous to let player No Name know beforehand.”

“I’m sorry, No Name. Still, thank you for cheering me on. I think I was able to make it to the semifinals because of that.”

“Hmm.”

Tap tap tap-

I tapped the table three times with my fingers.

I tilted my head slightly to the right and glared at Giselle.

“It doesn’t seem like a physical issue.”

“There’s some. Giselle overworked her aura heart during the last match with Nathan Chen.”

“Isn’t everyone the same? We’re in the same boat. We finally made it to the semifinals, and you’re saying you want to forfeit because you’re afraid of losing ugly?”

“That’s absolutely not it! All the people in my country want me to perform in the semifinals!”

Giselle protested strongly.

“Then what is it?”

“Well…”

The conversation looped back on itself.

“Are you suggesting we play 20 Questions right now? I’m seriously annoyed that my semifinal record is being tarnished by a walkover.”

Bang-!

The coach suddenly hit the table with his fist.

With a cracking sound, a crack formed on the wooden plank.

“This clueless little brat! The one most upset should be Giselle! Do you know how hard she trained, got surgeries, rehabilitated, and trained again for this day? What is she supposed to do now that she can’t manifest externally because of an awful terminal illness?”

“How would I know, sir? I’m suffering from the same illness, and it hasn’t been a problem in daily life at all. And not being able to externalize doesn’t mean I can’t compete.”

“Why are you saying this, NaMe? Symptoms can differ from person to person. This person relies heavily on external manifestation for the combat.”

“Saetbyeol, didn’t you see Giselle use external manifestation earlier? She’s making absurd lies!”

“It’s not a lie.”

Giselle smiled bitterly.

Let’s see what she has to say, I rested my chin on my hand and waited.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

She maintained silence for over three minutes that way before finally parting her parched lips.

“When I think of fighting you, I can’t possibly bring forth external manifestation… it’s because you look just like my childhood best friend…”

“Huh?”

I had never heard of external manifestation being hindered by the appearance of a person.

Giselle rummaged through her gallery and showed me a picture of that best friend.

It was even more ridiculous that the kid she showed didn’t resemble me at all.

“Hey! They have nothing in common other than twin tails! Are you kidding?”

“No, if you look closely, there are some similarities…! Look, this double eyelid is similar! The vibe feels similar.”

“Are you serious?”

I asked the coach back.

“I wish this whole situation was a lie.”

Ultimately, it’s a psychosomatic issue that leads to a lack of external manifestation.

It’s quite a convenient phrase, which resonates with what doctors often say: “It’s due to stress.”

It implies they don’t know the cause and will just prescribe antibiotics vaguely.

Even when they experimented with others (gangsters), it supposedly worked just fine.

‘What do you mean just leave it at that?’

However, it felt too regrettable to give up on a match with Giselle Fisher.

She was someone who had clawed her way up to this point purely with tenacity.

I wanted to feel the thrill of shattering the hopes of the nation when they reached their peak.

I wished to let this child, who carries the motto ‘Nothing is impossible through effort,’ know the overwhelming gap of talent.

I kept fiddling with my twin-tailed hair.

“What if I let my hair down instead of in twin tails? Wouldn’t that be better?”

It would probably lower my battle power (psychosomatically), but as long as I could engage in the match, it wouldn’t matter.

In my past life, I didn’t always have twin tails, after all.

I wasn’t particularly obsessed with twin tails.

I removed my hairpin and changed my hairstyle to long straight hair, which was the base setting value.

“Give it a shot.”

Giselle squeezed her eyes shut and trembled, her face shaking.

The aura heart was heating up vigorously, but there were no signs of manifestation.

“Of course. Why would it work?”

In fact, if hair is too long, there aren’t many hairstyles that can be used.

At most, a ponytail would be suitable.

I tried a high ponytail, tying up my hair neatly without any frills, in the style of Kamikita Emika.

While Saetbyeol diligently helped with my hair, I kept looking at that photo of ‘friend.’

‘She certainly looks like my age, even if her face is different.’

I could somewhat understand what Giselle Fisher meant by ‘vibe.’

She continued to swipe through photos she took with her friend.

“Is she here to cheer for you this time? I bet you’re proud to have a friend like her.”

At that, Giselle’s expression hardened.

“No. We haven’t spoken in a while…”

“Even if you broke up, you can still watch on TV. Or is it that you can’t see her anymore?”

“Yeah…”

Tears glistened in Giselle’s eyes.

It was fascinating how one could cultivate external manifestation by relying on a best friend.

I had seen cases of faith reaching its extremes, surpassing blind belief… But was she not an ordinary person who parted ways in childhood?

‘Even so, it doesn’t make sense.’

Neither my mind nor my heart could accept it.

Relying on others is the most opposite behavior to aura.

A person without agency wouldn’t even be able to establish their own worldview.

One must shatter the world that is filled with life.

I narrowed my eyes and said,

“Did Giselle kill her? That friend of yours.”

“…!”

The moment those words escaped my lips, Giselle’s aura heart went berserk.

A black aura erupted from her back, forming straight lines and planes, eventually taking shape.

A handful of starlight seeped through the holes in the parasol.

Thud-

She collapsed onto the wooden table, illuminated by brilliant silver light.

Suddenly, the coach picked her up in a princess carry and swiftly departed.

“We’ll pretend the forfeit never happened. I hope for a good match.”

They were strange people.

“Okay, thank you.”