(Chapter 27)

"I'll dispose of this body first-..."

Shyrveen crouch down to pick up the corpse but only to be stopped by Sung Jin-Woo that walked to his side.

"Wait, Hyung-nim! Let me try something... Arise."

Then Sung Jin-Woo extracted the shadow of the unknown creature or monster, and soon appeared before them the soul of the beast with the size of the tiger and bowed to Sung Jin-Woo.

[?? Lv. 1

Rank: Elite Knight]

But Sung Jin-Woo was confused, he knows that Sacred-Blood should be much stronger, and he already felt for the second time how strong the presence of the Infant Eastern Dragon of Shyrveen.

"Hyung-nim... A penny for your thoughts?"

"... One word: Ordinary... This arrow is a Mutant Beast Soul, can you sense?"

Sung Jin-Woo senses the presence inside that arrow too, that it can send Tusk in one hit if he minus the regeneration from his mana.

"... Yeah."

"... There's only one answer to this. The creatures of that place aren't compatible with the Mana here. Even though it evolved faster to the same rank of Sacred-Blood. It was defective and devolved into an Ordinary in terms of strength..."

Shyrveen said his final conclusions after seeing it once.

"So, it's useless to bring an E-Rank monster to that place to see what will happen?"

"Yeah, and even this world already have mana, this creature had some resistance to reject it... Unless the mana was indigested like what the beast did... Then expect that to the monster if we bring it to that place..."

"... Uhm... What's going on here?"

Cha Hae-In was so confused and can't keep up to what they're talking about and decided to remind them of her presence.

While seeing for the first time what the three Guildmasters told her about the nature of Sung Jin-Woo's power.

That she should bring to her grave and don't speak about it to anyone anymore.

Sung Jin-Woo and Shyrveen looked at each other and Sung Jin-Woo decided to be the one to tell her about this and recalled the new shadow soldier.

"You will know these things once you pass the test."

They went to the center again, while Shyrveen sits down on the floor while crossing legs.

'... Well, I don't have anything to do except for talking with Jin-Woo about the deal...'

He saw Sung Jin-Woo summoned Igris after the both S-Rank Hunter talked a bit with touches of humor left and right.

And soon facepalmed for seeing Sung Jin-Woo abused the rules that Cha Hae-In lay down by herself righteously.

'... This dense idiot. Does having that power lost his ability to sense emotions from others?... But I don't think so... Welp, I'll just watch here silently, Jin-Woo's the Guildmaster after all... But... What a poor girl... Tsk tsk tsk.'

Shyrveen saw Sun Jin-Woo summons a sword that producing blue electricity from time to time and handed it to Igris.

And soon, the stupefied Cha Hae-In can be seen standing in the middle of the gymnasium and sighed.

"Will it be fine if we start now?"

Sung Jin-Woo pretended to not notice anything and asked her if she was good to go.

"... Yes."

Then Igris dashes forward and made a horizontal slash and send a strand of lightning flew in a straight line at Cha Hae-In.

She flinched for the briefest of brief moments. But then, like an agile cat, she bent her upper body back and evaded the lightning.

The wall of the gymnasium was scorched jet-black after getting struck by the stray lightning.

Cha Hae-In righted her torso and sent her sharp glare in Sung Jin-Woo's direction, but he averted his gaze to stare into the distance, still pretending to not notice a thing.

'... Ah, I see... Jin-Woo was planning to book high-rank Gates to be cleared by himself... So, he is persistent to deny Cha Hae-In joining in the Guild since she's an S-Rank, and her salary will be higher of course. And he doesn't need one since he has an army in the first place... The path of that girl will be tedious once she wasn't accepted today...'

Shyrveen watches while thinking about why Sung Jin-Woo was so dodgy about that girl joining in the Guild. He even read once the recruitment flyers when they were in the Guild building.

'... The only thing changed was, there's God's Sanctuary to Jin-Woo's list now... Huh?... He should have that thing if he wants to be sure for the secrecy of our things... I'll ask him first if he really has it in his store...'

Ten minutes passed, Shyrveen looked at the location of the camera inside the gymnasium and thumbs up.

'Go Gun-Hee should be having fun watching this lovebird dating inside such a place with a third wheel, which is me...'

That soon the lights of the cameras turn off but at the same time, Shyrveen looked at the center seeing the hand of Igris flew off away from his body.

"Stop!"

Even though they would regenerate back to full, Sung Jin-Woo still couldn't stand the sight of his soldiers getting destroyed.

"Fuu-..."

Cha Hae-In reined in her rough breathing and let out a long sigh.

'Her opponent must've been tougher than expected because she was soaked in sweat from head to toe...'

Shyrveen observe Cha Hae-In's slender, white fingers wiped the droplets of sweat forming on her forehead that soon the appearances of Cha Hae-In changed into Yang Manli's.

'!!!'

And shook his head and said in his inner mind even though he expects for that person not to reply.

'... Did you get back another emotion, Irveen? And it's now affecting my mind to think about her?...'

While Shyrveen was busy in his world.

Sung Jin-Woo looked at the fight with a rueful expression, inwardly accepting his loss today, and called Igris back.

"It's my loss."

"No. Please, this one doesn't count."

Sung Jin-Woo was confused and thought.

'What did she even mean by that, out of the blue? Didn't count?'

"Didn't you say that you'd bring out the most powerful summon?"

Cha Hae-In explained herself and walked closer and only stopped when she was one step away from Sung Jin-Woo.

"Please call out your strongest summon. We agreed to do from that get-go, didn't we?"

That woke up Shyrveen from his trance and thought.

'... Girl... Are you seeking death?... You might get a real trauma this time...'

After debating here and there for another ten minutes or so. Shyrveen decided to sleep and lay his body down on the floor.

But it wasn't even fifteen minutes passed after hearing the loud screech of Beru that woke up Shyrveen and without thinking, summoned his Dragon Tadpole and ordered it to protect Cha Hae-In against the ten claws of Beru.

While Sung Jin-Woo managed to make it just in time too.

"... I told you to stop, didn't I?"

Sung Jin-Woo stopped both sets of Beru's claws with his bare hands and began glaring at his soldier.

Beru met that enraged glare and began shuddering. He quickly leaped back and, while not even bothering to pull that sword of light from his midriff, prostrated flat on the ground and begged for forgiveness.

"Oh, oh my king. Mercy..."

Sung Jin-Woo knew what this guy was thinking of the moment he was about to act. Hell, the singular thought of 'Protect the Sovereign' was ringing really loud inside his head, too.

Then looked at Shyrveen to said his thanks before going to check out Cha Hae-In that in the middle of Beast Soul's body that wrapped on her body.

Cha Hae-In was completely spent and, unable to stand any longer, plopped down to the body of Beast Soul while thinking that she just came face to face with death again during that brief moment.

"Are you alright?"

"I am fine."

'Fine, my foot...'

Said by both men in the gymnasium in their minds but didn't voice it out.

Sung Jin-Woo supported her up and asked, while the Dragon Tadpole is slowly shrinking before it goes back to Shyrveen.

"Why were you pushing yourself that hard? I mean, you shouldn't have any reasons to enter my Guild while putting yourself through a wringer like this, right?"

"..."

'Indeed, this was supposed to be a simple test. More than that, this was a 'test' he cooked up to reject you tactfully...'

Shyrveen thought while waiting for Cha Hae-In's answer.

'But, to think, she'd be this obsessed about winning, even to the extent of using such a dangerous skill, too. This couldn't be chalked up to her desire to win at all costs.'

"Could it be….."

Sung Jin-Woo cautiously asked her, so as to not damage her ego.

"Are you perhaps interested in me?"

"Excuse me??"

Cha Hae-In got flustered and formed a dazed expression of someone getting hit in the back of her head.

Sung Jin-Woo tilted his head.

'That wasn't it, either?'

But then, Cha Hae-In carefully reorganized her thoughts and corrected her answer.

"... Yes, I think so."

"... In that case, isn't there a better way than to join my Guild?..."

Shyrveen widens his eyes and cheers them up inside his mind and hide inside the bodies of Dragon Tadpole like a house until he finally felt the nudge of his Beast Soul that woke him up again.

"... Are you done with your lovey-dovey moments?"

"Hyung-nim..."

Cha Hae-In blushed, Sung Jin-Woo rolls his eyes, and Shyrveen shrugs.

"I won't say anymore... So we can start dealing with things?"

Then Shyrveen turns serious while staring at them with his normal self without acting.

"..."

"..."

"First of all, Hunter Cha... What we have here is not as simple as another dimension, world, or whatever, are you sure that you can handle universal things?...

I heard what you said in the conference room... Comfortably... That thing only will be applied for Yoo Jin-Ho... Or to you too, but once you pick that, we should expect you not to ask a thing for one or two about this things again, is it okay for you?

And don't bother to pressure me with magical presence, I'm not awakened... So what will be your answer?..."

Sung Jin-Woo decided to step in.

"Hyung-nim... We can try to talk this tomorrow morning."

"... Alright."

Shyrveen went back to his acting like an average man in the background.

While for Cha Hae-In sighed because he felt more thankful for Sung Jin-Woo to stop the man from sending such weird pressure. She felt that pressure and decided to fight back but only to be shocked after hearing that he wasn't even an awakened from his own mouth.

'I-Impossible!'

Sung Jin-Woo stared at the shocked Cha hae-In, or the third person for Shyrveen that knows he really wasn't an awakened.

"Hunter-nim. We will expect you to arrive for our first meeting then?"

"I-I'll think about it..."

Cha Hae-In nods and quickly escaped from the place after remembering the thing Sung Jin-Woo asked her.

Sung Jin-Woo stared at the back of Cha Hae-In as she disappeared from his sight.

"... Hyung-nim, is it necessary to scare her?..."

"Of course, one more strong person joining the guild and it will increase our survivability. Do you know why I experimented that beast earlier after I saw the magic crystals?"

Sung Jin-Woo shakes his head for why was that. He thought that Shyrveen was only being a knowledge seeker and curiously waiting for his explanation.

"Because powerful beings do exist in this universe, and even my current power was caused by one... It's already ten years after that great disaster and since they do exist. Then ten years was already plenty of time for them to lay down their plans to this Earth... And should be in their active phase now..."

Shyrveen yawn while saying this thing like it was like nothing but a normal occurrence.

That stunned Sung Jin-Woo and remembered something in these past few days.

"... Dungeons... Wait, I even remembered Go Gun-Hee saying something like this... That they found their people were unconscious inside the nest on the Jeju Island but without a single wound... Maybe it was caused by one of them... And the increase of awakened people and the same for other low-rank Gates..."

They stopped speaking to each other, thinking something of their own after Sung Jin-Woo blurting it out for Shyrveen to know.

And they both disappeared in the gymnasium while Sung Jin-Woo didn't forget to text Go Gun-Hee that he will be responsible for the damages in the gymnasium that caused by his shadow soldiers.

Then they separated once they reached the apartment building of Sung Family first before Shyrveen totally lay down his body completely on his bed without even bothering taking off his shoes.

'... My body felt so sore, even in a coma... I can only guess that I regained consciousness since my body can endure the threshold pain...'

His last thoughts before loud snoring can be heard in his whole apartment.

The evening of this day is full of things around the world.

America was planning to invite Sung Jin-Woo in their country by using the artifact that is called Rune Stone that came out from the first boss S-Rank Gate of the world in Western America that specified for mages.

While Cha Hae-In was busy blushing and turning here and there in her bedroom while thinking about Sung Jin-Woo, that she realized she has a feeling towards him. Before hearing the warning message of Min Byung-Gu about Sung Jin-Woo's power that needs to be passed onto Sung Jin-Woo too.

And lastly for Sung Jin-Woo busying himself asking and answering his own question if he is really good looking, before asking his younger sister to be sure about it before talking about the Guild that he will establish...