Chapter 114 - Don't you touch my girlfriend!
If anyone dares ask what equality is,
Tell them to look up the wingsuit.
The founder died.
The developer died.
The world-record holder died.
Veterans die.
Newbies die.
A sport of etiquette, of perfect equality, where even the concept of discrimination is alien.
One more line nearly got added to that list:
A newbie who made the unofficial Guinness record… and died the same moment.
A hazy smoke drifted upward.
On the ground, a deep trench had been carved out, looking like a runway.
At the very beginning of that tragic trail were a parachute, limp and caught on a tree branch, and a backpack with torn straps rolling around like trash.
Further along was a mess of shattered pieces—once called a "statue"—now just a pile of rubble.
Amid the acrid, dust-filled air,
A mound of bricks sat piled high.
From the center of it, an arm—soaked in blood—jutted stiffly out.
The hand dangled limp, wrist bent unnaturally.
From the thumb's direction, it was clearly a right arm.
But the condition was horrific.
Fingers two, four, and five were broken—index, ring, and pinky, mangled beyond use.
The middle finger, relatively intact, stood tall, as if aiming its hatred at this cursed world.
If that was the outside the mound of bricks, one could only imagine the inside.
Putting it into words would warrant a red label and a gore warning, no doubt about it.
So really, maybe it was for the best that the rest remained unseen.
Who knows how much time passed in this self-censorship.
As the disturbed dust slowly settled back onto thousand-year-old earth, welcoming its first uninvited guest in decades...
Can you see it?
This—this is a grave.
And the brick mound could have easily been introduced just like that.
From within its cracks, wisps of smoke started to rise.
Pshhhhh!
Like a rice cooker just done cooking, the sound was sharp and deadly.
The heat seemed enough to scald skin, and small pieces of stone clattered, then began to tumble down in waves.
And then—
A twitch.
A single twitch of a fingertip.
A gesture often used in media as the sign of resurrection.
And here, it was real.
Another twitch, this one broader in range.
From that fingertip, consciousness returned.
Soon after, the wrist moved.
Then the arm.
The palm fumbled for a grip, brushing aside rubble.
Slowly, the fingers curled into a fist.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A furious series of blows shattered the stone tomb.
To someone unaware, it would've looked like the dead clawing their way back to life.
CRASH!
Finally, the grave collapsed in a roar.
And from its ruins, a desperate gasp greeted the open air.
"Puhhaaa!!"
But it didn't end there—
"Pthoo! Ptoo! Ssss-spit—blegh! HACK! Ptooey! Ptoooeeey! GAH!"
It was chaos.
Total chaos.
Jin spat out a mouthful of gravel.
Some had tried invading his windpipe too, so the coughing didn't stop for a while.
For a long, long moment,
With tears and snot pouring, the proud Korean man named Jin struggled just to breathe.
"Shiiiiiibal…"
A good, hearty curse followed as he raised his head.
We'll overlook the teary eyes and snot-slick philtrum for now.
Even at that moment, his face sizzled like meat on a grill, smoke hissing from his skin.
Reconstruction.
His irregular ability had switched on in that split-second of crisis, as always.
"...Thought I was actually dead that time."
Jin shivered as he looked at the trench gouged into the ground where he'd skidded.
The memory of that terrifying moment, just before he blacked out, came flooding back.
The parachute had deployed.
There was a momentary jolt of braking.
But it was too late.
"Ugh, that thing… that damn thing."
He spotted the parachute tangled in a distant tree, hanging limp like a corpse, and let out a long sigh.
He could guess what happened.
At that critical moment—right as the chute opened and he slammed into the ground—had he not instinctively shielded himself with mana, he'd have died instantly.
Crushed like a squashed tomato.
Bleh.
Jin gagged at the thought.
A man who'd just slid over 20 meters, smashed a statue, and gotten buried alive in rocks wasn't exactly reacting normally—but whatever.
He was alive, wasn't he?
Let's see…
He fumbled over parts of his body he couldn't see—back of his head, shoulder blades—checking with his fingers.
Then winced as a jolt of pain struck him.
What the… damn it.
He finally noticed the broken fingers.
His overall condition had been so critical, his body had deprioritized those digits entirely.
Gritting his teeth, he manually realigned each broken knuckle one by one.
It hurt like hell—but there was no choice.
Setting them right sped up recovery.
Now then… where the hell am I?
Only now did Jin look around.
All he saw were trees, densely packed in all directions.
And that was weird.
Very weird.
Trees?
At this altitude?
He tilted his head in confusion.
It was a reasonable doubt.
There's something called the tree line—beyond which trees can't grow due to harsh cold or dry conditions.
In terms of elevation, that's around 3,000 meters.
Considering Apophis was operating at an altitude of 4,500 meters, the forest before him was an outright impossibility.
…Wait a second.
Why isn't it cold?
The wind brushing his skin was oddly mild, and Jin's eyes widened.
It should've been at least minus 20 degrees.
Instead, it felt like perfect napping weather.
"This is… seriously weird. Is this what they call the Dwarf's domain?"
Jin muttered to himself as he began walking along the forest path, tapping the side of his busted goggles like a stubborn machine.
"This is Solo King. Chandler. Do you read me? Q? Elina? Colonel? Siri?"
Of course, there was no response.
No matter how advanced the equipment was, once the circuit board was smashed, it was nothing but scrap metal.
Like a person with their skull crushed in—practically a corpse.
Tch.
Clicking his tongue in disappointment, Jin took off the goggles.
With a casual flick, he tossed them over his shoulder and pushed forward.
He didn't get far before his steps wobbled.
Huh?
A wave of dizziness struck, and Jin clung to the nearest tree he could reach.
Before he realized it, his legs had gone slack and he was sitting on the forest floor.
No surprise there.
The energy drain from a reconstruction was insane.
He'd put out the most urgent fires by sacrificing recovery of some broken and damaged parts of his body.
That meant he simply didn't have the resources to fix everything.
But!
Jin wasn't the same Jin anymore.
This kind of situation?
Totally expected.
With 33,000 experience points—no, compensation fees—under his belt, if he hadn't expected his body to get wrecked, he'd be a monkey, not a man.
And so, the monkey rummaged through his pockets.
With trembling hands, Jin pulled something out: calorie capsules.
He had asked Khalifa to buy them before setting out.
Some of them might've gone missing somewhere along the way, but who cared?
Without hesitation, Jin popped the capsules into his mouth and swallowed them all at once.
"…"
Naturally, there was no sudden burst of energy or wide-eyed awakening.
It wasn't a stimulant, just calorie capsules, plain and simple.
But for a body running on fumes, it was definitely a much-needed boost.
Grunting, Jin got to his feet and resumed his weary trudge.
"Hello? Anyone there?"
He occasionally called out to the empty forest as he walked.
And then, at some point, his head tilted ever so slightly.
Far off in the distance—
He saw it.
A grey fortress nestled between two mountains, like it had been carved straight out of the landscape.
It blended so naturally into the rugged terrain that its formidable design was unmistakable even from afar.
It was clearly a natural stronghold.
But... why is it so big?
Suspicion crept into Jin's eyes.
He'd seen it with his own eyes—Apophis, the colossal airborne structure several kilometers wide.
But standing here inside it, the space felt far more expansive than it looked from the outside.
Jin's eyes narrowed.
Unless his depth perception was completely shot, the fortress was at least three kilometers away.
Which meant the observable diameter from outside had already been exceeded.
The weather, too.
And this suddenly vast space.
One inexplicable phenomenon after another.
Jin, however, gave it a characteristically dry assessment.
Interesting.
And that was it.
These people could levitate entire fortresses—what couldn't they do?
Controlling the weather?
Big deal.
Humans had greenhouses, didn't they?
We eat grapes in winter, watermelon too.
Man… now I want watermelon.
Split it open and scoop it out with a spoon.
Oh, and add ice and Milkis when the time comes.
Can't forget the fruit cocktail.
No way.
Maybe he'd overused his energy reserves.
Jin shook his head hard, trying to drive out the wave of food thoughts that had completely taken over his brain.
Damn it.
Focus, man.
It was moments like this that made him incredibly glad he'd brought those calorie capsules.
If he'd been hungry on top of everything else, he might've lost it.
Just as he moved forward again along the sparse trail—
Thunk!
A faint vibration in his superhuman hearing, followed by a sharp whistle of something slicing through the wind.
"...!"
Jin jerked his head to the side on pure reflex, and the projectile grazed his cheek before embedding itself into the trunk of a nearby tree.
Leaves scattered in a flurry.
An arrow?
Jin blinked, startled at the quivering fletching, but only for a second.
He'd already caught sight of a figure darting through the trees.
Jin drew Gravis from his hip.
Click.
He pulled and released the slide.
And just like before, the sound of another arrow slicing through the air reached his ears.
This time, Jin was faster.
He twisted his body and dodged the arrow, then immediately aimed in the direction it came from and pulled the trigger.
The muzzle flared.
Bang—!!
That familiar, deafening gunshot.
The speeding bullet tore through the thick underbrush.
A dull crack soon followed.
His instincts told him—
He hit a tree.
"Tch."
Jin clicked his tongue and scanned the area.
It was surprising, getting attacked with something as old-school as an arrow.
But the bastard was quick.
Almost no presence.
The scent of an assassin, through and through.
Jin grinned savagely.
He'd dealt with assassins before.
Moments later, the polar radiance pulsed outward from him.
Not something to wear on the body—no, he cast it wide like a net.
Rotary Radiance.
A detection technique that picked up bio-signals within range.
He couldn't make the field as large as he did back at the hotel thanks to how much mana he'd burnt with the dragon's climb, but it should've been enough to catch a bow-wielding assassin from an old playbook—
Or not?
Where the hell are they?
Jin blinked in confusion—
And that's when it hit.
Another arrow—no, a volley this time.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Three shots in quick succession.
Jin dodged the first, deflected the second with Gravis's barrel—but the third grazed his cheek, drawing a long line of red.
Blood trickled down from the torn skin.
Jin kicked off the ground.
Straight toward the direction the arrow had come from.
In an instant, he closed the distance—and sure enough, there it was.
Something golden and glinting, dashing nimbly through the trees.
What the hell is that?
An android?
The golden assassin glanced back briefly and extended an arm.
Thunk!
A sharp sound followed.
An arrow came flying right at Jin's forehead, but he snatched it out of the air at the last possible second.
Normally, this would be the moment to crush it dramatically with sheer grip strength for style points, but—problem was, the thing was made of solid steel.
So Jin, deciding not to waste his energy, tossed the arrow aside and pushed off again with strength in his toes.
"Stop right there!"
Of course, no assassin worth the name would actually stop just because someone yelled at them.
More arrows flew at him, just as indifferent as before.
But Jin didn't just take it lying down.
Even while sprinting, his aim didn't waver.
The sleek, dark frame of his NEW Gravis crackled with lightning.
Unseen to the eye, a violet spiral etched itself along the barrel—rifling, glowing faintly as energy surged through it.
And then—
BOOM──!!!
A thunderous shot.
The self-propelled round ripped through the air, leaving a long afterimage in its wake.
"...!"
The assassin tried to dodge, fast and fluid—but not fast enough.
The second-stage acceleration bullet was faster.
It punched clean through the assassin's back.
An explosion of whirling gears and spinning parts burst from the fracture.
KA-BOOM!!
The golden figure tumbled to the ground in a heap, and Jin finally caught up.
The recoil had shoved him back mid-run, but he managed to stay upright and close the distance once more.
When he arrived at the body, Jin's expression twisted.
"What... is this?"
The thing lying on the ground, with a gaping hole in its back, wasn't human.
It was a machine, made entirely of shining golden metal.
A clockwork automaton, creaking and groaning as its inner gears wound down.
Definitely not an android.
Unlike those near-perfect imitations that only needed a layer of synthetic skin to pass as human, this thing—
It had merely mimicked the shape of a person.
But then... why the ridiculously long ears?
Tilting his head, Jin crouched and reached out to the pointed-eared woman's metallic face.
That's when he heard it.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!!"
Startled by the sudden human voice, Jin's head snapped up.
"You, tall guy! Don't you touch my girlfriend!"
That ridiculous line made his brow furrow in confusion.
...What the hell did he just say?
Girlfriend?
Setting aside the absurdity, Jin raised Gravis and aimed toward the source of the voice.
A few seconds passed.
"Huff! Huff!"
Through the rustling underbrush, a figure finally emerged—gasping for breath.
"My girl... friend... huff... don't you... huff... dare touch her, you tall bastard."
Jin blinked, his expression going completely blank.
The speaker was a dwarf, short and stocky, bent over with hands on his knees, panting heavily.