24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 243

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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24-Hour Friendly Market Specializing in Dimensional Items Episode 243

Episode 243. The Curtain (2)

It was in a mere instant that Seo Jae-hyuk’s eyes shifted—his entire body rigid as stone while searching for Nam Pu-reum.
“…”
Lifting his head slowly, Seo Jae-hyuk fixed a cold gaze upon the stairwell.
A blood-red aura arrived before footsteps could, wedging through the doorframe and entering his field of vision first.
The dark mana that painted everything it touched in black and ominous hues was the same color Park Ji-woon had been toying with mere moments ago, yet somehow…
‘It’s different.’
Seo Jae-hyuk knew better than anyone the extent of his current power.
Yet despite that knowledge, his instincts coiled tight with tension.
The immense pressure he’d felt from below just a minute ago was now advancing toward him, slowly and deliberately.
It was Park Ji-woon who emerged from the stairwell door.
The Babel Management Bureau’s puppet—capable of nothing but illusions and enchantment, useful only for pestering Seo Jae-hyuk.
When Park Ji-woon first arrived at Baekdan, Seo Jae-hyuk had immediately hurled Legato at him as a threat.
A sharp warning: do not lecture me about anything.
But this time, that was impossible.
He looked no different from before.
Yet Seo Jae-hyuk’s instincts screamed at him not to lower his guard.
‘Why?’
As Seo Jae-hyuk blinked, unable to comprehend the situation.
“Seo Jae-hyuk.”
Park Ji-woon called his name in a low, flat voice.
No emotion flickered in Park Ji-woon’s crimson, wavering eyes.
“Do you understand what state you’re in right now?”
“…”
“Your mana is normally golden, like sunlight, isn’t it? But now…, as you can see.”
Park Ji-woon tilted his head as if suggesting I look, directing his gaze to Seo Jae-hyuk’s hands.
He didn’t seem about to attack immediately.
Seo Jae-hyuk rolled only his eyes, observing the mana filling his palm.
…What was he supposed to see?
Seo Jae-hyuk briefly retraced his memory—had his mana always been this color?—then quickly regained his composure.
His mana had always been this color.
Park Ji-woon was merely wasting time with meaningless words.
Just as I was about to swing Legato once more without mercy, Park Ji-woon added:
“You have eyes the same color as mine, Seo Jae-hyuk.”
“Is that so.”
This time, Seo Jae-hyuk responded with equal dryness.
Park Ji-woon, uncertain whether an answer would come, added calmly after a brief pause.
“Of course, what we’re looking at must be different.”
A self-evident truth.
Seo Jae-hyuk sought to reign supreme over all Awakened ones and make the world better, while Park Ji-woon was trying to stop him.
There was a time when I thought Park Ji-woon was a fair and rational person.
But to Seo Jae-hyuk, who now believed only his own thoughts were correct, Park Ji-woon was merely a frustratingly narrow-minded human.
“Do you think what you’re doing is right, Park Ji-woon?”
…
Park Ji-woon stared at Seo Jae-hyuk in silence.
“You don’t even seem willing to judge what would be more beneficial.”
“Is that so?”
“It merely appears to be an action to obstruct my decision.”
Park Ji-woon had asked to confirm whether Seo Jae-hyuk was “still in a corrupted state,” but Seo Jae-hyuk perceived it as mild irritation.
He believed Park Ji-woon must be ashamed of his own actions.
But in the next moment, Park Ji-woon replied quietly.
“If you’re asking for my judgment now, there is one thing I’m certain of.”
“What is it?”
“Seo Jae-hyuk, our opinions aren’t different. You are wrong.”
Immediately after finishing those words, crimson magical energy began to extend from Park Ji-woon’s palm like thorns.
A resolute attack signaling an end to further conversation.
Seo Jae-hyuk reflexively withdrew the Legato he had spread like a net and shattered the opponent’s magical energy.
‘Is it shameful to be persuaded by conversation?’
If Lee Hae-won, waiting anxiously on Floor 1, had known this, she would have laughed bitterly.
Watching the crimson thorns crumple like paper within the latticed pattern of the Legato, Seo Jae-hyuk tensed again.
‘Is this their first attack?’
It was not the attack of someone skilled.
The subtly unstable attack pattern, as if handling something being drawn for the first time, was one thing, but Park Ji-woon had never shown any sign of attacking anywhere until now.
Yet the tension that appeared on Park Ji-woon’s expressionless face brought certainty.
After all, for someone who had only been sitting comfortably at a desk doing administrative work, this combat would be a first.
Yet the way they refused to retreat and didn’t withdraw the thorns was befitting of the Management Bureau’s sole Hunter.
Seo Jae-hyuk, genuinely impressed by Park Ji-woon’s potential, murmured.
“I didn’t know you could do such things, Director.”
Seo Jae-hyuk’s face as he spoke was utterly ordinary.
The dry, emotionless expression and the golden radiance of the Legato he wielded remained unchanged.
‘However.’
The brilliant golden magical energy that had been scattering its radiance was tainted.
The magical power, dulled by the murky aura of the Tower of Babel, had transformed into a muddy, viscous brown like sludge.
Only Seo Jae-hyuk was unaware of this.
Park Ji-woon, without bothering to mention it, unfolded a thick crimson veil before his eyes.
This undulating barrier, flowing like blood, was the 「Mirror of Sin」—a skill that reflected enemy attacks right back at them.
It was one of the abilities Park Ji-woon had temporarily gained through Asmodeus’s Awakening.
The barrier, which looked as though it could devour anything and dissolve it without a trace, swelled toward Seo Jae-hyuk.
However.

A sickening crunch—

Park Ji-woon’s face contorted beyond the barrier.
More threads had surged toward Park Ji-woon than those that bounced back from the Mirror of Sin.
He’d blocked the frontal assault completely, but the threads that slipped through the fractures above and below, following their own trajectories, left him defenseless.
Thin, razor-sharp golden lines grazed his arm, abdomen, and thigh, tearing through skin.
Seeing blood bloom across his clothes in an instant, Park Ji-woon bit his lip.
The cuts looked disturbingly deep.
‘But….’
Park Ji-woon steadied himself and gathered his mana.
Right now, Seo Jae-hyuk was focused entirely on him.
Park Ji-woon compressed the Mirror of Sin into a rounded bowl shape to trap Seo Jae-hyuk, then unfurled it once more.
As expected, the moment Seo Jae-hyuk realized Park Ji-woon had been wounded by the vibrations of Legato, he let out a low chuckle and moved it with renewed intent.
This time, not dispersed—but concentrated at a single point.
It was a clear action: he was done playing around, ready to end this.
Though not in the form of a spear, thousands of strands converging into one point was overwhelming.
But the instant Seo Jae-hyuk raised his right arm to drive Legato forward—

Thud—

A shadow fell from the ceiling.
Without sound or warning.
Eyes gleaming with sword-purple energy—a ruthless assassin’s gaze fixed directly on Seo Jae-hyuk.
The reason “String Melody” detected nothing was that Nam Pu-reum hadn’t expended a single shred of mana.
Moving only through shadow, only as shadow.
Seo Jae-hyuk became aware of Nam Pu-reum only when the dagger already touched his wrist.
“…Ugh.”
Seo Jae-hyuk flinched reflexively.
Nam Pu-reum’s target wasn’t his life.
The dagger’s tip drove precisely into the tendon of his right wrist—the hand controlling Legato.
The right hand that had been gently manipulating the threads wavered, and his grip on Legato faltered.
Thousands of Legato strands lost direction in an instant, scattering across the Mirror of Sin.
“Tch, how bothersome…”
Seo Jae-hyuk twisted his wrist, gathering the scattered threads all at once.
The target was the fearless cat before him.
Nam Pu-reum attempted to throw herself back toward the shadows with fluid grace the moment she landed, but Legato caught her ankle first.
The threads of Legato tightened with tension.
Nam Pu-reum didn’t resist, merely glaring at Seo Jae-hyuk with eyes full of complaint.
“You really do fight well.”
I let Nam Pu-reum’s irritated grumbling pass through one ear.
She was annoying, certainly, but not a threat to my life.
However, this wrist…
‘This is troublesome.’
The wound was shallow, but the fact that Nam Pu-reum had targeted this one spot specifically meant it wasn’t an injury to dismiss lightly.
Not the hand, not the arm—the delicate tendon.
And this subtle floating sensation accompanying the bleeding…
‘Is it the poison’s effect?’
I’d known since earlier that my mana flow was disrupted, but now that the hand meant to endure and make fine adjustments was compromised like this…
Seo Jae-hyuk quietly acknowledged the sensation and turned his gaze back to Park Ji-woon.
What I needed to focus on now wasn’t Nam Pu-reum, but Park Ji-woon.
Park Ji-woon was now staring at me with his fingers bent in an unnatural shape.
I hadn’t immediately recognized it because of Nam Pu-reum, but it appeared to be another Skill.
An unpleasant, alien sensation—as though someone were continuously scratching at the shallowest layer of my mind with their fingertips.
Seo Jae-hyuk spoke calmly, steadying his breath.
“You’re making a futile effort, Director.”
“You speak like quite the villain.”
“A misunderstanding, I’m afraid.”
Park Ji-woon didn’t respond, immediately drawing up his mana.
Determined to shatter the blood-red mana enveloping Park Ji-woon’s body without interference this time, Seo Jae-hyuk raised Legato once more.
Though my hand was somewhat inconvenient, if Legato pushed forward with overwhelming force, fine manipulation wouldn’t be necessary.
It was the moment Seo Jae-hyuk aimed Legato at the figure.
The air inverted, and a surge of energy began to roil within Park Ji-woon’s body.
A Hunter’s instinct tends to be remarkably accurate.
‘What is this…?’
In the brief moment Seo Jae-hyuk hesitated, sensing the explosive force of mana that seemed ready to detonate at the slightest touch,
“Hello?”
Someone whispered directly into his ear.
Seo Jae-hyuk instantly retrieved Legato and wrapped it around his body.
Beyond the golden threads, a stranger with an enchanting face came into view.
A suspicious presence—undetected, its origin unknown—stood there.
Jet-black hair scattered through the air like Legato itself, and crimson eyes gazed directly at Seo Jae-hyuk.
As if the shattered corridor, this tense atmosphere, Park Ji-woon, and Nam Pu-reum didn’t exist—only Seo Jae-hyuk.
My instinct screamed a single, powerful warning.
Was this the source of that immense pressure I’d been feeling all along?
“I’ve been waiting.”
Asmodeus wore a deep, prolonged smile.
It was laughter brimming with joy, as if I’d been waiting for this very moment from the beginning.
Which is why I couldn’t afford to lower my guard.
“What are you?”
“Me, Ji-woon’s friend.”
…Was this a joke?
Seo Jae-hyuk slowly shifted his gaze to observe Park Ji-woon.
Park Ji-woon showed no surprise—as if it were only natural.
Given the overwhelming presence of this being, it couldn’t be human. Then was it something connected to Park Ji-woon?
As Seo Jae-hyuk rapidly assessed the situation, Asmodeus casually opened his mouth.
“I’m going to kill you now.”
“…”
“Any last words?”
The question came as if it were obvious.
But Seo Jae-hyuk had no intention of answering.
Because this was not his grave, and he was doing what was right for the survival of everyone—completely and utterly.
‘I cannot retreat from here.’
Even if it was a misguided mission, Seo Jae-hyuk—unaware of its wrongness—carried a weighty sense of responsibility.
Asmodeus, who had been staring at the silent Seo Jae-hyuk, let out a low chuckle.
“I’ve heard your final words.”
In that instant, a black scythe sprouted from Asmodeus’s fingertips, aimed at Seo Jae-hyuk’s throat.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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