The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 17

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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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17
Episode 17. The Branching Point
***
“The Hunter Association is weak.”
The moment those words left my mouth, the air in the VIP room froze solid.
Choi Sun-a’s steely gaze wavered, and deep creases formed between Yu Hye-sung’s brows.
To call the organization weak—right to the faces of those who stood as the keystone of Korea’s Hunter community—was unprecedented.
This wasn’t provocation. It was insult.
“That is what the Association has become.”
Before I’d finished speaking, Yu Hye-sung surged to his feet.
His breathing came hard and fast, the tremor of barely restrained fury.
A threatening aura rippled across his entire frame.
“You ungrateful bastard, taking kindness for weakness—”
“Hye-sung.”
Association President Jung Eun-jin raised her hand slightly, and Yu Hye-sung clenched his teeth and sank back into his seat.
His jaw muscles flexed as he fought to swallow his anger.
I didn’t blink once, even beneath that weight of killing intent.
There was no point in softening the words.
Rhetoric wouldn’t change what was rotten at the core.
In the world I’d left behind, the Hunter Association had walked an inexorable path toward collapse.
In those early Gate days, they’d been the guiding center for Awakened Ones—until private guilds, backed by capital, grew strong enough to steal control from them.
Within a decade, the Association had devolved into nothing more than a bureaucratic processing center, nervously deferring to the guilds while stamping out licenses.
No one treated a Hunter License as anything honorable.
‘Right now, it’s just Yu Hye-sung and Jung Eun-jin holding things together on individual merit.’
The Association before my eyes was a patient wearing a giant’s mask.
Beyond that, they offered no advantage in intelligence-gathering or operational mobility.
They lacked the dogged tenacity of someone like Kim Dae-han working the ground, and they couldn’t match the Gate Management Bureau’s reach.
“Every word you say is true. That’s what makes it hurt.”
President Jung Eun-jin closed her eyes.
Her lined face twisted subtly, then smoothed back into calm.
“But Kim Do-jin, do you truly believe you can stand alone against such a tidal wave?”
I recalled the true calamity that had consumed the world before my return.
The Mythic-grade Monster, Zephyros.
The Association’s worries about inter-guild rivalries or Gate-related crimes were nothing but child’s play before that existence.
A tidal wave? No.
“Beyond the Gate, there are beings of a magnitude beyond what you can imagine, President. Catastrophes so vast that even Legendary-grade Monsters pale before them.”
The temperature in the room plummeted.
My quiet but unshakeable voice drove home against their ears.
“What do you mean by that?”
President Jung Eun-jin opened her eyes.
Her pupils had darkened like an unfathomable abyss.
“I must stand against such beings. Therefore, the Association in its current state is not what I need.”
Yu Hye-sung’s hands clenched into fists, and Choi Sun-a shook her head as if the logic eluded her.
Jung Eun-jin, though—she was different.
Her expression hardened for a moment, then took on a strange, penetrating light.
“I see. Now I understand why your eyes look so sad.”
Jung Eun-jin nodded slowly and drew in a deep breath.
Then she tore a single sheet from the notepad on the table.
“There’s a secret I’ll share with you. Using my Seraphim’s Wings for decades has given me a side effect—another ability entirely.”
“Jung Eun-jin, that’s—”
Yu Hye-sung tried to stop her urgently, but she continued.
“I can see the branching points of this world.”
What?
Cold sweat broke across my skin.
Even before my return, I’d never known of this.
Branching points? Was she saying she could see the future?
“It’s not grand prophecy. Only faint afterimages, or perhaps the hallucinations of an old woman losing her mind.”
Jung Eun-jin picked up a pen and drew a long straight line across the paper.
Then she split the end into two branches.
“Time flows as a line until it reaches a singular point—and divides. A and B. The moment of choice.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure. But I can read the outcome to some degree.”
She pressed a finger to one end of the split line.
To my astonishment, a phantom of green shoots bloomed up from the paper.
When she placed her hand on the other end, the paper blackened and crumbled to ash.
It wasn’t magic. You could see that much.
This was pure causality made visible.
“Survival and ruin.”
She fixed me with a direct gaze.
“I can see the moment those choices reveal themselves only very rarely. Three years ago, and today.”
I wound back through the mechanisms of memory.
Three years before my return.
No particular incident came to mind.
Back then, I was a civilian—not even an Awakened One, much less a Hunter.
I was deep in my studies at university, pushing toward graduation.
Which is precisely why the memory was so blank.
Heedless of my silence, Jung Eun-jin continued.
“I believe that Branching Point is you—Kim Do-jin.”
“That’s too generous an assessment.”
“No. I mean it. Why else would an old woman compromise her dignity and cling to you like this?”
She laughed, a sound like wind through dead leaves.
My skin crawled.
This old woman had known.
It was no coincidence that she’d visited the 25th recruitment exam venue herself, or that she’d raised the difficulty to hellish levels.
She’d come to test me. To confirm it.
Me—returned from a world that had perished.
‘Should I trust the Association?’
But my decision wouldn’t change.
I hadn’t come back to be someone’s playing piece.
I would be the one setting the board.
I opened my mouth slowly.
“I cannot join the Association. However···.”
Her eyes widened.
“If you ever need assistance, I will lend you my strength.”
This was my compromise.
Even if the Association was weak, there was no need for outright hostility.
Their goal was the same as Kim Dae-han’s: the extinction of Gates, the survival of humanity.
One day we’d stand on the same battlefield as allies.
And I couldn’t ignore what she’d said about being her Branching Point.
“···That much is enough.”
Relief washed across the face of Jung Eun-jin, Association Director.
At her gesture, Choi Sun-a, standing behind her, moved forward.
“Sun-a. Process Hunter Kim Do-jin’s paperwork.”
“Yes, Director.”
Choi Sun-a held out a tablet PC.
Director Jung Eun-jin manipulated the screen a few times.
Her fingers moved smoothly, and soon evaluation categories appeared on the display.
She reviewed them for a moment, then regarded me with a meaningful expression.
“Now, then.”
Director Jung Eun-jin set down the tablet as she spoke.
“It’s time to prove your worth.”
Her tone was gentle. But her words were anything but.
“Let’s finalize your Rank assignment.”
She smiled, thin and sharp.
“By the way, since you refused the offer···.”
…….
“Don’t expect too favorable a result.”
I studied her for a moment.
Should I push back?
Or let it pass?
It was ambiguous.
So I matched it with an ambiguous expression of my own.
Not quite a smile, not quite a frown.
“Then I won’t hold my breath.”
I turned and walked away,
and behind me came the low sound of Jung Eun-jin’s laughter.
***
After Kim Do-jin left, the VIP room fell into heavy silence.
After a long moment, Yu Hye-sung spoke first.
“Hey, Eun-jin. Isn’t this going too far?”
He struck the table, voicing his discontent.
His brow was deeply furrowed.
“There’s no precedent for giving out that kind of Rank. And exclusive negotiation rights on top of it all?”
Choi Sun-a also adjusted her glasses, adding her concern to his. “Your— I mean, Madam President. Are you really sure about this? ‘Unconventional’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. The other guilds won’t just sit still.”

Jung Eun-jin, the President, fiddled with her teacup.
Her gaze remained fixed on the empty seat where Kim Do-jin had been sitting.
“Hye-sung, how did it feel facing him directly?”
Yu Hye-sung fell silent.
His shoulders trembled slightly.
“He’s a monster. It’s not just raw power.”
He spat the words out.
“Even in the fog, he was reading every movement. No—he was guiding them. He’d already calculated everything right down to the moment my axe came down. Like he’d fought the same battle dozens of times before.”
Choi Sun-a added her own account.
“It was the same during the Mirror Golem operation. He changed his patterns in real-time, and he responded without hesitation. That’s not talent—that’s instinct. The kind only a veteran with thousands of real battles would have.”
“Even then, he was holding back. It felt like he was testing me instead. Measuring where my limits were.”
“Then there’s no problem.”
Jung Eun-jin nodded, satisfied.
“Don’t joke about this.”
Yu Hye-sung spoke quietly.
“Think about it—if Kim Do-jin joins Invictus, the Association crumbles overnight, like they said. Then who stops Invictus?”
“He won’t.”
Choi Sun-a’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
“You’re certain, senior?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your basis?”
Jung Eun-jin looked toward the closed door for a moment.
The place where Kim Do-jin had just left.
“That man wasn’t made to stand beneath anyone.”
“Eyes?”
Choi Sun-a exhaled as if exasperated.
“Senior, not that again?”
“What. I’m rarely wrong.”
“You just remember the occasional hits a little too loudly.”
“Your tone’s getting awfully sharp.”
“The situation calls for it.”
Jung Eun-jin let out a short laugh.
But the laughter didn’t last long.
Her expression darkened quickly.
“Sun-a.”
“Yes?”
“Hye-sung.”
Yu Hye-sung, who’d been leaning against the wall, simply lifted his head.
“What.”
Jung Eun-jin looked at them both in turn.
“Seeing Kim Do-jin just made something certain for me.”
The air in the room grew heavier.
“I don’t have much time left.”
Choi Sun-a’s expression hardened.
“Senior.”
“And that the Hunter Association can’t keep going like this.”
Yu Hye-sung dropped the casual tone entirely.
He stood with his arms crossed, watching her in silence.
Jung Eun-jin spoke.
“Help me.”
The words were brief.
It wasn’t a plea so much as the voice of someone finally voicing a decision she’d been deferring for years.
Choi Sun-a didn’t answer right away.
Yu Hye-sung was quiet for a long moment as well.
Then he dragged a hand roughly through his hair.
“Ugh, damn it. You’re exhausting, you know that?”
“You can say no if you want.”
“Who said I wanted to?”
Yu Hye-sung turned his head away.
“I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
Jung Eun-jin smiled quietly.
“Thank you, Hye-sung.”
“Don’t thank me. It makes this worse.”
***
Before the return, I was a perpetual E-Rank Hunter.
A third-time test-taker. Talentless. A pack mule.
This was the moment to shed those labels.
The gymnasium was empty.
An old mercury lamp on the ceiling buzzed and flickered.
The heat radiating from hundreds of bodies was gone, leaving only cold air drifting across the floor.
‘It’s all over.’
I grabbed my bag.
It had been a long day.
Then the large display screen in the center of the gymnasium flashed.
A mechanical voice crackled from the speakers.
[Final Rank Announcement.]
[Candidate Number 032, Hunter Kim Do-jin.]
[Final Rank: A-Rank.]
An ‘A’ blazed in crimson letters.
I stared up at the screen in a daze.
‘A-Rank…’
I’d thought they might lower my rank out of spite for turning down the Hunter Association’s offer.
But Jung Eun-jin kept her promise.
More than that—she’d affirmed my worth decisively.
A fresh Hunter receiving an A-Rank was an event that counted among the most extraordinary in Republic of Korea’s history.
Even Kang Tae-yoon, the prodigy called the Sword Saint, had debuted at B-Rank.
Before the return, it had taken me seven years to earn the A-Rank title.
Seven years of crawling through the bottom, coughing blood, swallowing humiliation.
Now, in just two days, I’d leaped over all of it.
I’d gained seven years.
‘Faster. Much faster than expected.’
Rather than elation, a chill ran through me.
The faster the growth, the heavier the burden I’d have to bear.
Screeeech—
The gymnasium’s main entrance swung open.
The quiet space was instantly swallowed by noise.
“He’s coming out! Hunter Kim Do-jin!”
“Roll the cameras, roll them! Hurry!”
Dozens—no, hundreds of people poured in.
Waiting journalists and recruiters from various guilds.
Their eyes gleamed like predators that had spotted prey.
“Hunter Kim Do-jin! Is it true you defeated Hunter Yu Hye-sung?”
“You received an A-Rank right out of your debut—a few words on how you feel?”
“This is Arang Guild, please spare us a moment.”
“We from Buckler would like to make you an offer—”
Flashes erupted without pause.
White light flooded my vision.
Microphones thrust forward like spears.
I was surrounded in an instant.
There was no gap to slip through.
“All of you, back off!”
A thunderous shout tore through the gymnasium.
The clamoring journalists froze.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea, and men in black suits walked through the gap.
An axe and skull insignia emblazoned on their chests.
‘……Invictus.’
The strongest combat unit.
The top guild in the Republic of Korea — bound together by ruthless meritocracy and elite consciousness.
And the very people I despise most.
“Isn’t that Invictus?”
“That’s their headquarters recruitment team, right?”
“Hell, this is cheating.”
Scouts from other guilds stepped back, overwhelmed by the pressure.
The appearance of Invictus meant the situation was effectively over.
There was nowhere for anyone else to bid on their marked prospect.
The man at the front approached me.
Hair swept back neatly, a smile dripping with arrogance.
The head of Invictus’s recruitment team.
The same man who’d tossed my résumé into the trash before the return — when I was E-Rank.
“A pleasure to meet you, Hunter Kim Do-jin. I’m Park Sung-hun, head of recruitment at Invictus.”
He thrust forward a folder.
“I won’t waste time on pleasantries. Come join us at Invictus.”
“What are the terms?”
“Contract fee of ten billion. Annual salary separate. All other supporting costs covered.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
This was no mere number.
It matched the transfer fee for an S-Rank Hunter.
An amount you couldn’t offer to a rookie.
Had there ever been a precedent like this before the return?
Not that I knew of.
This wasn’t a recruitment offer — it was a declaration of war written in money.
Classic Invictus.
“Insane… did he just call out ten billion?”
“Of course it’s Invictus. They really are in a different league.”
“But has he ever offered that kind of money before?”
The gymnasium’s atmosphere tilted toward Invictus.
Everyone was staring at my mouth, waiting.
The recruitment chief’s lips curved upward.
He was certain.
The gleam in his eyes spoke of absolute faith — that nothing in the world was beyond the reach of money.
‘If I were the man I was before… I’d have sold my soul.’
To the E-Rank Hunter I once was, ten billion was money beyond imagination.
I exhaled softly.
I turned my gaze toward the gymnasium entrance.
Behind the crowd, leaning against a pillar, stood a man.
Rumpled suit, disheveled hair.
A paper cup of coffee in one hand, the other raised in a casual wave.
Kim Dae-han, head of the Gate Management Bureau for G City, Gyeonggi Province.
He was smiling.
His timing was absolutely impeccable.
Had he anticipated even this?
Unlikely.
‘I don’t like that man.’
I turned my head away, a smirk playing at my lips.

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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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