The Buffs I Raised Are Too Strong - Chapter 15

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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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Episode 15.
“It’s identical to Wind Thunder Fist.”
Living not as an Awakener, but as the Guild Master of Baekryeon.
A name he’d buried for so long.
‘……How on earth.’
Baek Yul-heon trailed off, his gaze returning to Kim Wi-gang’s jaw.
Darkened contusions, split skin, and the deep imprint of blunt force trauma.
That was unmistakably the work of a technique he’d deployed dozens of times in actual combat.
Could it be merely a similar ability?
Was he reading too much into this?
‘No. That’s not it.’
He’d spent no small number of years as an Awakener.
He could confidently say he’d studied Abilities more than anyone.
He couldn’t possibly confuse wounds caused by his own power.
‘Is there another Awakener with the same Ability?’
It wasn’t unheard of for Awakeners to share overlapping Abilities.
Take Hyeon Chae-rin’s Acceleration, for instance.
He’d once heard that an overseas Awakener had manifested a superior variant called Swift.
Then there were Elemental Classification Abilities—fire, lightning, and the like.
Physical Enhancement Classification as well.
When you considered them all, such cases weren’t so rare.
‘But mine is different.’
Baek Yul-heon’s Ability.
Wind Thunder Fist was neither Elemental Classification nor Physical Enhancement Classification.
‘Martial Arts Classification.’
A classification of Ability that manifested only rarely, and only among those of Eastern descent.
Jung So-hyeon’s Po-cheon was also a Martial Arts Classification Ability.
When he’d founded Baekryeon, his immediate recruitment of Jung So-hyeon had been precisely because of the rarity of such Abilities.
‘Which is what makes this situation so strange.’
The defining characteristic of Martial Arts Classification Abilities was simple:
An identical Ability never emerged unless the original user died.
Kim Yu-gun broached the subject cautiously.
“Could it be, hyung…… that you’ve had a child?”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Yes, sir.”
Though he’d meant it as a joke.
Kim Yu-gun’s remark wasn’t entirely baseless.
For the resemblance to be this close, offspring was about the only explanation.
‘……What exactly happened at that Mart?’
Hyeon Chae-rin.
She’d claimed with her own mouth that she’d defeated Kim Wi-gang.
Why would she lie to him?
Jung So-hyeok.
He too had corroborated her account, testifying that she’d brought down Kim Wi-gang.
Why? For what reason?
‘Was there another Awakener at the Mart?’
It was possible.
Perhaps some other Awakener, not Hyeon Chae-rin, had defeated Kim Wi-gang.
‘But……’
As far as Hyeon Chae-rin was concerned.
Such a thing was virtually impossible.
‘Because Hyeon Chae-rin is a perfectionist.’
She would never own up to something she hadn’t done.
She was the kind of person who’d sooner die than do anything shameful in her own eyes.
Then, suddenly, he remembered being in Jung So-hyeok’s Hospital Room at that moment.
‘……An interview?’
He hadn’t shown it.
But her expression had been peculiarly sour.
And the content of the interview.
‘I received assistance from a civilian who was at the Mart.’
“I should check it out.”
“Pardon? Check what?”
Bang!
Before Kim Yu-gun could finish speaking,
Baek Yul-heon pushed off from his seat and left.
“Tsk… he’s something else.”
Impatient as ever.
“Well then, I suppose I should get to my own work.”
Kim Yu-gun stretched and began preparing.
Preparing for what, exactly?
Somewhere along the way, a scalpel had found its way into his hand.
“Kim Wi-gang. Welcome to the Special Detention Center. I trust you’ll find it rather… unremarkable.”
Scritch.
* * *
Discharged.
I’d fought tooth and nail against the doctor’s insistence on another week of bed rest and managed to escape.
“Ah! Now that’s what freedom feels like.”
The Shabby Villa Building.
Climbing the stairs with a smile on my face.
“I’m home~”
The iron door, stiff from disuse.
I pushed it open with a bit of effort and stepped inside.
My nose recognized the familiar scent at once.
“Hm…”
A fragrance I couldn’t quite name—sweet fruit mingled with earth and soil.
A month ago, I’d never have imagined coming home to this.
“I wonder how they’re all doing…”
Before entering the main room,
I checked on the plants first.
Three days without water or blessing.
They could hardly be blamed for wilting.
“Please… please…!”
The cherry tomatoes could fend for themselves.
But the Azure Breeze—it had to be alright…!
“Oh…!”
An exclamation escaped me at the unexpected sight.
Not wilted at all.
Another fruit had grown on the Azure Breeze.
[Azure Breeze]
—Grade: SR (Super Rare)
—Freshness: Excellent
—Blessing Classification: Mana
‘Excellent freshness, then.’
It seemed the freshness degraded if I didn’t tend to it regularly.
But there was nothing visibly wrong with it,
so I harvested it with joy.
‘I’ll store this in the fridge for now…’
I squeezed the enormous fruit into my already cramped refrigerator.
Not that there was any cooking to do—
it was packed full of cherry tomatoes I hadn’t eaten.
‘My inventory is getting out of hand…’
No matter how delicious an ingredient is,
eating the same thing every day gets old fast.
‘Maybe I should pass some of it along to my sister or the guild leader?’
Not a bad idea at all.
Given my sister’s appetite, it wouldn’t last more than a few days anyway.
And Baek Yul-heon would put it to good use for the guild.
‘But…’
Something doesn’t sit right with me.
There’s still a desire I haven’t let go of.
‘Money.’
It was the reason he’d partnered with Baek Yul-heon in the first place.
Sell blessed plants.
Turn a profit.
But on the business side, there’d been nothing but silence.
‘Maybe I should bring it up directly.’
There’s a saying that timing is everything in business.
Wait too long, and some other Awakener with similar abilities might emerge and seize the opportunity.
‘Market dominance.’
That was the crucial thing.
“Huh… just thinking about it makes me giddy.”
He couldn’t suppress the rising excitement.
“At a time like this…”
Rustle.
One pouch he’d brought from the hospital room.
He emptied its contents onto the table.
Dozens of seed packets tumbled out.
The table was carpeted in green.
‘The Basil and Perilla Leaf I bought at the Mart burned up in the fire, but—’
Baek Yul-heon had set aside extras for him.
Why didn’t you tell me something like that happened? he’d said.
“I won’t have to worry about seeds for a while now.”
Seeds of dozens of varieties.
He couldn’t plant them all at once, but—
Was this how it felt when a Gacha existed with an infinite supply of draws?
There were no plants from the tower among them.
He’d even received seeds of plants he’d never heard of in his life.
“What should I plant first~”
Before starting the business,
wouldn’t it be more advantageous to have as many varieties of products as possible?
“Mm…!”
He squeezed his eyes shut
and grabbed three seed packets at random.
He was going to plant them all eventually anyway.
Might as well leave it to chance.
And then—
“Ugh…!?”
His expression crumbled.
The first seed packet in his hand
was Perilla Leaf.
‘What kind of fate is this…?’
If he was stepping on a landmine, of course it had to be an anti-tank mine.
“And there are so many of these delicious-looking greens…”
He sighed in resignation.
Yes, this qualified as destiny or nothing did.
“Next one…”
In order.
Lettuce.
Chicory.
‘…It’s not like there’s a special on leafy vegetables.’
Out of all these seeds, he’d drawn three greens.
Was that good luck or bad?
“…Fine, let’s just plant them.”
Plant them he must, whether he liked them or not.
It’s less painful to take the beating sooner.
‘Besides, Lettuce and Perilla Leaf are easy to grow.’
He picked up a large burlap sack sitting beside the doorframe and stepped outside.
He shifted the Cherry Tomato pot a little to the side.
He cleared out as much space as he could manage.
“This should be enough, right?”
And then.
Splash!
He upended the cloth bundle he’d been holding, dumping its contents in one motion.
“Ha, this is actually kind of fun.”
Whoooosh—
A massive volume of soil came pouring from the bundle.
It would’ve been impractical to grow every plant individually in a wash basin anyway.
His plan was simple: turn the entire rooftop into a vegetable garden.
‘At this rate, it’s practically a botanical garden.’
Well, the whole building belonged to his sister, after all.
He’d have to think about expanding down to the lower floors eventually.
“Ugh, there.”
He spread the soil as evenly as possible across the rooftop.
Normally, he’d need to mix in compost and base fertilizer first.
But that part he could skip—he had the Blessing for that.
‘It’ll grow fine either way.’
The plants in the tower had thrived beautifully after all.
Why would ordinary plants be any different?
“Ugh… ah… my back…”
Just as he was about to spread the last of the soil,
his lower back suddenly seized up with a dull ache.
An Awakener’s body shouldn’t have struggled with this level of exertion.
“… Aftereffects from the injury?”
He had to admit, staying in the hospital a bit longer might’ve been wise.
“No. That’s a bad idea.”
Freedom was what mattered most.
Besides, while he’d been in the hospital room, his sister kept showing up unannounced—he hadn’t had a single quiet moment.
“Done!”
He finished spreading soil across the remaining rooftop space,
carving out a narrow path for himself to walk through,
then watered everything.
Now only the planting remained.
After designating separate sections for the three plant varieties,
he set up makeshift signs made from plastic water bottles with paper labels attached.
Then,
he fell into a repetitive rhythm: making a shallow indent, placing a seed, covering it.
Scatter.
Cover.
Scatter.
Cover.
Scatter again.
Cover once more.
‘… This is brutal.’
Spreading the soil had been fine.
But planting each seed by hand, one at a time—it was mind-numbing torture.
Not physically taxing,
but mentally.
‘I’m not cut out for repetitive labor…’
It wasn’t until sunset that he finally finished planting all three types of seeds.
“Finally done!!”
The problem was,
the most important task still lay ahead.
…
Trudge, trudge.
He dragged his exhausted feet back to his room,
quickly arranging the bed so he could collapse onto it.
He smoothed out the pillow wrinkles.
He spread out the blanket.
“Sigh…”
Taking a deep breath to prepare himself mentally, he approached the vegetable garden.
The prior steps were mere preparation.
The truly critical action.
Distributing the Blessing remained.
‘Doing it one by one won’t finish the job.’
Broad and sweeping—covering the entire garden.
Having used the Blessing more than once a day, he’d developed a rough intuition for the technique.
But if he proceeded that way, Mana Depletion was nearly certain.
“……World Tree’s Blessing.”
Whoosh—!
Light poured from his hands like drizzle, seeping into every corner of the garden.
A sensation of something draining from his body.
Like the onset of anemia, strength gradually ebbed from his limbs.
‘Here it comes.’
Once he confirmed the Blessing had seeped through the garden,
he bolted straight into the house.
Mana Depletion.
“Ugh…….”
His mind grew hazy.
The world spun before his eyes like the nausea of a long sea voyage.
Thump!
He collapsed onto the bed he’d prepared.
His body sank into the mattress like plunging into an abyss,
and he lost consciousness.
* * *
The clatter of a mouse being clicked.
An irritated groan escaping his lips.
Deep shadows hung beneath Baek Yul-heon’s eyes.
The monitor’s glow in the darkened room cast them into sharper relief.
“Damn it…… Nothing here works.”
What played on the monitor was footage.
Dozens of screens’ worth.
Each one captured the faint, blurred image of the Mart burning like kindling.
A week prior, after visiting the Detention Center to confirm Kim Wi-gang’s status,
Baek Yul-heon had immediately sought out the Mart’s management and demanded the CCTV recordings.
The result was
‘refusal.’
Not because they couldn’t show an outsider.
The guild master who’d minimized the Mart’s damage hardly warranted such secrecy,
but rather:
―The CCTVs didn’t survive the fire intact…… Even when the broadcast station came by several times before, they took one look at the footage quality and left.
“Tch…….”
Certainly, electronics wouldn’t have escaped unscathed in such an inferno.
In a news interview eager for spectacle,
he’d wondered why they hadn’t shown Hyeon Chae-rin beating Kim Wi-gang senseless.
He’d never imagined it was for a reason like this.
“Really, not a single one intact…….”
Yet Baek Yul-heon had taken the footage anyway.
Some of it remained passably visible,
and among them were clips capturing Kim Wi-gang.
What he had to do was straightforward.
‘Brute force.’
Dig through until usable footage appeared.
That was all.
Incidentally, roughly a dozen recordings remained.
Of everything reviewed so far, not a single frame had proved useful.
He played the next video.
“……Hm?”
A shattered screen.
Most footage had turned hazy from the intense heat,
but a cracked one—this was the first.
What flickered across the fragmented footage was.
‘……Jung So-hyeok?’
She couldn’t be certain.
The image quality was poor, and his face was precisely where the corruption occurred.
But given the circumstances, Jung So-hyeok was the only man in his twenties who would be here.
The Jung So-hyeok on screen seemed exhausted, swaying on his feet.
He appeared to be staring at something.
As though someone stood before him.
‘Hyeon Chae-rin?’
That didn’t seem to be it.
Jung So-hyeok had assumed what could only be described as a fighting stance.
‘……?’
A fighting stance.
The posture he held bore a shape that felt oddly familiar.
Full of gaps, rough around the edges though it was.
‘Has So-hyeok ever trained in martial arts?’
She’d heard he threw himself into baseball during his high school years before withdrawing entirely after awakening.
Where could he have learned such a stance?
‘He’s moving.’
On unsteady legs.
Jung So-hyeok crept forward, inch by inch.
He was gradually stepping out of the camera’s frame.
In the moment his body was half cut off by the edge of the shot.
“……!”
Crack!
A sharp burst of air pressure reached her through the speakers.
“……Did he strike?”
It was impossible to confirm clearly, half-obscured as it was.
But Jung So-hyeok’s stance had changed.
Baek Yul-heon rewound the footage frame by frame, moving backward slowly.
One frame.
‘Still no movement.’
Two frames.
‘Still nothing.’
Three frames.
“……?”
Click, click.
Baek Yul-heon rapidly toggled between rewind and play.
Just one frame.
Jung So-hyeok’s body went rigid in an instant.
In the next frame, his fist was already extended.
‘……So fast.’
Looking closely, she could even see the flames that had flared behind him suddenly extinguish.
From a simple punch, wind pressure rippled outward.
‘Is this really the physical capability of an E-Grade Awakener……?’
Wait—who was he even throwing that punch at?
According to Jung So-hyeok’s own account, he should have been quietly hiding within Kim Wi-gang’s line of sight.
This scene suggested something else entirely.
‘It looks like Jung So-hyeok and Kim Wi-gang actually clashed.’
Baek Yul-heon recalled the appearance of Kim Wi-gang as she’d confirmed at the Detention Center.
A twisted jaw.
Strong bruising from a punch.
Traces of Wind Thunder Fist.
“…….”
The video ended.
Baek Yul-heon was already gone from before the monitor.
The Buff I Raised Is Too Strong
Author |
Naengmyeonhwachae
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
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Editorial Department
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – Dreambooks.

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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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