Chapter 28 – Joint Operation (Part One)

“Sparring? Alright.”

Il-hyeon nodded at Ghost’s suggestion without much thought.

This wasn’t his first time sparring with him.

Besides practicing his ability alone, he’d been hoping for some real combat experience with a high-ranking Awakened, and Ghost had offered to be his sparring partner whenever they had free time.

He pulled on the mask lying on a chair and headed out.

The sparring room wasn’t far from the training hall.

The room was quite spacious and tall, built entirely of reinforced materials to withstand fights between Awakened.

Then, they each put on the Defensive Coats hanging in the room.

These weren’t ordinary coats but sparring-specific Defensive Coats.

The coats were designed to signal a winner and loser automatically once an opponent sustained enough damage to lose about half of its protective capability.

“Alright, same rules as always. No abilities, don’t break the walls, and the first one to take out the other’s coat wins.”

If Awakened of Aegis’s caliber were to fight all-out with their abilities inside the building, the entire basement could collapse without warning.

“Okay.”

Il-hyeon replied, and both men drew their swords simultaneously.

Just as they were about to begin, someone burst through the door.

It was Seok Pil-joon, someone he wasn’t particularly close to.

“Looks like your checkup is done.”

He spoke up readily.

“It is.”

Il-hyeon answered casually.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t spoken to each other at all during their missions.

They had happened to be paired up to cover one sector, forcing a few words to be exchanged.

As it turned out, they were the same age and had agreed to speak informally.

Of course, they’d only agreed to it in principle and had barely spoken since.

Thanks to Seok Pil-joon’s inexplicable aversion to him, their relationship hadn’t improved much.

Seok Pil-joon smoothly took the sword from Ghost’s hand, then looked at Il-hyeon and said,

“Let’s spar.”

“Hm? What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

Ghost, who had inadvertently handed over the sword, stared at Seok Pil-joon.

He was well aware of the awkwardness between the two.

“Like it or not, we have to work on the same team. I need to know if I can trust you with my back.”

Seok Pil-joon answered bluntly, meeting his gaze.

“Hmm… Is that so?”

Ghost glanced back and forth between Il-hyeon and Seok Pil-joon before handing over a sparring coat and stepping back.

If anything, he seemed intrigued by the prospect of watching them fight.

Seok Pil-joon put on the coat he was given and asked Il-hyeon,

“You good with this?”

“Fine by me.”

Il-hyeon nodded.

If a skilled fighter like Seok Pil-joon was offering to spar, it could only help his skills, not hurt them.

Hearing his reply, Seok Pil-joon drew his sword and stepped back.

*’Did he hear that I got promoted to B-rank?’*

Il-hyeon thought as he, too, slowly backed away.

He couldn’t have just shown up because he suddenly felt like sparring.

This was probably related to the recent evaluation.

Was he finally going to treat him as a teammate instead of a burden that needed constant looking after?

Or was he just here to pick a fight because he didn’t like that I got promoted?

*’I hope it’s the former.’*

Lost in these thoughts, Il-hyeon raised his sword.

But soon, such idle thoughts vanished in an instant.

Clang!

The two swords clashed, and a sharp sound echoed through the spacious sparring room.

The impact was strong enough to make the air vibrate, startling not only Il-hyeon but also Ghost, who was watching from the side.

“Whoa, you guys aren’t messing around from the start, are you?”

Unlike Ghost, who was watching with keen interest, neither Il-hyeon nor Seok Pil-joon said a word.

They simply moved their bodies and swung their swords.

In a fleeting moment, countless attacks and defenses were exchanged.

And once again, their blades met.

Screech! They were locked in a stalemate, their swords pressed against each other.

A heavy weight bore down on Il-hyeon.

“Hk!”

Il-hyeon gritted his teeth.

When he sparred with Ghost, he’d always held back a little, but Seok Pil-joon’s swordsmanship was no joke.

His attacks came without mercy.

*’So it was the latter, huh?’*

Il-hyeon extended his leg and managed to push Seok Pil-joon away.

But Seok Pil-joon immediately closed the distance again, launching a relentless barrage of fierce attacks.

Il-hyeon struggled to respond, doing everything he could not to be pushed back.

The Predation ability was gradually heating his body, bringing out a level of focus and reflexes far beyond his usual state.

However, it wasn’t enough to turn the tide while he was slowly being cornered.

*’Huh, he’s clearly going all out…’*

Ghost was surprised to see Il-hyeon holding his own better than expected.

Seok Pil-joon’s swordsmanship was renowned as one of the best among B-rank Awakened.

Even in a confined indoor space where he couldn’t use his full strength, Seok Pil-joon’s earnest strikes were sharp, even to Ghost’s eyes.

Il-hyeon was parrying those attacks and even managing to counterattack in the openings.

But the one who was most surprised was Seok Pil-joon himself, focused as he was on the fight.

He had crossed swords with Il-hyeon when they first met, and he could see more clearly than anyone the difference in skill between the Il-hyeon from less than a month ago and the one before him now.

Even more clearly than Il-hyeon himself.

*’Dammit!’*

Il-hyeon scowled as he parried an attack and retreated.

In the middle of the fight, he found himself backed against a wall.

He couldn’t use his ability, and against an opponent with so few openings, he couldn’t see a path to victory.

But this wasn’t an opponent he was willing to lose to quietly.

*’Time to make a move.’*

Il-hyeon slightly loosened his grip on his sword and lunged low.

As he took the initiative and closed in, Seok Pil-joon reacted instantly.

And just as Seok Pil-joon was about to counter with a swing of his own sword—

The door burst open.

“Stop!”

Both of them froze simultaneously.

Lee Soo-yeon stood there with her arms crossed, looking at them.

“What are you two doing? We’re about to head out. Don’t waste your energy. Team B is here.”

After saying her piece, Lee Soo-yeon closed the door and left. A brief silence fell before both men lowered their swords and took off their coats.

The spar ended anticlimactically, and Ghost clicked his tongue in disappointment.

Il-hyeon extended his hand to Seok Pil-joon.

Having hung up his coat, he averted his gaze from the outstretched hand and silently turned to walk toward the door.

Embarrassed, Il-hyeon clenched and unclenched his ignored right hand.

Then, just before stepping out the door, Seok Pil-joon tossed a single remark over his shoulder.

“Well… not bad.”

* * *

Il-hyeon and his team were taking the elevator up to the ground floor.

All five of them were fully geared up.

“You’ll be seeing the nearby teams often, so get used to their faces.”

“Nearby teams?”

Il-hyeon asked in response to Lee Soo-yeon’s comment.

“I mean alphabetically.”

“Oh, I see.”

Understanding, Il-hyeon nodded.

He had already heard that joint operations with other teams were common.

But this was the first he’d heard about teams with adjacent letters in the alphabet working together frequently.

In any case, the Gate that had appeared this time was rated B0.

Normally, the number following the Gate’s letter grade started at 5 and ended at 1.

However, a rare Stage 0 also existed.

It was a grade assigned when the Gate wasn’t qualitatively dangerous enough to warrant the next letter up, but its risk level was higher than a Stage 1, and the scale of the monster summons was exceptionally large.

True to its nature, this B0 Gate was a wide-area Gate, with monsters expected to appear unpredictably across a vast region.

It wasn’t an urgent problem since it had a long activation time, but analysis showed that the number of monsters would be substantial, and the affected area would swallow nearly half the city.

As a result, an entire small city had been cordoned off, and two Aegis teams were dispatched.

*’Team B… who was on that team again?’*

While Il-hyeon was pondering this, the elevator came to a stop.

Arriving on the first floor, they exited the building and came face-to-face with Team B, who were waiting with two transport aircraft.

Four Awakened in black coats stood there.

*’Ah, that’s right!’*

Seeing the man standing at the front, a hazy memory finally clicked into place for Il-hyeon.

Jo Yoon, the leader of Aegis’s Team B.

An A-rank Awakened and a regular name that always came up in fan debates about the strongest team leaders.

His perpetually cold expression and uniquely somber gaze lingered on Il-hyeon for a moment, making him flinch slightly.

“Where are the other two?”

“They’re out on another assignment. They’ll join us at the destination.”

“The Gate in the UK that opened this morning?”

“That’s the one.”

The team leaders spoke with familiarity.

Meanwhile, Il-hyeon looked over the other team members.

Two men and one woman.

As expected, they were all familiar faces, but his eyes were particularly drawn to the woman standing in the middle.

It wasn’t just because he was a man.

Pale skin, short blonde hair, and exotic beauty.

It was Sera, an American Awakened who stood out in many ways.

Noticing his gaze, she approached Il-hyeon.

“Nice to meet you. You’re Kang Il-hyeon, right?”

“Yes, that’s me. Your Korean is very good.”

“Ahaha, of course. I’ve been working here for years. And I studied it before that, too.”

Sera burst out laughing.

For her, and for any skilled foreign Awakened, Korean wasn’t an option—it was a necessity.

Most of the big-name Awakened corporations were based in Korea.

*’Still, she’s too good.’*

She seemed to speak Korean even better than he did, and he was a native.

While he was marveling at this during his conversation with Sera, a staff member came rushing out of the building.

A member of the Aegis analysis team, he stood before the Awakened, panting heavily.

“Y-You… have to go! N-Now! To the site!”

“There’s still an hour until activation, isn’t there?”

Lee Soo-yeon glanced at her watch, then looked at the frantic staff member with a puzzled expression.

“W-Well, the Gate… it just activated…”

“Haaah…”

Every Awakened present sighed, clutching their heads.