Chapter 205:
Chapter 205:
Chapter 205
The students who were still captivated by Seo Sumin’s appearance frowned when they saw her choosing a weapon.
“She picked a baseball bat? Is that for real?”
“Is she serious about that? She should get a reality check.”
“Does she think this test is a joke?”
Even choosing a lethal weapon would not be enough in this situation, let alone a baseball bat.
The students’ eyes were not kind to her.
Most of them thought that Seo Sumin was taking the test lightly.
Naturally, those who had been attracted by her looks also started to send her negative glances.
Seo Sumin ignored those eyes and stood on the test site.
“Uh, Yu-hyun. Is she okay? I mean, her weapon is pretty…”
Im Gunwoo also saw her and asked cautiously, worried.
Yu-hyun did not feel the need to answer that question.
Anyway, no matter what he said here, people would not listen to him.
Then what could he do?
‘Show them the results.’
Im Gunwoo did not nag Yu-hyun any further.
As a senior collector, he had a hunch and turned his eyes back to Seo Sumin.
Beep!
With a ringing sound in his ears, white letters gathered on the opposite side of Seo Sumin and created a fantasy creature.
It was a monster that looked like it was made of rags.
It had a human body, but a dog’s head with goat horns above its neck, and six tentacles hanging from its arms like octopus legs.
Yu-hyun stroked his chin.
‘Is that a synthetic beast?’
It was an artificial life form made by weaving various stories together.
People often confused it with a chimera, but a chimera was a mythical creature with a clear origin.
That synthetic beast was an inferior version that could not even be compared to a chimera.
‘But, its appearance is very ferocious.’
Tentacles on both arms and a rabid dog’s head drooling saliva.
And it looked like a devil because of the horns.
The students who were watching from outside the test site also reacted as if they were fed up with it.
It might not be actually threatening, but how many students would not be scared by that hideous appearance?
“Oh. Is that the fantasy creature?”
Seo Sumin, who faced the synthetic beast at the closest distance, showed no sign of fear at all.
The students who saw her thought that she was bluffing.
“Start.”
As soon as the guide said that, the synthetic beast started to move.
Six tentacles on both arms waved like waves.
The synthetic beast slowly approached Seo Sumin, drooling saliva.
Seo Sumin saw that and held up the baseball bat in front of her.
Everyone wondered what she was trying to do at that moment.
Swoosh.
Seo Sumin’s figure disappeared from there.
“Huh?”
“What?”
From the perspective of the students who had no eyesight, it looked like Seo Sumin had vanished.
However, some of the students with keen eyes and some of the collectors in the audience had to open their eyes wide in astonishment.
Seo Sumin, who had disappeared, revealed herself near the synthetic beast.
Crack!
With one clean swing, she smashed its head.
The security guard who was stunned by the sight came to his senses belatedly.
“Seo Sumin, student record 1.32 seconds!”
There was no one among the people gathered here who did not hear that shout.
Everyone started to buzz. Who was that kid? Who was the guardian of that student?
Those kinds of stories were already coming out.
“Huh. This is, really.”
That was also the case for Im Gunwoo, who was sitting next to Yu-hyun. He recalled the movement that Seo Sumin showed, and then quietly asked Yu-hyun.
“Seriously, what is that kid’s identity?”
“Are you amazed?”
“No, it’s not just a matter of being amazed. If she ran in fearlessly like that, I would think that she had been training hard before. But that movement just now was beyond what I could see as a freshman. So what is her real identity?”
“It’s a secret.”
Looking at Yu-hyun who spoke playfully, Im Gunwoo shrugged his shoulders as if he knew it would be like that.
His gaze turned to the distant seats.
“Those guys seem to be pretty surprised too. Well, I guess they have a reason to be. They thought they brought the best kids and were competing with each other, but then a powerful competitor appeared out of nowhere. They must be burning inside. Hehe.”
“Thanks to that, we also got a lot of attention.”
“So what? You just have to enjoy those looks at times like this.”
“What about your student? Are you okay with it?”
“It’s not my student, it’s our clan’s student. I don’t really care if it’s not my business. He was also a bit rude.”
Indeed, it was a fitting answer for the nation’s top power collector.
Seo Sumin, who had blown off the head of the synthetic beast, recalled the feeling of the bat in her hand as she came down from the test site.
The synthetic beast whose head flew off did not even leave a corpse, but turned into text and scattered.
As she approached, the students all gave way.
They thought she was a novice who knew nothing from the moment she chose her weapon, but they realized that she was a distant powerhouse whose movements they could not follow with their eyes.
As she returned to her seat, Yura greeted her.
“Sumin, you were so cool! Was it hard?”
“It was nothing.”
“Eek. I have to fight that thing too. What should I do?”
“It only looks scary on the outside, but it’s nothing. If you fight calmly, you can easily win.”
“Really?”
It was a word to comfort Yura, but the other students who heard it had hope.
‘Yeah. It was just a fantasy creature that looked scary on the outside, but nothing else.’
‘Actually, isn’t this really easy?’
‘I can do it too!’
The students who gathered here were still full of confidence that they were the best.
They were skeptical about Seo Sumin’s victory and eventually concluded that she was not great but rather the fantasy creature was weak.
It was a kind of escapism, but ironically it gave them courage.
“Next student. Come up.”
“Yes!”
The next batter answered loudly and went up to the test site. He immediately picked out a weapon from the display stand.
‘Of course, the weapon is the all-purpose sword. Who uses spears or bows or blunt weapons? They’re not cool.’
The boy student felt like he could cut anyone down with his sword. He imagined himself in the future drawing aura from his sword and chuckled.
He was thinking about how he would show off his skills here and make the pretty girls he noticed earlier look at him again.
Squeak!
A notification sound rang out, and a cluster of white text formed a fantasy body.
It was the synthetic beast I had seen earlier.
‘I can do it. I can do it too. I’m different from the others. I’m going to be the protagonist.’
The student muttered to himself as if to make a resolution, and pointed his sword at the synthetic beast.
But.
“Uh, uh?”
The moment he saw the synthetic beast slowly approaching him, his determination and resolve vanished like a candle in the wind.
He lost his focus as he looked at the fantasy body.
The synthetic beast that drooled and whipped its tentacles was a completely different feeling from when he watched it from behind a safe wall.
“Ugh!”
He thought he shouldn’t run away, but he was so scared that he felt like he was going crazy. His reason shattered like glass hit by a hammer when he saw the synthetic beast’s tentacles waving in front of his nose.
“Aaaah!”
The boy screamed and turned his back to run away.
He had dropped his sword on the ground long ago.
He cried as he ran, and the security officer sighed and stepped in.
The officer quickly eliminated the fantasy body.
“Park Dong-sung, student. Failure.”
Some students sneered at him, but they were no different.
“Aaaah!”
“Sa, save me!”
“Kyaaak! Go away! Monster!”
The students who followed him all failed to knock down one synthetic beast and ran away, collapsed, or even peed themselves in serious cases.
Especially the male student who peed himself ran away to the bathroom with his head down.
As more and more people failed in a row, the students who were waiting for their turn also looked unhappy.
They finally realized how serious the situation was.
“I knew it would be like this.”
Im Gunwoo, who had been watching them without missing anything, didn’t bother to hide his feelings.
“These greenhorns think they’re something special when they awaken as collectors.”
His eyes were on the student who was still crying from the horror of the synthetic beast.
“But reality is much harsher. They can’t even handle a fight that others laughed at, let alone face it head-on. How can they fight a monster that’s bigger than themselves when they don’t know what to do with a chihuahua that bares its teeth at them?”
This was the result.
Yu-hyun nodded as if he agreed.
“I wondered why they brought out such a vicious creature from the start, but it was to show them reality.”
“That’s right. If they bring out something mediocre, some of them will get cocky. So they have to break their spirits early on. Being a collector is not as easy as they think. Well, they can’t be too harsh on them either. They’re still minors after all.”
Of course, not all students failed.
Some of them had already made enough preparations.
Especially, the students who had strong backers had received training beforehand and scored points against the synthetic beast without much trouble.
However, there was no one who showed an overwhelming performance like Seo Sumin yet.
“Kang Yura, student.”
“Oh, yes!”
It was Kang Yura’s turn next.
Some students paid attention to Kang Yura.
She knew Seo Sumin, who had shown an overwhelming force earlier, so they thought she would surely show something too.
“Weapon?”
“Oh, I don’t have one.”
“Then, pick one from there.”
Kang Yura nodded and quickly approached the display rack, where she soon chose a weapon.
It was a spear that was slightly taller than her.
As soon as she was ready, the synthetic creature revealed itself.
“Ugh.”
Kang Yura felt an indescribable disgust when she faced the synthetic creature head-on.
The other students were rather happy with her reaction.
Unlike Seo Sumin, Kang Yura was a student who was not much different from them.
For them, who had already lost hope, there was no better news than having one less competitor.
But that was a big mistake.
‘It’s not that scary.’
Kang Yura thought that the synthetic creature was repulsive, but not particularly frightening.
She had seen a glimpse of the Chulapantaka that descended in the summer.
That enormous presence.
The pressure of the Holy Spirit that came down from the sky directly had unintentionally raised Kang Yura’s mental strength by several levels.
If she had been an ordinary person, she might have gone crazy after witnessing something that she could not even imagine. But she had a steel-like mentality that remained sane.
Kang Yura was now comparing and analyzing Chulapantaka and the synthetic creature.
‘Compared to the illusionary creature I saw back then, it looks very weak.’
Kang Yura did not know that Chulapantaka was a Holy Spirit.
She just thought it was a very powerful illusionary creature. It was a misunderstanding caused by Yu-hyun and Seo Sumin keeping it a secret from her.
‘Maybe I can do it?’
Kang Yura thought so and thrust her spear toward the synthetic creature that was slowly approaching her.
“Ha!”
A voice that lacked seriousness.
It sounded almost cute in a way, but the result was anything but.
Thud!
“Huh?”
The spear that Kang Yura thrust hit the body of the synthetic creature and blew away its upper body.
Kang Yura was surprised by her own thrust, but what about the other people who were watching?
Even if it was a synthetic creature that was deliberately made weak, it was not at the level of a paper doll that would fly away with a gust of wind.
But Kang Yura had blown away its upper body with just one stab, which was bewildering to see.
Still with a stunned face, Yura came down from the test site and asked Seo Sumin.
“Sumin, did I do well? I wasn’t nervous at all, right?”
“You didn’t look nervous, you did great. I was surprised too.”
“Hehe. I’m glad. It was easier than I thought. Oh. There’s oppa.”
Kang Yura spotted Yu-hyun and waved her hand at him. Yu-hyun waved back with his hand.
Not long after, the first test ended.
“Now the results of the first test will come out.”
As soon as Im Gunwoo said that, the electronic boards on the wall and ceiling displayed the results of the test.