Chapter 77 :

Episode 18 : A Father's Approval (1)

With Mya's Hidden Skill, ‘Fighting Spirit’, we managed to subdue the men who rushed in on us.

Thanks to the buff Mya lent to us, we were empowered with the spirit to fight, having our body sensing the energies flowing in our bloodstream and easily fighting back the men.

Although Mya didn't fight while me and HwanGi were doing all the work, we still appreciated Mya's support.

On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed that Mya could only do this much after all I did to help her.

I knew what type of person Mya was, someone who just says the words instead of doing it.

As I was thinking, one of the men was going to land a punch on me. Obviously I didn't let that happen and twisted this man's arm when I caught his fist.

‘..These morons must feel great to beat me before.’

As a matter of fact, I wasn't actually getting beaten up by these morons a moment ago, I was only pretending to get hurt so that it may trigger Mya to react in a brave way.

‘..Though it's kinda hard to fake a groan when I don't actually feel pain.’ I mused, ignoring the floating messages which were popping up now and then.

[Hidden Skill, ‘Simulation’ Lv. 2 has offset the pain.]

[Hidden Skill, ‘Simulation’ Lv. 2 has offset the pain.]

[Hidden Skill, ‘Simulation’ Lv. 2 has offset the pain.]

"Let's get this over with." I stood back, spinning my Bo Staff in a figurative eight before getting ready to attack.

[Imitation of ‘Clone’ Lv. 2 has activated.]

Two versions of me emerged out as they stood beside me, being first to rush into the crowd of men.

One might be wondering why I didn't imitate Mya's skill, ‘Nature's Melody’, the skill that put people into a deep sleep.

It would have ended the fight completely and yet, why didn't I use it? It was because I didn't want to seem suspicious.

If Mya knew that I could copy her skills, she wouldn't feel brave enough to fight or use her skill.

To be honest, it was Mya's fault for not using her skill, she had a lot of chances but instead, she didn't do anything.

‘..How silly of me. I shouldn't be blaming a child.’ I thought, jumping over someone's head before striking my opponent.

Since Mya is a child, it must have been a rough situation for her to witness a scene like this, not being able to calm down properly while watching two guys trying to protect her.

Yet to be able to activate her Hidden Skill despite being frightened. Even though it was self-activated, it was nonetheless her fighting spirit that did it.

‘She is a brave child, alright. She just needs experiences.’ During my thought process, I was fighting against 5 men at the same time.

I dodged a wine bottle that was thrown toward me, crouching down to swing my Bo Staff onto the men's legs.

By doing this, I managed to knock all of them landing on their butts, after that, I went to give HwanGi a helping hand.

Seeing as how my clones were doing well on their own, I figured it would only be right to help HwanGi since he was already having trouble trying not to harm his opponents.

Running toward HwanGi's side, I was again immersed in my thoughts. ‘..If we cut off these moron's arms and legs, we would have been done already. But instead, you chose the pacifist route, HwanGi-ssi..’

Fighting in the safe zone is not allowed, but each player isn't restricted when an NPC tries to attack them. Of course, players can't exactly kill them, it was only self-defense.

Despite being able to fight back, most players find it hard to use their weapons against NPCS. Even if they have skills that increase their swordsmanship, archery or etc, they are originally just normal people who never use a weapon, thus they can't win against a bunch of skilled fighters like the NPCs in the safe zone.

Plus, killing an NPC can lead to a player being punished by the ‘Helpers’ and every player knows this from a system message whenever the moment they have thoughts like ‘I wonder what would happen if I kill an NPC.’

"Annoyance.." When I got beside HwanGi, I thrusted my Bo Staff behind me to strike the person who was secretly attempting to attack me in the back.

If it weren't for the reflection on the window in front of me, I wouldn't have seen it coming.

Even though I knew that person wouldn't hurt me a lot, it was still great to know I was able to avoid an unnecessary injury.

Anyways, noticing that HwanGi had already sustained quite a lot of bruises just from fighting these men, I somehow felt a little enraged in spite of not knowing why.

Randomly getting enraged over something so trivial, I thought it might just be because HwanGi was a part of my group, maybe that was the reason why I was angered.

As I was pondering the cause of my strange anger surfacing, I was greeted with a large pool table descending down on top of me.

After noticing a shadow casting underneath me, I glanced up before having Lucifer morph into two swords for me to dual wield.

With a leap, I ascended up to the air, getting nearer to the pool table before slicing them up with my dual wielding.

The pool table got turned into pieces as I was now on top of it, kicking each and every one of those bits to the men below me, hitting their heads to knock them out cold.

Out of a sudden, a familiar voice was yelling to get everyone's attention. "Hey! I got her! Let's leave already!"

When I got down, I looked toward that voice direction, discovering Asher was carrying onto Alaine.

"Get out of here and we'll deal with this!" HwanGi also shifted his eyes toward Asher as he was calling for her.

While HwanGi was being vulnerable, a woman was walking up behind him.

Once I caught my eyes on that woman, I went up to her as fast as I could, giving her a punch to the face for trying to sneak attack on HwanGi with her knives.

When HwanGi turned to look at what was happening behind him, he found me rubbing my fist and cracking my fingers.

"JoonChul-ssi?" He said, seeming as though he was wondering why there was a woman laying on the floor beside me.

I suggested to HwanGi as I smiled, ignoring the fact that a lady with a bleeding nose was on the ground next to me. "Why don't we leave now? Mya is already tired from keeping her Hidden Skill active."

"Ah, right."

Mya, who was standing by HwanGi's side and holding onto his pants, was now being picked up by HwanGi as he began to carry her.

I signaled to Asher as she was jumping down from the second floor with Alaine on her back.

That was when I realized I just accidentally used a signal I had used in my past lives.

‘It was by reflex, but still, I need to stop doing that. Asher may probably be confused right now.’

After thinking that, I was beginning to run to Asher when she suddenly spawned in portals underneath us.

"She understood that?" I was fazed by what just happened while I was falling into the portal.

———

HwanGi, being shocked by a portal appearing under him, hugged Mya tightly to shield her on what was going to greet them on the other side of the portal.

Once he went through the portal, he was then sent to the other portal, reappearing above the casino's entrance.

Hadn't not expected it, he was now next to the entrance with Mya before spotting JoonChul hopping out of another portal.

He looked around to confirm whether or not it was safe yet to put Mya down.

After a short moment, HwanGi placed Mya down gently as he was doing that, he found JoonChul moving some trash bags and laying them in front of the casino's entrance, along with putting some under the windows.

"JoonChul-ssi, what are you doing?" HwanGi said out of curiosity while holding onto Mya's hand.

JoonChul switched his gaze over to HwanGi, clapping his hands to get rid of the dirt on his hands.

"Jeez, don't you understand? He's doing it because it suits the casino." Asher bumped her elbow into HwanGi's waist.

"But isn't it too much?"

"Nah, plus, I needed to dump the garbage that I collected while trying to save this girl."

"What? How did—"

Asher rudely interrupted HwanGi by saying. "There were trash bags blocking the whole way to Alanine. So I thought maybe I could use them to decorate the outside of the casino, which was why I stored them in my inventory."

"And JoonChul-ssi is..?"

"Yep, he's doing the work for me."

"Really?" HwanGi looked at JoonChul, noticing that JoonChul didn't seem as though he volunteered to help Asher, it was more like Asher forcing it on him.

JoonChul smiled, looking like he was about to kill Asher for making him do her work. "Shall we move on?"

"Yes." HwanGi responded as he pondered about JoonChul. ‘Is he going to be fine? It feels like he's gonna explode while trying to hold in his anger..’

"You, take her. She's very heavy." Asher said, giving Alaine to HwanGi.

"Huh?" With the unexpected Alaine now being on HwanGi's back, he was suddenly shocked as to why Asher didn't wait for him to respond first.

"Why are you looking at me like this?" Asher spoke after having JoonChul and HwanGi's anguish eyes staring directly at her.