Chapter 22 - What Is Your Name?

When one person fights a crowd, few call it a battle. A battle, by definition, is fought between armies. One enemy cannot be called an army, and a crowd's one-sided trampling or subjugation of a single person hardly qualifies as a battle.

By that measure, what happened at the Blue House was not a battle. Yet it was also a war, more like a battle than any battle could be.

RATATATAT!

Tens of thousands of bullets raked the ground.

BOOM!

A Humvee firing its machine gun flipped over.

"Aaaagh!"

"Medic! Medic!"

"Fuck! When are the reinforcements getting here?!"

Blood, screams, and furious shouting filled the air. It was the kind of harrowing scene one would see only on the front line of a real war fought for a nation's survival.

There were just three problems. This was a fight against one person. The slaughter was one-sided. And the one doing the slaughtering was not the many, but the one.

"Die! Just fucking die!"

A white-haired man strolled slowly through the middle of the war zone as though taking a walk in a garden. Someone screamed at Limon in desperation and sprayed his rifle at him like a madman. The result was the same as ever. However wildly he fired, his bullets merely scraped the ground. They could not so much as graze Limon's clothes, let alone kill him.

"Why the hell can't I hit him?!"

That scream spoke for everyone there, soldiers and police alike, regardless of their affiliations or abilities. If Limon had used some kind of skill, dodged the bullets with sheer speed, or deflected them with his body, they could have understood. In this Iron Age, overflowing with players of every sort, superhumans impervious to guns were hardly rare.

The problem was that Limon was not using a skill. He was not even trying to dodge or block the bullets. They simply flew off elsewhere, as if avoiding him. It made them feel as though they were possessed. Those who normally prided themselves on their marksmanship looked ready to lose their minds.

RUMBLE...

"Reinforcements!"

When three tanks appeared, shaking the ground, it was understandable that they cheered as though their saviors had arrived. Even if a tank shell missed by a little, its firepower would surely be enough to blow one man away.

But Limon did not so much as raise an eyebrow at the hulking tanks. He merely looked at them with contempt. "What a bunch of idiots..."

He watched impassively as the three tanks blocked his path and swung their guns around to aim at him. Only after they fired did he slowly swing his sword. It was an extraordinarily slow stroke, so sluggish that even a caterpillar could have seen it coming and dodged; it looked incapable of blocking or cutting anything.

Yet when the sword finished its arc, the result was astonishing.

CLATTER.

"... What the hell is that?"

"W-were they duds?"

"All three of them? No, even if they were duds, how could he catch them like that...?"

They stared, dumbfounded, at the three shells resting lightly on the tip of Limon's sword. They were not butterflies alighting on a flower. Those shells had been fired at supersonic speed. What they had seen defied everything they knew.

"Here. Take them back."

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

How he managed it, no one could say. The moment Limon gave his sword a light flick, the shells flew back the other way and lodged precisely in the gun barrels of the three tanks without exploding. Limon clicked his tongue at the stunned onlookers as they stared at the tanks, disabled almost as soon as they had arrived.

"You morons, try thinking for once. These piles of scrap can't even take down a high-level player. What makes you think they're a match for me?"

They had no answer. He had a point. High-level players were superhumans who could smash tanks with their bare hands. That was why each was treated as an irreplaceable asymmetric asset of national importance.

But Limon was a PAB agent who specialized in hunting high-level players. Even here, several high-level players had attacked him with skills and been knocked senseless. A few tanks could hardly threaten him.

"H-how can an 'ordinary person' do something like this...?"

"Damn it! Nobody told me Limon Aspelder was a high-level player!"

That was why the longer they fought Limon, the closer they came to losing their minds. They simply could not understand how someone who was not a player could do such things. By their standards, a Sword Master was only an ordinary person who happened to be a 'little' good with a sword.

CLANG!

"Is that all you've got?"

Limon made no effort to explain at length what a Sword Master was. He merely cut down a sniper's bullet that came from somewhere and asked calmly, "A traitor has attacked the heart of your country, and this is all you can do?"

No one answered his question. A frantic hail of bullets answered in their place. That alone told him there would be no more reinforcements or support anytime soon, much less missiles or an air strike.

'These assholes didn't even call for help properly.'

Limon let out a hollow laugh. Well, he could understand. They could hardly mobilize the entire military and ask civilian guilds for support just because one man had attacked. It would be embarrassing. Even if the country truly fell as a result, they would stake their lives on saving face until the very end. Typical of people these days.

'The peace has lasted too long.'

Limon lamented inwardly as he walked at his leisure, letting the hail of bullets fly past him.

In terms of sheer military strength, this country was certainly stronger than it used to be. Its troops now carried state-of-the-art firearms instead of old rifles that broke down at every turn. Most ordinary soldiers had even become players, giving them abilities soldiers of the past could not compare with. And many guilds, private armies in their own right, possessed more power than the national military.

Yet the country had grown complacent to an even greater degree than it had grown strong. An army that had never seen real combat. Commanders who put their pride before the nation. Guilds that acted only after calculating what they stood to gain. Even citizens crowding the windows of high-rise buildings to film on their phones, as though the fall of the Blue House were a spectacle.

Could that really be called progress? Or was it decline instead?

'Is this what happens in an age that has no need for war?'

Limon gave a wry laugh.

From the Bronze Age through the Age of Heroes, when bloodshed and violence never ceased, peace had been everyone's dream. So why did the peace they had finally won feel so empty? Still carrying a question he could not answer himself, Limon left the hail of bullets behind and entered the Blue House's main building.

"Stop him! If you can't, at least buy us some time!"

"Hyaaa!"

Was this their last line of defense? Agents in suits had blocked the stairs with barricades and poured every manner of skill at Limon to stop him. Some attacked his mind with illusions. Others manipulated his blood flow to target his heart, while still others fired rays that turned whatever they struck to stone. As befitted the president's bodyguards, they were all high-level players, and their skills were undeniably powerful. Even a duke-class player above level 90 would die instantly if they reacted too slowly.

There was only one problem. Their opponent was Limon.

SHING!

"What...?"

"H-he cut through our skills?"

They felt their skills severed as a single sword sliced through the air, and stared in shock. Limon gave them no time to recover. He simply knocked them down with a few light taps from the flat of his blade and calmly climbed the stairs.

But when he reached his destination, Limon stopped short. He had made it all the way to the president's office, only to find an empty desk waiting for him. The one person who mattered was gone.

"The bastard really ran."

Limon clicked his tongue. His subordinates were risking their lives to defend the Blue House, and he had slipped away alone. Well, it was a wise decision. If the nation's commander-in-chief stayed to the end just to save face, he would only be a burden to everyone.

'Not very dignified, though.'

Did the escape look so shabby to Limon because he belonged to another era? Or was it because the man had slyly waited until the last moment, fleeing only after Limon entered the main building?

"Idiot. If you were going to run anyway, you should've done it sooner instead of dawdling."

After a brief chuckle, Limon walked to the middle of the office and muttered under his breath, "Not that it would've changed the outcome."

He narrowed his eyes and studied the empty air for a moment, as if gauging something invisible. Then he gripped his sword with both hands and slowly raised it over his head. Aiming at one point in the air, he brought the blade straight down.

SHATTER!

"...?!"

At that instant, the empty air split in two. Through the gap in space appeared an older man about to climb into an armored limousine, along with the stunned faces of his aides.

They froze as if they had seen a ghost. Before they could collect themselves, Limon thrust out a hand, seized the older man by the collar, and hauled him through the gap in space.

CRASH!

"Guh...!"

The older man tumbled across the floor like a fish yanked through a hole in the ice and tossed onto the frozen surface. Even as he lay there, President Han Jeong-guk asked in bewilderment, "H-how? You shouldn't be able to use a Teleportation skill!"

It was a natural question. If Limon could teleport, Yu Na-gyeong, with her rare teleportation ability, would never have been assigned to his team.

"Didn't you know?"

Whether President Han genuinely could not make sense of it or was simply panicking, Limon chuckled at the sight of him putting his question first even now. He crouched in front of the president until they were eye to eye and said with a grin, "No one can run from a Sword Master, little boy."

For all that Limon had kindly answered him, President Han looked even more baffled rather than understanding. Limon did not bother to explain. Someone who did not know what a Sword Master was would never understand, no matter how long he talked. Besides, Limon had something more pressing to settle with this screw-loose head of state.

"Now, to celebrate our meeting, I have a few favors to ask..."

In the middle of speaking with a cold smile, Limon suddenly fell silent. He rolled his eyes as though trying to remember something, scratched his cheek, and asked, "By the way, what was your name again?"

"..."