The Support Ate it All - Chapter 639: Strong Seniors

Neither side looked willing to back down easily.

Maybe they normally didn’t get along very well, or maybe they both wanted to teach the junior who had finally shown up, or maybe both.

“…”

Seo Ye-in got bored and turned her head.

The other strong seniors surrounding the area were also watching her with tremendous interest.

If she had to guess roughly what they were saying, it was probably something like this.

Maybe they sensed a crisis.

Strong Senior Number One and Number Two stopped bickering and stood side by side.

Apparently they had given up on monopolizing her and decided to teach her together.

Soon they made a light beckoning gesture, as if to say they wanted to see what she could do first.

Seo Ye-in obediently raised her mana gun and prepared to fire.

But the two seniors seemed dissatisfied with something. At the same time, they shook their heads and stopped her.

“…?”

Then the strong dragon senior lifted one hand high above their head.

Only then did Seo Ye-in think she understood what the two of them wanted to see.

“…Ultimate move.”

This time, though, Seo Ye-in shook her head.

“My luck gets worse.”

And it made her sad too.

If she used it, she would turn into an unlucky gloomy sloth for a week, maybe longer.

Not just her, but the people around her would suffer too, and Kim Ho in particular would end up carrying a lot of the burden.

That was why she had no intention of using it unless she absolutely had to.

Even so, the strong seniors waved it off like it was nothing.

“…?”

Seo Ye-in tilted her head, then decided to try using it once.

She had no basis for trusting them, but for some reason, she had a feeling it would be okay.

As she stretched a hand above her head, her hair, which had been close to ash-gray, gradually turned white, and her whole body was wrapped in a white halo of light.

The next moment, a thick pillar of light shot upward.

It punched straight through the ceiling.

Maybe it had opened in perfect timing with her ultimate move.

The pillar of light soon scattered into a cluster of stars that rained back down, and Seo Ye-in received them as she aimed her mana gun.

Dozens, hundreds of shining stars blasted out from the muzzle.

At that, Senior Number One and Number Two visibly looked surprised.

The power was enormous for an attack coming from such a distant junior.

They hurriedly scrapped their plan of defending with a casual wave and dodged to either side.

Seo Ye-in’s muzzle tracked after them, continuing to fire star clusters.

Still, they were strong seniors for a reason.

They seemed to possess exactly the level of skill Kim Ho had boasted about.

Each responded to the ultimate move in their own way.

The gunslinger fired back head-on, while the dragon swung a vast surge of power and canceled out the star clusters.

Not long after the exchange began, Seo Ye-in’s hair turned gray again.

The duration of the ultimate move had ended.

“…”

At Seo Ye-in, who now just stood there blankly, the strong seniors gestured encouragement, telling her she had done well.

Then they took up serious stances.

Apparently they were going to show her something too.

‘…Ultimate move.’

Pressure filled the entire hall.

The first to move was the gunslinger.

Their body and mana gun moved slowly, and for a moment it looked as if they had split into dozens, hundreds.

But it wasn’t just an afterimage.

Countless muzzles spat blue fire all at once.

Mana bullets drew blue trails as they spread out in every direction.

Like a peacock flaring open its tail feathers.

And that curtain of fire, once spread out, came flying for Seo Ye-in alone.

At almost the same time, the dragon moved too.

Floating an inch or so above the ground, they raised one hand over their head.

An enormous force whirled and distorted space.

It soon gathered into one point and compressed, shrinking down to the size of a small ball.

Then it flew straight toward Seo Ye-in.

“…Strong.”

Her gray eyes sparkled as they moved back and forth between the two ultimate moves.

*****

Since accepting the Invitation, Seo Ye-in had kept her eyes closed and stood completely still for quite a while.

‘Why is this taking so long?’

Even Grandpa Mo Yong and Father-in-Law and Mother-in-Law Candidate Number Three hadn’t taken this long.

And it wasn’t like she would drag things out into a long battle.

I stared at Seo Ye-in’s face.

Then, all of a sudden, I got a suspicious feeling and spoke to her.

“Hey, you’re out, aren’t you.”

“…”

“You’re out, so why are your eyes still closed?”

“…Sleepy.”

“So you’re just going to sleep here?”

Maybe she thought I had a point, because Seo Ye-in gave a tiny up-and-down bob of her chin.

Then she tugged on my sleeve and spoke.

“Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“The special cultivation room.”

“So because you can’t sleep here, you’re going there to sleep?”

“It’s still broad daylight.”

“…Sleepy.”

Her eyelids were already drooping slightly.

From experience, once she got to this point, trying to force her awake would just make her fall asleep standing up.

So I offered a compromise.

“Even if you’re going to sleep, let’s finish what you were doing first. What did you do in there that made you sleepy?”

“I used my ultimate move.”

“Your ultimate move?”

“Please explain in detail. Slowly, from the beginning.”

“Two came out.”

“The strong seniors?”

Seo Ye-in dipped her chin in confirmation, then threw back at me the exact same thing I’d told her before she received the Invitation.

“Why are you lying?”

“I didn’t lie.”

“No pretending.”

“I really didn’t know.”

Up until now, only one had come out at a time.

Before the interrogation could continue, I hurriedly threw out my next question.

“Anyway, who came out?”

“…”

Seo Ye-in then described their rough appearance.

As expected, a gunslinger and a dragon.

For the record, I’d raised several of the latter too.

I thought I understood why those two had come out.

‘When you really get down to it, she’s a hybrid class.’

Since she could use at least part of the Meteor Dragon’s power, you couldn’t see her as a pure gunslinger.

Both paths were open to her at once.

“So that’s why you went as far as showing them your ultimate move?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d say it was worth it, but you’ll have to be careful again for a while. Since your luck’s supposed to get worse.”

At that, Seo Ye-in’s head tilted slightly to the side.

“…It’s okay.”

“What do you mean, it’s okay?”

“Luck’s good.”

“Really?”

To check, we decided to play rock-paper-scissors.

“Rock, paper—”

“—scissors.”

“Rock, paper—”

“—scissors.”

The result was that Seo Ye-in won most of the time.

So it looked like the ultimate move penalty really hadn’t applied.

‘Looks like the inner world is separate.’

Come to think of it, that fit all the precedent so far.

Everyone who had entered after receiving an Invitation got beaten up by S-rank Heroes, but none of them had suffered any lasting damage.

The reason Grandpa Mo Yong coughed up blood was because of shock and enlightenment.

The ultimate move was probably the same way.

“In that case, try using it every time you go in. Think of it as practice.”

“Good idea…”

“Anyway, after you used your ultimate move?”

“They showed me.”

“The strong seniors? Showed you what?”

“Strong ultimate moves.”

As Seo Ye-in recalled what she had seen then, her sleepiness temporarily vanished and her eyes shone brightly.

I wondered what they’d used, so I listened.

“The gunslinger’s was probably [Fire Net].”

“[Fire Net]…!”

It was a skill that dumped out an absurd number of mana bullets all at once.

Depending on the situation, it could blanket a wide area or focus everything into a single point.

“Do you want it?”

“I want it.”

“Sorry, but not right now.”

Seo Ye-in immediately looked dissatisfied.

“…Why.”

“Because you’re not ready yet.”

There were far too many prerequisite skills and traits she still needed to learn.

And her rank was still way too low too.

Naturally, Seo Ye-in’s mood dropped in an instant.

Then I said to her,

“Even so, your conditions are actually really good.”

“…?”

“You’re about to learn a Unique Skill soon, right?”

“…?”

As if asking whether I meant this, Seo Ye-in pulled an item out of her inventory.

[Legendary Unique Skillbook Fragment C]

She had gathered all three fragments while clearing three stages of Challenge Austerity at the Dang Family.

And based on the contents of the quests she’d gone through so far, it was possible to infer what kind of Unique Skill she would get.

“That works extremely well in combination with [Fire Net].”

“…”

Seo Ye-in said nothing for a while.

Laziness practically dripped from her gray eyes.

She had already suffered enormously just collecting the three fragments, and now I was telling her she had to go through all that again.

Forget the Unique Skill. She probably just wanted to go sleep.

But by this point, she was already far too invested.

The only option was to go all the way.

And seeing that strong ultimate move must have sparked at least a little motivation too.

In the end, she spoke with ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) reluctant resignation.

“…I’ll do it.”

“Good. Let me check something first.”

For the time being, Austerity’s top priority was Go Hyeonwoo.

He needed his strength raised quickly until he succeeded in the sacred relic challenge.

But if he still hadn’t cleared the quest yet, then it would be fine to put it on Seo Ye-in while I waited.

So I sent him a message.

[Kim Ho: Is it going well?]

[Go Hyeonwoo: It is not easy.]

[Go Hyeonwoo: Even so, thanks to Young Lady Han’s help, there has been considerable progress.]

[Kim Ho: How far do you think you’ve gotten?]

[Kim Ho: If you had to put it into a number]

[Go Hyeonwoo: I would say about sixty percent.]

[Kim Ho: Is that so]

[Kim Ho: Keep at it]

A normal Austerity quest usually ended within a week at most, or just a few days if it was short, but since a Challenge was attached, it looked like the progress was slower.

If he was at sixty percent now, then the clear would probably be next week, which meant I had plenty of room.

I closed the message window and said,

“Looks like I can put it on you.”

“…I changed my mind.”

“You changed your mind already?”

“…A change of heart.”

Seo Ye-in started backing away little by little.

But I caught her with a kindly smile on my face.

“Ho ho, can you really say two different things with the same mouth? If you said you’d do it, then you have to do it.”

“Later…”

“If you’re going to do it, now’s the time. Let’s go.”

[The target is granted ‘Stage 16 Austerity’.]

Then, still smiling, I pulled out the red book.

“Should we put a Challenge on it too?”

“Stop…”

Of course, Seo Ye-in didn’t really have a choice.

With regular Austerity, there was a high chance the skillbook fragment wouldn’t drop.

And so the updated quest contents became,

[Sub Quest: Stage 16 Austerity] (In Progress….)

▷Clear a B-rank dungeon in cooperation with the mirror image

‘Yep. It really is customized.’

Raid week was coming up soon, so it immediately gave a dungeon-clear condition.