I Became The Rankers’ Number One Pick [EN]: Chapter 235

235.

Nowon held onto Seo-ah, who was wandering around, distracted by something. Seo-ah looked to be about an elementary school student. Park Woo-chan led Nowon and Seo-ah forward.

“Let’s go in, it’s our turn.”

“Isn’t this going to get wet? The kids will catch a cold if their clothes are damp. They’re not Hunters.”

“It’s okay. It’s still warm.”

Soothing the grumbling Nowon, Park Woo-chan led them onto the boat. The small boat cut through the water, advancing powerfully.

‘That was so much fun.’

It was a happy memory that remained vividly in Seo-ah’s mind.

The scene changed again.

Inside a crumbling, gray building, Nowon and Park Woo-chan looked very busy. It seemed to be inside a gate.

Thump, thud-!

Loud noises came from outside, and each time, pieces of the building crumbled.

“Is it almost done?”

Park Woo-chan stood guard, keeping watch, while Nowon rapidly typed on the laptop. Unidentifiable symbols scrolled frantically across the laptop screen.

“Just a little more, just a little more.”

Park Woo-chan looked at Nowon with a worried expression.

“Is this going to be okay? It’s too dangerous. No one has ever tried this before.”

“Shhh, it’s almost done.”

A download window appeared on the laptop. Very slowly, the gauge flickered and began to rise.

“Nowon.”

Nowon looked up at Park Woo-chan.

“I don’t want this world to be destroyed. It’s the world that I, our children, will live in. The Final Enemy? I don’t care about that.”

“Even so, we can’t stop the flow.”

“I know, but we can delay it. I’m satisfied with that.”

Nowon’s will seemed firm. Park Woo-chan didn’t try to stop her anymore. It was what he wanted too. However, he couldn’t guarantee the results, so he had tried to dissuade her once.

Rumble-

Park Woo-chan knocked away the debris falling above Nowon’s head with his shield.

They were research Hunters, but as they went in and out of dangerous gates, they had some defensive abilities.

Outside, the battle was still raging. They had come all the way to Southeast Asia to find an S-Class Gate.

Even after being notified that the Southeast Asian Hunters couldn’t provide protection, they insisted on following.

It had to be S-Class. Only then could they get closer to the ‘System.’ After a long preparation, they had dared to plan to hack the system, and they were executing it.

[DOWNLOAD 100%]

“Done!”

The download gauge rose completely, and Nowon immediately put the laptop into her inventory. The main components were made of magic stones, so it was a laptop that could be used even in a gate.

As soon as they escaped the collapsing building, the S-Class Hunter from Southeast Asia urgently called them.

“Let’s go, the gate is opening!”

Park Woo-chan and Nowon escaped the gate, and Seo-ah saw the gate after the Hunters had disappeared for the first time.

The view flickered as if a fluorescent light was broken.

And the world vibrated. The feeling at that time was ‘fear.’ Seo-ah was still reading the ‘System Administrator’s’ emotions, so this must be the administrator’s fear.

‘Afraid of being hacked?’

It was strange that it wasn’t anger.

The flickering world suddenly went dark as if a switch had been turned off. Just when she thought it was over, she heard a voice again.

“Looking at this system log, there are skills that haven’t been awakened in each Hunter yet. If some time passes or certain conditions are met, they will probably awaken.”

It was Nowon’s voice. They were looking at the data they had taken from the gate earlier.

“The Hunter Association will be in an uproar if they find out. They’ll try to awaken them at all costs.”

“Absolutely… they mustn’t know. We’ll keep it to ourselves and bury it. Anyway, we’re going to take this out to weaken the Earth’s power. It will be more difficult to clear the gates in the future, but that’s better.”

“Yes, even if we clear them all and meet the Final Enemy, it will only end in destruction.”

Seo-ah tried to concentrate on the voice as much as possible and injected magic power into her optic nerves. Then, a blurry image emerged and gradually became clearer.

Park Woo-chan rolled up his sleeves and confidently sat in front of the computer.

“Okay, I’ll extract it.”

“The capacity will be quite large. Your mana consumption will be considerable, are you okay?”

“What can I do? Our Queen is working so hard, I have to do my part. It’s for our children too.”

“I’ll plug in a mana potion drip.”

Nowon familiarly took out a needle for the IV drip. A mana potion drip, really. Isn’t drinking it not enough? It would be nice if they had the [Mana Battery] skill that Seo-ah has right now.

Park Woo-chan sat down, put his hand on the computer, and put on some glasses. He muttered something small, and the tips of his fingers and his eyes turned red.

Then the computer beeped. Seo-ah watched, but she didn’t know what was happening. Maybe that computer wasn’t an ordinary computer either.

Was there a ‘Maker’ at that time too? No, considering the age of the ‘Maker,’ they may still have been around in the same era.

Even though Seo-ah’s parents were in research, she had never seen a research Hunter actually use skills to do research.

Nowon carefully watched Park Woo-chan and the computer screen while replacing the mana potion bottle at the end of the IV line. The red light that started from Park Woo-chan’s fingertips went up his wrist.

“Keuh.”

A stream of blood flowed from Park Woo-chan’s closed lips. Nowon paused but didn’t touch him.

How much time had passed? The red light that had almost completely covered Park Woo-chan’s body disappeared. Steam rose from his entire body as if he had a fever.

“Hoo-ah.”

“Good job, how is it?”

When Park Woo-chan opened his clenched hand, a bright yellow sphere was on his palm. He passed it onto Nowon’s hand as if letting it flow.

Seo-ah watched it closely.

“I extracted about 90% of the unawakened skills stored in the system. I deleted it there. I extracted it mainly from the top-ranked Hunters.”

Nowon quietly looked into the sphere of light. Nowon’s eyes turned golden as she looked at it. She seemed to be using a skill too.

“This can’t be put into a normal storage medium. It has to be put into a person… a person.”

“A person? Then whose… ah.”

Blood flowed from Park Woo-chan’s nose, ears, and mouth. Nowon was surprised and put the light sphere into a glass bottle, then helped Park Woo-chan up.

“You’re not going to be okay, go and rest quickly. Leave this to me.”

“Okay, haha. I’m a little dizzy. I won’t be able to use skills for a while.”

Park Woo-chan staggered out, supported by Nowon. It was understandable, since he had dealt with the system.

‘Still, it’s really amazing…’

It was amazing that hacking the system was possible, but it was unbelievable that it was her parents.

Seo-ah calmed her emotions and organized what she had seen so far.

Nowon and Park Woo-chan realized that this Earth had repeated destruction and regeneration several times. And after researching other gates, they learned that the world inside the gate had already been destroyed by fighting the Final Enemy to prevent another gate and had been datafied [converted into data].

So, Nowon and Park Woo-chan hacked the system to delay the destruction of this round of Earth, taking away the unawakened skills of the Hunters. They reduced the combat power of all the Hunters on Earth.

And that…

‘It was implanted in my body.’

In the past, in the gate, when she was attacked by the black magician, Seo-ah had a dream that Nowon and Park Woo-chan had implanted something in her sleeping body.

That’s why they told her never to go near the gate. Because the system might recognize it.

That concern became a reality.

Because she was caught up in a spontaneous gate, the system recognized Seo-ah and gave her various missions to awaken her as a ‘Supporter.’

‘To bring me to this final battlefield!’

Seo-ah opened her eyes wide.

“Heok, heok…!”

“Seo-ah, are you okay?”

Yoo Ji-an patted Seo-ah’s back as she gasped for breath.

“Cough, cough.”

Seo-ah leaned on him, coughed, and barely raised her head.

“How much time has passed?”

Baek Eun-hee checked the watch on her wrist and answered.

“It’s been about 3 minutes, Seo-ah.”

“3 minutes, 3 minutes… ?”

It felt like she had seen it for quite a long time, but only that much time had passed.

Seo-ah glared at the System Administrator, who was slowly backing away from her feet. Then she reached out and suddenly snatched the Ruin Blade that Yoo Ji-an was holding.

“Seo-ah?”

Thwack!

While Yoo Ji-an called out in confusion, Seo-ah stabbed the floor so that the administrator could not retreat any further. Seo-ah’s voice sank coldly.

“Tell me, what did you do to my parents?”