# Chapter 56
“Did you see that?”
Hyegang turned to look at Sano. His attitude was like a parent showing off their child’s report card to a neighbor.
Though the distance from the test site made it impossible to know exactly what strategy Iyeon and Young had devised, it was possible to grasp the general situation.
The first thing Iyeon did upon entering the alley was to drop round crumpled papers in various places around the open space. Drawings made directly on paper placed on a tablet still activated his ability even when crumpled.
After finishing the preliminary work, the two climbed onto the wall of the alley and hid inside a house. Soon, the man in the black hood entered, and Iyeon appeared to lure him in.
After that, everything went as everyone knew.
“He’s using his head.”
Sano muttered in a surprisingly impressed tone. Strangely, the emotion contained in that voice seemed somewhat complex.
“Are you surprised?”
Hyegang looked at Iyeon, who was eliminating all enemies and removing the net. Small particles were flying away and disappearing into the air.
“He’s not one who lives with thoughts.”
“Wow, don’t say that in front of Iyeon hyung.”
When Hyegang reprimanded him jokingly, Sano snorted.
“Anyway, though you might not believe it, Iyeon hyung’s specialty is psychological warfare.”
Iyeon and Young, having reaped their harvest, moved again. Hyegang muttered as if talking to himself while watching Iyeon trying to high-five Young, who was walking stoically forward, and eventually lowering his hand dejectedly.
“I don’t want to participate in Jeong-Yeon, but sometimes I’d like to form a team with Iyeon hyung. I think it would be quite fun to follow his strategies.”
Sano answered as if it weren’t a big deal.
“You already seem to be an excellent partner.”
Hyegang’s eyes widened slightly before blinking slowly. It was something he never expected to hear from Sano’s mouth. Finding that fact a little amusing, the corner of Hyegang’s mouth rose slightly.
“Well, that’s true.”
“Where did you learn that?”
Iyeon gestured with his eyes toward the staff. Unless it was something like kendo, staff fighting wasn’t a commonly learned discipline. Moreover, her skill was extraordinary. Young ran her thumb along the body of the staff.
“My father taught me.”
“Did he run an action school or something?”
“No, he just thought it looked cool, so he searched the whole country to find someone who knew how to do it.”
Young’s father was surprisingly talented in martial arts. Thanks to that, despite being Mugunghwa Tier 1, his physical abilities were better than most hunters. It was perhaps natural, as not all hunters learned professional martial arts.
‘It’s better than most superpowers, isn’t it?’
The day Young first won against her father in a sparring match, her father, lying in the backyard, laughed boisterously as he said that.
“Wow, it’s hard to be that passionate. He must be an amazing person.”
At Iyeon’s admiration, Young smiled wryly. Her face with only one corner of her mouth raised gave off a strangely lonely atmosphere.
“I think so too.”
The place where the two stopped again was a fairly large open space. It might have been included in the residential area’s landscaping, as box trees around them were trimmed in neat shapes.
About 40 minutes remained. Since a considerable amount of time had passed, most of the small fry would have been eliminated. The candidates who had survived until now were either people like Iyeon, who had participated in Jeong-Yeon several times and established their own effective strategies, or skilled individuals like Young, who had substantial combat abilities of their own.
Especially…
“Oh!”
Suddenly, Iyeon pulled Young. Quickly crouching down and hiding behind a box tree, Iyeon glanced forward and clicked his tongue. They could see a somewhat thin man sitting on construction materials randomly placed in the open space.
“Of all people, it’s Yu Jeongheon…”
Iyeon hadn’t seen him in the waiting room; he must have been in a different one.
“Someone you know?”
Young, who had crouched down with Iyeon in the confusion, asked. Iyeon opened his eyes wide.
“You don’t know Yu Jeongheon? He’s a ranker.”
“What ranker would be in a Tier 2 Jeong-Yeon?”
Even after hearing the answer, Young still couldn’t hide her puzzlement. Come to think of it, she was Mugunghwa Tier 1. She was so good at fighting against Tier 2s that it didn’t feel real even after being introduced, but seeing that she didn’t know about rankers, Iyeon was now certain she definitely wasn’t Tier 2.
Of course, there’s an upper class within Tier 2 as well. Ordinary people who don’t know much or higher-tier superhumans might not know or care about how the Tier 2 ecosystem functions, but there is a league of their own here too.
The undisputed top tier, whose name at least would be familiar to any Tier 2 hunter of the same rank.
This usually includes rankers within the top 21,000. It might seem strange to call someone a ranker when the number exceeds twenty thousand, but since there are 20,000 Tier 3 or higher superhumans, compared only among Tier 2s, they’re within the top 1,000.
That’s within the top 0.6% of Mugunghwa Tier 2.
Most of the top 5 places in Tier 2 Jeong-Yeon are taken by rankers in this range. Occasionally, there are cases where rankers fight each other and are eliminated early, but those are exceptions…
“Here. Yu Jeongheon, rank 20,102. Can you see the photo?”
When Iyeon showed the ranking page, Young’s gaze fell on the phone screen. A small ID photo of a gentle-faced person was displayed. Alongside it, basic personal information was written with the details Iyeon had mentioned. Rank 20,102. Yu Jeongheon. 26 years old. Space Unity ability.
“What kind of ability is that?”
The superpower names designated by the Superpower Rating Committee included intuitive ones like Iyeon’s Drawing Materialization, but there were also many named in ways that made them difficult to guess at once depending on their range of application. Yu Jeongheon’s Space Unity ability was only familiar because he was a famous ranker; it wasn’t unreasonable for someone hearing it for the first time to not understand it immediately.
“Ah, that is…”
“You’re having quite a relaxed conversation given your posture.”
Iyeon’s explanation was cut off by a voice dropping from above. Both of them blinked simultaneously and slowly raised their eyes.
The face that had been sitting at a distance just a moment ago was now looking down at them.
“Are you watching for an opportunity to attack?”
The slender face smiled with narrowed eyes. Despite having a slim build like Iyeon, perhaps because he was tall, there was a strange sense of pressure.
Young moved first.
She grabbed the staff she had briefly set down on the ground and thrust it upward at Yu Jeongheon, changing its angle. Despite having no preparatory movement, her speed was quite fast.
Yu Jeongheon didn’t move at all. Rather, his smile deepened a bit more.
“Wait…”
Iyeon shouted, but it was already too late. Right in front of Yu Jeongheon, the staff disappeared, creating ripples in the empty space.
Before Young could grasp the situation, ripples formed in the empty space in front of her stomach. The tip of the disappeared staff protruded from there.
“Ugh…!”
She loosened her strength belatedly, but the impact had already been delivered. Young, who had been stabbed in the stomach with her own force, let out a groan. Iyeon quickly caught and supported the staggering Young.
“Young-ssi, are you okay?”
Iyeon carefully backed away with Young. Yu Jeongheon still didn’t move. It was the composure of someone who knew that trying to escape with an injured person was meaningless. Although they had created some distance, the situation hadn’t changed much.
Yu Jeongheon’s ability was famous among Tier 2s.
Space Unity ability. Literally, the ability to unite two different empty spaces as one. There are limitations to the distance and size where the ability can be used, and a ripple-like phenomenon appears at the location where it’s used.
At first glance, it seemed similar to teleportation, but Yu Jeongheon’s ability was known to not be strong enough to move people. Also, his ability is triggered by designating locations, not objects. A more appropriate description would be creating a sort of space-folding passage.
As he had just done to Young, he typically used his power to return attacks to the attacker. Like Iyeon, his physical strength and stamina were just average, but since he rarely needed to use his own physical strength, he wasn’t greatly constrained by his innate physical abilities.
Some Tier 2 rankers are evaluated as being extremely close to Tier 3. Unofficially called “semi-Tier 3,” they exceed the average gi-ryeok amount of Tier 2 but unfortunately don’t quite reach Tier 3.
One of them is Yu Jeongheon. He was an undisputed powerhouse of Tier 2, and Yu Jeongheon proved it in every Jeong-Yeon. His Jeong-Yeon performance was outstanding even among the numerous Tier 2 rankers.
Across all the Jeong-Yeon events Yu Jeongheon had participated in, the times he had lost his mark could be counted on one hand.
