Ubermensch – Chapter 30

Chapter 30

“Ugh…”

His legs trembled. Stomach acid surged up his esophagus. His vision flickered, and he couldn’t breathe.

A single blow. It was the result of a light body blow.

Eric stumbled back to the corner. He shouted to his manager.

“Towel! Throw in the towel! Tell them I surrender!”

“B-But the Heavenly King…”

“Heavenly King my ass! I’m about to die! Throw in the towel, quick!”

Just then, a figure appeared next to the manager.

“It would be better not to do that.”

It was Andrei.

“If you lose this fight… I’ll crush your core.”

“What? I never heard anything like that!”

“I tried to tell you.”

Andrei grinned.

“You said you didn’t want to hear it, right?”

“Damn it… Damn it…!”

The Heavenly King was capable of such a thing, and she would really do it.

“No, this can’t be happening. I… How did I even get this far…”

Still smiling, Andrei said,

“Why don’t you say that to your opponent?”

Mason was slowly approaching.

His figure, backlit by the dazzling lights, felt like a grim reaper of dark shadows.

Eric instinctively backed away, and the ropes pushed him further.

“Damn it all!”

Eric charged at Mason. It wasn’t courage, but rather an act of desperation.

However, even in this chaotic state of mind, his body didn’t forget the training he had gone through.

Crack!

A sharp low kick pierced Mason’s calf.

Perfect angle, perfect technique.

It’s just that…

“Ugh…”

Mason’s calf muscles were stronger than his foot bones.

With his foot swollen, Eric limped and turned to the side, trying to create some distance.

Mason was slowly approaching. As if telling him to do whatever he wanted.

Turning to the side, Eric was now standing in the center of the ring, and Mason had his back to the corner.

However, it was Eric who was cornered, and Mason who was pressing.

‘What should I do? What can I do?’

He felt like crying.

Facing the despair named Mason.

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Mason stood with his back to the corner, backlit by the lights.

His face, two heads taller than an average person, was cast in dark shadows.

He looked less like a human and more like a monster. A colossal monster made of violence and destructive power.

Thump.

When Mason took one step, Eric took two steps back. When Mason took two steps, Eric took four.

It wasn’t distance control for outboxing.

He was just… running away.

Just like he always had…

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The cafe.

“Why don’t you trust him?”

Mason asked.

“No, why do you despise him so much?”

Yekaterina said,

“I’ve seen many people like him.”

“What kind of people?”

“Washed-up players.”

Eric wasn’t maintaining his level at 39 because he wanted to. It was because his max level was 39, and he couldn’t level up any further.

“He’s unsuitable for going out into the field.”

Party play was one thing, but stamina and strength were the most important factors for a raid team’s tanker.

Since their role was to hold the enemy in place from the front, agility wasn’t that helpful.

Eric couldn’t become a high-level player or a main tanker.

No matter how much he risked his life fighting monsters, he couldn’t grow stronger or participate in major raids.

Moreover…

“He’s given up fighting monsters.”

From the nation’s perspective, the Player System was a double-edged sword.

It was because the scale of force that an individual could possess had changed.

An ordinary person could be dealt with and subdued by another ordinary person.

But a player?

There was no way for an ordinary person to fight against a player.

And unlike firearms or swords, it was something that the state and the authorities couldn’t monopolize.

And, there were those who quickly realized this fact.

Yekaterina, and…

“He’s a member of a player gang.”

Washed-up players.

Those who had fallen, realizing that it was easier and more profitable to fight people than monsters.

At first, organized crime groups recruited players as fighters, but now players were recruiting gangsters as managers.

“The arena was initially created to reduce the number of washed-up players who fell into the criminal underworld.”

The Player System wasn’t a perfect solution. It was more like a policy implemented out of necessity, desperately trying to manage the aftereffects by robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The arena was created with the idea of giving washed-up players who had given up leveling up another option besides joining gangs.

If someone who could only resort to violence wanted a new job, wouldn’t being a sports star be better than being a gangster?

“It’s a stopgap measure to reduce the number of uncontrollable washed-up players.”

Yekaterina was also a part of the players’ darkness. She had created a for-profit group with players and was engaging in collective action.

However, Yekaterina was still a player who fought monsters. Unlike player gangs, she was someone who could be reasoned with and negotiated with.

“No matter what expectations Mason has for him, he will betray them.”

“Maybe so.”

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Thud, thud, thud.

After Mason took three more steps, Eric had his back against the ring post.

‘There’s none.’

Eric realized.

‘There’s… nowhere to run…’

His instincts as a fighter, no, his knowledge told him.

Both his right and left sides were within reach of Mason’s arms.

And if he ran out of the ring… Yekaterina would crush his core.

‘When was it?’

The pressure was closing in from all sides, and Eric began to pant.

‘When did I start falling into this abyss?’

Once, he was also a dreamer and a pure adventurer.

In party play, he could thrive with hit-and-run tactics that focused on mobility.

The only problem was that Eun Yuri, the party’s healer, was slow on her feet.

But it was okay at first.

They fought somehow, and they won anyway.

The day he first got angry at Eun Yuri was the day he first felt his limits.

He instinctively realized it as a fighter.

I can’t climb any higher than this.

If he had been carrying dead weight until now, it was now his turn to become a burden to others.

He didn’t want to fall behind.

He didn’t want to be abandoned.

Eric fought desperately, and he leveled up desperately.

And when he reached his level limit.

Eric was already broken and bent.

All a broken and bent person could do was wallow in the mud.

He fled into the arena and thrived there.

Most players fought monsters larger than humans. Their fighting styles were all the same. Their movements were large, and their aims were straightforward. They were no different from sandbags in front of him, a fighter by training.

Eric became the champion of the arena and a star. He gained wealth and fame, and dangerous and famous people flocked to his side.

Eric succeeded.

He had achieved success, even if it was in the place he had fled to.

However, the fact that he had run away didn’t disappear.

More than anyone else… he himself couldn’t forget that fact.

Thump!

Mason reached out and grabbed Eric’s skull.

“Let go, let go of me!”

Eric threw a middle kick at Mason’s exposed side, unguarded.

But all he heard was a hollow thud.

Mason, unmoved, lifted Eric’s body.

‘It’s over…’

There was no way he could escape this grasp.

No matter how he attacked, a single blow could shatter him.

At that moment, Eric felt his vision blur.

He was scared. He had run away from the despair called monsters.

But now, he was caught before a despairing power.

‘Did I live all this time just to… end like this? To crumble so pathetically?’

Mason asked in a growling voice,

“What are you thinking?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m curious what your tears mean.”

His cheeks were wet. Eric belatedly realized he was crying.

“I…”

Eric said, sobbing,

“I don’t know…”

“You challenged me. You even resorted to dirty tricks, borrowing someone else’s hand. What do you think I’ll do to you?”

“I don’t know…”

With just one blow, he could crush his core.

He could cripple him, leaving him unable to be healed, whether he was a player or not.

Even if Mason showed mercy and went easy on him, a loss was a loss. The Heavenly King would crush his core.

Eric whimpered,

“Finish me… Just… finish me…”

Mason released his grip.

Thud.

Looking at Eric collapsing on the spot, Mason said calmly,

“Don’t ever forget that feeling you have right now.”

“…?”

Mason slowly walked out of the ring.

The referee looked back and forth between Mason and Eric in bewilderment.

“Uh, uh?”

Mason left the arena without looking back.

When the referee looked at him, Andrei just shrugged.

“Challenger Mason Park loses by ring-out…”

The referee hesitated and declared,

“…Eric Yoon wins!”

Boos erupted from the audience.

“What kind of match was that?!”

“Does that even make sense?!”

Leaving the audience’s boos behind, Mason headed towards the car parked outside the arena.

Yekaterina was waiting inside.

“Are you satisfied now?”

“Yes.”

Mason closed his eyes tightly.

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Yekaterina had said,

“No matter what expectations Mason has for him, he will betray them.”

“Maybe so.”

Mason said in a calm voice,

“Still… I’m going to forgive him.”

“He’s not someone who deserves forgiveness, nor someone who will change even if he’s forgiven.”

“Maybe so. But… I’m going to give him a chance.”

Yekaterina tried to say something.

“But…”

“Kacha.”

Mason looked at Yekaterina.

“If you have no doubt about your way, why do you have expectations for me?”

“…!”

Yekaterina looked down on people. She had experienced too much trash and knew how to handle trash like trash.

However…

“I believe that even the worst person can change.”

Mason gazed at Yekaterina. But his eyes were looking somewhere far away, somewhere not here.

“No, I want to believe it.”

Was it the utopia he lived in?

Or… another world he dreamed of?

Yekaterina could have persuaded Mason with a thousand experiences and ten thousand examples.

But she just smiled bitterly and closed her eyes.

He was right.

Yekaterina was a person of the past. A person who had survived a barbaric and cruel era.

Her methods had always been right, and they were probably still right now.

Because this era wasn’t the future yet, wasn’t Mason’s era.

But Yekaterina, the Empress of Barbarians…

“Will the world you dream of come?”

“It will come. Definitely.”

Before the hope that was Mason, she decided to bend her will.

“Alright. Then… let’s give him a chance.”