Martial Arts Returnee’s Game Broadcast

Chapter 213

1.

Step, step.
The sound of wet feet echoed, clearing the air.
Wise hated that sound.
It wasn’t just water that soaked his feet.
It was sticky, slippery—
The unpleasant texture of blood.
The vivid memory of surviving alone in a sea of blood, with the mingling of enemy and ally’s blood, still haunted him.
It was hell-like…

“Wise.”

A voice calling his name in concern.
Wise snapped out of his thoughts at Teresa’s call.

“What’s the report from Nozzle?”
“A vehicle approaching. Six ability users detected. They said combat has begun.”
“I see.”
“Are you worried?”
“A little.”
“Don’t worry about the newbie. I got a little curious and did some digging.”
“What was the result?”
“Completely clean. Not a single record of credit cards or messenger chats.”
“Suspicious.”
“That’s why I trust them more. If there’s something they’re hiding, they probably won’t die easily.”

As always, Teresa’s joking remarks helped ease Wise’s tension, loosening the strain in his shoulders.
A thought from somewhere surfaced in his mind.
They say the woman who burdens a man’s back is a princess, but the one who lightens it is a good wife.
It was something that Nozzle would probably say.

“You’re going to be a good wife.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Let’s move. The sensor in the underground tunnels has detected life signs.”
“Is that a proposal? Are you saying you want to marry me?”
“We’ll talk later.”
“When later?”
“After this mission.”

While Ha Eung Eung was having a carefree moment, two people were silently setting up their death flags.

Surface Checkpoint.
Ha Eung Eung and Nozzle interrogated the man.

“Who are you?”
“I’m the doctor who was taking care of the children at the facility.”
[How many went to the underground?]
“If I tell you, will you let us go?”
“At least you won’t die right now.”
“Everyone except us. There are seven children, and Ron Berger.”

Nozzle pulled out the detector.

“The detector says you’re Ron Berger.”
“Ron Berger said that if everyone moves together, we’d all die. He asked me to take the role of a decoy.”
“This... it’s the transmitter that should’ve been in the assistive device!”

They were caught.
That thought was the first to come to Ha Eung Eung’s mind after hearing that.

“Wise, are you listening? Wise!”
[Did you respond?]
“Wrong. Communication is blocked. Combat must have started.”

The moment she realized that, the time limit was activated.

[Wise team’s underground squad has fallen into the enemy’s trap.]
[If support is delayed, the team members will die.]
[Remaining time 00:10:00]

A ten-minute time limit.
There was little time for movement.

“I’ve told you everything you wanted to know. Now keep your promise.”

Ha Eung Eung nodded.

[Nozzle, put the test subjects to sleep with sleep gas.]
“You want me to use my ability? We need to head to support right now! Hurry up and—”
Ha Eung Eung realized something. If Nozzle had been left alone, things would have played out differently.
Given his attitude now, even if he realized the underground squad had fallen into a trap, he would have focused on clearing the enemies above.

[Nozzle, which is more important to you: the lives of your teammates or the mission?]
“The teammates are more important!”
[Then don’t push them into a corner. With your abilities, you can end it peacefully by subduing them.]

A look of indecision appeared on Nozzle’s face.
Time was rapidly running out.
He irritably manipulated the device on his wrist, and a thick sleep gas clouded the area, putting the test subjects to sleep.

“Silent Swordsman, you go.”
[Are you sure about this?]
“The doctor isn’t asleep at all. One person has to stay behind to guard here. Ideally, it should be someone stronger to help.”

Nozzle tossed something and handed it over.
Ha Eung Eung caught it with the tip of her fingers.

“It’s an umbrella. I picked it up in the locker room.”
“...”
“Go. Protect Wise and Teresa with that umbrella.”

Had Ha Eung Eung not intervened, the Sub-mission - Underground Squad Support wouldn’t have begun in the original Hell Survival story.

“That guy must’ve been a rat in his past life.”

• Suddenly?
• Dashman Official > Silent Swordsman officially supports the two-rat faction.
• This is probably a joke.
• They must be messing around LOL.
• If he’s the “Mother Rat,” then yeah, it’s true.

“How does he find and complete all these hidden routes every time he plays?”

Compared to Dashman’s first attempt at Hell Survival, Silent Swordsman’s gameplay was a work of art.
After acquiring his speed abilities and enthusiastically speeding down the highway, he had died after getting hit by a sports car in the opposite lane—anything would be art compared to that.
As a result, Dashman’s chat was flooded with sharp reactions like Do you have any integrity with those skills? Compare what needs to be compared, etc.

“Stop! Stop the bullying!”

• Please stop the nonsense and turn the camera around.
• The camera can’t keep up with Silent Swordsman’s speed…
• The screen moves, but the player isn’t visible. Magic trick.
• What’s going on? LOL.
• Looking at the minimap, the speed is insane.
• Anyone would think you’re a speedmaster.
• Silent Swordsman is surprisingly fast too.

The speed at which Ha Eung Eung was dashing through the underground tunnels was faster than the speed of a car on the city streets.

<Speedmaster donated 100,000 KRW!>
What’s this?? Why is he switching games right in the middle of a route change??

• LOL, he showed up.
• You were watching, Sensei!
• Yeah, the Speedmaster won’t be doing any more hidden routes. Silent Swordsman looks ready to hit the one-year mark without finishing the Half-Achievement ending.
• Sensei, you don’t have to worry about low blood pressure. Silent Swordsman will raise it for you.
• But you’ll probably collapse from high blood pressure instead!

With only one person left burning with impatience, Ha Eung Eung arrived at the underground tunnels, two minutes ahead of the scheduled time for the mission.
The battle between the first and second in command of the organization, Wise and Ron Berger, had already begun, and the scale was entirely different.

<Elemental Ice Manipulation> <Ice Palace>

Ron Berger flooded the entire underground tunnel with water, using it to create large masses of ice.
Ice pillars rose up from all directions, spinning and forming small ice whirlpools, sending freezing cold that made skin sting and shoes freeze.

“Don’t give them a break!”
“Keep pushing them!”
“We’re helping out Ron Berger’s ability!”

Test subjects worked together, spraying water and creating wind to assist with the ice manipulation.
The overwhelming number and force of the ice spikes were becoming too much to handle.

<Special Compression Ability> <Continuous Compression>

With a single wave of his hand from left to right, Wise made the ice spikes vanish.
The sharp ice shards, which had been coming at them aggressively, were compressed, and what had been a powerful assault turned into sparkling ice particles, like stars in the night sky.

“This is cheating.”
“All those attacks neutralized in one go?”

An absurd battle where dozens of attacks were neutralized with just one gesture.
Wise’s absolute ability to control multiple abilities made any attack ineffective.

“Don’t be shaken. While you can compress attacks, you can’t bring back the lost heat.”

Ron Berger, the second-in-command, lived up to his name.
He launched attack after attack, only to have them blocked.
However, his true strength wasn’t in the attacks themselves but in the additional effects created through those attacks.
As the ice froze, it sucked the surrounding heat, gradually lowering the temperature.
If the temperature continued to drop, both body and mind would begin to malfunction. Even Wise couldn’t respond to everything under those conditions.
He was confident that, at least once, he could break through Wise’s ironclad defenses.

“Freeze them to death!”
“Block their escape routes!”
“As Ron Berger said, keep lowering the temperature!”

The test subjects shouted aggressively as they pushed forward.
Teresa couldn’t do anything in the face of this overwhelming assault.

“Not yet?!”
“Now!”

Wise, who had been compressing all the attacks one after another, finally clasped his hands together and pushed forward with all his might.

<Special Compression Ability> <Over-Space>

His use of the ability was deceptively simple yet brutal.
He compressed the entire area in front of him and launched it beyond the tunnel.
The icy tunnel and even the air, robbed of its heat, all became useless within his range.

The dark gap between spaces, created by the compression, triggered a powerful sucking force, pulling several test subjects into the gap.

Whoosh—Bang!

The torn space returned.
The body parts of the four ability users sucked into the gap exploded.

“Ahhh! My hand!”
“My leg is gone!”
“Save me…”

The test subjects, desperately begging for their lives, didn’t realize what was wrong until it was too late.
Their heads were compressed into the size of a thumbnail.
Instant death, without a doubt.

‘So this is what the first-in-command’s fight looks like. What an incredibly dangerous ability.’

With compression, suction, and destruction of matter, Wise’s compression ability was like having multiple powers all in one.
The level of the fight was on another level.
Even the Silent Swordsman watching recognized this.
But that was the problem.

• Hey, aren’t you going in?
• How long are you just watching?
• Hey, come on! Aren’t you helping the underground team?!
• LOL, I can’t resist watching a fight.
• How can you not watch when there’s a live ice show right in front of you?

Caught up in the high-level battle, Ha Eung Eung had completely forgotten to enter the battlefield.