Main Character Hides His Strength

Sungchul seeking out McRaed was a foregone conclusion. He was willing to close his eyes and pretend he did not see anything up until the human sacrifices. But he simply could not ignore the fact that the Fragments of Calamity was involved.

He headed straight to McRaed’s office and placed a Fragment of Calamity on the table after taking it out of its hiding place in his vest.

“What is this?”

Sungchul asked bluntly. McRaed smiled as if she found his forceful behavior uncharacteristic of Sungchul. She gave a faint smile as she looked up at him.

“What kind of

“Answer the question.”

Sungchul had no desire to be messing around. McRaed was once a close acquaintance of Sungchul. She could easily tell that Sungchul was greatly enraged. But she was not intimidated by this.

“What if I don’t want to answer?”

To this, Sungchul answered by slamming his fist on the table. Although it was a powerful impact strong enough to break one of the table’s leg and cause it to lean over, McRaed did not blink an eye. She even showed confidence to send away her guards when they came running into her office.

“Oh my, you might kill someone.”

“Depending on your answer.”

Sungchul was determined. But McRaed’s stubbornness was also unordinary.

“Why not just kill me?”

McRaed stood up with a big smile. Deep within her red eyes, a carefully hidden blood of the berzerker was boiling.

‘Damn.’

Sungchul felt a sense of loss as he watched frenzy ripple and spread through her eyes.

‘Is she having an episode due to her mother’s blood?’

McRaed’s mother’s side family was part of a famed clan of Berzerkers. They were normally fine but they would enter a frenzied berzerk state when they enter are emotionally agitated or hold back their anger. Unfortunately, Sungchul’s sudden action unleashed the seal on her frenzy.

“Just kill me already!”

McRaed shook terribly as she screamed.

“NOW!”

Sungchul could tell from this interaction.

‘This woman. Her illness has gotten far worse than ten years ago.’

Although it was wrong to strike the desk, she would have not snapped from such a trivial thing in the past. The only time Sungchul had seen her go unhinged was when her mother had died as a prisoner in a tower.

McRaed roared at the top of her lungs as she pointed at Sungchul and attacked him, but she was no match for Sungchul to begin with. After failing her first few attacks, she couldn’t hold her anger back and pulled out a dagger to cut herself. Sungchul had no choice but to take the dagger out of her hands. That was when he saw it. The countless scars on McRaed’s arm left from her self harm.

“…”

Sungchul was not ignorant of the shock McRaed would have had to endure as the kingdom crumbled and the king slain. It looked as though McRaed was fine and energetic upon their meeting again, but hiding inside of her was a deep and devastating damage. Sungchul was forced to forgo his initial purpose of coming here and instead focus on calming her down from her frenzy.

‘This is driving me crazy.’

Sungchul held the crazed and foaming woman tight to stop her from slashing her wrist and yelled towards the outside.

“Hey, is there anyone there? Call for a doctor!”

But there was no response.

After a long while, a middle aged woman who was probably a maid could be heard speaking cautiously from outside.

“She will come back to normal if you leave her alone.”

From how it was worded, it seemed as though these kinds of episodes were frequent. Sungchul had no choice but to strangle McRaed to knock her out.

“Ugh…guh…!”

While that was happening, all the drool and snot coming out of her nose and mouth smeared all over Sungchul’s beloved coat.

‘Son of a bitch.’

Sungchul grimaced.

But his hardships were yet to be over. He had to wait for her to regain consciousness. It was possible for him to simply go back for now but going back now but he was perfectly aware that doing so would lead to nothing good.

Only after a long while after McRaed’s episode was over did the servants enter the office to clean up the office. They stared at Sungchul and blinked a few times once they noticed the desk, as if asking what had happened. Sungchul shook his head and pointed towards McRaed. Bertelgia shaking within Sungchul’s pocket when this happened was a foregone conclusion.

After a long period of wait, McRaed finally opened her eyes from the Sofa where she lay.

“Mm… Mmm…”

She brushed aside her disheveled red hair as she raised herself up.

“Eh?”

She breathed a sigh of relief upon noticing that she was in her familiar office but then noticed Sungchul. Her expression was rigid. She must have recalled the sequence of events leading up to her episode. She sat up quickly and asked with a hostile voice.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was just worried.”

“Worried?”

McRaed smiled as if she wasn’t expecting this.

“My dear was actually worried for me? I am moved to tears with how grateful I am.”

“…”

McRaed fell into deep thought after looking back and forth between Sungchul and her broken office. After thinking for a while, she seemed to have made up her mind and nodded to herself before turning to face Sungchul.

“I’ll tell you. If you promise me one thing.”

Perhaps it was due to venting earlier, she seemed drained of energy. She looked extremely exhausted. Sungchul stared straight at her as he asked,

“What are you going to tell me about?”

“About the identity of the object my dear brought to me.”

McRaed’s eyes seemed to sparkle as she looked upon the Fragment of Calamity in Sungchul’s hands.

‘She’s a difficult woman to read.’

Sungchul’s emotions were slow to change. It could be said that his compatibility with a woman whose emotions flip back and forth in their extremes was probably the worst. They may live in the same world but the lives they led took fundamentally different forms.

Sungchul couldn’t pass up the opportunity presented before him. He opened his mouth.

“What do I have to promise?”

“To marry me.”

It was what he had expected, but one he could not agree to. Sungchul shook his head..

“I believe you are already aware that it is not possible.”

McRaed made a mischievous smile as if she had expected his answer and replied.

“You said I was too young in the past, but what’s your excuse now?”

She asked in a sarcastic voice. But Sungchul already knew a gentlemanly response to this. He looked McRaed straight in the eye and said,

“You really want to marry a man who can’t even get it up?”

“Mmm? What do you mean by this?”

McRaed’s red eyes grew round.

“I’ve been told that you had a massive…”

“It’s not true. I’ve put nicknacks in there.”

McRaed couldn’t help but laugh. Sungchul let the constantly hyper listener calm down first before continuing.

“I’ll allow you to take a look. At my curses.”

There were almost no instances where Sungchul had revealed his status screen after obtaining his god-like strength. McRaed wasn’t about to lose this opportunity. A miniature magic formation appeared over her eyes and she took a look at Sungchul’s status screen.

Her body froze up for a moment. She was stunned upon witnessing the indescribably overwhelming ability points.

“M…My dear. Just what kind of price did you pay to obtain such power…?”

She asked with a trembling voice. This was because she knew Sungchul’s stats during his tenure as the Commander in Chief of the Empire. Sungchul breathed out a sigh and looked out the window.

“I stood before God.”

McRaed gave a short scream.

“…I thought I was fairly insane, but you’re even more crazy. You really had to go that far.”

Then, a thought seemed to occur to McRaed which interrupted her surprised rebuke. She immediately stood straight and asked in a cold voice.

“Ryze Himerr. That woman told you about the stairs and then convinced you to go, didn’t she?”

Her words contained the unconcealable venom and disgust she felt towards Ryze as she uttered the name. Sungchul replied in a calm voice.

“Sounds like you’re aware of the stairs?”

“Of course. Our kingdom had one of the top Magic Academies on the continent. I know very well about the existence of the stairs. But according to legend that stairway… no, the blast furnace, there is only one who returned alive in history. Among thousands… no, hundreds of thousands of challengers.”

There was no change in Sungchul’s facial expression but McRaed’s words were enough to shake Sungchul down to his very core.

‘How can that be. Ryze said that the rate of success was about half…’