The air in the Lawyer's office was just as cold and dead as the inheritance itself. A few meagre credits that would never amount to more three month's world of expenses and a small dusty apartment in the lower run-down sections of Seoul, and a box of trinkets that could only be described as junk. That was all that my deadbeat alcoholic father, a former C-Rank Hunter who had drunk himself to an early grave had left me.
Sitting across from me had been the lawyer with a face of faked sadness. Apparently a man who knew my father a long time ago. "Be grateful, Yul Suyeon..." He said not saying grateful at all, since there wasn't much of a commission fee that he could claim from this case. "It's more than some people will ever get."
Yeah. I guess that was true. Just 10,000 credits. A small dusty apartment and just a box of junk... Well it was better than nothing.
"You are right..."
I could only reply. Just not having the desire to demand anything more out of the dead even though he should have left more. I was just fortunate to be alive in this era of hell. Having grown under the care of my sickly mother and in the shadow of that Tower's undergroves, it was enough to live.
Life was a struggle in the shadow of that jagged obsidian tower to the Heavens, even more so as the shadow of those who made it out in life. Resources were thin for the ordinary person. Hunters above the C-Rank were treated as an aristocracy given special preference over the ordinary people of the world while the rest of us somehow scraped by. Somehow.
Leaving the office and coming back home after a short walk, I opened that box of junk. It was where I had found it. It was an old ancient smartphone from the 2020s. It's screen dark and scarred with it's plastic casing being faded and chipped many times over. It was in every sense a fossil from the Pre-Hunter Era of Humanity.
30 Damn Years Before I Was Born...
It was old. Something that I knew for sure but I had a yearning for it. Perhaps it had been curiosity for what that piece of trash had been or anger at the fact that this piece of junk was all that he left me, I pressed the power button.
Nothing.
Yeah. it should have been expected, the phone was beyond dead. The battery like vaporized to dust but as I was about to throw it off to the side, my thumb brushed over the cracked glass screen. Pain jolted out for a moment as my blood dropped onto the phone with the world stuttering.
Shades of black and white all around me in this realm of stopped time. But when it cleared, I dropped onto the ground. The fall was rough and hard. My back aching in pain as I clenched it. My eyes opening widely as I found myself out in the open.
The beautiful blue skies over my head and the once stale gray skies polluted by mana and the particular smell of car exhaust which I had never smelled for so long.
"Huh?"
I could only ask myself that question as I began to stand from the ground. A bright red car at my side with an obviously pissed off driver inside of that car.
"You crazy bastard get the fuck off the road!"
I paused for a moment as I stared right at him. Not really understanding or processing the situation that I found myself in now, he grew irritated. With the car rushed over as I ran off onto the sidewalk.
My body soon collapsing onto a wooden bench at the side as I grasped the old phone in my hands. It was a brush with death unlike anything else I had experienced before. It wasn't like getting attacked by a monster but it was getting attacked by someone who is meant to be one of your fellow countrymen!
I sighed. The sun shining right over my silver hair. I glanced up confused.
"The sun?"
It was always something blotched out by that canopy of darkness that had been mana pollution. But something began to ring. An annoying irritating noise that began to annoy me. I reached out to it to read, "My Honey?" in a confused voice.
I answered the phone confused.
"Hey! Finally you answered your phone babe! You didn't respond for a long time so I got worried, I thought it would have gotten stolen by the Crews from the other schools! After all you were the one who had beaten them up at the arcade the other day!"
My face went blank. The voice was familiar. Loving. Something that I yearned to hear for so long. But there was no way. Yeah. There's no way that she would be alive after all she shouldn't be alive after all tha-
"Um... Are you busy?"
I shook my head. There was no way in hell that it would be her.
'The voice as familiar as it was is too young to be her.'
"Hey, I don't know if you got the right number. But would you like to see me sometime?"
"Wait!? Who even are you!? Are you that admn bitch who is trying to steal my boyfriend from me! You dare take my dear's phone and talk to me with it!?"
She immediately hung up and I stared at the phone confused. She hung up on me just like that? But at least the sun isn't burning the back of my head... I sighed happily before realizing that there was a giant shadow enveloping me over head for quite some time.
A clearly pissed off young man with silver hair just like me stood. He cracked his knuckles slowly and intensely. A clear annoyed look across his face as he looked down over me.
"I was looking for my phone everywhere but it seems like some little bitch decided to take it from me."
He said while towering over me by almost two heads, with his jacket about to pop from the insane physique under his tracksuit.
"This isn't your phone."
I said defensively covering my hands over it and he sighed. Before flashing into light.
My face stung as I fell onto the ground. The searing pain of getting slapped across the cheek registered as I began to feel weak and oozy as my mind began to blank out...
--
"What was dad like when he was young?"
It was a question that I had asked my sickly mother when she was alive.
"He wasn't a good man. Now or then. But he always a man who got into fights and he would always hit on women but it was alright since they deserved it."
"Wha-"
"But even still, he's the man that I love even if he's trash resented by the entire world."
"But why would you still love a jobless bum like that who abandons us to go to the bar every night!"
"It's a hopeless romantic love but back then, he was a man who stood for the people he cared about. He stood strong and firm unlike any other and in those days, he was called..."
--
"Seoul's Fastest Woman Slapper is at it right again! Hitting another woman!"
"Please stop calling me such an immature title."
He scoffed like he always did. The same response when I asked him to not go to the bar out to drink. The same response that he had when mom always spoke of him in a good light.
"I hated it..."
I began to stand.
"I hated life."
My legs weak and cramped resisted my will as I tried to stand. But I found myself standing shakingly.
"There were even some points in life that I wanted to die but mother talked me out of it. But after she was gone like the wind, I gave up on my future. There was no point to it..."
My old bastard stared at me confused with a blank look across his face. But it wasn't completely emotionless as his brows began to furrow.
"So what are you trying to tell me? Go see a psychiatrist you mentally ill bitch."
"Yeah! And if you want, I can call the Ambulance here so you can get taken to a mental ward!"
The lackey joined in and I sighed deeply. The same disgusting breath that my father always took before slapping me across the face. The pain now was unlike anything then.
"...Well there wasn't any point to it until now. But maybe I could just beat some sense into that bastard for my mother."
I rushed towards him swiftly. My fist previously at my side rose over my head as my body grew low and I struck him right square in his face. I stared up at him and he sighed as light twisted once more.
I was sent onto the ground once more. My head smashing right against the concrete which deformed around my indent into the ground.
"Just because I also slapped you doesn't mean that I am your father..."
He snickered disgusted as he squatted right at my side. Placing my phone into his pocket and walking. The lackey joining him right at his side.
"That girl was pretty durable! I bet that she's a lot tougher than those Crewheads that you fought the other day!"
"Yuseong, it wasn't durability... An ordinary girl isn't as durable as a wanna-be gangster. It's just that for some reason, she was a stubborn and animated idiot."
Mana.
It was a power that had always existed in the world as a supernatural force. It was the reason why ancient spiritual practices and supernatural events occured. But only until the opening of the Gates would mana would become abundant enough to revolutionize the world outside of the realm of folklore.
It was also the only means for me to close the power gap between the two of us. In a world where he was a tree and I was an idiot girl with nothing but my fists, I could not even dream to topple him. But to utilize mana, made the battle fair.
No. It was a lie. It wouldn't make things fair at all. If it took a hundred times my power to break that tree that was my father, mana would be more than enough. Since if it were an axe with even a single strike wielded in the hands of a weakling like me, it would collapse every tree in the forests. The impact would be felt a million times over.
I took a deep breath. A slight electric tingle dispersed from my heart to my limbs and head as I tried to recalled the particular feeling that I had only called once before. My blood and heart began to rush faster as my eyes widened. The rough energies conjured up across my body to be gathered and redirected at my core and then transported to my right fist.
I stood before rushing at him once more. The lackey turning to face me as he reached out to me. But it was too late, I was quicker than him. And he turned back to face me. His hands still in his pocket as he walked and a slight chuckle across his face.
"It won't work this time-"
The world flashed from black to white and back to color as my fist slammed right into his right cheek. His body laid limp on the ground as the skin of my hand tore apart and began burst as I disgustingly collapsed onto him.
"Holy shit!"
The lackey screamed out as he saw the scene of daughter and father laid out on the ground equally defeated.
"Well at least I won..."
I said somewhat happy...
End of the chapter