Taehyun looked at the flame in Gu Beommo's hand.
[Elemental skill: Fireball.]
Even though it was just a Class 1 skill, the temperature in the classroom suddenly rose. The kids watching the situation murmured, but Taehyun paid them no mind. He knew that none of them would intervene in the fight.
Taehyun stopped about five steps away from Gu Beommo.
Thinking that Gu Beommo was scared, he gruffly shouted, "Do you finally understand the situation? You loser. It's not too late now…"
"It's too noisy, and you won't be able to keep it up for long anyway."
Pause.
"Is this guy really trying to…!!"
Gu Beommo trembled in response to the light provocation.
"Go ahead. You idiot."
Taehyun sneered.
The awakening of abilities varies from person to person, but it typically occurs in early childhood. However, until one becomes an adult and obtains a player's license, using that power recklessly is not allowed.
With a few exceptions, using your abilities without authorization from the government would be considered a criminal act.
Of course, there are no special cases in kids' fights, so if Gu Beommo were to cause harm to someone with his skill, it would constitute a criminal act.
'Normally, he should cancel his skill here…'
Taehyun didn't think Gu Beommo had that much self-awareness. He may not have had it in the past, though.
Three seconds.
It's a moment for an ordinary person, but in the Abyss, it's a time when life is at stake.
Taehyun quickly approached Gu Beommo and slapped his cheek.
Slap!
Since he had lost all the muscles he had trained in his previous life, it was an ordinary slap without any special strength.
But it was enough to make the unprepared Gu Beommo collapse.
"Ugh!"
Did Gu Beommo realize the absurdity of the situation himself? He tried to get up quickly, but it was in vain.
The repeated shocks from using untrained magical power had left him powerless. Taehyun looked at him and thought, 'Seeing it like this, they really are just kids.'
In his previous life, Taehyun had been called a 'loser' because he couldn't awaken his skills.
He had been embroiled in numerous troubles, and the bullies had picked on him even though his skill was nothing special.
Among them, Jo Taesik and Gu Beommo had been particularly nasty. They were typical bullies, tormenting the weak and fearing the strong.
Because of these guys, Taehyun had transferred schools at least five times.
'Normally, I would let them off, but…'
Having lived as a porter for 15 years, Taehyun knew that small favors could sometimes turn into daggers.
Thud.
Taehyun sat on top of Gu Beommo, who had lost the use of his legs, and said, "How do you feel, my proud Gu Beommo?"
"Th-this…!!"
Slap, slap.
"Is this bastard…!!"
Without giving Gu Beommo a chance to finish his sentence, Taehyun continued to slap him.
Slap, slap. Slap, slap.
"Hey, try saying it again."
The hand that had been slapping suddenly clenched into a fist.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
"Ugh… Ugh… Stop…"
The one-sided beating had gone on for about 30 seconds. Gu Beommo, drenched in blood, began to sob.
"What if you cry?"
Saying that, Taehyun didn't stop his hand.
"Don't… don't do this, you bastard! You're going to kill me!!"
As soon as he regained consciousness, who had witnessed the situation, said in a trembling voice.
But even after speaking, he couldn't muster the courage to rush in recklessly.
"What are you going to do? Try hitting me, you'll find out that people don't die that easily. And besides, you're not done yet."
Crack.
"Come here."
Taehyun grabbed his collar, but just as he was about to do something…
"Kim Taehyun, stop!"
A girl who had been watching from the sidelines finally stepped forward.
"Hmm?"
"Are you planning to kill him? You've given him enough, haven't you?"
With a face that wouldn't even get a drop of water on it, she stared at Taehyun.
She was over 170 centimeters tall, had neatly tied hair, and wore the same school uniform as everyone else, but she exuded an indescribable dignity.
'Now I can see it.'
Im Ayoung.
In the past, Taehyun had thought of her as just a girl born into a wealthy family, receiving a good education and awakening top-class skills.
A naive hypocrite who didn't understand the ways of the world.
But she would go on to become an SS-ranked player in the future, achieving countless accomplishments. She was always accompanied by the saying "Noblesse Oblige."
Taehyun had never thought highly of her.
'In the past, I remember her stepping up like this. The roles have reversed, but she hasn't changed.'
A slight smile crossed his face, and Taehyun's smirk returned.
"While I was getting hit, you just stood there. Now you want to play the justice card?"
"…"
With that, she walked into the classroom just a little while ago, but Taehyun didn't care. He had no intention of letting hypocrites toy with him from the very first day he returned to the past.
Taehyun held his collar firmly.
"L-let go of me!"
"It's annoying. I'll hold on tightly. It might break if I let go."
Slap, slap. Slap, slap.
Taehyun repeated the same action he had taken with Gu Beommo.
"Eek…! Skill… Ice… Agh…!!"
As tried to activate his skill as a last-ditch effort, Taehyun gave him another piercing look.
The skill, forcefully canceled, activated strangely due to side effects.
Crackling.
Ice Hand was an E-rank skill that strengthened the hand with ice. But looking at the state of his hand, it seemed like he would have a hard time even turning it into a block of ice.
If action wasn't taken quickly, they may need to cut it off.
Taehyun, with his frozen hand, pushed , who was screaming, causing him to collapse on the floor.
"Kim Taehyun, you…"
In an unexpected turn of events, Im Ayoung furrowed her brow.
"Class President, do you have something to say?"
Taehyun asked with a refreshing mood, as if he had just finished cleaning up.
"Well, given the situation… we might have to report to the teacher."
"Go ahead. You're supposed to do that in the first place, right?"
At that moment, the bell signaling the start of the next class rang.
'Perfect timing.'
Taehyun shrugged his shoulders and left the classroom.
In the past, he didn't go to college. What was the point of worrying about classes when he had returned to the past? He would just be growling.
No one tried to stop him.
—
He arrived at the rooftop after leaving the classroom. There was no one there, perhaps because classes had started.
He stopped at a secluded corner of the rooftop where cigarette butts were scattered.
They called it the Smoking Zone, a blind spot without CCTV surveillance in the school.
Taehyun brought up his status window.
[Name: Kim Taehyun]
[Age: 19]
[Rank: E]
[Skill: Predation – 0%]
It was a basic status window before the formal upgrade.
'Sure, there are limits to what I can know, but…'
The fact that he had awakened was clear, and that fact was giving him a strange sense of excitement.
'Is this because of that guy, the King… the power that brought me back to the past?'
The faces of Asmodeus and the King were still vivid in his mind.
In fact, all of this had happened in just over an hour.
He had heard and seen countless skills, but 'Regression' and 'Time Manipulation' were completely foreign to him.
"But why am I an E-rank? It would have been better to be an S-rank or even an SS-rank."
Perhaps he had been alive as a latent rank unknown for over 20 years. Subconsciously, he had expected at least an S-rank.
At that moment, something caught his eye in the skill description.
'0%? Wait a minute. Could this be… a growth-type skill?'
He wiped his eyes and looked again, and 0% was clearly visible.
"My goodness."
A smile that couldn't be compared to the past appeared on Taehyun's lips.
Usually, skills had fixed ranks upon awakening. Only re-awakening could raise the awakening and skill ranks.
But according to statistics from the Player Association, there were less than 10,000 re-awakened individuals worldwide.
And…
Even rarer than re-awakened individuals were growth-type awakeners.
'If this is really a growth-type skill…'
The stigma of being a "Loser." A life as a player that had been nothing more than a dream in the past. A life without strength, without money, crawling on the ground.
And…
This time, he felt a confidence that things would be different.
"Amazing."
He had always believed that the day of his awakening would come eventually.
That's why he had studied everything related to players, without exception.
Was that all?
To assign the role of a non-awakened individual to the porter position, he had focused on weight training and never neglected physical fitness.
The knowledge he had acquired was still in his head, and he knew the methods for improving physical abilities.
Furthermore, the man called the King, the one who had sent him back in time, had given him this power.
"Maybe it was, 'We'll meet again,' or something like that."
The power he gave was clearly not just a simple, ordinary growth skill.
He looked at the status window again.
The skill description was not displayed, so he had no choice but to try using it.
"Predation… It means I consume something, right?"
He had seen absorption-related skills a few times in his past life, which could absorb mana, objects, or even living beings. Higher-ranked skills could store what they absorbed in an extra-dimensional space and expel them.
"But 'Predation'…"
It was a skill that Taehyun, who was familiar with many players and skills, had never heard of.
"Let's check it out."
He looked around, but there didn't seem to be anything to use the skill on.
Taehyun reached out to the wall right next to him.
"Use skill. Predation."
Ding.
[Target is not suitable for skill usage. Scanning for targets within range.]
A message appeared, and he felt drained of energy as magical power left his body.
"Even an automatic scanning function? This can't be a joke…"
At that moment, the rooftop door was roughly pushed open, and a man appeared.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
The man quickly approached the Smoking Zone.
"Oh, it's our school's hero, Kim Taehyun."
"Bae Hyuksoo?"
Taehyun frowned at the unwelcome face.
Just then,
Ding.
[Skill usage target confirmed. Skill usage is possible.]
His previously furrowed face brightened with joy.
"Hey, I'm glad to see you, Hyuksoo."
The burly man, Bae Hyuksoo.
Taehyun greeted him with a cheerful smile.