Chapter 315 (1/2)

“You seem to be greatly stunned.” Hercules lightly waved his huge hand in front of Su-hyeun and continued, “But I definitely sensed a unique aura coming from you.”

“Ah, you mean this?”

Su-hyeun activated his Sage’s Eye once more. A bluish color swirled in his eyes, and a small amount of magical energy surrounded him.

Hercules clapped his hands and nodded. “Right, that’s what I sensed. What is that exactly?”

“It’s sort of magic.”

“Magic, huh? Aha! You must be a magician then. But you look like a warrior, you see.”

Hercules nodded his head theatrically as if he finally understood it.

It seemed that magicians were real existences in this world. Thanks to that, Su-hyeun now had a cover story.

He told himself, “Well, not a lot of magical energy leaked out, so it should be fine.”

What’s even more surprising to him, though, was Hercules’s reaction speed.

“Just where did he fly in from, anyway?” he wondered.

The moment Su-hyeun activated the Sage’s Eye, Hercules detected an unknown power being used and immediately flew toward the source. Moreover, he came from the sky, which meant that he flew in from beyond the scope of Su-hyeun’s field of vision.

“You should return home at once. You seem to be lost, and the place beyond this point is somewhere you shouldn’t be.”

“There isn’t any place in this world that ‘I shouldn’t be,’ though. As long as my feet can take me there, I can go there. And by the way, I’m not actually lost.” Su-hyeun extended his hand toward Hercules. “I came to meet you, Hercules.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“I told you, I’m here to meet you. There’s no way I wouldn’t recognize who you are.”

“Where did you hear about my whereabouts?”

“I didn’t hear about it. I actually located you. Apparently, you’ve been having a hard time in this place, so I was planning to lend you a helping hand.”

Su-hyeun carefully observed Hercules’s reaction as he said that. Judging from how the latter mistook him for a Giant and attacked, there was little doubt that the demigod was involved in a war with this race of Giants.

Sure enough, Hercules scanned Su-hyeun from top to bottom and slightly furrowed his brows.

“A helping hand, you say…”

Although his words trailed off, even a moron could tell what he chose to omit just now.

Hercules proudly boasted a height of over 2.5 meters and a body full of rippling muscles, while Su-hyeun was about 1.8 meters tall and only had an adequately sized athletic physique.

The latter was by no means small, but when standing in front of Hercules, he came across as a little neighborhood kid in comparison.

“You don’t fight with your physique, though?” Su-hyeun replied.

“Indeed. You fight with strength,” Hercules chuckled softly and extended his hand as well. “It sure has been a long while since I ran into an outsider like you, and I’m not hating it. Although this place is rather dangerous, you being able to come this far indicates that you should be a skilled magician at least. Good to have you.”

Su-hyeun shook the offered hand. “My name is Kim Su-hyeun.”

“Kim Sheon?”

“Kim. Su. Hyeun.”

“Kim, Kim Su…hyeun. That’s an odd name.”

It seemed Hercules found it rather tough to enunciate Su-hyeun’s name properly because he continued to mumble it as they cautiously shook hands.

Su-hyeun looked at Hercules’s large and heavy hand.

The demigod was doing his very best not to grip too hard with his hands. He was probably thinking that the moment he gripped any harder, Su-hyeun’s hand would be crushed to bits.

A little while later, they stopped shaking hands and Hercules spoke again, “Well, I won’t stop any warrior wishing to fight. Although you’re a magician, I still applaud you for your bravery. It must be five years already since I last saw a human who willingly stepped forward to battle against the race of the Giants.”

Thankfully, Hercules didn’t turn Su-hyeun away.

For one, Su-hyeun was a human, and two, this race of Giants that Hercules kept bringing up must have been enemies of mankind.

It meant that the demigod saw Su-hyeun as an ally, not an enemy. The latter had been wondering what he should do in case he got turned away due to Hercules’s change in personality, but it seemed that the change didn’t transform him into a stuffy old man.

“In that case, why don’t we leave right away? Well, then—”

Snatch—

Hercules snatched Su-hyeun’s waist with one arm and placed him over his shoulders. Wondering what the demigod was doing here, Su-hyeun could only silently blink his eyes but became stunned by what happened next.

Ka-boom—!

Accompanied by a noise that sounded like a bomb that went off, the scenery before their eyes changed in an instant.

While carrying Su-hyeun on his back, Hercules leaped and practically flew in the air. To make it clear, the demigod didn’t possess the power of flight, but just the action of him kicking the ground to jump up was enough to fling him hundreds, no, thousands of meters into the air.

“Flying” like this, Hercules eventually landed somewhere with a well-practiced posture. It kind of felt like Su-hyeun was on a wild theme park ride without any safety harness.

“Are you alright?” Hercules asked while putting Su-hyeun down.

After landing lightly on the ground, Su-hyeun looked up and replied, “That was fun, actually.”

“Eh? It was fun?”

“Yes. It was quite entertaining. I think you might earn a decent living by charging for this service.”

“Huh…Well, I’ll be.”

Hercules formed a somewhat sheepish expression from Su-hyeun’s response.

He figured his passenger would not be alright at all, but too bad, the response proved to be rather lackluster. And judging from Su-hyeun’s perfectly normal complexion, Su-hyeun didn’t seem to be bluffing either.

Hercules muttered, “You are a strange guy.”

“That’s not something you should be saying, though.”

“Touché. Follow me.”

Hercules simply nodded as if he didn’t have any comebacks and started walking in one direction. The two crossed some distance in an instant, and soon, their eyes caught the sight of a fairly large two-story wooden building.

The demigod stared at this lone house standing on an empty field and shouted, “Your dad’s home—!”

“…Dad?” Su-hyeun thought.

He was stunned by that word and hurriedly stared at the house. Around the same time, the front door to the wooden building with smoke rising from its chimney was thrown open wide.

“It’s daddy—!”

“Daddy!”

Two small kids—a girl and a boy—only as big as Hercules’s biceps emerged from the house.

The girl with her hair elegantly tied behind her head rushed in first. Hercules bent down and picked the kids up in each of his arms to place them on his shoulders. “Oh my goodness, so heavy! Palaemon, Hale, my dear children! Did you miss your dad?”