Chapter 620 Cogs ALWAYS Fit Somewhere


    Moments before Lee Joon-ho had been attacked, he was enjoying the feeling of unfettered flight kilometers above the surface of Proxima Centauri b. He had done it before, of course—at least in the simulation and on Earth—but there was something different, something special about doing it on an honest-to-god alien planet. And having been stuck in the research base without being able to fly on his own had been like sandpaper rubbing against his desire to exercise his superpower. ViiSiit  for latest novels


    Before he’d been blessed by mana, he had been lost. As restrictive as the Kim regime had been, at least he knew he had a place. He was a cog. A small cog, but a cog nonetheless, and cogs ALWAYS fit somewhere. But then China stuck its fingers in the North Korean pie and triggered an attack on South Korea, the retaliation for which had completely wiped out the dictatorship that ruled the northern half of the divided country.


    And his place had been wiped out with it.


    So he lost himself. He lost himself in food, in luxury, in fantasies. His new “place” was the tiny bedroom in the tiny house, because tiny was comfortable. Tiny was safe. Tiny was all that he had ever known, ever been.


    But then he became oh so very much more. He discovered a new place, a new role, and he became a slightly bigger cog in a much, much larger machine. A machine that he actually liked being a part of. A machine that allowed him the freedom to fly with the wings that fate had given him.


    So he hadn’t been too upset when his mother had signed him up for the Imperial Hero Academy. Sure, he had made a scene and pitched a fit, but deep down, he was thrilled. Why? Because the academy would let him be a Hero, with a capital H. And that stoked a desire that he had never known was inside him.


    He rose to a standing position, his feet drifting inches off the ground as his mangled legs were incapable of supporting his weight. In his mind, he issued a hearty “fuck you” to the laws of physics as he recalled his training back at the hero academy.


    Looking off into the distance, he saw the massive roots that had flattened the rover he’d been sent to rescue and all conscious thought left him. His animalistic instincts took over and he raised his good arm, pointing his palm toward the base of the roots rising from the flood water a hundred or so meters away from him.


    “Die!” he snarled, then put everything he had left into a single focused area of gravity that swept out in a beam, ripping, tearing, and shredding the roots apart from their very tips down to the ground beneath the water.


    If he’d had anything left in him, it fled at that moment and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground, his eyes fluttering as he drifted in and out of consciousness beneath the pouring rain and rumbling thunder.


    He felt himself lifted from the ground and enveloped in a warmth and, in his delirium, saw Ayaka leaning over him. “You shouldn’t have come,” he slurred. “You’re in danger. Leave here!”


    He mustered up the last dregs of his mana and threw “Ayaka” from him, only for her to be replaced by what looked like a hybrid of Hatsune Miku and Deedlit, from Record of Lodoss War. ‘Am I... dead?’ he thought as he finally lost the battle to remain awake.


    A new, and much smaller, root quested its way to him and wrapped around him. It was soon followed by another, then another, and still more until the only thing remaining was a writhing pile of worm-like root tips floating on the rapidly rising flood that was accompanying the incoming storm.