Hell’s Handbook

A white flash of light appeared in the house and Kano Mai watched as Su Jin reappeared before her.
He had left for barely a minute in the real world, but she had been terribly worried during this time.
Once she saw that he was safely back again, she breathed a huge sigh of relief.

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“I got it!” Su Jin grinned as he nodded at Kano Mai.
But before he could go into further detail, he collapsed onto the floor.

“Jin!” Kano Mai paled as she quickly helped him up.
But Su Jin didn’t have an ounce of energy left in him at all.
If Kano Mai let go of him, he would slump onto the floor again.

“What’s happening to me?” Su Jin was terribly shocked as well.
He was fine when he left Anubis’ mausoleum.
What was going on? Had he suddenly become paralyzed?

But he was quickly overcome by a very strange sensation.
He suddenly realized that his surroundings had become especially clear to him.
He could see every particle of dust, feel even the slightest brush of air and see the tiniest bit of light.

It seemed as though he was able to differentiate everything and look at them separately.
This was both a magical and creepy sort of feeling.
Su Jin could even hear the sound of his blood travelling through his arteries.
One sounded like a gushing river leading to a waterfall, while the other one sounded like a little stream through the forest.

He soon realized that the one that sounded like a gushing river was actually his own bloodstream, since his physical body was very strong.
The weaker one belonged to Kano Mai.

After observing the sounds he was hearing for a while longer, he realized there were other flowing sounds besides these two.
He quickly discovered that these other sounds weren’t coming from his blood vessels.
These sounds seemed to be coming from inside his head and probably had something to do with his psychokinesis.

He activated his Spirit Power and looked at the number in the corner.
His upper limit had hit 300!

Su Jin was astonished at first, but he soon figured out what must have happened.
During his time inside Anubis’ mausoleum, he had completed his journey of self-redemption and had understood concepts that were intangible and were difficult to define.

In other words, sin only existed because there were certain laws that defined it as such.
The exact definition of sin would vary according to which rules you were following, so atonement and redemption were meaningless.

His understanding of this idea increased his Spirit Power by a lot.

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In Daoist terms,1 Su Jin had gained enlightenment and understood the Dao.

According to the Chinese legends he grew up with, Daoists who understood the Dao could go on to become immortals.
Su Jin was clearly not going to become one, but this experience had increased his Spirit Power by a lot.

Su Jin was now sure of the sounds he was hearing, but he also discovered that besides hearing the sound of his own and Kano Mai’s blood circulating, he could hear many more of such sounds coming from outside his house.
These sounds were much more powerful than his own and they were approaching the house.

“Mai, listen to me.
Some people have barged into our house, so you’ve got to be careful!” Su Jin couldn’t move, but he had no problem using his Spirit Power to observe his surroundings.

Kano Mai’s eyes widened, then she retrieved her Soul Whisperer from her Handbook immediately.
She never doubted what Su Jin said.

“We’d better hide first.” Kano Mai retrieved a wheelchair from her Handbook and carried Su Jin onto it.

Su Jin found it very strange that Kano Mai had a wheelchair among her Handbook items, but this was not the time to ask.
She pushed him up to the second story.

“Okay, Professor, what’s your plan?” asked Kano Mai.

“Professor?” Su Jin was confused.
When did he become a professor?

Kano Mai covered her mouth and laughed.
“Haven’t you seen X-Men before? You’ve got psychokinesis and you’re stuck on a wheelchair now.
Don’t you think you’re just like him?”

Su Jin realized that he did resemble Professor X now, except that he had a full head of hair.

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“I don’t have a plan yet…the people barging in seem to be pretty good fighters, so it doesn’t seem possible for you to take all of them down by yourself.
I’ll just spend a bit of points and we can hide in Hell’s Bar.” If Su Jin could move normally, he could have easily taken these people on.

Kano Mai was a sniper after all.
Even though she had taken a body strengthening elixir before, close combat fighting was still not her strength.
If she were in a spot further and higher than these intruders, she could shoot them easily.
But they weren’t in a very good place to do that now.

“Could it be those people from the Department of Supernatural Affairs again?” Kano Mai’s first thought was that it was Situ Jin and his team again.
She couldn’t think of anybody else who would try to sneak a surprise attack on them like this.

Su Jin shook his head.
He could sense their activity, but he couldn’t tell who they were.

“Do you have tranquilizer bullets?” Su Jin suddenly asked.

Kano Mai nodded.
“Yes!”

“Good.
I’ll be your eyes, while you try to shoot them and knock them out.
I’ll think of a way to question them later,” said Su Jin.
He thought it best to find out exactly who these people were.
It was very unsettling to have enemies hiding in the shadows.

“They’re here!” Su Jin covered the entire house with his Spirit Power and detected seven people in the house.

“Someone’s coming upstairs, he’s going to appear at the staircase landing soon.
The closest person to him is five meters away,” Su Jin whispered to Kano Mai.

She nodded and there was a glint in her eye as she got ready to fire.
She took aim and a purple bullet flew out from her Soul Whisperer.
But when the bullet was fired, the man who was supposed to appear at the staircase landing hadn’t appeared yet.

But the man appeared at the exact moment the bullet reached the staircase landing, as if the man had come towards the bullet instead.
That was how skilful Kano Mai was.

Su Jin’s shooting skills were above average and if he joined the military, he would be the sharpest shooter of them all, especially since his physical body and control was way better than an ordinary human’s.
But compared to Kano Mai, his skills were nothing to shout about at all.

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The person who got shot trembled a little but didn’t collapse.
Instead, he looked towards where Su Jin and Kano Mai were hiding and gave them a creepy smile.

“Crap!” Su Jin and Kano Mai realized they were in trouble.
Kano Mai gave up using the wheelchair and carried Su Jin before shifting places in an instant.

Less than two seconds after they shifted, a figure appeared from a dark corner and stood where the two of them were last standing.

“Not bad, huh!” The second man smirked, then called out to the man on the stairs, “Are you alright?”

“Of course! This seems to be a tranquilizer bullet though.
I’m surprised that there are still kind souls among the Hell’s Handbook owners.
Which owner actually uses a tranquilizer to attack an enemy?” The man on the stairs burst out laughing.

Su Jin and Kano Mai’s eyes widened.
These people were not ordinary people.
They were Handbook owners like themselves.
But why were these people attacking them?

“Oho! I found them!” The second man turned and disappeared again.

“Watch out!” Su Jin hissed.
The second man appeared less than a second behind Kano Mai and swung the two sharp daggers in his hand towards her back.

Thanks to Su Jin’s warning, Kano Mai let go of Su Jin and gave her attacker a roundhouse kick, which was definitely the right thing to do in this situation.
If she had chosen to run instead, she would have been attacked by someone else, so the best thing to do right now was to counterattack.

The man didn’t expect her to choose to fight him either.
He could have gone ahead to stab her with his daggers anyway, but remaining close to her would also mean that she would kick him in the chest.

He and his companions had the upper hand anyway, so they didn’t have to allow themselves to get hurt just to apprehend Su Jin and Kano Mai.

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So, he chose to move backwards and gave up fighting Kano Mai.
She pulled her leg back as well, carried Su Jin and ran to a dead end.

To most people, hiding yourself in a dead end while being chased down was the dumbest thing one could do.
But she didn’t have a choice.
They were stuck in the house and were greatly outnumbered.
It was more dangerous to leave their backs unguarded.

She had chosen a place where they could hold off their attackers for a while.
That way, Su Jin could choose to either enter Hell’s Bar or proceed with any plan he might have.

But actually, Su Jin had already realized he had a different problem at hand.
He couldn’t move at all and getting into Hell’s Bar needed him to use his hand.
In other words, going to Hell’s Bar was not an option right now.

“Mai, go to Hell’s Bar by yourself! Now!” Su Jin whispered to Kano Mai.
Things had gotten too dangerous and he didn’t think it was necessary for both of them to end up dying when there was actually a way out.

But Kano Mai shook her head and refused without hesitation.
Su Jin never gave up on her when they were in the Fairytales of Horror Challenge, so she wasn’t going to give up on him either.

“Silly girl, this isn’t the time to prove your loyalty! Hurry up and leave!” Su Jin began to panic.
He was touched that she was choosing not to abandon him here, but he still felt that doing so was very foolish.

She ignored him and continued to hold onto him, refusing to waver.
Su Jin could only sigh exasperatedly.
Then again, it was quite nice to be carried like this.
Kano Mai’s figure was really perfect!

Kano Mai could sense what Su Jin was thinking about and she immediately rapped her knuckles on his head, embarrassing him immediately.
Anyone who didn’t know better would have thought that Kano Mai was the one with psychokinetic powers and could read Su Jin’s mind.

“Your display of love is soooo touching!” The man who had tried to attack Kano Mai earlier appeared in front of them with a mirthless smile on his face.
They could see him clearly now, and to their surprise, he turned out to be a blond white man with blue eyes!

TheClacker: These two chapters made me wonder if I was doing HH or QHDW good gracious.↩