The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1197

The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1197

Chapter 1197
Thud!!
When she showed up late at night, there was no need for Davey to waste time asking Reina what had happened before acting. He immediately recognized the man she was carrying.
“He’s lost too much blood.”
“Lay him down over here.” Davey didn’t care that the floor was quickly being soaked in blood. He lowered Seung-Hyun to the ground and stretched out his hand.
Whummm!!
Unfortunately, most of his vitality had already drained away. No ordinary medicine or even advanced divine magic would be able to save him by that point.
However, Davey knew he could pull something off. Without hesitation, he channeled holy power mixed with divinity into the man’s body.
He wanted to ask how it had happened, and why she had brought him there. Besides these two questions, he still had others he wanted to ask, yet he didn’t ask a single one. He simply focused on the healing in silence.
Little by little, Seung-Hyun’s pale skin began to regain its color.
Only then did Davey finally speak. “What happened?”
“He was attacked.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know. Their gear was unfamiliar, and judging by the way they spoke, they didn’t seem like people from Earth or Tionis.”
Davey was surprised. “They weren’t from either place?”
“I’m not sure, I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. I just focused on stopping them and bringing him back.”
“You did well. Still, something’s not right.”
As he checked over the now-closed wounds, Davey voiced the question that had been on his mind.
“Everything else aside... Why was
he
the target?”
“That... I don’t know, either.”
“Well, the injuries are finally completely healed. Go ahead and stay with him until he wakes up. You had something you wanted to say to him anyway, right?”
“So you noticed...”
“Hard not to.” Even if she kept denying it, at the core, she was still Illyna. “Honestly, I’d like to see things work out the way you want. Yet ,ignoring if I’m being honest or selfish, I’m against you two ending up together.”
“Why?”
“You’re just not ready yet.”
Though she looked fine on the outside, she was still deeply scarred on the inside.
It was a judgment made not just for her sake but for his own, too.
“Most certainly, it won’t end well.”
“
Hehe.
You’re the one saying that?”
“Per said it.”
Reina sighed, grumbling under her breath, “Honestly, aren’t you two the same? Up until recently, both of you were thousand-year-old virg—”
Davey clicked his tongue to interrupt her, then Reina stuck her tongue out playfully.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing, too.” Her gaze slowly turned to Seung-hyun, still unconscious and lying motionless.
* * *
After Davey left to investigate, Reina, assisted by the attendants, carefully laid Seung-Hyun on the guest room’s bed.
He was one of the few Earthlings who had been invited to Heins Territory. All she could do by that point was quietly wait for him to wake up. At the very least, she needed to first hear his side of the story before leaving.
Perhaps her quiet wish had reached him, because Seung-Hyun, who had just been lying motionless, slowly opened his eyes. He trembled faintly at the effort, clearly still weak.
Him waking up at all was proof of just how incredible Davey’s healing was. After all, his wound should have proven fatal in literally any other circumstance.
Put more accurately, Seung-Hyun was supremely lucky.
“
Ugh.
”
“Hey. Can you hear me alright?”
“Reina...? Where... am I?”
“You’re in Heins Territory,” she answered plainly, holding out a small medicine bottle.
“Drink it, you need to recover your energy. You’re also banned from streaming for now, the platform just announced it.”
When he reached for the bottle, Seung-Hyun suddenly flinched and drew his hand back.
Reina noticed, and muttered to herself in realization with a bitter smile, “It’s not your fault. It’s okay.”
“S-Sorry... My body just reacted on its own...” He stared resentfully at his trembling hand.
“Most people don’t get stabbed, you know.”
“Yeah...”
“Do you remember anything?”
Considering the question, he quietly covered his face with one hand, then began to bring her up to speed.
He recalled feeling a strange presence in his room. He went to check it out, and something suddenly flashed. Next thing he knew, there he was recuperating in the guest room.
He didn’t even have time to react to the assault.
“But... Reina, why am I here?”
“I went to see you so we could talk... and I found you collapsed,” she murmured softly.
“
Ah...
”
She had saved him by pure chance. If she hadn’t shown up when she did, he would’ve died.
“But... who were the ones that stabbed me...?”
“I don’t know. They weren’t from Earth or Tionis, and I’ve never seen their gear before. More importantly, are you hurting anywhere?”
He hesitated at that question, then forced a laugh. “
Haha...
I’m okay. I’m sturdier than I look, you know.”
“You would’ve died if I’d been just a minute late.”
Quick on his feet as always, Seung-Hyun tried to play it off and change the subject.
However, Reina didn’t give him the chance.
“Mister. You almost died.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“If you had died, I would’ve been really sad. Someone I knew once, who was a lot like you, died under similar circumstances a long time ago.”
The weight of her words, reeking of loss and regret, pressed heavily in the air.
Seung-hyun remained silent.
“I’m glad you’re alive, and I’m glad I came to see you.”
“Reina.” He looked at her with a serious expression. “I don’t think I’ll get another chance to say this—to be honest, I’m interested in you.”
Sharp as ever, Seung-Hyun understood why she had said what she said. It was her way of warning him—to tell him to back off; that something like this could happen again; and that it was dangerous to stay close to her.
Sometimes, humans made bold decisions even without realizing it. Seung-Hyun knew exactly what she was about to say in response, so he went first. “Reina.”
“Don’t...”
“I think... I really do like you.”
‘But you were almost dead just a moment ago...’
However, Reina couldn’t bring herself to respond coldly. He had just barely come back alive—with newly formed PTSD that made him recoil from something as simple as a medicine bottle—yet he had forced himself to speak, pushing past the pain to confess.
She couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow when seeing his current state.
“But I don’t think I even need to hear your answer.”
“I’m sorry...” she whispered.
He smiled bitterly. “I already knew. Compared to you... I’m honestly not much.”
“Don’t say that. Who said you—”
“Please stop. Hearing that makes it feel even worse.” He sighed as he looked away. “Thank you. For saving me. And... sorry, for saying something like this now.”
She was speechless
“I think I understand now why you came to find me.”
Sometimes being tactful only hurts more.
With nothing more to say, Reina slowly stood up. “Just rest up. Once your strength is back, I’ll send you home. Just take it easy until then.”
She walked out of the room without looking back, and Seung-Hyun simply watched her leave in silence.
She didn’t want something to happen between them. He knew it wasn’t something that could be resolved by persistence or effort. She simply wasn’t ready to accept anyone for the moment.
That truth stung more than anything else.
‘If only I’d met her a little later...’
“
Haaah.
” His sigh carried the weight of quiet resignation.
That was when someone’s head suddenly popped into view.
“
Huh? Ah!
” It was none other than Rinne. “Miss Rinne?”
“You are invited to a Gourmet Research Society banquet. Rinne evaluates Kraken cuisine highly.” Sporting her usual blank expression, she shook a bottle of strong liquor in front of him.
“I... was kind of on the verge of dying just moments ago, you know.”
“Rinne s a quote from Master Davey. ‘People don’t die that easily.’”
“In fact, based on current status, Rinne assesses that your body is essentially fully recovered.”
“Won’t we get in trouble if someone finds out...?”
“As long as no one finds out, it’s all good.”
Normally, he would’ve turned her down immediately.
“Rinne s that Evangeline will be attending as well.”
It seemed like the sharp ones had already caught on to the situation.
While he normally would’ve refused, he happened to really want a drink at that moment.
“Screw it. Let’s drink ourselves dead!” He wore a smile, but it looked more painful than when he’d been stabbed. It seemed like it’d still take time for him to truly heal.
* * *
The thick stench of blood filled the air.
Though he could file a police , Davey couldn’t afford to take that risk. Instead, he unhesitatingly deployed a barrier around the entire perimeter of the house.
“
Ugh,
the smell...” Illyna covered her nose with a grimace as she stepped inside. After checking the location where Moderation had collapsed, and inspecting the corpses of the knights Reina had taken down, she turned to Davey.
“Those three match up with what Reina told me. Looks like there weren’t any others.”
If there had been, the bodies wouldn’t have been left out in the open so cleanly.
“Did you find anything?”
“This weapon... It’s not from Tionis or Earth.”
“Then what? Atrellia? Peslisa...?” Davey wondered.
“Doesn’t look like it’s from those, either.”
“
Huh?
Then where’d they come from?”
“Look at their gear. The core for it... the magic stone configuration that powers it... It’s got an entirely different structure. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
From what Reina had described, the intruders were clearly used to fighting mana users. Judging by the quality of their equipment, they weren’t ordinary soldiers.
Davery figured they were likely elite knights or special operatives deployed for high-level missions. Still, he had no clue where they had come from.
“It would've been nice if at least one of them was left alive.”
Unfortunately, all three were dead, their souls already departed.
The most baffling part remained—why had they shown up and attacked Moderation?
“Unbelievable. Then—”
“Hold on,” Davey cut her off mid-sentence and followed a faint trail that led him into one of the rooms.
According to the traces, it was the room where Seung-Hyun had been stabbed. Unfortunately, the room seemed untouched, and there were no signs of forced entry or battle.
Yet Davey, someone capable of sensing dimensional interference, felt something else entirely—he felt vitality flowing nearby.
He forced his own power over the faint residual vitality.
He then saw what was behind the vitality.
“There’s been a dimensional opening here.”
Illyna’s eyes widened. “A dimensional door? You mean the kind you and I can open?”
“Yeah.”
In other words, the intruders possibly had the capability to open dimensional doors.
The idea was absurd. However, Davey kept one thing to himself.
‘They hadn’t crossed dimensions through technology.’
They had instead used one that had already been left open or one that had grown unstable enough to activate on its own.
The one who had made that dimensional door? It was none other than himself.
He had left it alone, assuming nothing would happen.
However, it had come back to bite him.
Even as he tried to keep his conflicted emotions in check, the unstable dimension began opening again. A single figure stepped out with complete confidence.
Clad in heavy armor and wielding a longsword engraved with spells, the knight looked around calmly.
“Looks like they’ve been taken down. Who did this?” he muttered to himself, not even caring that Davey and Illyna were watching him.
Davey could understand his words clearly, thanks to his ability to interpret languages.
The knight continued his monologue, “I need to retrieve the bodies and request reinforcements.
Ah...
locals.”
Only then did he seem to notice Davey.
He raised his sword without hesitation and pointed it toward him.
“There is no grudge, but this place carries the remnants of our almighty divine beast. Blame your unlucky fate.” After muttering in a cryptic language, the man entered a battle stance.
“Davey?” Illyna muttered, frowning.
However, Davey casually reached out and grabbed the closing dimensional door with one hand, forcing it wide open again.
“W-What?!”
“Perfect timing. I was just thinking I needed an informant,” Davey said with a grin.
The knight, sensing his space being overtaken, hurriedly retreated.
“
Gah!!
”
Davey extended his hand and used telekinesis to grip the knight in place.
His weapon clearly disrupted mana structures, that much was obvious. Alas, against someone like Davey, it was meaningless.
“Relax. I’ll treat you kind of like a gentleman.”
His eyes widened in shock, astounded that he was able to understand what Davey was saying.
He assumed the man before him was the one to eliminate the knights who attacked Park Seung-Hyun and Reina.
That realization struck the knight like a ton of bricks, and he screamed, “You... stay back! I can’t guarantee your safety! Do you think this armor and weapon are toys?!”
Davey calmly conjured an energy sword and approached him.
“You fool!!” Straining against the telekinetic pressure, the knight managed to activate the mechanisms in his sword. In response, the telekinetic grip on his shoulder weakened slightly.
Noticing how strong the disruption waves were, Davey couldn’t help but marvel at how expensive the items’ construction must have been.
Realizing he had some freedom, the knight made a judgment call and slashed out with his blade.
According to Reina, their weapons were designed to scramble the structural patterns of mana that formed energy swords.
However, there was one thing he’d misunderstood.
Slash!!!
“W-What...?!”
Instead of dispersing, Davey’s energy sword cut clean through the knight’s longsword, splitting it in two.
Confusion and terror filled the man’s face.
“If my sword broke just from that, I couldn’t call myself a master.”
Wham!!
Davey knocked him out cold with a single blow and wrapped him up in bindings.
“All done?”
“Yeah. Let’s bring him in and start digging. Didn’t he say something about this being a place where their divine beast left a trace?”
“Divine beast...? Was there something like that here?”
“Beats me. Though I don’t know what kind of divine beast they’re talking about...” As he trailed off, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling growing within him.

Chapter 1197