A Quest That Walked Right In

One thing the quest made crystal clear: this was the Yang Jaeyeol I'd been thinking of. If he weren't an important character, a quest about him never would have appeared in the first place.

"Nari..."

"What?"

"Uh... d-did you eat already??"

"What are you talking about? We ate together."

"R-right... haha..."

The Yang Jaeyeol standing here now looked like a naive country boy — awkward and earnest. But after a certain incident, he would darken into a villain who drove the protagonist to the brink of death multiple times.

And that incident was about to happen. The quest had been issued, after all.

But not right this second. With nothing but close friends and a handful of frightened middle-aged women around, nothing was going to go down yet. That meant I had a little breathing room to watch the situation and prepare.

So first — think.

What kind of incident would it be?

Putting together Yang Jaeyeol's behavior right in front of me with what I remembered from the webtoon, I could make a pretty solid guess.

Han Nari.

She never appeared in the webtoon, but it was painfully obvious Yang Jaeyeol had a crush on her. The other classmates here hadn't shown up in the webtoon either.

Which meant an incident would unfold where Han Nari, the classmates, and even those middle-aged women all died — leaving Yang Jaeyeol as the sole survivor.

And it wouldn't be an ordinary death. For something to turn a naive country boy like him into a full-blown psychopath...

"Rape...?"

A horrific murderer — or a group of them — who had already killed his friends would rape the girl he secretly loved right in front of his eyes. No, not just Han Nari. Every girl here.

Yang Jaeyeol would witness it all, powerless. Helplessness and rage beyond what he could bear would swallow him, and the endless frustration and despair would drag him into the darkness until he finally snapped.

Yeah. Something that extreme would make his becoming a psychopath at least somewhat understandable.

But...... that meant I had to do something similar!!

Fucking hell...!

A quest window billowing with black smoke. A quest worthy of that perverted god, all right.

But the reward was too sweet. A full three stat points. Enough to double any stat I wanted right now. And three stat points was the highest-tier reward you could get for clearing an extreme-difficulty quest that was basically impossible without the protagonist's buffs.

"Just kill him and take her...? Then I'd have nothing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to worry about, right?"

Kill Yang Jaeyeol and fuck Han Nari. No more revenge to worry about, plus three free stat points.

But what if I failed to kill him?

Even the protagonist's party — loaded with every buff and correction imaginable — had struggled to put him down. Sure, that was after he'd darkened. But the fact that four of them had cleared every zombie in this place meant this guy already had a decent layer of buffs and corrections of his own.

And Yang Jaeyeol was a cheat key — just following him would lead me straight to the protagonist. But that was the darkened Yang Jaeyeol.

What if I cleared the quest and he never darkened at all? Would he still go to Yeouido and run into the protagonist's party?

"Hoo... let's think this through calmly."

The white quest: succeed and gain Yang Jaeyeol's trust; fail and he darkens. Either way, no guaranteed disadvantage for me.

The black quest: succeed and get three stat points; fail and I take a guaranteed hit.

"Abandon quest."

Treated as failure meant Yang Jaeyeol would take revenge on me no matter what. Why didn't matter. Even if it was completely forced, there was nothing I could do about it. Me being here in the first place already defied all logic.

So this quest — I had to succeed, no matter what.

I had to ejaculate using Han Nari's body, either without Yang Jaeyeol knowing, or in a situation where even if he found out, he couldn't do anything about it.

But how the hell was that supposed to work?!

I couldn't just ask a girl I'd met today to give me a handjob. And even if I said something that insane, there was no way Han Nari would go along with it!!

"Hoo... I'm going crazy...!"

"What are you muttering about?"

"Wagh!! Y-you scared me! Why'd you sneak up without a sound?!"

"What, you want me to announce myself? O Jihye, coming through~?"

"Ugh, seriously...!!"

Annoying as she was, she had a point. Nothing to argue with.

Wait a second. She was a woman too. Maybe O Jihye would know something.

"Hey."

"What?"

"When you were sucking me off, what were you thinking?"

"Y-you perverted bastard...! Why are you asking me that now!! And keep your voice down...!"

"Just answer."

"What thinking...!! You just shoved it in on your own!! And you threatened me — said if I did anything stupid we'd both die...!!"

"On my own... threats... For that kind of thing to work, it'd have to be a real life-or-death situation like back then, right?"

"Obviously! If it hadn't been, I would've chopped yours right off. With this."

"......"

I stared at O Jihye as she clicked her teeth shut with a sharp snap, then turned my head away.

Would I have to threaten Han Nari the same way? Did that mean I had to turn this safe situation into a dangerous one?

"Ah, right!"

"What now...!"

"Yang Jaeyeol."

"Yes??"

"You got a quest too, right?"

"Ah... yes... I did... But is that real...? Everyone saw it, but it disappeared so fast..."

"That's because you guys moved your hands and closed it. Try saying Check quest."

"Check quest... huh??"

I repeated what I'd told O Jihye and walked them through it. Then I checked the quest contents and moved to clear them right away.

By the way — eleven people here. That meant eleven random box openings... no, wait. We'd killed all the zombies in here too, so with the hidden rewards that was twenty-two boxes?!

Jackpot.

I couldn't force them out of people's hands the way I had with O Jihye, but if they got something they weren't going to use anyway, they might happily hand it over. Whatever came out would probably be useless to those middle-aged women.

"So if we do this, we can get something like the shovel that young man Juhan has?"

"Yes."

"But what are we supposed to do with something like that?"

"Right... it's not like we're going to fight zombies..."

"Then maybe you could give them to me—"

"If anything like a proper weapon comes out, we'll protect you with it!"

"That's right! Just trust us!"

"We'll definitely keep you safe!"

"You all need to get home!"

"......"

I'd laid the whole board, and these kids jumped the gun?! Were they shrewd, or did they just luck into it?

Either way, whatever came out of the ajummas' boxes was mine. But first priority was getting the ajummas moving.

"W-well, that may be so..."

"Fine, let's just do it. You said it's not dangerous, right?"

"What do we need to do?"

Nothing much, really. Just open that door, step out, and come back in. The quest was to escape the jjimjilbang.

I felt the world's unfairness all over again. No — this was outright rigging.

"I got a skill too!"

"You too??"

"We must be super lucky!"

"......"

Six out of eight college students got skills. From basic blue Random Boxes. And they all looked pretty useful.

"Give me a break..."

How was this even possible!!!!

Fine. Call it the Yang Jaeyeol buff. He was one of the major villains through the Yeouido arc, after all.

But the strange part was that nobody had gotten the hidden rewards. What the hell? There clearly weren't any living zombies left in here.

Or was there some other condition beyond just killing all the zombies? Or was the hidden reward something only I could receive?

Yeah, that wasn't completely out of the question. Even the protagonist — plastered with buffs and corrections across 283 chapters of the webtoon — had never managed to claim extra rewards through hidden quest conditions.

Hmm... I'd have to check on that later.

Anyway, because of all that, I'd come up empty.

"Are you sure I can really take this...?"

"You said you'd protect us, student~ Go kill all the zombies with that knife!"

"Yes!!"

"Hell yeah, an axe!! This is totally my style!"

"......"

Of the eleven boxes, six produced skills that applied directly to the recipient. Of the remaining five, two produced weapons — a jungle knife and a hand axe. Those naturally went to Yang Jaeyeol and Park Jingu — whatever that guy's name was — instead of me with my entrenching shovel. The last three boxes spat out garbage you could find lying around the jjimjilbang itself.

In the end, I'd gotten absolutely nothing from eleven box openings. They weren't my rewards to begin ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with, so of course — but why did that piss me off so much?

"If everyone's done checking, help me stack these."

"Hyung, can't we just leave that open?"

"Yeah! We've got weapons now — we should go outside and hunt zombies!"

"I already told you. Killing zombies doesn't give you level-ups or anything."

"It's not about leveling up. We need to get more used to fighting zombies. What if the rescue teams never come?"

Unlike the others, who only wanted to hole up here, Yang Jaeyeol thought differently. Definitely living up to his role as a major villain.

Still, we weren't heading out to fight right now, so the entrance needed to be blocked with tables and chairs from the cafeteria. Sleeping peacefully at night versus sleeping on edge were completely different things.

Even if it was a hassle, keeping the barricade closed normally and only clearing it when necessary was far safer...

"Kyaaaaah!!!!"

"Wagh!!"

"Kyaak!!!"

"W-what?! Why are— z-zombies..!!!"

"No! They're people!"

"Hyung, what do we do?! Open the door?!"

"......"

Several people were pressed against the door, faces twisted with terror. No ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dangerous weapons in their hands. Probably been hiding in a car, or escaped from this building or a nearby one and spotted the light leaking toward the stairwell.

But they looked dangerous as hell. Like the kind of people who'd cause the exact incident that turned Yang Jaeyeol dark.

"Hyung!!"

"Hey..!!"

"O-oppa..!"

"......"

I needed to think carefully.

If I didn't let them in, I might just succeed at the white quest by default. The darkening incident itself would never happen.

But the black quest could fail. Even trying to abandon it counted as failure — and if the situation for the quest never arose at all, it might still count as a fail.

What if it was neither, and the quest just got postponed?

That was a loss. I'd be raising the difficulty on myself. If this quest got pushed back, sure, I'd get stronger in that time — but so would the survivors. They'd adapt to reality, and their mindset would be completely different. They might not beg with desperate, pitiful faces for us to open the door. The moment they spotted us, they might smash through that glass door and come swinging weapons, and we'd have to fight monsters.

Then there was nothing to think about, was there?

"You guys, get back!"

"Hyung..!"

"Now!!"

While the college students retreated, I walked forward and reached for the lock at the top of the glass door.

Click—

The moment the lock released, the people at the door shoved it inward without a second thought.

"Hah...! Hah...! Hah...!"

"Fuck...! Nearly died out there...!"

"Ugh, those monster bastards...!!"

"Th-thank you...! Hah...! You saved our lives..."

At least one of them seemed relatively normal.

Anyway — welcome. Cause some trouble, then die for me. That's about as useful as you'll get.