How to Escape Suspicion

In the Yeouido arc, the protagonist's party clears a string of quests, clashes with other survivor groups, and only faces the Licker once the final event — the confrontation with the soldiers — is all that remains.

There's only one reason the story unfolds that way.

Because the Licker is that strong a monster.

No matter how thick the protagonist buffs are layered on, if you don't claim every reward Yeouido has to offer, you simply can't kill that thing.

"KRAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!"

The elevator doors, punched full of holes and bent sharply outward. Standing before them, roaring straight at us — the Licker.

And between me and the Licker, like an impassable wall, a blazing red quest window.

But if we wanted to run from the soldiers pouring down into the underground parking garage, we had to cross that crimson wall no matter what.

We weren't the only ones who could cross it, though.

"Oh — it's coming!!"

"KRAAAAAAAAH!!!!"

So they even do this kind of staging.

The red quest window shattered like glass, and the Licker's face burst through as it charged.

Shiiik!!!!

Those unnaturally thin arms, tipped with massive bone-like hands, came flying in to tear our faces off.

Fast.

Faster than a Mutant.

It looked even faster than Jaeyeol driving his machete home with Acceleration active.

But not beyond my dynamic vision.

My reaction speed was more than enough, too.

Stat Amplification.

With Agility jacked up to 11, I answered the Licker's movement.

Grab!

Taat!!

My left arm wrapped around Yu Eunseol — a little higher than her chest — and I pulled us both back.

Then I squeezed the trigger of the rifle I was holding one-handed.

Tadadadang!!!

Even with a Strength of 8, I couldn't fully control the recoil.

But whatever rounds had hit it from above must have stung pretty hard — the moment the gunfire cracked, the Licker sprang straight up and hung upside down from the ceiling.

What is this, Spider-Man or something..!!

"KRAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

I raised the muzzle toward the roaring Licker again, but it was already gone.

Taat!!!

In the next instant it was plastered to the wall on all fours, then shoved off and launched itself at us.

Shiiik!!!!!

A gale whipped over my head as I dropped into a crouch.

Had this bastard been aiming for that from the start?

The rifle that should have been in my empty right hand was suddenly in the Licker's grip.

Muzzle bent clean out of shape.

Having stripped me of my weapon, the Licker brought its left hand down on me as I crouched there shielding Yu Eunseol.

Whoosh!!!

If this landed, I was dead.

Not because of the girl in my arms — even with Agility at 11, my body simply wouldn't respond in time.

But so what?

This wasn't a one-on-one fight.

Thwuck!!!

Suho's spear came flying from behind, skewering the Licker's descending palm like a shish kebab.

In that same beat I sprang up like a coil and drove the military shortsword — the one I'd taken off the parasite-ridden soldiers earlier — straight up toward the Licker's jaw.

Grab!

Fast hands.

The same hand that had bent the rifle barrel was already clamped hard around the shortsword I'd thrust up.

"KRAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!"

Its maw yawned wide enough to chew my whole head off in one bite and came crashing down.

But again — not a one-on-one fight.

As the Licker leaned its head forward to bite mine off, Gihun's fist smashed into its forehead.

A fist wearing gauntlets hard enough to shatter walls.

Puh-uhk!!!!

But unlike those skinny arms, its neck was thick enough to swallow my head whole, and it seemed to soak up every bit of the impact — the head didn't even rock back.

Still, the descending jaws stopped cold.

Of course, that left one of the three of us — me, Suho, Gihun — completely exposed to the Licker's most dangerous weapon: its tail.

Shiiiiiiik!!!!

The tail came whipping in.

It had punched through the elevator ceiling. Those elevator doors had been riddled with holes by that same tail until it forced its way out.

There'd been a scene just like that in the webtoon once.

Long, flexible, hard, tough, and powerful — that tail would punch through a human body like soft tofu.

But that spot right there looks pretty weak, doesn't it?

The flank where purple blood was still seeping out.

And wouldn't you know it — it was already stained red.

From a Critical Strike.

Puh-uhhhk!!!!!!!

I coolly abandoned the shortsword still locked in its grip, twisted my body, and drove my fist into the flank riddled with bullet holes.

The raw power was no joke.

Kung!!!

The Licker's body — easily over a hundred kilos — went flying sideways and slammed into the wall.

"Tackle!!"

Jaeyeol, charging in with his machete for the finishing blow, dropped flat at the last possible second and swept the Licker's knees with both feet.

Whoooosh!!!!

A fraction later and that whipping tail would have snapped his neck or taken his head clean off.

The situation was overwhelmingly in our favor.

"Suplex!!"

"Ah..!"

Back in elementary and middle school, Gihun's favorite sport had been pro wrestling.

So he answered my call instantly.

Grab!!

As the Licker pitched forward on its swept knees, Gihun wrapped it in a fierce embrace like a lover reunited after years apart, then threw himself backward and hurled the thing over his head.

Completely off-balance, and with Gihun's strength-boosting skill layered on top, the massive Licker went flying without a shred of resistance.

"Mingu!"

"One-Shot!!!!"

"......"

You really don't need to shout the skill name.

Anyway — Mingu swung the rifle I'd set him up with like a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠baseball bat, smashed the incoming Licker square on, and sent it flying toward the underground parking garage.

He realized his mistake a second later and snapped the muzzle up, but he never pulled the trigger.

Because I stopped him.

"Just run!"

"Why?! We can kill it right n—"

"We can't kill it anyway."

If a few rifle rounds were enough to put this thing down, the soldiers wouldn't have been massacred, and it wouldn't have been written as a monster only the protagonist can kill.

And only now did my frozen brain start working again.

This might be a trap.

It front-loads the word "witnesses" to make that sound like the most important part, then drops a hint it has never given before — the dead tell no tales — all to muddy the real core of the quest.

On top of that, it hands out a quest that should have already been issued, complete with a reward, just to further blur the presence of a quest that was already finished.

But the reward tells you everything.

The quest itself is over, but the situation isn't finished.

The real objective is to completely escape the soldiers' suspicion.

Which means I have to interpret the quest I just received in light of the situation I'm actually in.

I'd taken a hostage to shut the witnesses' mouths, but we absolutely could not be seen by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the soldiers coming down into the underground parking garage.

The "reward" I'd received was the soldiers' suspicion — the moment we were spotted, that suspicion would harden into certainty.

So we had to make it impossible for the soldiers to even imagine we were the ones responsible.

Technically it wasn't us — it was a misunderstanding caused by the Licker — but still.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Misunderstanding or not, from the soldiers' point of view, us walking off with their guns was completely unacceptable.

Which meant someone else had to be the ones who took the guns.

Framing the situation that way was the surest method of escaping the soldiers' suspicion.

After all, I could manufacture as many scapegoats as I needed to take the fall for the stolen firearms.

Tadadadadang!!!

Tadadang!!!

Tadadadang!!!

Tadadadadadadang!!!

Judging by the racket of gunfire, the soldiers had found the Licker and opened fire.

It would draw every eye on itself and run.

But it wouldn't come back this way.

Tadadadadadang!!!!

I was already fleeing while dumping rounds from the rifle Mingu had handed me back the way we'd come — a clear message not to follow.

We'd grabbed a decent number of guns, but we were burning through all the ammo on the way out.

This bastard really commits to the bit.

I put the three stat points from the quest reward into Strength once and Agility twice.

Meanwhile this brainless caveman dumped every last point into Strength. Again.

I genuinely don't get it.

"Why the hell do you keep dumping everything into Strength?"

"We're gonna be stuck in Yeouido for a while anyway. Why bother raising Agility~"

"Why bother?"

"Guhhk!!!"

"That's why! You can't even dodge this! You rock-headed bastard!!"

"You little— I'm gonna fucking—!! Augh..!!!!"

"Sigh...."

I casually slipped past Gihun's flailing hands and went over to where the others were gathered to check their stats.

Suho and Jaeyeol had invested the same way I had — one into Strength, two into Agility — but Suho treated Strength as his main stat while Jaeyeol treated Agility as his.

Mingu had put one each into Strength, Agility, and Stamina.

Unlike the Mutant fight, this time both of us had received the exact same two rewards.

One was three stat points, and the other was 100 shop points.

The way it keeps handing out points, the shop is probably about to show up.

"So you brought that woman? At gunpoint, even."

"Hyung, don't tell me..."

"Hyung!! No matter how pretty she is, this is not okay!!"

"Shut up. It's not like that."

It was a black quest that only appeared for me, so none of them knew why I'd taken Yu Eunseol hostage.

But the quest was already complete, and explaining it wasn't the same as spoiling the webtoon's plot, so I laid it out in a way they could understand.

"If that's the case, why not just tell them? That those guys were already dead before we killed them, and that the soldiers got infected by those larva things and attacked us like zombies."

"I already told you. The problem is that we can't bring the guns back, regardless of any of that."

"Ah..."

"Then what are you going to do with her?"

"Once the soldiers stop suspecting us, we let her go."

"Hey, but why isn't that woman even scared?"

"......"

Just as Gihun said, Yu Eunseol was sitting there as calmly as if she were waiting for a friend at a café.

Anyone who'd ever looked in a mirror would have every reason to be nervous.

No telling what five strange men might do to her.

But that was Yu Eunseol for you.

Official main heroine. The ice witch who only cracked her heart open a fraction past chapter 200, even after the protagonist Baek Sihyeon risked his life to save her multiple times.

She was full of fear but never showed it. She could find courage even when she was terrified. Beneath that cold exterior she was capable of real sacrifice. And in pure combat ability she was nearly a match for Cha Suho — the party's second-strongest after the protagonist.

It was only a brief event appearance, but in that arc she beat every single party member except Baek Sihyeon himself — Suho included.

Right now, though, she was just a pretty girl with a frosty attitude.

"Aren't we leaving? Why are we still here?"

Mingu asked, puzzled.

We'd already gotten out of the bank building with the Licker in it, but we still hadn't headed back to the rest of the group.

There was a reason for that.

"I'm wrapping this up clean. No dragging it out."

"Wrapping what up?"

"The soldiers' suspicion. The soldiers' certainty."

"Huh??"

"What are you talking about?"

"Stop talking in riddles and just say it properly!"

"Even I don't get it this time, hyung.."

Of course they didn't.

And I couldn't explain any further.

This was information I only knew because I'd read the webtoon.

"From here on, just do exactly what I tell you. You guys head back first. When you hear gunfire, grab everyone and run over there. Then read what's written on this paper, word for word."

"You seriously want us to... read this..?"

"Yeah."

"......"

I looked at Suho as he took the paper and gave him a firm nod.

"But if it's that place..."

"That place..."

"Yeah. That place."

"What place??"

The place where the people who would take the fall for murdering soldiers and stealing firearms were waiting.

And the event location where the protagonist's party scored some very nice rewards.

Kill two birds with one stone. Catch a crayfish while digging a ditch. That kind of operation.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"The sacred light has guided us to this place!!"

"......"

"Ah... th-the divine revelation has led us h—"

"You are most welcome, brothers. Please, come inside."

Yes!!!