Give Me the Quest
Of course the welcome wasn't going to end like that.
Thud-thud-thud!!
Thud-thud!!
Thud-thud-thud-thud!!
With a racket of pounding footsteps, the first man to round the apartment corner had his eyes go wide.
Because he found himself face-to-face with Mook swinging straight at his nose.
Crunch!!!!
The guy flying backward left the one right on his heels frozen solid in place.
Did I get too strong?
Or are these bastards just ridiculously weak?
Wham!!!!
I yanked Mook back and cracked the protruding butt of the rod against his temple.
His arms flew open naturally, leaving a huge gap—and a spear stabbed sharply into that opening.
I snatched it!
Thud!!!!
This attack left me feeling a little guilty as a man.
The second I grabbed the flying spear with my left hand, I kicked straight up between his legs.
"Guh.....!!!!!!"
"Sorry."
With the apology I smashed the spear in my grip with Mook.
Crack!!
The long shaft snapped. I lightly tossed the remaining short spear—barely thirty centimeters including the pointed tip—upward and caught it properly.
Short spear in my left hand, Mook in my right.
And the people hesitating, backing away.
"What are you waiting for? Not gonna rush me?"
"W-we'll give you whatever you want..!"
"Whatever I want, huh... Nari."
"Nari..? You mean that high-school girl...."
The man's nonsense cut off mid-sentence.
Because the arrow Nari loosed punched straight through his forehead.
And that was the signal.
Thud—
The guy next to the collapsing man lowered his head and checked below.
His own belly, with the short spear buried in it.
"Guh...!!!"
"You murdering bastard!!!"
"Fuck!!"
"Die!!!!"
"Uwaaah!!!"
Murderer, huh.
Is that how I look in these bastards' eyes?
They tried to take what was ours first. Tried to take the women. Even after we let them go, they watched our every move and launched an ambush to match. They threw endless Molotovs telling us to die, dropped every piece of furniture they could find on our heads to crush us. On top of that they took a hostage.
Whether they actually took him or he let himself get taken still wasn't clear.
Those actions caused this result—and they call me a murderer?
Fine. I killed people, so I'll accept being called a murderer.
Then you bastards have to accept it too.
"You die because you did something worth dying for."
"You crazy son of a bitch!!!!!! Ghk..!! Grrk...!!"
I yanked the short spear out of his throat and blood sprayed like a hose with a hole punched in it.
"Uwaaagh!!!"
"Fuck!!"
"Run!!!"
The people who had just rounded the corner rounded it again, shoving each other in the back as they fled. They trampled the ones who lost their balance in the middle, grabbed the hair of the ones in front and yanked them down, scrambling over one another to escape.
"Augh..!! Ugh..!!!!"
"P-please spare us..!"
"Please! We were just doing what we were told!!"
I stood in front of the ones groaning in pain on the floor and the ones scooting backward on their asses.
Then I lowered my eyes and asked.
"Where's the one who ordered you?"
"Building A, unit 1405...."
"And the hostage you brought?"
"Building A, unit 406..! Please spare— hiiik?!!!"
"......"
I simply walked past the man who had curled up with both arms and one leg raised.
"Th-thank you! Really, thank—"
No need to thank me.
These were bastards who came swarming to kill us anyway.
I had no intention of showing mercy.
"Kill them?"
"Kill them."
"Got it."
"S-spare... please spare us!!!!!!!"
The sound of a solid gauntlet smashing down on the man's crown rang out behind me, followed by the rest of them screaming.
Those four as well.
"You fucking bitch!!!!!"
"Uwaaaagh!!!"
"Guh...!!!"
"You...!! Murderer.... bitch...."
Looks like Jihye, Seonye, Jeongyeon, and Huijin had finished off the men with matching injuries.
"Calm the kids down and come up slowly."
"Got it. You're going to rescue Suho first, right?"
"Yeah."
"When you meet that bastard, ask him first why he just took the beating!"
"Got it~"
The women's first kills.
They were probably in a pretty unstable mental state.
They would need time to settle their hearts, so I decided to go alone to save Suho for now.
"Living the good life, huh. Trying to take the elevator while running away?"
"Uwaaaagh!!!!"
"Uwaaah!!!"
"Move! I said move!!"
"Don't push!!!"
The people stomping their feet in front of the elevator scattered looking for a way to live, and I rode the elevator they had already called up to the fourth floor.
But the moment the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor—
Whooosh!!!!
I almost actually died.
I think I nearly pissed myself..?
Half-crouched on the floor, I glanced up at the spear stuck in the ceiling above my head and bellowed.
"I almost died!!!"
"Hah..! Hah..! Too late.."
"This is late?! I came right after you!"
The one pulling the spear out of the elevator wall was Suho, the hostage.
Blood was splattered all over him—from the spear to his face to his entire outfit.
"Hoo.... Let's hear the situation first. Why'd you get taken hostage? I heard you didn't even resist?"
"Because of a quest. Ugh, I'm exhausted...."
"......"
I stood, then flopped down on the floor and let out a deep breath, sticking my face over Suho's head.
The first thing that caught my eye was the people lined up against the corridor wall with terrified faces. Next was the blood-soaked hallway and the people collapsed on it.
I awkwardly dipped my head a little toward the ones whose eyes met mine, then crouched in front of Suho and got a brief rundown.
"So you got a quest to find a hidden message, and the second you realized one of the attackers was asking for help, another quest popped up?"
"Right. A quest to help that person and rescue the hostages. So I got myself taken hostage."
"Free pass all the way to the quest location."
"Pretty much."
"Hmm... Linked quest, huh. Rewards must've been solid."
"Haven't cleared it yet. What about your quest?"
"Don't ask. Just talking about it makes me sad... Ah! Maybe I got a linked quest too?"
Suho was wiped from handling everyone dead in the corridor alone, so I stepped out into the hallway to give him a breather. The elevator started moving and brought the others up.
"If it was that kind of quest you should've told me!"
"I couldn't because I was worried you'd go looking for it all obvious and clueless."
"Good call."
"What's good about it?! So where was the hidden message?"
"On the belt. Black belt—he'd lightly scratched 'HELP' in English."
"Whoa... how did you even spot that.. And that person?"
"Probably with the leader here."
"Ah, is it that guy? The one the others were speaking formally to??"
"That's the one."
"Wow..."
"Alright! Finish the story later—let's wrap the quest. Anyone who hasn't cleared their quest yet?"
Aside from Jaeyeol, not a single person had cleared their quest yet.
The women had thought killing those bastards was enough to prove their worth, but apparently not.
"Ah... are we gonna lose stats at this rate??"
"People's lives matter more than stats."
"I know that, but..."
Especially anxious Jaemin, plus Suho who was the actual quest holder, and Mingu and Yeonghun decided to evacuate the hostages to a safe place with the women.
There were so many hostages that we had no choice but to commit a lot of people.
Plenty of people in this apartment complex were still watching for a chance to attack us, after all.
"But are you three really enough?"
"It's fine. This slowpoke's a bit of a worry, though. If it looks dangerous, hide behind me and Jaeyeol."
"Hyung, I'll protect you."
"Who's protecting who, you punk!"
"Aagh!! That hurts!!"
And so we split into two groups and moved to clear this quest.
It was real.
One of the hostages had given us advice before we went up to the fourteenth floor.
Send the elevator up first.
And that advice was decisive enough to save our lives.
"Wreck 'em!!"
"Kill 'em!!"
"Push in!!"
"Get in! I said push!!!"
"S-stop pushing! There's nobody!!"
"There's nobody in here!!!"
"What the hell are you talking about?!!"
People packed tighter than a rush-hour subway poured into the elevator.
Sharp kitchen knives in their hands.
But thanks to the hostage's advice of sending the empty elevator up first, we got to ambush them instead.
Bang!
Thud!!
I flung open the emergency stairwell door I'd cracked just enough to check the hallway and charged the people clustered in front of the elevator with kitchen knives.
"Th-there..."
One down first.
Crunch!!!!
I smashed the face of the first one to spot us with Mook, then stretched my left hand out, grabbed another by the collar, and yanked hard.
"Bite down hard!"
"Uwaaa...."
I didn't even hear the scream.
Because Gihun's gauntlet had punched into his snout.
And damn, Jaeyeol was no joke either.
Slash!! Thunk!! Thunk!!!
He swung the jungle knife and split one guy's chest open, then yanked it back and stabbed forward, mercilessly gutting the next.
Being able to kill people this casually was because we'd heard a little of the hostages' stories on the way up.
I was planning to beat them all to death from the start regardless.
Crunch!!!!
Whether these bastards were trash gangsters who killed people cruelly if they didn't listen, raped wives in front of their husbands, raped daughters in front of their fathers—or not.
"Just grab them and hang on!!!"
"I said grab them!! Catch them!!!"
"Guh..!!!"
"Khak!!!"
"Ugh...!!!"
Even as their comrades died in front, the ones in back shoved without mercy, driving their own into the kill zone.
But that bastard was seriously loud.
"What the hell are you doing! You bastards!! Can't even push three guys?! You fucking idiots!!!!"
The guy smacking the backs of his retreating comrades' heads and punching them was getting on my nerves hard.
So I sped up.
The speed of punching through.
Wham!!!
Crunch!!
Thud! Thud!
Whoosh!!
Thud— Wham!!
I kicked, smashed down with Mook, punched faces, grabbed collars and tossed them back to Gihun, grabbed faces and slammed them into the wall.
Then the loud bastard who'd been shoving his comrades' backs was right in front of me.
"You try it, you bastard."
"Y-you fucking—!!!!"
I shoved the wrist of the guy stabbing a long sashimi knife upward with his rising left hand and snapped it.
Toward the loud one.
Thunk!!!!
The long sashimi knife buried itself in his own trapezius instead of my body, and the loud bastard screamed his throat raw.
"Gyaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!"
"You can't do it either. You idiot bastard."
"Kill this bastard!! Kill this bas—"
The loud voice didn't come anymore.
Because my Mook had crushed his crown and buried itself in his skull.
"V-Viper hyung-nim!!!"
"Viper hyung-nim's down!!!"
"Fuck..!!"
"Move! I said move!!"
Was he that influential?
The moment word spread that the loud bastard they called Viper hyung-nim was dead, the gangsters who'd been packed in turned and sprinted down the corridor.
About a minute later the corridor littered with corpses was quiet.
"Loyalty-less gangster bastards."
"People like this must be the ones surviving more, right?"
"Probably. Hey, is your quest done? Mine's not yet."
"Mine neither."
I walked steadily until I arrived in front of unit 1405.
Then I pushed the front door handle down—and the unlocked door opened far too easily.
I walked into the living room without any trouble, and a quest success message floated up right in front of my eyes.
Success rewards have been issued.
50P acquired.
That bastard.
The mastermind behind the ambush.
"I'm Hammer of the Heseong Gang. You've at least heard the name, right?"
"......"
"Seeing as you made it this far, you look like you can hold your own. Which family you with?"
"......"
"If you want women, I'll share as many as you like. Money too. The soldier bastards have been robbing banks for a while now. Word is they've stacked a mountain of cash somewhere in the National Assembly. We're hitting that place soon. Take the money, take the guns, and take every last person in there."
"......"
"Team up with me and you can live like kings in this fucked-up world. If things go well and the zombies all disappear, you can live large on the money the soldiers stole."
"......"
"Tempting offer, isn't it? You don't have the numbers to be bullet sponges anyway. I'll provide the troops for that. You take out the heads in the opening. Soldiers are just order-following retards—cut off the heads and they're a disorganized mess. We take the National Assembly and split it exactly fifty-fifty. We can keep working together after that too."
"......"
"Yeah, think about it. What's more profitable for you."
"Hyung..."
"Hey, Kang Juhan.. You're not actually falling for that bullshit, are you??"
"......"
I said nothing.
I just waited.
Until a linked quest popped up like Suho's.
But no matter how long I waited.
"......"
No matter how long I waited and waited again.
"......"
No linked quest appeared.
"Hey. If you're that conflicted, just take my hand—"
"Give me the quest! You empty-headed bastard!!!!"
"Uwaaaaaaaah!!!!"
In the end I couldn't hold it in. I grabbed the face of the gangster spouting stupid shit and hurled him toward the balcony.
Crash-shatter-shatter!!!!!
Select the skill to acquire.
◈ Hard Skin (LV.1)
Even with hard skin, falling from the fourteenth floor still kills you, I guess.
"What a trash skill."
But that sound...
Whooooosh!!!!
I sprinted out onto the balcony where fierce wind was pouring in.
Then I closed my eyes and quietly strained my ears.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat...
I hadn't misheard.
Faint gunfire was reaching me.
Don't tell me Kim Jincheol's group at the shelter clashed with the soldiers?!