The Age of Adaptation
Rain hammered down in sheets.
The broken drainage system had raised the water level to nearly ankle height.
Waterproof shoes offered nothing but a cold, clammy chill.
"Ssshhhhh..."
Yoo Sung-hwan let out a shallow breath.
With it, the tension packed tight through his body began to thin.
The tremors faded. His focus sharpened completely.
All he could feel now were the tiny muscles needed to fire the rifle.
His dilated pupils took in the scene before him.
"...Left!"
The ears that had been fixed on the rain caught Jeyca's shout.
Following Yoo Sung-hwan's gaze, the muzzle snapped left.
He took aim at the Infector charging from the side, dead set on reaching his brother.
Two targets. Single-fire mode. He squeezed the trigger twice in perfect succession.
Bang! Bang!
Thud...
The two Infectors collapsed on the spot.
Clean hits. Blood spilled from their heads and soaked into the ground.
They became two more bodies among the dozens already littering the area.
Yoo Sung-hwan's scope returned to the front once more.
He had to do his part as a sniper.
He had to make sure his brother could focus entirely on the stronger enemy.
Kraaaah!
The Org bellowed.
Its red skin rippled once over the hard lines of its clearly defined muscles.
It charged with blazing crimson eyes.
Its rain-soaked mane whipped about like reeds in a typhoon.
"I didn't expect you to be the boss here."
Yoo Sung-jun swung the NG-88 behind him.
Then he drew his Jet Sword and faced the monster head-on.
The 3-meter brute leapt.
It brought down a massive hand and claws in a crushing strike.
Yoo Sung-jun exhaled Breathing.
He cast away the unnecessary and filled himself with what he needed.
Crash!
A single burst of flame bloomed in the rain.
It slid past the claws, past the hand, and traced a graceful curve.
For an instant, the shriek of steel cut through the sound of rain and scattered in all directions.
The Org looked down in the surge of pain.
Its right hand had been severed.
Wooooaaah!
Fear came second to rage.
Its remaining hand and foot lashed at Yoo Sung-jun.
"Yeah. That's more like an Org."
Rather than retreat, Yoo Sung-jun took a step forward.
He absorbed the kick.
The dull impact made his body sway for a moment.
The new application of Breathing, One Point Focus, smoothly diverted the heaviest blow.
"You ran from me in the tutorial."
He whispered beside the monster's head, which had been driven low by the force of the attack.
A red line split the nape of its neck.
The monster's hide had been blown open and scorched by the NG-88.
That tough skin split with embarrassing ease.
I'm winning now.
...Grrrk.
As the head fell, the dying groan brushed past his ears.
Yoo Sung-jun sheathed his sword and turned away.
With the 4-level Infector that had seized the area dead, the objective was effectively complete.
"Brother!"
"Sung-jun!"
Two people came running from a distance.
The two who had backed him up so he could face the Org on his own.
He looked back and forth between Yoo Sung-hwan and Jeyca, then smiled faintly.
5,000 points have been obtained.
Cheap. We came here because we couldn't get any more antibodies.
Still, the reward's not bad, is it?
True enough.
As he gave a shrug, the two of them clung to him.
They kept glancing between the Org's corpse and Yoo Sung-jun, their expressions full of disbelief.
It was the look of people wondering how, exactly, he'd brought down a monster that bullets wouldn't even bite into.
"If you know how to make proper use of your natural talent, it's easy as long as your body specs can keep up."
"Still, wasn't it a level 4? Can you really manage close combat with just level 2 body enhancement?"
"I can."
He almost said Meteor out loud, then clicked his tongue.
Jeyca didn't know that yet.
And I can't tell her.
It had already been half a month since the three of them started working together.
They had grown close over that time, but he still couldn't casually reveal his avatar nickname.
The reason was simple.
If she starts leaning on me any more than this, it'll only cause trouble.
This was the best kind of relationship.
Enough tension to keep everyone sharp, enough trust to function well.
Through Appraisal Eye, she detected danger with precision, and his younger brother's exceptional shooting skills provided the firepower to pick off Infectors so long as the party could back him up.
Sniper, helper, all-rounder. That seems about right.
It was a balanced party.
If he dragged in a guard or an attacker now, things might actually collapse under the weight.
This is enough.
There was no need to bring anyone else in.
The three of them had cleared an E+ mission.
At this rate, if you looked at the whole world, they were safely in the top one percent.
"Let's head back. Jeyca. We'll get ourselves sorted, then meet up again in two days."
"Ah, yes. Good work."
After exchanging farewells with her, he asked to return.
He arrived alone in the Enter Room and waited for settlement.
It was the kind of time that suited quiet thought.
One Point Focus really is a solid application.
It was a benefit he'd received from the Higher Being before.
And it was information that the current Yoo Sung-jun, with Body Enhancement at level 1, could still accept.
An improvement in power through Breathing. So that's what one of its applications was.
One Point Focus was an application that amplified the concentration boost that came with Breathing.
Thanks to it, he had opened a gap with the NG-88, which lacked the firepower to compete with the Org, and shoved the Jet Sword through that tiny opening to finish the thing in one stroke.
If my user rank goes up, I do want to ask about this again...
Something else occurred to him, though.
Once he reached Grade 8, that was the first thing he planned to find out.
Settlement complete.
Total: 98,370 points
Even though it had been an extermination mission rather than a capture mission, the points were substantial.
I told you so. It's juicy enough.
"Yeah. Still, stealing the antibodies was the real jackpot."
There are tens of thousands more Infectors than antibodies. If you measure by efficiency over time, this is probably better.
That was true enough.
The number of antibodies was limited, while Infectors kept breeding and multiplying.
Still, the safety was on another level.
Because Alexei and I cleaned out the entire first floor.
There was nothing else left to find there now.
If they searched the second basement floor, maybe, but there really were Infectors there that he couldn't handle at his current level.
The memory of his mind wavering under that gloomy pressure was still vivid.
It's time to move on to the next stage.
Yoo Sung-jun checked his remaining points.
Remaining points: 170,420
This time had just been a huge windfall, but to challenge missions at this level again, he'd been grinding through F-rank missions to keep everyone in sync.
No matter how hard they searched, they could only find one or two antibodies at best.
That was how he'd ended up with this many points.
Well, there were still points he could squeeze out of his younger brother.
I can take those slowly.
The Omega Suit was probably out of reach for now.
It was time to improve his firepower, for what came next.
"Loki. Pull up the list of high-tech bladed weapons. And while you're at it, give me some large-caliber assault rifles too."
[I will bring them up immediately.]
The kind of equipment that only worked in E-rank missions was officially behind him now.
Yoo Sung-jun's eyes swept sharply over the lists that appeared.
***
"Hm? You took your time coming out."
"Had to buy some gear. You done showering?"
"You're really raking in the points. You planning to leave the boiler on?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'll turn it off after I shower."
It was his younger brother, freshly washed.
After exchanging a few words, he finished his shower as well.
When he came back out, his brother was in the middle of maintaining the sniper rifle he'd bought with his own money.
"You didn't even serve, and your weapon upkeep is sergeant level."
"If a guy who's never been in the military wants to survive badly enough, he ends up learning this much."
They'd both been soaked through in the rain, so it needed to be stripped down, dried, and oiled.
Yoo Sung-jun sat beside him and picked up one of the large disassembled parts.
"You don't have to help."
"I've got nothing else to do anyway. I'll give you a hand. Let's finish quick and go train."
With his brother joining the party, they could finally line up their routines.
Thanks to that, he could look after his brother during exercise and sparring, too, and use him as a handy sandbag.
And the more I hold back, the faster his skill grows.
Hand-to-hand combat mattered too, but they were learning it with Infectors in mind.
Even if it wasn't as important as marksmanship, his brother's combat talent was pretty solid.
As he quietly focused on cleaning the weapons while thinking about how much his life had changed, Yoo Sung-hwan broke the silence.
"Oh, right. Are we taking that place again next time? Clearing out the Ashen City."
He meant the mission where they'd killed the Org just now.
Yoo Sung-jun shook his head.
"No. We need to start getting ready."
"For what?"
"Hold on a second and take a look at this."
Yoo Sung-hwan took the smartphone his brother handed him.
On the screen was a conversation with Igrato, the administrator of Sunshine Cover.
"A raid...? We're joining that?"
"Not right away. I looked it up, and the mission to retake that place is C+. Meaning your current gear and your current skill aren't enough yet."
"Then..."
"Let's try missions of a similar type first."
"Then we'll be doing it with another party, huh?"
"That's the situation. Reality isn't as easy as a game."
"If the famous Meteor joins a raid, people would lose their minds."
"I won't be telling anyone, so there won't be anything for them to lose their minds over, idiot."
He gave a dry laugh and handed over the well-cleaned part.
"So get ready too. Before long, let's challenge a decent mission."
Holding the part, Yoo Sung-hwan looked up at his brother as he stood.
He was trying. Still, for his sake.
There's no need for that anymore...
Yoo Sung-hwan slowly clenched his fist.
I need to awaken my natural talent.
The time for it was coming soon enough.
He had about 40,000 points saved up already.
Yoo Sung-hwan offered a short prayer.
He prayed that whatever natural talent he drew would be of real help to his brother.
***
"Jeyca, noona!"
"Sung-hwan! Haven't seen you in a while. Two days, was it?"
"Yep. You've been resting well, right?"
"Of course. I'm practically chugging five different kinds of supplements for my eyes."
"Isn't that a little too much?"
"It's fine. As long as I can keep using Appraisal Eye for longer, that's what matters. Right, Sung-jun?"
"No... when did you two get so close?"
He was the only one being left out.
They were acting like a proper pair of brother and sister, and making quite a scene about it, too.
Watching the two of them being so friendly in the Enter Room, he tilted his head.
At that, Jeyca burst out laughing.
"You never reply in a way that's easy to talk to, Sung-jun. Your brother's more relaxed, so we got close fast."
"Of course I was talking about mission-related stuff."
"Still, you feel kind of hard to get close to. Why? Are you jealous because I'm like this with your brother?"
"It's not that, but... never mind. Get ready."
As if he'd learn anything from talking to the opposite sex.
By comparison, Yoo Sung-hwan seemed to have developed a fair amount of verbal finesse in coed school.
He ignored her teasing smile and pulled up the mission he'd already looked at.
<The Corpse Nest of the Pit>
Type: Investigation
Difficulty: D-
Description: The queen of the rotten maggots. Investigate the truth behind the rumor that she has borne the children of flies. (You may return once you succeed in scanning the queen's eggs.)
Reward: 200,000 points
It was a one-time mission.
One that might easily turn into a raid if they had to face the queen of the maggots, which made it a mission with plenty of potential to escalate.
He nodded at the generous reward and geared up from the equipment repair case.
The two of them stared in surprise at Yoo Sung-jun's changed equipment.
"You usually handle greatswords?"
"Ah, yes."
"That's interesting. Wasn't the greatsword Meteor's trademark? Most attackers prefer longswords or spears over heavy greatswords, don't they?"
That was true enough.
Light, versatile melee weapons were easier to use against Infectors.
But only up to the midgame.
In the late game, against high-level Infectors, one sure method worked better than half-baked tricks.
Yoo Sung-jun glanced at Jeyca, who had brought up Meteor, and tapped the greatsword lightly.
"This suits me."
He strapped the greatsword to his back.
That meant the backpack full of consumables had to be replaced with a space-compression crossbody pack fixed at his side.
What a waste of points.
Still, this was the surest way to secure mobility.
He clicked his tongue and looked over at his younger brother, who had come closer.
He was staring hard at the rifle Yoo Sung-jun had slung behind him along with the greatsword.
"What are you doing?"
"Whoa... that's the one, right? The BK-108. A large-caliber assault rifle. Damn, it looks brutal. How much was it?"
"80,000 points. The modification cost is probably pretty steep too."
The greatsword and the rifle had cost about the same.
That's why he still hadn't modified either of them.
The higher the purchase price, the more expensive the modifications.
He planned to recoup the points he'd spent through this mission.
"Ugh, so it's a castle in the sky. We're heading out now, right?"
"Yeah. You got everything?"
"Already awakened my natural talent, didn't I? You'll be surprised when you hear what I got."
"Good. We'll be joining up with the people there and sharing information, so tell them then."
"Okay!"
With that spirited reply, Yoo Sung-jun accepted the mission.
It was practice for the raid he would later carry out with Igrato.
I'm used to party play, but clan-scale play is still unfamiliar.
For Yoo Sung-jun, who had spent so long wandering through solo play, this mission was practically his first step into group life.
He didn't know whether he could adapt.
All he could do was hope the people at Sunshine Cover were as good as they seemed from their conversation.
And so, the three of them headed to a D-rank mission for the very first time.
Into a pit thick with filth and rank enough to make his stomach turn.
---