The Real Hero and the Fake One (1)
The brothers of the Byun clan had been wiped out. The entire Gwanggaeto Guild had been annihilated. Among the Rune Stones they had devoured, only the valuable ones were sold off. In the end, just four remained.
Jang Sara dragged the sobbing Yoo Ji-min over to me and said, “Hurry up and save this friend. Gilma-nim’s first love, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“Even if you’re a lowly servant, I’m still a woman, right? I was at a drinking party for over an hour. There’s no way I wouldn’t notice.”
Yoo Ji-min gave me a confused look and said, “W-what do you mean? How are you going to save me?”
I laid out Waypoints on the rooftop.
A large, intangible stamp fell onto the rooftop surface.
Kuuuung—
Kwaang—
A loud noise echoed as the tiny things on the rooftop floor flew up, landed, and kicked up smoke.
An intricate pattern appeared under the intangible stamp.
Everyone on the rooftop stared at it with a spark of hope returning to their eyes.
My fellow hunters all shouted something.
“Geumpa! W-what is this? A Waypoint?”
“C-can we even escape with this?”
“…It works, right? Please tell me it works!”
I handed a Rune Stone to Yoo Ji-min and said, “Absorb this.”
“Even if I absorb it, I won’t be able to go to another Waypoint. There’s nothing marked here…”
“Absorb it. I don’t have time right now.”
Yoo Ji-min absorbed the Rune Stone.
I climbed to the highest point on the rooftop and shouted loudly, “Everyone!”
All eyes turned to me.
“We’re all going to die someday. But… not tonight. Not ever!”
It was a lie.
I had no idea what would happen.
I wasn’t sure if the monsters I commanded as my banner could even pass through the Waypoint.
But right now, I had to give them hope no matter what.
“I’ll definitely come back. So I’ll save every single one of you without leaving anyone behind! Five minutes! I’ll be back within ten at the latest. Hold out as best you can until then!”
The people looked bewildered at how I was going to save them, but hope returned and their determination surged again.
“Let’s try it!”
“Hold on!”
“Geumpa fighting! I trust you!”
“You’re a hundred times better than that bastard Ohman-do!”
“A hundred times better than Ohman-do? Even better than S-class Ohman-do!”
I said, “Director Jang, Yejin-ssi, please take care of everyone while I’m gone. And…”
I lowered my voice and told Jang Sara, “If the worst situation comes, take Yejin-ssi and run through a Waypoint. Yejin-ssi feels guilty leaving people behind, so she might try to die with us.”
“I got it. I was already thinking the same thing.”
I grabbed Yoo Ji-min’s hand.
“You said you liked me back at the campus, right?”
“…”
“Let’s see if it’s a lie or the truth. If it’s a lie, you stay here. If it’s real, we escape.”
I hugged Yoo Ji-min tightly.
Her soft hair fluttered in the wind.
The scent of her that I found pleasing made me dizzy for a moment.
Will it really work?
Even if she feels something for me…
Am I still feeling something for her?
At that moment, her hand wrapped tightly around my back.
Perhaps knowing this might be her last moment had made her bolder.
===
===
All the people on the rooftop looked at us with envy.
Surprisingly, the one they mostly envied wasn’t me.
It was Yoo Ji-min in my arms.
At that moment, Han Yejin suddenly appeared and tapped her watch with her hand.
A tingling sensation ran down my waist.
I couldn’t look back, but there was no doubt it was Jang Sara. One hundred percent.
I got it.
I understood.
===
You have chosen No. 1 in the Tower Plaza.
===
Kuuuung—
We instantly arrived at the Waypoint near the tower.
The Waypoint was packed with hunters rushing out of the tower more frantically than ever. The news that a gate had opened had surely reached even inside the tower, so it was only natural.
I said officially, “Then I’ll go.”
“Is there… anything I can help you with?”
“No. So hurry and go home.”
At that moment, she handed me something.
“The letter I couldn’t send at the time. Read it after you save the kids.”
I roughly shoved the letter into my pocket and boarded the Waypoint.
Kuuuung—
* * *
Kwaang—
Kwurrr—
The people left on the rooftop were fighting desperately.
Now Ohman-do had left, so they couldn’t use the area-effect weapon to reduce the number of monsters. Because the aura of courage he provided was gone, the men had to summon their own courage and fight on the defense.
Homemade flame bombs were helping in strange ways.
Instead of exploding and burning the monsters, the weight of the bottle itself was enough to smash their skulls.
However, the bottles that hit the monsters’ heads and fell to the floor caused secondary explosions, reigniting the fire right below the building wall that had been made by Ohman-do’s area-effect weapon. The fire that had been extinguished began to burn again, using the bodies of the fallen monsters as fuel.
The ping-pong ball had already run out of air. Soon, when even the flame bombs were gone, Han Yejin and the women gathered all the throwables they could find from the third and fourth floors.
Beer bottles, monitors, POS terminals, office chairs, drink cans…
The survivors threw everything they could and desperately blocked the monsters from entering the rooftop.
At that moment, a despairing cry came.
“Ugh… now they’re coming up from the side too!”
“This side too! Hic…”
“They’re coming from the back too!”
With the front completely blocked, the monsters finally started dispersing.
Clang—
Moreover, the monsters that had broken through the third-floor glass and entered the building were gradually appearing inside.
The survivors quickly divided their forces to defend all four sides and the rooftop entrance. But because they were already rushing to block the front, splitting their numbers meant the defense lines might not hold.
Now the women were also holding baseball bats and fighting.
At that moment, the defense line on the left wall was breached.
One monster finally reached the rooftop.
Wooorrr—
Han Yejin threw herself forward and swung her machete at the monster’s head.
Paaak—
Even though she was only level 2, as a hunter she managed to take down one somehow.
The problem was that second and third monsters kept coming up onto the rooftop without rest.
Jang Sara saw the situation and decided it was over.
Anyway, in just three or four minutes, the tactical mana cores would drop.
We have to run now!
At that moment, the rooftop suddenly lit up.
Light began to emanate from the Waypoint’s pattern.
And the first one to appear was Hwang Geumpa, followed by the figure of a giant humanoid monster glowing brightly behind him.
A three-meter-tall ogre!
With eight arms!
Kyaak—
The monsters froze and immediately started backing away. One quick-thinking monster even jumped down from the rooftop.
The ogre lowered its tail, picked up the trembling monsters with its eight arms, and smashed their heads to pieces.
“Uwaaaah!”
“What the hell is that?”
At that moment, Jang Sara shouted, “Everyone, don’t be afraid! It’s our ally!”
Soon two ogres and two female ogres arrived.
“Push them over the railing and drop them below!”
As Hwang Geumpa commanded, they immediately moved to each of the four sides of the rooftop and smashed the railings with immense strength, pushing them down.
The monsters that had been crawling up the walls were mostly crushed by the falling railings and died.
“Go down and defend all four sides!”
These clumsy ogres suddenly took out clubs, war hammers, clubs, and morning stars, then jumped down to each of the four sides.
Kwoong—
Kuuuung— Kwoong—
When the people looked down, an earthquake-like wave hit the three ogres that had fallen, knocking all the wild dogs unconscious.
The ogres and ogreses stomped and beat them on top, connecting the monsters’ corpses into one giant lump of flesh. Now the monsters near the area were in complete panic and couldn’t even approach this building.
At that moment, the Waypoint lit up again and Hwang Geumpa disappeared somewhere and returned.
And this time, he was accompanied by oddly shaped bees.
He pulled out a long stinger and began giving busy instructions to the bees that appeared with him.
“What is this? It’s glowing!”
“Fireflies? They’re shining in fluorescent colors!”
“They look like bees, like spiders, what is that?”
The hundreds of monsters poured out from the Waypoint sat at the edges of the rooftop. Then the creatures shot a viscous liquid the thickness of toothpaste from their rear ends onto the rooftop edge and simultaneously flew up into the sky.
Soon they all met at the peak in the center of the rooftop.
A giant spiderweb-like net resembling a pyramid was formed on the rooftop.
A few of them spun around the pyramid and sprayed spiderweb to make the net denser.
Hwang Geumpa watched the progress and soon turned into light and disappeared into the Waypoint.
Immediately, Hwang Geumpa returned. This time with giant long-horned hornets.
“Don’t be afraid. These will save you.”
Dozen of giant long-horned hornets grabbed each survivor one by one.
“Ugh…”
“If you’re too scared, close your eyes. It’ll be over soon.”
Buzzzbuzzbuzz—
The hornets began flapping their wings. People’s feet left the rooftop.
Hwang Geumpa shouted, “Possible! Now down!”
As he shouted, the previously still shiny bugs attached to the edges of the rooftop bit into the toothpaste-shaped spiderweb and tore it off. Other bugs flew back and forth between them, striking spiderweb everywhere. Now the pyramid was completely covered in spiderweb from the bottom of the pentahedron shape.
The pyramid slowly rose upward. Then dozens of long-horned hornets holding one person each could safely rise together inside the net.
“Ssangpal! Wangdaebi! Everyone, come back now! The whole place is about to explode soon!”
As the survivors rose on the hornets, looking down, they saw ogres climbing the building walls and meeting Hwang Geumpa, Jang Sara, and Han Yejin.
Soon all of them disappeared from the rooftop in a flash of light.
At that moment, countless giant moths flew from the side to attack the long-horned hornets, but all of them were caught in the spiderweb, flailed around, or chased away by the fierce attacks of strange day-butterflies shaped like mantises.
And the moths somehow didn’t attack the peak where the spiderweb was formed.
Because they all glowed with the same fluorescent light, the foolish moths seemed to think the others were their own kind.
Glowing Ting-Ting bell moths stuck to the flying pyramid spiderweb looked like pretty Christmas decorations from afar.
At that moment, someone shouted, “Look over there!”
Five small lights were flying this way from afar.
They were Hyunmu missiles equipped with small mana cores.
Kuhung—
Pweeeeng~ Pweeng~ Pweeeeng~
Soon the missiles exploded above the university area where the survivors had just left, creating several small mushroom shapes.
If it had been a normal nuclear bomb, everyone there would have died in the immediate aftershock.
However, the mana cores somehow sucked up everything right after the explosion and self-controlled.
But it was clear that there would be no wild dogs or humans left alive within the explosion’s radius.
The rooftop of the building where they had been fighting moments ago had also disappeared into the nuclear barrage and was now completely invisible.
And the ascent continued for a while.
The people clinging to the long-horned hornets had muffled ears from the air pressure and had to swallow spit constantly.
Now there were no more moths attacking the pyramid. When they rose hundreds of meters above the ground, the Ting-Ting bell moths were only creating a dense sea of light below their feet.
At that moment, a huge hawk was flying from far away. Looking closely, Hwang Geumpa was riding on its back.
“Possible! Now scatter!”
Then the insects that had been guarding the peak and edges of the pyramid spread out in the opposite direction of the center.
Duduk, duduk, duduk—
The sound of the spiderweb breaking continued, and the pyramid completely disintegrated. At the same time, the moths caught on the lines fell downward.
Hwang Geumpa riding the hawk swung two long sticks and took off at the head of the massive flying army.
All the insects followed with loud noise.
* * *
I flew the hornets toward the redevelopment district while maintaining sufficient altitude.
I checked the phone to confirm the exact GPS and began slowly descending.
It was because there was little chance of getting entangled in the annoying task of being photographed while descending to the redevelopment area.
A short while later, the long-horned hornets safely landed the survivors.
The living people immediately began sobbing as they touched the ground.
“We’re alive! We’re alive! Aaa!”
“Ughhh…”
“Mom! Dad! Aah…”
===
===
I checked the numbers.
Forty-two, minus Ohman-do and Ki Ju-hye, exactly forty.
My boast of saving everyone without exception had actually come true.
I shouted in front of everyone, “You all worked hard today. However, I have one thing I want to ask of you kindly. From this moment on, absolutely no one is to speak about what happened today.
Also, refrain from uploading photos taken today on SNS, communities, or appearing on broadcasts or podcasts. If you do, the three of us here will be in great trouble.”
Most people nodded in agreement. Today, probably thousands of people had died at the scene. But where was the place to thank them? The repayment might not be possible, but it would be morally difficult to cheat the people who saved them.
At that moment, a middle-aged man said bluntly, “But… I’m grateful you saved us, but isn’t how we act from now on up to us? Telling us what to do is a bit…”
I immediately waved my hand at the long-horned hornets. The long-horned hornet grabbed that man and flew up into the high sky.
“Eh? What is this? Aaa! No! No, no! Sorry! Sorry…”
The man’s screams grew quieter, but they could still be heard from high in the sky.
“Please spare me~~~ I was wrong~~~”