A Little Protection Money
Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, was home to the largest U.S. military base in the world.
Even counting installations inside the United States itself, it ranked second in sheer scale. The United Nations Command, the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, the Korean military, and United States Forces Korea all sat within its fences. An air force headquarters loomed nearby for good measure. In short, it was a city with an absurd concentration of standing firepower.
Seong Yujin became a single streak of wind and cut across the night sky.
Should've just taken a car.
It would have been a lot more comfortable. He shook his head a moment later. Right now he looked nothing like an ordinary person, and the clothes alone were enough to prove it. Anyone who saw him in the Black Divine Coat of the Moonlit Night [C] would think one of two things: a cosplaying otaku standing in the middle of the street in broad daylight, or a Player. Neither option appealed to him. Taking the long coat off left only a ruined green tracksuit, so running was simply less of a headache. A little annoying, sure—but faster too.
Yujin pulled a smartphone from Chunbae's mouth. Amazingly, after all that time, the battery had not dropped even a single percent.
So time freezes once something goes into his stomach.
He grinned. He really liked that. With a satisfied look he scratched the little bear's head.
"Kkuaaaang—!"
Listening to its pleased cry, Yujin opened the navigation app, roughly pinned the location of the U.S. base, and kept flying in a straight line. The speed made highway traffic look stationary. A distance that would have taken at least an hour by taxi vanished in under thirty minutes.
There.
A fence appeared in the distance, and the security around it was anything but casual. Ordinary people were not meant to get close.
Sentries. CCTV too.
A security net most Players would have trouble slipping through.
…Not Yujin, of course.
He drew up a thread of mana and his form blurred in an instant. The stealth effect of the Black Divine Coat of the Moonlit Night [C] had activated—the same ability that had slaughtered countless Noctivars on the 13th floor. Ordinary human eyes and CCTV cameras had no hope of catching him. Without slowing at all, he vaulted the fence and entered the base. Naturally, no alarms rang.
Getting caught wouldn't actually matter.
But there was no reason to invite the hassle either. Smiling, Yujin stopped. The sudden halt kicked up a violent swirl of wind, but no one was nearby to notice.
Let's see.
He looked around. It was vast—easily the size of a mid-sized city. Buildings stood everywhere, many of them for purposes he could not even guess.
"Tch."
He smacked his lips. He had come all this way, and now…
"Looks like I'll have to put in some legwork."
If he could move the way he had during the treasure hunt on the Tutorial Floor, this would have been simple. Unfortunately that was impossible—he lacked both the level and the skill. Finding what he wanted meant walking the grounds himself.
If I'd known, maybe I should have kept the Space-Time Information Collector [C] for myself.
A flicker of regret, then he shook his head. No matter how he looked at it, giving that one to Vivian had been far more efficient. After a brief moment of thought he spread his sensory field, then turned toward one direction.
That way first.
Some kind of event, maybe? He could feel a considerable number of people gathered there. Hidden in the dark, he approached at a measured pace.
Oh?
His eyes widened slightly. Inside one building, American soldiers in uniform sat packed around a large table. Not an event—a meeting. Yujin studied them.
So all the big shots of the command are right here.
One star through four. Every person who truly mattered on this base was in the same room. He fixed his attention on the one who looked highest ranking: a Black man wearing four stars. The nameplate seemed to read Ryan something-or-other, but it was English and he could not make it out precisely. Naturally he also had no idea what they were discussing. Even with the Player ability that let him understand every language automatically, the conversation was so technical and dense with acronyms that he could only tell it involved some Tower-related operation.
In the end Yujin simply stayed hidden and waited for the meeting to end. More than two hours crawled by. Just as his patience was fraying and he started seriously considering leveling the whole place, the meeting adjourned. The generals and senior officers exchanged salutes and filed out. Ryan Whats-his-name—the man Yujin had marked—stepped outside as well. He climbed into a car his driver already had waiting, accepted the salutes of the soldiers around him, and headed off somewhere.
Perfect.
Yujin followed the car. A short while later, in a stretch of road where he sensed not a single presence nearby, he revealed himself.
Kuuung—!
The black Cadillac slammed to a stop under a brutal impact.
"Wh-what the hell—!"
A traffic accident in the middle of an empty road. The startled driver clawed at the airbag that had ballooned into his face, trying to see outside. Yujin spared him the trouble with a casual sweep of his hand.
Kagagagagak—!
The Heavenly Silk Thread [C] peeled the roof clean off the car. Even though the vehicle was built far tougher than any civilian model, the top folded back as easily as the foil lid on a yogurt cup.
"You can take a little nap."
He tapped the horrified driver's head. The man went out cold on the spot. Ryan Whats-his-name's eyes locked onto Yujin. Surprise sat there, but he had not lost the composure expected of a four-star.
"You know who I am?"
"…A Player."
Given the scene that had just unfolded, failing to guess that much would have been stranger. But that was not the answer Yujin wanted.
"Not that."
His face said, There's a better answer, isn't there? The general swallowed hard and spoke again.
"Seong Yujin."
Of course. Yujin had expected as much. He had crossed paths with American intelligence agents before—the ones who had drawn guns in the middle of Seoul and died for it. After a mess like that, there was no way USFK, much less a man wearing four stars, would not know the name.
"Here for revenge, then?"
Ryan's pupils trembled in fine shivers. Retribution for that day. Considering the power a Player could bring to bear, it was a frightening thought—one that the United States and plenty of other nations had already lost sleep over.
"Revenge?"
Yujin smiled as if the idea amused him.
"Well, not entirely wrong."
He scratched his head, then reached out and lifted Ryan into the air by the front of his uniform.
"Just not quite the kind of revenge you're imagining."
"What do you mean…?"
Even through the fear, the general's face said he could not understand.
"I'm saying I don't plan on killing you."
That was the truth. America had thrown the first punch, but this particular man had not been the one throwing it. There might have been some connection, sure. If Yujin went around executing every single person involved, though, the United States itself might collapse. He had no interest in that.
Instead—
"I'm just gonna shake you down a little. You can live with that much. I'm letting you walk away, after all. Right?"
Yujin's smile suddenly felt far too sharp.
Monsters were strong. Ordinary humans could not handle even a first-floor monster. But what about the strength of humanity itself, rather than any single human?
That was a different story. The power humanity had accumulated over thousands of years was anything but weak. Under the name of science they had achieved feats capable of calling down catastrophe. The proof was the End itself. In the first cycle, the End that left the Tower had lived up to its name and brought the world to ruin. Humanity's thrashing, though, had not been trivial either. A creature that outran sound itself had been slammed into the dirt more than once—all thanks to weapon systems mankind had built. A few of those hits had even inflicted serious wounds. Nuclear weapons. The End had recovered in moments, of course, but the point stood: humanity's power could reach the beings inside the Tower.
So Yujin had thought—if modern weapons could somehow be brought into the Tower, wouldn't things have turned out differently? Maybe the collapse could have been avoided. Maybe more people would have survived. There had been no way. On return trips into the Tower, nothing but the clothes on your back could come with you.
"But it's different now."
The moment the smartphone Chunbae had swallowed reappeared inside the Tower, Yujin had smiled with pure satisfaction. At last he had a method. He could clear the Tower in a completely different way from the first cycle. That was why he had come straight here the instant he stepped outside—to the place that currently held the most powerful weapons on the Korean peninsula.
As if he were out shopping, Yujin dragged Ryan from one depot to the next and stuffed everything into Chunbae's belly. Personal firearms and ammunition like the M4A1, of course, but also AGM-114 Hellfires, ATACMS, M270 MLRS rockets and missiles, C4 and every other bomb he could find. He swept the shelves clean. Chunbae kept gobbling weapons without pause, even though the pieces were enormous and there seemed to be no end of them.
"Surrender!"
"You're surrounded! Release the Commander and get on the ground—now!"
After he had cleaned out roughly four armories, Yujin's progress was finally discovered. The ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Commander had been abducted and American weapon stocks were being looted in real time. Every unit on the base poured toward them. Helicopters rose and circled overhead; for a moment it reminded him of that thief game he used to play years ago.
"Move already."
Yujin did not give a damn. He kicked Ryan lightly in the backside. The general staggered forward on shaky legs.
"What's this one?"
"…Tomahawks."
"Ah, the ballistic missiles?"
"They're cruise missiles."
"Same difference."
Yujin dug at his ear and asked again.
"How many rounds? Don't give me any classified bullshit."
Ryan had tried dodging the answer several times already and gotten beaten for it. In the end he had spilled the information and lost the weapons. This time was no different.
"Around forty."
Ryan ground his teeth as he answered. His pride was shredded and duty burned hot in his chest, but neither meant a thing in the face of overwhelming violence.
"Kinda light."
Yujin muttered. He would have preferred a few more. Ryan decided the man in front of him was insane.
"Do you even understand what you're doing? You know damn well the homeland will never let this go!"
"Yeah, I know."
"Even if you steal the weapons, you won't be able to use them!"
That was true enough. Modern munitions were not dynamite; you could not just light a fuse or throw them and expect a bang. Yujin, however, had his own ideas.
"That's my problem, so stay out of it. Just open that door."
They had reached the weapons bunker said to hold the Tomahawk cruise missiles. Yujin's heart thumped with anticipation as he waited for the door to open. And at last—the Tomahawk, the so-called missile of freedom, came into view.
"Chunbae. Eat up."