Chapter 142
Chapter 142
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 142
Chapter Title: Great Chaos in Sejong City
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Oh crap, I can’t stay in the back seat any longer.
“Hyah!”
I hurriedly vaulted over the seat and squeezed into the passenger side. The moment I sat down in the front seat…
Thud!
The treasure chest dropped down right beside me. The one containing the masks.
Crash!
Dozens of masks came spilling out.
“Jang Hyun-deok! How many times do I have to tell you? Get going!”
Pretty clear instructions, right? But Jang Hyun-deok did the exact opposite of what I said. Wait, what’s with the sudden screaming and flailing?
“Gaaah! Monster! Monster!”
“Snap out of it, you idiot! It’s me, Kim Shin-hwa!”
I grabbed his shoulders and shook him, but
“Gaaah!”
It was no use. He just freaked out even more. What the hell is wrong with this guy? It wasn’t until I saw my reflection in the car window that I figured it out.
I was still under [Shadow Illusion], so to him, I looked like a pitch-black silhouette. Plus, I was wearing a different mask than usual. As a silhouette, I probably looked like some hulking demon.
I let out a short sigh and dispelled the magic. Then I squeezed out some mana to infuse Jang Hyun-deok’s mind with unparalleled courage and exhilaration.
[Lion’s Valor]
“Gaaah!? Wizard?”
“Yeah, it’s me!”
“You look like the culprit from a mystery comic! No wonder I didn’t recognize you!”
“Yeah, yeah, now you know it’s me, right?”
The mask I had on was just some random demon mask I’d picked up midway, but hey, it was still the look of your usual Fixer Kim Shin-hwa.
“I almost had a heart attack! And what the hell are all those masks!?”
A jumble of masks of every shape and size chattering away in the back seat.
Scraaatch!
Achilles seemed annoyed at the suddenly cramped back seat too.
“Brought back some souvenirs. Sejong City specialties, apparently.”
“What kind of nonsense is…!?”
“If you’ve got time to yap, floor it! You see that stuff out there?”
I pointed at “that stuff.”
You know, the demolished buildings, dozens of monstrous birds, fire elementals, cultists, and guys like Dokgo Gyeom soaring through the air wrapped in lightning and storms.
“Ugh, so that’s what all the commotion was about. Figures it was you, Wizard…”
“Jang Hyun-deok, you moron, get your head in the game! You’re a pro, aren’t you?”
“I’m good! Situation assessed! We’re outta here!”
Clunk! Click!
The cheerful sound of the gear shifting.
Vrooooom!!
The insane roar of the illegally modded engine.
Screeeech!!
Tires screeching, belching out a massive cloud of smoke.
My body got yanked back. It felt like gravity had flipped directions—an acceleration that hard.
“Yeah! Faster! We gotta escape Sejong City before this blows up even more!”
Maybe he was getting his groove back now that he was driving, or maybe the spell I’d just cast on him was a bit too potent, because Jang Hyun-deok started yapping excitedly.
“What the hell is going on here?! Were you seriously planning to turn Sejong City into a sea of flames?”
“Well, that’s kinda how it turned out, didn’t it?”
“And that’s it? Man, you’re really something, Wizard…”
“EVERYONE FREEZE!!”
A booming voice cut in out of nowhere. From outside.
It wasn’t telling me or Jang Hyun-deok to stop. It was aimed somewhere else entirely. Soon, more voices joined in.
“You cultist scum!! Don’t move a muscle!”
“What the hell do you bastards think you’re doing!!”
Police cars swarming in from all directions.
And the fixers who operated out of Sejong City.
Yeah, right on cue.
Even so, things had escalated this far. You could argue they were a little late to the party.
Vwoom, vwooom!
Drones pouring out from massive airships drifting through Sejong City’s skies.
Rat-tat-tat!!
Two helicopters radiating thick mana.
Boom!
A huge fireball launched from one of the choppers. Must be a combat mage from city hall aboard. The fireball’s target was Dokgo Gyeom in the distance.
“Get lost!!!”
Rumble!!
Dokgo Gyeom’s lightning firing wildly in every direction now.
Sejong City’s grotesquely bustling nightscape whipped by outside the window. And the ridiculous chaos I’d caused.
Boom! Kaboom! Boom!
Intermittent explosions echoing from all around.
Bang! Bang! Rat-tat-tat!!
Gunfire pouring in from every side.
Sejong City’s enemies weren’t just Dokgo Gyeom. Cultists scattering and fleeing in all directions.
‘Guys at the Judge level wouldn’t go down to some half-assed attack.’
Most of them probably escaped alive. They weren’t Dokgo Gyeom-tier, but each one was a heavyweight criminal. Soon, operations to capture them would kick off.
They’d probably seal off the city exits with airtight checkpoints.
Worst case, martial law.
‘If we get caught up in that, we’re screwed too.’
Sorry, Sejong fixers, but I need to stir up a bit more chaos.
“Achilles!”
Scraaatch!
“You’ve been awesome all day! Now send all the summons at Dokgo Gyeom and cut the link.”
Summons—well, just the one type.
“Uhrryyyyyyyyyy!!”
A bizarre roar echoing from afar.
Way off in the distance, between Sejong’s towering skyscrapers, fireballs streaked like a meteor shower, trailing long tails.
“Fomalhaut, you bastards! I’ll kill you all!”
Kill you—kill you—all—all—all— Dokgo Gyeom’s monstrous bellow echoing with massive vibrations.
“At least the divide-and-conquer was a smashing success.”
Not sure if Dokgo Gyeom can escape this mess, but if he does, he’ll smash Fomalhaut’s spawn to pieces.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
“This is max speed already! We’re in the heart of Sejong City!”
“If flooring it won’t cut it, find another way! Drag our feet and we might not get out of Sejong at all!”
We need to bail while everyone’s still dazed. Any later and…
‘Huh?’
A wave of blinding white light surging toward us.
Goosebumps.
An enormous flash erupted from far away.
Sound vanished, and everything ahead drowned in white light.
‘Too late?’
It felt like time had frozen, but it was just a split second.
KABOOOOOM!!
The thunderous boom hit late.
Rumble rumble rumble!!
Vibrations like the car might flip.
Crash! Shatter! Tinkle tinkle!
A torrent of glass shards raining from the sky. The high-rises must’ve shattered from the shockwave.
“Gaaaaah!!”
Jang Hyun-deok’s scream came three beats late.
“What was that!? What just happened!? What descended? What descended!?”
Descended? If that’s what it was, it wouldn’t end like this.
“Nah, the real pros just showed up.”
“Huh? Real pros? What’s that mean?”
“The Immigration Office, obviously.”
More precisely, the monster created by the Foreigner Immigration Control Office.
It had to be the Yangseo-ho.
Or maybe someone had just fired a missile.
“The Immigration Office? That one?”
“Yeah, that Immigration Office!”
‘From my position, a missile would’ve been preferable.’
Jang Hyun-deok would know the Immigration Office’s notoriety well. Thirty percent of a security taxi driver’s income came courtesy of that office.
Without the criminals dodging their gaze, the number of security taxi drivers would’ve halved.
“Eek! Why would those guys come all the way down here?”
“’Cause Shantaks are illegal aliens.”
“Oh, those birds were aliens?”
Yup. Shantaks weren’t just freak birds or anomalies—they were extraterrestrial intelligences. In the family tree, they were cousins to the alien parasites that kidnapped Jeong Hyun-ah back in Yeojeon.
But when they were just lazily circling Paju skies, no one knew what they were, so they got ignored… or so the lore goes.
Pull those Shantaks out of Paju, and a few hours later, the Immigration Office’s Yangseo-ho would swoop in and smash them all.
All according to game canon. That’s why I’d lured the Shantaks here.
“Yeah, so put some distance between us and Sejong City before the Yangseo-ho catches on.”
“Huh? Catches on to what? Whoa, Wizard… no way?!”
“What do you mean, no way! If they find out the call van that lured the Shantaks to Sejong City was us, the Yangseo-ho’ll rip your spine out!”
“Me? Why me!?”
“You gonna keep blabbering? Hey! Straight ahead! Straight!”
An obstacle blocking our path. Screeech! Jang Hyun-deok’s hands flew into action. Screeeech!! The scenery outside spun at breakneck speed.
“Gah!”
Thought we might hit someone, but damn, some serious driving skills. Kaboom! Eh, smashing a few signs is no biggie.
Bang! Kaboom! Gaaah! Stop! Stay back! Get lost! Freeze! You cultist scum! You idiots! Kill the heretics and get me out of here!
Explosions and chaos nonstop, unintelligible foreign curses, a barrage of profanity blaring—and kaboom! The call van plowing through obstacles, “I’ll have my revenge! I swear it!” Dokgo Gyeom’s roar from afar, “Hahaha! Woo-hoo!” Jang Hyun-deok laughing his ass off for some reason.
Everything in Sejong City forcibly awakened, shaking, flashing, mixing, tangling, collapsing.
A frenzy so intense it could drive you mad on the spot.
And then, all that frenzy vanished.
A dark, vast plain unfurled like we’d dropped into another world. And a road stretching straight along it.
The scenery had changed completely in an instant, but we hadn’t teleported to some other realm out of nowhere.
“We’re out!”
Sejong City’s urban core just cuts off abruptly.
Typical of a planned new city, but to me, it felt like crossing a game map boundary.
Now all around us: dark fields, mountains, trees, rice paddies, the occasional small building. Yeah, we escaped.
“We’re out! Not bad, genius Jang Hyun-deok!”
“Wahahaha! Damn right! I’m Jang Hyun-deok, the genius!”
Can I finally relax?
“Nice! Nice! I’ll let you brag for a while!”
“Yippee! We pulled it off!”
“Yeah! Now let’s head back to Paju!”
Jang Hyun-deok kept blabbering triumphantly after that, but I ignored him and turned my head.
Sejong City receding fast. A city of light blazing even at dawn, massive skyscrapers piercing the horizon, airships heading to safe zones, helicopters trailing flames as they plummeted.
Something new had taken root in Sejong’s skyline.
A pillar of pitch-black smoke rising like a missile strike.
Not a missile. The absurd power of a single ability user.
“Phew… it’s a game, so whatever, but what the hell was that?”
My level had gone up a bunch, but I was still far off.
Guys like Yangseo-ho or Dokgo Gyeom were way out of my league.
I’d sooner square up with a Shoggoth.
“Wizard, that thing back there, though…”
His tone had sunk a bit.
“Yeah?”
“Everyone’s not… dead, right?”
“Nah, probably not? Wasn’t a residential area.”
Couldn’t avoid collateral on big targets, but civilian casualties should be minimal.
Oh, cultists don’t count as civilians since they went off the human path.
Anyway, any civilians hanging around the gym had been cleared out by the Eternal Unity Cult’s fanatics using every trick in the book. That’s why I could cut loose.
“About two hours to home?”
“Hour and a half, tops.”
Must be the time of night—no traffic. Yeah, earlier chasing the Shantaks, we’d made it down in like an hour plus change.
“Then I’m crashing.”
“Go ahead.”
Stamina and mental both tapped out.
Even alone with just Jang Hyun-deok, I wasn’t about to actually sleep unsecured.
I just leaned back against the seat and stared ahead. Or more precisely…
[The Eternal Unity Cult’s gathering of Judges, the Masquerade, concluded in the worst way imaginable.]
I stared at the message window.
I’d been ignoring this thing all night, but today I’d keep an eye on it.
[It’s hard to believe how much happened in just one night.]