Chapter 37
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Crystal Mine (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The echo of the loudspeaker faded away.
Barrett's final desperate outburst returned as a hollow reverberation.
Twin Lax plunged into a deep silence, as if mocking him.
Not a single resident sided with him, despite the tantalizing offers of bounties and tax exemptions.
Instead, the eyes peering from behind windows were filled only with contempt.
Even his clumsy show of public authority had crumbled into worthless scraps of paper.
Jinwoo laughed at the sight.
'Security force? More like a gang.'
As night fell, fear tightened its grip around his throat in an even more vivid form.
Pfsh!
A bullet from somewhere slammed into the wall right next to the office window.
Outside was pitch-black darkness.
He couldn't even guess the direction, let alone the sniper's position.
The village, once thought safe, was no longer secure.
Not even the sheriff's office remained a sanctuary.
"B-Boss! The scouting party got hit again!"
"Where this time?!"
"East side of the village outskirts! The moment they climbed the fence... right in the head..."
Going outside was suicide.
Attempts to flee the village had already been proven futile multiple times.
Every night, his men vanished one by one.
"Aaaargh!"
Screams echoed from the darkness.
And without fail, come morning, corpses dangled in the square!
The surviving gang members, gripped by terror, refused to step foot outside the office.
But taking villagers hostage wasn't an option either.
One panicked subordinate had already tried it.
"P-Please, spare me!"
"Come out! I said come out! Or else—Gahk!"
That ghost-like sniper's marksmanship pierced the hostage-taker's forehead without hesitation.
Human shields were useless.
And after such blatant attempts, the villagers' hostility grew even more apparent.
"What the hell?! What are you doing to the security force? Put that gun away!"
"Ahem... Security Chief, sir. We're sorry, but with that sniper running wild at night, we can't exactly go unarmed, now can we?"
The villagers openly carried weapons they'd hidden away, using the sniper as an excuse.
As they died off one by one, their numbers visibly dwindled.
The remaining gang members now worried they couldn't handle the villagers if they rose up.
The kingdom Barrett had built had become a prison trapping him inside.
His face pale, he paced anxiously around the office.
'If this keeps up, we'll starve to death!'
That unknown entity toyed with the Cobra Gang like a cat playing with a mouse.
Slowly squeezing the life out of them.
'I have to escape!'
That single thought swirled in Barrett's mind.
'But how? Every path is blocked!'
Just then, a forgotten lifeline flashed in his mind like a ray of light.
'Right. The Crystal Mine!'
The secret hiding spot where he'd stashed his dirty money for years.
There was an old tunnel leading to the other side of the wasteland that no one knew about.
A variable he hadn't considered before because it was too narrow and dangerous.
"Damn it! It's not over yet!"
He dredged up his last shred of hope from the swamp of despair.
He scraped together the remnants of his gang—now fewer than twenty men.
Every one of them had only the raw instinct to survive gleaming in their eyes.
"This town's done for! But we still have a chance! We're heading to the Crystal Mine!"
At his desperate shout, glimmers of hope sparked in the gang members' eyes.
"We'll grab our lifeline hidden there and get the hell out! Hire mercenaries in another town, report properly to the Federation... and take it all back!"
It was a pipe dream.
But for the Cobra Gang right now, it was the only lifeline they could cling to.
"Move, quick!"
"Yes, Boss!"
They staked their final hope on preparing their last escape to the Crystal Cave.
From the village outskirts, Jinwoo watched their movements through his scope.
The gang bustling around, hastily packing bundles.
'Finally, the last phase begins.'
Jinwoo recalled the secret passage in the Crystal Mine.
The operation proceeded swiftly and stealthily.
"We need to draw that sniper's attention!"
Barrett first ordered two subordinates.
"Set fire to an empty warehouse on the west side of the village—the farthest from the office!"
"Fire, sir?"
"Yeah! Make it big! Pull every eye toward that side!"
Moments later, massive flames lit up the night sky in crimson.
"Fire!"
All eyes turned westward.
Barrett and the remaining gang members seized that exact moment.
Like rats, the Cobra Gang scurried through the darkness toward the Crystal Cave in the opposite direction.
"Huff... huff... Anyone tailing us?"
"Doesn't look like it, Boss!"
They glanced back repeatedly, but saw no signs of pursuit.
No shots either.
Barrett let out a sigh of relief.
His final stratagem had worked.
They finally reached the dark, damp entrance of the Crystal Cave.
"Hurry inside! We're in the clear now!"
Buoyed by hope, they plunged into the pitch-black depths of the cave without a single ray of light.
Jinwoo had watched the entire scene from the roof of the village's tallest building, from start to finish.
The blaze roaring in the west.
And Barrett's crew vanishing into the eastern darkness.
"A classic feint east, strike west strategy."
Taking out Barrett would have been child's play from the start.
'He's finally moving. Tougher than I thought.'
Blowing his head off through the office window wouldn't have taken a second.
But Jinwoo held back.
There was a reason Barrett needed to stay alive.
An image surfaced in Jinwoo's mind: a secret chamber deep in the Crystal Cave.
Inside it sat a massive steel vault.
'Locked with an eight-digit code, no less. The problem? It generates a random password each playthrough.'
In the game, there was no way to open that vault.
No patterns, no hints.
The only way was to use Barrett himself, who knew the code.
Try to blast it open by force?
The secret ledgers inside would burn to ash, and the gold bars would melt, rendering them worthless—complete with traps for that exact purpose.
'I need him to open the vault himself and load the contents onto the ore cart. That's the perfect strategy, in the game or here.'
So Jinwoo waited.
For Barrett to walk into his own grave and offer up all his wealth on a silver platter.
Jinwoo quietly descended from the roof.
It would take time for Barrett's crew to delve deep into the cave and open the vault.
'Following through the main entrance would be amateur hour.'
Jinwoo walked toward the Crystal Mine entrance.
Village outskirts.
A spot overgrown with thick bushes hiding the entrance.
An abandoned tunnel entrance forgotten even by villagers and gang members alike.
"Alright, time for the shortcut."
Without hesitation, Jinwoo stepped into the pitch-dark mouth of the tunnel.
Cool, damp air utterly unlike the outside world brushed his cheek.
Right on cue, a new system window appeared before his eyes.
Perhaps triggered by the sight of Barrett setting the fire and fleeing.
Purge the Source of Corruption (2/2)
Final Stage: Enter the 'Crystal Cave', secure the criminal evidence and black money that Sheriff 'Barrett' is trying to smuggle out, and execute him.
'Finally, the final stage.'
He checked the quest window and pressed on through the darkness.
Strange vines sprouted sporadically at the tunnel entrance.
Jinwoo parted them without hesitation and proceeded inside.
Suddenly, a massive boulder blocked his path.
His hand groped the damp, moss-covered surface.
'Third protrusion... down a bit... here.'
Jinwoo pressed firmly on a specific spot.
Rumble...
With a low grinding sound, part of the boulder slid inward.
A gap just wide enough for one person soon opened.
Beyond it lay the entrance to what looked like an artificially carved tunnel, shrouded in pitch blackness.
The abandoned tunnel.
A secret passage forgotten for decades since the vein dried up and it was sealed.
Even in the game, only discoverable through specific sub-quests—a perfect hidden route!
"I've given them plenty of time to run."
The cave air was far colder and damper than outside.
The flapping of bats echoed.
Distant dripping water resounded eerily.
He pulled a small lantern from his belt and lit it.
The faint light illuminated the tunnel interior.
"Damn, it's tight."
The secret passage was indeed narrow.
Rotted wooden supports looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Sharp rocks jutted from the floor.
It seemed dangerous, but Jinwoo's steps held no hesitation.
'Following them would be easy, but I'd have to deal with their traps.'
'This path... lets me hunt them.'
Jinwoo steeled his mind.
By now, they were probably scrambling through the deep hidden passage.
'But they won't arrive quickly.'
Because Eldorado's mines weren't just caves.
'Native Eldorado monsters live inside!'
The self-proclaimed security force's job often involved dealing with those beasts deeper in.
They'd brought guns, but caution would slow them down.
'Well, I'll have to face monsters too.'
The lantern's dim light briefly caught Jinwoo's cynical smile.
'I remember the trap locations. Reviewed the beast strategies too.'
All that remained was to rush in and secure the loot they'd kindly pull from the vault themselves.
Tap! Tap!
Jinwoo's footsteps soon vanished into the deeper darkness of the tunnel.