Chapter 4
I’ll translate the chapter into natural English and format every system-style line as styled HTML blocks, keeping the output strictly in the required chapter format.CHAPTER_TITLE: Chapter 4
Rainwater pattered down in a heavy spray.
In the chaos, with dust and debris choking the air, I finally forced my eyes open.
“Cough……”
I let out a dry hack and scanned my surroundings.
What the hell had just happened? I staggered through the collapsed wreckage, trying to make sense of it.
“……What……”
The restaurant was a disaster. I was still trying to steady my breathing when—
“……Hah! Sir……!”
I spotted the teacher lying nearby. I hurried over to her.
She’d passed out. I felt for a pulse, and thankfully, she wasn’t dead.
Quickly, I hoisted her onto my back.
[SURVIVE.]
The system window hovering beside me suddenly caught my eye. It had appeared before everything blew apart.
……It said quest, didn’t it?
What was a quest? And what was that message supposed to mean?
I’d never even heard of something like a quest. This felt like yet another impossible, absurd thing happening to me.
What the hell is going on?
I had no idea.
I clenched my teeth.
“Survive,” it said?
That was exactly what I wanted most.
Then, all at once—
“Excuse me……!”
I heard a voice. I snapped my head toward it and saw someone pinned beneath rubble on the left, calling desperately for me.
“Please help me……!”
It was the restaurant owner.
The moment I saw him, I moved.
“Are you all right?”
“M-my leg……”
Damn it.
His leg was trapped under the debris. What was I supposed to do? I reached out and tried lifting the rubble first.
Whoosh—!
“……Huh……!”
It came up far more easily than I expected. I stared, startled despite myself.
Is this because I awakened?
Had becoming a superhuman made my strength jump like this? So this was what that synchronization thing was about after all.
After clearing the debris, I helped the collapsed owner to his feet.
“Ugh……!”
“Just hang on a little longer.”
Supporting the man as he groaned in pain, I looked around again.
The restaurant’s entrances were blocked too. The explosion’s aftereffects had sealed most of them with rubble, but—
There.
Fortunately, another exit was visible, probably exposed by the blast.
I headed for it.
It looked too narrow to get through as it was, so I moved my foot.
Bang-!!
I slammed the rubble aside, cracking the wall and then breaking it open.
I’d tried to apply my newfound strength, and it worked.
“……There.”
I’d made an opening big enough to escape through. I stepped outside.
Beeeeeeep---!!
Wheeeeee—!!!
The world outside was already a disaster.
“An ambulance……! Call an ambulance, now……!”
“My child is still inside……!”
“Ghhh……!”
Groans and screams overlapped in a relentless tide. I looked up at the building.
……Jesus.
The first floor where I’d been was mostly demolished, and the upper floors were cracked or blazing in several places.
How had this happened? Why had there been such an explosion in the middle of the building?
As I wondered, the restaurant owner I was supporting muttered hoarsely, “T-terrorist attack…… It was a terrorist attack……”
“……A terrorist attack……”
Terrorist attack?
The news I’d heard lately flashed through my mind. The attacks happening in countries all over the world.
……Renegade superhumans.
I bit my lip.
First, I took the restaurant owner I’d brought out and helped him lie down somewhere safe.
“Student…… thank you…… thank you.”
“It’s nothing. They said an ambulance would be here soon.”
I turned my gaze back to the building.
……What a mess.
It was scorched, cracked, and half-collapsed.
Dammit.
As I stared at it, one thought kept coming back to me: there were still people trapped inside.
Should I go back in and save them?
I hesitated for a moment, but then that system window appeared in my mind again.
[SURVIVE.]
……It’s telling me not to go in.
Don’t go back in. It was too dangerous. Just focus on surviving.
That was what it seemed to be insisting.
“……”
It was right. Going in would only put me in danger. What could I even do once I got there?
The rescue team and the superhumans should be on the way.
So there was nothing for me to do.
I can’t die.
Not when I still had things to do.
Just as I decided I should get to safety too—
“My…… my child is still in there……!”
“Dammit……! There’s someone inside! Where the hell is the rescue team?!”
Voices reached my ears.
They were noises that had nothing to do with me.
My superhuman hearing was catching every single sound far too clearly.
[SURVIVE.]
“……”
With trembling fingers, I pushed my hair back.
[WARNING.]
[SURVIVE.]
“……”
The repeated alerts left me certain of it.
That bastard wants me alive.
That’s why he keeps showing me this over and over.
I knew that much.
But then—
-Mommy…… I’m scared……
I heard a small voice.
[SURVIVE.]
-Waaah……
I heard crying again. I carefully lowered the teacher I’d been carrying onto the ground.
And then—
“Ah, screw it.”
“Student? Student!!”
My thigh moved on its own.
* * *
-Jinwoo.
Whether it was my mother or my father, both of them had said the same thing to me again and again.
-Cherish your life.
They always told me they wanted me to value myself, that I didn’t need to live for other people.
It was absurd.
Those weren’t words I’d expect from people who had lived more selflessly than anyone else.
Maybe because they had lived that way themselves, they wanted me to choose a different life. But if that was the case—
Then at the end, they should have chosen differently themselves.
They had shown me only this life.
How was I supposed to know any other path?
To me, it only ever felt suffocating.
Look at me now.
“You idiot.”
Even while cursing himself, this was what I was doing.
“Damn dumb bastard……”
I spat out a mouthful of curses.
There was no end to them.
The stench of burning and the falling debris made my body tremble over and over again.
You don’t want to die either.
I wanted to live. More than anyone, I wanted to live. How could I waste a chance I’d been given like this?
I had things I needed to do, and I’d been living all this time for that very purpose.
“……Damn it.”
I was a fool. A complete fool.
Crack-!
I lifted a shard of debris in front of me and hurled it aside.
“Is anyone there?”
“Hah!”
The person trembling inside jumped when they saw me.
“Hurry and get down. It’s dangerous.”
“T-thank you……!”
I’d saved one more person. Even while speaking, my body kept moving.
I went back into the ruined building and kept looking for survivors. By my count, I’d found and rescued ten people.
[SURVIVE.]
The alert kept doing its best to block my vision.
“Shut up.”
It’s not like I’m the only one who wants to live.
[SURVIVE.]
Ugh, can’t I just turn this thing off? I really wanted to shut it out.
……Fourth floor.
We were in a ten-story building, and I was on the fourth floor. The fire had started on the sixth, and smoke had already filled the whole structure.
Where the hell is the rescue team……?
If there was a rescue unit made up of awakened ones, they should already be here. For some reason, their response felt too slow.
“Huff.”
I covered my mouth with one hand and kept moving.
My eyes flicked around as I assessed the situation.
……Go any higher and it’ll really be dangerous.
Between the building’s shaking and the thickening smoke, staying longer would be reckless.
So now I had to go down. I had to give up on the arrogant idea that I could save everyone.
Just as that thought formed—
-Moooom……
“……”
The cry sounded clearer than before.
“……Fine. Just one more.”
[SURVIVE.]
This time too, I ignored it.
* * *
Sixth floor.
In the end, I reached the floor where the fire had broken out.
This was where the crying was coming from.
Fwoooosh-!!
Flames roared on without pause.
“Tch.”
I flinched at the heat, then forced my way forward while dodging around it.
-Hic……
The crying was close.
It should be around here.
Where was it?
Which way?
-Mmm…… ma.
My ears pricked up. I’d found the source.
I turned sharply. A steel door was right in front of me. I put all my strength into my leg and kicked it open.
Bang-!
The noise exploded as the steel door came flying off its hinges.
Fwoooosh-! I stepped inside through the suffocating heat.
The moment I did, I spotted her.
“Waaah……!”
A little girl was crying beneath a desk pinned under the collapsed wreckage.
“……Are you okay?”
I approached and asked her. She looked up at me with a frightened face.
She couldn’t have been more than five.
“Let’s go…… We need to get to your mom.”
“Mom……?”
At the word, the girl’s eyes brightened instantly. I lifted her carefully into my arms.
She didn’t resist. I exhaled when I felt her tiny hands wrapped around my neck.
Now I had to go.
I had to push through the fire and somehow make it back down.
Fwoooosh-!
Flames kept surging, and black smoke blotted out the view ahead.
What had exploded here? What was the terrorist’s goal?
Why had they targeted this building in the first place?
As questions rose in my mind—
……Did they just set off an explosion?
Had they stopped at that, and nothing more? Was this really just a pointless act of terrorism?
While that thought flickered through me—
[SURVIVE.]
[SURVIVE.]
[SURVIVE.]
[SURVIVE.]
[SURVIVE.]
[SURVIVE……]
The alerts started firing like mad.
What the—
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that felt.
Immediately, I bent down and shielded the girl in my arms.
Kwaaaaaa—!!!
“……Ghk!?”
An enormous wave of heat skimmed over my head.
Kwaaaang-!!!
From behind me, a shockwave burst forth with a gust of wind. I turned my head. A hole had been blasted through the wall, and flames were pouring around it.
This is bad.
I widened my eyes and looked forward again.
“Ah, damn.”
Someone was standing there.
“You dodged it?”
A chill ran down my spine.
Cold sweat slid down my cheek, not because of the heat.
“I didn’t think you’d manage that…… How did you dodge it?”
“……Who are you?”
“Ahahaha.”
The one wearing the mask laughed.
“If I were going to tell you, do you think I’d be wearing this?”
“……”
Fair enough.
So I didn’t answer.
“Hold on.”
“Hiiik……!”
I set the girl down and grabbed the nearest thing to hand. A broken wooden plank.
“Oh?”
The masked figure reacted as I tightened my grip on the plank.
“You want to fight? Don’t. You’ll die.”
“If I don’t fight and run, will you let me go?”
“Oho.”
A low chuckle brushed past my ear.
“You’re quick on the uptake. Good spirit, too. You’re a superhuman, aren’t you?”
“……”
“What level could you be……? Since you’re a face I don’t know, you must’ve just awakened. What a shame.”
Whoosh.
As he spoke, flames coiled around his hand. Fire.
He was the one who burned this building.
He was the culprit.
“If you’d survived, you might’ve been useful.”
His palm spread open.
Fwoooooosh-!!!
Flames shot forward. But I was already rolling across the floor before they reached me.
Kwaaa—!! As the blaze swept over the ground, I rolled clear and lunged at him.
“Hup.”
I swung the plank with everything I had.
But—
“……Ah, right.”
Crack-!
It struck the arm he moved to meet it and snapped without leaving a mark.
“I told you to just run.”
The broken plank spun through the air. My eyes followed it.
No.
“Ghk!”
Before I knew it, my body had been lifted off the ground.
Thud-!!
I slammed down beside the plank.
“Gah……!”
Pain caught up a moment later. I clutched my stomach. Had he hit my solar plexus?
My bones were ringing. Something might have broken.
“Hah…… haaah.”
I couldn’t breathe properly. It felt like I’d charged in and gotten crushed for my trouble.
A superhuman, huh……
I’d mistaken a sudden surge of strength for something more.
Breaking a steel door and rescuing people had made me think I was something.
……It’s not even funny.
It meant nothing in front of this. He was a monster who could blow up an entire building.
How strong is he?
What rank was he? Probably something so high I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
And I’d gone and acted big with nothing but a plank in my hand.
That was pure, empty arrogance.
“Grr……”
“Oh?”
And yet I still got up.
“Huuuh……”
“Wow. You’re getting up again?”
I knew it was hopeless.
Still, I had to do it.
“Want to run now, while you still can?”
It was tempting.
“Hahaha……”
At those words, I laughed.
If I really ran now, would he let me go?
Maybe I could survive.
That thought flashed through me, but—
……As if.
I erased it in an instant.
I glared at him.
“Mm.”
Under my stare, the mask seemed to scratch at his own cheek.
“That’s a shame.”
Once again, flames wrapped around his hand.
“If I’m being honest, I’d like to coax you a little more, but looking at your eyes, I can tell it wouldn’t work…… and I don’t exactly have all day. The time’s almost here, so I guess there’s no helping it.”
I watched the fire.
I had to dodge. Even if I couldn’t win, I had to keep moving until I could.
As I judged the gaps in his attacks and tensed my legs—
“Well, here’s a gift.”
He spat the flames out. But this time, they weren’t aimed at me.
The ceiling.
He suddenly launched fire upward. I wondered what he was doing—then realized.
“……You psycho……!!”
Beneath the scorched ceiling, there was a child.
Cradadadak-!!!
Debris came crashing down.
“Waaahhh---!!”
The child screamed.
Gugugung.
The wreckage collapsed as one, and—
“……Ghk…….”
A groan escaped me.
I threw my back against the falling rubble and blocked it. In front of me, I could see the child.
“Are you okay?”
“Ghk…… sob…….”
Looking at the child crying in front of me, I forced a smile.
“I knew it.”
His voice came from behind me.
“I knew you’d be like that. There are always bastards like you. The kind who can’t even take care of their own damn bodies but still stick their noses into everything usually end up exactly like this.”
“……You.”
“Honestly…… useless idiots, every last one of them.”
The masked man waved his hand a couple of times and turned away, moving off. The fire he controlled began to creep toward the child and me.
“St—! Ghk……!”
The rubble was pressing down harder and harder.
With every vein in my body standing out, I said to the child, “Run…… Fast…… Get out of here……!”
“Hic……!”
The child trembled violently, tears spilling nonstop.
She looked too frightened to move at all.
Damn it……
I clenched my teeth.
I couldn’t hold out much longer.
Even then, the oblivious system blared again.
[SURVIVE.]
……How?
How was I supposed to survive this?
I could feel it. There didn’t seem to be any way out.
Too heavy.
I couldn’t hold it for long. Maybe a minute at best?
Ah.
Was this really how I died?
Even as I strained every muscle I had, I turned to the child beside me again.
“……Run……. Hurry…….”
[SURVIVE.]
“There’s no time…… Get down now……!”
“Hic……!”
“All right. Let’s end this.”
Fwoooooooosh---!!!
The masked man waved his hand, and the fire surged toward us.
My strength was finally leaving me.
As my exhausted body began to give out—
[SURVIVE……]
The system window that had been flashing in front of me crackled with static.
And then—
-I do not understand.
A voice spoke.
At the same time, the world stopped.
Huh?
I could see the flames right in front of me. But for some reason, they seemed frozen solid, utterly motionless.
-Why did you come back?
The voice was thick with confusion.
-You would have lived if you’d run at first. Why return when you had already escaped?
……Is that directed at me?
This was strange. Was this a flash of my life? Or was I just going insane on the brink of death?
Either way, it wasn’t a good sign.
-Answer me.
-Why did you not flee?
…….
Why hadn’t I run?
I thought I was a fool myself, and yet—
The reason was simple.
……Because it’d be embarrassing.
-Hm?
Because if I ran away knowing what I had to do, it would’ve been too damn embarrassing.
I had to save people.
If I didn’t care whether they lived or died, it would’ve been different.
But I wanted to save them. I knew I had to save them. And trying to run away anyway was just too humiliating.
……If I was going to crawl away and survive like that, I’d rather die.
I wanted to live.
I wanted to live like hell.
But not like this.
-Is that so?
The voice listening to me had grown strangely heavy.
-Any regrets?
Regrets?
Plenty.
More than plenty.
……But this is still better.
Was that comfort for myself?
Or did I really mean it?
I wasn’t certain, but one thing I did know was this:
This is what would’ve happened anyway.
Even if I went back to the past, I doubted I’d choose differently.
-Ha.
At my answer, the old man laughed.
-A pathetic answer. Powerless conviction is nothing but arrogance and childishness.
Anyone could hear that the laugh was mockery.
But—
-Still, I’ll at least be satisfied that you didn’t run away in disgrace.
The old man wiped the smile from his voice and spoke curtly.
-Take it.
[HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED.]
[As a reward, Synchronization Rate has increased.]
[Synchronization Rate increased by 3%]
[Synchronization Rate has increased.]
[Inner Core. Patcheongong acquired.]
More and more alerts burst out in rapid succession.
For some reason, my stomach felt warm.
At the same time, something began to stir deep below my navel.
[Patcheongong is now active.]
[As Patcheongong activates, Patcheonmu has been acquired.]
[Patcheonmu has been activated.]
-This is……
My body moved on its own.
Only then did the frozen moment finally begin to move again.
Fwoooosh-!!!! The fire lunged at me—but—
This is the path you’re meant to walk.
Then a small tremor burst outward.
Tung-……!
“Huh?”
Along with the masked man’s startled exhale—
Kwaaaaaaaa--!!!
A shockwave exploded through the surrounding area.