Chapter 50
Chapter 50
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 50
Chapter Title: 14. The Judge with the Longsword (3)
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If a human and a car raced, who would win?
Young-woo could run as fast as a vehicle, but the Chungju citizens crossing the field right now didn’t seem capable of that.
Vroooom…!
That was because the SUV carrying Young-woo’s group, which had started much later, overtook them in a mere ten seconds or so.
“Ugh, aaack!”
The Chungju citizens screamed in terror upon seeing the SUV pass them.
Even the people running along the road scattered to the sides like falling dominoes when Myung-ho blared the horn aggressively.
So to an outsider, the scene might look like…
“We really do look like we’re attacking Chungju.”
Jong-su, in the passenger seat, grinned excitedly as he peered out the window.
He was enjoying the sight of people fleeing in fear from them.
Young-woo, meanwhile, lightly tapped the headrest of the driver’s seat and instructed Myung-ho.
“Please slow down a bit. It’d be a headache if we accidentally hit someone.”
Unlike Jong-su, who was getting all worked up, Young-woo had no intention of causing trouble in this city.
Even if Chungju’s Greatest Swordsman came charging out in a rage, he planned to resolve things through talk as much as possible.
‘Of course, if they swing a sword first without a word, I can’t help that…’
As Young-woo fiddled with the black sword and Early Bird strapped to either side of his belt, Myung-ho let out a groan from the driver’s seat.
“Huh, there’s something up ahead again. People…”
“People?”
Young-woo leaned toward the driver’s side to peer ahead at Myung-ho’s words.
Sure enough, just as Myung-ho said, there were people—three of them, fully armed with swords and shields and even wearing police uniforms.
The three stood in a line, blocking the road, with a blue-painted tollgate looming behind them like a fortress.
‘They’re using the tollgate as a checkpoint.’
As the SUV slowed to approach the tollgate, the three in uniforms exchanged panicked glances.
Tollgates were built to collect vehicle fees, but since the Reset, they’d never actually seen a car rolling by.
“Uh… how did you get to Chungju?”
Eventually, one of them approached the driver’s side, resting his forearm on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
Myung-ho rolled down the window to respond, but at that moment—
“…Emergency! Emergency!”
A frantic voice rang out from far behind them.
It was the lead runner from the group of citizens who’d been sprinting at full speed earlier.
“What…?”
Realizing too late that the SUV was the cause of the “emergency,” the police bellowed at Myung-ho with menacing tones.
“Y-You! What the hell? Shut off the engine and get out now!”
Shing!
The police drew their swords one by one, but Myung-ho didn’t budge from the driver’s seat.
Because—
Click.
Young-woo was stepping out in his place from the back seat.
“We’re not here to fight. You’re one of the Greatest Swordsman’s people, right? Shin Young-ju? We just want to see her.”
Young-woo spread his empty hands to show he meant no harm, but the police remained on edge.
What they saw across from Young-woo was still a running engine, an out-of-towner with an Early Bird, and dozens of citizens charging toward them, yelling “emergency!” instead of screaming.
So instinctively—
“You bastard! I said shut it off and get out!”
“You—get on the ground! Last warning!”
They turned hostile toward Young-woo’s group, overreacting in defense.
It was the clash between their instinctive fear and their duty as checkpoint officers.
Then one overly agitated cop even looked ready to slash at the front of the SUV, which kept growling with engine noise.
Whoosh!
The blade actually rose into the air, and in the end, Young-woo had to move.
He shot forward like literal lightning, shoving the cop away with his shoulder.
Thud!
“Guhk!”
It happened so fast that the other two only registered their comrade sprawled on the ground after the fact.
“What?”
“Eek!”
Their gazes snapped to Young-woo almost simultaneously.
「Your Sense stat has temporarily risen from 100 to 122.」
「Your Sense stat has temporarily risen from 122 to 141.」
The Chungju police were counterattacking.
But their combat prowess, checked via Theft effect, was laughable.
At best, they’d hunted a few monsters.
Sure enough, the Gyeongbuk Swordsmanship hologram soon popped up, marking both with kill signs, saying they could be taken down in one exchange.
But Young-woo ignored the guide and acted on his own judgment.
He chose not to use his sword but to unleash the “prestige of the Greatest Swordsman.”
Fwaaah!
As Young-woo’s eyes gleamed and he emitted a golden wave, the two cops lunging at him froze in place.
“Hup?”
“Eek…!”
The prestige made their hearts feel squeezed, wracked with pain.
Then Young-woo’s low voice slipped into their ears.
“Where can I meet Chungju’s Greatest Swordsman?”
As he withdrew the prestige with those words, one cop collapsed to his knees, dropping his weapon, while the other—
“Urgh!”
Fell flat on the ground and vomited. He must have had extremely weak mental fortitude.
“…”
Young-woo took a step back to avoid the spreading puke, then asked the cop he’d shouldered aside earlier.
“Like I said, we’re not here to fight. Where do I go to meet the Greatest Swordsman?”
“…Ugh.”
The man, standing there dazed, pointed northeast with a trembling hand.
“Probably at the Konkuk campus…”
“Konkuk? You mean Konkuk University?”
As far as Young-woo knew, Konkuk University was in Seoul.
He looked puzzled toward the northeast, and the cop nodded, adding,
“There’s a branch campus here. If nothing’s happened, she should still be inside.”
“I see.”
From the “she should still be” phrasing, Young-woo gleaned that Chungju’s Greatest Swordsman had the citizens’ trust.
“Would you come with us, then?”
“Pardon?”
“The nav’s not working, so we need someone to guide us to the school.”
“T-That’s…”
The cop glanced around with a troubled expression.
Young-woo shrugged indifferently and added,
“If we don’t find the way right away, this kind of thing’ll happen a few more times on the way. Better not to create unnecessary variables.”
By “this kind of thing,” he meant running into more cops or citizens, subduing them by force, and asking for directions.
And if that led to bloodshed by accident, wouldn’t it be tragic?… Or rather, it was a threat.
“…”
The man understood, his face stiffening as he nodded curtly.
* * *
Click.
Young-woo climbed into the back seat with one of the cops who’d blocked them at the tollgate, and everyone inside widened their eyes.
“Wh-what happened?”
“Who’s this guy?”
“Hyung, seriously…”
But the most shocked was the cop himself, who’d caved to Young-woo’s threat and volunteered as guide.
“Uh… what’s this?”
The cop hesitated to sit, pointing at the seat bottom.
-Kreeet?
There crouched a relic-grade slave with golden skin: the golden goblin.
“My slave. No time, so get in already.”
Young-woo, already seated, beckoned with an insistent air, leaving the powerless cop no choice.
Swoosh.
As he slid into the edge of the back seat, the goblin scowled and shifted across, while Myung-ae pressed against the window to avoid it, clearing her throat.
“…”
An awkward, bizarre seating arrangement all around.
Once everyone—and the monster—was settled, Young-woo tapped the driver’s headrest to signal departure.
“Uh… just follow the road straight, right?”
Myung-ho asked, checking the back via the rearview mirror.
The cop cleared his throat and glanced at Young-woo.
“Go back a bit and enter via Mungang-ri—no checkpoints, easier.”
“What if we go straight?”
“Hmm…”
At Young-woo’s follow-up, the cop looked troubled again.
“You’d take the highway up, so the road’s fine, but time-wise, it’s about the same as Mungang-ri. Might even be delayed by checkpoints.”
“There’s another tollgate? Why checkpoints up ahead?”
Only then did the cop’s true feelings slip out at Young-woo’s question.
“There’s a population cluster. National university nearby, so lots of people. More security personnel too. Best to avoid them…”
“Security personnel…?”
Even with everything turning to stone, why so many near a national university was a mystery, but more importantly, a population cluster with ample security was a cultural shock to Young-woo.
The cities he’d seen so far lacked even basic living systems, let alone security.
“How’s security maintained in this mess? Most cops would have to be way stronger than civilians, right? But that’s nearly impossible.”
And even if possible, who controlled cops strong enough to maintain order?
If one went rogue, order would collapse in seconds.
“Ah, well…”
Sweating under Young-woo’s barrage of questions, the cop averted his gaze to the driver’s window.
Then—
“Eh!”
His eyes and mouth flew wide, a gasp escaping.
Not surprise, but delight. Young-woo sensed who’d appeared ahead from the cop’s reaction.
‘No way.’
Twisting to look out the driver’s window, sure enough, a silhouette was approaching at tremendous speed from afar.
Pabababam!
The frictional sound from that distance was bare feet repeatedly shoving against asphalt.
Having run barefoot on roads himself, Young-woo recognized it instantly.
‘Chungju’s Greatest Swordsman came for me herself. But how…?’
No one from the group had left the area yet—who tipped her off?
Pop!
By then, the silhouette was close enough to make out facial features, and Young-woo got another surprise.
“…”
Chungju’s Greatest Swordsman, Shin Young-ju22, was a middle-aged woman—contrary to expectations.