Chapter 64
Chapter 64
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: 19. Debut in the Martial World (1)
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“What the hell is this?”
Byung-chul shouted, gripping his gun, his face on the verge of tears.
And who could blame him? Things beyond solar system common sense were happening one after another.
Crack!
Even amid all this, fissures large and small continued to spiderweb across the pitch-black egg.
‘No way... is it hatching right now?’
Youngwoo’s eyes widened, and between the cracks in the egg’s surface, he glimpsed something glistening.
It radiated the raw vitality unique to living creatures.
Slither.
Something enormous writhed inside the dark shell.
“What...?”
Youngwoo knew full well this was a thank-you gift from the advertisers, yet he was still taken aback.
He’d expected equipment items from an arms manufacturer, not some living creature.
And on top of that.
‘Why is it so damn big?’
Youngwoo took a few steps back to properly gauge the egg’s size, and that’s when a dramatic change occurred in the “gift” that had only shown signs of hatching until now.
-Kweeeee...!
With a long cry, black steam billowed from inside the shell.
“Huh?”
“Ugh!”
Worried it might be toxic, all three backed away further, creating space where an unexpected being thrust itself forward.
Clank!
It was none other than.
-Kweeek!
A pitch-black iron horse standing two meters tall at the shoulder.
A beast from the mammalian order Perissodactyla, the domesticated horse that had shared thousands of years with humanity.
Though its exterior was made of black iron plating and it spewed black smoke from its nostrils, leaving some doubt as to whether it truly belonged to the mammalian class.
“That thing... no way, a horse?”
Jong-su asked Youngwoo, awkwardly clutching Early Bird.
And right around then.
Clank!
The iron horse shattered the Icheon city road surface with its steel hooves as it approached Youngwoo.
-Kweeeee...!
Still an unearthly cry.
Its immense height alone exuded tremendous pressure just from looking at it, but Youngwoo relaxed upon spotting the Dogo wedge pattern engraved on the iron horse’s exterior.
‘It’s definitely a Dogo product. No idea if it’s a real creature or a robot, though.’
He had no clue why it resembled Earth’s horses in form, but it was clearly the thank-you gift from Dogo.
Perhaps because the gift they’d sent was a mode of transport, they’d reciprocated with something of the same type.
Hiss!
The iron horse exhaled again, black smoke pouring fiercely from its nostrils.
Was that theatrics to mimic a “horse”? Or was it truly a breathing animal?
“......”
Seeing the iron horse approach and stand calmly by his side, Youngwoo slowly placed his hand on its long neck.
Thud.
“...!”
To his surprise, its body felt unexpectedly warm.
Like an Earth warm-blooded animal.
But the tooltip that appeared next made it abundantly clear this thing was no Earth native.
「Neguig」 - Grade Unknown
【Adapts to any planet.】
“...Neguig?”
As Youngwoo read the name aloud from the tooltip, the iron horse Neguig’s purple pupils flashed, and its metal ears flicked.
-Kwee!
That really was its name.
“No way.”
Realizing belatedly that the iron horse was Youngwoo’s gift, Jong-su sheathed his sword and let out a sigh of relief.
Byung-chul, on the other hand, felt a surge of rage the moment he grasped the situation had resolved.
“What the fuck...”
He’d realized Icheon City had been sacrificed for the bizarre errand of that golden-skinned outsider.
“Hey, you bastard. Why the hell did you have to come here of all places?”
Whoosh!
The gun barrel, which had nowhere to point, now trained squarely on Youngwoo’s head.
But the trigger wasn’t pulled.
Byung-chul was a cop first, before being Icheon’s Greatest Swordsman.
And for a man like him to commit murder, he needed justification.
Did the outsider before him have any crime worthy of that?
Summoning cosmic beings and disrupting public order... sedition? Obstructing official duties? There was no way to classify it.
Moreover, no direct human casualties had resulted from this.
“This fucked-up world.”
In the end, Byung-chul lowered his gun.
He was furious, but couldn’t find any real reason to harm the man.
Youngwoo, who had been watching him steadily, slowly bowed at the waist.
“I’m sorry. I tried to find the most deserted spot possible, just in case...”
“Ah, forget it. It’s already all fucked anyway.”
Byung-chul spat a bitter breath and shifted his gaze to Patrol Officer Kwon Tae-young, who was cautiously approaching from afar.
“Tae-young.”
“Captain.”
Tae-young also held a pistol, but seeing Byung-chul out of combat stance, he’d lowered his barrel to the ground.
“Looks like things wrapped up while I was out.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Pretty good, considering I nearly died.”
As he spoke, Tae-young stared at the iron horse Neguig with eyes full of disbelief.
“By the way... what happens to us now?”
Tae-young’s vague question perfectly captured the plight of the two cops.
In an instant, they’d lost their life’s foundation—the city that had made them cops.
On Reset Day One, Tae-young had returned straight to the station because he had no family to look after, and Byung-chul, widowed and alone, had naturally continued his police duties.
Ironically, it was the ones with no one to be responsible for who’d shouldered their “social duty.”
Stay true to your job. Uphold the law...
Of course, now even the place to fulfill that duty was gone, yet the two men remained cops.
“Tae-young, let’s head to Seoul.”
“Huh? Seoul?”
At the word “Seoul,” primal fear flashed in Tae-young’s eyes.
Icheon had been invaded not just by lawless folks from the provinces heading to the capital, but also by raiders from Seoul itself—all of them brutally skilled and vicious.
“Yeah. Seoul. What else you gonna do, stick around here? Switch to banditry starting tomorrow?”
“No, not that.”
Tae-young made a horrified face.
Neither Byung-chul nor Tae-young were the type to turn villainous by nature.
That’s why they’d stubbornly guarded the station even after Reset.
“Then let’s go see just how fucked it is.”
As Byung-chul spoke, he cracked open his revolver’s cylinder to check its single bullet.
Click.
Tae-young was in the same boat—one bullet.
In other words, entering Seoul’s lawless zone as cops was pretty much suicide.
“......”
Tae-young gripped his pistol tightly, steeling his expression, when Youngwoo smoothly interjected into their conversation.
“You’re heading to Seoul? How’s the situation there?”
“......?”
“Hm?”
* * *
Seoul.
South Korea’s largest city, with a population of 9.43 million.
Factor in commuters from Gyeonggi Province and beyond, and the actual daily population was far higher.
And Reset had hit at Tuesday 10 a.m.—peak hours for bodies in the city.
What on earth had happened in Seoul then?
“The exchange turned it into total chaos, ripping society apart. Uncontrollable panic must’ve broken out.”
According to Byung-chul, the exchanges had made people abandon their posts—their workplaces—changing everything.
It shattered the social structure that had at least held in form.
Then, the coin grabs at the exchanges snapped people’s moral compass, and from there, most conflicts got settled by duels between parties instead of calling the cops.
“Probably even folks in police uniforms turning robber made everyone realize: the end times had come in the worst possible way.”
Tae-young, staring blankly into space, recounted what he’d witnessed yesterday.
His fellow station cops threatening civilians for money.
“Icheon’s only got 220,000 people. And even here, insane shit went down. Kids banding into robbery gangs... Adults weren’t much better.”
Byung-chul, who said this, habitually patted his pockets for a cigarette, then made an awkward face.
“If everything hadn’t turned to stone, it wouldn’t have devolved into lawless hell so easily.”
Just as an army’s mere existence deters war, public authority deters crime.
But the all-encompassing petrification had erased all deterrence.
No CCTV anywhere. Even street murders couldn’t be reported.
In most cases, personal morality was now the only restraint left.
“Truth is, even here, we could only manage city hall and the terminal. No clue what’s going on down by the reservoir.”
So how bad could Seoul be—far larger and more complex?
“Heard they’re even monopolizing Gyeonggi’s monsters. And they’ll attack people if provoked.”
Youngwoo tossed out a rumor he’d picked up passing through Yeoju, and Byung-chul showed he knew a bit.
“Yeah. They came here once. Even gave themselves a new name... What was it?”
Tae-young chimed in.
“Hunters.”
“Right. Hunters. Hunt monsters, so they call themselves hunters, huh. Should stick to monsters—practically criminals. Just too strong to punish.”
Byung-chul’s brow furrowed as he recalled.
They’d backed off only because of the guns, but their sleazy glares lingered in memory.
“So you’re going to Seoul specifically to punish these so-called hunters?”
Youngwoo eyed the two pistols, each with one bullet, and Byung-chul cleared his throat.
“Gotta see the situation first. If it’s as insane as it sounds, we’ll have to suppress it by force.”
Byung-chul added that there might still be cops like them in Seoul, trying to hold onto order.
“Need to let people know public authority still exists. That’ll create at least some deterrence.”
“......”
But could they survive even a day in Seoul with two bullets?
Youngwoo felt respect and pity for them in equal measure.
Then, his vision flashed, and a new quest appeared.
Bang!
[Dogo] “Debut in the Martial World”
<Mission> Duel 0/2 times against targets with total stats over 3,000.
<Reward> 5 million karma
<Special> In these duels, you must disclose Dogo’s support.
‘Uh...?’
It was finally here. Dogo’s exclusive quest.
Reading it with half excitement, half worry, Youngwoo paused at the part requiring targets with total stats over 3,000.
Total stats of 3,000 meant at least 3 million karma earned.
In other words, it referred to the Greatest Swordsmen who’d monopolized mutation rewards.
‘Gotta duel Greatest Swordsmen—or nameless experts on their level—twice.’
And as far as Youngwoo knew, there was only one place nearby to pull off that mission quickly.
Seoul.