Chapter 20: A Brief Parting.
Chapter 20: A Brief Parting.
Hey, thanks for this. My throat was parched, and for you to buy me a beer like this… I’m at a loss for words. What was your name again…? Huh? Kim Soohyun? You don’t mean the Kim Soohyun from the small city of Mule, do you? Of course I’ve heard of you! The story from the Cave of Screams is famous… Hehe. Meeting a celebrity like you and getting treated to a beer, I can’t just sit here and do nothing. Right. I’ll tell you a story. Care to listen?
Huh? You don’t need one? Hold on. Just listen for a bit, please. I’m sure you’ll find it interesting. There’s a widespread rumor that even the Soul Commander, currently making waves in the major cities, acquired that class during the Rite of Passage. Yeah, that Soul Commander. After all, everyone in the Hall Plain had to go through the Rite of Passage to get here. Come on, sit down. The Rite of Passage is one of the places where the angels interfered the most.
It has quite a few behind-the-scenes stories, you know. Think about it. Back then, everyone was desperate just to survive. Who would wander around a monster-infested place for seven full days? But there were some crazy bastards who did exactly that, combing through every corner of the map for all seven days as though they were having the time of their lives. Naturally, that made them far more likely to encounter the Rite of Passage’s Boss Monster. Huh? What do I mean? You never met it? Looks like Kim Soohyun here took the Rite pretty seriously. What I mean is… but before that, could I have one more beer? Hehe… Thanks!
Try to remember. You remember the yellow roofs and blue roofs, right? Yeah. Yellow meant a Rest Room, and blue meant a Save Point. The first thing you saw when you entered was a warning, wasn’t it? You could not remain in a Rest Room for more than one day or a Save Point for more than two. If you stayed any longer, a Boss Monster was guaranteed to appear. Ugh. I still get chills thinking about it. It looked like something out of Alien and crunched people up as if they were delicious…
Yeah, I’ve seen it. What did I do? I ran for my damn life. The funny thing is, if you’re just talking about “points,” there’s another one besides the Starting, Rest, and Save Points. First time hearing about it? I’m not surprised. Where is it, you ask?
If you cut through the forest on the outskirts of the map, you’ll come out onto a big road. I still remember it. That bumpy road. But you can’t go down. The place is swarming with wraiths. So, if you go up, you’ll eventually find a city. But honestly, who would go that far? Most people don’t even want to set foot in the forest. And even if they did enter the city, few people make it out alive. That place is called the Trap Point. Literally, a trap.
The Trap Point city has all modern facilities and plenty of food. It’s a place that makes you nostalgic for Earth. It cleverly manipulates people’s psychology to the point where you really don’t want to leave.
A warning? There is one. But it’s different from the warnings in the other points. It’s written so simply that you’d think it’s nothing important. Anyway, that city is extremely clever at manipulating people. It makes you not want to leave. So, most Users who find it end up settling down there. They get complacent. They think they can easily last the seven days there. The moment they get complacent, it’s over.
After two days pass, on the third day… you can guess what happens, right? Hehe. Huh? How do I know all this? Haha… Who knows. I’m just gonna drink some more.
*
As afternoon wore on, I could see the sky growing darker. It was that awkward time, not quite early evening. I’d thought it was darker than usual in the forest, but now the clouds themselves were a dark color, making me wonder what I’d do if it started to pour.
As I walked along the uneven road, I grew impatient for a village to appear. I needed to pick up the pace. Circulating Magic Power through both legs increased my speed considerably. Moving swiftly, I recalled what I had seen when I used Third Eye to examine the past.
It had lasted only one second, but the scene gave me a rough idea of what had happened to the party. I had seen Ahn Hyun running with Ahn Sol on his back after abandoning his longsword and shield. His face had looked desperately urgent.
Behind him, Lee Yoojung had worn an unreadable expression; I could not tell whether she was worried or angry as she followed. Only Kim Hanbyul had remained calm at the rear, carrying the sword and shield Ahn Hyun had discarded.
Clearly, the party had been harmed in some way—an attack or something else—and in the process, something must have happened to Ahn Sol. So, I had set my course in the direction Ahn Hyun’s group had run. Since it was a well-trodden path, I figured I would eventually come across a village. And it was highly likely I would reunite with them there.
What on earth had attacked them? What had happened to make them run with such desperate faces? One question led to another. But racking my brain now wouldn’t give me any answers. I decided to hear the full story later and picked up my pace again.
As I was walking, a single cold drop fell, gently wetting my cheek. I paused and looked up at the sky, only to see raindrops rushing toward my face.
Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Watching the intermittent drops, I reflexively wiped my wet cheek. I hoped the village would appear soon, before it started pouring. And thankfully, as if my prayers had been answered, I spotted a cluster of buildings in the distance, just barely visible to my enhanced sight.
The party had almost certainly entered that city. Since some settlements also contained monsters, I worried about whether they had made it inside safely. If I had known this would happen, I would have wiped out the Deadmen in one go instead of dragging things out.
Meanwhile, the number of raindrops dotting the road was increasing. I had no desire to walk through mud slick with rain. Slowing to a trudge, I closed the distance to the village and reflexively activated my Sensing. As I slowly scanned the village, I felt something strange and stopped in my tracks.
“Wh-what is this?”
I stammered without realizing it. After composing myself, I performed a more precise scan, but the result was the same. Startled, I immediately drew up my Magic Power and shot into the city. When I reached the entrance, I gaped at the modern buildings before me.
There are buildings in the Rite of Passage that you’d only see on Earth? And a whole city of them?
First of all, my party was, as I’d expected, in this village—no, this city that could hardly be called a village. I could sense the auras of all four of them, so thankfully, they seemed to be together. That wasn’t the problem. Right now, I was confused for two reasons. First, I couldn’t sense the presence of a single monster in the city. Second, what I was seeing was a city with modern buildings.
Cities in the Hall Plain did not have modern architecture. Their buildings looked as though they belonged in the Middle Ages. In fact, during the Rite of Passage in my first playthrough, merely adapting to that difference had been difficult. Yet the buildings before me were the kind I had once seen everywhere on Earth.
The unprecedented sight left my thoughts in turmoil, but I quickly calmed down and observed the situation objectively. The first challenge for people entering the Hall Plain was adapting to its way of life.
Compared with technologically advanced Earth, life in the Hall Plain could hardly be called convenient. To ease that adjustment, even the Rite of Passage deliberately used buildings resembling those in the Hall Plain. I had never heard of or seen anything like this.
Unless the angels had collectively lost their minds, they would never have placed buildings like these in the Rite of Passage. Yet the cityscape did not change no matter how many times I rubbed my eyes. The angels had to be aiming for something. Then I suddenly remembered a story a swordsman had told me in a tavern long ago.
‘The Trap Point city has all modern facilities and plenty of food. It’s a place that makes you nostalgic for Earth. It cleverly manipulates people’s psychology to the point where you really don’t want to leave.’
Once I remembered the Trap Point, the city before me began to make sense. Before explaining it, I needed to explain the Boss Monster. Put simply, a Boss Monster could not be defeated in the Hall Plain. Quite a few people had seen one, and every one of them had said the same thing: it was impossible to kill; the only option was to run.
A Boss Monster required specific conditions to appear. If someone remained in a Rest Room for more than one day or a Save Point for more than two, it would invariably appear. In other words, the angels were warning people not to settle down simply because they had found a safe place, but to keep moving.
A chill ran down my spine. I understood why the city had been empty and silent when I first saw it. It also explained why, despite their exceptional potential, I had never encountered any of them in the Hall Plain during my first playthrough except Ahn Sol. The city before me suggested one possibility: no matter how talented they were, they could not have survived the Boss Monster.
I let out a deep sigh and fully entered the city. It wasn’t that I felt no nostalgia seeing these buildings for the first time in ten years, but I had to find my party first.
As I entered the city, I was greeted by buildings all in a uniform shade of ash gray. The buildings, all exuding a gloomy light as if to welcome me to their dark city, were deeply unsettling.
A thick scent of death hung in the air, something only a seasoned veteran could detect.
How many people had died in this city?