37. My Buff is a Drug
37. My Buff is a Drug
'Protective Shield.'
Bwooong!
Crash!
"Hut!"
I cast Shield, ran, took a flying mace, and died instantly.
I thought maybe I could make it work here, but against the Virus, normal defensive methods just don't apply.
'Not this!'
I went back into the inner world and this time made an Attack Reflection buff.
[ Attack Reflection ]
All Attack Reflection 3 levels
Swaa-a-a-ak!
Forget reflection — I got hit by a volley of arrows and died writhing.
Completely useless.
'Hurts... goddammit!'
Supposedly I disappear the moment I die, but the pain was doing a fair bit of damage to Hye-yong's mind.
Still, not enough to make me quit.
Hye-yong died about five more times, testing what worked and what didn't, weighing which buffs to bring.
After agonizing over it, he finalized his partner selection for breaking through this corridor.
[ Leap ]
Running speed 7 levels increase
Jump speed 7 levels increase
Jump power 7 levels increase
Self-cast only
[ Painlessness ]
Unable to feel pain
Self-cast only
[ Indomitable Courage ]
Removes fear
Confidence increase 3 levels
Self-cast only
[ Instant Death ]
Able to die upon willing it
Self-cast only
'This is the only way I can go.'
Flying doesn't work.
Blocking the traps' attacks doesn't work either.
Obviously, stuff like teleportation was also impossible.
These buffs were made with the mindset that my only option — exploiting the fact that I have a crazy number of coins — is to just brute-force my way through.
A buff that boosts movement speed, Painlessness to eliminate pain, and Indomitable Courage to remove fear and raise confidence!
And Instant Death so I don't bleed out half-dead and instead can die fast and retry the moment I can't move.
This was the limit of what Hye-yong's available cost allowed.
It couldn't make him invincible, but he figured, at this point, it was practically the same thing.
Hye-yong cast all the buffs on himself and shouted in a voice brimming with confidence.
"Let's go! Minaaa!"
"Alright!"
Hye-yong hoisted Mina up like a shield and charged.
Sh-sh-sh-shuk!
Pak-pak-pak-pak!
"Hrk...!"
Five daggers flew in from somewhere, lodged in her chest, and she died on the spot.
Spotting something that looked like a trap right ahead, Hye-yong tossed the dead Mina onto it.
Ch-chank!
Leaving behind the Mina who'd just been bisected by a giant bear trap in his service, Hye-yong leapt over the now-sprung trap and bounded forward.
Right now, fear was a foreign concept to Hye-yong.
All he did was run!
Pshk!
"Gkkh...!"
He hadn't even taken a few steps when a spear erupted from below and pierced through Hye-yong's entire body.
Even without feeling pain, the helplessness of his body refusing to move was unavoidable.
'Instant Death.'
The moment he thought it, Hye-yong died and woke up again on the bed.
"Doable. Completely doable."
Into the inner world once more.
"Going again, right?"
"Obviously."
He grabbed the resurrected Mina beside him and threw her ahead to check for traps on the stepping stones.
Pshk!
"Urk."
Sure enough, a spear shot up and skewered Mina right through.
Blood streaming from her mouth, Mina spoke.
"Creator! My ability to interfere with this inner world — this is my last life here!"
Stepping off her flank and leaping, Hye-yong gave his thanks.
"Thanks! You helped a ton!"
"Go get 'em!"
Even after being skewered again and again, hacked to pieces over and over, Hye-yong kept running.
The current Hye-yong was an indomitable warrior who feared no death.
Everything was over.
All that remained for her now was despair.
That was what Geum Na-rin thought as she stared at the monitor beside the operating table.
But then the frozen screen in the monitor suddenly began to move at high speed.
Right before her heart was utterly destroyed.
Just when she thought she couldn't endure the despair any longer and wanted to erase her own existence!
Her eyes focused on the screen as if this truly was the end.
The monitor displayed a recording of Choi Hye-yong, teeth clenched, desperately sprinting.
'...He's still alive?'
A flash of color flickered for an instant in Na-rin's eyes.
Pwahk!
As she watched the footage with wide eyes.
Hye-yong's head was struck by a flying iron ball and burst apart.
'Ah, no....'
Before she could even think it was over.
Something unbelievable happened on the screen.
No sooner had the corpse scattered and vanished like powder than a perfectly intact Choi Hye-yong was standing right back in that spot.
What on earth was that?
Geum Na-rin's mind, which had been filled with nothing but the thought that it was all over, was thrown into chaos.
Then one thought surfaced.
'Secret... Society.'
The Society.
Yes, the Secret Society!
That one word tidied up every thought in Na-rin's head.
Hye-yong was a member of the Secret Society.
Beings who hunt and eliminate aberrations!
He would have some method to oppose them.
'He's using it right now!'
She could tell even through the screen.
The steely resolve on that face which held not a trace of fear!
'It wasn't over. He's coming to save me. He's coming to save me! Aah....'
The hope she thought had been completely extinguished blazed back to life in Na-rin's eyes.
"What are you looking at...!"
Sensing something off about Na-rin, the man set down his tools and strode over.
"...!"
Even he couldn't hide his shock once he saw the screen.
Hye-yong, who by all rights should have died like an insect, was dying over and over and over — and still running down the corridor.
'What... that corridor is the culmination of my artworks. An invincible fortress. I meant it to slaughter every intruder who dares interfere with my art and plunge them into despair!'
This was a world that existed inside a person's inner self.
Killing someone here couldn't truly kill them in reality.
The Virus who had burrowed in, the Masked Man, knew that fact as well.
That was why he had extracted despair so pure it could encroach upon the very soul from Na-rin and infused it into the traps set along the corridor.
If he died to those traps, his inner self should have been destroyed by high-purity despair, rendering him unable to ever trespass in this workshop again.
That was how it had to work!
'How can he keep coming back alive, over and over? How!'
However, there was one thing the Virus, being composed of data, had overlooked.
Hye-yong was not a being of this world!
He interfered but did not possess.
Unlike Mina's creations, Hye-yong had no inner world of his own to speak of.
With no target to attack, the damage was zero!
And so he could die tens, hundreds of times and keep coming back, keep running.
The Masked Man tore his gaze from the screen and whirled on Na-rin.
'Right....'
Though the Virus had no way of knowing the real reason, it reached its own conclusion.
Once the piece was complete, this girl's inner world would be fully destroyed.
In that case, it could simply burrow into someone else's inner world and continue its artistic activities.
'The reason that man cannot be stopped by my works is simple. The despair... the artwork... lacked artistic merit.'
By building up inspiration that way, he could eventually perfect an invincible fortress that would judge all enemies who dared disturb his art — of that he had no doubt.
Rushing the finale like this was displeasing, but he had no choice.
'An artist is sometimes pressed for time....'
The man gathered every torture implement he could and approached Na-rin.
'What do I do... what do I do...!'
Na-rin couldn't tear her eyes from the screen.
Hye-yong, by her count, had already died over a hundred times.
Skewered by spears, beheaded by blades, turned into a pincushion, crushed under boulders....
Watching him die in such gruesome ways — and come back each time with that same determined expression — made her heart ache so fiercely she could barely stand it.
'He must be in pain. He must be suffering. Even when he wants to give up. Still, again, and again, and again....'
He was coming.
No matter how gruesomely he died, no matter how agonizingly he was torn apart, Hye-yong ceaselessly sprinted toward his next death.
'He's enduring hell for me... for me, he's going that far. What do I do. What am I supposed to do.'
Just as she was cursing herself for being unable to do anything.
Shrrk! Shrrk! Shrrk!
'...!!'
The scalpel the Masked Man swung tore through Na-rin's uniform and savagely ripped at the skin of her stomach.
A yellowish-brown liquid of unknown origin poured over the wounds.
Clank-clank-clank!
Na-rin's body bucked wildly.
Rrrip!
The leather restraints, cinched tight, kept her body from flinging itself off the table.
'It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! Hurts!'
As the drug was poured, a pain like the wounds were boiling and then melting washed over her.
Agony so intense she nearly lost all bodily control!
Without meaning to, her head snapped back, her body went rigid, and her eyes rolled up.
Crunch!
'Kghk!'
This time it was her nails.
In an instant, the man ripped off all five nails of her right hand and again poured some unknown drug onto the raw flesh beneath.
'Kkkkhaaaaaaaa...!'
A sensation as though countless insects were gnawing her fingers into nothingness.
No matter how painful, how agonizing, her consciousness remained excruciatingly clear.
"Despair! Suffer!"
This time it was her tongue.
As if to finish what he had failed to do before, he forced her jaw open, pulled out her tongue with pincers, and began snipping it bit by bit with a nail clipper.
Snip! Snip! Snip!
'Kkhhak... ahhak...!'
The man picked up the bottle of yellowish-brown liquid again.
He stopped just before pouring it onto Na-rin's mutilated tongue.
Then, as if checking something, he leaned in close and met her eyes.
"Give up. If you give up, it can become easier. You can be liberated from this pain. You won't have to suffer greater agony."
Na-rin's eyelids fluttered as she glanced once at the bottle — then shifted her gaze to the screen where Hye-yong was dying again and again.
Even now, he was enduring dozens, hundreds of horrific deaths as he made his way here.
'Choi Hye-yong is doing all that for me. So I can't give up here. I'll endure. I have to endure. No matter what happens, I'll endure....'
The Masked Man saw it clearly.
Burning brighter than anything inside Na-rin's eyes: hope.
"You wretched bitch!"
CRASH!
The Masked Man hurled the nail clipper and shattered the monitor beside the operating table.
Then he poured the bottle directly onto Na-rin's tongue.
'I'll bear it. I'll endure. I'll outlast it. I have to outlast it. He's coming to save me. If I just hold on a little more, he'll come save me. I can't give up.'
How many times had the phrase "I have to endure" repeated in her mind?
Boom!
Someone flung the door open and appeared.
He'd picked up a sword somewhere along the way — probably from a trap — and even as he gasped for breath, he spoke.
"I came to save you!"
Those words alone made Na-rin feel as though she had been delivered.
'Aaah....'
Tears streamed endlessly down her face.
In the end, she had endured.
She had endured until he came to save her.
"You, mask fucker! Time to die, you son of a bitch!"
[ Longsword Proficiency Enhancement ]
Longsword proficiency 11 levels increase
Strength stat 7 levels increase
Slashing attack enhancement 3 levels
Hye-yong crafted the self-buff and lunged at the Masked Man.
Slash!
Whoosh!
Even with proficiency raised that high, the man read the sword's trajectory and dodged.
Hye-yong had assumed the bastard would be significantly weakened since he'd nearly ruined his objective, but that wasn't the case.
Shik!
"Tch!"
In fact, the man nearly counterattacked with the scalpel he was holding.
One exchange was enough to tell.
This wasn't an opponent he could just buff normally and cut down.
'This is the only way now.'
The Masked Man had definitely watched him die endlessly, resurrect, and break through a corridor so densely packed with traps it was bursting at the seams.
In the brief time since, he'd torturously brutalized Geum Na-rin, who hadn't been tortured at all before.
This was nobody's inner world but Geum Na-rin's.
It had been the same with Na Hee-yeon.
The key card to taking down a Virus was the power welling up from the heart of the infected person herself!
To prevent that, Viruses strove to destroy the inner world owner's spirit.
To erase the very capacity to resist.
Hye-yong decided to awaken Geum Na-rin's will to resist.
"Geum Na-rin, get up!"
The moment she heard his voice, Na-rin's consciousness sharpened.
"I can't kill him alone! Help me! Get up and help me!"
Twitch!
Hearing that voice, a finger that had seemed frozen still gave the faintest movement.
"I need your help!"
Rrrrip!
The sound of leather stretching taut.
Geum Na-rin was trying to raise her arm by her own will.
The effects of the drug were weakening inside her.
"What are you doing!"
"Go fuck yourself!"
He barely blocked the scalpel swinging toward his neck with the sword.
Scrrrape!
The man pressed down, blade against blade, trying to drive the scalpel straight into Hye-yong's heart.
Hye-yong didn't have the strength to hold out much longer.
Frantically, he called for Geum Na-rin.
"Geum Na-rin!"
Rrrip!
"Ah'll... ah'll go, ah'll... ah'll go...!"
At last, her voice began to emerge.
Forgetting even that her tongue had been mutilated, Na-rin repeated the words "I'll go," struggling desperately to escape her bonds.
Snap! Tick!
As if she'd unlocked the ability to exert superhuman strength from her stats, the leather straps restraining her began to snap one by one.
"Just die quietly!"
"Ghk, ghkk...!"
He couldn't hold out any longer.
The man's scalpel sank — pushk — into the area near Hye-yong's heart.
"Gkkh, grrrhh...!"
He'd deleted the Painlessness buff long ago to make room for the swordplay buffs up here.
Hye-yong clutched his chest and stumbled backward.
'No. If I die here. If I die here, everything could go up in smoke.'
Searing pain surged through him.
He'd dodged his heart, but seeing the blood gush out in spurts, he felt like he'd die of blood loss any second.
Even so, Hye-yong turned his body and struggled toward Na-rin.
"Hya, hye...!"
Rrrrip!
Seeing Hye-yong dying, Na-rin screamed "No!" and tore through every last restraint, then ran to catch the collapsing Hye-yong in her arms.
'My mind... is going hazy.'
Even freed, Na-rin's body was a wreck. It didn't seem likely she could defeat the Masked Man.
I have to give her some kind of buff before I go.
Anything.
Before I lose consciousness.
Hye-yong looked into Na-rin's eyes.
No trace of despair remained in them now.
Only tightly-packed resentment and a towering rage could be found there.
Seeing that gave him an idea — one that pierced through his chest like an arrow.
Hye-yong opened the Buff Custom window and tried making a buff.
'Haha. It actually works.'
In that moment, a scene from an old anime Hye-yong had once watched flashed into his mind.
The cliché where a comrade at death's door transfers all their strength to the protagonist and dies.
Who'd have thought there'd come a day he'd actually do it.
Live long enough and you see everything.
"Senior... please take my last strength."
In a crushing time crunch, desperately racking his brain, the buff he gave Geum Na-rin was.
[ One Blow ]
Until the next single attack is completed, all stats increase by N (the number of times the caster has met death in this inner world) levels
Buff effect ends upon attack completion
Geum Na-rin exclusive
It was a buff perfectly suited to the finale.
"Haha...."
Watching Geum Na-rin's body rapidly recover as her stats skyrocketed, Hye-yong closed his eyes in relief.
Believing that Hye-yong had now died, Geum Na-rin gazed tenderly at his fallen back before rising to her feet.
"No matter how many times you come back to life, in the end you still can't beat me, and this is the result. I'll turn all your emotions right back into despair."
The Virus waited, as if daring her to try something.
"How dare you, how dare you, how dare you...."
Na-rin muttered under her breath, glaring at the Masked Man with a look that could kill.
Her eyes now burned with more life than ever before, fixed on a single objective.
"How daaaaaare you!"
Fwooosh!
A massive, violent, overwhelming blaze of mana erupted from Na-rin's right fist — so enormous it engulfed the entire room.
"Wh-what...?"
Sensing that flood of overwhelming power, the Virus stumbled backward without realizing it.
One step.
Two steps.
Na-rin clenched her fist tight and advanced on the Masked Man.
[ Until the next single attack is completed, all stats increase by 32 levels ]
[ Until the next single attack is completed, all stats increase by 61 levels ]
[ Until the next single attack is completed, all stats increase by 116 levels ]
[ Until the next single attack is completed, all stats increase by 221 levels ]
【 All stats 221 levels increase 】
'What! I can't move my body...!'
The sheer presence Na-rin exuded as she approached rendered the Virus unable to so much as lift a finger.
'Gaaaah!'
One step closer and the pressure alone drove him to one knee.
Close enough to reach with a single punch.
Na-rin stopped there and slowly drew a breath.
"Hhhh...."
In this moment.
Everything the Masked Man had ever done to her, every event she had endured since these dreams began, seemed to scroll past like a panorama.
And then in one motion, with all her weight behind it.
'Here it comes!'
A single blow packed with all the pain she'd ever suffered...!
'I can't dodge!'
CRAA—AACK!
The Masked Man's face took the punch square-on — mask and all shattered to pieces, bursting apart as it scattered black matter everywhere.
"Koo-whak!"
The explosion spread across his body in an instant, and soon not even a trace of the Virus remained.
Hye-yong, who had barely kept his eyes open through his wavering consciousness, saw that and finally let himself slip away in relief.