The Stage's Turning Point (1)
May 6th.
Jeong Hoon and his companions had succeeded in defeating the creature the administrators had designated an Area Boss — the Vampire Lord — along with all his underlings.
It had been exactly one month and six days since the world ended, since the zombie outbreak, since the monsters descended.
The feeling of having toppled a colossal wall and written the final period on one particular story filled the chests of Jeong Hoon and his party.
But...
Contrary to their hopes, the world was never going to move in a purely positive direction.
"Are you all right? Can you stand?"
"We've come to rescue you, everyone! The vampires are dead!"
"L-Light... the sunlight's come back!"
"Hooray, we're alive... hooray...!"
"Thank you, thank you...!"
Exactly one hour had passed since I'd literally smashed that goddamn Vampire Lord's skull in. We were supposed to savor the victory and settle into some sweet, well-earned rest... but we didn't get the chance.
We'd marched straight on Seoul Station, pushed inside, and pulled out the people trapped within. The ones we'd freed from thrall after killing the vampires had told us there were still quite a few people left inside the station — and looking at it now, there were a filthy lot of them — so we'd come running without a second thought.
Thanks to that, I was half in a groggy haze. I'd meant to take a car, but I deliberately walked instead. I had a gut feeling that the moment I sat down or leaned my back against anything, I'd pass out on the spot.
So outwardly I'd given the order to prioritize the freed thralls and the rescued for the vehicles, making it look like I was graciously yielding my seat.
We reached Seoul Station and managed to get the people out. The lucky part was that nothing — no monsters, no vampires — remained inside. Or rather, just like the Vampire Lord's thrall had been broken... there was nothing left but ruined buildings and the people themselves.
Unfortunately, we couldn't exactly breathe easy. Just when we'd thought the crisis was over, a tragedy cold enough to break our hearts unfolded before us.
"...How... how is it?"
I put the question to one of the residents who'd been checking the rescued one by one.
Ah — for the record, I couldn't be bothered explaining why my speech patterns had changed, so I'd just decided to stick with the old way of talking. Except this Lawful Good register was a real pain to get my mouth around. How the hell had it been rolling off my tongue so naturally all this time?
That damn alignment must have been running some kind of correction filter, and a damn good one at that. Not that it was the kind of "correction" I'd ever asked for!
"Well... there are only about seventy people who are properly breathing or can still walk. Another hundred are one step from expiring... and the rest are all dead."
The resident reported it with a face halfway to tears. To have analyzed everything this thoroughly in barely an hour or two — that was some serious talent (couldn't remember his name, though).
What I did know for certain was that what I'd just heard left a bitter taste in my mouth. Those bat bastards had locked the people left here up like some kind of battery farm. Even the ones still breathing didn't look good.
So they'd only dragged the ones in relatively decent shape out as meat shields when they fought us. And even that had only been about forty people. Including that bastard.
In the end, the survivors we'd rescued here whose bodies and minds were "relatively" intact numbered only around a hundred and ten. That was still a lot of people, but... far more than that had been caught up with these vampires and sacrificed. Truly, countless lives.
And on top of that...
"By any chance... was there a man named Son Minsu?"
"Ah, you asked me to look for him, didn't you? I searched as thoroughly as I could, but..."
The resident flipped through his list this way and that, then shook his head. Apparently the name Son Minsu wasn't among the people he'd written down. No one matching the description, either.
Where the hell did that guy go...? I'd clearly heard he'd gone with that bastard. How could he not be here either?
Don't tell me he died when they first stormed Seoul Station? Minsu hadn't been with Han Daegeon's group from the start — he'd been treated like an outsider. Meaning he hadn't had a single friend among them. Which was probably why nobody knew where he'd gone.
I hadn't gone around grabbing every survivor and asking, but...
No. Better to interrogate that bastard later and find out what happened.
Ah, right. You were all wondering, weren't you? What became of that bastard who caused all of this.
"Mmph, mmphmmph...!"
"Shut up!"
"Make one more sound and I won't go easy on you. Keep your mouth shut and just show us the way!"
After I'd unceremoniously subdued him, the members of Hope's Wings Guild had trussed him up tight with rope and turned him into a combination prisoner and guide. "War criminal" would have been the fitting term.
This Han Daegeon bastard had sold out his own comrades to the vampires in a heartbeat, all for the sake of protecting his woman. And that wasn't all — he'd worked his companions like slaves and even laid hands on the women he'd had his eye on.
The problem was that those women included people who already had lovers or husbands. He'd been vicious enough to threaten that anyone who didn't obey him would be the first ones sent off as blood bags for the vampires.
I'll say it again: this guy sold out his comrades to protect his own woman. If he had even a shred of conscience, the normal thing would have been to just keep his head down and protect only her... but instead he'd gotten greedy and gone around coveting other men's women. He'd even tried to hit on my woman — Yun Mina — right before all this. That said everything.
Having racked up that much hatred all on his own, the others had been ready to beat him to death the moment the Vampire Lord was smashed — eyes blazing, murder in their hearts.
But I stopped them.
"Not yet. That will not do."
"Why not?!"
People pushed back hard, but I had my own logic for keeping the bastard alive.
"Have you already forgotten that I am your lord? I understand your thirst for vengeance against this man well enough. The catastrophe he brought about cannot be settled merely by taking his life. When we return, he shall face a proper trial and receive the punishment he deserves."
"Ah... understood, my lord!"
Well, trial or not, I had a whole lot of questions for that bastard. I was going to wring every last scrap of information out of him about every move he'd made, and then decide whether to kill him or not. Looking at the state of things, killing him was probably the right call in the end.
At any rate, my persuasion seemed to work — the people burning with vengeance managed to pull themselves together, at least a little.
Yeah. After watching me beat the Vampire Lord to death, nobody was going to defy me. And more than that, I was the lord. No one was going to casually challenge that authority.
No — looking at the light in people's eyes, they were gazing at me with respect rather than defiance, so worrying about rebellion was overthinking it from the start. If anything, it was almost burdensome.
"..."
The funny part was that Han Daegeon himself — the one whose life I'd just extended — was glaring at me like he wanted me dead. I had no idea what that bastard thought he had to be so proud about, looking at me like that.
"Mmphmmph...!"
Ah, right. Maybe it was because I'd stuck his woman next to him too. What was her name again? Yeon Ju-something. Honestly, I had zero reason to remember a woman like that, and I didn't even want to try.
Or maybe... it was because of the woman — no, the women — at my side.
A guy like me, who wasn't even particularly handsome (not ugly, mind you!), had four drop-dead gorgeous beauties at his side — national-tier knockouts. His guts must have been twisting themselves into knots. For all I knew he was cursing me out internally, wondering what the difference between us even was.
Or maybe it was because of Yun Mina, standing right next to me right now—
"Heh heh, you pathetic loser... look at you. Just look..."
If you had to stand there helpless and watch her sneer at the tightly bound Han Daegeon, yeah, hostility would definitely start boiling up. That was his own doing, though, and besides...
"Uuuugh..."
"S-Save me... please..."
"These people..."
"There's no hope. It's not as if we have medical facilities or doctors..."
Looking at the wretched state of the countless people spread out before us, and facing the grim reality that we couldn't save them... the way we were treating him right now was, no joke, mild by comparison.
Anyway! I'd gotten sidetracked by that Daegeon bastard for a moment, but I still had a bitter decision to make. There was a limit to how many people we could fit in the vehicles we'd brought. We had wounded, too. Meaning we couldn't take every single person we'd rescued here back to Yeouido.
The problem was that everyone else was completely exhausted as well. Fighting the thralls those goddamn vampires had scattered around, getting their energy drained in real time — they'd been through hell.
Having to walk home. It wasn't like Yeouido was right next door from here. But if someone had to walk—
"Load as many of the rescued as you can into the vehicles. I... shall walk with my companions."
Well, leading by example was the only way. That way, anyone still in one piece wouldn't dare open their mouths about wanting a ride.
And so the cleanup after our little expedition somehow got handled... but another reality was waiting, one that spread a thick, heavy regret through my chest all over again.
Why? How? For what reason?! Why wasn't that goddamn administrator bastard dropping any announcements or anything?
We beat the Area Boss, didn't we?! We slaughtered a filthy ton of monsters! So why wasn't any reward coming in, why wasn't there any announcement? Was an Area Boss somehow different?
Fine, let's say it's different. Even so — going over an hour with zero word was a bit much, wasn't it?! We'd fought like madmen right up to the brink of collapse to snatch that victory, and they still hadn't even settled the experience for a single monster we'd kille—
Please look up at the sky.
Holy—!
A notification popped up before everyone's eyes that made every single person stop what they were doing and freeze in place. Myself included.
A dry little seven-word message, far more bland than expected.
And yet that message held a strange pull that made people — and me — tilt our heads upward as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
And what met our eyes was a high, clear blue sky, and—
Enormous letters. Just like the numbers and words that had embroidered the sky on that day — March 31st.