Those Who Seek Death Shall Live
I finished selecting every item in the reward room and made my way toward the exit where the others had gathered. Kim Dokja was already wearing the external enhancement suit, exactly as she had in the webtoon.
“Am I a little late?”
“No. I only just finished choosing my items myself.”
“Then it looks like everyone’s ready. Shall we head to the next floor?”
“Understood. Let’s all move on to the next floor.”
On the sixth floor only a single movie poster remained. It was for the twist-thriller film The Usual Suspects, directed by Bryan Singer. The climax’s famous reveal was so well-known that we cleared the scenario simply by killing the culprit the moment we found him.
The theater owner is satisfied with the changed ending of the movie.
You have acquired 500 coins as appearance fee.
Lee Jihye asked, looking utterly dumbfounded.
“…Was that guy really the culprit?”
“It’s a spoiler, so don’t say it. There might be people who haven’t seen it.”
Constellation, ‘Secretive Plotter,’ dislikes spoilers.
Kim Dokja spoke firmly to Lee Jihye.
Hmm. So that Constellation and Kim Dokja both hate spoilers?
I was the kind of man who did the opposite of what he was told. I would spoil it with pride.
“Yeah, that guy’s the culprit. At the climax he limps out of the station, and once he’s a good distance away he starts using the leg he’d been limping on and the hand that was supposedly paralyzed, then hops in a car and drives off.”
“…You didn’t have to go into that much detail.”
“…That damn bastard.”
Constellation, ‘Secretive Plotter,’ frantically covers his ears!
A handful of Constellations who hate spoilers scream at your spoiler!
Lee Jihye, too young to have seen The Usual Suspects, glared at me after getting spoiled, while Kim Dokja glared at me for spoiling it the moment she told me not to. And the Constellations suffered. I felt fantastic. Tormenting or screwing over Constellations was always fresh and always thrilling.
“Oh, want me to spoil the Avengers series, Parasite, Alien: Romulus, The Roundup: Punishment, The Princess, and Snow White too?”
“Enough already! Stop talking! No spoilers!”
“Sure, I’ll tell you.”
“I said don’t!”
A handful of Constellations who hate spoilers scream for someone to shut that bastard’s mouth right now!
Lee Jihye’s voice rose into something like a cat’s hiss of pure hatred, and the Constellations’ agony was pure entertainment.
Anyway, I decided to stop tormenting the Constellations for now and use the reward we’d earned from clearing the movie.
Exclusive Skill, Skill Book: Cool-headed Observation acquired.
Cool-headed Observation was a skill that let you roughly gauge and estimate a person’s overall stats. For someone like me who lacked Yoo Joonghyuk’s Sage’s Eye or Kim Dokja’s Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, it was pretty useful.
I wanted to grab a pistol from the police station.
I’d hoped to duck inside and snag one, but Kim Dokja had one-shot the culprit so fast I never got the chance. A little disappointing.
We immediately climbed to the seventh floor above ground. Yoo Joonghyuk was nowhere to be seen, so she was probably already in the boss room as usual.
“All the posters here are torn up too.”
Jung Heewon muttered as she looked at the shredded seventh-floor posters. But I knew better. One movie poster was still intact. And if Lee Jihye didn’t awaken there, we could all be wiped out.
Buy one bottle of motion-sickness medicine from the general store.
Purchasing one bottle of ‘Motion-Sickness Medicine’ from the general store.
20 coins consumed.
You have beaten the low odds and won a 5% discount coupon!
※ This coupon can only be used in the general store and the Dokkaebi Bag.
Oh, a coupon.
Five percent was pretty cheap, but it was better than nothing. Getting the coupon put me in a slightly better mood. I quickly twisted the cap off the motion-sickness medicine and tossed it into my mouth.
As we walked down the corridor lined with movie posters, I spotted the one that hadn’t been torn.
The moment I dashed toward it, a spotlight snapped on with a sharp pop and lit us up.
Screening for this floor begins.
With the system message, the scenery around us changed. A mild wave of dizziness followed, and a salty tang hit the tip of my nose.
Swaaaash—
“I really hate the sea.”
Before we knew it we were standing on a ship again. A wooden panokseon bobbed on a sea of rolling waves, large and small. The acrid smell of gunpowder made me wrinkle my nose.
“Heewon! Dokja! Gilyoung! Get down!”
Knowing a hail of bullets was about to rain down on our panokseon, I shouted at the others. They dropped flat at the sound of my voice, and someone else’s voice rang out beside us.
“Everyone, down—!”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Aaaagh…!”
“S-save me…!”
We flattened ourselves against the deck of the panokseon under the sudden barrage. A few soldiers who hadn’t dropped in time collapsed with agonized screams, blood pouring from their bodies.
“Pull the ship back—!”
At someone’s command, soldiers dressed as Joseon naval troops scrambled into motion. Only after the gunfire finally stopped did we carefully rise and turn our heads toward the direction the bullets had come from.
Jung Heewon’s face had gone deathly pale. She pointed a finger at the horizon and muttered,
“How… are we supposed to win against that?”
“Wow, how did you ever beat that? I truly respect you, General.”
The sight beyond the horizon that Jung Heewon pointed at left me overwhelmed. Three hundred and thirty Japanese ships blackened the sea in front of us.
Crazy… how the hell did he overcome that insane numbers disadvantage?
The sheer disparity in forces made me shrink back instinctively. I finally understood what it felt like for your mind to go completely blank. A natural awe rose in me for Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who had won against those odds with so little loss.
While Jung Heewon and I were still staring at the endless Japanese fleet, Kim Dokja hurriedly turned her head and checked behind us. Her expression went blank with shock.
“Goddamn it…!”
The place where twelve panokseon should have been was completely empty. Kim Dokja spat a quiet curse, then leapt up and grabbed a trembling naval soldier cowering in a corner of the deck.
“Where is the Commander?”
“Th-the Commander?”
“Admiral Yi Sun-shin!”
The soldier she had by the shoulders only looked completely lost. Kim Dokja scanned the surroundings with growing urgency, then shouted a girl’s name at the top of her lungs.
“Lee Jihye…!!”
The moment Kim Dokja grabbed the soldier, I broke away from the group and began searching every corner for Lee Jihye.
“Where the hell is she?!”
The ship rocked on the waves. Nearby soldiers were turning cannons under another general’s orders, loosing arrows at the Japanese ships, while the Japanese ships returned fire. It was a full-blown battlefield, so I had to move carefully. Then, in a corner of the deck beside the mast, I found Lee Jihye sitting on the floor with her head bowed, both hands clutching her hair.
“Jihye!”
“Ugh… u-ugh….”
“Lee Jihye! Snap out of it!”
Constellation, ‘Maritime War God,’ looks upon Incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’ with pity.
I knew exactly why she was reacting like this, so I couldn’t bring myself to yell at the girl who was trembling with her head down, dry-heaving over and over.
Damn it… I should be as firm as Kim Dokja, but I just can’t….
Lee Jihye had strangled her closest friend with her own hands and survived. I knew that friend’s favorite movie had been this very Battle of Myeongnyang. So I couldn’t say a single harsh word to the girl whose PTSD had just flared up.
“Jihye… look at me for a second. I know it’s hard. But just look into my eyes for a moment.”
Her eyes were soaked with tears, and the corner of her mouth was stained with stomach acid from the repeated dry heaves. She lifted her gaze to me.
“O-Oppa….”
“…………….”
Goddamn it…. I was the soft-hearted type. Seeing Lee Jihye look so pitiful and unlike her usual self, I couldn’t respond with Kim Dokja’s cold firmness.
Stroke— stroke—
“…………?”
“………….”
I wordlessly stroked her hair, hoping it might help her pull herself together even a little.
Lee Jihye stared blankly at me as I gently patted her head. After a short while of that, I heard someone sprinting toward us from behind.
Thud! Thud!
“Jinwoo! Did you find Lee Jihye?!”
“Jihye, take this.”
“Oppa……?”
Ignoring Kim Dokja’s urgent question about Lee Jihye’s whereabouts, I pulled a soft, warm blanket from My Room, draped it over Jihye’s shoulders, and stood up.
“I’m sorry, Dokja. I’ll leave persuading Jihye to you. In exchange, I’ll buy us some time.”
“……Understood. Leave it to me.”
Kim Dokja quietly watched me speak in a far more serious tone than usual, then nodded. I gave a small smile to the woman who was being considerate of me, stepped past her, and drew the large sniper rifle I had stored in My Room.
“Fuck, looks like I’m stuck playing chicken with Japanese bastards in the Joseon era. Aigoo, what a life….”
This is why soft-hearted people get pushed around all the time.
I carried the sniper rifle to the railing of the panokseon. Many naval soldiers already lay dead there. I shoved their corpses aside, pushed the cannon that was resting in a gunport out of the way, and slid the sniper rifle through the opening, aiming at a Japanese soldier on the deck of an enemy ship.
Bang!
Crash!
I lined up the sights perfectly on the bastard’s head and pulled the trigger. The sniper round punched straight through his skull; his body tilted and collapsed to the deck with a noisy clatter.
“…Three hundred thirty ships, huh. There’s a fucking ton of them.”
Each Japanese ship seemed to carry between a hundred and two hundred enemies. At an average of a hundred fifty per ship, that put the Japanese force at nearly fifty thousand men.
“Haha, I’m gonna go bankrupt buying bullets from the shop….”
Dokja, please persuade Jihye before I go broke. Sniper rounds are way more expensive than pistol rounds…!
“I-I can’t… I can’t do it! I’m never, ever going out there! Ugh…!”
Constellation, ‘Maritime War God,’ gazes at ‘Lee Jihye’ with sorrowful eyes.
Kim Dokja stared blankly at Lee Jihye, who was pouring tears from her eyes and dry-heaving, then spoke.
“Lee Jihye, get up. Now.”
Constellation, ‘Maritime War God,’ encourages Incarnation ‘Lee Jihye.’
Lee Jihye clutched the blanket Park Jinwoo had given her tightly and said,
“No! Ugh… the four of you figure it out yourselves!”
“Can’t you just tough it out a little longer?”
“…Tough it out? Unnie, you don’t know.”
“No, I do. You’re not like this because of seasickness.”
There was no time to indulge Lee Jihye’s tantrum. So Kim Dokja forcibly dragged out the truth the girl wanted to hide.
“Your dead friend loved this movie, didn’t she?”
Lee Jihye trembled as if she had been plunged into extreme cold at Kim Dokja’s icy words. Then she asked in a shaking voice,
“H-how… how do you know that….”
Constellation, ‘Maritime War God,’ looks upon Incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’ and longs for an old comrade.
Lee Jihye was not a descendant of Chungmugong. So why had Chungmugong become her Sponsor? The answer was simple. Lee Jihye was a descendant of Jeolla Right Naval Commander Yi Eokgi, who had been Chungmugong’s comrade.
Uimingong Yi Eokgi. He had fought alongside Chungmugong to victory at Danghangpo and the Battle of Hansando, and was one of the few comrades who defended Yi Sun-shin when the admiral was unjustly arrested by the court. Yet because not enough Stories remained, he had never become a Historical-grade Constellation.
Not his own descendant, but the descendant of the comrade who once protected him. A choice that was, in its own way, exactly like Chungmugong.
Chungmugong probably couldn’t bear to watch. The descendant of the friend who had shielded him was strangling her own precious friend with her own hands and turning into a demon.
Bounty Scenario — Those Who Seek Life Shall Die, Those Who Seek Death Shall Live
📍 Category: Sub
📍 Difficulty: B+
📍 Clear Condition: ‘Maritime War God’ has requested your aid. Encourage Chungmugong’s Incarnation, ‘Lee Jihye,’ and lead the <Battle of Myeongnyang> to victory.
⏱ Time Limit: 2 hours
🎁 Reward: One of Chungmugong’s Stigmas
💀 Failure: —
Kim Dokja doubted her own eyes.
Chungmugong’s Stigma? I can use Chungmugong’s Stigma without even forming a <Sponsor Contract>?!
While Kim Dokja stared blankly at the system message, Japanese ships had already drawn close enough for grappling hooks to start catching on the panokseon’s railings.
“They’re boarding! S-stop them!”
One of the generals on the panokseon glared at the Japanese soldiers trying to climb over and shouted. Realizing there was no more time, Kim Dokja urgently seized Lee Jihye’s shoulders.
“Lee Jihye! No time to explain! Get up right now! You killed your friend with your own hands just to survive, and now you’re going to die pointlessly here? Whether you run or not, you’ll never be forgiven.”
Lee Jihye looked up at Kim Dokja with dazed eyes.
“Look around you! Everyone except you is fighting! Heewon and Gilyoung are already fighting the Japanese! And… don’t you see Jinwoo fighting over there?”
Lee Jihye turned her gaze to where Kim Dokja pointed. There, Park Jinwoo was cutting down Japanese soldiers with the sword he had obtained in the reward room. But he looked thoroughly exhausted.
“O-Oppa….”
“Do you see the state he’s in? He’s already covered in wounds from Japanese attacks and bleeding from all over. If you don’t step up now, not only him but me, Heewon, Gilyoung, and you will all die. Is that really what you want?”
At Kim Dokja’s words, Lee Jihye squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head, as if she didn’t want to hear any more. But Kim Dokja looked down at her and kept driving in words as sharp as daggers.
“Don’t look down! Snap out of it, look around, and get up! If you just pull yourself together and stand, not only you but the rest of the party can all live!”
Mid-sentence, Kim Dokja noticed several Japanese soldiers who had already boarded the panokseon aiming their guns at Lee Jihye and herself. She stepped in front of Jihye and deflected the bullets with her shield.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
“Kh…!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Gyaaaaah!”
“Guh…!”
Bullets from somewhere struck the Japanese soldiers and dropped them dead. Startled, Kim Dokja looked toward the source and saw Park Jinwoo, surrounded by Japanese soldiers and still cutting them down, had fired on the ones threatening her and Lee Jihye.
“Lee Jihye!!”
Under Kim Dokja’s urging and the chaos around them, Lee Jihye’s face twisted with despair. Tears streamed down as she recalled memories of her closest friend, her best friend Na Bori.
‘Hey, Uljji! How was it? This movie was sick, right?!’
‘Yeah, it was pretty sick.’
The memory of laughing and watching the movie The Admiral: Roaring Currents with Na Bori in a theater.
‘Uljji! Let’s hit the snack bar!’
‘Again? You’re gonna get fat.’
‘What?! You’re not buying for me?!’
‘Hehe, sorry!’
‘Then hurry up, you brat!’
‘Hey! Wait for me!’
The memory of joking around and racing to the school snack bar with Na Bori.
‘Uljji, you want to live, right? Kill me and live a long life in my place.’
‘H-how am I supposed to kill you, Bori….’
‘Hurry…! At this rate we’ll both die… please, just you live….’
‘I… I….’
The memory of finally strangling her best friend Bori with her own hands so that she herself could survive.
Reliving both the precious memories and the worst memory with her best friend Na Bori, Lee Jihye poured out tears with an expression that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
“I… I’m disgusting. I… I…! Don’t deserve… to be alive….”
Grit….
Kim Dokja clenched her teeth hard at Lee Jihye’s words. Her own ugliness for trying to use the wounded girl disgusted her.
Yeah, it’s disgusting. You are. And so am I for using you like this.
I, who knew the circumstances of you “characters” from Ways of Survival and used that knowledge to survive, am disgusting.
How is the way I’m treating them any different from the way Lee Jihye used to kill movie villains without hesitation?
Kim Dokja poured all her self-disgust at using Lee Jihye and her raw desire to survive into a shout.
“No one has any ‘right’ to live! If you killed your friend and survived, then take responsibility!”
Kim Dokja mercilessly cut down a Japanese soldier charging at her and continued speaking.
Slash!
“Gyaak!”
“Spend the rest of your life atoning to your friend, or keep living like trash—just survive somehow! Or do you want to die meaninglessly here after killing your closest friend just to live? Is that all your resolve amounts to?!”
Kim Dokja glared at her with cold eyes. Lee Jihye dropped her head under those words and that gaze, and tears poured endlessly from her eyes.
Your understanding of Character ‘Lee Jihye’ is considerable.
Exclusive Skill, ‘Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint’ Stage 2 activates!
When Kim Dokja activated Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, the negative emotions Lee Jihye held in her heart flooded over. Rage, self-loathing, disillusionment with the world, guilt and sorrow toward her friend—all those dark feelings surfaced. And from deep inside Lee Jihye’s heart, her true thoughts could be heard.
『I don’t… want to die….』
Lee Jihye clutched the blanket tightly, trembling all over, then roughly wiped her tears with the sleeve of her hoodie and stood up. Even so, the tears at the corners of her eyes refused to stop.
“Hic…!”
『I’m sorry… Bori.』
Clank.
Lee Jihye glared at the battlefield with fierce eyes and gripped her long sword tightly.
『I… I will definitely live… I’ll survive….』
Constellations were selfish. They didn’t always grant sponsorship just because an Incarnation begged, and plenty of them didn’t care whether their Incarnation lived or died. But—
No Constellation ever turned away from their Incarnation on the stage of their own Story.
Lee Jihye slowly drew her long sword from its scabbard.
Constellation, ‘Maritime War God,’ responds to Incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’s’ will.
Lee Jihye drove the drawn long sword into the deck. In that instant, a brilliant ray of light erupted and a crimson aura burst from her body.
Character ‘Lee Jihye’ has acquired a new Stigma.
Character ‘Lee Jihye’ activates Stigma ‘Ghost Fleet Lv.1’!
Tch, only Yoo Joonghyuk got the good stuff. Well, at least I’m getting something out of this too.
Lee Jihye gripped the sword she had driven into the deck and looked out at the sea before her. The enemies were many, and there were no allies. Yet she quietly drew her blade toward the world, toward the countless Japanese soldiers before her eyes.
「…To the gods.」
A powerful wave struck the center of the panokseon. Whirlpools began to form all across the waters.
「There are still twelve ships left.」
Waterspouts rose from the whirlpools. Twelve waterspouts erupted around the panokseon, and both the Joseon naval forces and the Japanese soldiers stared at them in stunned confusion.
「If I can avenge this grudge.」
From between the twelve waterspouts, twelve translucent panokseon emerged into view. Those ships were the Stigma ‘Ghost Fleet’ bestowed by the Constellation ‘Maritime War God,’ the power that would one day make Lee Jihye the Admiral of the Seas.
「I would have no regrets even if I died here.」
In the middle of the battlefield, the sudden appearance of the Ghost Fleet left Kim Dokja’s party, the Joseon navy, and the Japanese forces all staring blankly at the spectral ships.
Lee Jihye coldly surveyed the silent battlefield, then yanked the sword free from the deck, pointed it at the Japanese ships, and roared,
“Fire!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!
At Lee Jihye’s command, every cannon mounted on the Ghost Fleet opened fire as one. The Japanese ships that had blocked the path of our panokseon and choked the seas of Joseon began to crumble helplessly under the barrage.