Chapter 148
Chapter 148
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 148
Chapter Title: Sceléstus
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Research Log: Year X, Month X, Day X
Its contagiousness is impeccable, but the individual's capabilities are too pathetic.
I attempted forced gene synthesis, but the results were not good.
Its combat power has increased somewhat, but its weaknesses are so clear that it's easy to counter.
This won't do.
With such a half-baked creation, I cannot bring down his fortress.
Research Log: Year X, Month X, Day X
As I was pondering what to do, my younger sibling brought me research data on hive minds.
Weak when scattered, but strong when gathered as a collective?
Quite interesting.
I think I will set my research direction this way from now on.
Research Log: Year X, Month X, Day X
There has been significant progress, but I have a dilemma.
Should I grant these things intelligence, or not?
The thought of using this to destroy him is thrilling, yet at the same time, it feels unsettling.
I fear that in the end, even I will be unable to control them.
Closing the research log, Lee Si-woo tapped the table with his index finger.
Plenitas cautiously approached him as he was lost in thought.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
Si-woo tucked the research log into his coat so she wouldn't see it and said.
“It’s nothing. Hmm? But where did you get that?”
At Si-woo’s question, who had noticed the composite bow slung over her shoulder, she replied with a triumphant voice.
“This bow? Hehe, I totally scored. I was wondering how to utilize my Archery Talent, and this cute little thing was hanging on the lab wall.”
After checking the composite bow with his scanner, Si-woo smacked his lips in disappointment.
“It’s good that you found it, but it’s a bit disappointing that it’s just an ordinary item. It would have been nice if it had at least one miscellaneous option.”
“It’s a shame it has no options and only three arrows, but I’m still satisfied. I think I can be of help to you with this, Myeong. This means I’m no longer a burden, but a companion!”
Si-woo looked at her as if she were hopeless, with her nose held high and hands on her hips, speaking with confidence.
“I may not be sure about other things, but I like your mindset. Anyway, let’s go. I don’t think there’s anything more to gain by staying in this lab.”
“Ah, are you heading back to the cafeteria?”
“Yes. For now. But…”
Si-woo checked the time displayed on the screen of the scanner he had just acquired.
“There’s something that’s bothering me. Let’s hurry.”
With those words, Si-woo started to leave the lab, but then, as if on a whim, he picked up a few teeth from a white corpse preserved in a beaker for research purposes and handed them to Plenitas.
“Before that, keep these, just in case. And…”
Si-woo gave Plenitas a few instructions, then packed his things and left the laboratory.
* * *
Si-woo and Plenitas quickly returned to the cafeteria.
And there, they saw it.
The open secret door and the cafeteria, already a complete mess.
Overturned tables and broken windows.
In the center of the chaotic cafeteria lay Chanchilla, dead and turned into a white corpse, and next to him stood unwelcome guests, arms crossed, staring at them.
Si-woo, who had a rough idea of the intruders' identity, quickly scanned them.
‘As I thought, members of Club Sprinter who noticed Roken’s death came to the cafeteria. They must have had a way of sensing his death. More importantly… this is a total mess.’
Judging by their condition, they didn't seem to have been bitten by the white-corpsed Chanchilla, which was fortunate, but it was obvious they were already infected by the white plague that had spread through the air.
Of course, Si-woo had the vaccine, but there was a problem.
He only had three vaccines, while there were four of them.
Then again, even if he had four, Si-woo was not the kind of person to use all of them for their sake.
A bald man who appeared to be the leader among the Sprinter members asked.
“Who are you?”
“Myeong.”
“Myeong… so you’re the 8-Star prospect Roken reported.”
“I suppose so.”
Was his curt reply bothersome?
The square-jawed woman next to the bald man stepped forward as if to say something, but the bald man stopped her.
“Roken? What happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead? How?”
Si-woo gestured towards Chanchilla with his chin.
“By that thing.”
At Si-woo’s words, the bald man chuckled and nudged Chanchilla’s corpse with his foot.
Chanchilla’s body flipped over, revealing a face mangled beyond recognition.
“By this? Roken? Sorry, but a veteran who cleared Chapter 2 isn’t naive enough to be taken down by something like this. Well, unless it was an Irregular, an 8-Star prospect like yourself.”
Faced with the bald man’s blatant suspicion, Si-woo replied in a blunt tone.
“He had a gun, and I didn’t. I’m not foolish enough to act rashly in front of a gun.”
The bald man spoke in a cold voice.
“But it’s a different story if you were ambushed.”
“This conversation is getting needlessly tedious. So? What are you going to do? Kill me?”
“No, I can’t do that. It would be too much of a waste to kill you here, not knowing what events an 8-Star prospect might unlock or what items they could obtain. The club wouldn’t allow it either. Instead… I suppose I could put a leash on you.”
The bald man pulled out a black leather collar studded with iron spikes from his coat.
“You might not know this since you’re a newbie, but there are a lot of interesting items within the trials. This is a bomb collar, and its function is simple. It has an ‘unremovable’ option, so you can never take it off by yourself, but if we just press a button on our remote… boom! What do you think? Get the picture?”
Si-woo let out a smirk.
“And you’re going to put that on me?”
The bald man looked at Si-woo with eyes like a wolf that had caught a rabbit by the scruff of its neck.
“That’s right.”
Si-woo shrugged, set up a chair that was carelessly strewn nearby, crossed his legs, and sat down.
Then he took out a vaccine syringe from his coat and placed it on the table next to him.
“Now, if you want to live, you’d better listen carefully from this point on. Because this is the whole truth.”
Resting his chin on his hand, Si-woo pointed at the white corpse with his index finger and continued.
“It’s a new virus called Sceléstus. You all must have heard of it at least once. No, there’s no way you haven’t. The hottest news in the Main Dimension is all about the virus. Oh, and just in case you didn't know, that thing is it.”
“You think we’re idiots? Of course, we know that’s a white corpse or whatever. We knew it the moment we saw it. But so what? It doesn’t matter as long as you don’t get bitten, right?”
“No, quite inconveniently… here, you can get infected just by the virus in the air, even without being bitten. For some reason, the virus here has a transmissibility that’s beyond imagination.”
At Si-woo’s words, not only the bald man but all of his companions’ faces stiffened.
The bald man snapped in a thorny tone.
“…This bastard is spouting some ridiculous nonsense, trying to pull a cheap trick…”
“You don’t believe me? Then wait and see. As far as I know, it takes about an hour for a full transformation from airborne infection. Hmm, but… I don’t think we need to wait that long? Ah, I didn’t know this… it seems the transformation time varies from person to person? Apparently, some people transform in less than an hour.”
Si-woo pointed to the square-jawed woman next to the bald man.
Her eyes were slowly losing their natural brown color, and several white dots, like sprinkled chalk dust, were floating in the center of her pupils.
Seeing this, the bald man and his companions flinched and unknowingly stepped back.
“Eri. Your eyes…”
The square-jawed woman, called Eri, took out a hand mirror, checked her eyes, and shrieked.
“What? What is this… why are my eyes like this? N-No way! A new virus?! Why would something like that suddenly appear in a trial! Th-That’s a virus from the real Main Dimension! Isn’t this place… a virtual world modeled after the Main Dimension’s past?”
One of her companions said.
“…There’s no rule that says it can’t be here. All the rumors we talk about are just unproven hypotheses.”
As the group’s atmosphere grew chaotic, the bald man stepped forward and spoke to Si-woo.
“Wait, if what you’re saying is true, how are you two perfectly fine?”
Si-woo pointed to the syringe on the table.
“Thanks to the vaccine. I was able to get it as a reward for completing a hidden chapter.”
The bald man’s eyes widened as if he understood.
“Now I get it. This new virus, or whatever it is, came from the hidden chapter that your high-and-mighty self opened, right? And Roken died trying to clear that hidden chapter.”
“Correct.”
“So, in the end, it’s a fact that Roken died because of you.”
“No, not because of me, but because of his own greed. For a veteran, he was extremely confident. Now, let’s end this boring argument here. You should have a rough idea of how things are going… if you have any sense, you’ll have figured it out. Now that you’re infected, it’s a foregone conclusion that you’ll become a white corpse without a vaccine.”
Si-woo chuckled and continued.
“But what to do? The vaccine left over after my companion and I used ours… oops, there’s only one? And there are four of you.”
In reality, he had two more syringes, but Si-woo wasn't one to reveal all his cards so easily.
As Si-woo finished speaking, a suffocating silence fell upon the cafeteria.
The bald man exchanged an anxious glance with his companions, then glared at Si-woo with eyes steeped in hostility.
He looked ready to pounce on Si-woo and snatch the vaccine at any moment.
It was a touch-and-go situation.
With a low laugh, Si-woo suddenly threw the vaccine syringe at them.
As the single vaccine flew towards them, everyone except the bald man rushed for it without a moment’s hesitation.
Watching them throw themselves at the vaccine like starving hyenas seeing raw meat, Si-woo said.
“I wonder. Who will get the vaccine first?”
However, what Si-woo had overlooked was that they were veterans and knew each other all too well.
The bald man, Kretus, shouted.
“Everyone, stop! Don’t fall for his trick!”
At Kretus’s shout, everyone stopped in their tracks and looked back at him.
Kretus glared at Si-woo, his eyes flashing with a frosty light.
“Trying to incite infighting? A pretty good trick. You son of a bitch.”
Si-woo tilted his head.
According to his calculations, they should have been fighting each other just now.
With the transformation looming at any moment, their lives were not guaranteed without the vaccine.
And yet, they were quietly listening to Kretus? Right now, when their lives were on the line?
Si-woo spoke in a low, deep voice.
“Ah, so you’re the leader. A leader so strong that the rest of them combined would have a hard time facing you.”
“That’s right. They all know it. No matter how much they struggle, as long as I have the ‘Suit,’ the vaccine is as good as mine. So… you’re going to get a beating first. I’ll teach you some manners, then I’ll check if you have any more vaccines.”
Kretus touched the center of the watch on his wrist, and a gray energy extended from the end of the watch's black band, enveloping his entire body.
Soon, Kretus, now wearing a gray suit and a mask resembling a rat that looked like something out of a tokusatsu show, spoke.
“This is a suit called ‘Rat.’ As you can see, it’s not much to look at. But… its ability is quite useful.”
Kretus’s body instantly appeared in front of Si-woo.
Approaching Si-woo with the speed of wind, he struck him in the chest.
As Si-woo clutched his chest and staggered back, Kretus said in a kind tone.
“It has 1st Circle Elemental Magic, ‘Haste,’ as an option, and it also boosts overall attack and defense, so I can easily overpower a regular user.”
Si-woo’s lips twisted into a smirk.
Seeing Si-woo still looking composed after taking a hit, Kretus tilted his head in surprise.
From his perspective, unaware that Si-woo’s physical durability was enhanced by the Fortitude Talent, it was incomprehensible that Si-woo appeared fine after his attack.
Si-woo muttered.
“You talk too much.”
Si-woo clenched his fist, now wearing a black glove studded with spikes.
“Makes you look weak.”
Si-woo swung a hook that whipped like a lash, striking Kretus in the side.
*CRACK!*
Was it due to his strength being enhanced by the Brute Force Talent? Kretus, feeling an unimaginable impact as if a hole had been punched in his side, clutched his side with both hands and stumbled backward.
Taking a hit to show off the power of his suit had been a bad move.
Kretus spoke in a trembling voice.
“Wh-what was that? What kind of punch is this? It’s like being hit with a sledgehammer… Hah, you… don’t tell me you got an item that grants a Talent from the hidden chapter…”
As if to say he talked too much, Si-woo silently threw a low kick.
But Kretus, deciding that one hit was enough, dodged the attack by pulling his body back and then, with lightning-fast movements, unleashed a storm of blows on Si-woo.
*Pabababak!*
It was no lie that the suit had Haste as an option; Kretus’s attacks were too fast for Si-woo to dodge.
Moreover, while a single blow was manageable, allowing such a barrage resulted in significant accumulated damage.
No matter how tough Si-woo’s body was, it was still just the flesh and blood of a human.
And that wasn't all.
As if his bruised side was still throbbing, Kretus pressed his attack, giving Si-woo no chance to retaliate.
He felt a sense of crisis, that even with the suit, another hit could break his bones.
Just then, as Si-woo was being pushed back helplessly, he shouted.
“Plenitas! Now!”
From behind Si-woo, she, who had been watching for an opportunity with her composite bow, nocked an arrow and drew the string.
*Fwing!*
Seeing the arrow released from the vibrating bowstring, Kretus sneered.
“Not a gun, but a pathetic arrow like that? What do you hope to achieve? Besides, where are you even aiming?”
However, Kretus did not know.
That the arrow was not aimed at him, but at the shoulder of one of his companions.
And what was attached to the tip of that arrowhead.
*Thwack!*
Eri, who had been absentmindedly watching the fight, was struck and rolled on the floor with a faint groan.
“How dare that bitch attack Eri…! Eri! Are you okay?!”
A companion, worried about her, approached Eri, but it was a mistake.
For what Plenitas had attached to the arrowhead and shot was none other than a tooth from the white corpse she had taken from the lab.
And then, Eri, who had completed her transformation in an instant, let out a monstrous scream and bit her companion’s neck.
A scream. And then, the spreading infection.
It took less than ten seconds for all of Kretus’s companions to turn into white corpses.
“Y-You… you son of a bitch…!”
To Kretus, who looked ready to charge at him any second, Si-woo said.
“Hey, calm down. And think rationally. There’s only one vaccine left, and due to an unforeseen accident, all your companions have been infected. At this point, using the vaccine is meaningless. In a situation like this…”
Si-woo grinned and continued.
“Is there really any need for us to fight anymore? Needlessly? Oh, and don’t forget. You’re infected with the virus too, so you don’t know when your transformation will begin.”
Kretus ground his teeth.
And then, he realized.
That the man before him.
Was more vicious and dangerous than anyone he had ever met.