Chapter 165
Chapter 165
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 165
Chapter Title: The National Cemetery
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Young Si-woo led Lee Si-woo and Looktator to the National Cemetery located within the city.
The state-of-the-art National Cemetery was a massive gray structure with tens of thousands of coffins stored underground, disappointing Looktator, who had been expecting the dreary, cinematic scenery of a traditional graveyard.
“I was hoping for an atmosphere eerie enough to test my valor… but this. Hmph. You can't even tell if it's a cemetery or a hotel for corpses. Tsk, tsk, there's no mystique to it, none at all.”
Unlike Looktator, Lee Si-woo, who appreciated the clean exterior of the National Cemetery building, spoke.
“Isn’t it a hundred times better than the sky burials the orcs practice?”
“Hmph, how could boring humans like you understand our custom of returning to nature what was born from it? The world can only cycle if you give back to nature what you've received.”
“Isn’t that strange tradition the reason plagues are always breaking out in the Empire? It’s a bit much to just leave corpses lying around in the city, don’t you think?”
As if struck by Lee Si-woo’s point, Looktator smacked her lips and grumbled.
“Tch, that’s because of a few clueless fools who don’t use the proper burial grounds.”
Young Si-woo, who had been listening quietly, asked with sparkling eyes.
“The Empire? Is the place you two came from a country called the Empire? And orcs? What are they?”
Seeing Young Si-woo’s interest in their story, Lee Si-woo answered in a nonchalant tone.
“The Empire is a country in the place we’re from, but it’s not my country. And orcs are… you can think of them as another race. Like Black people or White people.”
Young Si-woo spoke with a hum of interest.
“Oh, really? But… why are you lying?”
“What?”
Young Si-woo smiled faintly. His eyes, revealed between the curving lines of his eyelids, watched Lee Si-woo intently.
“Orcs are a completely different species from people of color. They’re a demi-human race with huge fangs, upturned noses, and powerful, muscular bodies.”
Most people would have been embarrassed to be caught in a lie, but Lee Si-woo was different.
Instead, he brazenly asked Young Si-woo.
“Right, so you knew about orcs. Are you one of the devil’s masterpieces, the one who conducted biological experiments on you?”
“No. Orcs are more like imitations than masterpieces. You should see them as a kind of byproduct. Anyway, you’re really shameless. Don’t you feel guilty for lying to me so casually?”
“What is there to feel guilty about? It’s not like I was intentionally trying to deceive you. I just didn’t feel like giving a long-winded explanation of facts you’d have a hard time believing, so I tried to gloss over it.”
“…Isn’t that worse?”
“If we’re going to argue that, then aren’t you the worse one for pretending not to know and baiting me into a lie?”
Having reached that point in their conversation, Young Si-woo and Lee Si-woo glared at each other with fiery eyes that looked like they could shoot lasers.
Looktator, watching them from behind, chuckled.
“What a perfect pair of cockroaches. Truly.”
Displeased with his own tendency to get unusually emotional when talking to Young Si-woo, Lee Si-woo let out a faint sigh and spoke.
“Si-woo. I’m sorry I lied. But it wasn’t intentional. I never thought you would know about orcs; I was just too lazy to explain it.”
Young Si-woo replied with a reluctant expression to Lee Si-woo's apology, which seemed sincere on one hand but also like an excuse on the other.
“…It’s fine. It’s true I was being a little cunning myself. But… are there really orcs in your world? For real? And that woman was originally an orc, but now she’s human?”
“Yes, it’s hard to explain in detail, but you’re more or less right.”
“Then it must be true that you came from another dimension. The devil said so. That he plans to activate other dimensions by sending his imitations to empty dimensions.”
“Activate other dimensions? Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know his purpose either. But it’s actually in progress. They’re preparing to send the demi-humans and monsters, the results of the biological experiments, to other dimensions. And if the timelines are different, as you once told me… then you two are probably from the future….”
Young Si-woo, though mistaken, had reached his own conclusion.
But Lee Si-woo had no intention of correcting him.
The young Si-woo before him was clearly his past self, but he wasn’t the real one.
This was a world of trials.
It was nothing more than a fake world set up in a virtual space.
“Si-woo. Where I came from, what my world is like… no, whether I lied or not, none of that is important.”
Lee Si-woo hurled Viet’s corpse toward the window of the National Cemetery building, which looked clean on the outside but was filled with an unidentifiable, eerie air.
Her body, launched like a shot put, crashed through the window and fell inside.
“What’s important is that you owe me, and I’m helping you out of goodwill. And the same goes for you. You may have questions for me, but you don’t doubt or guard against me. So… let’s ignore the trivial stuff for now, trust each other, and solve the problem right in front of us. The wraith leader. Let’s deal with that first. How about it?”
At Lee Si-woo’s words, Young Si-woo shrugged.
The familiar gesture was so much like his own that Lee Si-woo was momentarily lost in a strange sentiment.
Watching his past self was just that special of an experience.
Young Si-woo said.
“That’s true. But putting the body inside the building… I guess you’re planning to use this wraith’s lair as a trap?”
“Right.”
Lee Si-woo checked the time.
It was already five in the afternoon.
The day was slowly fading, and evening was approaching.
* * *
Montreal, along with three police NPCs and two club members, tracked Viet’s location signal to the National Cemetery.
“We’re here.”
The police NPCs were fully armed with rifles, grenades, and bulletproof vests, each carrying a heavy-looking black box on their back.
The boxes seemed quite heavy, as the police immediately set them on the ground upon hearing Montreal’s announcement.
Glancing at them, Montreal looked up at the darkening sky and said.
“The silver and salt? You brought enough, right?”
A club member set down the sacks they had brought and replied.
“Yes. In case of an emergency, we brought enough to hold out for a full day if we have to hole up in a nearby building.”
“Good. Let’s go then. It seems they’re waiting for us in there. And… to the officers, don’t let your guard down. If their movements seem suspicious, take that out immediately and strike them.”
One of the police officers tilted his head and asked.
“Will that be alright? I heard there’s a hostage. If we’re not careful, the hostage could get caught in the crossfire.”
“I’m aware. However… the fact that there has been no contact so far bothers me. This place might be a trap.”
“What? This is a cemetery. What kind of trap could they possibly set in a place like this….”
The officer’s words were cut short.
As the sun set and darkness began to fall, the entire National Cemetery seemed to stir, and the wails of wraiths echoed through the air.
Feeling a chilling sensation that made the hair on his arms stand up, Montreal shouted.
“Set up a salt barrier!”
The club members moved in perfect unison, grabbing the sacks of salt.
As they drew a large circle with the salt in the blink of an eye, the police and Montreal stepped inside.
Simultaneously, the salt barrier began to tremble as if hit by a strong wind.
Despite the windless air, the salt shifted and the barrier threatened to collapse, causing the panicked club members to hastily replenish it with more salt from their sacks.
And that was just the beginning.
*Kiyaaaaaaah!*
With a scream that felt like an awl piercing their eardrums, the salt barrier began to crumble like land in an earthquake.
While the club members, drenched in cold sweat, repaired the salt barrier, Montreal and the police opened sacks filled with silver powder.
“Hurry and scatter the silver everywhere! Quickly!”
At Montreal’s command, the police grabbed handfuls of silver powder and threw it in all directions.
It looked as futile as children playing in the sand, but as soon as the silver powder flew outside the barrier, bright sparks flew and another scream echoed.
*Kiyaaaaaaah!*
Realizing that something invisible was surrounding their barrier, the police officers’ hands moved even faster.
Each time they threw the silver powder, sparks flew, and black ash fell to the ground.
It was the remnants of wraiths, purified by the silver.
But even as they responded smoothly, the grim expression on Montreal’s face did not ease.
‘What? This is strange. The wraiths should be retreating by now… Why… why aren’t they showing any signs of backing down?’
If anything, the more silver powder they scattered, the more ferocious the wraiths seemed to become.
It was like pouring cold water on boiling oil.
This was because it was the wraiths’ lair, and their leader was commanding them, but Montreal had no way of knowing that.
Just then, a gunshot, like a harbinger of doom, rang in Montreal’s ears.
*Rat-a-tat-tat!*
With the sound of a rifle firing, one side of the salt barrier that had been protecting them collapsed.
A volley of bullets had struck the barrier’s surface, tearing it to shreds.
Montreal instantly turned his head toward the source of the sound, and his eyes met the sight of Lee Si-woo, who had set up his own barrier on a hill and was aiming a rifle at them.
Overwhelmed with despair and rage, Montreal screamed.
“Eric—! You son of a bitch—!”
Following Montreal’s harsh curse, the bodies of the club members who had been busy repairing the barrier were seized by something unseen and lifted into the air.
Montreal shouted to the police.
“Silver powder! Throw the silver powder on my comrades!”
The police scrambled to grab the silver powder, but they were a step too late.
The officers themselves were already captured by wraiths, floating in mid-air.
In a lair with an unknown number of wraiths, their fate had been sealed the moment the barrier broke.
“No—!”
With a final, desperate cry, Montreal too was captured by a wraith.
Eventually, after struggling in the air until their suits’ durability ran out, they were helplessly torn limb from limb.
Watching their empty and futile end, Lee Si-woo spoke.
“How’s the barrier?”
Unlike Montreal’s hastily constructed barrier that required constant maintenance, Young Si-woo had built a salt barrier and then poured holy water from the cathedral over it.
This was to dissolve the salt into the holy water and let it seep into the nearby soil, raising the barrier’s durability to another level.
“It’s solid. It’ll hold until the leader shows up.”
“When will the leader appear?”
“I’m not sure exactly… but it will probably show up when the number of wraiths drops below half.”
*Click.*
Lee Si-woo disengaged the rifle’s safety and said.
“Below half… That shouldn’t be too hard.”
Soon, the muzzle of Lee Si-woo’s rifle spat fire.
*Rat-a-tat-a-tat!*
With the gunshots, sparks flew in all directions, incomparable to what scattering silver powder had achieved.
This was the effect of the silver-plated bullets piercing through the wraiths, unlike the silver powder which only affected those nearby.
Glancing at the spectacular scene, which resembled the start of a fireworks display, Lee Si-woo’s gaze shifted toward where Montreal had died.
‘Montreal knew I killed Grizzly. He must have brought a trump card… Hmm, the black boxes. That’s probably it. Then again, does it even matter? Whatever they are, now… they’re mine.’
Lee Si-woo pulled the trigger, a corner of his mouth curling up.
It was shaping up to be a night of many profitable gains.