Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Gigantes Down
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Kang-seok concluded that this world's level of civilization was, roughly speaking, "fantasy."
It was a world straight out of a fantasy game or novel.
He hadn't had a very deep conversation with the village chief's son, but he had still managed to gather quite a bit of information.
One, magic was real in this world.
Two, there were many nations, but the largest and most powerful was the great southern country of Shangri-la.
Three, humans worshipped various gods. There was no particular religious persecution, and nearly all humans, including those in Shangri-la, the most powerful human nation, commonly worshipped the "Four Great Gods."
Four, religions worshipping gods other than the Four Great Gods also existed.
Five, while it might be limited to this village, the chief and the villagers recognized Choi Yu-ra as a "Player," a "being from a faraway place." If Players had been summoned across the entire world, it was highly likely that other places had a similar perception.
Mulling over his conversation with the village chief's son, Kang-seok stood up and stretched. The night air was cold.
The reason Kang-seok was standing blankly in front of the small, square wooden building—more precisely, the outhouse—a short distance from Choi Yu-ra's hut was simple.
"You're still out there?"
"I'm here."
"S-Sorry."
"It's fine, it's fine."
Seong Yu-jin, scared to go to the outhouse alone at dawn, had asked Kang-seok to come with her.
With no electricity, there were of course no lights.
A strange village. On top of that, it was a dark outhouse standing alone in a secluded spot, so it was understandable that Seong Yu-jin would be scared.
'This never happened in Labyrinthos.'
Kang-seok stifled a laugh and looked up at the night sky. A night view unimaginable in Seoul, South Korea, unfolded before him.
A sea of stars.
It was a sensation he couldn't feel inside Labyrinthos.
The world.
The people living on this land. Not Players, not NPCs in a game, but real people living their own lives.
Kang-seok closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He liked the feeling of the cold night air seeping into his lungs.
But that good feeling lasted only for a moment.
"Aah!"
At the sound of Seong Yu-jin's sudden scream from inside the outhouse, Kang-seok reflexively drew Durandal. Without a second thought, he kicked down the outhouse door and rushed in.
"Yu-jin!"
Inside the outhouse, lit by a single candle, Seong Yu-jin, who had hastily pulled up her pants, looked at Kang-seok with a flustered face.
A few seconds passed.
Her face flushing red, Seong Yu-jin began to blindly throw whatever she could grab at Kang-seok, who quickly scrambled back outside.
"S-Sorry. I heard a sudden noise and just reacted."
"No, well."
A few minutes after the commotion.
Seong Yu-jin came out of the outhouse, and she and Kang-seok continued their conversation with awkward faces. Since Choi Yu-ra's hut was on the outskirts of the village, thankfully no villagers had come running at the sound of Seong Yu-jin's scream.
"Ahem."
Seong Yu-jin let out a dry cough to ease her embarrassment, then pouted and said.
"A sub-quest popped up. I was about to stand up when I suddenly heard a *ding* in my ear, so I..."
Her voice trailed off. Kang-seok blinked.
"A sub-quest?"
"Yeah, look."
As the topic awkwardly shifted, Seong Yu-jin quickly flicked her fingers to activate the characters of light. Since they were in a party, it was possible to share quest-related text.
[Sub-quest: Defeat 50 zombies.]
[Zombies defeated so far 0/50]
Kang-seok let out a hollow laugh at the random quest.
"What a very Exa Online-like sub-quest."
The very epitome of a simple, repetitive grind.
Seong Yu-jin frowned.
"You're making fun of it, aren't you?"
"Anyway."
Kang-seok mumbled noncommittally and opened the hut's door. Choi Yu-ra was sleeping inside, but he didn't seem to care, lighting two candles as he spoke.
"Since we're on the topic, shall we take a look at the map?"
The hut, which was literally a single room, had only a single piece of furniture: a low, square table.
Placing the candles on it, Kang-seok took out a large piece of folded paper from his backpack.
The light and the rustling naturally woke Choi Yu-ra, who let out a groan. She pulled the blanket she was under up to her chin and rubbed her eyes.
"What, you two are still up?"
"You just go back to sleep."
Waving his hand dismissively, Kang-seok spread the paper on the table. He explained to Seong Yu-jin, who sat beside him.
"When the village chief's son came by earlier, I asked him to draw a rough map of this area."
Since the chief's son had visited while Seong Yu-jin and Choi Yu-ra were bathing, Kang-seok was the only one who had spoken to him directly.
It was a map showing the terrain around the village, with the dungeon Labyrinthos marked in one corner. The villagers had been told it was a forbidden place to be avoided since ancient times.
Kang-seok pointed to the locations marked on the map one by one.
"The direction the zombies attacked from this time was here. And the points where the villagers encountered zombies were here and here. Don't you feel something?"
"There's a pattern to their direction?"
"Right. And this way. This is likely the source."
Kang-seok pointed to a place quite a distance from the village.
"He said there's a cemetery. Apparently, there used to be a fairly large village beyond this forest."
"So the undead are spawning from the cemetery?"
"Well, you need the 'materials' for them to become undead in the first place."
The source of both zombies and skeletons was human corpses. The number of zombies and skeletons that attacked the village today was in the dozens; a cemetery was the only place that would have that many bodies.
"I see, that makes sense."
Seong Yu-jin nodded in agreement. And at that very moment.
[Chain Quest: Investigate the cemetery believed to be the source of the undead outbreak.]
[If the undead outbreak is left unchecked, stronger undead may appear over time. Please be aware of this.]
With a *ding*, new characters of light appeared. This time, they didn't just appear before Kang-seok and Seong Yu-jin.
"Hey, you told me to just sleep."
Choi Yu-ra sat up, ruffling her hair in annoyance. She swiped a hand through the air irritably, a sign that the characters of light had appeared for her too.
"It really is dynamic."
When the village was attacked by the undead, a quest to save the village appeared.
When the party discussed the source of the undead, a chain quest to investigate the source appeared.
It was incredibly dynamic.
Kang-seok stroked his chin as if organizing his thoughts and said.
"The one who brought us to this world and the one giving us these quests are probably the same entity. Honestly, it feels bad to be moving according to the will of some unknown being, but... for now, the only thing we can do is clear the quests. To find out what the World Quest is, and to become even a little bit stronger."
Kang-seok's words were reasonable. But instead of immediately agreeing, Seong Yu-jin tilted her head slightly. She stared intently at Kang-seok's face.
"That's not all, is it?"
"Huh?"
"It's for the villagers, isn't it?"
Just today, two villagers had died. Four others were injured. If the undead attacks continued, the villagers would have no choice but to abandon their homes.
Destroy the source of the undead and secure the village's safety.
"No, well... that's part of it."
Kang-seok averted his gaze, looking embarrassed. It was true, but hearing it said so directly was somehow awkward.
Seong Yu-jin smiled warmly at him.
From their first meeting in the lowest level of Labyrinthos until now.
Kang-seok had always maintained his humanity. The kind of humanity that was harder to display in extreme situations.
The sight of an abashed Kang-seok and Seong Yu-jin looking at him with a warm gaze.
Watching them from a step away, Choi Yu-ra burst out laughing.
"Wow, you two are so cute. It's nice to see. How can you be so adorable?"
At the auntie-like interruption, Seong Yu-jin coughed to hide her embarrassment, while Kang-seok, on the contrary, regained his composure. He gestured with his chin at Choi Yu-ra and asked.
"Hey, since you're awake anyway, let me ask you something."
"What?"
"About the FPS fighting style."
Players from different games.
At Kang-seok's question, Choi Yu-ra grinned.
"So, when I try to shoot something, a crosshair appears in the air. If I shoot according to that crosshair, the accuracy goes way up."
"You mean a reticle?"
"Yeah, a reticle. You can guess that alone would drastically increase my accuracy, right? And thanks to this scope, I can also zoom in and out."
Choi Yu-ra tapped the scope mounted near her right eye. Seeing as she wore it even while sleeping, it didn't seem to be the type of equipment that interfered with daily life.
FPS (First Person Shooter), as the name implied, meant a shooting game from a first-person perspective.
If, as Choi Yu-ra said, a reticle was visible and zooming in was possible, it was an enormous advantage in shooting.
"The only other peculiar thing is that players' nicknames are visible above their heads. Lord Dark Destiny Lord."
Kang-seok returned Choi Yu-ra's sweet smile with a fierce one of his own, and Seong Yu-jin quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
With a sigh, Kang-seok asked Choi Yu-ra again.
"But wasn't Gigantes Down a shooting game?"
Currently, Choi Yu-ra's main weapon was a cartridge-fed, auto-loading crossbow. As if the point hit home, Choi Yu-ra sighed.
"It is, but I can't get any bullets. When I first woke up, all I had was this anti-materiel sniper rifle that can also be used as a rifle, and one submachine gun, both with limited ammo. I can't just fire them wildly when there's no way to get more bullets. I only use them when it's important."
Choi Yu-ra gestured with her chin toward the anti-materiel sniper rifle leaning in the corner of the room. Though called a sniper rifle, it was a weapon from an SF game, with an absurdly large muzzle, and as she said, it could also be used as a rifle.
"So, a crossbow instead of a gun?"
"Yeah, a skilled guy made it for me. You know that famous console and handheld game, 'Beast Hunter'? Where you hunt monsters and use their parts to make items. The guy who made this came from that game, and he could whip up items in a flash as long as he had the materials, like he was some kind of production class."
Choi Yu-ra's voice was as lively as ever. Seong Yu-jin, looking intrigued, took the crossbow Choi Yu-ra offered and examined it from all angles in admiration.
But Kang-seok was different.
The other Players mentioned in Choi Yu-ra's story.
"Yu-ra."
"What?"
"Can I ask you a difficult question?"
Kang-seok's expression was serious. Choi Yu-ra frowned, looking slightly reluctant, but soon nodded.
"Go ahead."
"Tell me your story. You said you started in this forest. And you lost your fellow Players in this forest. That must mean there was some great ordeal."
An ordeal similar to the one with Aden, King of Gnolls.
He wasn't asking simply because he was curious about the other Players.
For the time being, the forest surrounding the village would be Kang-seok's second Labyrinthos. It was only natural to gather information about the battlefield where he would be operating.
Choi Yu-ra hesitated, her lips parting and closing without a word. Seong Yu-jin took her hand, and at the warmth, Choi Yu-ra managed a weak smile. As if steeling herself, she clenched her jaw once and began to speak.
"There were five of us."