Guro-gu (2)

Guro-gu (2) — Gaeungsan Summit, Guro-gu, Seoul

Gaeungsan, the birthplace of the special mission, was an ordinary mountain no different from Cheonwangsan. A 126-meter hill — shorter even than Cheonwangsan's 144 meters, which was frankly embarrassing to call a mountain at all. But even a small 126-meter hill changed everything once telekinesis lifted your body off the ground.

Of course, thanks to the black dome, even the National Assembly building in nearby Yeouido was invisible.

I wanted to check whether a gate had opened over there.

But the vision the system permitted extended only as far as a full panorama of Guro-gu. I swept my gaze over the green territory I had claimed, taking a rough inventory by eye.

A month of steady mission grinding had pushed my control rate to the verge of half. The system had rewarded me accordingly.

So the difficulty kept climbing, though I still had no real idea what difficulty was actually supposed to do. What I could feel was that the higher it rose, the more mutants showed up in each mission. And yes, the rewards grew proportionally. But the swelling loot was never enough to make my eyes roll back into my skull. It amounted to a handful more rescued civilians, at most a few dozen instead of a few.

Items poured out too — potions, special foods you couldn't find in the shop, all manner of useful consumables — but nothing more tempting than a rescued citizen. In a word: even as difficulty climbed, nothing changed dramatically.

As the days wore on, I found myself devoting less energy to maxing out my daily missions and more to rigorously converting the civilians I'd saved into devout worshippers of the Guwon Church. There was a far more pressing problem than all this wishy-washy difficulty nonsense.

Even a casual eyeball told me my green territory could never amount to half of Guro-gu. My influence had failed to reach the district's eastern half — the area anchored by Gocheok-dong and Guro-dong. That zone alone accounted for more than sixty percent of Guro-gu by even the most conservative estimate.

I stared at the Gocheok Sky Dome I'd seen so often in the media and muttered.

"A few hundred people saved while building up a 48% control rate…"

I hadn't expected to rescue thousands or tens of thousands, but the system had been surprisingly generous in handing out control rate. By contrast, the rate at which it gave away civilians was absurdly stingy. The generous control rate I chalked up to the privilege of being the vanguard — I was the only awakened one here, competing in a territorial land-grab battle where I should have been trading blows with rivals. I'd become a player running a battle royale of conquest entirely alone.

So I'd been waiting for other awakened ones — to run special missions together, to forge them into awakened believers. I waited and waited, and on this, the thirtieth day since I entered Guro-gu, having never glimpsed so much as a shadow of another awakened being, I simply burned my special mission generation rights. Which was why I now stood at the summit of Gaeungsan, waiting for them.

"Keeeeeek―!"

Shaking mountains and streams alike, the zombies crested the summit. Perhaps because they'd sprinted up mindlessly all the way to the top, their voices were unusually sharp-edged. The steroid zombie came clomping up belatedly and locked eyes with me, floating in midair. With its signature unpleasant grin, it immediately reached a hand toward the zombie beside it — apparently my hovering had made its fingers itch.

In a development that deviated not one inch from my expectations, I casually lowered my hand.

Parababak―!

The tree branches that had been crouching in the air, waiting for them, bombed the ground in an instant. Small holes punched open in the unprotected backs of the skulls of the ones charging at me.

Kraaaaah―!

The steroid zombie, catching onto the anomaly, roared in boiling fury and shielded its head with its own arms — its signature defensive pattern. Bereft of both throwing and mobility, it was no longer any threat to me. I kept commanding the branches with telekinesis and casually tilted my left hand sideways. The creature's trembling arm was slowly pried open as well. And into that freshly exposed face I dumped the branches wholesale.

Parababak―!

Dozens of branches skewered the steroid zombie's fragile skull like a bundled bouquet. Its mouth, which should have been shrieking in agony, was stuffed full of long, thin twigs instead.

Thud―!

The moment it hit the dirt in a cloud of dust, a message window popped up.

So that's why I never hit 100% on Cheonwangsan — because of that bastard Seo Joowon. Any contribution to the zombie wave at all seemed to generate a share of the score. Thinking of it that way, the system's viciousness hit home even harder. If it had apportioned even 1% to Seo Joowon for lazily flicking a single knife, then imagine if some other awakened rando had barged in and killed one zombie. My contribution would have gone spiraling down the drain.

I blinked at the first-achievement notification — the first I'd seen in ages. Whoa! Five percent in one shot! Thanks to that, my control rate had finally cleared the halfway mark by a comfortable margin.

Drrring―!

An announcement rang out, grandiose in a way utterly unlike the usual quiet chime.

"…You insane bastards."

The profanity spilled out of me, utterly beyond restraint. Wasn't this, in words alone, a congratulatory message — but in substance, an invitation to murder? The precision of it, announcing my exact location down to the mountain top, made me click my tongue. Every single line of the system was engineered to provoke competition. If there had been other awakened scrambling around inside Guro-gu and they'd seen this message, the back of my neck would have been crawling. Odds were good they'd have assembled a coalition to hunt me down or hammered out a temporary alliance on the spot.

But to say it once more: there were no other awakened in Guro-gu. I was certain — I'd turned the district inside out hunting for them, corner by corner, on the off chance of a mission partner.

With a satisfied smile, I reached for the jewel floating at the summit. The jewel, too, was a reward too good to pass up. The moment it touched my hand, the crimson gem melted away with a soft hiss and flashed a message.

"Rewards really do taste best when you hog them all."

Monopoly in an apocalypse — not a hell, mind you — tasted exquisite.

Flash!

It was exactly like the first time I'd parsed a normal mission. I opened eyes that had scrunched shut much the same way then, and took a slow, measured survey of Guro-gu.

"…Gocheok Dome."

The Gocheok Sky Dome, which I'd studied so intently earlier, was glowing brighter than the Fresian Apartments I'd examined before. Which meant that place was one of Guro-gu's special strongpoints, then.

I tipped my head back to gauge the time and fixed the sun with a stare. Squinting hard through the crinkled slits of my eyes, I could just make out the sun hanging dead center in the sky. Time was on my side. The civilians of the early days, who had become the most devoted believers anyone could ask for, meant I could freely spend my preaching hours elsewhere. These days I didn't even need to say a word — the faithful threw themselves into molding every newly joined citizen into a devout member of the Guwon Church. Sending another hundred percent of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my effort where a hundred percent was already being poured would be pure waste.

In that case, there was no reason to hesitate.

Boom―!

I kicked off the air and dropped into a steep, plunging descent. As the Gocheok Dome I'd seen from afar rushed closer, the brilliant light swelling with it grew sharper, and I frowned. Drrring―! A small chime, and a message appeared.

Theme? Before I could finish organizing the thought, my location had shifted. I, who should have been hovering above the Gocheok Dome, was standing on a neatly maintained walkway. I turned my head calmly and surveyed my surroundings. At the end of the somewhat long walkway stretched two staircases, and above them the entrance to the Gocheok Dome. My gaze snagged, in particular, on a cross standing inexplicably before the stairs.

Maggots writhed in the corpse nailed to the cross. I walked the walkway slowly and came face to face with it. The body was so badly defaced that only the modest swell of the chest gave away that she had once been a woman. Most striking was the skull, split in a V-shape — and this, too, was such a famously nasty piece of work that even I knew it. Canoeing. A deliberate act of corpse desecration: firing one extra round into a dead person's head.

Mounted above her gravely ruined head was a signboard. I read the words written there aloud.

"…Dilemma."

Past her head and the signboard, my eyes drifted to the objects hung from each of her nail-pierced hands. A doll in her right hand. A gold necklace and gold rings in her left. Dilemma — a situation forcing a choice between two things. The paired symbols dangling from the woman's hands, and the two staircases. It didn't take a genius to see that I was meant to pick one and climb.

"…Going straight up the middle is out of the question, I suppose?"

I spat out the foolish question, then began thinking in earnest.

"Hmm… a doll, or a gold necklace."

Going by everything I'd learned so far, the doll would be a civilian rescue, and the gold an item, wouldn't it? In that case, the doll, no question. Without another moment's deliberation, I chose the right-hand staircase and walked. The instant my foot touched it, the cross and the left staircase vanished — a magic-act evaporation, space itself dissolving.

Once I'm inside, it won't be a plain old Gocheok Dome waiting for me. Something — zombie or human — would be ready to greet me. I passed through the entrance and strode forward without hesitation. The interior had been restructured so that simply walking forward led directly into the arena. The moment my foot pressed the arena's green turf, a woman's scream tore through the air.

"Kyaaaaaaah!"

And she wasn't alone. "Wh-what is this?! Where am I?!" "Who are you, mister?! —Th-that's a gun! A gun!" Behind the woman's scream, countless murmurs and shouts made the Gocheok Dome tremble. The same reactions I'd always gotten when saving civilians, but many times more of them spilling out at once. Far too many to compare with the handful of civilians I normally rescued, they lay prostrate across the dome's turf.

"Quiet, you fucking pieces of shit! All of you, shut up!"

"Step ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠forward and I'll shoot you dead without mercy! Stand up and I'll shoot you dead! I've warned you clearly!"

Surrounding the panicked civilians stood a group of unidentified men — fingers resting on triggers, guns aimed at the crowd.

"P-please spare us! Why are you doing this?!"

"Y-you motherfuckers! The whole world's gone to hell out there and this is what you pull?!"

A middle-aged man among the prostrate crowd sprang to his feet, spittle flying. "I told you not to fucking move!"

Wham―!

A gunmetal rifle butt slammed into the man's temple. "Kyaaaaah!" "Y-you military bastards! Hitting civilians!" As the middle-aged man crumpled, the civilians burst into a chorus of screams all over again.

Observing the scene piece by piece as I walked forward, I drew a shout from one of the unidentified men. "Stop right there, you bastard! One more step and we open fire!" The man planted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his boot on the unconscious middle-aged man's head, the muzzle pointed at my direction.

At first I'd assumed that, fitting for a special strongpoint, even the soldiers had been part of the rescue. I'd been wrong. For soldiers of the Republic of Korea, everything before my eyes was behavior you couldn't even imagine — they weren't controlling the situation at all. They were threatening me.

Bang―!

"Kyaaaaah!" "Aaaaagh!" The one who'd threatened me pulled the trigger, all for show. White smoke fluttered from the muzzle amid the startled civilians' shrieks. Fortunately, the man had fired into the ground beside the middle-aged man's head, and he grinned at me with gleaming eyes.

"Flinch, and we shoot."

No matter how I turned it over, their behavior was strange. Under normal circumstances, when you threaten someone, you point the gun at the person you're threatening, don't you? But this man was using the civilians, thoroughly and deliberately, to threaten me — as if he'd read my exact desires. "Don't come any closer. You see those crates stacked over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there?" Where his chin jerked, a considerable mountain of crates had been piled up. "Food. Medicine. Daily necessities, packed full. Shove them into your inventory right now and get lost."

Inventory. Gold. Dilemma. Only now, with the whole picture laid bare, did I nod. An armed group encircling the civilians crammed into the Gocheok Dome. These men were the crisis the special strongpoint had prepared — the architects of the dilemma itself.

"Hurry up and take the crates and go. The moment you take even a single step toward us, everyone here dies."

Even at a glance, the crates amounted to a substantial haul. For me, living reasonably comfortably off my faith points, it was a genuinely tempting offer. I had chosen to rescue civilians — but there was irresistible gold sitting right in front of my eyes. So that's the dilemma.

Besides, with the men baring their teeth and shoving muzzles in my face like that, there was simply no way for an ordinary awakened one to save the civilians here.

"Hey! If you don't move toward the crates right now, we shoot! Did you not hear me?!"

…For ordinary awakened ones, that is.

I swept a quick look over the guns in their hands and smiled.