The City (3)
The City (3) — Seoul, Guro-gu — Special Stronghold: 'Anyangcheon Soccer Field'
THUDUDUDUDU―!
The Steroid, which had been studying me intently, rammed its enormous arm deep into the earth. I flung my hand out toward it in haste, but I already knew. With my telekinesis as it stood, there was no pinning down the thing's movements. Its muscles writhed as it went on kneading the ball of dirt between its fingers.
'...It means to throw.'
It hadn't charged at me — me, with my mana bound and shackled.
'So it plans to attack me even while playing bodyguard to the little bastard behind it?'
Its scheme was laid bare for anyone to see. I could read it — but with the fighting style I'd relied on until now, I couldn't stand against it.
KRRRDUDU―!
It felt like forcing my way through a clogged passage. Like a river that had once flowed proud and mighty dwindled to drops — plop... plop... — smaller than a mountain trickle. The telekinesis I could barely squeeze out was enough to control only clods of dirt that seemed one breath away from crumbling apart. And there were a fraction of the number I'd commanded before.
"Blood-soaked..."
I smiled as the mural surfaced in my mind once more. Right, System — so this is the weakness you came up with for me? A restriction on my skills. You might even say you struck a true nerve, but it bruised my pride all the same.
My eyes swept left and right in a dizzying dance, divining the shape of victory. Back when I claimed my first achievement with a kitchen-knife spear — did I even have telekinesis then? Was telekinesis my essence in the first place? I was pretty sure it wasn't.
I curled a fist loosely, sizing up the body I had now. However weakened, this was still a springy, elastic frame capable of movements no ordinary human could even imagine.
"BWRAAAAAAGH―!"
"GRRRAAAAAAGH―!"
An enemy I could not reach — and yet had to.
KEEEING―! KEEEING―!
Clods of dirt that sputtered apart thanks to my stuttering telekinesis — but clods that would still hold me up, all the same. And quite naturally, someone came to mind. The ink-black Awakened, stuffed and mounted on the mural beside me.
Thinking of the weapons asleep in my inventory, I hopped lightly on the balls of my feet. The dagger, drinking sunlight for the first time in an age, flashed as though flaunting its edge. The Steroid, gripping a clod that looked solid as rock even at a glance, met my eyes and curled its lips into that signature grin of its. I answered in kind, baring my teeth right back.
"Scared, you little shit?"
WHAMM―!
In the blink of an eye, a searing-hot clod of dirt smashed into the spot where I'd stood, announcing the start of battle. I came barreling in along a diagonal and let a dagger fly at the thing.
THUNK―!
The chest muscle that clashed with the blade rippled with a tough, rubbery sound. One glance at the dagger punching into the ground, and I hardened my toes and hammered my foot into the earth.
BOOM―!
Another burning throw came down on the spot I'd just vacated.
"GRRRAAAAAAGH―!"
The thoroughly enraged Steroid screamed and slammed both hands into the ground.
"KYEEEEEEH―!"
A howl went up as I closed in on the movement-locked Steroid. Half of the ordinary zombies that came boiling out late ringed the goalpost; the other half rocked their torsos in great sweeping arcs, cinching the encirclement shut. Their movements reeked of a single purpose: buying the Steroid time to load its throw.
'Right. This is the Special Trial, isn't it?'
My straight-line sprint swung back onto a diagonal. I stomped down on the Steroid's projectile sprawled in a shallow pit and rocketed skyward, flung a dagger at its head to keep it honest, and angled my left hand toward the ground. The ball of dirt drifting powerlessly below began to rise, slow and heavy.
SHWAAAAAK―!
The clod the Steroid hurled and the dagger I threw crossed in midair.
WHUMP―!
The clod floating up with me burst into crumbs against its denser, harder-packed cousin. The Steroid knocked the dagger aside on its newly freed forearm and drew the hand clutching the clod back behind its head. In those writhing muscles, I glimpsed a monstrous, unthinkable strength.
"BWRAAAAAAGH―!"
The roar that tore through the air at that precise moment made my sustaining telekinesis hiccup. I stretched both hands toward the clods slumping helplessly apart, pouring every shred of power invested in my flight straight into keeping the dirt intact. Stripped of its sustaining force, my body fell prey to gravity and was dragged down.
I planted my foot on a clod I'd barely held together and swung both hands forward. Riding the slowly advancing mass, I leapt once more.
WHUMP―!
The clods driving forward through the air broke apart in a spray. The hard wind overhead snapped my cult-leader robes like banners. And in the Steroid's hands — its clods spent — fresh ammunition had already appeared. Hoisting a massive boulder, both arms cocked behind its head, the thing split its face in a grin that might as well have been laughter at my expense.
Plummeting toward the earth again, I stared down. There were no clods floating at my side anymore. It had been intercepting, with total discipline, not me — but the floating dirt, my handy stepping-stones.
"GRRRAAAAAAGH―!"
With a roar that ripped out of it as if wrung from the gut, a gray meteor came screaming at me. I tossed one of the two daggers in my hands as a spoiler.
TANG―!
Of the two bodies meeting at speed, mine was the one that shrieked away, deflected clean off. The Steroid smiled, watching its projectile drive on in one undisturbed line. An edge it had kept hidden to the very last — hardly the way of a zombie bastard. But it was no sharper than Seo Joowon.
As though tracing a movement lifted straight from memory, I drove the dagger in my other hand in.
SHWAAAAAAAAAK―!
The gray mass rocketed skyward, surrendering not one ounce of its force.
"KYEEEEEEH―!"
The zombies burst into roars of delight, like a crowd waiting on my imminent fall. Above their outstretched hands, the dagger I'd thrown as a spoiler twirled round and round. I poured every nerve I had into my eyes and my balance. My right foot — holding its timing to the bitter end — set down on the blade, the widest part of the dagger, and stuck.
KRRRDUDU―!
Body coiled tight as a spring, I met the Steroid's glare head-on.
"GRRRAAAAAAGH―!"
It balled its fist and drew back its arm, braced for the charge it expected. I, too, took up a dagger in each hand and launched my final leap. An approach identical to Seo Joowon's, down to the letter. Only one thing had changed. The beast soared. I came down like a hammer.
SHWAAAK―!
It and I crossed paths, cutting the wind in two. The thing — one hand guarding its head, its other arm punching outward — panicked. I never came down the path of its fist. I was already raiding a slightly higher line, at a target entirely its own. Just as it had concealed its true aim, I had been concealing mine the entire time. The gap was born of the fact that I had never once slipped past it — never once failed to meet it head-on.
"BWRAAAAAAGH―!"
What enfolded me in this moment was not any ability.
KWAAANG―!
The dagger, driving down one unbroken straight line, jammed to the hilt into its toothless maw. And, following my hand's upraised flourish, it bored up through the roof of the creature's mouth.
"KURGH―!"
Its bellow choked off mid-note — and mana came flooding back through my whole body. The zombies who had ringed the goal, and the Steroid — played for a fool by its own target — hurled themselves at me.
You have slain the Variant.
Faith cannot be acquired in this location.
You have failed to acquire knowledge regarding the Variant.
Hold on. Failed?
I frowned at the knowledge-acquisition failure message — a first for me. Oh, right. That one's a chance-based drop. Now I remembered cursing at it back then: so it's 'gotta know 'em all' fun, is it?
Setting aside this first taste of misfortune, I gathered my focus.
KEEEEEEING―!
After that long, smooth mechanical whir, stillness settled in. Slipping past the zombies frozen dead mid-lunge, I laid my hand on the blue jewel beside the goal.
The brief message printed itself, and the zombies my telekinesis had pinned melted away like frost. As I watched them scatter into drifting motes, more messages bloomed.
You have resolved the theme of the Guro-gu Special Stronghold 'Anyangcheon Soccer Field'!
The Awakened's control rate over Guro-gu is rising sharply!
72.5% → 77.5%
TADADADAA―!
At the tinny, unfamiliar congratulatory jingle, my eyes went round — and the messages kept coming.
The Special Stronghold reward is enhanced for passing the 'Special Trial'!
The conditions for the 'Stone of Duplication' are further relaxed!
I gingerly curled my fingers around the blue jewel — which, despite my touch, had not melted.
◈ Allows the Awakened to duplicate a single 'object' of their choosing.
"...So it is an item."
Tracing the blue glow radiating off the gem this way and that, I spoke in a voice thick with emotion. For the first time, I had obtained an item that was genuinely an item. And on top of that, a description as simple as it gets: copy an object.
"Simple effects are always the devastating ones."
The destructive force packed into one plain sentence was staggering — far beyond anything a long, convoluted paragraph could offer. The Stone of Duplication. This was nothing short of the legendary Philosopher's Stone, the one said to turn stone into gold.
"System! Can this thing duplicate me?"
To my joy-soaked voice, the System offered no answer whatsoever. Just in case, I rapped the gem against my chest, rolled it around my palms, jostled it every way I could think of — nothing stirred. Tsk. If there'd been two of me, that crisis earlier wouldn't have been a crisis at all.
But as I clicked my tongue at the waste of it, a bizarre thought ambushed me.
'Wait. What if I got copied... and the copy ended up nailing Jiwoo... would that make me a netorare?'
The wave of disgust that heaved up out of my chest in that very instant gave me my answer.
"Whoa! Sure am glad I didn't try copying myself! Thanks, System!"
Fuck. Duplicating myself would have been a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Recovering my breath in light gulps, I took stock of my body. Ironically, precisely because my mana had been shackled during the fight, what remained was brimming to overflow. I reached out, swept the daggers strewn across the ground and the Stone of Duplication into my inventory, and turned my gaze south. I meant to head straight for the second Special Stronghold.
You have entered the Guro-gu Special Stronghold 'Sindorim Techno Neighborhood Park'.
The theme of 'Sindorim Techno Neighborhood Park' is 'Agony'.
With the guidance message, the park's walking trails and every trace of green blinked out of existence. My body, which had been descending into the Special Stronghold from below, likewise found itself standing upright in a new spot — the same as in the other Special Strongholds.
WHOOOOOSH―
A desert. Wind heavy with sand combed through my hair. And in the dead center of a desert where truly nothing existed beyond sand and wind, a new message appeared.
You cannot use your Inventory, Shop, or Skills until the theme is resolved.
"...Huh?"
Convinced I must have misread it, I read the thing a second time. And as I chewed over a meaning that hadn't shifted one iota, a hollow laugh escaped me. So it had well and truly meant business, hadn't it. Well and truly.
To confirm beyond doubt, I reached out a hand and imagined a dagger. Seconds ticked past, and my palm stayed stubbornly empty. The shop window and my skill list were no different. Uh, hello? I don't even have stats. Lock my skills, and I'm just an ordinary man.
I felt it keenly — every ounce of the power that had made me a superhuman, gone. Thinking it over calmly, I realized that even if I had possessed stats, the System would have sealed those too.
"You're not seriously expecting me to fight zombies like this?!"
Then at least hand me a weapon! I bellowed loud enough for the System to hear, then turned to warily guard my surroundings.
WHOOOOOSH―!
Well. Fortunately, that much at least seemed safe to stop worrying about. Far from zombies, there was nothing in the desert at all. Not one thing.
Think. Come on, think. My weakened frame wavered for a moment in the rather fierce wind, and I dropped my backside onto the sand and stroked my chin.
'Let's piece together the clues I've gathered so far.' Especially the murals — my hidden pieces. Until moments ago, I had been standing inside the scene the third mural depicted. The jewel descending in a brilliant pillar of light, and the monsters that jewel spat out. The only difference was that I hadn't roared while drenched in blood. Well, I chalked that one up to my own discretion — otherwise, the situation matched. So then — did the murals, with very high probability, depict the themes of the Special Strongholds?
The third mural had been 'Anyangcheon Soccer Field.' The fourth was... Slowly combing through my memory, I recalled it. A man lying down, and beside him a snake coiled up like a woven sack.
"A man lies down..."
And a snake in front of him? Was it some metaphor for a situation, or what? Or did I just literally need to lie down?
"Whoa there—!"
With a soft whump, my head sank into sand that was, honestly, pretty cushy.
...
Even lying down, nothing happened. The desert held nothing but sand and wind, as ever. I kept thinking, right where I lay.
'A snake, huh... Is an actual snake going to show up?' What was I supposed to do — raid some nightmarish serpent straight out of mythology with no powers? Except the stronghold's theme was 'Agony.' Was this even a combat trial?
'A man lies down. Why is he lying down? Because something's wearing him down? Wearing him down how? And there's a snake coiled right in front of him. A real snake? Or a metaphor? If it's a metaphor — a metaphor for what?'
It wasn't as if I was completely in the dark. Somehow, the situation felt familiar. But the image sharpening by degrees kept cutting out, the harder I strained to focus.
"Whew— let's sort this out. Sort it out."
A snake, before a man being ground down by something. If it was just a snake, then fine — it was literally a snake. But if it was figurative, then a snake almost always meant something bad.
"...Cowardice. Wickedness."
Evil.
Evil, standing before a man in his hour of struggle.
"...Huh?"
In that instant, something detonated behind my eyes like a flashbulb going off.