Chapter 129
Chapter 129
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 129
Chapter Title: 24. Mystery of the Red Zone (1)
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A little while ago.
Kang San slumped against a tree, his face a battered mess.
His ragged breaths refused to steady, and blood poured freely from the countless gashes and slashes covering his body. He had reached his limit. His head spun wildly, but he clung to consciousness and poured a potion over his wounds.
Sizzle—
"Urgh."
He grimaced.
The current situation.
Frankly, the fact that he was still alive was a miracle.
With his party around, Yeon Woo-bin’s firepower had let them take down an A-Rank monster. But facing that beast alone was a different story. He was outmatched. Unable to focus solely on defense, he attempted counterattacks but failed to land any decisive blow that could end it. So he switched strategies. He focused on clearing as many lower-grade monsters as possible to ramp up the attack power boost from his Blood Demon Art, then staked his life on facing the A-Rank monster head-on.
And the result.
Was his current wretched state.
After surviving more close calls than he could count on his fingers, he finally watched the monster collapse.
'No more... I can't do any more.'
He knew it himself.
The skill cooldowns he had burned through.
His stamina, completely drained.
Guardian's Will hadn't activated yet, but he knew pushing further would be like walking into a pit of fire—death itself. He just hoped it was over now. Seeing people approaching from afar, Kang San wanted nothing more than to return with them.
But then.
His breath caught in his throat.
The seventeenth trial.
It was no different from the sixteenth.
The identical wording and rewards felt like a lazy copy-paste job, shattering any hope that enduring this one would let him go home. Even if he poured everything into clearing the seventeenth. If an eighteenth followed, he'd truly be in danger. And even if he somehow survived that, the nineteenth would surely kill him.
His heart pounded fiercely.
The survivors no longer felt like a welcome sight.
But.
'I have no choice.'
From the moment the first trial was imposed until now, Kang San had found no escape from its chains.
At the very least, to fulfill the sixteenth trial and send its protagonists home safely, he forced a warm smile for the survivors now drawing near.
That was.
"Are you the rescue team?"
"...Yes. Is everyone alright?"
The best he could manage.
Kitakyushu.
People once called it the "Land of Farewells."
Countless had lost family there, pouring out their grief, to the point that prying into personal matters was taboo for anyone from Kitakyushu. But the scene before them now was different. A group of people clung to each other, shedding tears of joy at this impossible reunion.
"Dad—!"
"My son! You're alive... you're really alive!"
They embraced tightly.
Parents and children.
Friends and lovers.
The forms of farewell had been varied.
With people they thought long dead returned, everyone unleashed the emotions they'd bottled up. The survivors' conditions were truly pitiful. Gaunt faces from malnutrition were the least of it—many had lost limbs, their bodies broken. Families wept openly at such sights. Sons, daughters, parents who had been healthy now limped along, making hollow the prayers that they just return alive.
A short distance away.
Nakamura Genji watched the scene when he spotted a survivor approaching him.
"Did your benefactor not return?"
"By benefactor, do you mean Mr. Kang San?"
"Ah, so that was his name. Yes. I need to thank him properly, tell him we survived because of him, but I heard he hasn't come back yet. If you hear news of his return, please pass it on. He did us such a great favor—we must repay him."
"...Understood."
That was the start.
As the joy of reunion settled, survivors approached one by one, asking after Kang San.
In their moment of despair.
The one who had staked his life to save them.
But to their earnest questions, Nakamura Genji had no answer.
He didn't know either.
All he knew was that Kang San was still out there in the Red Zone, rescuing more people.
The current captain of the Wildman Corps.
Shuhei approached from the side.
"When do you plan to start the operation?"
"We can't until he returns. With our current forces, entering the Red Zone would mean we couldn't save him—we'd just get lost and wipe out. All we can do is pray he comes back safely."
"He's incredible, isn't he? Rescuing people all alone in that deadly zone."
Incredible person.
Could it really be summed up so simply?
It wasn't even his problem—others, foreigners at that.
Thinking of Kang San, Nakamura couldn't fathom why he'd go so far.
Nakamura fiddled with the sword at his waist.
"...If the survivors' accounts are accurate, he's hit his physical limits, so he'll probably return with the next group."
That's what he believed.
Or rather, what he wanted to believe.
An hour later.
When the light of teleportation flashed brightly once more, Nakamura Genji's hopes shattered cruelly.
It made no sense.
The survivors' stories matched perfectly, as if rehearsed.
"He said he had to rescue other survivors and gave us the teleport scroll to head back first. But... he looked in bad shape. Pretty dangerous."
The same this time.
Kang San hadn't returned—he'd set off into the Red Zone for yet more survivors.
Anger flared momentarily.
By Nakamura's reckoning, Kang San was just a B-Rank, inferior to him, and clearly at his limit alone. He should have come back. Not flail desperately in the Red Zone. No one would blame him, no matter how many endangered people lay ahead.
Yet why.
Why hadn't he chosen to return this time either?
Frustrated, he went to Kang San's group and asked.
"...That's just how he is."
It was Yeon Woo-bin.
His siblings shared the frustration.
"The first time we met Kang San hyung, he threw himself in to save me, a total stranger. He got badly hurt fighting monsters but used his recovery skill on us instead. I couldn't understand it at first. No matter the good intentions, could someone really sacrifice themselves like that? Prioritize others over themselves?"
Their eyes met.
To Nakamura, who wanted to know about Kang San, she shared what she knew.
"It's simply a desire to help people. If he sees trash on the ground, he picks it up. If someone's in danger, he helps. In this cutthroat world where everyone chases their own gain, he acts purely on goodwill. There was a similar incident back in Korea. Not as dangerous, but he saved people without asking for anything and vanished. When I asked later, he just said 'just because.'"
The truth was different.
During that E-Rank link, Kang San had been confused, and most acts were forced by the trials.
Even so.
The truth appeared that way.
In Yeon Woo-bin's eyes, Kang San was a man of pure goodwill.
She bit her lip in frustration.
"That's why I'm mad. He sent us ahead to keep us safe, but we're just believing it and waiting. What does the Japanese government plan to do? If he keeps rescuing, we should enter the Red Zone first and help."
Jo Han-byeol and Jeong Chan-woo followed.
Pleading looks.
Their tales.
Still incomprehensible.
The existence of such a person left Nakamura Genji truly bewildered.
'Is pure goodwill even possible?'
He didn't know.
At least, not in the world he'd known.
The world had only tried to use him.
Kang San was different, they said.
Whatever the truth, the rescued stood before them now.
'I can't just wait like this.'
He had to save Kang San.
At least, he didn't want someone like him to meet a bitter end helping others.
He hurried his steps.
One name came to mind—the person who could resolve this.
Click—
Ito Kentaro.
A titan of Japanese politics set down the phone with a complicated expression.
"...Genji. Is that your choice?"
Ten years ago.
A rookie assemblyman at the time, Ito Kentaro had experienced the pivotal event that propelled him to his current position.
When a sudden link erupted, he rolled up his sleeves despite being a politician, saving people. The impressed Japanese public backed him. That support, over ten years, had forged the man he was today.
And back then.
He'd received help from one person.
Nakamura Genji.
Then captain of the Wildman Corps, he'd entered that perilous inferno at Ito's request.
Ito had promised then.
He wouldn't forget the favor and would grant one request in return.
Regrettably, that promise went unfulfilled.
Three years ago, during the Kitakyushu incident, Nakamura had called on his personal line, cashing in that favor to find his family. Ito couldn't. Or rather, he'd tried, but the government rescue team was annihilated by unknown monsters.
And now.
Nakamura called his private line after so long, saying this.
"Move public opinion. I won't ask for more. After this call, consider the promise between us settled clean. So please, just this once, help me. Assemblyman."
A proud man.
After the incident three years ago, not a single call—yet here he was, swallowing pride. It spoke volumes of his desperation. Ito had tried helping Nakamura since then. But each time, he hit walls from the Liberty Guardian Party.
'With my influence, I can't sway the National Diet.'
Liberty Guardian Party.
The powerhouse propping up the current prime minister, centered on Assemblyman Shimizu Hiroshi.
They'd oppose fiercely.
And their arguments weren't entirely wrong.
The "disaster" in southern Japan was a black hole.
No matter how much force poured in, it swallowed everything without trace.
Japan had more to protect beyond the south, and overextending national forces would create vulnerabilities. That was the Liberty Guardian Party's—and Shimizu Hiroshi's—staunch stance: solving the southern black hole could shake the entire nation.
But now was different.
He had to act.
Japan owed a duty to respond to the miracle wrought by that foreign youth.
If everyone was presumed dead, maybe not—but survivors had been confirmed.
He picked up the phone.
"Summon the press immediately."
The best he could do.
It was time to do it.