Chapter 131
Chapter 131
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 131
Chapter Title: 24. Mystery of the Red Zone (3)
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Why?
Why had Luca Bellino shown up in a situation like this?
A sense of unease crept up slowly.
Their most recent encounter had foreshadowed the tenth trial, so her presence couldn't be taken positively.
He came to an abrupt halt.
Luca Bellino gazed at Kang San and flashed a sinister smile.
"I guess I'm not exactly welcome, huh?"
"......"
He didn't respond.
Trials upon trials.
He could feel the clear malice.
Come to think of it, the trials imposed by Azmun weren't just something he had to endure alone as payment for his past karma. Other people got dragged in too—innocent bystanders who were there simply by coincidence. Unless they all had their own karma, the misfortunes they suffered in this life stemmed purely from malice.
The tenth trial was a perfect example.
Luca Bellino had warned him that she would bring crisis upon him, and sure enough, the Werewolf Lord had appeared.
Was that intentional?
Or was it a future that was already set in stone?
Either way, what should have been a smooth rescue operation had turned into a brush with death for everyone because of Kang San's trial. That fundamental doubt about Azmun lingered. What exactly was the karma he spoke of? How do you explain the people sacrificed in this vicious cycle? Kang San couldn't make sense of it.
"......How could I be glad to see you?"
The words came out strained.
Luca Bellino giggled.
She seemed amused; her face was lit up with an unrelenting smile.
"Yeah, you look beat. So here's a special offer. Just this once—if you declare your intent to forfeit the trial, I'll revoke it without any penalty. The nineteenth trial you just received will cease to exist entirely, and you can tear a teleport scroll to return to safety. But."
She gestured in the air.
A map-like display of the terrain materialized, following the motion of her slender fingers.
Countless red dots marked across it.
No explanation was needed; the moment Kang San laid eyes on them, his heart pounded wildly.
"You'll lose the ability to check the 'survivors' locations.' More than you'd think, right? Even after three whole years, there are over ten thousand survivors in this Red Zone. Some dug tunnels underground, some hid in ruins, others burrowed into garbage heaps. Cockroach-like tenacity keeping them alive. Though, if you think about it, maybe it's fewer than expected. Out of all the countless people who couldn't evacuate, only this many made it."
It felt suffocating.
There were so many.
Imagining each red dot as a living person crushed him with an indescribable weight.
"Choose. If you pick survival. I promise you—the survivors from the nineteenth trial will all die without fail."
Those words.
They stabbed right into his heart.
That made it certain.
A creature like Azmun couldn't be judged by human standards of good and evil.
Holding the nineteenth trial hostage was tantamount to murder, shoving those survivors toward death.
But.
There wasn't a shred of guilt.
Not a hint of hesitation.
Nothing on Luca Bellino's face.
If Kang San's past life had piled up karma from killing countless people, then Azmun was committing the exact same contradiction. Or maybe that was just Kang San's misconception. Perhaps they were all fated to face danger anyway, and Azmun was merely giving them a chance at survival under the pretext of Kang San's trial. The order of events was ambiguous. Faced with an unbearable choice, Kang San forced his mouth open.
"......Didn't you say it was karma? Is it okay to hand out trials that hold innocent people hostage?"
"No comment."
She laughed.
Her expression seemed to peer right through his thoughts.
"Just choose already. The people waiting for your rescue don't have much time left."
His mouth went dry.
If he forfeited the trial.
He'd save his own skin, but the survivors would die.
Guardian's Will still had one use left, so one more rescue run was possible, but the issue was that this was his one and only chance to forfeit. If he cleared the nineteenth and the twentieth hit right after? Could he even survive that? With trials chaining endlessly like a game hurtling toward death, Kang San would eventually fall to the monsters.
It was a blatantly rigged game from the start.
His own safety, or the survivors' lives.
Azmun placed both on the scales and demanded a cruel choice.
'......What a shitty situation.'
This choice.
It was left entirely to his own goodwill.
Unless it stemmed from pure intent to save people, the trial was designed to be unacceptable.
Suddenly, Jessica's face came to mind.
The way she'd burst into tears upon finding her long-lost sister was utterly different from her sharp expression as she carved through monsters. Ten thousand survivors meant there were at least that many—or tens of thousands—with similar stories, people who'd feel like they'd gained the whole world reuniting with family.
Even so.
There was no reason for him to risk his life.
The country had a government; he was just one man.
Confusion swirled.
The two options tangled complexly in his mind.
'Even if I forfeit the trial, no one will know. No one will know people died because I gave up.'
He looked back on his past.
Kang San's life.
It had been miserable.
Repeated misfortunes brought endless crises, but each time, pure goodwill had helped him through. When a bus overturned, an EMT risked his life to save him. Short on tuition from part-time jobs, his boss chipped in extra. Once mistaken for a thief and dragged to the station, the police took his side, saying it was wrong to assume guilt from poverty alone. Layer upon layer of kindness had kept him going.
The irony of life.
Forced to bear misfortune for past karma, yet not every figure in Kang San's life was wicked.
That's how he'd survived.
But now.
With the power to save them, was it right to turn away?
Out of fear of future trials, to ignore reality and run?
There was one nagging thorn in his side.
Kim Chun-sik.
Kang San had meant to abandon him but saved him due to a trial and received far more gratitude than deserved.
The truth was different.
Kang San had abandoned Kim Chun-sik.
Right up to crossing the portal, conflicting thoughts clashed, but his intent to leave was clear.
That moment.
That guilt.
He didn't want to repeat it.
Kang San met Luca Bellino's gaze.
Even knowing those abyss-like, piercing eyes meant no turning back, he forced out his decision.
"......I'll continue the trial."
"Really?"
A strange smile.
She stepped back, her form dissolving like a mirage from her toes up.
"I hope you don't regret this choice."
Kang San had a thought.
This might be some kind of test.
The moment he cleared the nineteenth trial, Azmun—impressed by his self-sacrifice—might hold off on more.
If there was no malice in this situation, he could believe such a hopeful scenario was possible.
And that faint hope.
Shattered spectacularly with the twentieth trial.
This time, the limit stretched to 10 hours, but even the option to forfeit was stripped away.
No turning back now.
He pushed through the twentieth trial.
And as expected, the twenty-first trial followed immediately, bringing the dreaded scenario to life.
Squish!
"......!"
Sharp claws pierced his abdomen.
Staring ahead with bulging eyes, he saw the Werewolf Lord's gaze gleaming with murderous intent.
This damn connection wouldn't end.
He'd finally claimed the feat of slaying the Werewolf Lord, only to fall to it after all this time.
His last bastion.
Vitality surged through his body.
He cleaved off the head of the gleeful Werewolf Lord in one strike.
"Blood Demon Sword Art, First Form: Blade Kill."
Flash.
Splat-!
That was just the beginning.
Beyond the Werewolf Lord writhed hordes of monsters, forcing a bloody melee under the Guardian's Will buff. He slashed at everything in sight, over and over. Wounds tore open from bites and claws, but in his current state, fighting without bleeding was impossible. He lost count of the kills. Only when the monster corpses piled into a mountain did Kang San collapse, unable to support his staggering body.
Thud.
"Huff... huff."
His breath came in gasps.
Dizziness hit.
A laugh burst out involuntarily.
"......This fucking sucks."
The twenty-first trial.
The target was 10 hours away, yet less than an hour in, disaster struck. And he'd even burned his final safeguard, Guardian's Will. Fortunately, the 24-hour cooldowns on Sanctuary and Aura of Glory were resetting, but from here on, any lethal hit could end him outright.
The choice between two evils.
Had he chosen wrong?
If he died like this, he'd thrown himself into the fire despite chances to survive.
He didn't know.
What to do.
Like a runaway train he couldn't stop, Kang San was trapped in this mess.
"Just once more. One more time."
He staggered to his feet.
Until his strength gave out.
Until he judged it time to tear the teleport scroll and bail, trials be damned.
Kang San had no intention of stopping.
From the moment he rejected Luca Bellino's offer, stopping wasn't an option.
He started walking.
Blood dripped steadily in his wake, drawing monsters like a tail chasing him.
Grrrrowl.
Grrrrrrumble.
In the fog-shrouded darkness.
Kang San's figure vanished into the shadows beyond.
The Kitakyushu incident.
Assemblyman Shimizu Hiroshi looked deeply uncomfortable at the unfolding events centered around it.
"That damn fox bastard."
Ito Kentaro's press conference.
It was a nuclear bomb on the Japanese Diet.
Boiling public opinion turned on the Diet, naturally putting key figure Shimizu Hiroshi in the crosshairs. The sly operator had seized the political opportunity of the Kitakyushu crisis, positioning himself as a virtuous whistleblower while condemning the Diet.
People said.
Ito Kentaro spoke for the public.
But Shimizu Hiroshi knew Ito Kentaro as the epitome of hypocrisy—a typical politician.
A fellow politician asked,
"......What do you plan to do? Public reaction is getting out of hand. Shouldn't we form a subjugation team now?"
"No. If we do, any success will be credited to Ito Kentaro. Not yet. We wait for that Kang San guy to return, make contact, and set the stage to claim it as our achievement. Rescue comes after."
"If he dies in the meantime, it'll be irreversible."
"He's a foreigner in the end. We lose more from handing public opinion to Ito Kentaro than from his death."
That day.
The meeting fizzled out inconclusively.
They claimed to address the issue, but no rescue team was dispatched as public demand required.
And the next day.
Assemblyman Shimizu Hiroshi received shocking news.
"Sir! Big trouble! Overnight, three teleports rescued 38 more survivors. And with reports that Kang San is still at it, Japanese public opinion is exploding. We can't stall any longer."
"What the hell does that mean?!"
It defied expectations.
He'd thought it was over.
That Kang San would finally return.
Shimizu Hiroshi's face twisted in dismay at the news of rescues pulled off overnight.