Chapter 5
Chapter 5
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 005
Chapter Title: Nightmare Realm, New Jongno-gu (1)
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7.
Even better, when I fiddled with the info window, a tooltip popped up.
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[Soulstone of the Old Thing]
[Description Summary]
- 1: A sticky, iridescent soulstone.
- 2:
Remnants of the old things that served a nameless demigod.
[Usage Method]
- Hand it over to the Star Messenger to imbue the power dwelling in this raw stone into flesh or weaponry.
The nameless demigod
lost its name long ago.
Before betraying the absolute god of the stars, these old things called "Haneubarak" were his loyal servants, it said.
What was the reason for the massacre they carried out on their master's home planet? Was it by their master's command? Really?
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It seemed like a level-up item. To get stronger, I guess I had to keep hunting monsters.
I hesitated for a moment before stuffing it into my pants pocket.
It felt uncomfortable submitting to this system right now, but to complete the "real hunt," I had no choice but to use it to grow stronger for the time being.
The old master's home planet, huh... Did Earth's god betray some absolute being or something?
「I am deeply satisfied. Led by the primordial hunters, your song of the hunt reaches the exalted stars.」
Just then, the Guider's voice echoed through the ruined city.
「Hear me, you who have been chosen as hunters.」
I tensed up and went on high alert, but the Guider's voice remained utterly calm.
「The transcendent power has manifested in the form most familiar to you. Is that not reasonable?」
Yeah... so reasonable.
Brainphone augmented reality and game VR capsules. For modern people, there's no system more straightforward than this game-like one.
「I shall give you one piece of advice. Transcendence dwells in all flesh. Now, your eyes can see what they could not before.」
Before the Guider finished speaking, a strange info window appeared in midair and quickly expanded.
Wait a second, this is...?
[Map: Partial activation.]
No matter how I looked at it, that was the map.
The map of Seoul Special City, divided into 25 districts, splashed with red, yellow, and green colors.
I wondered what the color coding meant when the Guider began explaining.
「Red areas are "Nightmare Zones." Lands ruled by exalted ones, truly perilous domains.」
I let out a sharp breath.
No fewer than seven districts were marked red.
「Yellow areas are "Hunting Zones." Teeming with heteromorphs, but if hunters exert themselves, civilians might manage to pass through.」
That was no small matter either.
Excluding the Nightmare Zones, most of the rest were Hunting Zones.
「Green areas are "Paradise Zones." There, humanity is safe. No traces of ruin linger in those lands, and new civilizations are dawning.」
There were only four Paradise Zones.
Nowon-gu. Seodaemun-gu. Gwanak-gu. Songpa-gu.
「Remember this well. Outside Paradise Zones, neither the skies above, the ground below, nor even the waters are safe.」
My fingertips began to tremble faintly.
What kind of hellish board had this bastard set up?
Twenty-five districts.
Only four of them Paradises.
Not every citizen was granted the right to survival.
What kind of life would be demanded to enter those safe zones—and to survive there?
Images writhed in my mind: people shoving others aside as they fled down the stairs.
「In the Paradise Zones, our avatars the "Star Messengers" await you. They will explain the hunters' mission.」
I blinked for a moment.
The Guider's form was scattering.
Like a winter blizzard. Slowly, but unmistakably. Then the Guider spoke as if rebuking me.
「Hunters, do you have the leisure to watch us? Do you not know where you are right now? Make haste to Paradise.」
I scanned the map for Jongno-gu. It was right next to a safe zone, so I found it quickly.
[Current Location: Jongno-gu, Seoul Special City]
For an instant, the blood in my veins turned ice-cold.
I rubbed my eyes, thinking I must have misread, but nothing changed.
[Warning: You are currently located in a "Nightmare Zone."]
Danger.
I had to warn them about this danger...
I spun on my heel and started running back toward S-042. My knee throbbed where the gravel had dug in, but I gritted my teeth and pushed on.
The area around the S-042 exit was shrouded in yellowish mist.
As I plunged into that ominous stench, chilling sounds began to reach my ears.
Thud... Thud... Thud...
The dull impacts of crushing bone and flesh.
Focus.
I stopped running and took deep breaths.
With the tip of the Dawn Sword leading the way, I advanced cautiously.
Right at the exit stairs.
The Dawn Sword's faint glow picked out an iridescent sheen.
A monster.
Much smaller than the one I killed... but something was off.
No matter how small it was, why was it sprawled flat on the ground in a big X?
I looked up, and there was a woman straddling the monster's chest.
Her blouse and jeans were torn in places. She gripped a laptop in both hands, smashing down on the monster's head wildly.
Her ponytail whipped around with each blow.
No way...
"Park Ji-yeon-ssi?"
The hand raising the laptop froze in midair.
Lifting her head to look at me was, astonishingly, Park Ji-yeon from HR.
"......Baek-jun-ssi? How... are you... alive...?"
I approached and thrust the Dawn Sword into the monster's gut. The dawnlight began burning through its body.
"This is why."
"Ah, Baek-jun-ssi too... chosen by the star's being... ah..."
So Park Ji-yeon had been chosen as a hunter too.
It made sense; she was so bold and brave.
"Did you take down this one, Ji-yeon-ssi?"
I took her hand and helped her to her feet.
Seeing her small shoulders and eyes trembling made pity well up in me.
"I'm sorry."
"No need to apologize."
I placed the soulstone on the ground into her hand.
"It must have been tough and scary... but you did well. You protected the others."
"......No."
"The others must be inside—"
I shut my mouth mid-sentence.
Hold on.
By my estimate, it had taken at least 15 minutes to go and come back. Plenty of time even after entering S-042 and sealing the bulkhead.
Yet in that time, Park Ji-yeon had been fighting this monster alone outside the station?
"I'm sorry. If only I'd been chosen sooner..."
As Park Ji-yeon turned her head and bit her lip, a chilling sense of wrongness crystallized.
"No way, that can't be."
I reflexively sprinted to the exit stairs.
What I witnessed there was a suffocating hellscape.
The bulkhead, vanished without a trace.
Hwang Cheol-man. The boy and girl. The children's mother.
All sprawled as corpses amid the bodies littering the stairs.
No. No.
My chest tightened, suffocating me as I clutched it.
The bodies had died fleeing up the stairs. Which meant...
"Was it my bad judgment that got everyone...?"
Stinging guilt raced through my body.
It was Park Ji-yeon who put a brake on that pain.
"It's not your fault, Baek-jun-ssi!"
"......"
"The shelter was safe. I swear it was."
"Then how the hell did this happen...?"
"An earthquake... there was an earthquake."
An earthquake... that vibration from earlier?
"The shelter started shaking violently... and then there was this massive roar..."
Park Ji-yeon's voice trembled madly.
"An enormous, enormous monster appeared."
"Like that squid monster...?"
"I-I couldn't see it clearly. But it was like a snake. When that monster brushed past the shelter, the floor collapsed..."
Impossible.
Seoul Shelter City's outer walls in the 2040s were five meters thick. The memory flashed through my mind, mocking that fact.
- Neither the skies above, the ground below, nor even the waters are safe.
Looking again, the shelter city had truly become an abyss. The bulkhead seemed to have been shattered then too. The entire bottom was gone; there was no way in or out.
"...That's when these monsters poured through the gap. People scattered in all directions trying to escape... by now, they're all...?!"
Terror settled on Park Ji-yeon's face as she clamped her mouth shut.
That terror crept over me contagiously.
I focused my senses on the presences around us.
......Grrrrrrrr......
I could hear it.
From underground.
I pressed my ear to the ground.
Sounds of collapse... something... plowing through the distant depths...
"Could this be...?"
A chill ran up my spine.
With Park Ji-yeon's testimony, it wasn't hard to imagine what was happening underground.
"Yeah... that."
Park Ji-yeon nodded at my question.
The vibrations suddenly stopped just as I stood up. At the same time, a blood-red warning flashed before my eyes.
[Warning: The exalted one, the dull serpent Barpah'tika, has "faintly" detected your presence.]
- Until full detection: (10) minutes.
- The exalted one's subordinates are tracking you.
- Evacuate the area immediately!
My hands grew slick with cold sweat from the taut fear.
Nightmare Zones were ruled by "exalted ones." In game terms, that meant...
"...Boss monster habitats?"
And we were total noobs there.
Before I finished the thought, the ground began shaking violently. Getting stronger, stronger. Heading this way.
"......"
"......"
We two hunters exchanged glances.
The next instant, we bolted desperately. Like prey being hunted by hunters.
As we ran, we bit our lips and stifled sobs.
Whether those were tears of mourning for the dead or for ourselves, left in the heart of this apocalyptic abyss, I couldn't tell.
8.
Sajik-ro was jammed with stalled vehicles.
I hurriedly dashed along the main road to the right.
Park Ji-yeon followed, asking breathlessly.
"Wh-where are we going?"
"Sajik Tunnel. We'll escape through there."
Sajik Tunnel.
The shortest route out of Jongno-gu into Seodaemun-gu.
Of course, getting through wouldn't end it, but it'd mean escaping about 90% of Jongno-gu.
I glanced at the edge of my vision.
More precisely, at the countdown timer ticking away in the [Warning Window].
[Until full detection: (6) minutes.]
"Can you keep up this pace?"
"I-I'll, try, yeah, I'll try."
If we maintained the pace, we could just barely make it.
For one brief moment, I was optimistic.
But our pursuers promptly shattered that optimism.
Splash... splashsplash... splashsplashsplash...
Footsteps from the opposite side of the road.
The thick yellowish mist hid their forms, but I could tell there were at least four or five.
「KKAAAAAKAKAKAKA!」
「SHISHISHISHISHISHISII.」
Eerie laughter flew toward us.
Immediately, the footsteps began pursuing us ferociously.
"Wh-what do we do? Fight? Should we fight?"
Park Ji-yeon panted, glancing back. I shook my head.
"Just run straight through!"
The tunnel's outline emerged through the mist.
"Getting there is our top priority."
It was a dire situation, but they didn't catch us easily.
I'd never run faster in my life. Had my physical abilities surged since becoming a hunter?
When we finally reached the tunnel, the notification read:
[Until full detection: (4) minutes.]
Slower than calculated, but manageable. The real problem was elsewhere.
"The bulkhead's closed..."
The tunnel was sealed by a bulkhead.
Not just any bulkhead—this one was specially designed for full-scale war. The construction company boasted that even outdated tanks would take ages to breach it.
So I hesitated for a moment.
......Could I cut through it? With this broken sword? This was a blade for slicing and stabbing, not a blunt weapon for smashing.
「SHISHISHISHISHISHISHISSHISHI.」
The squelching of tentacles right behind us.
The monsters were already closing in. No time for choices.
The moment I thought that, Park Ji-yeon brushed past me and ran toward the bulkhead.
"G-get out of the way! I-I can do it!"