Kidnappers (1)
The helicopter shuddered violently.
“Th-the ground is shaking! It’s an enormous tremor!”
“Yes! People are even saying it might be an earthquake!”
“An evacuation order has just been issued for all residents in the Mok-dong area!”
“The disaster alert text—”
Isilen’s crimson dome blocked every sense, yet it could not shut out the trembling of the earth itself.
With nothing else to go on, the people outside naturally assumed an earthquake was underway.
The buildings had collapsed all the way down to their foundations; the vibrations were anything but ordinary.
“Ah… I’m afraid this means the Awakened have failed.”
“What?”
“There’s never been a case of an Awakened causing tremors of this magnitude…”
“……Ah?”
They concluded the quake was the World Boss’s doing.
Viewers assumed the first team to enter had perished and began demanding that other Awakened parties be dispatched.
“Talking about sending in other Awakened… I doubt that will happen.”
Professor Kim immediately crushed that hope.
“Why not?”
“There are several reasons… First, the World Boss has never harmed them. Second, everyone already knows how overwhelmingly powerful it is. They have no incentive to go in.”
“Ah… Right, of course. Unless a knife is literally at their throats, no one would risk their life against something that strong.”
“Exactly.”
Professor Kim’s assessment was coldly pragmatic.
“More importantly, they’re probably wondering whether killing the World Boss is even the right thing to do. We still don’t know how many Awakened are below level 30.”
Even if the World Boss were defeated, it was unclear whether the act would be welcomed.
“So there’s neither profit nor justification. Of course they won’t step forward. Their lives are too precious.”
“Then who are the people fighting in there right now?”
Professor Kim answered as if he had been waiting for the question.
“That’s exactly why we can call them heroes!”
Some viewers agreed with him, while others insisted that Awakened had a duty to act. Because many non-Awakened were watching, the argument was inevitable.
The caster glanced around nervously before speaking.
“That’s right! If you’re an Awakened and you have power, then responsibility must follow! Of course, those who stepped up deserve to be called heroes! But treating inaction as normal is unacceptable!”
Professor Kim shook his head in disbelief at the sophistry.
“No. Being a hero isn’t something just anyone can do. If a society treats self-sacrifice as something expected rather than something to be grateful for, then people have even less reason to sacrifice themselves for that society.”
Agreement with Professor Kim surged again, but the counterarguments were equally fierce.
The debate grew heated—lives were on the line.
Yet everyone ultimately wanted the same thing.
“Huh!?”
“Th-the barrier! It’s gone!”
True heroes.
“What the—?”
“Back! Pilot, go back!!”
The barrier vanished, and the public finally faced reality.
“KAAAAAAAAAAK……!”
A World Boss resembling a massive water serpent soared into the sky.
News viewers flooded the chat with question marks.
[Sarr Lv.71]
The handsome man was gone. In his place loomed a gigantic serpent marked with the absurd level of 71.
“Aah… It’s not a water snake, it’s a fire snake! An unbelievable monster!”
This was reality.
No matter how loudly people screamed for any Awakened to go kill the World Boss, it seemed impossible for anyone to defeat such a creature.
Yet—
“Wait a second. That’s not a fire snake. Isn’t it just burning?”
Shockingly, the monster was already dying.
They had assumed it was a fire-attribute salamander-like monster, but it wasn’t.
The creature was burning in agony.
A single man was setting it ablaze.
“Th-there, on its head! On its head!”
The camera director shrieked.
“Kang Hae-il……!?”
“It’s Kang Hae-il!”
They realized the figure standing atop the monster’s head was Kang Hae-il.
The World Boss, which had seemed capable of swallowing the world, was burning away the moment it appeared.
Quagwang……!
For those who had only just seen the crimson dome lift, everything unfolded far too quickly.
[The World Boss has been defeated!]
“The World Boss! The World Boss has been defeated!?”
The caster’s voice cracked from shouting too fast.
[Congratulations!]
[You have cleared the second quest!]
The caster pointed frantically.
“Ka… Kang Hae-il!”
Beneath the sunset, the colossal serpent’s burning corpse plummeted.
A single man fell with it.
Whoosh……!
“Kang Hae-il is falling!”
“We have to— we have to save him……!”
He had slain the boss and was now dying himself.
[All Awakened below level 30 will lose their powers.]
To the viewers, this was the noble sacrifice of a hero.
And everyone prayed.
Chrrrrrr!
[Out of 9,620,124 Awakened on the server……]
They desperately hoped Kang Hae-il’s name would be among the survivors.
Shamelessly, they wished for it anyway.
For a hero to appear and save the hero.
And then—
Ting!
The moment the server-wide calculation finished—
[2,593,451 have passed!]
Thud!
“Got…… got him!”
Someone slid across the ground, catching Kang Hae-il in their arms and rolling with him.
Quagwang……!
[Survival rate approximately 27%]
It happened in the blink of an eye—too fast even for the broadcast cameras to capture clearly.
But the next moment, everyone was even more shocked. Professor Kim clenched his fist.
‘I knew it……!’
A man was walking out of the rubble carrying Kang Hae-il.
His appearance was far too familiar.
“That person is……!”
The caster began, and the professor shouted.
“It’s the porter! The F-rank porter who always follows Kang Hae-il around! He appeared on-site and saved Kang Hae-il!”
The porter.
The cowardly F-rank who tagged along like a parasite while the S-rank worked.
Nothing more than living proof that Kang Hae-il’s words—“Ranks are just numbers”—were sincere.
The very F-rank Awakened everyone had despised had saved Kang Hae-il.
He had saved the man who saved the world.
Professor Kim roared again.
“I believed in youuuuu!!!”
From that moment on, the world’s view of the porter began to shift.
* * *
“Haa…… ha…… damn……”
Junil gasped for breath as he checked Kang Hae-il’s condition.
‘Right after awakening, they’re extremely weak……’
Even Kang Hae-il would be weaker than before once the awakening process ended.
If he fell from that height with nothing to cushion the impact, he might have died instantly.
Junil pressed his ear to Kang Hae-il’s chest.
Thump…… thump……
‘He’s alive.’
Thankfully, he was still breathing.
Thud.
Junil sank to the ground in relief.
At the same time, a chill ran down his spine as he looked up at the sky.
‘He would’ve died if I hadn’t come.’
The height from which Kang Hae-il had fallen was dizzying—easily over forty or fifty stories.
Catching someone from that distance was no easy feat. Even other Awakened without proper technique would have suffered a collision accident.
Only someone like Junil, who could perfectly control both mana and physical strength, could have pulled it off.
‘Crazy. What a crazy story……’
Junil clicked his tongue at how mercilessly Ram was pushing the protagonist.
‘Pam, you’re a saint compared to this!’
Of course, this insane difficulty had only arisen because Junil himself had been inserted into the story, but he had no way of knowing that.
Click!
“……?”
Then—
Click! Click!
The sound of camera shutters echoed from somewhere.
‘Huh?’
It was the cameras.
‘Is this…… okay?’
In his haste, he had forgotten he was still in his porter persona when he saved Kang Hae-il.
He had rushed in as plain Moon Junil.
So he hadn’t anticipated this.
Tududududu……!
All the broadcast helicopters were slowly descending, aiming their massive cameras straight at him.
Click! Click!
‘It’s better if fewer people recognize the porter.’
Having more people know about the porter wouldn’t do him any good.
It was better to be ignored, even if it meant being looked down on.
And now the media was swarming him.
‘I need to drive them off.’
He decided to use the one skill permitted to an F-rank in this world.
Ding~
[F]
The skill that announced his own incompetence.
It had always made crying children stop instantly.
At least, it used to.
Instead, the people inside the helicopters cheered louder and hammered their camera shutters even harder.
“Waaaaaah!”
“It’s an F! He displayed the F-rank!”
“The composition is perfect! Keep shooting!”
“Displaying the F-rank…… This is clearly a message to this ruthless world!”
“It’s like a declaration of war!”
Click!
Click! Click!
Junil could only stand there blankly as every camera captured him.
And then—
‘Huh?’
Thud!
A book landed on his knee.
“?”
[Higher-Dimensional Magic Research Journal]
[Redrian Supreme]
It was an item Sarr had been carrying.
The red cover gave him a strange sense of déjà vu.
‘What is this.’
Why?
The moment he looked at the book—
Chizizizizik!
Static began to fill his vision.