Chapter 43
Chapter 43
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: ACT.8 ???(EX) (2)
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When a coup succeeds, the existing ruler loses everything.
Literally everything.
Swoosh…
A red aura slowly seeped out of Yang Gyu-hyeok's body.
Everything Yang Gyu-hyeok had gained until now.
“Ah, no. My coins! My coins!!”
Despite the excruciating pain that should have made it hard to move, he flailed his arms, trying to grab it.
No matter how he clenched his fist, it was impossible to grasp the light.
It wasn't that Yang Gyu-hyeok didn't know that, but he must have desperately wanted to avoid having it taken away.
He reaped what he sowed.
‘If only Yang Gyu-hyeok had earned more respect, perhaps things would have been different.’
A ruler has a duty to keep their base safe.
Yang Gyu-hyeok probably worked hard to do that.
But it was likely more for his own safety.
For the people, the injustice of being exploited outweighed the feeling of being protected.
Swoosh.
The red aura, converted from every last one of his stats into coins, naturally flowed into my grasp.
With this, my business in Dongdaemun was finished.
[The main quest has been cleared.]
[1800 coins have been awarded as a reward.]
[A portion of the seized coins has been recovered.]
[Coins Held: 23800]
Clearing the main quest, the two-day settlement, and what I took from Yang Gyu-hyeok.
Because of all this, the amount of coins I had increased exponentially.
It seemed a little less than I expected, but since it exceeded the amount I wanted, there was no problem.
Meanwhile, Yang Gyu-hyeok, who had lost everything, was no longer in his right mind.
“Ugh, ahhh. Aaaah!!!!”
[Character Information]
Name: Yang Gyu-hyeok
Gender: Male (35)
Strength: 1 Stamina: 1 Agility: 1 Magic: 0
Unique Ability: (No unique abilities held)
Traits: (No traits held)
Skills Held: (No skills held)
He had collected exorbitant taxes, beyond what was reasonable, to get stronger quickly.
Because of that, the amount seized was also large. Even his traits and skills were converted into coins and confiscated without exception.
Yang Gyu-hyeok was now practically no different from a non-player.
“Ahh, ahhh…!”
Looking like a drowned rat, Yang Gyu-hyeok scrambled away.
A pathetic sight.
Letting out a pathetic scream.
Splash.
He stepped into a rather deep puddle.
Looking closely at the ground, I saw it was more than just a puddle.
The entire street was flooded.
Enough to be called a submersion.
This place was going to be abandoned anyway.
There were no citizens left here, so there was nothing to worry about.
As for Yang Gyu-hyeok's men who went elsewhere on Cheon Nam-gi's orders...
“Hm.”
Cheon Nam-gi would take care of them.
He may have agreed to the rebellion, but he wasn't the type of person to do good deeds at the cost of his own life.
If he were, he wouldn't have been a gangster in the first place.
My completely soaked hair clung to my skin, an annoying sensation.
Shaking my head to get the water out helped for a moment, but only for a moment.
‘Should I finish him off for good?’
If he survives seeking revenge and the devils sponsor him for fun, it'll just be a pain for me.
I needed to kill him when I could to prevent future trouble.
The angels were watching, so I couldn't kill him directly. I'd have to settle for creating an environment where he would die.
I followed the path Yang Gyu-hyeok had fled.
After going a certain distance, I could easily deduce where he had run off to.
‘Did he escape through the secret underground passage?’
He must have judged it would be difficult to escape my grasp otherwise.
But that was a miscalculation.
Because those monsters were in the underground passage.
Wasn't it teeming with man-eating fish that would devour people without hesitation?
If the streets were this flooded, the underground would have naturally become a swimming pool.
If Yang Gyu-hyeok, having lost all his power, fled there without knowing that…
“Kuaaaaaack!!”
Too late.
The horrific scream made me frown instinctively.
He had to be dead, no need to look.
Still, I checked the underground passage just to be sure.
“…”
The underground passage was already full of water, no longer serving its purpose as a path.
Among it, one particular spot.
There was a place that was particularly stained red, with bubbles rising to the surface.
Splash, splash, splash.
Around it, piranha-like monsters with blood-stained mouths were busy moving about, as if in a great hurry.
Yang Gyu-hyeok had struggled to get out of the water somehow, but it was impossible.
…What a gruesome end.
To be eaten alive by those things.
It really hit home that the setting of this game was an apocalypse.
‘Should I head back?’
I even used Extreme Eye to confirm.
Yang Gyu-hyeok had been torn to shreds in an instant, leaving nothing but bones, so there was no need to worry about him anymore.
What remained was to lead the people of Dongdaemun, become the de facto leader, and move to a larger base.
I couldn't let the ‘Rulers’ run rampant, played by the devils' tricks, any longer.
I had to completely eliminate the Ruler trait to prevent this nasty snowball effect from the very beginning.
To do that, first…
‘I have to become a Ruler.’
And not a Ruler on such a small scale.
But the next level up, a ‘Conqueror’.
KABOOM!
The moment I got outside, an undeniable sound came from behind me.
The moment I realized it came from the direction of the underground passage, I scaled a tall building without looking back.
Kwoooosh!
Water surged back as if a dam had burst.
Along with the water overflowing from the underground, a large number of fish-type monsters were pouring out.
Watching the fish-type monsters flopping around in places that were once simple streets, I was left speechless.
“What a mess.”
Right after the monsters poured out, the water wasn't deep, so I thought they'd die quickly from lack of air, but I guess because they were monsters, their life force was tenacious.
The creatures that had been flopping about, announcing their presence, ended up surviving as the overflowing water pooled to about thirty centimeters deep.
I let out a dry laugh looking at Dongdaemun, which had suddenly turned into a piranha farm.
At least in the game, there was a chance for recovery.
This time, even that was completely cut off.
‘A disaster worse than the original…’
I knew the cause of the downpour.
I had to go eliminate that cause now anyway.
But what it meant for the downpour to be worse than in the original story…
I felt a little uneasy, but there was no change in my plans.
[A sub-quest has been generated.]
[Sub-Quest - Flood]
Man stands between heaven and earth, forming the very character for ‘person’ (人).
However, a man forsaken by heaven and earth has no place left to stand.
Escape the flooding waters and reach a new base.
Time Limit: 6 hours
※Failure results in a high probability of death.
It was just as the sub-quest's title described.
The base was already submerged, and as if that wasn't enough, the water was about to overflow outside.
If we didn't move quickly, we'd be severely hindered.
‘What I saw in the underground passage was just the tip of the iceberg.’
Cheon Nam-gi's brief reaction back when I asked if there was another way must have been because he knew the other places were already hopeless.
Though it seemed he didn't know about the monsters.
The downpour was finally causing real trouble.
It would be nice if lightning struck and electrocuted all of them.
Of course, if that happened, there'd be a high risk of me getting electrocuted too, so it was better that it didn't.
“Se-hyeon-nim!”
“Cha Eun-ha?”
“The people are in chaos! They don't know whether to stay or if we really have to abandon Dongdaemun completely and leave!”
Just as I was about to make a move, Cha Eun-ha arrived.
Temporarily leaving the base to bring down Yang Gyu-hyeok was possible thanks to the trust of Cha Eun-ha and Jeon Do-jin, but were they confused about abandoning the base entirely?
However, when people are in chaos, they are easy to lead.
Because they will readily follow someone who has already proven their worth.
I had to get out of Dongdaemun for the sub-quest anyway.
“We have to give up on Dongdaemun.”
“There are opinions like that, but there are opposing ones too. Where is another safe place? How far do we have to go? We need to be able to solve those issues to get people to move. In reality, the outside of the base is full of monsters, isn't it?”
“Will they still say that after seeing how flooded it is?”
“That's…”
Cha Eun-ha trailed off.
She must have felt it keenly on her way to where I was.
That this base was now a lost cause.
But even seeing the flood, people would have complacent thoughts like, ‘Can't we just wait for the water to recede?’
“Look at this.”
I took a piece of beef jerky from my pocket and threw it.
Barely a second after the jerky hit the water, the piranhas swarmed it, and it vanished without a trace.
Cha Eun-ha's face turned pale.
“The rain shows no sign of stopping, so the water on the streets will keep rising. If they want to live trapped inside buildings, unable to come out, or if they want an uncomfortable cohabitation with those things, I suppose staying is an option.”
“N-no. Not even a fisherman would want to live here.”
Cha Eun-ha looked horrified.
If she told the people what she just saw, they would leave this place immediately.
The reason they wanted to stay in the base was because it was dangerous outside due to the monsters.
But if the inside of the base was also full of monsters, there was no reason to stay.
“The most important point is that the opinions of those who object are meaningless. As I just showed you, Dongdaemun is no longer a safe place. We have no choice.”
Cha Eun-ha bit her lip as she listened to the explanation, then nodded.
“Everyone, evacuate! Dongdaemun is no longer a safe zone! The streets are overflowing with water, and fish-type monsters have taken over!”
I moved with Cha Eun-ha to where the people were.
The group that had orchestrated the plot was also gathered there.
It was strange how the agitation, which was a mix of slight exaggeration and lies, had now become reality.
“Damn it, just when I thought things were starting to stabilize…!”
“Th-then where should we go!?”
The people were agitated.
We had to abandon Dongdaemun.
If that was unavoidable, then of course we had to move to find a new, safe place.
The fortunate thing was that we hadn't deviated from the main quest's foundation yet.
The original story also had us leaving Dongdaemun.
Because Dongdaemun was doomed to fall, one way or another.
The problem was ‘where’ to go next.
‘North, south, east, west.’
From here, the main quest branched out.
Where we went, and what actions we took.
For things to proceed as I wanted, I just had to move according to the plan I'd already thought of.
“If we follow the road west, we'll reach Seoul City Hall! There should be a larger group of survivors there!”
Choosing east would lead to Cheongnyangni Station.
I had no intention of going there anyway, but now it was even more important not to.
Cheongnyangni Station, where the ruler had been replaced by someone I didn't know.
Someone I suspected had played the game quite a bit, no less.
If I went there and caused friction, it would only be a problem for me.
Besides, there was a high probability they had already taken the hidden items and achievements.
North and south weren't even worth considering.
“It's Death Bites!”
The path wasn't exactly smooth.
Monsters don't consider human circumstances.
In fact, they tended to appear more often precisely when you were hoping they wouldn't show up.
“We'll break through and advance!”
Fortunately, by now, Death Bites weren't much of a problem for the group.
Nevertheless, there were still some precarious aspects.
The heavy downpour obscured vision, causing many attacks to miss and making evasion difficult.
Splash!
“Ugh!?”
On top of that, the puddles and mud everywhere hindered movement.
The fact that this urban area had transformed into something like a forest, with uneven terrain, also played a significant part.
The wet clothes clinging to the skin were also more annoying than you'd think.
“Uwaah!?”
A Death Bite lunged at Jo Min-woo, who had missed his footing and fallen.
Muddy water must have gotten in his eyes, blocking his vision.
He would be in danger if I didn't save him.
“Snap out of it!”
I stood in front of Jo Min-woo and took down three or four Death Bites in an instant.
Having overcome many crises himself, Jo Min-woo quickly came to his senses and rejoined the fight.
“The left side is almost clear!”
“The right side too! I think we can focus on the front now!”
My and Kim Ji-hyeon's contributions were prominent, but even without us, the speed at which they were killing Death Bites was fast.
Since all the survivors who followed from Dongdaemun were players, there was no wasted combat power.
Jeon Do-jin was unavoidably out of the fight due to the nature of his ability.
Instead, Cha Eun-ha was proving to be more useful than expected.
Watching the nearby Death Bites get wiped out, I slowly raised the corners of my mouth.
It was about time to use the large amount of coins I had obtained.