Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: A Day's Deal (3)
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Jun Bo-ra screamed as she prepared to use Teleport.
The others, who had been in the middle of combat, all retreated at once, each making physical contact with Jun Bo-ra just as they had when they teleported here.
“Teleport!”
Just before the hut collapsed and monster attacks flew in from all directions.
Our vision shifted several times, and in an instant, we were transported to the rooftop of the city hall building.
Most of the people seemed to have scattered, and no one was paying any attention to the rooftop.
“Huuu…”
As if the tension had finally broken, Jun Bo-ra let out a long sigh and collapsed to the ground.
But her sigh was still laced with deep worry.
“...This is bad.”
Jun Bo-ra bit her nails, sweating.
“The strategies I saw never had a development like this… What combination of strategies do I have to…”
“Saw?”
“P-Played through! Listen to me properly!”
When I pointed out her slip of the tongue, Jun Bo-ra became flustered and waved her hands frantically.
Even though I knew she wasn't the Strategy King, playing along with her act was an ordeal in itself.
Still, I had to do it.
This would one day serve as a sturdy dummy for me.
“That wasn't a slip of the tongue, it was your true feelings. Did you think you could keep up this charade of being the Strategy King forever?”
“You really!”
“Just look at Kim Se-hyeon. He doesn't seem to believe you either.”
“What? Is that true!?”
“No, I didn't say anything. Why are you suddenly throwing me under the bus?”
“...It definitely said, ‘help me.’”
As Hwang Chan-jin and Jun Bo-ra bickered, Han Hyeok-jun spoke in a gloomy voice.
All eyes turned to him, asking what he meant.
“While you all rushed in without a second thought, I heard its voice.”
“It was a hallucination.”
“That can't be… Ugh!?”
I forcibly plucked a few strands of hair from the head of the spouting nonsense Han Hyeok-jun.
“Wh-What are you doing!”
I held the hairs out in front of Han Hyeok-jun, who was fuming as if he’d been wronged.
At that moment, what had been hair slowly changed form, turning into a flower of a disgusting color.
The color drained from Han Hyeok-jun’s face, turning a similar shade.
“You fell under its power and were seeing things. Be careful. That's its specialty.”
“…”
He seemed so shocked that his mouth hung open, unable to form words.
If Han Hyeok-jun had used his full power back then, we could have dealt a much more critical blow.
The Disaster of Verdure may look like that, but it is, at its core, a plant. It is naturally extremely vulnerable to fire.
That’s why it must have targeted Han Hyeok-jun first, to prevent the fire-wielder from properly participating in the fight.
It probably happened when we got close to the gate.
“It clouds one’s cognitive abilities by planting a flower in their head?”
“That’s only part of its power. It probably couldn't do more because it hadn't fully awakened yet. Now that it has, it will likely have other effects.”
“It’s tricky enough to deal with just that, and you’re saying there’s more?”
“This won’t be the end of it.”
Lee Seon-yul and Kim Ji-hyeon’s expressions soured.
Looking at the two of them, I couldn't manage a pleasant expression either.
The Disaster of Verdure can freely control those it infects.
Even an A-rank player, with ease.
By that logic, Kim Ji-hyeon and Lee Seon-yul weren't safe either.
The bigger problem would be the other players.
They might not be strong, but the issue is that they can be easily infected and turned into enemies.
I'm not asking for them to pull their weight.
But at the very least, they shouldn't be a liability.
‘What’s more important is that humans aren't the only targets of infection.’
So, it was crucial to end this as quickly as possible.
The one day I had wagered with the devil was because I had to resolve it within that timeframe anyway.
“...Anyway, there are a lot of talented people among those who awakened this time. Three who are already A-rank or higher.”
Kim Ji-hyeon said with a mix of resignation and complaint.
From their perspective, it must be baffling.
In the original story, Kim Ji-hyeon and Lee Seon-yul had been players for several years.
They had reached A-rank through constant training and effort, so it was understandable they would feel a sense of deprivation seeing people who had awakened less than two weeks ago catch up to or surpass them.
Hwang Chan-jin glanced at Jun Bo-ra and openly snickered.
“So you’re the Strategy King, but you still haven't raised any of your traits to S-rank? The Strategy King has really fallen off.”
“Are you trying to pick a fight…?”
I chuckled watching Jun Bo-ra’s facial muscles twitch while she tried to maintain a smile.
My calculations were more or less complete.
After experiencing several unexpected situations, I had grown somewhat accustomed to this kind of development.
All I had to do was cherry-pick the usable parts from every strategy route I remembered and create the best possible new strategy.
“Ah, seriously! Why is my brain not working today! The Strategy King isn't like this! The genius image I have to maintain…!”
Jun Bo-ra tore at her hair in frustration.
She probably thought she was muttering to herself, but because my stats were so high, I heard her clearly.
“Anyway, there's only one way.”
I shifted my gaze beyond the base’s outer walls.
Monsters, further strengthened by the disaster’s power.
The longer we dragged this out, the greater the damage, which meant our ‘combat power’ would diminish.
“We send the former Rulers to each base to block the monster wave, and at the same time, we form a separate detachment to stop the Disaster of Verdure.”
We couldn't stop two simultaneous events separately.
Since they were happening at the same time, we had to stop them at the same time.
That was the conclusion I had reached.
“You think that's possible?”
Jun Bo-ra narrowed her eyes, immediately showing a negative reaction.
“Easy to say. It’s no different from playing two games at once. We don't have two bodies.”
“I know. This is a race against time.”
To stop the disaster, we had to take all the strongest players currently available.
In other words, the remaining players would have to fend off the monster wave on their own after the main forces had left.
The monsters had the advantage in both numbers and stamina.
As time passed, our side would tire out, increasing the chances of the monsters breaking through. We had to finish everything before that happened.
“That doesn't sound bad.”
Surprisingly, Hwang Chan-jin readily agreed.
“Kim Se-hyeon. Let's join hands for now. This is clearly an emergency. This is no time for us to be fighting amongst ourselves.”
“And after this is over?”
“...We’ll see when we get there.”
He said it nonchalantly, but his words were pointed.
“Hey, I’m pretty sure I told you I wouldn’t stand by if you messed with my friend…”
“Sorry. Let me handle this.”
I stopped Han Hyeok-jun, who had flared up on my behalf and was about to start a confrontation with Hwang Chan-jin.
Hwang Chan-jin knew Han Hyeok-jun was an important figure, so he couldn't treat him carelessly.
Using that was one option, but it wasn't a fundamental solution.
This was something I had to resolve myself, to some extent.
“Are you still sulking because of what happened back then?”
“I am not sulking. Don't twist my words.”
“Unbelievable. Who was the one who called me suspicious and tried to stick a knife in my throat the moment we met? Besides, you didn't meet the conditions to get the Sain Sword anyway, so I got it. If you had taken it first, I never would have.”
“That’s…”
Momentarily at a loss for words, Hwang Chan-jin thought for a moment before giving a completely nonsensical reply.
“...It was your fault for acting suspiciously.”
“…”
He really was a psycho.
I had fallen into a pit to escape being killed by a monster, breaking several ribs in the process, which made it difficult to move. And he called that ‘acting suspiciously.’
There’s a limit to how unfair one can be.
“Excuse me. Whatever the relationship between you two is, you can sort it out later. Right now, we need to focus on resolving this issue first.”
Eventually, Jun Bo-ra intervened, forcibly changing the subject.
Hwang Chan-jin, though seeming displeased, obediently backed down.
If he were the type who couldn't prioritize, I would have done something to him right here.
“I doubt you said that without a plan. So what now? With Chapter 6 skipped, we can't get that item. The… uh, Purifying Flames!”
Jun Bo-ra frowned and let out a pained sound.
She was right, so I nodded.
‘Two things are needed to defeat the Disaster of Verdure.’
A player with a high-grade fire-type ability, and the item called Purifying Flames.
One of them was already here.
The S-rank Han Hyeok-jun. He was more than enough.
The problem was the other one.
The Purifying Flames was an item that could only be obtained in Chapter 6.
The issue lay in the time it took to acquire it.
The original Chapter 6 takes place over three days.
During those three days, if a player brings all the materials requested by a specific NPC, the NPC will spend another three days forging the item before giving the player the ‘Purifying Flames.’
In other words, even if you gathered all the materials in a single day, the minimum time required to obtain it was three days.
It was an impossible method for us, who had to finish this within a day.
“I’ve already awakened Jo Min-ah.”
“Jo Min-ah?”
Jun Bo-ra’s eyes widened.
Hwang Chan-jin remained silent, but he crossed his arms and tapped his fingers, showing his reaction.
I hadn't done it expecting things to get this twisted, but in the end, it turned out to be a divine move.
“It’s blue flame, not white flame, but the effect is similar. It should be a good enough substitute.”
“Right. With Jo Min-ah’s power… Wait a minute. Even so, she'd need to be S-rank, wouldn't she? Is she S-rank?”
I slowly shook my head.
Just as Jun Bo-ra pointed out, that was the problem.
The fact that Jo Min-ah’s power was still only A-rank.
“But I can solve that.”
Ignil’s Tear.
I planned to give Jo Min-ah the item I had spent a fortune on when I bought the Testament.
Costing 180,000 coins, its effect was guaranteed.
It could evolve an A-rank fire-type trait to S-rank.
I had intended to use it as a trump card in case things went wrong, but I never imagined I’d have to use it so much sooner than expected.
‘This is definitely possible.’
Somehow, it had appeared much earlier than it should have, but because of that, it didn't seem to possess its full power.
On top of that, we had dealt a major blow to its core, the ‘flower,’ as soon as we found it.
The flower was irrecoverable and was linked to most of the ‘Disaster of Verdure’s’ abilities, so the difficulty should be significantly lower now.
We both had our handicaps.
“For now, we need to make some simple preparations for the monsters that will soon swarm us. I’m going to release the former Rulers we have in handcuffs and send them back to their original bases.”
“Huh? How?”
“You’re going to do it, of course.”
“...Hey. I put up with the extra work earlier because the situation was urgent, but don't you think it's shameless to ask me again?”
“It's still urgent. And you’re the most efficient way, aren't you?”
In the end, Jun Bo-ra grumbled but agreed.
She had a personality that, despite complaining, would ultimately do as asked.
*Dong! Dong!*
A bell rang from the direction of the watchtower.
It was a special bell whose sound was heard equally by every player within the base.
There was only one reason for that bell to ring.
A monster invasion.
“It’s already started…!”
I climbed onto the wall to check the situation.
The sheer volume of them was incomparable to what we faced at the stadium.
Furthermore, their numbers seemed far greater than I remembered.
The spaces between the trees were so black that the color of the ground wasn't visible at all.
The fortunate thing was that the monsters were D-rank at best, with no C-rank or higher among them.
Toward the people who were nervously gripping their weapons, I raised my voice and shouted.
“After you kill a monster, you must burn its corpse! It doesn't matter how!”
“What? Don't monster corpses disappear on their own after a while?”
“If you don't burn them, they will resurrect!”
I said it with a straight face, and realizing I wasn't joking, their expressions hardened.
This chapter was different from the previous ones.
If we didn't deal with the enemies in the proper way, we would be the ones getting devoured.
“Burn them, unless you want to see hell!”