Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Heroic Existence
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‘Heroic existence…….’
Truthfully, he wasn’t sure about Kang Hee-soon, but those words had struck Jung Nam-gil pretty deeply.
It was inevitable.
For someone like him, who had been nothing but a murderer in the real world, to become a hero to others?
It was bizarre just to think about.
But the kind of hero he envisioned was different from the typical image people had.
‘Kill one person, and you’re a murderer. Kill a million, and you’re a conqueror. Kill all of humanity, and you’re a god.’
A divine being—that wasn’t exactly a hero from mythology?
The idea that he, a mere murderer, could become a heroic existence felt like it meant becoming someone who had slain all of humanity.
And during the first Monster Wave blockade, Jung Nam-gil could certainly feel it.
The gazes around him.
At first, everyone was bewildered.
Which made sense.
When no one else was willing to properly fight the monsters, the two who charged in bravely were Kang Hee-soon and Jung Nam-gil.
As a result, after he and Kang Hee-soon died, the remaining players burned with a desire for revenge.
But that didn’t last long.
No sooner had they resurrected than Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon started slaughtering monsters as much as possible before dying again, only to resurrect and reappear.
By that point, anyone who wasn’t an idiot had figured it out.
That in this Trials’ Arena, you resurrected even if you died.
However.
That didn’t mean they stopped seeing Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon as impressive.
‘Those people came to block the second Trials’ Arena with us, right? They didn’t know about resurrection and charged in anyway.’
That’s what the players thought about Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon.
That they were amazing for stepping up when the others couldn’t, even without knowing about resurrection.
In those gazes, he could feel respect.
The kind of look Hae-jin had described when talking about a ‘heroic existence.’
Feeling those gazes, Jung Nam-gil trembled with an ironic thrill running through his entire body.
To be treated like a hero when he was nothing but a psycho killer in society.
Having thought that far, Jung Nam-gil felt a bit annoyed and irritated by the man’s approach just moments ago, but he quickly switched to a friendly smile.
Why?
Because he was a ‘heroic existence.’
Changing his expression wasn’t hard.
For a psychopath like Jung Nam-gil, faking expressions was no big deal.
Flashing a friendly smile, Jung Nam-gil answered the man’s question.
“You’re right. At the start, this friend and I were the first to charge in and block the Monster Wave.”
“Why did you do that?”
Why, huh.
Was he planning to question why they’d risked their lives first?
But the misunderstanding cleared up quickly.
“It was too dangerous!”
“Huh?”
“Everyone thought you two had sacrificed yourselves—do you know how sorry they felt?”
Jung Nam-gil’s expression brightened at the words that the other players had felt sorry about his and Kang Hee-soon’s deaths.
It tickled him, in a good way.
He’d thought the guy might grill him about how they knew about resurrection.
But instead, words of genuine worry for him and Kang Hee-soon came out, contrary to his expectations.
Thanks to his psychopathic nature, Jung Nam-gil was good at reading expressions, and he thought:
‘He means it.’
The man’s eyes genuinely conveyed worry for them.
So there was no reason for Jung Nam-gil to drop his friendly smile.
Maintaining it, he sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
“Haha, really?”
“Yes! So from the next wave on, we won’t hesitate—we’ll fight right away. Let’s do this together!”
“Got it. Let’s do that.”
“Yes!”
Afterward, until the second Monster Wave arrived, Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon received cheers and encouragement from the other players.
Around that time, Kang Hee-soon was feeling much the same as Jung Nam-gil.
Truthfully, neither he nor Jung Nam-gil had ever imagined becoming objects of respect for people—being objects of fear was enough.
So this brought an inexplicable sense of exhilaration.
Treatment they’d never received from anyone in their lives.
Normally, for psychopaths like them who felt nothing else, the only thing that brought pleasure was murder.
But this…… was a different kind of thrill.
At this point, one thought had firmly taken root in both Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon’s minds:
‘We have to get the most kills no matter what.’
Even if they’d discovered a new thrill aside from murder, they couldn’t forget the core essence of this Survival Game called the Trials’ Arena.
Survival.
To achieve that, they needed to kill the most monsters.
Of course, they knew first place was out of reach.
First place would undoubtedly go to Hae-jin, who was single-handedly pushing offense during the defense mission.
But settling for second and third in this Trials’ Arena wasn’t bad.
The difference between players who placed in the top three and those who didn’t was huge, after all.
‘Yeah, if we can’t get first, we should at least stay in the top two or three and keep racking up rewards.’
That was the best Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon could do right now.
And they could see it happening.
Jung Nam-gil spoke about what he’d seen.
“Alright, everyone, get ready for battle. It’s coming—the second Monster Wave.”
“Is this the fifth one now?”
While the other players were defending the Goddess Statue against the second Monster Wave, Hae-jin had already finished the fourth Monster Wave and reached the point where the fifth was visible.
As he did, Hae-jin thought:
‘Ah, it’d be nice if the aggro pulled automatically.’
Unfortunately, the monsters in the Monster Waves didn’t aggro from a certain distance away at all.
They moved solely to destroy the Goddess Statue, like they were born for it.
That’s why it had taken Hae-jin quite a while to get this far.
If he’d just swept them all at once, he could have wiped them out.
But he held back because if he took them all solo, the other players would struggle to grow.
If someone heard this, they might think:
‘In the final Trials’ Arena, only a set number can party up for the endgame, so why not hog it all?’
Honestly, ever since inheriting everything from Joo-hyuk, these minor growths didn’t feel all that meaningful to Hae-jin.
Sure, getting stronger was always good if possible.
But the problem was if Hae-jin swept everything alone.
Everyone except him would end up with zero monster kills.
So what would happen then?
Several possibilities came to mind.
First: Everyone except Hae-jin has zero kills, so kill them all.
Second: Everyone except Hae-jin has zero kills, so spare them all.
Third: Everyone except Hae-jin has zero kills, so randomly spare as many as the Trials’ Arena survivor quota.
Those were the usual three options.
And Hae-jin knew well:
‘It’s ruthless.’
Ruthless.
That’s all there was to it.
The Trials’ Arena system usually picked the first option out of those three.
After all, only the strong survived the Trials’ Arena.
Players who couldn’t even complete the minimum mission got scrapped—killed off.
That’s why Hae-jin was going through this hassle with offense.
If he killed them all, the survivors in this zone might all die except him.
That might raise another question:
‘Why not just solo the zone and hog it?’
Impossible.
Zones were divided because of high player numbers.
Later, when numbers dropped, before merging with other zones, it would consolidate into groups around the size of Hae-jin’s current 33,333-person zone.
In other words, if Hae-jin ended up alone in this zone, he’d be forcibly merged into another.
So he was deliberately adjusting to leave survivors.
If he didn’t, not only the players in his current zone but also those in whatever zone he got merged into would miss growth opportunities.
And if he unluckily ended up in a zone with Lee Sang or Kwon Na-ye?
Total disaster.
So he absolutely had to maintain this zone.
With that in mind, Hae-jin decided to handle the fifth Monster Wave with the same adjustment.
Though one concern lingered:
‘The boss still has to be mine, right?’
In the third Trials’ Arena, there were ten Monster Waves total, and two of them—the fifth and the tenth—featured a powerful monster each.
Commonly called boss monsters.
And the boss monsters here were ‘ogres.’
Monster Waves generally mixed goblins, kobolds, orcs, trolls, and lizardmen in various combinations, but exactly twice.
Ogres appeared as boss monsters.
An ogre was a powerhouse that current-level players needed at least a hundred to take down.
Of course, to Hae-jin…
It was just a pathetic obstacle.
“Die.”
Slash!
Hae-jin swiftly swung his sword.
In an instant, black energy gathered on his blade, forming a crescent that sliced through the air toward the ogre.
Shiiiik—!
The black aura blade tore through the air, targeting the ogre.
As it shot forward, it bisected every monster it grazed.
And finally, it slammed into the boss of the fifth Monster Wave—the ogre.
Splash—!
The massive ogre’s body split in half, spraying green fluids like a fountain.
Watching it, Hae-jin thought:
‘Normally, killing the ogre here should give a title…….’
The ogre lived up to its boss monster name.
So usually, players teaming up to kill it in the third Trials’ Arena earned a title.
But not for Hae-jin.
It was all already included in the titles and achievements inherited from Joo-hyuk.
Same with the second Trials’ Arena.
Climbing the tower, killing new monsters or hitting certain numbers should’ve granted titles and achievements, but nothing popped.
Because it was all already in Joo-hyuk’s.
As expected, the system stayed silent.
“…….”
Nothing to regret.
He already had them anyway.
Regardless, after one-shotting the ogre, Hae-jin scanned the surroundings.
The only ones reacting to their boss falling were the nearby monsters.
The rest kept marching solely toward the Goddess Statue.
Seeing that, Hae-jin spoke.
“This time, leaving about two thousand should do it?”
Still, he figured the defending players back at base needed gradual experience with the increasing wave sizes.
So, as mentioned, he hunted until more than half of the fifth wave’s five thousand monsters were down.
Finishing the hunt, Hae-jin said:
“Alright, shall we go meet the sixth Monster Wave?”