Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: Missing from the Rankings
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"Why... why am I not on the rankings?"
Jung Nam-gil muttered in disbelief after checking the rankings.
It was only natural.
He and Kang Hee-soon had been dying repeatedly while massacring monsters nonstop.
In contrast, looking at the kill counts, aside from Park Hae-jin who had single-handedly obliterated nearly half the monster wave, second place hadn't even reached 800 kills.
'I must have taken down at least a thousand monsters...!'
Yet neither he nor Kang Hee-soon appeared on the rankings.
He couldn't fathom what was going on.
The players who had followed him as their leader were just as baffled.
"Huh? Why isn't Nam-gil's name there?"
"Yeah, those two must have gotten thousands between them."
"What's going on?"
The players were equally clueless.
Then the system cleared up the confusion.
[In this Trial Arena, survival is determined by the number of monsters killed.]
The survival criterion for the third Trial Arena was indeed the number of monsters killed.
From Jung Nam-gil's perspective, this made it even more incomprehensible.
"But why am I not on there?! I've killed thousands!"
He and Kang Hee-soon had definitely slain thousands of monsters.
This was top-tier even compared to other zones, let alone this one.
So why was Jung Nam-gil missing from the rankings?
However.
The system had an explanation.
[However, deaths during defense deduct 100 monsters from your kill count each time.]
"...What?"
Jung Nam-gil was stunned upon seeing the system's criterion.
Deaths during defense deduct 100 monsters each time?
How many times had he died just to rack up as many kills as possible?
Ten? Twenty?
No.
At least fifty times, probably.
Why?
To keep using skills with long cooldowns and maximize his monster kills.
But according to the system, every death deducted 100 from his total.
By that math, his thousands of kills were effectively in the negative.
"This can't be..."
Jung Nam-gil stared blankly in despair.
Even the players who had seen him as their leader were speechless.
"How could they have a rule like that..."
"Then Nam-gil and Hee-soon..."
"Probably..."
No one could finish their sentences, but they all knew.
Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon had thrown themselves into defense recklessly, dying over and over.
Because of that, they could never be survivors advancing to the next Trial Arena.
The two who had sacrificed their lives without hesitation were outdone by those who played it safe and had their survival chances stripped away.
Jung Nam-gil muttered in a daze.
"How could this happen..."
Realizing he couldn't survive, he dropped the friendly act he'd been maintaining.
His psychopathic true nature surged forth.
"Fine. If I can't make the rankings to survive... then I'll just kill everyone until I do."
His dazed expression twisted into murderous rage in an instant.
Kang Hee-soon, standing beside him, nodded in agreement.
"That's a plan I like. Shall we start slaughtering them?"
"Let's."
The players in the zone were stunned by their conversation.
"Pardon? Nam-gil?"
"What did you just say?"
Up until now, Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon had led the defense like heroic leaders.
For them to suddenly turn to massacring players for survival—it was shocking.
It had to be.
These people didn't know the two were killers at heart.
But before anyone could react, Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon lunged at the nearby players to kill them.
That was when it happened.
Slash-.
Slash-.
""
Both froze, staring at their own arms—still clutching weapons—rolling on the ground.
Spurt-!
Blood sprayed from the severed stumps of Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon's arms.
They'd been confused at first by the sight of their arms being cut off, but the blood brought harsh reality crashing down.
"Arrrgh!"
Clutching their stumps, they screamed in agony.
The one who had severed their arms was none other than Hae-jin.
As he sheathed the blade that had cut off the arms of the two trying to kill players for a spot on the rankings, Hae-jin spoke.
"They say a dog's habits die hard."
"Hae... Hae-jin, what is this...?"
Jung Nam-gil looked utterly baffled.
It was understandable.
The moment the third Trial Arena began, he and Kang Hee-soon had pledged to serve Park Hae-jin.
In return, Park Hae-jin had shared info about the third Trial Arena.
The info wasn't fake.
So Jung Nam-gil had thought Hae-jin was giving them a chance.
But now, at the trial's end, Hae-jin appeared and severed their arms, preventing them from wielding weapons.
He couldn't understand why.
Hae-jin smirked at Jung Nam-gil's dumbfounded stare.
"You think I wouldn't tell you about the kill deduction for deaths?"
Jung Nam-gil and Kang Hee-soon's faces hardened instantly.
They had no choice.
The moment the system announced the 100-kill deduction per death...
[However, deaths during defense deduct 100 monsters from your kill count each time.]
...they had both thought the same thing.
'Park Hae-jin must not have known this either.'
They figured the system had hidden it to screw over the players.
Giving full info on the next trial after clearing a hidden one felt too generous from the start.
But Hae-jin's words just now...
'You already knew about the 100-kill deduction per death?'
Jung Nam-gil couldn't comprehend.
'Then why encourage us to die on purpose?'
They'd placed second and third in prior trials.
Sure, they lagged behind Hae-jin's own power, but keeping them around couldn't hurt, right?
Why had Hae-jin deliberately withheld that info?
"Why...?"
Jung Nam-gil demanded to know why Hae-jin had done this to them.
Hae-jin shrugged.
"Can't let serial killers awakened as players run rampant with their murders."
At Hae-jin's words, the watching players erupted in murmurs.
"Serial killers...?"
"Now that you mention it, Nam-gil aside, Hee-soon shares a name with that famous killer..."
"I thought the same, but..."
"So Hee-soon really is that infamous serial killer Kang Hee-soon?"
"Looks like it."
"No way!"
"What about Nam-gil?"
"First time hearing that name."
"I work at the station, and I've never heard of a Jung Nam-gil."
Everyone knew about Kang Hee-soon.
The media had plastered his name everywhere as a killer.
But he'd fought so reliably at the front lines that they'd assumed it was just a coincidence—a namesake.
Now, confirmed by Hae-jin, panic spread.
Amid the chaos, some questioned Jung Nam-gil.
Kang Hee-soon was known from the news, but who was this guy?
They'd never heard the name before.
Of course.
Jung Nam-gil was a killer who'd never been caught.
But how did Hae-jin know?
Later, after establishing himself as a player, Jung Nam-gil had confessed his crimes.
Many survivors from the tenth Trial Arena had gained fame, and he was one.
Handsome, intelligent, a survivor of the tenth Trial Arena—Player Jung Nam-gil.
At the point he felt untouchable, he'd dropped a bombshell publicly.
"Knitting Needle Serial Killer."
Hae-jin uttered the moniker of the serial killer whose culprit clues still eluded capture.
Jung Nam-gil flinched upon hearing it from Hae-jin.
He had no choice.
His bombshell confession had been exactly that: he was the "Knitting Needle Serial Killer."
The Knitting Needle Serial Killer always bound victims' arms behind their backs and left a signature by knitting on them.
For a popular player like Jung Nam-gil to suddenly claim he was the Knitting Needle Serial Killer—it was a total shocker.
The world learned Jung Nam-gil was the Knitting Needle Serial Killer because of it.
Of course, at this point in time, no one knew yet.
But everyone knew of the Knitting Needle Serial Killer's existence.
"No way! Nam-gil is the Knitting Needle Serial Killer?"
"How could that be..."
"Isn't Hae-jin mistaken?"
Those still favorable toward Jung Nam-gil insisted Hae-jin had it wrong.
Hae-jin didn't need to respond.
He knew Jung Nam-gil was indeed the Knitting Needle Serial Killer.
No need to satisfy their curiosity.
They were doomed by the Trial Arena system anyway.
"By the way, before you die, one more thing: even if you kill the players on the survival rankings, you won't take their spots. So don't bother wasting your energy."
This served to highlight their futility but also warn future zone players against similar stupidity.
With that, Hae-jin looked up at the sky.
"Right, system? Quit the nasty habit of watching them try to kill other players for fun and just announce the rest of the results."
Normally, the Trial Arena system would proceed to rewards right after rankings.
It pretended to be rote messages, but Hae-jin knew it wasn't that simple.
Sure enough.
As soon as Hae-jin spoke, the system continued with the remaining announcements, just like in prior trials.
[The hidden trial of the Third Trial Arena has been completed.]
[Third Trial Arena Hidden Trial]
-Objective: Destroy the demon statue generating the monster wave.
-Achieved by: Park Hae-jin.
Hae-jin, who had watched silently until the belated hidden trial announcement, remarked.
"As expected, you're a real piece of work."