The Pink-Haired Savior
Dokgo Beom-bu stared at his phone screen with bloodshot eyes. Moments later, the display flickered to life, revealing Han Ga-eul stepping into the gate. She glanced around once, then parted the front of her shirt for the white rabbit perched on her shoulder. The rabbit hopped inside without hesitation, as if it had done this a thousand times before.
"Please... please!!"
As if responding to Dokgo Beom-bu's desperate plea, Han Ga-eul finished her preparations and sprinted across the weed-choked grassland. A system alert flashed across the screen.
Matthew (Swordsman), deployed to Labyrinth Stage 2, has fallen below 30% health.
"Aaaagh! No!!"
Dokgo Beom-bu had already lost one of his starting members—an archer, no less. The single R-rank unit granted as a starting bonus. Thanks to being sucked into Reach for the Moon, he could no longer rely on cash injections. Every unit was precious now. He had chosen an R-rank for the rear guard based on past experience, but once again his old knowledge had come back to bite him.
He had tried mining Hollow Gems himself to gather the all-purpose currency, swinging a pickaxe until his arms gave out. After ten days of grueling labor, he had only two gems to show for it. One gem every five days. The result felt painfully hollow after all that effort. At least his past as an artilleryman had given him the strength to swing the pick at all. Without the water vein earthquake, he would have quit long ago.
With the hundred Hollow Gems he received at the start all invested into Han Ga-eul, the only things left to Dokgo Beom-bu were the two gems he had mined right before the rear-guard event ended and a single supporter unit.
"Go!!"
On the screen, Han Ga-eul raced across the field, her beautiful peach-colored hair streaming behind her. Even though the commander's voice could never reach the units inside the stage, she seemed to answer his encouragement by pushing herself even faster. With every pounding step—pabababak!—dirt flew up as she accelerated. Despite the urgency, Dokgo Beom-bu couldn't help but let out a gasp of admiration.
'Incredible... She's operating far beyond anything a newly summoned unit should be capable of. But still...'
Dokgo Beom-bu distinctly remembered hearing Han Ga-eul mutter that her strength had dropped significantly after swinging her staff. She had only just entered the village through a bond summon. She hadn't received any stat bonuses from building upgrades or bond stones. All he had seen was her running, yet he couldn't properly gauge her potential. After playing the game for so long, Dokgo Beom-bu could usually picture a unit's future just by watching its early movements.
Her running form wasn't just flailing legs. Even to his untrained eye, it carried the traces of professional training. If judged purely as a blank-slate unit, an SSR-rank was strong in the extreme early game, but the moment growth mechanics came into play, the gap between a chick that would stay a chicken and a snake coiling for decades to become a dragon became obvious. Raw stat differences in blank units meant almost nothing.
'But this...'
Dokgo Beom-bu's eyes flicked across the screen to Matthew and Brian, who were tanking on the front line. Both were in terrible shape. Wounds from sharp blades and small stones embedded in their skin were draining their lives away in real time. The culprits were the notoriously difficult early-game monsters—goblins. With their signature green skin, razor-sharp fangs, long hooked noses covered in boils, and eyes stretched into unsettling slits, they looked like the stuff of nightmares. Goblins were infamous among starter monsters for their pack tactics and high intelligence. Though only about 120 cm tall, they possessed the strength of adult men. Units were born stronger than ordinary humans, so raw muscle wasn't the issue. The real problem was that goblins used tools.
"Huff... huff..."
"Matthew, fall back."
At Brian's command, Matthew glanced sideways before refocusing on the front.
"Matthew, now's not the time to be stubborn."
"Brian, we both know our fate. It's either die or survive."
"...Damn it."
Brian could only grit his teeth. He knew it too—the fate that had awaited them since the moment they were summoned here. Once you passed through the gate into a stage, you couldn't leave until it was cleared. That was the law of this place.
"Matthew, Betty, Malcolm... they're already gone. Hoo."
Surrounded by goblins and still holding the front line, Brian turned his head without caring about the flying stones and met his comrades' eyes. He knew today was the end.
"We only spent a little over ten days together, but it was fun."
"Haha."
Betty, the mage who had been protected behind Brian the entire time, burst into laughter even as death loomed.
"Was there anything fun? We only cleared the first stage once, and after that all we saw was the commander swinging a pickaxe."
"That was pretty entertaining, though."
"Kuh-kuh."
At Betty's words and Brian's reply, Matthew—who had been staring grimly ahead—finally cracked a smile.
"Hoo. Betty, I'll buy you one last minute. Give those disgusting things a good blast."
"Damn it."
Betty's gaze dropped. A pool of blood had formed beneath Brian, who had been shielding her so steadfastly. She understood—this really was the end.
"One minute. Just buy me one minute."
Matthew and Brian nodded. Seeing that, Betty began chanting her fire magic without another word. As her soothing incantation flowed like a lullaby, Matthew and Brian steeled their resolve.
Then one particularly tall goblin among the pack began spinning a slingshot overhead. Its jagged teeth bared in an unpleasant grin, the slinger's eyes locked onto Betty.
"No! We have to stop it!"
Malcolm in the rear had died because they failed to block a slingshot. Matthew knew his strength and endurance were lower than Brian's, but his speed was superior. The moment he spotted the slinger, he kicked off the ground. At the same time, the grinning goblin launched the stone straight at Betty.
Piiing—!
The sharp whistle of the projectile plunged Matthew into despair. He was nowhere near as fast as the stone.
"Ah..."
A short sigh escaped Matthew's lips. Thud! As if the gods had abandoned them, Brian collapsed backward with a dull impact before Matthew could even take a step. A jagged stone protruded from Brian's forehead. His body trembled violently as he locked eyes with Matthew.
"B-Brian..."
Tears streamed upward from Brian's tilted head, mixing with blood to form crimson trails down his face. Yet Matthew never stopped running. Betty was still chanting behind them.
"Kuk."
One of the grotesque goblins cackled at the sight, drooling with glee. Its arm began spinning again. Matthew realized he was next.
He resented this situation with every fiber of his being. Facing death, he understood how meaningless his life truly was.
'I'm just a constructed existence...'
At the same time, another truth struck him—he wanted to live. He was a living, breathing being.
"Damn it!"
Brian had done everything he could. He had protected Betty with his massive frame. Now it was Matthew's turn. He wanted to scream that he was scared, that he wanted to live, that someone should save him.
Piiiiiing—!!
A deafening crack split the air. Matthew's eyes flew wide. The sound was on an entirely different level from before. Yet he still hadn't reached the space between Betty and the goblin.
"S-Save..."
Before the plea could finish, an invisible projectile streaked past Matthew's cheek at impossible speed and slammed into the slinger's torso.
Kwaaaang—!!!
"Kieeeek!!"
The iron pipe pierced straight through the goblin and embedded itself in the ground with a thunderous roar, cratering the surrounding area. Blood and viscera sprayed everywhere as the remaining goblins panicked.
Tok.
Matthew's head tilted upward in a daze. Someone had lightly landed atop the diagonally embedded pipe, as if it were a javelin thrown from afar. Silence cautiously settled over the blood-soaked battlefield. When Matthew wiped the goblin blood from his face, a human silhouette came into view.
"Hi. Do you need help?"