Chapter 18
Chapter 18
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: The Survivor Group
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The fainted woman woke up about an hour later.
The empty clearing we had reached after an hour's walk.
While we sat there resting, she blinked her eyes and slowly pushed herself upright.
"Huh...?"
"Ah, you're awake?"
"...Where... is... this...?"
"...."
She seemed to still be out of it, her vacant gaze wandering around her surroundings.
Maybe it was because she'd been unconscious for a full hour. Even her memories right before passing out appeared hazy.
...Not because of me, I hope.
A level 1 Lightning Strike isn't that powerful of a spell.
Especially since she was hit from about five meters away. If she'd been knocked out for an hour from that, it'd be ridiculously overpowered.
She was probably already exhausted before fainting.
...Yeah, let's go with that.
"It's a cave. No idea which one, though."
"A cave...? Oh."
Hyun Tae-jin answered her, and the fainted woman hurriedly scanned her surroundings as if something had clicked.
She wasn't about to try activating Siren again, was she?
Just in case, I sat a short distance away, quietly preparing Lightning Strike.
"...We escaped from there."
"...."
Fortunately, one of the other women who'd come with us explained the situation.
She had short hair that reached her shoulders and a strangely sharp impression.
...I didn't know her name.
Of course not—I'd never asked.
But even without a name, I remembered her face well enough.
When all the women had been watching the slaughterhouse together, hers was the only expression that stood out.
Like she'd anticipated that gruesome scene.
She hadn't averted her eyes or looked away—she'd stared straight at it.
"...We're safe now. All of us."
"...."
The short-haired woman spoke in a low, subdued voice.
For someone saying they'd survived, she didn't sound particularly happy.
In response, the woman who'd just come to asked blankly,
"Then... what about Jae-gwang?"
"Uh...."
"Th-that... um—"
"—He's dead."
"...Se-in, that... isn't that a bit too blunt...?"
...That wasn't me who said it.
The short-haired woman called Se-in.
She pointed firmly at the cloth bundle at my waist and continued,
"He brought the body."
"...The body?"
"Don't you remember? What happened right before you passed out."
".......Oh."
About time.
That's why I'd specially Memorized four Lightning Strikes before reaching the clearing.
I swallowed a sigh and prepared to cast the spell,
"....Sob."
But fortunately, instead of screaming, she hugged her knees and started sniffling.
Her slender shoulders shook, and her arms trembled around her knees. Everyone fell silent at the sight of her weeping without a sound.
"—If you're gonna cry, do it quietly. If we get caught here too... we might not get another chance."
"...."
...That wasn't me either.
It was the short-haired woman named Han Se-in.
Unlike the other two who just stayed silent, after speaking, Se-in stared right at me.
"I'm Han Se-in."
"...Didn't ask."
"Just felt like telling you."
"...."
"...Thanks for saving us."
With that curt expression of gratitude, Han Se-in turned her head back to stare into empty space.
Hmm...
Maybe this one has some potential.
The name of the woman who'd fainted was Lee Do-hwa.
Names didn't really matter much, but the information she shared was a different story.
"...There's a group nearby."
"A group?"
"Yes. A group of players like us."
"...."
Player group.
That's exactly how Lee Do-hwa put it.
Maybe because she'd had a good cry, she seemed calmer now.
Unlike before she fainted, she asked me in a composed tone,
"You know... that this is a world inside a game, right?"
"...Yeah, that's what they said."
"A game...?"
"You mean this is a game...?"
"...."
...No.
I couldn't agree with that.
To be precise, this place wasn't a world inside a game—it was the otherworld that served as the original template for the game.
Pavarintos in reality was just a game modeled after that otherworld, full of bugs, poor optimization, and constant server crashes.
But here? This was reality.
Unlike the game, where pumping up status window numbers made your character stronger and rubbing against a wall let you phase through, this world had immutable laws—a perfect reality.
The traces of items and builds that appeared were simply because Pavarintos's system from our world was linked to this place's Divine Tree.
...But to the listeners, it was all the same, so I decided not to correct them.
Besides, it wasn't important enough to interrupt Lee Do-hwa's story.
"We were summoned to this world five days ago."
"...Five days?"
"Hold on. D-does that mean... there are other people here besides us?"
...Five days ago.
This was getting interesting.
Not everyone had been summoned at the exact same moment.
But that made sense if you thought about it.
Processing summons sequentially would be less burdensome than all at once.
According to Pavarintos lore, the Pathos Divine Tree was a massive world tree specialized in handling mana data.
Still...
"—You. What's the last date you remember?"
"Pardon?"
"The day right before you were summoned. When was that?"
"Um... For me, it was December 21st."
"...Huh? I got here then too...?"
"...Same here."
...The point when they were pulled from Earth was the same for everyone.
December 21st.
That was the last day I remembered too.
...The very day I'd botched my character creation and ended up like this.
"Then... what happened to our original world...?"
"No one knows. If we were all summoned together..."
"...No way..."
"...It's unbelievable, but this is probably reality. We'll have to accept it."
The group murmured their thoughts and reactions.
Of course, I had no intention of wasting time on idle chatter.
"Do-hwa, you said there's a group."
"...Yes."
"How many?"
"When Jae-gwang and I left, there were fourteen."
"...."
Fourteen people.
That meant it wasn't a group formed just for escape.
In Pavarintos, player alliances weren't a great choice.
A single portal could only return up to five players. More players meant more losses if return was the goal.
Growth worked the same way.
Even sharing unnecessary items and skills, more heads meant smaller shares, and the mana flowing from the 'wells' was finite.
Player alliances inevitably split into a few high-levels and a bunch of low-levels.
Only the high-level few profited from that structure.
...Conversely, you could say they formed a clan to exploit it.
Even so, back when it was just a game, people got along fine.
It was a game where even high levels dropped to one spear stab anyway, and no one strutted around in that trash game just because of their level.
But now...
In this reality, who knew.
Level was a perfect indicator of human hierarchy.
So player survivor groups didn't look appealing, but we had reason to head there right away.
"Fourteen...?"
"Th-then... that place is safe?"
".....Yeah. Probably."
The ones lighting up at Lee Do-hwa's words were the two women we'd rescued earlier.
More precisely, the two besides Han Se-in.
They figured a large group would be safer than wandering with backpacks.
Of course, I was tempted for the same reason.
Six party members.
Four of them were baggage that couldn't fight but could carry loads.
To safely ditch them, the clan was our only option.
Once Lee Do-hwa finished her story, our destination changed immediately.
"Do-hwa. Then..."
"Yes. We should head to the group."
A choice I wouldn't have made in the game.
Clans were usually full of scum I didn't want to deal with.
They'd hang out in Discord servers, team up in dungeons.
Some even claimed a dungeon zone and built housing fortresses just for themselves.
If a solo player like me approached with good intentions, they'd swarm and gank, stealing all the loot.
Truly scumbags.
...But surely not in reality.
Unlike the game, lives were on the line here.
Even if they ignored basic human decency, with their own necks at stake, they'd have to get serious.
"...Phew."
"This is such a relief... right?"
"Yeah.... Sob..."
"...."
The baggage girls were thrilled too.
Well, not exactly, but anyway.
They thought safety in numbers.
...Spot-on judgment.
A player clan really would be safe.
Much safer than roaming dungeons with one party, and even level 1s became useful in numbers—the more people, the stronger the clan.
Personal growth was just hard in big groups.
However—
"Do-hwa. Do you remember the way to the group?"
"...No."
"...."
"Pardon?"
"Wh-what do we do then?"
When I asked Lee Do-hwa directly, she shook her head.
What?
If you don't know the way, what are we supposed to do?
Of course, logically, she'd been captured by scouts and dragged there blindfolded or something, so it wasn't unreasonable...
"But I know what the markers look like."
"...Markers?"
"Yes. Markers showing the direction. The people scouting areas like me must have carved them."
"Ah..."
...Good. There was a way after all.
Markers, huh.
If they'd left those, finding the path shouldn't be hard.
But one issue nagged at me.
"Do-hwa. Something bothering you?"
"...You read expressions well."
"Huh? Oh, no. It's not that... just kinda—"
Did I read expressions well?
Or did I wear mine on my sleeve?
Anyway, leaving the flustered Hyun Tae-jin behind, I thought,
'No sense of caution? Or maybe she's confident...'
Unlike Pavarintos mobs, the goblins here were living, breathing creatures.
Near-human intelligences, at that.
They felt emotions, thought thoughts, acted unpredictably.
So wouldn't some goblin spot a sudden marker in its territory and get suspicious?
"...How's the group's combat strength? Can they fend off goblins?"
"...."
This question mattered.
Lee Do-hwa paused at my query about their power, glanced at me, and quietly answered,
"...Yes. Even if not the rest of us, just the leader and Kang Yoon... I think they could handle goblins easily."
"...Just those two?"
"...Yes. Unlike us, those two are actual players who played the game..."
"...."
...That much?
It didn't sit right.
No matter how game-savvy, this was reality.
'Experienced players' were just desk-bound gamers clicking mice and keyboards—could they really dispatch goblins easily?
"And those two aren't... normal people."
"...What do you mean?"
"The leader's a dark elf, and Kang Yoon... was a giant. An ogre, I think? Not sure..."
...Okay.
That changed everything.
It made sense.
Goblins were a joke, even dozens at once.
Especially with an ogre.
Ogres made goblin butchers look like small fry.
Over three meters tall, massive builds.
Strong enough to crush goblins barehanded, with tough, thick skin shrugging off most attacks.
And great recovery too.
No regeneration for big wounds or scars, but such injuries were rare here anyway.
A combat race born for battle.
But no one picked ogres in Pavarintos for good reason.
One massive penalty:
Attunement.
In exchange for overwhelming combat power, ogres suffered forced penalties like oversleeping, overeating, and mana overconsumption.
They slept most of the day, and even awake, had to eat nonstop.
Sleeping required mana-rich wells...
Utterly impractical.
Solo ogres usually starved or exhausted to death.
Surviving was miraculous.
Even in parties, without skilled humans, 'ogre babysitting' failed.
Random match with an ogre? Disconnect with no guilt.
'Picking ogre... insane?'
'Or... a calculated plan?'
But with a clan to sustain it, not impossible.
'If they grouped up the moment status windows appeared... doable.'
Not for a lone solo like me.
But clanmates in Discord could've shared info instantly when reality hit.
Pavarintos ads were infamous for their eerie persistence.
Status windows popping up? Easy to guess what was coming.
The gallery communities memed Pavarintos apocalypse theories—preppers aplenty.
'Scheming bastards...'
Dark elf and ogre.
A duo that sucked blood dry.
Dependent on others for resources.
But executing it took guts.
Isolation meant starvation or mana exhaustion.
...Made me want to meet them.
Curious what kind of people would try that.