Skill Gap (2)
The second morning arrived after Han Gamin and I had separated from the group. A message floated before us after we had stayed up all night.
A day has passed.
The group battle field is shrinking.
The ground trembled, and a massive roar erupted from somewhere not far into the forest.
You are inside the next field collapse zone. Evacuate the collapse zone within 24 hours.
It was just like those battle royale games people played online—the arena steadily shrinking. The news that the very ground we stood on would soon collapse forced me to pull myself together and rethink our strategy.
I need to regroup with the others as quickly as possible.
At first, I had planned to simply hide and let the remaining time pass. Even if every player from our coordinate was eliminated, we wouldn’t be disqualified as long as we didn’t lose the flag. I figured some opportunity might arise by then.
But the shrinking field made me abandon that complacent idea. The field had contracted far more than I expected. The proof was the occasional sight of other players along the path we traveled. We could still avoid detection if we hid desperately for now, but I suspected that wouldn’t last more than a few days.
At least the others are doing well.
Messages announcing flag captures arrived from time to time. The flag level had risen by three today. Considering our total level was now Lv.18, it seemed they were putting up a solid fight.
That was how the day passed… and night fell completely.
I sat beside Han Gamin inside a small cave I had luckily discovered, watching the flames slowly rise from the kindling.
“Wow, you can even start a fire, Ahjussi? Is there anything you can’t do?”
“I saw it somewhere once and tried it. It worked.”
I couldn’t remember the exact show. It was some survival program where experts competed to start fires the fastest. I had simply copied what I saw back then.
“I bet you could have done it too, Gamin.”
The method I chose was the hand drill. To ignite a fire, you needed enough friction to surpass the ignition point. To increase friction heat, you needed strong friction, and strong friction naturally came from applying strong pressure. In other words, ever since I became a superhuman, as long as I didn’t snap the wood, I could start a fire with ease.
Night has fallen.
As time passed, the Night of the Dead that had troubled us yesterday returned. When this notification had appeared yesterday, Han Gamin had joked that it sounded like a mafia game host. But now her face showed a hint of worry.
“Are you okay, Ahjussi?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“Nothing. You just look tired.”
But what she was worried about wasn’t the arrival of night. When I answered her question with a light smile, she tilted her head.
“Ah, I’ve been walking around all day, so yeah, I’m a little tired. But I’m fine.”
“……”
“Really.”
Yet suspicion filled Han Gamin’s eyes as she looked at me. She had noticed something unnatural. I had tried to hide it, but my voice must have trembled slightly, because she suddenly grabbed my arm and said,
“Ahjussi, it’s pretty cold in here, you know?”
The moment I heard those words, I became aware that I was sweating. After my awakening, I had come close to death a few times but had never been seriously injured, so the thought that my body could be in pain had never crossed my mind. That was the problem.
“Let me see.”
“W-wait, what are you doing?”
“Just take it off for a second. Why is your body so damp…”
Han Gamin froze while pulling at my Cheonjam garment. Then her next words made me realize just how much pain I had been enduring.
“……This isn’t all blood… is it?”
The forest was too dark to notice before. The waterproof function of the Cheonjam garment had also kept me from realizing it. A large amount of blood had soaked my back completely. Han Gamin, who had finally managed to remove the garment, stared blankly at her hands now stained red.
When we fell from the cliff, the trees that had cushioned Han Gamin’s fall had been taller than expected. The branches that scraped my back during the descent had been sharper than I thought, and the impact when we hit the ground must have caused all those small cuts to burst open.
“If it hurt this much, you should have said something!”
“I’m fine, really.”
“Don’t give me that! Did you get hurt when you shielded me back then? And you’ve been dragging yourself around like an idiot all day… You should have at least taken a potion!”
I was the one who was injured, yet I had no idea why I was the one getting scolded. On top of that, seeing her face on the verge of tears made me feel guilty for having protected her without getting hurt.
“Even if I drink one now, it doesn’t do much.”
Of course, I had tried drinking a potion just as she suggested. But after my stats increased, the beginner buffs must have disappeared, because no matter how many low-grade potions I drank, the regeneration wasn’t noticeably faster.
“We had to keep moving anyway. If I had slowed down because I was hurt and you couldn’t escape the collapse zone, that would have been the absolute worst outcome.”
We had no way of knowing what would happen to the flag if the person carrying it died inside a collapse zone. Still, no matter how I thought about it, I didn’t believe the choice I had made was wrong.
“No.”
But she disagreed. Han Gamin stared at me intently and spoke with firm determination.
“The real worst case is you collapsing because you couldn’t manage your condition, and me having to carry you. That’s when we’d run into people from another coordinate and lose the flag.”
“That’s……”
I started to speak but stopped when I met her eyes reflecting the campfire. They burned with the resolve that she would never abandon me even if I collapsed midway.
“You don’t have to try to solve everything by yourself. I’m the same kind of person as you.”
After saying that, she fell silent for a moment, then sighed and told me to take off my top and turn around. She added that if potions wouldn’t heal the wound, applying them directly might still have some effect.
“Ugh… I can barely look at this straight. How did you endure this?”
“If it’s too hard to look at, you don’t have to do it.”
“Oh come on. Just stay still. I’ll finish quickly.”
And her idea actually worked. While the increase in my stats prevented any dramatic changes, I could definitely feel a tingling sensation as the wounds began to heal.
After quite some time had passed.
“I’ve cleaned all the wounds and applied the potions for treatment, okay?”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Tell me if anything else hurts!”
At her words, I smiled and tried to put my clothes back on.
“Wait… you’re not seriously going to wear that right away, are you?”
“Why not?”
“Are you crazy? You’re going to put on clothes covered in germs? Do you even have a brain? Give it here. We need to wash it at least roughly.”
“With what water?”
“We’ll buy some from the coin shop. While we’re at it, you should wash your face too.”
I never imagined I would use the water sold in the coin shop like this. It was certainly much cheaper than potions, but I had always thought spending coins on water was a luxury unless you were truly desperate.
Han Gamin washed my clothes with the water. She not only cleaned the top I had been wearing but also thoroughly wiped the Cheonjam garment that had dried blood on the inside. She set up some branches near the campfire and hung the clothes on them. She really was surprisingly handy.
Once the clothes had dried to some extent, I disinfected my body with another potion and put on the now somewhat clean garments.
“Thanks. It feels refreshing.”
It was still a little damp. But with the campfire, it wasn’t bad at all. After washing my face as well, the memory of what ‘refreshing’ felt like came back to me, and my mood strangely lifted.
When I smiled quietly and spoke, Han Gamin stared at my face blankly for a long time.
“…What?”
“Ahjussi, you should keep your bangs up from now on.”
“……?”
“Never mind. For now, keep them up. When we regroup later, you can let them down again.”
She was saying something incomprehensible. But seeing how serious—almost resolute—her expression was, I couldn’t help but nod.
Then, at that moment.
Rustle.
“Shh.”
The sudden sound of grass being brushed made me glance sideways to follow it while signaling Han Gamin to stay quiet.
“……Someone’s coming.”
This place was a pretty decent hiding spot that we had luckily discovered. The cave entrance was properly concealed between trees and grass, and its location in a remote corner made it so dark at night that it was nearly impossible to spot. Still, it was ultimately inside the field. Just as we had been lucky enough to find the cave, others might be unlucky enough to discover it as well.
Step. Step.
The footsteps that had been lingering at the cave entrance slowly moved inside. They were cautious, as if trying to hide their presence. But the fact that there were multiple sets of footsteps made it impossible not to feel tense.
Probably four… no, five?
I spread my fingers to show Han Gamin the number of uninvited guests. She nodded. What surprised me, however, was that after fully understanding my gesture, she stepped in front of me.
“……?”
“…Injured… I’ll take the lead…”
Han Gamin whispered toward me. Since our opponents were multiple people with similar stats, whether I was injured or not didn’t matter. I quickly explained the plan to her with a short gesture and whisper. We didn’t know who the enemies were or exactly how many there were. The best option was to hide and launch a surprise attack.
Ding.
You have arrived near your destination. Navigation complete.
The message was similar to a navigation system. During the Night of the Dead on the second night, the system was kind enough to guide players who had received a second chance at revival to the location of the flags they had lost.
“A cave? It’s so dark it’s hard to find, yet they managed to hide in a place like this.”
“And why is the entrance so small?”
Players from Echion’s coordinate, dressed in black robes. Having luckily revived nearby, they had followed the guidance messages and managed to meet up with each other.
“They’re all just warriors. This isn’t some kind of trap, is it?”
“Against only two people? They wouldn’t have had time for that.”
“Does that even matter right now? What matters is that we’ve been given a chance for revenge.”
They knew from their comrades who had revived earlier and fought in the field that those comrades would eventually return. So they had already heard about the flag’s whereabouts. Thanks to that, it wasn’t difficult to guess that the flag’s owners—a young girl and a man named Kim Siin—would be here.
“Let’s go in.”
Nod.
They naturally stepped toward the cave entrance. Their opponents seemed off guard, resting without even extinguishing the campfire. Once they rounded this corner and charged, the situation would be over.
Whoosh!
But when they arrived at the spot, the two people who should have been there were gone. All that remained was the half-extinguished campfire, still emitting acrid smoke.
“What the…”
At that moment, a dizzying sensation pierced one of their necks. An enemy blade had suddenly appeared from the ceiling. In an instant, the six men in black robes were reduced to four.