/
“Is everyone ready?
“Hehe, I’ve been ready for quite some time now,” Rahmadat said.
Seo Jun-Ho looked around at the five others like a mother hen. There wasn’t much to worry about because all of them were always thoroughly prepared.
“Then, let’s go, Skaya,” he said.
“Okay…”
They arrived at the Dimensional Elevators with her Wide Area Teleport to find someone waiting for them.
“Oh.” Wei Chun-Hak quickly put out his cigarette. “It’s nice to meet you. I am Wei Chun-Hak of Celestial Dragon.”
“...Is that a joke?” Seo Jun-Ho asked.
“That’s unfair. I was merely showing courtesy to someone I’ve never met before,” he said, feigning innocence. “The Player I met last time was Seo Jun-Ho, but you are the savior of the world.”
“...It makes me uncomfortable, so please just treat me the same way you used to.”
“Well, if you say so, I won’t refuse.”
While Wei Chun-Hak was greeting the others, Seo Jun-Ho was looking at someone else. He greeted him after some hesitation.
“It has been a while,” he said.
“Yes… indeed,”[1] the Sword Saint said. The way he spoke was peculiar as if he didn’t know how he should treat Seo Jun-Ho.
Seo Jun-Ho smiled bitterly. He thought they had gotten quite close after he visited Kim Woo-Joong at the hospital and talked with him about all sorts of things. He didn’t expect that even the simple act of greeting each other had become so awkward.
“I’m sorry, I lied to you,” said Seo Jun-Ho.[2]
“Not at all. If I were you, I’d have done the same thing, so don’t worry about it… please.”
From a distance, Mio watched them talk.
“Isn’t the Sword Saint a Korean person? He cannot speak very well,” she said to Skaya.
“Neither is really good with words, but yes, they’re both Korean,” Skaya confirmed.
Seo Jun-Ho flushed red when he heard their comments and cleared his throat. “Ahem. Let’s get down to business. What is the first thing we need to do when we arrive on the 4th floor?”
“The 4th floor begins with a Quest and will end with a Quest. You’ll be crazy busy, especially when it’s your first time,” Wei Chun-Hak replied.
“Sounds fun,” Seo Jun-Ho said, looking determined.
At that, Wei Chun-Hak smiled strangely and stepped up to the elevator. “There’s only one keyword you should remember for the 4th floor. Survival.”
“...Survival?”
“There are a lot of annoying things about it—so many…” Wei Chun-Hak shuddered a bit at the mere thought of it. “Let’s go.”
The elevator quickly arrived on the 4th floor. When it did, a message popped up in front of Seo Jun-Ho.
[This is the 4th Floor. The door is opening.]
We are bit.ly/3iBfjkV, find us on google.
[Bringer of Spring’s effect has been activated. All stats increased by 30.]
This was already the third time he had received the effects of Bringer of Spring. Seo Jun-Ho checked his status window.
[Seo Jun-Ho]
Level: 152
Title: Bringer of Spring (+4)
Strength: 578        Stamina: 568
Speed: 580           Magic: 604
‘High’ wasn’t even enough to describe the numbers. He had spent the last three months hunting only fiends, which had allowed his level to keep going up.
‘Thanks to that, I got back all my sealed stats back, too.’
Thus, he had finally fully inherited his legacy from 26 years ago.
‘With this…’
When he fought the Heavenly Demon at the baseball stadium, his stats had only been in the 300s. But now, they had reached nearly twice the amount.
‘The day I kill you isn’t too far off.’
Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes glinted coldly. Another message appeared in front of him
[You have entered Another World.]
[You have received a Quest.]
“Quest?”
“What is this?”
They bustled when they saw the message before them. Seo Jun-Ho looked at Chun-Hak expectantly, waiting for an explanation.
“I told you. The 4th floor is made entirely of Quests,” he said.
“How many Quests must we clear until we reach a Save Point?”
“Fifteen.”
“Only fifteen?” Seo Jun-Ho frowned.
Chun-Hak laughed weakly. “I should’ve gone up later, too. When I first arrived here, I had to fight monsters nonstop. There was no leeway to carry out the Quests.”
“So does that mean there are no more monsters left?”
“Not exactly. But compared to when I came here, there’s basically nothing.”
The party stepped off of the Dimensional Elevator and looked around before they started to speak excitedly.
“It’s a city?”
“The standard of civilization seems similar to Earth’s.”
“I see a few skyscrapers, too. And is that a department store over there?”
While the others looked around, Seo Jun-Ho looked up. The gray sky looked uncharacteristically gloomy.
Wei Chun-Hak checked the time.
“Yikes. Let’s get moving before the sun sets,” he said hurriedly.
“What happens when the sun sets?”
“When night falls, those bastards come.”
“Those bastards?”
When they looked at him for an answer, Wei Chun-Hak seemed like he didn’t even want to explain it.
“The cockroaches,” he replied.
***
“I’m in the middle of my own Quest, so I’m only going to spend the first night with you guys and explain the basics before I leave,” Wei Chun-Hak said.
“Understood,” Seo Jun-Ho said. He felt a sense of danger when they entered the city.
‘...I don’t see any people.’
Was this how everything would feel if everyone vanished one day? He looked at the street, which was clean but empty.
“Where did all the residents go?” he asked.
“...They’re probably all dead.”
The party members froze and stared at Wei Chun-Hak in shock.
“The city looks very big. But they’re all dead?”
“Yeah. Ever since we first came here, the city has been completely empty.”
They arrived at a convenience store, and Wei Chun-Hak began grabbing a few familiar-looking packs of cigarettes.
Gilberto watched him. “The convenience store is fully stocked. Is there a reason why you all haven’t taken all these items?”
“Of course not. We empty them out every day. It’s just that it initializes every day.”
“Initializes?”
“It’s a little hard to put into words… You’ll understand when you see it in a few hours anyway.”
This time, Skaya spoke up…
“Where are the other Players?” she asked.
“This city is too out in the open, so it’s not a good location. They have all gone to different cities,” Wei Chun-Hak explained.
“...”
The party fell into deep contemplation. Since earlier, Wei Chun-Hak had been checking the time every minute as if they were racing against time.
‘Wei Chun-Hak is a Heaven. He’s not weak at all.’
It felt strange to see him in such a rush.
Eventually, Rahmadat couldn’t hold back his curiosity anymore.
“Hey. Are you rushing because you’re scared of the cockroaches you mentioned earlier?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not exactly scared of them. They’re just annoying.”
“If they are merely cockroaches, you can simply kill them.”
“Yeah, killing them’s the easy part.” Wei Chun-Hak grinned as if Rahmadat knew nothing. “Since you brought it up, let me ask you a question. What’s the greatest number of monsters our dear 5 Heroes have killed in a day?”
“...I dunno, I suppose it’s about five hundred.”
The other Heroes nodded. Those were the times when they killed the monsters that came pouring out of several Gates that had been forcibly opened. Even the 5 Heroes didn’t have experience killing monsters in the thousands in such a short period of time.
“Five hundred, you say…” Wei Chun-Hak gave a mysterious smile. “Then, you’ll get to break that record today.”
“Hm? Earlier, didn’t you say you cleaned out most of the monsters in the area?”
“We did. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have the time to relax like this.” Wei Chun-Hak shivered when he remembered his first day here. That day, the Players had scattered all over the city without knowing anything. That nightmare of a night came all of a sudden, and hundreds of veteran Players had died in vain. “We fought from sundown to sunrise. We fell asleep when we got too exhausted, but when he woke up again, the fucking sun was setting again.”
They had spent over a month going through that hellish routine before they had time to spare for the Quests. The mere act of talking about it made Wei Chun-Hak tired. He started walking faster.
“So, where are we going?” Skaya asked as he crossed the street.
Wei Chun-Hak looked up at the tallest building as he spoke, “A fancy restaurant.”
***
“Wow, the view’s great!”
“It’s pretty. It would have been better if the sky were blue, though.”
They couldn’t stop staring and admiring the cityscape after they arrived at the skyscraper’s lounge. The city was awash in the light of the sunset, and they couldn’t see a single insect.
“...It reminds me of the old days,” Seo Jun-Ho said. The cities looked exactly like this after the Gates suddenly appeared, and monsters started spilling out of them. Actually, it had been worse.
‘You could see signs of destruction all over.’
Meanwhile, this city looked much too clean for a place that had been the ground zero of a battle for over a month.
“It’s probably because of the ‘initialization,’ as he called it.”
When Seo Jun-Ho turned, Kim Woo-Joong’s eyes grew wide, and he looked back down at the city.
“Yo...”[3]
“Um, you don’t have to keep adding ‘yo’ to the end of your sentences. You can just speak comfortably like you used to.”
“...I’ll do that once I get used to it.” This time, Seo Jun-Ho still heard a quiet ‘-yo’.
The eight of them didn’t get to admire the view for long. Wei Chun-Hak confirmed that the sun had set and swallowed.
“You should all thank me,” he said.
“What are you saying all of a sudden?”
“This glass doesn’t let you see through it from the outside. So, it won’t be easy for them to find us.” He tapped on the glass and stared into the distance. “If it weren’t for me, you would have had to fight those bastards from your very first day.”
“‘Those bastards’?” Rahmadat asked, sounding like he had discovered something. He squinted. “I can’t see anything because it’s dark… huh?”
The streetlights started to illuminate the dark city one by one. However, the streets remained pitch-black.
“God almighty…”
The first one to notice was Gilberto, as he had the sharpest eyes. And then, the other party members’ faces started to fall.
They were somewhere between black and brown. Something shiny and hard was reflecting the light of the street lamps.
‘Urp.’
Cha Si-Eun had a weak stomach, and she unconsciously took a step back.
The city’s streets were wriggling.
Or rather, something covering the streets was moving…
“You’re not telling me those are all…”
“Cockroaches.” Wei Chun-Hak shook his head. “They’re the only monsters on the 4th floor.”
***
He turned off all the lights and spoke in a hushed voice. “They’re not normal cockroaches. Their exoskeletons can take three strikes from a sword aura, and their pincers are so strong they can crush steel armor.”
“Then, it shouldn’t be a problem to kill them if you can use a sword aura.”
“Of course. But even veteran Players can’t use a sword aura for hours at a time.” At best, they could only maintain it for about two hours.
The party members finally started to vaguely understand how arduous the advanced party’s battle had been on their first day.
“Is there anything else we should know?”
“There are monsters that we call special entities. They’re evolved...”
“Evolved?”
“Exactly. The most powerful special entity that I have encountered so far was a cockroach that looked like a human.”
“...!”
The girls shivered when they pictured it.
“They’re freaky cockroaches who mimic the appearance of tigers, bears, eagles, and so on.”
“God, I hate this.”
“...We can’t go back, right?”
“You can, once you reach a Save Point.” Wei Chun-Hak shrugged. He gave them a piece of advice. “Once you finish the initial Quests, it would be best to leave this city as soon as possible. You’ll get nothing out of staying here.”
Once the rooster crowed, and the sun rose, the cockroaches scattered and disappeared. The buildings, traffic lights, and streets that they had destroyed started to rebuild themselves as if time was flowing backward.
“Every day at 6 am, the city neatly initializes itself like that.”
“...”
Seo Jun-Ho bit down on his lip. The city was clean as if it was denying that anything had ever happened. However, in his eyes, it had become the dirtiest thing he had ever seen.
1. Despite their previous agreement, he goes back to using formal speech. The first part of his sentence is informal, but he tacks a formal sentence suffix at the end. ☜
2. Jun-Ho also uses formal speech. ☜
3. This is the formal sentence suffix Kim Woo-Joong has been using. ☜