Chapter 124

At my words, the expressions of the inhuman species changed.

“I don’t know how much you know, but we can’t just let you go in peace. Who are you?”

“I am......”

“......Wait. Long coat, sword, arrogant way of talking. I see. I heard about you from the dokkaebi. You’re the boss of the Seoul Dome, aren’t you?”

......Huh?

“You look a bit different from what I heard. Rumors really can’t be trusted.”

At this rate, it looked like they were mistaking me for someone else.

“Surround him! It’s the Supreme King of Korea!”

It seemed Yu Junghyeok’s reputation had already spread overseas. Still, being mistaken for Yu Junghyeok didn’t feel all that bad. While Shin Yuseong squirmed inside my coat, the night walkers around me moved to encircle me. A flustered Shoji stammered an explanation at the men.

“W-wait a second. I think there’s some misunderstanding. This person isn’t the Supreme King, he’s Kim Dogeza, and...”

“Be quiet.”

I stopped Shoji and assessed the enemy’s strength. There had to be more than fifteen of them. Far too many to face alone.

Still, I didn’t need to fight them. They couldn’t attack me in the first place. The moment they attacked me first, a penalty would apply to them.

“You’re planning to attack me even knowing you’ll have to accept miniaturization?”

But their expressions were odd.

“We aren’t attacking you. You’ll be the one attacking us.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because if you don’t, your Companions will die.”

......What?

I looked toward the source of the voice and saw four little people being held side by side. More precisely, they were people who had now become little people.

“Ugh, Dokja-ssi....... I’m sorry.”

Lee Hyeongseong, Lee Gilyeong, Lee Jihye, and on top of that, even Granny 406, chuckling away. A half-yokai held a Japanese sword to Lee Hyeongseong’s neck.

“You understand the situation now, don’t you?”

Normally, this would have been the kind of development that made my blood boil, but instead I almost laughed.

As expected, our Companions had apparently wiped out the Catastrophes with ease and already transformed into little people.

Shin Yuseong spoke.

“Ahjussi, what do we do?”

[Hunt the small people within 16 minutes. Otherwise, the Star Stream will regard you as having no intention of Catastrophe activity and......]

It was cutting it close if I wanted to hunt the “serpent.” I needed to make a decision soon. Would I hunt the “serpent” here, or would I give it up?

I took a light breath and adjusted my grip on the sword hilt. Then someone moved in my place.

[The character Michio Shoji feels guilty toward you.]

[The character Michio Shoji has made a once-in-a-lifetime decision!]

[The character Michio Shoji is on the verge of an attribute evolution!]

......Huh?

“I’ll handle things here!”

With a booming shout, Michio Shoji drew his sword and stepped forward. Unlike an hour ago, his expression was grim with resolve.

“I, Michio Shoji, am not shameless enough to turn away after receiving help from my benefactor!”

Even as he trembled all over, Shoji took one step at a time and blocked the men’s path.

“Wait a second, Michio-ssi.”

“Kim Dokja-ssi, run! I’ll buy you time!”

This bastard definitely said my name properly just now.

“Yiaaaaaah!”

[The Incarnation Michio Shoji has voluntarily given up the rights of a Catastrophe.]

To get straight to the point, Shoji’s courage helped. While Shoji cried rivers of tears and snot as he shrank in real time, I signaled to the Allies with my eyes to go with the plan.

[Hunt the small people within 15 minutes. Otherwise, the Star Stream will regard you as having no intention of Catastrophe activity.]

We hadn’t even fought yet, but I could already feel the framework of my body subtly shrinking. If I took penalties one after another like this, I’d end up just like the others in no time.

I deliberately walked slowly toward the inhuman species and asked, “Why are you hostile to us? Even if our countries are different, this Scenario should be little people versus Catastrophes, not Korea versus Japan.”

“Are you asking because you truly don’t know? Your side was the one that antagonized us first. Didn’t the people your team sent in attack us first?”

I turned to Lee Hyeongseong and asked, “Is that true?”

“No! It’s true we fought to protect the little people, but......”

“He says it isn’t.”

“If you’re planning to play dumb, stop. The ones who attacked us first were a man and a woman from your side.”

Something flashed through my mind at that moment.

......A man and a woman?

“What did they look like?”

“If you don’t stop talking and come at us already...!”

This distance was close enough.

[The Exclusive Skill Bookmark has activated!]

[Bookmark 4 has been activated.]

[Way of the Wind Lv.8 has been activated.]

A blast of wind erupted in an instant and opened a path in front of me. The inhuman species were shoved back by the pressure and tumbled over with cries, and in that brief opening, I rescued the Allies.

“Everyone, hold on tight!”

As if they had been waiting, Lee Hyeongseong and Lee Jihye clung to my shoulders, while Lee Gilyeong swiftly slipped into the inner pocket of my coat where Shin Yuseong was.

“This is my spot!”

“You can go to a different pocket!”

While the kids bickered, I snatched up Granny 406 with my right hand, and with my left, I grabbed Michio Shoji, who was rolling on the ground.

“K-Kim-san! You can leave me behind...”

“Be quiet.”

“Yes, sir.”

I ran along the path through the forest zone. There was no need to deal with every Japanese person here. If I ended up killing even one Grunt, my plan would fail.

[Hostility toward a fellow Catastrophe has been detected.]

[You have received the first-stage scenario penalty.]

[Your body size has decreased slightly.]

[Your overall stats have fallen.]

The penalty had already begun from that slight bit of hostile behavior alone. The size of my body had shrunk a little, and it felt like I’d gotten about five centimeters shorter.

Thankfully, as my surface area shrank, the size of the coat also shrank along with it.

As expected of an SSS-grade coat, it seemed to adjust itself to fit the user’s size.

I’m curious how small this thing can get.

“After him!”

I saw the half-yokai panting as they chased after me from behind.

[The constellations of other continents want the Incarnations of the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago to beat each other up.]

[2,000 coins have been sponsored.]

Dammit. Since it was someone else’s fight, they were enjoying the show. It was obvious they were trying to incite both sides into fighting.

I looked at Lee Jihye dangling from my shoulder and asked, “How did you get taken down already?”

“......There wasn’t a river or a sea anywhere around.”

Well, that made sense. Until Lee Jihye got the Twin Dragon Swords, her combat power was cut in half if there was no water. As for Lee Hyeongseong, he had probably dragged things out trying to protect the little people and got hit with the penalty. And Lee Gilyeong was in the middle of chattering away with Shin Yuseong.

“You have to treat bugs carefully. You shouldn’t just kill them whenever you want.”

“But little people aren’t bugs.”

“Everything small is a bug.”

Yeah, I could tell exactly why he’d ended up like this. Sometimes I’m afraid Gilyeong will grow up to be a psychopath.

“He’s heading toward where the Leader is!”

So their boss really was the Leader.

In the original third round, the Leader wasn’t the leader of the Japanese group. But judging by the way things had turned out, it seemed the original king, Izumi, was gone somewhere, and the Leader had taken control of the main faction.

“We’re sorry, Dokja-ssi. We got hit by the penalty too quickly......”

“No, you did well, Hyeongseong-ssi. If you saved even one more person, that’s enough.”

“Could their leader be the ‘serpent’ you’re looking for, Dokja-ssi?”

“There’s a high chance.”

In quite a few of Yu Junghyeok’s early rounds, the Leader had been the serpent incarnate. Unless there had been some major variable, the Leader of this round should also have become the serpent incarnate.

“Hyung! Faster!”

Maybe because the penalty was overlapping with the debuff from [demon’s formation], the distance between me and the inhuman species was narrowing even though [Way of the Wind] was active.

Once the miniaturization progressed, the gap between us and the Catastrophes would become too great to make up.

The people I could handle lightly right now would later become Catastrophes so strong that even if all of us charged them together, we’d have a hard time dealing with them.

Granny 406, seated primly in my hand, asked, “Young man, am I not heavy?”

“You are.”

For some reason, Granny alone felt especially heavy. That was probably because her actual mass hadn’t decreased.

The key to this operation was Granny 406.

Only with her could the serpent hunt end successfully.

It was then that a man appeared from the bushes up ahead.

“The forest is in an uproar....... What’s all this commotion?”

An old man with the look of a yakuza, wearing an armband stitched with golden thread, sat on a neatly cut tree stump. A little person’s bone jutted out from the corner of his mouth as if he had just eaten one. When he spotted us, he smacked his lips and asked again, “......Koreans?”

A powerful ominous aura poured from his whole body. I realized who he was. There was no need to ask. He was exactly the person I had been looking for.

The Leader.

The Leader had a birdcage tucked under his arm, and inside the birdcage were a heap of bones from the little people he had eaten and one female little person trapped among them. Between my fingers, Shoji poked his head out and shouted, “Asuka-ssi! You’re alive!”

It looked like the woman in that birdcage was the first entrant, Asuka Ren.

According to the original story, she was the first person in Japan to refuse becoming a Catastrophe.

“Shoji? How did you get all the way here...?”

This was perfect timing. If I could rescue Asuka Ren and hunt the “serpent,” that really would be killing two birds with one stone. Looking at the long shadow writhing like a snake behind the Leader, I used [Character Profile].

[The Exclusive Skill Character Profile has activated!]

The next moment, I doubted my eyes.

+

<Character Details>

Name: Yamamoto Hajime

Age: 64

Patron constellation: A Millennia-Old Hundred-legged Monster

Exclusive attributes: heartless tactician (Heroic), corpse devourer (Rare)

Exclusive skills: [Close Combat Lv.7], [advanced weapons proficiency Lv.4], [Japanese Swordsmanship Lv.8], [Concentration Lv.3], [crowd command Lv.4]......

Stigma: [demon’s formation Lv.7], [Battle Cry Lv.5]

Overall stats: [Constitution Lv.60(+10)], [Strength Lv.60(+10)], [Agility Lv.60(+10)], [Mana Lv.60(+10)]

Overall evaluation: Yamamoto Hajime is the boss who leads one of Japan’s great groups. He uses [demon’s formation], which inflicts a powerful debuff on humans. Unless you want to become the mortal enemy of monsters of fable, it is recommended that you do not fight him.

+

Damn it. This guy wasn’t the serpent incarnate.

What was going on? Had something gone wrong in this round?

“To endure demon’s formation in the body of a mere human. You’re no ordinary bastard.”

The shadow writhing behind him grew even darker. Hundreds of legs showed through the gaps in the shadow. Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “Where is the ‘serpent’? You’re a centipede.”

At my words, Yamamoto Hajime’s expression hardened.

Yamamoto Hajime’s Patron constellation was A Millennia-Old Hundred-legged Monster.

Just from the name, it sounded strong, but in truth, it meant nothing more than a centipede that had lived for ten thousand years. Of course, just as there were turtles that lived 1,800 years and became Constellations, there was no reason a centipede that had lived ten thousand years couldn’t become one too. It was a sacred beast that had piled up fables upon fables, passed through countless molts, and finally transcended its own species to rise to the rank of a Constellation. If it was that kind of sacred beast, it wouldn’t be strange for it to possess a high-level Stigma like [demon’s formation].

But I still couldn’t understand it. No matter how strong A Millennia-Old Hundred-legged Monster was, there was no way the Hundred Demon King, Izumi, or Izumi’s Patron constellation could have been defeated by a guy like this. More than anything, Izumi had the Absolute Throne.

......Just what in the world had happened in Japan in this round?