Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 26

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 26: Episode 6 - Hour of Judgement (3)

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By the next morning, a few things had changed at Geumho Station.

First, Han Myeongoh was gone.

He had started becoming hard to spot around the time the fight began, and after the fight ended, he vanished somewhere. I couldn't tell whether he had moved on to the next station or was still hiding somewhere in this one.

“Looks like he won't be coming with us anymore. I didn't like him from the start. Besides, he isn't the only one who disappeared.”

Huiwon was right. After yesterday's fight, almost no one was left at Geumho Station. It wasn't because only a few had survived. If anything, more people had survived than in any round of the original story.

It was just that most of those survivors left the station after what happened last night. They probably all had their own reasons.

“Will the people who stayed be okay?”

Sangah asked as she turned toward the survivors. Besides me, Yu Sangah, Lee Hyeongseong, Lee Gilyeong, and Jeong Huiwon, only five people remained in this station. Huiwon spoke first.

“Hey, you lot. Are you going with us?”

At that casual question, the people visibly stirred. The one who stepped forward as their spokesperson was a young woman holding a child's hand.

“...We'll go separately. We still have some coins left.”

I was honestly impressed that the Mother and daughter had survived that bloodbath. With that much nerve, they might survive just fine without coming with us.

Huiwon seemed to be thinking the same thing and nodded.

“All right. Good luck.”

When Huiwon turned away, relief spread across their faces. Honestly, their reaction wasn't strange. What happened yesterday had definitely been a shock.

I understood. One of us had refused charity, and the other, even if she had her reasons, had mercilessly slaughtered people. To them, Huiwon and I might not have looked much different from the Cheoldoo Gang.

I nudged Lee Hyeongseong, who was standing next to me with a stupid expression on his face.

“Mr. Lee Hyeongseong?”

“Ah, yes, sir!”

Hyeongseong, who had been blankly staring at Huiwon, jerked in surprise at my voice. I had a pretty good idea what he had been thinking. He was probably wondering whether that woman really was the same person who had been swept up in madness and beaten the Cheoldoo Gang to death yesterday.

“Are your preparations finished?”

“Yes, sir! It's a little lacking, but I've mostly finished. I packed PET bottles to use as canteens, secured cold-weather gear, and found something that could serve in place of an emergency mess kit...”

A soldier really was useful at times like this.

“...That is all. If you need anything else...”

There shouldn't have been anything else... or so I was about to say, when something came to mind.

“Ah, if there are any portable battery packs, could you look for one?”

“A battery pack, sir?”

Of course he found it strange. With no signal coming through, a smartphone was useless. I gave him a vague answer.

“I have a use for it.”

Hyeongseong said he'd look and started rummaging through the baggage the Cheoldoo Gang had left behind. Gilyeong and Sangah stepped in to help. Huiwon looked at me and asked,

“We're leaving now, right?”

“We are.”

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she didn't even ask whether she could come with us. That was just the kind of person Jeong Huiwon was. From my perspective, she was welcome. “Judge of Evil” was the sort of talent even Yu Junghyeok would covet.

“I've got a lot of questions.”

“Not right now.”

“Oh, wow. What a wall.”

Huiwon lightly punched me with her fist.

[The character Jeong Huiwon has given you 1,500 coins.]

“This is...?”

“I split it up. I felt bad keeping it all to myself. I gave some to the others too.”

I immediately understood what she meant. Yesterday, Huiwon had killed most of the Cheoldoo Gang by herself. In other words, these were the coins those bastards had been carrying.

Still... honestly, I felt a little awkward taking them.

“If it were me, I wouldn't have given any away.”

Huiwon didn't know. The truth was, I had taken even more coins than she had.

“I'm not Dokja-ssi, am I?”

She punched my arm a few more times, slung on her backpack, and started walking toward the tunnel.

“Finish up and come. I'll go on ahead and tidy things up.”

“Don't go too far ahead. There are sections that are dangerous alone.”

Huiwon waved her hand as if to tell me not to worry and walked off.

[The constellation Demonic Judge of Fire likes your camaraderie.]

[The constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon smiles slyly.]

I watched the messages floating in the air expressionlessly, then said,

‘You made a lot yesterday, didn't you? Must be nice.’

There was no answer. I spoke again.

‘Quit pretending and answer me. I know you're watching.’

“Ah, hahaha... You caught me?”

Bihyeong's voice came in a whisper.

‘How much did you make?’

“Well... um.”

I silently glared at the air.

“Hoo, really. The moment you figure something out, you never let it go. Here.”

[The dokkaebi Bihyeong has given you 4,500 coins.]

Just as I thought. Damn dokkaebi bastard.

“The constellations didn't use the sponsorship system. They sent them straight to me. I don't know why, but they told me to pass them along later. Ah, and these messages too.”

A flood of messages popped up right after that.

[The constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband is satisfied with your Scenario.]

[The constellation Demonic Judge of Fire makes an effort to understand your judgment.]

[The constellation Secretive Plotter is pleased with your scheme.]

......

No wonder no sponsorship messages had appeared yesterday.

Something huge had happened, and yet the returns had been lower than I'd expected. I had been wondering about that.

[Coin balance: 23,050C]

I had invested a considerable amount of the coins I'd earned last time into my stats, but I had already built up quite a lot again. Which meant it was about time to raise my stats once more.

So then, where should I put them this time?

Since I couldn't open the Attributes Window, I had to remember the exact levels I'd raised. First, Constitution, since that was important.

[You have invested 1,200 coins in Constitution.]

[Constitution Lv.12 → Constitution Lv.15]

[Your body's durability has increased.]

Since I didn't have a separate attack Passive skill, I should raise Strength solidly too.

[You have invested 1,600 coins in Strength.]

[Strength Lv.11 → Strength Lv.15]

[Powerful strength surges through your muscles.]

Agility only needed to be high enough to dodge reasonably well.

[You have invested 400 coins in Agility.]

[Agility Lv.10 → Agility Lv.11]

[You can move a little more nimbly.]

I needed to maintain White Pure Star Energy, so Mana had to break 10 as well.

[You have invested 1,200 coins in Mana.]

[Mana Lv.6 → Mana Lv.10]

[A mysterious energy settles into your soul.]

I could have raised them further, but I deliberately didn't. Once I reached Chungmuro, there would be another place to spend a lot of coins. Besides, I had already used 4,400 coins just now.... They say earning is hard and spending is easy, and every bit of that is true. If my innate stats had been a bit better, it wouldn't have cost me quite this many coins.

An innate Constitution of 1.... Even TWSA's view count, no, even Lee Gilyeong's Constitution was probably higher than that.

“Oh, right, I almost forgot. A Scenario recommendation came in too. You're really amazing. At this rate, the channel might level up soon.”

‘It has to.’

Unlike other Incarnations, I couldn't receive support from a Patron constellation, so I needed to gather even more coins. The reason I still wasn't fully benefiting from the effects of my contract with Bihyeong was because Bihyeong's channel was small-scale.

“Some” constellations weren't enough. If I wanted to start gathering coins in earnest, I needed a channel that at least “quite a few” constellations would come to. Once I got to Chungmuro, the environment for that would quickly fall into place.

“If everyone's finished preparing, we'll head out. Nobody forgot anything, right?”

The Ally group, gathered once more before I knew it, nodded. Judging by their tense faces, everyone seemed to have learned something from yesterday.

At last, the journey toward Chungmuro began.

* * *

The system message appeared when we had crossed about halfway down the tracks toward Yaksu.

[The second Main Scenario has been activated.]

Category: Main

Difficulty: E

Clear Conditions: Cross the tunnel and meet the survivor in the first Shelter Zone.

Time limit: None

Rewards: 500 coins

Penalty for failure: ???

Seeing the message made it sink in that things were getting serious. Unlike the first Main Scenario, starting with the second Main Scenario, there were “major Shelter Zones.” Huiwon asked,

“Major Shelter Zones? What does that mean?”

There was no need for me to answer. An additional message floated up in the air right away.

[The next ‘major Shelter Zone’ is Chungmuro.]

“Then Chungmuro is close, right? Just three more stations...”

With a low vibration, Ground Rats dug their way up and poked out their heads. There had to be more than thirty of them. Huiwon's face hardened.

“...And we have to do this for three more stations.”

The first to step forward was Hyeongseong.

“I'll take the front.”

With the support of his Patron constellation, the sum of Hyeongseong's Constitution, Strength, and Agility had already reached 37. He had earned far fewer coins than I had, yet he had already caught up this much. High innate stats really did come with a lot of advantages. If I'd known it would be like this, I should've at least done some push-ups regularly.

“I'll take the rear.”

Gilyeong's overall stats were still low, but through steady skill training, he had become able to use [Inter-Species Communication] more flexibly.

“Leave some to me too.”

Sangah was using Threads made from Mana to restrain the Ground Rats' movements. Her attack power was low, but going by overall stats alone, she seemed to be around Huiwon's level.

“There are a lot of them, but they're not as formidable as I expected.”

There wasn't really any need to mention Huiwon. Her overall stats were lower than Hyeongseong's, but that one Exclusive Skill alone was enough to completely overwhelm the others.

The Exclusive Skill of “Judge of Evil,” [Hour of Judgement].

As long as the enemy before her was an “evildoer” who had clearly committed injustice in the eyes of the constellations, Jeong Huiwon would never lose.

Before long, the last Ground Rat collapsed onto the floor. Hyeongseong, still holding his shield at my side, wiped away his sweat and said,

“Phew... At this level, I think it's manageable.”

Actually, this wasn't a difficulty that should've been this easy to clear. No matter how simple the Ground Rats' patterns were, thirty of them was never a small number. Even I wouldn't have been confident about wiping them out alone without activating [Bookmark]. The group had simply become that much stronger.

How much farther did we advance through the tunnel? At last, a new platform appeared before us.

“It's Yaksu Station! But no one's here? ...No, that's not it.”

Yaksu Station was full of dead people and Ground Rat corpses. Judging by the wounds, some of them seemed to have been taken down not by Ground Rats, but by Yu Junghyeok.

“We keep going. Two stations left now.”

We continued forward. Since the straight-line distance from Yaksu to Dongdaeipgu was less than a kilometer anyway, my plan was to push as far as we could while we still could. Just as we were nearly at Dongdaeipgu, we ran into another pack of Ground Rats and drove them back.

In terms of simple distance, we had only traveled a little over two kilometers in total, but because the fighting had been so grueling, the group's stamina was dropping quickly.

“Let's rest here for a bit.”

“There’s only one station left, so wouldn't it be better to go there and rest...?”

“No one knows whether we'll be able to rest once we get there.”

At my words, the group fell silent. Certainly, monsters weren't the only dangerous thing in this world. I looked around for a moment and then said,

“From the look of it, the people at this station left in a hurry. There might still be daily necessities left behind.”

“Ah, um. Then...”

At the words daily necessities, Sangah slightly raised a hand. Sangah's eyes met Huiwon's. Without exchanging a word, the two of them nodded at the same time. When I just stood there blankly, Huiwon asked,

“What? Dokja-ssi, are you joining us?”

“No, go on ahead.”

If I couldn't figure out what they meant after they made it that obvious, that would be stranger. Even with the world in this state, the human body's needs didn't stop.

At that moment, Hyeongseong spoke up too.

“If this is time for personal upkeep, I'd like to use the restroom for a moment as well.”

In a situation like this, hearing him say he wanted to go to the bathroom made me wonder what he was talking about for a second, but when I thought about it, there was no reason not to use a perfectly functional restroom. Maybe that was why people said to evacuate into subway stations during emergencies.

“I'll go too.”

Even Gilyeong joined in. Watching the two of them walk away side by side, they looked like affectionate brothers with a large age gap between them.

Sangah looked at me and asked,

“Are you going to stay here alone, Dokja-ssi?”

“I'm going aboveground for a moment.”

“What? If you go outside, there'll be poisonous fog.... Will you be all right?”

“I'll only be a moment.”

At that, Huiwon narrowed her eyes.

“...This feels suspicious. Why are you going outside?”

“I thought I'd go be active in religion for a bit.”

“Be active... in religion?”

I looked at Huiwon for a moment, then told her this.

“I may not look it, but I'm actually pretty devout.”

* * *

A little while later, I was standing in front of Exit 6 of Dongdaeipgu Station.

According to the information I'd read in advance, this was definitely the place....

[You have been exposed to poisonous fog.]

Just as I thought. It seemed the Poison Rhino's influence reached all the way here too.

This time, I hadn't bought Ellain Monkey's Lungs, so I had to take care of things quickly. Holding my breath, I ran up the escalator leading to the street. Before long, a statue with a bluish gray sheen came into view.

[A constellation wearing a robe expresses anticipation for your actions.]

The statue had been modeled after a monk who lived in the mid-Joseon era. Even as a statue, the face of the monk in a worn robe with a large bamboo staff gave off an indescribable dignity.

I checked the vertically written name beneath the statue.

Statue of Yujeong Samyeong Daesa.

Good, this was the right place. And there was no sign anyone else had been here yet....

I stood before the statue and pressed my palms together.

[A constellation wearing a robe is pleased by your actions.]

[You have received 100 coins.]

Then, without hesitation, I activated Blade of Faith with White Pure Star Energy.

[A constellation wearing a robe is puzzled by your actions.]

And then I split the statue of Samyeong Daesa in half.

[A constellation wearing a robe is appalled by your actions!]

Footnotes:

1. Samyeong Daesa is the honorific title of the Joseon monk Yujeong.