WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Max-Level Swordsman of Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 14
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[The Military Intelligence Bureau has stated that Darkblood Warpsight has most likely moved into the eastern contaminated zone. Authorities are currently using the satellite surveillance network and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to locate the target again.]
Kang Doseok listened to the news, lost in thought.
Darkblood Warpsight.
One of the Twelve Baleful Stars. Yet it was a mutant that had never actually appeared in the game.
Like most online games, the world of Chrome Blade Saga had expanded over time.
New regions opened, and new events and monsters were added. Some creatures appeared years after their names and background stories were first revealed.
Darkblood Warpsight was one of them.
Twenty years had passed since the game launched, but only seven of the Twelve Baleful Stars had actually appeared. The others were known only through documents, NPC dialogue, and records left throughout the cities.
Even Darkblood Warpsight’s abilities and where it could be found had never been properly revealed.
As far as he remembered, it hadn’t been directly connected to Shabel’s Storm, either.
“Hmm.”
There was a reason things that had never happened in the game were happening now.
There were plenty of players with game knowledge. In other words, they knew the future.
The moment someone used their knowledge of the future to seek an advantage, the present changed. And if the present changed, the future naturally had to change as well.
A full 200,000 players had acted that way.
There was no way events from when this world had been a game would repeat themselves exactly. All he could know was the general course of events.
Kang Doseok turned his eyes back to the screen.
[Darkblood Warpsight is a government-designated mutant of the highest threat level. The Military Intelligence Bureau urges citizens not to approach any unidentified life-form they discover, and to report it immediately.]
A blurry satellite photograph on the screen showed a dark red shape.
After watching it for a moment, Kang Doseok sat on the sofa. He hadn’t expected one of the Twelve Baleful Stars to escape satellite tracking.
But that didn’t mean he had a reason to act right now. What mattered to him was the vanished corporation’s laboratory that would be revealed after Shabel’s Storm. He needed to obtain a Skill Star there.
The night was growing late. All he had to do now was wait for the storm to pass.
Kang Doseok sank into the sofa and closed his eyes.
* * *
A fire was raging.
Flames filled his vision, pouring out black smoke. He couldn’t see what was burning. The smell of cooking flesh and the sound of collapsing wood came from every direction.
Then the flames went out.
Pitch-black darkness.
A small ember flared to life within it.
The ember grew, taking on a human shape. A head and shoulders, thin arms and legs. A small body.
The figure was burning all over, but Kang Doseok recognized it.
The child reached out.
Just as Kang Doseok tried to take the hand, the small body collapsed into white ash.
Shhh.
The ash scattered in the wind.
“You’re always late, big brother.”
Kang Doseok lowered his head amid the drifting ash.
At some point, a blade had appeared in his hand.
Dark red blood dripped from its edge. He couldn’t tell whose blood it was, whether it belonged to someone he had killed or someone he had failed to protect.
“Doseok.”
This time, it was a woman’s voice.
It was familiar.
A faint hand reached out of the darkness and brushed his cheek.
“You have to survive until the very end.”
Kang Doseok raised his head.
He couldn’t make out her face. Only long hair and split lips showed through the darkness. He reached toward her face.
But just before his fingertips touched her, the woman’s form scattered like smoke.
“Come back to me when it’s all over.”
Once again, the scene before him collapsed.
“...”
Kang Doseok opened his eyes. It had been a dream.
Yet the smell of burning and the touch of the hand against his cheek remained vivid.
He stared at the ceiling for a while, then slowly sat up.
He rose from the sofa and picked up a water bottle. Then he poured the lukewarm water down his throat.
Chirrr.
Just then, a thin sound reached him from somewhere.
Kang Doseok’s hand stopped.
Chirrrrr.
He turned his head. There was no mistaking it. An insect was calling. It was coming from the window. Kang Doseok put down the water bottle and went straight into the living room. He picked up the sword propped beside the sofa, then approached the window where the sound was coming from.
Swish.
Kang Doseok pulled back the curtains. And then...
“...”
What greeted him was a giant mutant.
An enormous cicada clung to the outside of the window.
Its body alone was nearly a meter long.
Its dark red body was divided into bulging segments like human ribs, with yellow slime collecting between each segment. Dense patterns like black blood vessels spread across the inside of its transparent wings.
Its six legs curved into hooks at the tips. Every time those hooks scraped the glass, they made a screeching sound. Hundreds of compound eyes on either side of its head stared at Kang Doseok.
Chirrrrr.
Its belly swelled, then shrank.
Kang Doseok stared at it for a while before muttering bluntly.
“How annoying.”
The thing before him was a Nightmare Cicada Aberration, a cicada-like mutant that caused nightmares.
Despite its size, a Nightmare Cicada Aberration wasn’t particularly tough. A single thrust through the glass would kill it.
The problem was the window.
Kang Doseok looked past the Nightmare Cicada Aberration.
Whooooosh!
Shabel’s Storm was sweeping through the city. Black wind and rain battered the building’s outer walls. A sign torn loose from somewhere spun through the air.
The Nightmare Cicada Aberration clung firmly to the window with its hooked legs. Only a mutant could withstand that wind.
If Kang Doseok thrust his sword through it, it would die.
But the window he had just repaired would shatter along with it.
Then the wind, rain, and contaminants would pour straight into his home. Furniture would fly around, muddy water would cover the floor, and the entire penthouse would become a mess.
That wasn’t a price worth paying to kill one mutant.
Chirrrrr.
The Nightmare Cicada Aberration made its belly vibrate again.
Kang Doseok closed the curtains. Even with a window between them, staying beside a mutant wasn’t a good idea. There was always a slight chance of infection.
“I’d better leave.”
He picked up the coat he had tossed onto the sofa. After fastening his sword at his waist, he opened the front door and stepped outside.
He couldn’t leave the building while the storm was raging.
Fortunately, the place Kang Doseok lived was a megabuilding containing 10,000 households.
Restaurants, shops, hospitals, and most public facilities were all inside the building. If he couldn’t sleep at home, he just had to find somewhere else.
Kang Doseok stopped briefly outside his front door.
The insect’s call came from the living room again.
Chirrrrrrr.
Even with two doors and a long hallway between them, it sounded as clear as if it were right beside his ear. Kang Doseok closed the front door without looking back.
Clunk.
The call cut off as the thick, soundproof door shut.
Other residents who had left their homes like Kang Doseok were passing through the hallway. Some pulled suitcases, some hurried along holding children’s hands, and others carried armfuls of blankets and emergency food.
Kang Doseok walked among them.
* * *
Kang Doseok stepped into the elevator.
The megabuilding’s elevator was packed with residents.
He leaned against the back wall. Once the doors closed, the floor numbers began dropping rapidly.
The news was playing on a screen installed on one wall.
[Shabel’s Storm is currently passing through the outskirts of Sector F’s districts numbered in the forties.]
Behind the anchor, the city was covered in black wind and rain. Overturned vehicles and broken signs littered the roads.
[The Weather Bureau forecasts that the storm will leave Sector F entirely in eight hours. However, contaminants and electromagnetic interference may remain. Citizens are advised not to leave their buildings until the all-clear announcement.]
Kang Doseok checked the time displayed on the screen.
The storm would end in eight hours. He must have slept longer than he’d thought.
Ding.
The elevator stopped at the shopping level. As the doors opened, the smell of food and the sound of voices rushed in together.
Kang Doseok slipped past the residents and walked into the shopping area.
The food court at its center was crowded. Residents had flocked there to pass the time until the storm ended.
A man whose face below the nose had been replaced with glass-clear cyberware walked past, laughing. Every time he laughed, the machinery inside his throat was fully exposed.
A woman passing beside him had thin bundles of optical fibers hanging from her head instead of hair. With each step, light rippled through hundreds of strands.
On an advertising screen hanging on the opposite wall, a half-naked man and woman were feeling each other’s cybernetic prosthetics.
[If your lover is disappointed every night, it’s not because you don’t love them enough.]
The man on the screen pointed below his waist. Something bulged outward.
[Keep your natural sensations. Enjoy an intense pleasure-maximizing mode, twelve vibration settings, and even automatic thrusting. Blacksteel Penis Parts cyberware.]
The man flashed a broad smile that showed all his teeth. Then he delivered his final line.
[We’ll make you come for less. Blacksteel Penis Parts cyberware.]
Kang Doseok looked away from the advertisement.
Even after living here for ten years, he still found this city’s advertisements vulgar.
Just then, the advertising screen briefly went black.
There was a gap of about 0.5 seconds before the next advertisement played.
The food court was reflected on the glossy screen.
In that reflection, Kang Doseok spotted a man watching him.
The man was standing in front of a drink shop across from him. He held a paper cup in one hand, but never once raised it to his mouth.
Kang Doseok looked to the side. He turned his head naturally toward another gaze he could feel.
A woman near the food court entrance was watching him while pretending to use her terminal.
She wasn’t the only one. A man leaning against a pillar was on a call, and a man in work clothes pushing a cleaning cart was passing along the same aisle for the third time.
None of them was acting in an obviously suspicious way. Their eyes had merely met his a few times.
They didn’t look at one another, either. Their clothes, ages, and even the directions they were moving were all different. Their distances from Kang Doseok varied as well.
“...Hmm.”
But their positions were too well chosen.
They each covered a route leading to the shopping area’s entrance, the elevators, or the emergency stairs. No matter which direction Kang Doseok moved, at least two of them could follow him.
Something about it was staged. That was the conclusion his experience led him to.
Kang Doseok rose naturally from his seat and headed toward the underground parking garage.
At that moment, the man beside the pillar ended his call, and the woman near the entrance put her terminal in her pocket.
Kang Doseok kept walking.
They moved among the crowd, keeping their distance from him. When one came closer, another fell back. Someone who disappeared from view would reappear at another passage.
‘They know how to tail someone properly.’
There were more people who might target him than he could count.
Over the past ten years, the number of gang bosses he had beheaded alone was close to a hundred. One corporation conducting illegal human experiments had lost its entire headquarters and laboratory because of Kang Doseok alone. Countless smaller corporations and other organizations had also collapsed while he was collecting money they had refused to pay.
The companions of dead bounty hunters, the remnants of corporations that had lost their businesses, and gang members who had lost family.
It was impossible to remember everyone who might hold a grudge against him.
So he could simply catch them, subdue them, and then ask who had sent them.
Kang Doseok followed the signs toward the underground parking garage.
The noise of the shopping area gradually faded. There were fewer people, too.
He pushed open a fire door, and cold air carrying the smell of machine oil washed over him.
Three sets of footsteps followed him through.
A short distance away, another set of footsteps was coming down the stairs.
Kang Doseok kept walking into the underground parking garage, silencing his steps. Then he quietly reached for his sword hilt.
The skill Camouflage.
The moment his fingertips touched the hilt, Kang Doseok’s body began blending into his surroundings.
The outlines of his sword and coat blurred. Then his face and limbs took on the colors of the floor and the vehicles.
A moment later, he vanished completely from the underground parking garage.
* * *
The fire door closed.
Clunk.
The man in work clothes stopped walking. Behind him, two men and a woman entered the underground parking garage one after another.
Messages appeared at the edges of their vision.
[Did we lose him?]
[No.]
It was the standard visual interface issued by the Cheongmyeong guild. The equipment allowed them to communicate silently by displaying messages in their vision. Ocular cyberware.
The man looked deeper into the parking garage.
[He definitely just came in. Take your positions and search.]
He was the leader of Team 4 in the Cheongmyeong guild’s Special Combat Team.
Every member was a player. They had adapted to this world, survived, and built up their power. They killed people for a living.
This mission was simple.
Track Kang Doseok and observe him.
Create an opportunity to kill him, then do it.
As luck would have it, Shabel’s Storm had struck. Kang Doseok couldn’t leave the megabuilding. If they kept following him inside, the support team would join them.
It was too good a chance to pass up: an opportunity to eliminate a potential rival who could become their greatest obstacle in the future.
If this mission succeeded, the team leader’s standing would rise considerably.
Kang Doseok, the unaffiliated swordsman.
His name was known among players, but the team leader didn’t take that reputation at face value.
‘No matter how good he is with a sword on his own...’
What did that matter?
He was a swordsman himself, but he knew full well that a swordsman’s battles involved more than just skill with a blade.
There were four of them. Every one of them had been through dozens of real battles. Wiping out gangs, raiding corporate facilities, hunting mutants. They knew better than anyone how to kill people and survive.
That was what it meant to be on a Cheongmyeong guild combat team.
The team leader moved his fingers.
Two members spread out to the left and right. The woman stood in front of the fire door and raised her fingers. Shadows stirred at her fingertips.
Seeing this, the team leader activated his plasma blade and slowly moved farther inside.
Hundreds of vehicles stood in rows throughout the parking garage. Ceiling lights flickered at regular intervals.
The only sound was a ventilation fan running in the distance.
[Start thermal scanning.]
The woman’s right eye flashed red. A moment later, she shook her head.
[I’m not picking him up.]
[Check under the cars, too.]
[Yes.]
The four moved forward, keeping space between them.
Kang Doseok had definitely entered this place. There was no other exit.
Yet he was nowhere to be seen.
There were no footsteps. No sound of breathing.
The team leader’s brow furrowed.
[Where...]
It happened at that moment.
Shunk!
The sound of flesh tearing came from behind him.
A sword had pierced the man behind him to his right, entering below the neck and emerging through his chest.
“Guh...”
Blood poured onto the floor.
The team leader spun around at once.
Swish!
A blue plasma blade intercepted Kang Doseok’s sword.
Clang!
Sparks flew.
The team leader twisted his wrist, trying to push Kang Doseok’s sword aside. But Kang Doseok’s blade didn’t meet his force.
It slipped like a snake.
The sword’s tip slid up along the side of the plasma blade and grazed the team leader’s throat.
Slash!
A light spray of blood rose into the air.
Thwack!
The team leader grimaced. Just as he tried to step back, Kang Doseok’s leg blurred. His foot moved like lightning and slammed into the team leader’s chest.
“Urgh.”
Crash!
The leader of Team 4 flew all the way to the wall on the opposite side. Kang Doseok flicked the blood from his sword and walked forward.
“Let’s see.”
His gaze swept over the remaining figures in turn.
“One, two, three, four.”
Four players.
Assuming he killed them all, he could absorb up to four Skill Stars.
“The stars have come walking right to me.”
The corners of Kang Doseok’s mouth rose slightly.
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