Chapter 9 : Chapter 9
Chapter 9
The leader's head was being crushed under the tip of Yu Jin-cheol's foot as he bled profusely.
Even with a face that was unrecognizable due to a broken nose, he did not firmly close his mouth yet.
“Ugh…… don't think it's over.”
A voice flowed out through his torn lips like it was being squeezed out along with the blood.
Yu Jin-cheol snorted.
“It is over. You stupid man.”
Then, the leader's eyes flashed and he laughed slowly.
The laughter on his face, which was smeared with blood, was beyond eerie and was terrifying.
The laughter of the dying man made Yu Jin-cheol's brow furrow.
“You made a mistake. A real mistake.”
The voice was almost a whisper, but a smile full of conviction amplified its meaning.
The leader spat a mouthful of blood and added words.
“Do you think I proposed a negotiation to you without any preparation? I took out insurance.”
At that moment, the surrounding forest shook noisily.
Breathing sounds like short groans heard from all directions.
Two people, three people, four people…… no, more shadows revealed themselves from between the trees.
They were moving with anger, not fear.
Someone was empty-handed, and someone was holding a weapon.
Even at a glance, they didn't come to run away.
They had faces that came to attack.
The leader shouted while still being crushed on the floor.
“Now! Strike!”
The leader's comrades popped out without hesitation.
And at the very next moment, Yu Jin-cheol was no longer laughing.
“It was cumbersome to go around chasing you one by one, but this is good. I'll sweep you all away at once in this spot.”
His voice was low and calm.
Then, Yu Jin-cheol's skin began to turn to stone again.
Unlike before, the thickness of the stone became twice as thick, and the trajectory of the strengthened ability was clearly revealed.
“How dull. You guys don't deserve to earn money here and leave.”
The shadows that popped out from the shadows of the forest were five.
Including the leader and us who were under cover, there were eight thieves in this spot.
Everyone except us had formed an alliance.
A certain thief clenched his fist.
“Aim for the heart!”
The clenched fist was enveloped in light.
When the light cleared, the man's fist had changed to a steel material.
It was an ability that turned the fist into steel.
It was hard to see it as a great ability.
Even being generous, it would be difficult to escape the category of a 4th-rank ability.
Another thief was holding a long tree branch.
“Once! Just once is enough!”
The thief joined his thumb and index finger to make a circle, and then he swept it as if passing the tree branch through the finger hole.
Then the tree branch changed into a thick pipe.
Is it an ability to turn a tree branch, or a long object, into a pipe.
It would be perfect if he played the role of a plumber who likes mushrooms.
That ability would also be 4th or 5th rank.
“Good! This guy is sluggish! It's impossible to block all attacks!”
Thieves rushed at Yu Jin-cheol, each creating a weapon, strengthening their body, or in a state where it was confusing whether they had exerted an ability or not.
The point to pay attention to was that the part all thieves targeted was the same.
They pounced from all directions, but every single one of them aimed for the left chest of Yu Jin-cheol.
The idea of not running away and attempting an attack by joining forces was not bad.
If the cop is subdued, the game is practically over.
The thieves chose the shortest route to end this game.
But there was one fact the thieves overlooked.
The fact that the equation the thieves set applies the same even if the positions are reversed.
“Aaaaah!”
The weapon of the man who swung the steel pipe first struck Yu Jin-cheol's chest.
Boom!
A roar as if metal had struck a stone pillar. A vibration spreading to the fingertips.
What broke was the pipe side.
“……What?”
The man's eyes grew wide.
Yu Jin-cheol's chest was fine.
At that moment, Yu Jin-cheol's right hand shot up like a shadow.
Crack!
A fist covered in stone exploded under the jaw of the man holding the pipe.
The man's head tilted back as if testing the range of motion of the neck bone, and a scream burst out along with the sound of the jawbone breaking.
As the thickness of the stone became thicker using the strengthened ability, Yu Jin-cheol's weight class had gone up.
Each punch was no different from swinging a gruesome blunt weapon.
It was a blunt weapon that boasted more strength than a steel pipe.
“100 million won in total prize money. I'll eat well.”
It was Yu Jin-cheol mocking the thieves as if he had already confirmed about 33 million won in hourly wages.
Yu Jin-cheol had said before entering.
That his ability is a defensive type and 4th rank.
That statement itself was true.
An ability to turn skin into stone was not considered an excellent ability.
Normally, it was an ability that would easily crack even in front of a steel pipe, which is an ability of a similar grade.
It was no exaggeration to say it was an ability designed to be a punching bag.
However, currently strengthened tenfold, Yu Jin-cheol's ability was equal to a 1st-rank ability.
Therefore, he was an opponent that five 4th to 5th rank ability users could not handle even if they rushed at him.
Sure enough, the thieves' attacks did not see much effect.
Clang!
“Ugh!”
The side that attacked felt a tingling sensation from the recoil instead.
Ting!
They lost their balance as the attack they delivered bounced back.
All attacks returned to futility in front of overwhelming defensive power.
On the other hand, Yu Jin-cheol truly enjoyed this situation where he could exercise overwhelming martial force.
“Hahahaha! Hahahaha!”
Earlier, the first one's jaw was twisted.
Next, the second one's spine was strangely broken while being slammed into the ground.
The third one collapsed as if his breath had stopped when his back was struck.
Blood splattered, and screams spread.
Three out of the five ambush forces that popped out from the forest died a sudden death in an instant.
The two thieves who were standing barely intact lost their will to fight after smelling the scent of blood that was being added in real-time.
“This can't be…… it doesn't work at all.”
“Leader! I told you so! Persuasion was impossible from the beginning! From the beginning, six…….”
Yu Jin-cheol rubbed his blood-stained stone fist on the floor to wipe it roughly.
Laughter of ridicule flowed out from the bottom of his face, which had become lumpy as if stung by a bee.
“If it were six people, would it have been different? No, nothing changes. Your attacks would not have worked the same way, and the number of corpses created in this spot would be the same.”
The abilities of the remaining two thieves were far from having powerful might.
One man had a snake wrapped around each arm.
Until right before exerting the ability, vines were wrapped around the man's arms.
In other words, it was an ability to turn vines into venomous snakes.
But it would not work on Yu Jin-cheol, whose skin is hard stone.
Another person was holding a sharp stone knife made of grinding stone.
Seeing as he made a tool convenient for cutting, albeit crudely, I thought he might possess an ability that only activates when he cuts the opponent.
The stone knife man was also a person with an ability that had difficulty inflicting a wound on Yu Jin-cheol by his own power.
The two thieves exchanged glances and then ran away at the same time as if they had made a great resolution.
“Even with five people it was impossible, but with the two of us…….”
“Run for now! Anyway, once this game ends, the buff applied to that guy will also disappear! It's not too late to take revenge later!”
The feet of the two thieves were so swift that they dug into the shadows of the forest and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Yu Jin-cheol did not chase the two thieves.
Instead, he approached the leader, who was barely clinging to life.
And he said while placing his heavy foot on the leader's chest.
“Do you know why I killed you all one by one even though I could have caught you and locked you in prison?”
Weight was gradually loaded onto the foot placed on the leader's body.
While the sound of crushing inside the top gradually leaked out, Yu Jin-cheol smirked.
The smirk made his face, which had turned into stone and distorted, look even more vicious.
“Corpses can't break out of prison.”
Crunch!
I, Lee Ju-seong, gestured to Park So-yul while distancing myself from the tree I had used as cover.
“He will probably spend time for a while locking the bodies in the prison. Let's move in this interval.”
Park So-yul glared at the vacant lot where corpses were widespread, and then she closed her eyes tightly before snapping them open.
And she put her honest impressions into words while widening the distance from the vacant lot following me.
“That person who is in the cop role. Even though it's his first time getting blood on his hands directly, he was actually happy.”
A deep shadow brushed across Park So-yul's pupils.
It was an emotion closer to disgust than fear.
In this game, it was impossible to use normal ethics.
However, separate from ethics, it was true that excessive killing belonged to the realm of entertainment, so it made one frown.
I simply defined the person called Yu Jin-cheol.
“There are always people who harbor twisted desires inside anywhere and anytime. That person has been that kind of human since before coming here.”
“Is it okay to define it so easily?”
“At least in the current situation, judging it like that will be advantageous for survival.”
We started walking without continuing the conversation anymore.
Around the time we escaped the area where the smell of blood was heavily cast, Park So-yul muttered quietly beside me.
“If it weren't for the two of us…… I would be among those corpses over there by now.”
She didn't turn her gaze toward me, but that one line of speech contained a strange warmth.
I quietly placed a compass in her hand.
“Steelen your heart from now on. Since the opponent has decided to prioritize violence and desire without looking back, we must also make a resolution beyond that to survive.”
“I am prepared. It's just that I haven't had a chance to show it yet.”
“Let's collect compasses for now as originally planned. Since the thief alliance seems to have focused on forming an alliance rather than searching for gems, the compasses and gems will all be left unattended.”
However, before securing additional compasses, a new branch point appeared.
In the south of the game site, we encountered two thieves.
It was the duo that had preserved their lives with a quick escape from the battle between Yu Jin-cheol and the thief alliance earlier.
The vine man, the stone knife man.
The two thieves brightened up upon finding us.
“Ah! The people who entered this game as the first and second turns!”
“You were alive! I'm saying this in advance so you don't misunderstand, but we are not interested in thieves fighting over gems among themselves. It's the opposite.”
“Actually. Do you know what kind of thing happened in a place you don't know……”
Without dreaming that we would have witnessed the fight between Yu Jin-cheol and the thief alliance, the two thieves explained the battle situation that happened earlier in detail.
The testimony of the two thieves matched the scene I witnessed.
It felt as if they were doing their best to appeal that they are honest and upright people.
I acted as if it were a fact I was hearing for the first time with a straight face.
“So the reason for the defeat was that you didn't know the ability strengthened tenfold would be that strong?”
“Ugh, we were soft. Since it was our first time fighting between ability users, we misjudged the objective indicators.”
“Even with six people it was impossible, so it will be even more impossible with the remaining four. We have no choice but to be satisfied with securing one or two gems moderately while running around so as not to be caught by the cop.”
I tried floating the idea while pretending to want to avoid a direct confrontation with the cop.
The situation flowing advantageously for Yu Jin-cheol was one thing, and the behavior of these two thieves was another.
There were more than one or two parts where a sense of incongruity was felt.
If the hypothesis I built was correct, these two thieves would actively encourage a direct confrontation with Yu Jin-cheol.
Sure enough, the two thieves made a fuss and suggested a chance of winning.
“Practically, five people excluding the leader fought. But there isn't much difference between four people and five people, is there? I think if we focus and attack without letting our guard down, we will definitely be able to knock him down.”
“And listen without being surprised. That person Yu Jin-cheol, his heart is a weakness. Before entering, he secretly clutched his left chest. There is no doubt he is suffering from heart disease.”
If there was a solid weakness, there was a chance of winning even if there was a difference in ability.
Because if we land just one hit properly, we will win.
Nine out of ten would choose the side that wins easily.
The sweetness brought by the resonance of a certain-win method was attractive to that extent.
But my thoughts were different.
“Dazzling hope makes a person blind. Did you tempt other thieves in that way too?”
In my words, the temperature surrounding the two thieves dropped sharply.
The two faces that had looked frivolous and friendly cooled down chillingly.
“What are you talking about?”
“It's no use pretending otherwise. There is no law saying a cop and a thief can't join hands. I know everything about how you incited the thieves to approach Yu Jin-cheol with their own feet.”
“Ha, hahaha, your joke is severe. I know you've become sensitive, but suspecting a person with speculation……”
“One of the people who died in the battle earlier struck above Yu Jin-cheol's heart. How are you going to explain the fact that Yu Jin-cheol was fine even then?”
I presented an undeniable basis at the appropriate timing.
Since they were two thieves who had never thought we would be watching the battle, their blind spot was properly pierced.
The two thieves took on a gruesome atmosphere.
It was the moment it was proven that my hypothesis was correct.
Among the two thieves, the vine man threw the vine wrapped around his right arm at Park So-yul.
“Damn it! There's no need to be scared just because it's 2 to 2! Since a woman is mixed in over there, we have the upper hand in physical strength!”
They were trying to subdue me 2 to 1 in that gap after putting Park So-yul, who looks relatively weak on the outside, into trouble first.
I was keeping it in mind all along, knowing it would be so.
While the vine was turning into a venomous snake in the air, I boldly snatched the venomous snake and threw it back at the vine man.
The venomous snake collided with the vine man's face.
I extended my fist over the venomous snake, and an intense blow exploded at the spot where the venomous snake and the vine man's face overlapped.
Smash!
“Your acting is clumsy. Before that, the script was a mess to begin with.”
Since I focused on landing a blow on the enemy, I didn't separately keep in mind what kind of influence my action would have on Park So-yul's psychology.
Did I take the appropriate action without even knowing it myself?
The alarm I had hoped for so much resonated in my head.
[Park So-yul recognizes you as an ally.]
[Copied Park So-yul's ability.]
[Acquired the 'ability to turn one's own bodily fluids into blades' (excluding urination).]
[This ability can only be used while Park So-yul recognizes you as an ally.]
One of the few 2nd-rank abilities.
I obtained the ability to turn bodily fluids into blades.
At first, I had won the 5th rank, but now I have been reborn as a player who can stand shoulder to shoulder with a 2nd-rank ability user.
This was soon the beginning of the scenario change.