Editor: Tide, Rektsatan,

[Baek Sung-woong]

“Who do you want to kill?” asked Yong-yong. It was as if he were asking what her name was before he read the fortune. The problem was the question’s content.

Who do you want to kill?

This was what Yong-yong had uttered. These words made me shudder. Yong-yong saying words like ‘kill’ felt unnatural.

The woman’s body reflexively stiffened up. She, who had asked if she could achieve her goal, stared hostilely at Yong-yong as soon as she heard Yong-yong’s question

I knew Yong-yong’s power and ability. Of course, I didn’t know everything, but I knew quite a lot compared to other challengers. I was confident. That’s why I knew I would be of little help to Yong-yong if anything happened. However, I couldn’t just watch them, doing nothing.

I had to do something. I tried to pull off the cloth that was blocking my way to stand in between Yong-yong and the woman.

My heart wanted to protect him. Shortly after the cloth was removed, I noticed that my body could not move. It was as if invisible shackles had latched me into place. Flinching was not even an option. My arm ached when I tried to shift it, and my lips throbbed when I forced them apart. It was as if my skin and muscles were tightly bound by an invisible force that pierced my body whenever I attempted to budge.

“No one,” the woman replied. She was staring intensely at Yong-yong, but from her attitude, it seemed likely that she would continue the conversation, rather than attack him.

Did she want me to stay out of their conversation? But that didn’t mean I’d comply with her wishes. There was always something I could do, no matter how immobile my body was.

[Baek Sung-woong, 89th floor: Sir, this is an emergency.]

I requested rescue teams and combat teams of the Order of Vigilance to be dispatched.

It would be a weaker dispatch compared to last year, but it would be better than nothing. There was also a 90th-floor Hard Difficulty challenger, in the militant group, so I was sure it would be of some help.

First, after I did what I could, I focused again on the conversation between Yong-yong and the woman. I was the only witness to this conversation, and I needed to remember this.

“Then what do you want to kill?” Yong-yong asked again.

Is it possible that what she wants to kill is not a person?

“I don’t want to kill anything. Why do you think I want to kill something?” asked the woman.

“Because Auntie wants to.”

“I’m not your Auntie, you little brat.”

Yong-yong didn’t answer the woman’s words, making her frown like she was offended by his silence. She continued, very firmly expressing her displeasure.

“Yes, I do want to kill something. I wish to kill this world.”

Are you a crazy bitch?

In the past, there used to be a lot of psychopaths in the Tutorial. When people thought they didn’t have a future, they went insane, swinging their weapons madly. I heard that the Order of Vigilance was troubled by daily accidents back then and that some of those psychopaths were punished.

I thought that this woman fell into that category of psychopaths. Although the fact that one could go out soon had significantly reduced mental illness in the Tutorial, there were still some actual psychopaths. There was nothing strange about anyone who had a mental illness here.

“I want to cut off the restraints that bind me to this world,” said the woman. I could relate to that. It had been less than 30 seconds, but being tied up was a real pain.

“Sometimes, I feel like untying these restraints by just cutting off my wrists and ankles.”

That’s a little…

As expected, she was a madwoman.

“But that won’t untie all the restraints. Yeah, I want to kill as you said. If I kill everyone who’s tied me up, won’t I be free even if I can’t break the restraints? That’s what I think.”

The woman carried on with her stupid remarks. Yong-yong answered her question with no sign of disgust.

“Understood.”

“You understand?” The woman’s lips arched up in a smirk.

“How can a pretty little boy understand me?” she asked, mockery evident in her tone. She looked terrifying.

“That’s what everybody says,” she accused.

“Everyone says this?”

Unlike the woman, who seemed to be upset by something, Yong-yong remained calm.

“Because they’re all the same.” Rather than get enraged at Yong-yong’s words, the woman accepted it.

“They’re all the same. Yeah, you’re right. After all, I’m only thinking about myself and forcing others to accept. They’re all the same, indeed.”

The woman’s hands slammed the tabletop suddenly, creating a loud boom that reverberated in the tent. Her force would have made a hole in an iron plate, but much to my surprise, the table stayed intact. Neither Yong-yong nor the woman seemed interested in this fact.

“I was forced by a man into this sh*t. He urged me to move on. If he hadn’t, I would have become suicidal instead of forcing myself to survive on plain water and jerky. What else could I do? I had to move forward to survive. But since then, I haven’t been holding out well. I was forced to cheat, hurt, and kill. I couldn’t have survived if I didn’t do so. And now, here I am,” the woman spoke solemnly.

Each word of hers carried in a different tone.

“I’m grateful to Mister. He gave me the will to live and never forced me to do anything.”

Mister? Who was she talking about?

“But in the end, there was something he wanted from me. He didn’t care about me. After all, they’re all the same. I’m tired of everything now. I want to throw it all away,” the woman murmured. “The problem is, I can’t get over it. I can’t break these restraints with my strength.”

“So?” Yong-yong questioned.

“I need more trump cards.”

Yong-yong raised his hand and said, pointing to himself, “And that’s me.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be one,” Yong-yong replied, as if he were in a restaurant, commenting that he didn’t want to eat some side dishes.

The woman smiled at the remark, making me feel a sudden urge of deja vu. Her gruesome smile was eerily familiar, reminding me of when I interviewed new employees in the district. Yeah, that was the smile I saw there then. Of course, the smiles of the people left in my memory didn’t seem so eerie, but they had a similar expression.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I’ll take you even if you don’t want to.”

As the woman expressed her intention to kidnap, I shouted inwardly.

When’s the goddamn team coming?

This place was less than three minutes away from what the Order of Vigilance was using as headquarters.

The woman raised her hand, and a red dot appeared on it as if someone were pointing at it with a laser pointer. The space between her and Yong-yong fluctuated before anyone could identify the power. Someone had shown up, dividing the space between them.

* * * * * *

[Lee Hochi]

The place Park Jung-ah told me to go was a lounge next to the Order of Vigilance’s conference room. I assumed that Park Jung-ah was talking to Seo-hyeon. I was relieved that he was safe.

When I asked Ho-jae why I couldn’t reach Seok-hyeon, Ho-jae said Seok-hyeon must have died in an accident. And that it was normal. It was a cold-hearted response.

But apparently, his response was valid, and when I asked Park Jung-ah to find out where Seok-hyeon was, somehow, her attitude seemed no different from Ho-jae’s, which made me more anxious.

“Oh. You’re here?” asked Park Jung-ah.

It was as if a man lying inside a bathhouse was asking a friend who came late. Oh, of course, I had never been to a bathhouse, but that’s what it felt like. Park Jung-ah was getting more comfortable with me. I didn’t think we were that close yet, so I was still a bit awkward. Was it because of the difference in our age? Beside Park Jung-ah sat Seok-hyeon.

“Hi,” a boy awkwardly greeted me.

I had heard it many times, but this was my first time seeing it. He was very young. Seok-hyeon’s appearance was slightly unusual as the Tutorial did not summon young people under a certain age.

“Yes. Hi.”

I also said hello to Seok-hyeon. I was acting weird, too. We had talked a lot through messages, but seeing his face in person like this made me feel embarrassed.

Park Jung-ah left the room with a smile on her face. It only occurred to me later that her mischievous smile seemed to make fun of me.

* * * * * *

Fortunately, I was able to get close to Seok-hyeon quickly. No, it was safe to say that we were close, so we got into sync.

Seok-hyeon was stuck on a stage as expected. Among the stages of Easy difficulty, there was said to be a stage that was quite unusual.

“So the stage goal was to escort the prince and the princess till they get married, and remove all sources of danger. The danger is spread all over, and it’s a bit risky.”

That sounded easy. You had to wait for the danger to come, and if you solved it, it would be fine, right?

“I’ve challenged the stage many times.”

“You’ve tried it many times?”

“Yes.”

Seok-hyeon said he had already challenged the 72nd floor more than ten times. I couldn’t help but ask why.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun.”

Unlike other stages, the 72nd floor of Easy Difficulty had a luxurious lifestyle. Of course, there was a mission, but it was easy to clear. So Seok-hyeon explained that he was challenging it several times to recreate the feelings he had experienced there, almost like role-play.

“It’s fun. No matter what I do, the people don’t remember it the next time. Once I had a big fight with a man, but next time, he was friendly. Oh, there, I’m a wanderer who has gone into hiding. Also, everyone wants to be close to me because I’m so strong.”

The stage’s characteristics that no one knew anything about was enough to awaken a child’s curiosity. Seok-hyeon had tested everything he could do there.

The princess and prince’s marriage came to an end due to Seok-hyeon’s mischief, and he was unable to get out of the stage because of this complicated situation. Fortunately, with the help of the Order of Vigilance, he was able to return to the waiting room after failing.

Seok-hyeon, who had explained this to me, looked happy. I had seen something similar in the community before. Stages with pretty characters couldn’t be challenged repeatedly, so challengers memorized lines or the mission’s sequence. They also shared the location, the way to visit, how they spoke, the way they liked each other, and gifts. They spoke as if they were really enjoying the game, failing, and then meeting up the floor’s characters again while retrying the stage.

It was a disgusting thought. Ho-jae once thought the same. But then he looked at people on the floor who were repeating these incidents forever when the challengers met them again after failing to clear the stage. That was when Ho-jae could only feel sorry for them. Ho-jae had admitted that their deaths and lives were worthless and had no qualms about cutting them down, but they were not toys.

I saw that Seok-hyeon was still excited. This child was not particularly evil. But the attitude of others towards him was strange. Was that how people normally behaved? Or was I just different?

< Tournament Chapter (9) > End

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