Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Game or Not a Game (3)

***

It was a broadcast playing from a computer screen.

-First, first, let’s calm down and talk this through.

-Talk, my ass. Didn’t you hear, mister? Why are you so slow to grasp the situation? What the hell did you hear before coming here?

-You, young man, have been speaking in a very unpleasant way for a while now!

-Excuse me! Misters. This really isn’t the time to be having some childish kids’ fight, okay?

It was the sight of three men and women raising their voices at one another.

But that only lasted for a moment. Before long, they had no choice but to notice what had not been visible until now.

-Grrrrrk!

Its appearance was like something between a lizard and a crocodile standing on two feet…… a creature one might call an upright-walking reptile.

It was even gripping a wooden spear and shield in both hands, while its vertically slit eyes flashed fiercely.

-……Huh!

-Wh-What is that thing?!

-Don’t push me! H-Hiiik!

The man who still had his head working quickly drew his sword.

-A monster…….

-Mon…… what?

-It’s a monster!

The man who spoke the word monster was trembling uncontrollably.

-Don’t get scared. Grab your weapons first, you frustrating people!

They belatedly drew their swords and tried to face it, but by then, they had already been surrounded on all sides.

-N-No!

-Kyaaaaaak!

“This feels real.”

The three of them swung their weapons wildly at the monsters tightening the encirclement around them and resisted, but it was useless.

-Don’t come near me, you…… Uaaaagh……!

-Ah!

-Urrrrgh!

Surrounded on all sides, they were pierced through by blind wooden spears and collapsed, and along with a “Game Over” display, their corpses turned to ash and scattered into the air.

“Is this a movie? What is it?”

The man who had been sitting in front of the computer until then scratched his chin and tilted his head.

-This is the highlight footage of the first eliminated candidates.

-If you want to see more footage, log in right now!

“That’s it?”

It felt as if the noodles of jajangmyeon he had been swallowing had stuck in his throat.

“Why are they showing stuff like this at lunchtime and killing my appetite…… Anyway, those internet broadcasting station bastards make everything provocative, always provocative. What is this country coming to?”

The cause was a banner ad that had suddenly popped up while he was surfing the internet.

-A real broadcast you have never seen before. A real channel. Will you join the Heroes on their adventures?

-lilical.BRAVER.ma.kr Korean server, Grand Open!

-Do not miss it!

At first, he had thought it was some cheap new mobile game.

But the place he had clicked without much thought was, unexpectedly, an unidentified internet broadcasting station.

“No, seriously.”

Something felt strange.

-If you wish to sponsor, please purchase Hero Tickets according to the guide below.

-Each and every bit of your precious interest will gather to protect the peace of the whole universe.

“What kind of broadcast is this……?”

***

After leaving the swamp, Min-jun moved carefully through the undergrowth.

‘So this is a tropical rainforest.’

It was unbelievably sticky, as though moisture filled the entire air. Pushing through the waist-high grass was not easy, either.

‘They want me to catch 1,000 monsters in a place like this?’

Monsters?

A thousand of them?

Min-jun could only sneer.

‘This isn’t that kind of game.’

-Eliminated: Go Ha-young (death by monster)

-Eliminated: Jeong Su-a (death by monster)

-Eliminated: Lee Hun (death by monster)

-……(omitted)…….

-Eliminated: Kim Yu-ran (death by falling rocks)

-Total participants: 5,000

-Current participants: 2,139

Just look at the number that had decreased in that short time.

The guide messages that had been appearing intermittently for a while were filled entirely with information about eliminated candidates.

Every time he exhaled once, three or four people were being cut down.

After seeing that, could anyone think of killing 1,000 monsters?

-Subjugation Success: Ju Na-yun (monster hunt successful)

-Subjugation Success: Yu A-yeong (monster hunt successful)

-Subjugation Success: Yu A-yeong (monster hunt successful)

In rare cases, an alarm did appear when someone succeeded in subjugating a monster.

However, the number was far below the number of eliminated candidates.

It was proof that people still had not adapted to this game.

‘First, surviving comes first.’

Min-jun judged that the correct answer was to focus more on survival than hunting.

That was exactly why he moved carefully through the undergrowth with all his senses on edge.

‘In a game like this, lasting longer is the way to win. Survival comes before subjugation.’

Avoiding danger was the best policy, was it not?

‘I need to move as safely as possible to a place where lots of participants have gathered…….’

Grrrrrk……!

For an instant, his blood ran cold.

A low, phlegmy sound rang in his ears.

Grrrrrrrr…….

Not once, but twice. It was a chilling voice, like something scraping up from the very bottom with a pitchfork.

‘That isn’t a human voice.’

Something was nearby.

He lowered his posture as much as possible and held his breath.

‘They say life never goes according to plan.’

He lay completely flat beneath the grass.

He sharpened every sensation in his body.

Rustle.

Min-jun’s ears twitched. Among the insect cries and animal sounds coming from every direction in the forest, he began to feel an unfamiliar presence.

Urrrrrrr.

There was no doubt.

It was close.

Min-jun carefully drew his sword.

‘It’s getting closer.’

It might be a creature with some other developed sense.

Even if he hid his body, he could not hide his smell.

It was the moment an ominous premonition dominated his mind.

Grrrrrr…….

Suddenly.

A black shadow wavered between the grass.

It was moving along while sweeping the ground with its hunched back.

Close. It would reach this place soon.

‘Damn it. At a time like this…….’

-Son, when you hunt, do not hesitate.

It was a hair-trigger situation.

The nature of a gaming junkie began to activate.

‘How am I remembering game content even at a time like this?’

It must have been a game based on Norse mythology.

A scene where a father taught his son how to hunt a beast. That was what flashed through Min-jun’s mind at this moment.

-The moment hesitation flows down to your fingertips, you become the one being hunted. Aim for the moment when it has not noticed you and cut off its breath in one strike.

Rustle.

When it brushed past his eyes once more.

‘If I hesitate, I’ll be the one who gets killed!’

Min-jun kicked off the ground without hesitation.

Swaaash-!

With the tip of his sword aimed forward, he closed the distance in an instant.

‘Fast!’

His body condition was absurdly good.

His strength and elasticity were on a different level from before.

As Min-jun shot forward with terrifying force, the grass split helplessly to either side of him, and the identity of “that thing” was revealed before his eyes.

It looked like a bipedal wild dog.

Its ash-gray eyes opened wide and looked toward him.

Kiiiiiik!

It reacted in alarm, but Min-jun’s sword was a little faster.

The hilt he thrust out with all his strength buried deep into the thing’s shoulder. The sensation of joints splitting with a crunch traveled up to his fingertips.

Keeeeeng!

It writhed in pain and let out a shriek.

‘This is a monster!’

Min-jun gritted his teeth and pulled out the sword.

“You should have died in one hit……!”

When he stabbed the sword in again, the thing opened its huge maw and bit the tip of the blade.

“Urgh!”

Its jaw strength was tremendous, to the point that it was hard to believe it had been wounded.

The sword was caught in its mouth and would not budge.

‘What kind of strength is this……!’

It was truly a monster.

It was not on the level of an animal.

If the surprise attack had not worked, Min-jun was certain that his own name would have been on the next eliminated list.

“Just die peacefully, please!”

He put his weight into it and drove the blade in all at once.

Kiiik-!

The sound of teeth grinding away.

It was the moment the tip of the sword plunged deep into the creature’s maw.

Ke…… ek…….

The thing that had been thrashing soon let its limbs go limp.

-Jungle Kobold: Subjugation Success

“Jungle Kobold?”

Was that the monster’s name?

Min-jun steadied his ragged breathing and looked down at his forearm.

Blood was dripping from a red wound he did not know when he had received, but there was no pain.

‘It doesn’t hurt. This definitely isn’t reality. It’s a game.’

Rather than feeling shocked at the wound, he felt relieved.

The fact that there was no pain was a good sign.

-Level increased.

-Stats have increased slightly.

That was when another message appeared before his eyes, along with the feeling of his condition recovering.

-Level: 2

-Subjugations: 1

‘What is this now?’

He could not help being flustered.

He knew this was a game, but he had never imagined that they would even have a leveling system prepared.

‘Then that changes things again, doesn’t it?’

The existence of levels implied a great many things.

‘I can’t just sit around doing nothing anymore.’

It was a level, was it not?

The higher it was, the better. No question about it.

-Subjugation Success: Han Do-un (monster hunt successful)

-Subjugation Success: Yu A-yeong (monster hunt successful)

At the perfect timing, someone else’s subjugation information appeared briefly and disappeared.

‘Competition…….’

The thought was long, but the conclusion was one.

He had to raise his level.

No matter what it took.

‘That doesn’t mean I can rush at any monster I see, though…….’

Min-jun looked at the place where the Jungle Kobold had collapsed.

Its limp body slowly turned into white ash and scattered into the air, and before long, it vanished without a trace.

Min-jun sank into thought.

‘Just how strong is that thing called a kobold among monsters?’

He could not know.

It felt maddening.

He could almost grasp the strategy for this game, but not quite.

‘There must be another way instead of this…… but I don’t know what that is.’

He had to find the answer.

For the sake of his lost leg, if nothing else.

Slide-!

It was right then.

‘There is something!’

Min-jun froze stiff in an instant.

He had sensed another presence nearby.

‘Another Jungle Kobold? Or else…….’

There was no time to think.

He quickly lay flat on the ground again.

The presence sounded fairly large, and it was approaching at high speed.

‘Damn it. Do I have to fight?’

It did not seem like this would be easy.

Between the swaying grass, a shadow larger than the one from earlier flickered.

There was no doubt.

It was bigger than the kobold.

‘Do not hesitate.’

Now, survival was not the only reason.

If he subjugated enemies, his level rose and his stats increased.

‘This is a game where the one discovered first loses no matter what.’

Min-jun swept the ground and picked up a lump of mud.

Without the slightest hesitation, he brought it to his face. He began spreading it thoroughly, like camouflage cream.

Between his clothes and on the nape of his neck, too.

He even clumped together rotten leaves and smeared them all over himself.

‘This much is nothing.’

If it was to fix his injured ankle, he could do worse things than this.

If he made this kind of dark camouflage, the chance that the enemy would find him would decrease.

-If there is one item most advantageous in a survival game, wouldn’t it be a camouflage coat?

It was a famous strategy.

As Min-jun had staked his life on games, there was no way he would not know it.

‘Come.’

Crouched low like a beast, he gripped the hilt of his sword.

His legs were bent like springs, ready to shoot out at any moment.

Splash-!

When the shadow approaching through the grass arrived right in front of him with a heavy footstep, Min-jun sprang up like an arrow.

“Gasp!”

“Wh-What the hell?”

The eyes of the two people who met in midair shook for an instant.

Squelch-!

Min-jun’s sword buried itself straight into the other party’s chest.

The problem was that it was not a monster, but a person similar to himself.

An innocent man’s chest.

“Kuhuuuuk!”

“Huh……?”

“What…… the hell…… are you…… doing…….”

“No, I, that’s not…… I thought you were a monster……!”

“Call an ambulance, you son of a……!”

“A-An ambulance? There isn’t really a way to call an ambulance right now…….”

“……bitch!”

The man’s words ended there. After collapsing to the ground, he soon turned into white ash and disappeared.

‘Wh-What?’

Min-jun wore a bewildered expression.

‘I stabbed a person…….’

Strictly speaking, this was not “murder.”

Even if someone died here, they would only be eliminated from the game. It was not as if a person really died.

They would simply lose their memories and return to their original life.

‘Even so, this is a little…….’

Naturally, the experience of stabbing a person did not feel pleasant.

His arms and legs trembled faintly.

-Eliminated: Kang Jin-su (death by player)

“Don’t tell me this is counted as PK.”

Since it was a cause of death that had not appeared until now, it seemed Min-jun was probably the first person to commit PK.

-Level increased.

-Stats have increased slightly.

-Absorbing “Kang Jin-su’s” experience and subjugation data.

-Level: 4

-Subjugations: 4

“What is this now?”

He was met with a message he had not expected.