Shortly afterwards, Bihyung appeared in the air.
[Ohu, you have voted for a representative. Then let's start the game!]
[The fourth main scenario is activated!]
+
[Main Scenario #4 – Struggle for the Flag]
Category: Main
Difficulty: C
Clear Conditions: (Hidden because there are many contents)
Time Limit: 12 days.
Compensation: 2,000 coins.
Failure: ???
+
Jung Heewon thought for a moment before opening her mouth.
"…We have to keep our flag and flagpole while putting our flag in other stations. Am I understanding it right?"
The group talked, finally coming to a conclusion.
"Then we should split the group. How about a few people guarding this place while others go to scout?"
[The activation of the scenario will turn off Chungmuro Station's safety borders.]
[You can now freely move to other stations.]
As Kim Dokja went to chat with Gong Pildu, Van turned his head toward the tunnels.
Through his mana senses, he could feel people approaching.
Bang!
Noise was heard from the tunnel.
There was a loud horn sound and headlights shone on the railway of line 4. There was a bike engine sound and an exhaust sound. The group realized that something was coming towards Chungmuro.
In the darkness, the headlights turned off and people's voices resounded.
"Ah, we finally made it to Chungmuro."
"Really, it took them a long time to break the scenario."
"Hey, be quiet. They are going to hear. And don't you know that the scenarios are different between stations?"
That explained things.
Van took out another cigarette from his coat.
The people coming toward them were carrying weapons. From experience, he could also tell that they didn't have any good intentions.
At that moment, a familiar voice echoed in their ears.
"Stop there."
Yoo Sangah's eyes widened in surprise before she happily exclaimed, "Gehrman-ssi! Since when did you wake up?"
At some point, Gehrman had regained consciousness and now stood behind them.
Except for Shin Yoosoung, nobody had noticed his presence.
Kim Dokja felt the madman's gaze sweep over him and had chills. Fortunately, Gehrman soon refocused his attention on the newcomers.
Before he could answer Yoo Sangah, the others spoke.
"Eh? Well well."
Gehrman glared at them, looking as threatening as ever.
No, he even seemed in a worse mood than usual.
"Wait a minute. Calm down. Oh, I can't even talk because I am too scared," the intruder claimed.
Gehrman's face didn't change. These were clearly mocking words.
"Don't be too wary. We didn't come here to fight."
"Then why did you come?"
"Let's start with the introductions. I'm Kang Ilhun and I help manage the Dongdaemun Group."
Then, there was a moment of silence.
Kang Ilhun looked at Gehrman with slight impatience.
"Your name is…?"
"Gehrman Sparrow."
"Ah, Gehrman-ssi…?"
A flash of wonder crossed Kang Ilhun's face as he heard the name. It wasn't what he was supposed to hear.
However, with this rude attitude and threatening aura, he clearly fit the description… Was he using a fake name?
But he was indeed less handsome than he had heard, and the prophets didn't mention that Yoo Joonghyuk wore gold-rimmed glasses. He also couldn't see his sword.
Was it a different person after all?
Although it was brief, Kim Dokja mentally noted the man's change in expression.
"Nice to meet you, Gehrman-ssi."
Then, Kang Ilhun turned to Kim Dokja, his gaze inquisitive.
"Since you have a flag, you must be a station representative?"
"That's right."
The reader guessed that he wanted to know his name.
"My name is Kim Dokja."
Kang Ilhun looked troubled.
Still not Yoo Joonghyuk?
Kim Dokja decided to use his skill on the man.
[The exclusive skill, 'Character List', is activated.]
Since the skill worked, he was certainly a character in the novel.
'Huh?'
His gaze stopped on a particular line in Kang Ilhun's character information.
…Was there such a person in Ways of Survival?
With such a powerful sponsor, shouldn't this incarnation have become famous? It was surprising that Kim Dokja didn't remember him.
[Constellation Sponsor: Commander of the Red Cosmos]
At that moment, Kang Ilhun staggered back.
"…You."
Kim Dokja turned his head and saw the shock on his face.
[The constellation, 'Commander of the Red Cosmos', shows hostility.]
The reader followed Kang Ilhun's line of sight. At the end of his gaze, there was…
Gehrman Sparrow.
"At only the beginning of the scenarios, you killed so many people…"
Kim Dokja understood what had happened.
Eye of Sin. Jophiel's stigma that can view the accumulated sins of a person and judge them as good or evil.
With it, Kang Ilhun must have looked at Gehrman Sparrow's kill count.
…Somehow, knowing someone with a kill count high enough to shock Jophiel's incarnation was among them wasn't that reassuring.
"This is…"
Would the archangels become hostile to them due to this incident?
On the side, Yoo Sangah and Lee Hyunsung looked at Gehrman Sparrow with uncertainty. Jung Heewon watched the situation with mild amusement. They probably didn't understand what was happening.
Meanwhile, understanding the skill Kang Ilhun had used, Van unnoticeably stepped back, trying to be as invisible as he could among the other group members.
…He didn't know how 'high' Gehrman Sparrow's skill count was, but his was most likely higher and he didn't want it known.
Like, at least in the tens of thousands?
Thinking about the unknown number of people he killed, Van also added magic to be sure he wouldn't be seen. Who knew if target resistance would really block the skill when Lie Detection had worked on him? It wouldn't hurt to be cautious.
"More than fifty victims…"
The person in question—Gehrman Sparrow—was thoughtful.
'…Did I really kill so many pirates?'
At the same time, it was also less than he had expected.
Jung Heewon caught on as well. Dumbfounded, she addressed Kim Dokja.
"Don't tell me he has a skill that can see other people's kill count?"
Kim Dokja nodded.
Then, people around him fell silent. They realized that 'more than fifty' referred to the number of people Gehrman Sparrow had killed.
Jung Heewon stepped back from the madman.
'Now I look like some kind of serial killer,' Klein lampooned.
…Or was he? Come to think of it, didn't periodically hunting pirates somehow count as serial killing?
Klein's thoughts strayed.
At that moment, someone with a flag approached the flag pole. The hidden people who had come with Kang Ilhun's group had taken advantage of the distraction to try to seize control of their station.
Inside the tunnel, Van could also feel some people waiting in ambush, their murderous intent badly concealed.
It wasn't hard to guess what the newcomers' goal was.
Noticing the person approaching the flag pole, Gehrman Sparrow belatedly reacted. Although he had also seen the people hiding in the tunnel with his Spirit Vision, he had been lost in thought for a moment due to Kang Ilhun's actions. The fact that he was injured and still exhausted from the previous fight didn't help.
'My spirituality is nearly depleted…'
Kang Ilhun had accurately grasped the station members' strength and the danger they represented. Gehrman Sparrow was indeed dangerous, but he was also obviously injured, and that fact was easy to notice. At Kang Ilhun's signal, his hidden colleagues had discreetly taken action.
Klein raised his fingers like a gun, making the other group members finally realize that there was a problem, but Van was faster.
A man wearing a red flag around his head like a bandana yelled, "Push through to the flag-"
He must be the other group's station representative.
Then, a scream erupted behind the man. One of his subordinates' arms turned blue, oppressed by an unknown force, before exploding. The subordinate shed tears due to the pain.
At the same time, the Myeongdong representative's words were cut off.
He felt an unknown pressure pressing down on him, making it impossible to breathe. Despite his high stats, a huge strength was tightening around his torso, increasing in intensity more and more.
Crack.
Sickening sounds resounded around him, but it was easy to guess what had caused it without looking. The Myeongdong representative felt his ribs crack before his eyes started to see blood. Around him, some people's heads visibly flattened, the eyes coming closer to the mouth in real time, while others fell to the floor under the influence of overwhelming gravity, their skull crushed as it pressed against the ground.
The subordinates' limbs exploded exploded left and right, and some people's necks broke until their heads fell off and rolled on the floor—offering a spectacle somehow as gruesome as Gehrman Sparrow's fight. The onlookers' faces became pale as they saw the scene.
Then, there was silence. No survivor was left of those who had been rushing at the flag pole.
It was all solved in an instant.
However, contrary to Gehrman Sparrow's fight, this carnage wasn't done by or to monsters…
But by humans, to other humans.
Slowly, some people's gazes turned to the mage responsible for their attackers' deaths, while others desperately avoided looking at him.
Whether from Chungmuro station or not, everyone was engulfed in fear.
Kim Dokja had chills.
An unreadable look on his face, Van lowered his hand.
'…I underestimated the extent of my mana reserves.'
He had accidentally killed them while trying to take the opponents hostage.
At first, he threw gravity magic toward the enemy. However, when he grabbed someone's arm, the other person resisted more than he thought and Van noticed that people's body composition was stronger than ordinary people in this apocalypse due to the possibility to increase stats.
So, he had increased the output of the gravity magic he was using and grabbed others to take them hostage—either by the neck, torso, limbs, or other body parts; twisting the gravity around them in different directions to get used to the gravity magic system again… but he inadvertently raised the output too much.
It was due to having spent all his points on magical power the previous night, making the stat in question significantly higher than before—since he had only been throwing around lightning to crush opponents, the control the lightning and gravity systems demanded was also different, and he had only mastered control over his lightning for now…
Van belatedly realized his oversight.
Despite having trained in the underground tunnels by experimenting with his different magic systems against ground rats before, having his stat not even increase by a little but multiply had reset everything.
"…"
Van looked at the dead men's bodies, a subtle look in his eyes.
Behind him, Jung Heewon's voice resounded, "You didn't need to kill them…"
Yoo Sangah and Lee Hyunsung stared at the bloodbath with pale faces, horrified, while Kim Dokja had the Fourth Wall offset the mental shock for him. Kang Ilhun was also keeping his mouth shut in fear and Gehrman covered the scene with an illusion for Shin Yoosoung while the reader remembered to block Lee Gilyoung's sight.
'Was he really a criminal before coming here?'