chapter 183

At last!

A smirk spread across my face.

The decisive card that would take out Martin was finally in my hand.

“Have you secured her?”

—Not yet. There’s a slight problem that’s come up.

“A problem?”

—The humans are requesting that we publicly reveal information about the Holy Woman. It seems they got wind of what we’re doing…

I tilted my head. How could it be that the humans had gained information on the Holy Woman? Seeing that I hadn’t received any reports of this before, I asked Krithli.

“How did this happen?”

—It seems they captured alive one of the vampires that were under Martin’s command.

“Vampires are a bunch with high self-regard. Much more, it seems they probably wouldn’t easily confess information related to their dungeon master.”

—They may have used the drug and many different skills. The awakened heroes possess many skills that even we don’t know about.

Assuredly.

There were many humans.

And each of them possessed different skills.

They felt totally different from the monsters who had become slightly uniform.

“They won’t have made this move all of a sudden. There’s got to be a boss leading them.”

—Yes, my Dungeon Master. The Guild of Heaven’s Will and Yoo Eunhye are taking leadership of them.

Smack. I hit my forehead.

There was no way that the affairs of the world would all go according to my plans, but why did it have to be those two?

And I also understood that if it was they who were leading the way, Krithli was not easily able to move against them.

“What to do?”

I worried for a moment. The situation with the Holy Woman was still a top secret to humans. This was because even I didn’t have much specific information about the Holy Woman, and I needed her to catch Martin.

If the Holy Woman fell into the hands of the humans, there was a slight worry that my plans could be warped.

“There’s a possibility that Martin also has noticed this.”

I was more troubled about Martin.

In Martin’s case, he was keeping his eyes and ears open compared to the other humans. Things were quiet now. However, if the facts about the Holy Woman became widespread and made their way to Martin’s ears, he would certainly go after Roy and Rose, and Krithli might be insufficient to take him by herself.

“Has the Holy Woman awoken?”

—She has not. And while it is somewhat faint, I have confirmed her pure godly power. Since it was enough for Tashumal to recognize it, I wonder whether that isn’t certain.

There was no one among the monsters currently under my command, including myself, who would match Tashumal in his ability to see someone’s godly power. If he had recognized it, then the chance that he had the disposition of the Holy Woman was very high.

‘I’ll need some sure way to move their attention away from her,’ I thought.

In particular, from the awakened heroes of the humans…

Just as I was gaining power, there was a trend that seemed to escape my calculations.

I was fine if they made independent judgments, so long as they at least existed within my boundaries of control.

If they tried to go outside my area of control, then there was no reason for me to take care of them.

“Krithli, let Roy and Rose know this. Since there’s going to be a large-scale attack by the monsters, tell them to ‘predict’ it first.”

—You say…predict it?

“Even though they’re fake prophets, what they’re going to tell is real. They’ll be suitable as beings to make the humans act, right?”

What was more, I had a way to make Martin flinch.

‘Those humans…they’re really ignoring the fact that there are dungeons in Korea, too,’ I thought.

Was it because things had been so quiet up until now?

It seemed I needed to impress on them yet again that there were beings right beside them that they couldn’t defy.

Also, with this strategy, I was determined to make Martin more agonized within himself.

The dungeon needed to be restructured. This was due to the fact that the structure had been altered, and changes in the monsters’ ecosystem had also appeared. I needed to replace them about now, and, fortunately, the time was right.

In that time, Roy had come to stand amidst the humans as a ‘prophet’.

“When the largest moon floats up to the highest place, the gates of hell will be opened, and lions will spring forth. The lions are evil ones who will block the way and rip all who come to pieces and swallow them whole. But they cannot harm the tree that has shouldered both good and evil at the same time. Oh, humans! All of you, please go near the two trees. We must wait there for evil to pass us by.”

A child of the savior was prophesying…

This was the first time that had happened. Roy’s expression was touching, and, at least to the humans, his words had the greatest impact of anyone after the savior and Kirin.

Roy’s words quickly spread throughout Seoul, and people started to gather near the sides of the Trees of Life and Death.

Then, on that night, the moon grew full.

A group of monsters around 50,000 escaped from the dungeon.

What would be the representative monster of Korea’s dungeon?

First, there was the saber tiger. It had the greatest number, and its character was incredibly aggressive. Average monsters were simply pierced and die by its extremely long fangs.

While I had been gone, the white tigers had died in battle while fiercely fighting with the other demons. However, the black tigers came right after them.

What was more, it wasn’t just one of the black tigers. As many as seven of them had been born during that time. Even without the white tigers, seven of the black tigers, which were high level 4 monsters, more than filled the vacuum they had left.

There were as many as 20 red tigers, a high level 3 monster, and the number of the saber tigers alone reached 3,000.

The monster that maintained the next highest population was the minotaur. There were 2,200 of them! Even though they didn’t have any particular qualities, there was no being that was better suited to making its enemies shake in terror.

Of course, these figures were excluding the lowest monsters and the low monsters. This was because the orcs or goblins had reproductive rates that went far beyond imagining.

There were more of the dark bears, mammothdons, and other beast class of monsters than any other. This probably meant that they were that much more suited to the dungeon’s nature. In any case, for this campaign, I completely took out the lowest monsters and the low monsters.

The number of monsters above the intermediate level surpassed 50,000. It was an overwhelming quantity that had come out of just one dungeon!

The monsters at once went to attack the area of the forest. After this, I directed them around the city of Seoul and its surrounding area in dramatic fashion.

***

Kim Youra wept.

Living day-by-day as one who had lost her family and even “herself” due to the monsters was exceedingly difficult. Her face was disfigured from burns, and since she had injured her back, the lower half of her body was paralyzed. Her eyesight was also extremely poor, such that she couldn’t distinguish anything that wasn’t directly in front of her.

Could that be all?

She had also lost most of her hair.

To put it simply, she was on the edge of life simply because she could not die.

Despite all this, her reason for going on was because of her younger sister, the only one of her family still living.

She had attempted suicide a few times, but, each time, she barely held out her life because of her sister who would surely die next if she did.

Her sister, who was two years younger, did whatever work came along to stay alive however she could. Although ever since the world had taken on this appearance, it seemed like there was hardly any legitimate work. In the morning, she did manual labor; and in the evening, she escaped quietly so Kim Youra wouldn’t notice and did “night work” for the awakened ones.

Her younger sister really thought Kim Youra didn’t notice it, but she knew about it. If it weren’t for that, there would be no way for her younger sister to put three meals on the table each day, as she didn’t know how to do anything else.

What was more, they had found a considerably nice-looking shack, even though it was on the outskirts of town. People in the area just heard something suggesting that they had been able to afford it because an awakened hero from a famous guild had accommodated her younger sister and could guess what that meant.

“Oh, oh, dear… Why is that?”

Kim Youra opened her mouth with great difficulty. After her gums had melted, even words didn’t come out right. She thought that if there was a hell, it would be this place. Yet, she was more worried about her younger sister standing in front of her than herself.

Her younger sister, Kim Minji, was wounded all over. Her face was puffy, and she had bruises on her eyes. Her hair was also tangled, and there was clearly blood smeared on the sides of her mouth.

“It’s nothing. Sister, it’s more important that we get out of here right now.”

“What?”

“They said the child of the savior gave a prophecy. Monsters will soon attack this whole area. We have to flee quickly to the place where the two trees are. Other people have already left.”

After getting Kim Youra into a wheelchair, Kim Minji then began forcibly pushing her out.

As soon as they got out of the shack, just as Kim Minji had said, one by one, people were taking their belongings and moving.

In contrast, they had brought nothing but themselves. They had succeeded in their effort to join with other people however they could, but that was it.

The procession was unendingly long, and their pace was slow. On top of that, Kim Youra was in an injured condition. In this state, it wouldn’t be enough even if she received treatment as soon as possible—as she was forcibly pushed the wheelchair, a sickly smell continuously came out of her mouth.

Kim Youra wanted to tell Minji to leave her and just go on as she was, but she knew that kind of talk would only make it more difficult for her. All Kim Youra could do for her sister was to just be quiet.

That was how the first part of the day passed, and they arrived in the evening.

The line stopped briefly, and Minji straight away fell asleep leaning on the wheelchair.

“These…bastards… I’ve got…money somehow… I’m going to heal…my sister no matter what…”

Kim Youra burst into tears hearing her younger sister’s sleep talking. With all of her strength, she lifted her hand, stroked Kim Minji’s cheek, and prayed.

‘Please, at least let my younger sister live peacefully in this hellish world.’

But it didn’t take her long to realize that it was all a dream.

The problems started immediately the next day.

She was parched. She was starving, and her head was spinning.

But since they had just come with the clothes on their backs, they had nothing to eat or drink.

Kim Youra endured it.

Rumble!

However, the one part of her abnormal body seemed to be working well, of all things, was her stomach.

“Sister, are you hungry? Just wait. I’ll at least try to find something for you to drink.”

Kim Minji licked her cracked lips and moved in and out between the other people. But she only received cold expressions. As long as there was no way to tell how far this procession stretched, there was no one who would willingly share their provisions.

The kind people had already mostly perished. This was a world where that kind of talk went back and forth. It was understandable. The lives of the others were important, too, and there were also those of them that had families.

In the end, all she was able to get that night was a little bit of grass porridge that other people had left over.

“I’m sorry, Sister. I’ll definitely find you something to eat tomorrow.”

Kim Youra shook her head. She thrust out her bowl and offered it, but Kim Minji refused.

“I ate a little bit when I brought it back. If you don’t eat it, I’ll just throw it out.”

Her younger sister, Kim Minji, was the kind of person who really did what she said she would. With nothing else to do, Kim Youra ate the grass porridge and left a single spoonful as if to say she was full.

Then, as soon as she closed her eyes, she heard a rustling noise. She stealthily opened her eyes, and her younger sister was applying makeup with some equipment she had packed sometime before they left.

“Aaah…”

Kim Youra closed her eyes again.

She thought that this world truly was hell.

The next morning, they were able to safely eat something. It was only one sweet potato and a container of spring water, but perfectly sweet to them.

“We just need to go a bit further. Sister, you’ve never seen Kirin, have you? There’s no one more beautiful than her in the whole world. If you see her, you might just fall in love at first sight, I think? They say the children of the savior are also very cute. I’ve seen them from afar once or twice before.”

Kim Minji, who was pushing the wheelchair, was so excited that she kept chatting away.

The closer the center appeared, the more relieved she looked.

“It’s such a shame that you’ve never seen the savior before. From what I hear, they say he’s a very gruff person. But on the other hand, he’s incredibly handsome and the strongest person in the world. Teehee! Do you think he’s like a knight in shining armor?”

The savior…

Her younger sister had a particularly great interest in the man they called the savior.

If he were a modern-day knight in shining armor, then she must think of him as a kind of rescuer who would one day save herself from this hellish place.

Kim Youra, on the other hand, was skeptical.

There was no way that kind of person was left in the world.

All the good people already died. Now the only nice person as far as she cared was just her younger sister.

“It’s a vampire!”

Just then, a scream rose up from the head of the line, and people started running back.

“S-sister!”

As people began to run hastily, the wheelchair was also in danger.

It was all she could do to barely stay standing.

Crash!

Bang! Bang!

Then about half of a building collapsed and hit something else, triggering an explosion.

The debris from the building fell in all directions, and…

“Watch out!”

Kim Minji pushed the wheelchair as if she were trying to throw it.

As a result, Kim Youra fell out of her wheelchair. Fortunately, she was able to retain her life.

“Ah…”

She had retained her life, but, in exchange, Minji was pinned under fragments of iron.

Her back was split in two, and she only made a gasping sound and looked over at her sister.

“Ah…aaah!”

Kim Youra placed both her hands on the ground. Since her legs couldn’t move, she had no other way.

But the moment she got to her, Kim Minji lowered her head.

“Aaah!”

Kim Youra clutched her sister’s face with all her strength and tried to shake her. But someone whose life had already ended wasn’t going to raise their head again.

At that moment, all her memories with her younger sister passed before her in a flash.

Minji, who had sacrificed so much for her, was not a child who was supposed to fall like this without even getting to see a glimpse of the light.

She hated it. She hated everything. Why did all the good people have to die? And why had the gods made a world where only bad people could survive?

At the same time, a light began to waver in the area around Kim Youra.

Before long, this light swallowed up everything else around her.

***

“So this is how she awakens.”

Her enormous godly power…

My skin tingled.

I had been observing Kim Youra secretly for the past several days to confirm whether she was the Holy Woman.

And now she had finally awakened.

It was common when people awoke for all the monsters in the area to be unable to withstand this light and be extinguished. In fact, about three of the vampires were swept up by the light and had disappeared.

It was fearsome enough that even I, who had ascended to the realm of transcendence, felt my skin prickle with heat.

“But her awakening is incomplete,” I muttered.

I slowly approached her.

Considering that she was the Holy Woman, her disgusting visage was unchanged. Is it because she was awakened through her hatred for the world?

On the contrary, the intense pressure of her holy power was causing a bubble to rise over her whole body.

In this condition, she would soon self-destruct.

That was why it was termed an incomplete awakening.

If I were to stop the congestion, I needed to remove her state of intense emotion.

So then…I quietly moved toward her.

“Do you want to save her?” I said this then, looking at Kim Youra’s younger sister who was cut in half.