< Chapter 19. City of Gwangmyeong (1) >
1.
The appearance of monsters destroyed humanity’s civilization in next to no time.
And humans became animals and monsters in that destroyed land without any civilization.
“Save, save me.”
The same thing was happening in the city of Gwangmyeong. Everything collapsed with the coming of the monsters.
The electricity was gone, no communication systems existed anymore. Petroleum and gasoline that kept mankind warm and prosperous became the fuel for burning people.
The lucky ones who survived in that mess became monsters in order to survive.
“What? A man?”
“I thought it was a woman, so lanky! F*ck I wasted my strength.”
“Ah, this jack*ss. Should have been caught earlier! Do you dare run away?”
Four men were surrounding a single guy within the cold deserted forest of buildings.
“So, sorry. Please don’t kill me…”
It wasn’t hard to see what was happening there or to anticipate what was about to happen.
Bam!
One of the four men kicked the guy laying on the floor in the head with feet encased in soccer cleats.
“Argg!”
Screaming the guy was pushed back further. It was miserable and pitiful but the man who kicked him did not feel any of that, just stomped on the guy’s chest. Pow! As if he were trying to break his ribs.
“Kakk!”
The man on the floor started trembling as he let out a gagging sound. His body was shaking from the pain and fear.
The four guys started to talk while looking at the man on the floor.
“He does look like a girl. F*ck! I ran my ass off to get some.”
“What should we do? Kill him here?”
“Just kill him. He wouldn’t be useful even if we bring him back to the base. Can’t get some either.”
“Who knows. Someone might be interested.”
“Isn’t it you who is interested?”
“Who do you think I am!”
“Be quiet! If monsters hear us then we’re all doomed.”
The man on the floor kept trying to talk even though he couldn’t breathe very well.
“Please, pl, please….”
But it backfired. One of the guys scrunched his face and looked at the one on the floor and said,
“He’s too noisy, why don’t we pull out his tongue first?”
The guy on the floor shut his mouth to that horrendous warning.
There was a moment of silence.
It was thanks to that silence that they could feel it.
“Uh?”
“Who, who’s there!”
The feeling of a man approaching near them in a very short period of time.
The man’s appearance was rather unique. He kind of looked like a SWAT team member because of the black leather armor he was wearing over dark navy colored clothes.
But he was never a member of a SWAT team. He had a few differences from a SWAT team, but the most distinguishable difference was what he was carrying on his back. He was carrying something that was clearly a sword.
He would have looked like a costume player, or an actor in a drama or something if it wasn’t for the destroyed world.
Well, it wasn’t a normal look even in the lawless cities without any civilization.
So everyone became nervous. In the previous world, people with funny outfits were just someone that would cause you to scrunch up your face, but in this new world, you didn’t know what those people who wore that kind of funny outfit would do.
“Who are you!”
One of them screamed.
Instead of a responding, the funny outfit guy lifted the thing he was holding in his hand and stroked it with his left hand.
Click!
It was a K5 pistol that made a loading noise as it chambered a round.
“Gu, gun?”
“Holy sh*t!”
They didn’t notice from the distance but the moment they knew it was the noise of a gun loading they freaked out and started to stepping back.
Because you didn’t need to actually experience a gun to know how powerful it was.
One of them manned up and shouted.
“We, we are with the Messiah! The Messiah!”
The atrocity.
The guy who was holding the gun grimaced. Maybe he knew what the Messiah was.
Was that why?
“They will get back at you if you do something to us!”
“Yeah! You’ll die!”
It became a threat now. Childish and immature, it was a threat that maybe kindergarten kids would throw out.
But it seemed like it worked. The gun was pointed down.
‘It, it worked?’
‘We’re saved!’
The four of them sighed in relief.
‘Huh?’
But one of them witnessed the gunman’s eyes turning completely black.
Psssh!
At the same time, three out of four of them were knocked to the floor along with a sound of something splitting the air.
Thud!
They fell with holes in their temples, each leaking brain fluid, and blood from the wound.
“Huh!”
As soon as the other guy realized that he started to piss his pants and made a choking sound.
“The Messiah…. I guess the naming of the survivors is the same everywhere.”
The man who was holding the gun, Kim Taehoon, spoke to himself with a bitter smile and put the gun back in the holster on his right leg.
He approached the last one who was now sitting on the floor due to the lack of strength in his legs and said.
“I have things to ask.”
And the guy answered back with the most desperate voice he could make.
“Please, don’t kill me.”
2.
Choi Gisoon was one of the survivors of the monster outbreak, that unexpected appearance of the monsters.
There were roughly two ways to stay alive in this monster outbreak. Either you kill the monster, or kill the humans.
Choi Gisoon chose the latter. He gathered people together and kept living along with them as an outlaw.
Rape, raid, kill.
If the police jurisdiction still functioned properly, they might have brought back the capital sentence for the crimes they were committing. Then the outlaws, who were committing those crimes, started to gather at one place.
That was how the group Messiah started. A group of people who plundered their fellow human beings instead of the monsters in order to survive in the world of monsters.
A group of people that would do anything to stay alive, or come up with all the possible ways to stay alive.
“That’s all I know. Please, please don’t kill me.”
Choi Gisoon, part of the Messiah, became an obedient sheep in front of a threat of death.
“I will never forget your generosity if you save my life. I won’t do anything wrong. Will do only good from now on.”
He even made a childish promise.
Kim Taehoon recalled the memories of the past three days while looking at Choi Gisoon.
The start of the memory was the moment he consumed the monster stone of the flame-spurt gator as the prize for the victory over it.
“Boss, emergency.”
While the other members of the guild were still cheering and screaming with joy and victory, Jang Sunghoon appeared with a serious look on his face.
“The green level monster disappeared from the map.”
With only a few words, Jang Sunghoon was able to make Kim Taehoon have the same serious face.
“The one in Gwangmyeong.”
As soon as he heard that Kim Taehoon forgot about the victory he had been enjoying.
At a nearby coffee shop, where they had to break the door in order to get in, he listened carefully to what Jang Sunghoon was telling him.
That the green light in Gwangmyeong on the map had disappeared out of the blue.
That the amount of time that Jang Sunghoon had not paid attention to the map was not very long.
“Either it has the ability to disappear from the map, it escaped the detectable range with great speed…”
Jang Sunghoon then told Kim Taehoon the possible options.
“Or someone killed it. It’s one of those in my opinion.”
Three possible cases.
But there was only one choice Kim Taehoon could make to deal with all the cases. To get into Gwangmyeong and see what was going on.
It was reasonable.
If the green level monster had the ability to disappear from the map, that meant that they couldn’t deal with the monster only with the Daedongyeojido map. They needed to do some research even if it was risky.
They also needed to check if the monster had gone away to a further place.
They had to secure the solar power generator factory and explore the area beforehand.
And for the last.
‘It wouldn’t be weird if there’s an awakened that would be stronger than me. All the awakened have different default stats. And if he or she had a powerful relic….’
If the green monster was killed by a powerful awakened, he also had to know about it too.
‘Or it could be the one who killed me in the future.’
The existence of an awakened that could kill a green level monster in such a short amount of time could be as equally dangerous as the green level monster itself.
So Kim Taehoon went into Gwangmyeong after getting prepared.
That was three days ago.
Kim Taehoon searched and investigated Gwangmyeong as sneakily as he could. He avoided having fights with monsters or contacting the survivors.
And just now he was sure that there was no green level monster nor an awakened that was expected to kill the green level monster in Gwangmyeong.
That was why Kim Taehoon came up to the surface.
“Really. I’d live as a good person if you let me go.”
Kim Taehoon came back from his recollections and looked at Choi Gisoon who was still seeking for mercy in front of him.
Kim Taehoon slightly moved his chin while looking at him.
Free to go.
Choi Gisoon bounced up from the floor to that universal gesture of freedom.
“Tha, thank you. Thank you so much.”
The free man, Choi Gisoon started to get away from Kim Taehoon slowly with still a bit of suspicion left in his mind.
The moment he reached a certain distance from Kim Taehoon, he started to run away quickly.
“You bastard, you’re done.”
While mumbling his thoughts.
Kim Taehoon didn’t bother looking at Choi Gisoon at all.
“Uh, uh wait!”
The guy who had been jumped by the other four people and was now hiding in the corner with a bleeding nose and busted lips spoke carefully to Kim Taehoon.
The guy was pretty lanky and thin enough to be mistaken for a woman from distance.
“You, you can’t let him go.”
Even his voice was thin. It was convincing that the guys who chased him thought he was a girl.
He kept talking with his thin voice.
“He will get back at you if you let him go. He will bring the Messiahs with him and punish you no matter what! There are people who have guns in Messiah!”
Kim Taehoon just looked at the watch he was wearing on his left wrist and answered rather gruffly to that warning.
“I know.”
There’s nothing that could put Kim Taehoon in danger.
In other words, Kim Taehoon was the most dangerous thing in the city of Gwangmyeong and he did not want to restrict himself from showing how dangerous he could be.
“That’s why I let him go. Now I have to talk to you. Tell me everything you know.”
And Kim Taehoon did not want to show mercy to this weak guy in front of him as well.
Because Kim Taehoon was the guy who became a monster to survive in this monster-dominated world.
< Chapter 19. The City of Gwangmyeong (1). > The end.