Nova Arena is the culmination of the most advanced technology modern science has piled up, and the greatest field of amusement humanity has ever created.
BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) technology, which reads the brain's sensation and motor control, and even memory signals sleeping in the unconscious, in real time, had overturned the very concept of 'spectating'.
People no longer simply watched a match from beyond a screen.
Instead, as though they had become the camera viewpoint of a third-person RPG, they could roam the map from any angle they liked and savor the tension of the battlefield in real time.
It was only possible within the areas where vision had been revealed, of course, but it meant they could experience the metallic smell of blood on the battlefield and even the urgency of combat as it happened.
In that sense, Chae Geon-uk too was watching this vision of hell through spectator mode.
'I knew he was strong...... but this much?'
At the unreal spectacle of a man driving into a momentary gap and putting his opponent down, Chae Geon-uk marveled at it.
-Oh, my god! Did you see that just now? Raven...... Raven has fallen! And not even 5 minutes have passed since the match began!
-I can't believe it. Raven's ambush was perfect. At that angle and that timing, other named-tier warriors would have been rattled too. And yet the Demon...... it was as if he knew exactly how Raven was going to come in!
-What was especially astonishing was his spacing. Raven's sword passed through a point 1 inch in front of the Demon's throat. It was distance control measured out as if with a ruler!
-Raven went in convinced that he was the hunter, but in reality he ended up walking into the Demon's kill zone on his own two feet. One exchange and the situation was finished. A truly magnificent performance. It was the knifework of a surgeon who reads his patient completely and then operates.
-Right from the start he is proving in person that the title of undefeated promotion was not hype! Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we may be watching the birth of a new named warrior. Welcome to the American Pro League, Demon!
Putting Raven down was only the beginning.
Go Tae-min, in his demon mask, scattered a red glow as he eliminated another pro warrior.
It happened in a heartbeat.
Evade the opponent's attack while closing the distance, plant the sword in the nape of his neck.
That was all there was to it.
The movement was so swift and so precise that even the other spectators streaming the match were left in admiration.
└What was that just now? Did the frames drop?
└That wasn't a dodge, that was just passing through him.
└That's a Japanese amateur? No way! A pro warrior is getting sliced up like a trash mob!
└More than anything the presence of that red glow is insane. He really is the Demon himself.
And that impression went for Chae Geon-uk too, who had known Go Tae-min for over 10 years now.
'......He's insane.'
Looking back, in those 10 years he had not once seen Go Tae-min carry out a mission or fight a battle in person.
He had only known that Go Tae-min was a tremendously capable man who went by the codename 'Ghost'.
'There was a reason he became a top-class mercenary in 3 years.'
Chae Geon-uk went on watching Go Tae-min's fighting in a daze after that.
CLANG!
Some white man with tattoos all over his body came at him with an ambush from behind.
Go Tae-min knocked the attack aside, then stabbed the knife in his left hand into the man's flank.
"Guuh!"
That single counter left his opponent half incapacitated.
Pressing the wound in his side with one arm, the man could only swing his sword wildly to keep Go Tae-min from closing.
A thrashing effort to get away from that demon of an opponent by any means.
But Go Tae-min did not permit the tattooed man to escape.
SQUEEELCH—!
His sword closed the distance in an instant and drove in deep, into the man's neck.
[You have eliminated Pro Warrior 'Bulk'.]
Spare and yet swift, precise movement.
Chae Geon-uk let out a disbelieving laugh.
It was so overwhelming that by now he couldn't even feel any tension.
'......Who exactly was I worrying about?'
The sequence Go Tae-min had just shown was precise enough to make your skin crawl.
Knocking the attack aside, drawing the knife, carving out the gap: every one of those motions was carried out without a shred of excess.
As one might expect, he was indeed a man of the 9th Clandestine Unit, which they say is made up of nothing but monsters even inside the Intelligence Command.
With skill at that level, he would be able to survive this match comfortably.
And just as Chae Geon-uk was letting out a breath of relief.
Ding!
A notification tone cutting through the stillness stabbed at his ear.
[2 hours have passed since the match began.]
[The hidden rules are being revealed.]
[Hidden Rule: Red Diamond]
[A Red Diamond mark appears on five warriors at random.]
[Whoever eliminates a marked warrior will be paid a special bonus of 10% of base pay. (Stackable)]
[If a marked warrior dies, the Red Diamond mark will appear on someone else at random again.]
A mark given to five people at random.
A 10% bonus on base pay for eliminating one.
On the holder's death, random transfer to a new person.
Having read the Hidden Rule, Chae Geon-uk frowned.
'......Of all things.'
An uncontrollable variable had intruded on a board where he had been predicting a comfortable win.
***
Primeval forest with thick darkness settled over it.
The instant the notice window appeared, alien glows rose up here and there.
It was a red light fierce enough to be clearly visible even to Go Tae-min, hidden away at one edge of the jungle.
The moment Go Tae-min saw that light, the first thing he did was work the calculator.
'They're paying $2,000 in bonus per kill?'
And apparently it could even be paid multiple times.
The eyes of the man who had been running an efficient hunt a moment before sank into something cold.
'If they're offering more money, there's no reason not to take it.'
Go Tae-min turned his head and surveyed his surroundings.
Through the trees not far off he could see a red beam of light wavering.
It was a very close distance. Roughly 250 meters.
He set off at once toward the source of the light.
The night in the primeval forest was dark enough that you couldn't gauge an inch ahead.
Blades of grass grown tough on rich oxygen scraped stingingly across his skin.
The closer he came to the beam of light, the thicker the clamor of noise grew.
CLING! CLANG-CLANG—!
Sharp metallic sounds burst out one after another from beyond the undergrowth.
Then someone's shout, torn out along with ragged breathing, broke the jungle's silence.
"Move, you punk! That one's mine!"
"Cut the bullshit! Whoever kills him first takes him!"
Before long he pushed through the brush and reached a place where the view opened, and a red sigil wavering in the darkness revealed itself.
Around it, several warriors were already tangled together in a melee.
'Flies have gathered already.'
The mark's holder was a man using a slender longsword.
Every time he swung his sword, the Red Diamond mark floating above his head wavered strongly.
And the men who had attacked that mark holder numbered four in all.
A spearman closing on his windpipe with the advantage of reach, a muscled giant swinging a blunt weapon, and two swordsmen crossing endlessly to catch the mark holder's openings.
Go Tae-min kept his stance low and closed the distance stealthily, using the jungle's terrain.
Thick undergrowth and the shadows of the great trees covered his movement perfectly.
At the center of the melee was the Red Diamond's holder.
Longsword in hand, he was handling the warriors rushing at him while showing off flashy techniques.
Every time the point of his sword cut the air, red lines tangled this way and that, drawing grisly trajectories. Even against four at once he wasn't being pushed back at all. He was skilled.
But just then, in the midst of those chaotic trajectories, an opening cracked open for an instant.
'Now!'
In that instant, Go Tae-min's frame shot out explosively.
"Whoa, what now!"
One of the warriors pressing the mark holder let out a shout laced with panic, but by the time he spotted the demon mask it was already too late.
Go Tae-min drove into the gap between the pouring red lines like a thunderbolt.
SHHK—!
A single crossing.
The pitch-black blade cut precisely across the line of the mark holder's throat and passed through.
[You have eliminated Pro Warrior 'Jackson Miller'.]
[You have eliminated a Red Diamond mark holder. (Cumulative holder kills: 1)]
[Because you eliminated a mark holder, your probability of winning the next mark increases by 3%.]
"Kahuck......!"
The mark holder clutched his throat and pitched to the ground.
Red blood sprayed out in every direction and soaked the earth.
It had all happened in a heartbeat.
The warriors who had been driving the mark holder back a moment ago froze with stupid expressions on their faces.
"Wh-What? What just happened?"
"Jackson...... in one blow?"
"That mask just now...... don't tell me, the Demon?"
"Fuck. They said he was the Japanese league's first warrior to promote undefeated......"
Voices laced with shock burst out belatedly, but Go Tae-min had already vanished into the darkness.
The ones left behind could only breathe out in relief that his target had not been them.
After that the hunt continued.
The method was simple.
Drive in fast while the melee was in full swing, evade the red lines, plant his sword in his opponent's vitals, and leave the spot immediately.
As he ranged through the jungle like that, his cumulative kill count soon stood at 3.
Hidden up a tree for a moment, Go Tae-min looked at the message in the corner of his vision and smiled with satisfaction.
'This is genuinely lucrative?'
Converted into Korean money, a full 8 million won.
He had earned this fortune in a mere 12 hours.
For this money, that's a full 1,834 Bulgogi Burgers.
It was also an amount that could comfortably cover three or four of the latest laptops built to the highest specification.
'I could buy a few of those expensive designer puffer jackets hanging in the department store, too.'
Go Tae-min grinned, feeling oddly proud at the thought of giving his younger siblings extra pocket money.
In the meantime the match had now entered its middle phase.
Time remaining, 60 hours. Survivors still alive, around 500.
Go Tae-min turned toward the outer edge of the forest.
'I should rest up while I can.'
He had been ranging through this vast jungle for a full 12 hours.
Right now the adrenaline kept his body light, but he couldn't ignore the fatigue that would come crowding in the moment the tension let go.
Go Tae-min moved stealthily and scouted out a suitable hiding place.
After working his way a long distance out toward the edge, he found a crevice where the roots of an enormous tree had tangled to screen the entrance like a natural cave.
A space just right for a person to get into and lie down.
He checked carefully for any trap someone might have set nearby, then eased his body in.
The humid smell of earth pricked at his nose.
'I can sleep when I get home. In here let's just charge the battery a bit.'
Go Tae-min sat down and laid his sword across his knees.
Holding a posture from which he could spring out at any moment, he stared out through the gap in the roots with his eyes narrowed.
Once the thought came to him that there would be no combat for a while, the practical problems of survival crossed his mind.
In a long survival like this, three things matter most.
Shelter, drinking water, food.
He had secured a fairly serviceable shelter, so the problems were water and food.
'I've already prepared for those too.'
For drinking water, essential to survival, you only had to drink the clean stream water found all over the map.
As for food, hearing that this match was a Survival, he had brought along plenty of chocolate bars.
He would probably be able to hold out comfortably for the time remaining.
And then, while he was taking a brief rest with his guard up on his surroundings.
'Huh?'
Suddenly his field of view brightened unpleasantly.
At the feeling of a red light pushing in through his eyelids, Go Tae-min raised his head and looked above him.
Inside the cramped hiding place, directly over his head, a single red diamond was spinning like a top.
[Pro Warrior '惡鬼' has been given the Red Diamond mark.]
A mark selected at random from among the survivors.
This time the winner was Go Tae-min.
"......."
The quiet around him grew noisy. The brush in front of him rustled.
Warriors nearby had seen the red light the mark was giving off and were converging on him.
A moment ago he had been a hunter out hunting bonuses, and in the blink of an eye he had become a precious personage whose position was being broadcast live.
Go Tae-min scratched his head as if put out.
'Can I still get a bonus for killing other Red Diamond holders even like this......?'
To him, it was an extremely important question.