A quiet spring, devoid of people.
In the middle of the spring, where a few simple exercise equipments were placed, someone appeared.
It was Jeong-min, his entire body encased in silver armor.
Jeong-min, sword in hand, surveyed his surroundings.
Realizing that no one was there, Jeong-min slumped to the ground.
Soon, Jeong-min's body was enveloped in light, and the armor he was wearing disappeared.
"Haa..."
Jeong-min, exhaling a sigh, was drenched in sweat.
Jeong-min raised the hand holding the sword.
His hand was trembling noticeably.
Jeong-min stared at his trembling hand before clenching it into a fist.
The sensation of the sword slicing through the goblin's body was still vividly felt.
'...I need to get used to it...'
Jeong-min took several deep breaths.
As the tension eased somewhat, he felt pain rising from his left arm.
"Augh..."
Lifting his left arm, he saw that the sleeve was soaked with blood.
"..I didn't think it was a serious wound... I guess I was stabbed pretty deep..."
Jeong-min took out a low-grade potion from his inventory, opened the lid, and gently sprinkled it on the wound.
Tsssk
A burning sensation arose, and a great pain washed over him.
"Kuh... Ugh..."
Bubbles rose from the wound.
Clenching his teeth and enduring, the pain disappeared before he knew it, and the wound was completely gone.
"The potion's effectiveness is... considerable. The pain when the wound heals is a bit... unpleasant though... Would the pain be reduced with a highgrade potion?"
Jeong-min got up from his seat.
The reason Jeong-min thought of the spring as the place to face the [Trial of God] was because, looking down the mountain, he could see the downtown area and a considerable distance of the city at a glance.
It was only now, a day after the [Trial of God] began, that Jeong-min was able to look down from the spring.
A sigh of dismay escaped Jeong-min's lips.
"Ah...."
Jeong-min was speechless for a moment.
'It's only been... a day...'
The sight of the city that entered Jeong-min's eyes was devastating, even from a distance.
Black smoke was rising from various places, and flickering flames could be seen occasionally.
The green masses clustered throughout the city were likely goblin hordes.
And in the center of those goblin hordes, there was invariably a black gate.
Jeong-min bit his lip and muttered.
"D-rank gates... How many are there... One, two..."
Even counting only the ones that caught his eye, there were more than ten.
The fortunate thing was that most of the goblins were gathered only near the gates, and except for a few small groups, they didn't seem to cross a certain area.
"....They must be guarding the gates..."
Jeong-min looked towards the location of the [Daesung] shelter.
"....Hmm... It seems to be quite close to one of the gates.... I wonder if Jun-ki is okay..."
It wasn't clearly visible from the distance, but it seemed to be quite close to a D-rank gate.
Jeong-min took out his smartphone and turned it on.
"...Thankfully, the communication is still working..."
Seeing the antenna icon appear, Jeong-min let out a sigh of relief.
Soon after, Jeong-min saw a message arrive and checked it.
The message was from Jun-ki.
Hey, are you okay? I can't get through to you, so I'm leaving a message. A gate appeared right in front of the shelter, so we're constantly fighting. Stay safe, and let's meet alive.
The message was sent yesterday at dawn. It was sent after Jeong-min was struck in the chest by the goblin champion and entered his inventory.
After checking the message, Jeong-min tried calling Jun-ki, but he could only hear a message saying that the power was turned off.
"...He's not answering... Did something happen... Eh, but there are so many Awakened people gathered there, nothing much could have happened..."
Jeong-min, muttering while biting his lip, said as if he had made up his mind.
"...I have to go check it out."
Jeong-min planned the route to get to the [Daesung] shelter.
'Spatial Movement once to the road down there... There's a gate over there, so I have to go around... If I go between those buildings, I can avoid the gate...'
After checking the location of the gates and planning the route, it seemed that he could move near the [Daesung] shelter with about 4 Spatial Movements.
Jeong-min opened the status window to check the remaining mana.
"Status window"
[Choi Jeong-min
Strength: 16(+30)
Stamina: 16(+20)
Agility: 15(+30)
Intelligence: 11(+10) [MP:26/38]
Gold Held: 360 Gold
Skills Held: Gate(Lv.1), Spatial Movement(Lv.2), Clairvoyance(Lv.1), Eye of Appraisal(Lv.1), Strike(Lv.1), Mana Recovery(Passive)(Lv.1)]
"....Huh? What's this... My stats... went up...? And... Gold Held?"
He could confirm that the stats were higher than what he had checked before the battle.
And the newly visible Gold Held.
Jeong-min stared at the status window and muttered.
"...Is it because I hunted goblins? Even so, the stats are rising so easily... When I was exercising to raise them, they wouldn't rise so easily..."
Remembering the time he spent a month struggling to raise his stats through exercise, Jeong-min let out a hollow laugh with a blank expression.
"Strength stat is 2, Stamina stat is 1, Intelligence stat is 1... How many goblins did I kill... I think I killed quite a few... Ah, I also killed a goblin champion..."
Jeong-min, who was about to do the math, soon gave up and muttered.
"Well, whatever... Anyway, if I catch monsters, my stats go up, right? I can think of it as a level-up concept... And the Gold Held is... something I use at the shop that opens later, right?"
Jeong-min thought that he should hunt as many monsters as possible and sat down again.
He was going to move to the [Daesung] shelter after fully replenishing his remaining mana.
He took out a snack from his inventory and waited while eating roughly, and before he knew it, his mana was full.
Jeong-min got up from his seat, picked up his sword, and took a deep breath.
He didn't bother wearing the heavy armor since he was planning to avoid the vicinity of the gates where they were gathered on a large scale.
"Okay, then... let's go..."
Looking at the gates, he recalled the planned route, and Jeong-min used Spatial Movement to the first location.
Jeong-min, who appeared in the middle of a road in the city, immediately moved on foot.
'Go near the mart up ahead... Then Spatial Movement again in the direction of the intersection...'
As he walked, Jeong-min's face gradually hardened as he surveyed his surroundings.
What he saw most often were the traces of a annihilated army.
Many military trucks and vehicles were broken, and destroyed tanks were occasionally seen.
'...Is this the result of not believing that modern weapons don't work...?'
The surrounding objects were all destroyed. The floor had a lot of stains that looked like blood.
'It's... fortunate that I don't see any corpses... I guess...'
Jeong-min walked past a building with smoke rising from it to the mart and used Spatial Movement again to the planned location.
'Okay, it's going smoothly... I only need to use it two more times...'
Jeong-min, who was moving to use Spatial Movement to the next location, had no choice but to stop in his tracks.
"Kereulk?!"
Five goblins appeared in front of Jeong-min.
Three of them were dragging something.
'...So that's why I couldn't see any corpses... These guys took them all...!'
What was being dragged by the three goblins was a human corpse.
Jeong-min bit his lip tightly as he looked at the corpse, which was in a mess, having been dragged around for a long time.
The goblins seemed wary of Jeong-min, who was holding a sword, but soon they threw the corpse to the ground and rushed at Jeong-min all at once.
Jeong-min, with an agility stat of over 40, easily dodged the goblins' attacks.
'I'm the one who broke through that large goblin horde. Five of them are nothing...!'
Each time he swung his sword while leisurely dodging the attacks, the goblins spewed green blood and fell to the ground.
As the corpses of four goblins rolled on the ground, the remaining goblin hesitated and then began to run away, screaming.
"Kekek!!"
Jeong-min kicked off the ground and ran out, and soon even the goblin that was running away became a cold corpse and fell to the ground.
"....Hoo..."
Jeong-min shook his sword to get rid of the green blood and checked the status window.
"....Gold Held went up by 50... Do they give 10 gold for each one I catch...
By the way... the stats haven't changed... Was it too much to expect a stat increase from about five goblins... Well, even after cutting down so many goblins and catching the champion, the total stats that went up were 4..." Jeong-min closed the status window with regret.
Jeong-min, who had walked back to the location where he encountered the goblins, saw three corpses rolling on the ground.
It was the corpse that the goblins were dragging around.
Jeong-min looked at the corpses for a moment and bowed his head.
'...Rest in peace...'
After a moment of silence, Jeong-min moved again and used Spatial Movement.
Jeong-min was able to arrive near the [Daesung] shelter in 4 Spatial Movements as planned.
'Hmm... It doesn't seem as close as it looked from above... But it's still quite close....'
The D-rank gate was located about 500m away from the entrance of the [Daesung] shelter.
As expected, a large number of goblins were loitering around the gate.
'There doesn't seem to be much tension between the shelter and the gate...? Is it a lull?'
Jeong-min slowly walked towards the entrance of the shelter.
Two people were standing at the entrance of the shelter, where a large and sturdy-looking iron gate was firmly closed.
A middle-aged man with a tall height and muscular body, and a young man with a small build.
The young man, who discovered Jeong-min approaching, stretched out his hand and shouted at Jeong-min.
"Stop there. Don't come any closer. If you keep coming, we'll consider you an enemy and attack."
Jeong-min stopped in his tracks and spoke to the two men.
"Ah... Hello. I... I'm trying to ask something. Is that okay?"
The young man glanced at the sword Jeong-min was holding for a moment and nodded.
"My friend is in this shelter with his family... I was wondering if I could hear some news about them?"
The young man's expression turned cold at Jeong-min's words.
"Well... that's what I hear a lot. Why are there so many family and friends in this shelter... You must be worried about your friend and his family, so you have to go into this shelter and check, right? But what a pity? There's an order not to let anyone into the shelter."
The young man, who was speaking sarcastically, hardened his expression and continued.
"You seem to be an Awakened, so don't think about getting into the shelter with a pointless excuse and look for a small guild. How many times have I said this today..."
"Ah... I don't necessarily want to go inside. I just need to check on my friend."
The young man spoke in a slightly softened voice at Jeong-min's words.
"...You don't have to go inside...? Really...?"
"Yes, really. I'll go back as soon as I check on my friend. Is it possible...?"
At Jeong-min's answer, the young man said in a much softer voice.
"...It's not like we know everyone in the shelter... Well, tell me his name."
"Ah. Yes! It's my friend, Park Jun-ki. He's in this shelter—"
"Park Jun-ki?"
The muscular middle-aged man, who had been standing quietly behind the young man until then, said in surprise.
Jeong-min said to the muscular man.
"Yes. It's Park Jun-ki. Do you know him?"
"Mister, is that a name you know?"
The young man also looked at the muscular man and asked.
The muscular man hesitated for a moment and then said to the young man.
"That's... that's the guy... Team Leader 6..." "Ah, Team Leader 6... That one from last night..."
The muscular man nodded and said to Jeong-min.
"Well... it could be a person with the same name... Tell me the skill that guy uses."
Jeong-min nodded and said."Joon-ki's skills are throwing fireballs... and controlling the wind with his hands... The last one is Swordsmanship."
"...He really is his friend..."
The middle-aged muscleman lowered his head in silence for a moment, then spoke to the young man.
"Open the gate. I'll take him in."
The young man, surprised by the muscleman's words, said,
"Take him in? The higher-ups will throw a fit!"
"Let them throw a fit. He's his friend, isn't he? He deserves to know." "...?"
The young man grumbled with a dissatisfied look and said to the muscleman,
"I don't know anything. Do what you want."
"Just keep a good watch. If those monster bastards invade, sound the alarm immediately."
The young man grumbled and opened the gate.
With a rather loud sound, the muscleman and Jeong-min entered through the opened gate, and it soon closed again with a loud noise.