Forget combat ability—I was an ordinary human whose Level had not even been determined. I was about to be thrown barehanded into ruins crawling with monsters.
Since I was an NPC and held the Title Friend of Chaos, they probably would not attack me. Food, clothing, and shelter, however, were entirely separate problems.
Despite the indignation welling up inside me, my thoughts became impossibly calm.
As expected, Mental Stability was terrifyingly effective.
Three types...
I stood there without moving for nearly ten minutes, thinking it over. Then an idea struck me, and I searched my pocket.
Sure enough, the familiar key was inside.
I inserted the key into empty air and turned it, opening the door. The gaps left in the storage room after I had taken out stock to refill the shelves yesterday were now neatly packed with identical products.
My eyes gleamed as I stared at the key in my hand.
<District 2 Special Supply Station Storage Key>
The fact that an identification window appeared meant the key was classified as an item as well.
A faint smile touched my lips.
Maybe surviving out there would be easier than I thought.
***
Rrrrumble—
Every Player staying in the villa tensed at the sudden earthquake.
The building had been reinforced with a barrier that increased its durability and hardness enough to withstand the charge of most monsters. There was no chance it would collapse from an earthquake of this magnitude.
But that was not why the Players were nervous.
“An earthquake out of nowhere? What the hell is happening?”
“Something else is starting. Again...”
Most Players suffered from trauma related to earthquakes.
They came whenever a major event was about to occur: the beginning of a hellish Cleanup, the approach of a monster wave that swept in like a tsunami, the appearance of a massive boss monster, or the activation of a large-scale Quest.
Any Player would naturally be anxious.
They gathered in the living room, unease written across their faces as they carefully watched the view outside. Yet nothing noteworthy had changed.
The longer the silence stretched, the more tense they became. Just how enormous was the coming change if the System was taking this long to reveal it?
Then a woman emerged from one of the rooms with an enormous yawn.
“Yaaawn. Stop making a scene over every little earthquake. If monsters show up, we kill them. If it’s a Quest, we blast through it.”
She wore a comfortable short-sleeved shirt and sweatpants, but two daggers hung at her hips, completely at odds with the rest of her outfit.
One of the people gathered in the living room muttered under his breath.
“You can only say that because you’re stupidly strong, Yoonji...”
“Hm? What was that?”
“Ahem. Nothing.”
Yoonji Huh scratched his cheek as she yawned loudly again, then looked toward the front door.
“He’s back sooner than I expected.”
Not long after she murmured with a crooked smile, the front door opened. Several complicated security devices had clearly been installed on it, yet the man who entered showed no sign of having encountered any resistance.
The handsome man appeared to be in his early to mid-twenties. Everyone in the living room immediately brightened at the sight of him.
“Welcome back, Uijin.”
“Where did you go so early?”
“Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
They greeted him with smiles, yet strangely, not one of them moved from where they stood. They subtly watched his reactions, as though an invisible wall prevented them from approaching.
Jeong Uijin, his face expressionless, did not answer them one by one. He merely dipped his head in acknowledgment.
Not a single person in the room took offense or looked displeased.
“Didn’t you say you’d lie low until the Great Explosion debuff wore off?”
“I did. I only hunted a little, then went to do a Quest.”
Everyone there knew that Uijin’s definition of “a little” had nothing to do with common sense.
Rather than point that out, they focused on the Quest.
“A Quest? Haven’t you already finished nearly all of them? I thought there was nothing left for you to do.”
“My Awakening Quest.”
“Ah.”
Yoonji nodded, then grinned.
“Did you clear it?”
She expected Uijin to shake his head with a disappointed expression.
Instead, he gave a small nod.
“Yeah. All that’s left is to claim the reward.”
“...Seriously? You’re a monster.”
Yoonji’s face twisted in displeasure.
She was not calling Uijin a monster merely because he had returned after clearing his Awakening Quest flawlessly on his first attempt.
Like every Level ending in nine, the Third Awakening Quest assigned to the Level 59 Jeong Uijin had been maddeningly cryptic.
Yoonji had listened to its contents so she could help interpret it, but even she had failed to find the slightest clue. Uijin had easily deciphered all his previous Awakening Quests, yet even he had struggled with this one.
That alone said enough.
Then Uijin had gone out alone the previous night and returned looking unusually pleased. Before dawn had even broken, he had left the hideout again.
He had not explained the details, but it seemed he had obtained an important clue during the night.
Still, interpreting the Quest did not make its mandatory combat stages easy.
Each combat stage had a different clear condition. Players had no choice but to confront it repeatedly, fighting again and again until they discovered the correct condition.
Those who missed the required timing suffered a Level decrease and lost their Awakening Quest.
It was an entirely ordinary outcome that nearly every Player experienced.
Yet Uijin had cleared it on his first attempt.
He really was a monster.
At Yoonji’s declaration, Uijin lowered his gaze and opened his mouth.
“No. If I’d been alone, I probably...”
His words were cut off by a notification window that suddenly appeared before his eyes.
<The Minotaur Lord will descend upon District 2.>
As expected, no earthquake was meaningless.
“Entry into the Main Quest...?”
“What does that mean?”
“Wait. If this is the First Sequence, doesn’t that mean there’ll be a second and third?”
“A lord... Regular Minotaurs are already hard enough to deal with.”
The Players who read the notification swallowed uneasily, their bodies tensing.
There had been countless Quests before, but this was the first time the System had explicitly called one a Main Quest.
Worse, whenever the System described a monster’s arrival as a descent, an astonishingly powerful boss monster usually appeared.
Such bosses were also known for controlling nearby monsters and expanding their forces.
They needed to devise a strategy before the growing monster army began its advance.
That was the conclusion reached simultaneously by Jeong Uijin, who was about to become District 2’s first high-tier Player, and Yoonji Huh, a powerhouse who had already reached Level 55.
Just as Yoonji turned toward Uijin with a serious expression, another notification window appeared.
Jeong Uijin, who rarely reacted with visible surprise, widened his eyes.
An overwhelming pressure surged outward from him like a storm.
“Jeong Uijin...?”
As the suffocating force crashed over her, Yoonji swallowed dryly.
Every Player gathered in the living room went pale. They were more shocked by the killing intent pouring from Uijin than by the sudden destruction of the Special Supply Stations.
“Why would the supply station...”
Uijin muttered through a rigid expression.
Only Yoonji, standing beside him, heard the words.
Before she could say anything, Uijin shot out of the building.
The pressure crushing everyone inside the villa finally disappeared, but no one dared speak.
They could not hide their trembling after feeling Uijin’s ominous presence for the first time in a long while.
“Haa...”
Yoonji deliberately let out a loud sigh and raked a hand irritably through her hair.
At that moment, two men arrived from another room and looked at her questioningly.
“What just happened? What’s wrong with Uijin?”
The villa had been occupied by Eclipse, the faction to which Uijin and Yoonji belonged. For security, two combat-class Players had been stationed in every unit.
The two men were their comrades from the neighboring unit. They had probably sensed Uijin’s murderous aura and rushed over immediately.
With both men watching her, Yoonji went into her room and returned wearing a somewhat worn leather jacket.
“That lunatic Jeong Uijin looks like he’s about to go berserk again.”
“Why?”
“No idea.”
Her answer was dismissive, but Yoonji actually had a fairly good guess.
Uijin had only three hobbies: clearing Quests, hunting monsters, and shopping alone at the Special Supply Station.
One of the few pleasures available in this miserable world had just been forcibly taken away from him.
No wonder he was furious.
Nodding to herself, Yoonji gave the two men a serious order.
“Tell every combat-class Player still in the villa to assemble immediately. Leave only the security team needed to protect the building. Everyone else is heading to the Special Supply Station.”
“You’re not seriously planning to take on the Minotaur Lord without any information, are you?”
“Even I wouldn’t do something that stupid.”
Her answer came as though it were obvious, but she added with a sigh in her voice.
“...Or that’s what I’d like to say. I can’t promise anything.”
Frowning, she ran her hands over the daggers at her hips out of habit.
“We’ll assess the situation when we get there. Then we can decide whether to help Jeong Uijin or grab him by the back of the neck and drag him home.”