As Jeong Uijin sprinted at full speed toward the supposedly destroyed Special Supply Station, one NPC’s voice kept replaying in his head.
“You’ll die if you keep sleeping there.”
“There are a lot of Minotaurs around here. They’ll smell the blood and swarm you soon.”
It had already been two years, yet the memory had never faded in the slightest.
“Ha... Leaving you like that is going to give me nightmares. Oh, right. I don’t dream anymore.”
“Hey. Stay conscious. If you fall asleep now, you really will die.”
He had clearly been different from ordinary shop NPCs, who moved only according to their assigned settings.
He had not used the polite tone expected of him, nor had his voice been devoid of emotion.
That NPC had spoken like a human to save a Player beyond the safe zone, someone whose fate should have meant nothing to him.
Uijin had found it so strange that, despite his exhausted body, he had blindly crawled toward him.
“Reach a little farther. Once you cross the boundary, I can pull you in.”
The NPC had grabbed Uijin’s hand the moment it crossed the golden boundary and dragged him into his territory.
Thanks to that, Uijin had barely escaped the axe of the Minotaur hunting him.
“Why did I save you? ...It’s been a while since I saw anyone alive.”
“No. Just think of it as an NPC acting on a whim. Or a bug. That’ll be easier for you.”
What sort of NPC saved a person and then called it a whim or a bug?
He had been a shop NPC with no connection to any Quest.
Ordinary shop NPCs remained faithful only to their basic trading functions, yet everything about his words and actions felt almost excessively human.
“How are you supposed to survive from now on?”
“Players have a leveling system, don’t they? Then the answer is practically decided for you.”
“If you want to live, level up. Hunt whatever you can and clear every Quest you find.”
“In games where Level rules everything, leveling up is the only way to survive.”
Uijin had wandered in search of a way to live until he stood on the verge of a mental collapse.
That NPC had given him a simple, straightforward survival strategy.
He could have ignored every question, yet despite his indifferent tone, he had answered with complete seriousness.
“There’s a survivor camp nearby. Rest there, then come back in a few days.”
“Hunting monsters alone will be difficult, but I know a few Quests that give experience without requiring combat. While you’re gone, I’ll map out a safe route where you can pick them up.”
A shop NPC who located a survivor camp and told him about it, despite it having nothing to do with trade.
Could an NPC in this game-like world really select Quests one by one and create a safe route for a single person?
“Let me be clear. Everything we talked about stays strictly between us.”
An NPC would normally draw a line by saying “the Player and I.”
Never “us.”
If such an NPC existed, then...
“Damn it!”
Uijin swore under his breath and drew the sword at his waist.
Still sprinting, he swung it.
The monster blocking his path was sliced apart before it could even read the sword’s trajectory.
Did they find out? Did they decide he was a bug and dispose of him like this?
Even after recognizing the NPC’s unmistakable abnormalities, Uijin had kept his promise all this time.
If this world truly operated on a game system, then an NPC could be replaced or discarded for being defective.
There had even been an incident where an NPC babbling incoherently, as though afflicted by a bug, had been summarily executed by a monster acting under the System’s orders.
Perhaps that NPC had feared the same thing.
Starting the very next day after their promise, he had begun pretending to be nothing more than an ordinary shop NPC.
Uijin had been disappointed, but he had gone along with the act without complaint.
He had simply been grateful that he could continue seeing the NPC face-to-face as he always had.
To Uijin, that NPC was practically the first friend he had made since the world collapsed.
He was also the benefactor who had pulled him back to his feet after he had given up on everything, and the emotional pillar that had kept him standing.
The thought that such an NPC—no, such a person—might have disappeared in an instant made it impossible for him to remain rational.
“Move!”
Uijin mercilessly cut down every monster that leaped into his path and increased his speed.
Thanks to his exceptionally high Strength and Agility, he ran as fast as a speeding car.
A murderous aura hung heavily around him.
At last, he reached the site where the Special Supply Station had stood.
“Ah...”
A groan escaped him the instant he stopped.
The faint golden boundary that had marked the safe zone had vanished without a trace.
The convenience-store building that had served as the Special Supply Station had completely collapsed, its original shape no longer recognizable.
Fragments large and small lay scattered like butchered chunks of flesh, enough to make the sight dizzying.
Uijin’s wavering gaze turned cold.
His eyes locked onto the enormous humanoid monster sitting atop the rubble of the collapsed building as though it were a throne.
Hrrrnk—
The hulking monster looked more than twice the size of an ordinary Minotaur.
It snorted as it stared down at Uijin.
A gigantic double-headed axe the size of a person rested in its hand, radiating a vicious edge.
Most Players would have stepped back from its presence alone.
Uijin moved forward instead.
The thought that the fragile NPC might be buried beneath the rubble where the Minotaur Lord sat made it impossible for him to stand still.
“Get down. Now.”
Uijin’s murderous command became the signal.
Uijin and the Minotaur Lord launched themselves at each other almost simultaneously.
***
Yoonji Huh arrived at the Special Supply Station with the combat team forty minutes later.
It might have sounded like a long time, but considering the distance from the villa and the monsters they had been forced to clear along the way, they had actually made excellent time.
“Ha...”
Yoonji stopped at the site and let out a disbelieving laugh.
Not because the Special Supply Station, always kept spotless, had been shattered to pieces.
There were no monsters anywhere around the ruins.
No.
More precisely, there were no living monsters.
The powerful Minotaurs that had always wandered around the Special Supply Station lay scattered around the wreckage in dismembered pieces.
Among them were Tauruses shaped like mutated bulls.
But something else stood out even more.
One enormous, muscular arm.
It resembled a Minotaur’s, but the arm was nearly two and a half meters long.
Its monstrous muscles looked as though they might start twitching at any moment, far beyond anything a human body could imitate.
Yoonji was not foolish enough to miss what that severed arm meant, or why the new monster that should have been here was nowhere to be seen.
It ran.
Recognizing when to retreat was a typical trait of intelligent monsters with the ability to command groups.
It had probably formed an army from the nearby Minotaurs and Tauruses and fought with them.
Then, once its forces had been wiped out and one of its arms severed, it had hurriedly withdrawn.
After quickly assessing the situation, Yoonji signaled her bewildered companions to wait and approached the wreckage.
A dirt-covered piece of the convenience-store sign lay near her feet.
Thud. Thoom—
Heavy chunks of stone kept flying out from the center of the rubble, which had been shattered so thoroughly that the building’s original shape was impossible to guess.
They sailed through the air as though someone were tossing crumpled scraps of paper, yet the arcs of their flight betrayed unmistakable urgency.
“Jeong Uijin, what are you doing?”
Everything inside the Special Supply Station should have vanished the instant the site was destroyed.
That was what had happened to supply stations destroyed during previous Quests.
There should have been nothing left to salvage except useless chunks of stone.
Yet for some reason, Uijin had even abandoned his pursuit of the Minotaur Lord and was digging through the ruins.
As though whatever he needed to find inside the Special Supply Station mattered far more than chasing the raid boss that had descended upon the District.
“...He’s not here.”
Only then did Uijin rise from where he had been tearing through the rubble.
Covered in blood and dust as he emerged from the wreckage, he looked almost like a demon.
“He’s not here? Who?”
“...”
Uijin stopped in front of Yoonji, who tilted her head in confusion.
His voice held both desperation and a fragile trace of hope.
“What happens when an NPC dies?”
“What do you mean, what happens? They turn to ash.”
Why was he asking something so obvious?
Uijin remained silent for a moment, his expression grave.
Then he abruptly grabbed Yoonji by the shoulders.
“Contact District 3 right now and ask what happened to their Special Supply Station.”
“What? Why? The System announced that it was destroyed. It’s probably exactly the same as this place.”
“Contact them anyway! Hurry!”
Yoonji flinched at his suddenly raised voice, then knocked his hands away.
“Fine. What exactly am I supposed to ask?”
“What happened to the Administrator NPC...”
Uijin began to answer, then turned his head toward the rubble he had been searching through.
“Ask whether any ash was left behind there.”