Chapter 280
This city was formed by the Japanese who used to be under the New Triad, so it was foreseen that they went wild when Seong-Il appeared.
The captain said while bringing his head back inside from the window, “Stay silent.”
His voice trembled with excitement and nervousness at the same time.
I followed his gaze and looked far out the window, and the streets were filled with the residents. Kwon Seong-Il was at the center of it all, and his demeanor was so charismatic and imposing that no one dared to speak to him. However, the way he frowned and flared his nostrils looked like he was trying to suppress a smile. I was someone who had spent a long time with him, so I could read his expressions minutely.
Seong-Il disappeared into the city hall building with the sincere guidance of the Japanese military leaders. The crowd still continued to follow him. The streets seemed to be overflowing with Awakened, resembling raging waves in the ocean or firing rockets into the sky. They were shouting Seong-Il’s name but soon changed it to my name.
“O-din!”
“O-din!”
The city executives who had come out to calm the crowd were also among them. Tetsuya and Sayaka ran out because they could no longer suppress their excitement after giving me a warning-like request to never come out.
The captain didn’t come back until sunset, and he was drunk when he did. Whenever he sighed the smell of alcohol stung my nose. His breastplate was F-class as he had sold his good one to pay the mercenary. It was pathetic that he had wasted his money on alcohol when he needed to spend them on better items and skills.
He slurred as he said, “Oh, this? Don’t mind it. When will I be able to drink if I don’t on a day like this?”
His pleasant smile remained unchanged although I had given him a blatant look. It seemed like Sayaka had gone back to her residence as she was even more drunk than him.
“This is dope.”
He staggered to his seat.
He continued, “Don’t think that you guys are the only ones who see Odin as the savior. We do too. No, we literally worship him, Mr. Kwon.”
“...”
“Have you ever lived as a slave?” he suddenly asked.
“...”
“Have you ever lived as a lab rat?” he asked again.
“...”
He suddenly began to sob. “Keukeuek. You people are lucky. Why is Odin… Korean? I’m sorry about what our ancestors had done to yours, Mr. Kwon…”
His voice faded away, then he slowly closed his eyes.
Many people wandered around the city drunk that night. It was a night filled with praise for me and curses toward the Chinese. It was bound to be a very nervous night for the city’s executives because it felt like something dangerous would happen immediately.
In the morning, the captain woke up later than I did.
“Go to the city hall. He was looking for you.”
He sprinted outside instantly as if something came to his mind when he heard me. Right after that, a large, black shadow suddenly came in through the window. Since he was so big, he accidentally cracked the window frame and the wall he was holding. Seong-Il rubbed the crack with his index finger, then turned his embarrassed face at me.
“The conversation went well, and they won’t notice a bit. But…”
Seong-Il frowned.
“It will be hard to be nice to him because he is an asshole.”
***
All the captain knew was that the association had sent Odin’s closest personnel to their city to compliment them for conquering an E-class dungeon even with weak manpower. He seemed to be in the midst of enjoying his sweet dreams when he returned from meeting Seong-Il. Then, he looked determined.
“But this is crazy.”
After the captain announced that the next target was a D-class dungeon, his subordinates came to him and left one by one. The captain had induced this on purpose.
Ryuichi was the only one left. Among the newly organized squad, the captain, Sayaka, Ryuichi and I were the only ones from the original Tetsuya Squad. It was obvious what would happen if more experienced and higher-level people filled the team, but the captain recruited multiple Japanese attackers as he only cared about the quest. In addition, that seemed to be the only way to make a powerful enough force to at least try the D-class dungeon.
“The association has a lot of interest in us.”
The influential figure was a bald middle-aged man who had initially joined like a mercenary. He had quickly done a 180 by returning all the captain’s property he had received during the previous mercenary contract.
The bald guy put his arm on the captain’s shoulder.
“As everyone knows, Mr. Kwon Seong-Il visited us to encourage the Tetsuya Squad. Perhaps Odin might have heard our story too. Don’t you think so? If we succeed in attacking a D-class dungeon for the second time in all of the attack squads… The association might call us up for compensation.”
There were many famous Japanese Awakened.
“Commander Tetsuya.”
“Yes.”
“You are our leader. Since we are gathered under your name, please take good care of all of us.”
The captain politely replied, “Of course, Mr. Kosuke.”
The people gathered here were well-known among the Japanese Awakened and had previously been captains of their own teams. The fact that they had formed one offensive group meant that the Sakura Corps’ elite team had now been created. Although he was the commander of the squad in name only, that thickened his halo.
On the way to the D-class dungeon, people kept looking at him with envy. Their respect towards him had increased overnight just because he had shaken hands with Seong-Il.
Sayaka came toward me stealthily by mentioning other captains.
“There was nothing we could do during the leading, but don’t talk to them if possible.”
She was reminding me about my fake fugitive status. However, I was the only Awakened with a different nationality. It was natural people would be drawn to me as I was a Korean who had been on the same stage as Odin. The woman was intentionally clinging to me, but the bald guy drove her away after glaring at her. Sayaka continued to look at me with concern from my back.
At this point, the captain and the girl didn’t desperately need me, but they still regarded me as a colleague who had defeated the E-class dungeon along with them, shared a secret, and currently worked to achieve one great purpose in the future.
The bald man asked, “What has brought a Korean here?”
I didn’t reply.
“I have never seen a normal guy who has willingly left the Korean group.” He continued while staring at me, “Just focus on your role. If you are here for an ulterior reason and I catch onto that, I promise you that you will beg me to kill you as soon as possible.”
The other new people eyed me in the same way that the bald guy did. Only Ryuichi’s bewildered expression was unique. The captain approached me only after everyone looked away from me. We were at the front of the dungeon entrance. He whispered, “Please be patient. They are being mean because they don’t know who you really are. Sooner or later, everyone will agree that…”
[Class: D
Location: A Sacred Place of the Baron (Maruka Clan)]
I gave him a look. “If you want to survive until the end, don’t take your eyes off me.”
[Attack Squad: You have entered the dungeon (Maruka Clan, D-class).]
This dungeon held a boss monster that had brains and was also bipedal, which meant most of these people wouldn't be able to survive.
***
It had dented-looking ears and nose, and the red mucus on its skin was greasy. Its long arms were sticking out of the chair, waiting for an order. Its sunken eyes were filled with rage. The Baron Orca had gone through multiple battles since the birth of its clan, but nothing had ever been the same lately.
Humans were indeed weaker than the Moongs they had dealt with earlier. After all, their combat power was far inferior to the Moongs, and their mentality had not evolved to the fullest as they couldn’t share their emotions and experiences with each other.
So how can such a primitive species come and go freely around the sacred area?!
That was why the baron was outraged. At that time, its connection to the altar of the Great Doom Kaos was cut off, and the guards on its territory announced the entry of humans. Humans also blocked the passageway outside the territory. Their presumptuous counterattack had started again.
When will they know their place? When will ‘the one’ give up and stop sending his human troops? Does he really think they have a chance against the Great Doom Kaos’ army?
The baron was planning to support the occupation forces once the humans finished counterattacking. Doom Kaos had responded to the clan’s ritual, so the day would come soon.
The baron sat down in the chair and suppressed its anger. The counterattack would soon become something that had never happened anyway. ‘The one’ would lose his power, and the holy ground would reopen.
However, the guys who had invaded this time were different. The baron’s sacred place was being constantly encroached upon, and they were getting closer to him. The baron weighed down its chair, feeling its composure slowly breaking apart. The power that was concentrated in the chair began to be absorbed by the baron. Then, bubbles flowed out of its body, which was enough to surround the ceiling of its room. From the bubbles, things that were much thicker and larger than the tentacles on its snout came down.
Blop, bloop.
Whenever the bubbles burst from the muddy ground, the baron’s clones were born. It waited for the humans with the door to hell wide open. Then, a few inferior creatures finally appeared.
The baron couldn’t stop laughing that it had been worried about those uncivilized creatures. These humans were so engulfed by fear that they couldn’t even make a noise.
At that time, a male human caught the baron’s attention because he was the only calm one among them. An absurd thought passed through the baron’s mind, but it couldn’t ignore it. The baron searched its memory. The collective memory warehouse was where fragments of memories of the entire clan were housed.
The baron grasped the memory of a count named Lucera. It was one of the memories that had shocked the entire clan, and it was becoming more blurry as it was old. One thing was still clear. The way the tiny creatures, one male and one female, slaughtered the count’s clones was brutal. The count’s memory ended the moment he was killed by a male human. The baron disconnected from the memory warehouse while engraving the face of the male human into his head. That was why the surprised baron’s snout tentacles began to wriggle.
Whip- Whip- Whip-
The huge tentacles on the ceiling also reacted to the baron and stirred in all directions.
Everyone started running away the moment one human died, but the male human who had killed Count Lucera was different. He was staring at the baron with eyes that didn’t resemble ones from an inferior species. Then, the baron had a hunch that the rest of the clan would soon witness its death from the memory warehouse.