Chapter 81
A space officially certified by the System, where only one of the two could leave once one of them died.
In the middle of a hotel hallway with no exit whatsoever, two people glared at each other with murderous looks in their eyes.
“...Team Leader Baek Eunwol.”
“Ha Do-jin. ”
The two, a man and a woman, called each other's names in murderous voices.
They were Ha Do-jin and Head Mod Baek Eunwol.
“...How did you escape?”
Ha Do-jin asked while Eunwol was still held in the grasp of her own power.
“I specifically told Team 2 to protect you no matter what happened.”
The Hunters had ambushed the Head Mod, who would serve as their focal point in case things went wrong, and they had succeeded.
After already being worn down by a fight, it was nearly impossible for Eunwol to break free from them by herself.
“Did Team 2 run away? Otherwise, there’s no way you could have escaped.”
But Eunwol calmly answered Ha Do-jin's question.
“...They came to save me.”
“...You? Did you actually have comrades who cared about you?”
Ha Do-jin was mocking Eunwol.
“Baek Eunwol. Weren't you a loner?”
“...”
“I've watched everything you've done for those people outside since we parted ways. But did they ever do anything for you?”
Ha Do-jin's sharp tone dug into Eunwol's heart.
And his words were not wrong in the slightest.
Eunwol had quietly done what she had to do all this time, alone.
But no one had recognized or believed in all the hardship she had endured.
“You were only able to rally those people recently because of the System, not because of your sacrifices.”
“...”
“If you had truly decided to rebuild this world, you should have chosen us. Us, not those people who don't even have a chance!”
But contrary to Ha Do-jin's expectation that he had struck a nerve.
A faint smile spread across Eunwol's lips instead.
“You're wrong, Ha Do-jin. You were wrong then, and you're wrong now. You've always been wrong.”
“What?”
“Aren't you people the ones who banded together solely through calculations and vested interests?”
Eunwol's words were now beginning to strike at Ha Do-jin's very core.
“If you were about to die here right now, do you think any of them would come to save you?”
“What...?”
Looking at Ha Do-jin's speechless, contorted face, Eunwol answered in a voice full of conviction.
“They came to save me. A man who opposed everything I said, and a woman who shuddered at the thought of Hunters like me.”
The force behind Eunwol's steps as she approached Ha Do-jin began pressing down on the space.
“And even the NEET who only stirred up trouble in the Gallery, and the Saint who cried out for better treatment.”
“...Shut up.”
“These are the comrades I personally chose from the outside world you mocked.”
Ha Do-jin's eyes began to burn.
Zzeeeung-!
At the same time, a status window appeared before Eunwol.
Ding-!
[Ha Do-jin has designated you and activated the unique skill Duelist]
[Baek Eunwol will fight Ha Do-jin until death]
[Ha Do-jin's current win streak: 221 wins, 1 loss]
At the same time as the notification, explosive power burst from every inch of Ha Do-jin's body.
Crack-!
At the same time, the power holding Do-jin down vanished.
“I'll pay you back for that one loss.”
Eunwol also assumed a stance and calmly retorted.
“Let's see how much you've improved.”
****
Meanwhile, in another hallway.
A fierce exchange was already underway there.
Boom-!
Cha Do-hee charged forward at a speed too fast to see, aiming for Jeong Myeong-hak's neck.
And Jeong Myeong-hak barely reacted to that split-second movement.
After dozens of exchanges, a brief lull fell over the two of them.
“...Ah, that face...”
Jeong Myeong-hak, catching his breath, spoke with a smile as though he had realized something.
“...I remember now. Were you the woman who was in the basement of that kindergarten?”
“...”
Do-hee's face stiffened at those words.
“Don't resent me too much. Things were urgent back then.”
“...Urgent?”
“Yes. We had to turn the city back as quickly as possible. With my ability, the best I could do was turn the time of a space back twenty-four hours.”
“...”
“Before the infrastructure deteriorated any further, we had to purify and restore it. In that process, sacrifices were unavoidable.”
Jeong Myeong-hak spread both hands as he spoke, seemingly at ease.
“But look. Thanks to those sacrifices, we were at least able to build this paradise, weren't we?”
“...”
“So you have nothing to feel wronged about either. Those children contributed to the reconstruction of humanity, so they should have been satisfied and considered it an honor—”
But before Jeong Myeong-hak could finish speaking.
“Shut uuuuuuuup!!!!!”
Snap-!
The last thread holding Do-hee's sanity together broke.
Boom-!!
Her figure completely vanished from Jeong Myeong-hak's sight.
‘Area designation is impossible in this place.’
Using wide-area abilities such as stopping time required designating an area, but
inside this hallway constructed by the System, it was impossible to designate an area.
That was why Jeong Myeong-hak hurriedly used a single-target skill.
“Slow.”
The instant Do-hee charged at the old man's neck.
“..!!”
Her time began flowing slowly for an instant.
“Accelerate.”
Meanwhile, Jeong Myeong-hak's movements sped up until they were comparable to hers.
“I should thank the System, if anything. It has locked you and me in one place. I can kill you and then take my time killing the others.”
Just as the old man narrowly dodged Do-hee's flying blade and prepared to counterattack.
“I'm the one who should thank it.”
Krrrdeuk-!
The muscles throughout Do-hee's body heated up.
Her movements surpassed even the temporal slowdown shackling her.
She then rotated her body once in midair along an impossible trajectory.
“What...!”
Before Jeong Myeong-hak could react, she thrust her blade toward his neck.
“Y-you crazy bitch...!”
*****
Meanwhile, on the second floor of the Starplex Gardening gardens.
“Gaaaaaaah!”
A man was screaming there.
Mm. That's me—Shinsok.
“Ugh! So busy, so busy!!”
I was frantically checking the 3D map and the CCTV cameras installed on the various copied tiles in turn.
The idea of using Tile Copying in real time to support them had been on my mind for a long time, and it was simple to boot.
As you saw when I broke through the Barrier Hunter's barrier, the tiles I copied were theoretically invincible spaces that even Jomssaem couldn't enter.
So I could deploy these invincible spaces in real time to block dangerous attacks flying toward the S-bros, of course.
I could also summon structures in the middle of the battlefield and disrupt their formation.
What proved especially useful here was Tile Resonance.
The larger the tiles became, the more they could block—not only ordinary attacks, but also wide-area attacks.
“But that's not all!”
I turned my gaze to the CCTV on the outer wall of a restroom I had installed inside the Green Zone.
- Whew, retreat!!!!
- It's hopeless! Let's run for now!!!
The Hunters were leaving the battlefield and beginning to flee somewhere.
“Click.”
I filled the space around them with restrooms, and once the restrooms began resonating with one another
Rumble-rumble-!
a gigantic restroom that had grown without limit became a wall and trapped them inside.
“Let's trap them, trap them.”
- W-we're blocked!!!!
- You damn System bastard!!! Let us out!!!!!
- We won't fight! We surrender!!!
And when they were trapped together like that?
“Retrieve.”
I retrieved one of the restrooms blocking them.
- Those bastards were trying to run away!
- Catch them all!!!!!!
That was why I had been stockpiling mana stones all this time.
“Take them all down.”
From everything I had observed so far, there was no doubt that they were psychopaths.
“How could they turn people into biological batteries...”
So if I wanted to bring this Capital Area, where my customers mainly lived, back to normal, I had to capture every last Green Zone bastard so there would be no trouble later.
This real-time installation of Tile Copying was perfect for the job.
Besides, I learned something for the first time while carrying out this operation.
“So I can attach tiles to one another too.”
I hadn't known because I had been spacing them out to let as many people as possible use the infrastructure.
But when necessary, I could simply attach the tiles to one another.
Apparently, their interiors connected when they resonated as well.
“Good.”
I alternated between the CCTV feeds and the Gallery.
My battlefield is all wrapped up ㅇㅇ
ㄴ All the Hunter bastards are tied up
ㄴ The east gate side is wrapped up too!!
[Mythos] We also blocked the escape routes of the remnants in the southern district and captured every last one of them!!!
ㄴ Kyaa, Seo-jin noona's on another level
ㄴ The Hunter bros who got trapped in restrooms while trying to run away, upvote ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ Upvote ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
System-nim's cage-farming skills are insane ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ At first, I was seriously dumbfounded ㅋㅋ
ㄴ But after experiencing it once, nothing has ever felt this reassuring ㅇㅇ
I checked the casualty count, and... barely anyone died ㅇㅇ
ㄴ System-nim's architectural walls were seriously insane
You should have seen the Hunters' faces when they realized they were screwed ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ Serves those bastards right ㅋㅋㅋ
But aren't there so few casualties because Jangyeon has been throwing potions in real time?
ㄴ Ahem! Si-yeon! Saint-nim!!!
ㄴ Call her Saint-nim!
ㄴ Our Saint-nim could never be that kind of person!!
“Okay.”
Anyway, little by little, the outside had mostly been brought under control.
“Now all that's left is the Room of Truth.”
There was a clear reason I had separated them from one another.
“Bosses should fight bosses.”
You know how in movie clichés, everyone else rushes in to fight the boss-level enemy and gets taken out for no reason?
This was to prevent such a disaster before it happened.
And.
“They seem to have some kind of backstory...”
I realized it while listening to the conversations they were having through the CCTVs.
There had to be a story between them that I didn't know about.
So I also intended to let the people involved in that story settle their old scores themselves.
Of course, that did not mean I intended to play with the lives of my precious VIP customers.
“If things go south, I can just eject them.”
Every space they occupied was under my control, and was a Normal hallway.
If I was watching in real time and a dangerous situation arose?
Then I could simply eject them, just as I had done until now.
And if that wasn't necessary?
“You're ready, Jomjomjomjomjomjomjomjomssaem.”
Of course, Shinsok.
I could simply change the Normal hallway's function to a Shh! hallway and ‘Jinhyeok’ them.
Of course, I'd have to experience that feeling of my brain melting once more.
“Always protect our VIP customers!!”
No customers, no shop — Shinsok
That was my management philosophy.
Anyway, what I was trying to say was that they had no chance, whichever way you looked at it.
They were merely fighting an unfair battle in the arena I'd prepared. If there was one difference?
“They don't know that.”
They could call it a rigged arena all they wanted. What could they do about it?
If they didn't like it, they should become Building Masters.
“Jomssaem! Wanna bet who wins!!!”
Grrr-!
“I'll naturally bet a Hanwoo cow on our side winning. Jomssaem, if you lose, wanna cut off one of your tentacles?”
Grrrrrrrrrk-! Clang-!
“You don't like betting, huh? Okay.”
Just as I was trading jokes with Jomssaem.
“Oh?”
The victor of one room had been decided.
*****
Meanwhile, on the battlefield where defeat was becoming increasingly certain.
The guild masters who had led the battle from the front were rapidly bringing the situation to an end.
“We've captured all the stragglers.”
“This side is wrapped up too. We caught the ones who tried to flee.”
"It's thanks to System-nim."
The Stalker allied forces and major guild masters had taken the surrendered Hunters prisoner.
As they sorted things out, they gathered one by one on the top floor of the penthouse, where the System's structures still remained.
“...The Head Mod and Speedrun are in there, right?”
“Will they be all right...?”
“Their opponents are the ones called the strongest among those Hunters...”
The guild masters waited endlessly as they stared at the structure, from which not a sound could be heard.
“Even Modakaiser's Ultimate sends us a light signal showing how the fight inside is going! Why doesn't our Sys-nim have anything like that!”
Just as Park Dari, the guild master of Gaboong, shouted in frustration.
Flash-!
“Huh...?”
One of the two cubes disappeared.
Boom-!
And what appeared were two blood-covered people.
A silver-haired woman was stomping on the upper body of a man who had been flattened against the floor and was vomiting blood.
They were Baek Eunwol and Ha Do-jin.
“You still have a lot to learn, Ha Do-jin.”
“Y-you fucking bitch...”
“Though there won't be a next chance.”
That was the end of their conversation. Ha Do-jin no longer moved.
“H-Head Mod! You're safe!!!!”
“The Head Mod won!”
The allied forces, which had been holding their breath, erupted into cheers and rushed toward Eunwol.
“You worked hard, Head Mod.”
“Are you injured?”
At their concerned questions, Eunwol smiled sheepishly and answered.
“You all worked hard too. And... thank you for coming as promised.”
At Eunwol's words, the guild masters all smiled and replied as if they had rehearsed it.
“We promised, didn't we?”
“We only kept our promise!”
“Mutual trust, that's all.”
Soon, their gazes turned toward the one cube that still remained.
“...Then all that's left is that one room.”
“That's where Speedrun is.”
Dozens of Stalkers, the guild masters, and Eunwol herself.
Just as everyone stared tensely at the remaining cube.
Pop-!
The space they occupied transformed into a System structure and connected to the remaining cube as one space.
“...! You connected them!!”
“System-nim did it!”
And what unfolded before their eyes were two people fighting with all reason gone.
“Die!! I'll kill you!!!”
“Dieeeeeee!!!!”
They were Jeong Myeong-hak and Cha Do-hee.
But the instant the spaces connected and dozens of gazes fixed on them at once.
“...Huh?”
“W-what is this!!! How did you...!”
The two stared at the crowd with bewildered expressions.
*****
- System!! What are you doing!!! Wasn't this supposed to be a fair fight!!!!!
Meanwhile, after connecting all the spaces, I watched the old bastard throwing a fit through the hallway CCTVs.
“Hmm.”
Speedrun wasn't losing. Given enough time, the fight looked likely to end in Speedrun's favor.
But I felt like a bad guy like that ought to be publicly executed in front of everyone.
And while we were at it?
“Dogpile him, dogpile him.”
Final boss fights are supposed to be dogpiles.
- [Jobless Troublemaker] : Si-yeon, what's the four-character idiom for a situation like this?
- [Healer Union] : Hmm... Old-man dogpile? Raccoon...? Old-man stir-fry? Deer-stir-fry?
- [Healer Union] : Ah! Old-man attack?!
- [Jobless Troublemaker] : Whew! Anyway, as expected, when we say “on cue”?
- [Healer Union] : We go off cue!!!
“That's it.”
Anyway, I've been far from fair-minded from the very beginning.
“Information. Jobless Troublemaker and the System are, in fact, the same person.”
The most fun trolling is aimed at people who are vicious but powerless.