Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

‘Let’s do this…’ Geom-in grabbed the gun tight and pointed it at his front. A scarab was sitting on his head, and the entrance to the underground ruins was revealed before his eyes. Now he just needs to enter, but fear begins creeping out from the deep of his mind, filling his heart. Maybe it’s because he’s alone.

‘No, I’m not alone. I have this scarab with me…’ Though, it was the same as being alone, since it wouldn’t be of much help in combat.

‘Calm down, Bae Geom-in! If you just cower after saying all that stuff to Seongho, you’ll just embarrass yourself.’

Even though he was basically the weakest among the four original stagnant waters, he was still a pillar that people could rely on. In the absence of Seongho, Seokhyun, and Da-jeong, he would be the one who should lead the others. Though, these days, his duty had become easier ever since that Soup Lov- No, Lee Sang-shin entered the shelter.

‘I can do it.’ Geom-in said as he chewed and swallowed the consumables sent by Seongho. It was really reassuring to see his stats go up in an instant. He then checked the active copied unique skill slot and nodded. Written there were Blink, Physical Strengthening, and Healing. The reason he did not choose restraint was because there’s a possibility that he would have to deal with multiple enemies inside. Meanwhile, the other unique skills he had copied were just useless for exploration.

‘I just have to win.’ There’s even the glowstone as his light source, so why should he be so concerned? If a monster appears, he can just spray it with bullets until it dies. Though, it wouldn’t be a random spray, as he would need to reserve bullets.

He took one step towards the entrance, but still hesitated in the end. After all, he was still too scared.

At that moment, the scarab sitting on his head pulled his hair taut.

-Why are we still here! Let’s go in now!

Geom-in felt that was what the scarab was saying.

After taking a deep breath, Geom-in entered the cave entrance. When the scenery inside finally registered to his eyes, his words and breath were taken away from him. A huge hallway built with smooth carved stones was stretched to the depths of darkness. Above, the ceiling was not visible at all, with only darkness hanging there.

“Is this really made out of stone?”

nod nod.

He felt the scarab nodded proudly. It seemed like they were proud of their residence.

But isn’t this too big for a home?

Geom-in walked down the hallway with many thoughts running through his head. At one point, a bright light suddenly appeared from the ceiling, and the entire hallway became slightly brighter.

“Wow…”

Is that a light source with a motion sensor?

Once again, he admired the skills of the scarabs, no, the dwarves.

“You guys weren’t just a race that loves rocks, huh? Ah, Ah, AAAHHH!. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that!”

That’s the feeling their image gave off, but it must have been something they didn’t like. After hearing the explanation from the scarab, Geom-in came to know that It turns out that ‘a race that loves rocks’ were something that was used by other races to mock the dwarves. In other words, it was a racial slur.

‘Other races, huh?’

Geom-in always had this thought, but now he was sure that there’s a lot of races living in the Lotus Continent, even though the only races that he and his group knew so far were only the humans, the elves, and the dwarves.

They didn’t tell them everything, but it seemed like a great disaster had happened on the Lotus Continent. From his estimation, it was huge enough to the extent that the entire civilization that existed on the continent was destroyed.

It could be that the Lotus Continent was swept away by magic similar to what happened on Earth, or it could be the work of a monster that exists in the depths of the Great Labyrinth.

‘What is certain is that there are definitely survivors.’ They were either cursed like the scarabs and the stag beetles, or were currently living in secluded places.

While Geom-in was walking while thinking about that stuff, the hair on his arms suddenly stood up straight. His highly-developed Perception stat told him that there’s several enemies nearby.

Well, it is a very big ruin, so it’d be weird if there weren’t any monsters at all.

Geom-in put the gun in his hands away, then pulled out a long knife from the depth of his dimensional backpack.

‘I won’t grow If I keep relying on guns.’

Guns were a terrifying and effective weapon, but unfortunately, they weren’t meant to be used continuously. When the bullets run out, they would turn into a useless piece of metal. Totally unfit to fight against monsters which could demolish buildings in one punch. To prevent that from happening, the scarabs were working hard on bullet production everyday. However, the quantity they produced was not a lot by any kind of measurement. Which means, they have to use it sparingly.

‘If possible, let’s end this by just using a long knife.’

As Geom-in’s fist clenched the long knife’s handle tight, monsters came out from the collapsed wall a few distance away on his right.

Kiek-!!

Karuruk-!!

About twenty green skinned monsters and two orcs snarled at him. Geom-in took a step back from them, but soon after, he opened his chest proudly.

“I’ve defeated a werewolf before. You bastards are no match for me.” Of course, he had received some support, but it was still a fact that he won the battle.

Geom-in activated his Fighting Instinct skill and his overall stats increased even more.

Bang-!!

Noticing his momentum, the two orcs smashed their clubs to the floor and urged their subordinates. As the goblins giggled, veins appeared on the swordsman’s forehead.

“You bastards! Do I look like a pushover to you?”

Geom-in ran his long knife against the wall.

Kiekkk-!!

Thanks to the deafening high-pitched sounds, the goblins withdrew. It was also at that moment that Geom-in rushed towards the goblins with Blink. While a few of them were puzzled, he swung his long knife.

“Die!”

One goblin’s head flew off, and the curtain for Geom-in’s first battle inside the cave rose.

“Huh, huh…” Geom-in hunched and breathed haphazardly. The fight was finally over. The monsters weren’t that difficult to defeat, but the problem was that his Domination unique ability had once again failed to work. It was all fine up to the moment where he approached one of the orcs who was shouting, ordering the goblins around from behind and putting his hand on its body, but the guy suddenly had a seizure and swung his fist at him.

“My head is still shaking… ah…” At the time with the gryphon, he thought that the difference between their level was the problem, but why did it fail against the orc too? It seemed like he had to tie up the monsters and use the ability more than once in order to tame it completely.

Geom-in straightened his back and admired his work. Goblins were just mobs. However, there were only a handful of survivors who could fight against two orcs single handedly in a hand-to-hand battle.

“For a stagnant water, this is the least of what we should be able to do.” Excitedly, he shrugged his shoulders. However, his happiness was short-lived as the scarab began pulling his hair.

He seemed to be saying why is Geom-in so slow in defeating the monsters.

Turns out the scarab had often gone out with Seokhyun. Every time the scarab saw Seokhyun fight, the area around the battle would become wasted to the point that it’s original view would no longer be recognizable, and as the scarab had become used to Seokhyun’s battle, he naturally compared Geom-in’s fight with Seokhyun’s.

“You can’t compare me with him.”

By the way, where is this…

While fighting the monsters, Geom-in moved a lot without paying attention to where he went. Only now did he realize that he had come to a different path from the path he walked before.

Fortunately for him, the scarab showed him the way by pulling his hair to the direction they should go. As they walked, the ceiling brightened. Geom-in stuttered and found a space inside a collapsed door.

“What kind of place is this?” A lot of tools, crafting tables covered in dust, and extinguished braziers lay around inside the room. The scarab quickly went down to the floor and ran around. Then he pointed to a chest placed under a shelf.

As Geom-in thought that it should be something important, he opened it.

“Wow, what is all this?”

It was filled with magic metal ore, black coal, and ignition stones. This place must have been a workshop where the scarab worked before they were cursed into their current state.

When Geom-in put his hand in and rummaged through it, to his surprise, several etherstones came out.

“This is it!”

He was worried in case he went back to the shelter empty-handed. But to think that something this good had appeared…

Geom-in was ecstatic, as he immediately started putting the ores and etherstones into his backpack.

“This place is better than I expected?”

Then, the scarab started drawing a picture. He told Geom-in that if they keep going deeper, there would be a lot of better things inside. However, he also warned him that the deeper they went, the more dangerous it would be, as a lot of stronger monsters would also appear.

Geom-in just shrugged his shoulders at the scarab’s warning.

“Well, no pain no gain, right?”

The scarab looked at him with a little admiration.

The two remembered the location of the workshop and started going down.

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.

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We hid in the building next to the Parco Department Store. There was no problem getting out of the entrance thanks to the use of the firecrackers, but a few ghouls chased after us. There were even a couple grasshoppers in the mix, so it was quite chaotic. But thanks to Seokhyun, it all went well.

Yuzuka looked down at the ground and murmured. “It’s so messy here… When will people finally be able to gather in Japan again…”

“It wouldn’t be any time soon, maybe.” It’s a pessimistic speculation on my part, but it was highly likely that this situation would remain for a long time. After all, there’s no center ‘pillar’ for the survivors to gather around here, unlike in Korea.

The Japanese government must have heard about the apocalypse from the Korean government, but it seemed like they decided not to take any action, and everything went up in flames. Thanks to that, the remaining Japanese survivors were making a lot of noise at the Auction House.

By the way, in this area, the Monsters Alliance was the main power. According to the information gathered from the Auction House, monsters didn’t attack them. In other words, there was a high probability of them having the Friendliness skill.

Seokhyun looked out the window and said, “I just noticed that a few guys followed us.”

“It must be people from the Monsters Alliance or something.”

“Aren’t they just murderers?”

“Yeah. They are just making it cooler by using a concept. They didn’t fear death from the monsters as they have Friendliness skill, and they seem to find joy in working together to harass the survivors.”

Yuzuka, who was listening, was startled. “Friendliness? Such a skill exists?”

“It exists. The chances of getting it are very low, though. Moreover, you have to keep killing to keep it in your skill list. That means that the guy who has the Friendliness skill had at least killed a total of a hundred people.”

“I-is that so…”

“He will be strong.”

“He will be much stronger than that murderer we met in Changwon.”

“If I fight him now, I will be beaten to pulp, won’t I?”

“We should never meet him. At least for now.”

The keyword is ‘for now’. After all, the Battle Royale battlefield was still active.

I pulled out a map of the Tokyo neighborhood that Yuzuka had given me.

“I’m not sure about the size of the battlefield, but that’s roughly the range.”

After drawing dozens of circles in Tokyo Prefecture, Yuzuka sat down in dogeza and said, “Battle Royale means people have to kill each other, right?”

“Yes. It will stay active until only one person left.”

“If they just hide without killing each other…”

“Then the ‘Shackles of War’ debuff would remain in effect, and people wouldn’t be able to level up. Meanwhile, more monsters would keep spawning every night, so it would be very dangerous.”

She said ah, and bit her mouth. To be honest, our goal was not to defeat the Monster Alliance. We went here to get two gryphons. There were rumors that it had been seen somewhere in Tokyo, but it rarely appeared. So we need to wait here for a while.

“For now, let’s rest here for a while. Once we recover, we should go to this place.” Yuzuka was startled when I pointed to a part of the map.

“That’s the Royal Palace.”

“There is a lot of green space around it. There will be few people too, so we definitely can end the battlefield there.”

There would be people who were sacrificed in the process, but it was unavoidable.

I thought Yuzuka was reluctant to kill people because of her bitter face, but that wasn’t the case.

“Royal Palace, huh…” Just as she was about to say something, a voice came from the stairs outside.

No heartbeat can be heard, so it’s not a murderer…

These guys were the type of guys who always moved around in groups.

Seokhyun was about to leave but I stopped him.

“Yuzuka, let’s work together.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I want you to become a bait to lure those guys.”

“After that?”

“I will paralyze him and dig up some information. It looks like they are following us on purpose.” I said as I brought out a paralyzing stinger from the backpack.

Jiman had caught some poisonous frogs from somewhere and raised them. Perhaps because of his unique skill, the frogs were producing their poison at a faster rate compared to the time I did it alone.

Yuzuka tilted her head, but her face hardened when I told her that this stinger was the very same stinger the goblin shoots.

“That paralyzing poison…”

“If it hits you, you will end up lying down without being able to move for around 20 to 30 minutes. Then we can just have some lunch while we’re waiting for the effect to run out.”

“Leave it to Yuzuka.”

Yuzuka rolled up her sleeves and grabbed her bow. Her unique skill was Archery. It came from the fact that she’s well versed in archery, and the fact that she’s so talented that she has won several competitions.

Of course, that information was something that I got from his brother, Kenji.

She walked towards the door cautiously while inhaling a deep breath. She saw someone appeared from the hallway and attacked her.

“Get away!”

While they were facing each other, I put a paralyzing stinger in the rod and carefully aimed at the man before blowing it and letting it fly.

“Ugh!”

The attacker made a suffocating sound and collapsed to the ground in an instant. Seokhyun jumped towards the man and dragged him inside.

“His hair is so long. I’m offended.”

“I know right? He looks like a supporting character from some Japanese RPG game.”

A pretty handsome man was lying on the floor with his eyes wide open. Believe it or not, men in Japan only wear shaggy cuts because barbers are expensive here.

Yuzuka asked carefully.

“Now what?”

“We just have to wait. Let’s just eat while we wait.”

I took a snack from my backpack and ate with the two of them. The collapsed man’s breathing became heavy and a rumble was heard from his stomach.

I told him.

“If you behave and cooperate with us, I will feed you.”

When we finished eating, the man’s hands trembled. Seokhyun tied the man’s whole body with a rope, and Yuzuka panicked.

“Is-is it really necessary to tie him up like that…”

Indeed. He looked like someone you would see in an SM club.

(T/N For those of you who don’t know what SM club is… Don’t google it if you are not ready…)

The man coughed and grinded his teeth.

“You guys… who the hell are you?”

“I told you to behave, Didn’t I? You know that even if I kill you here, I won’t be considered as murderer, right?”

He narrowed his eyes.

“You know quite a bit, huh?”

“I am.” To be exact, no one knows better than me, except for a few exceptions, such as the programmer I met in the Great Labyrinth. However, it wasn’t something I should reveal here.

“Forget it, tell me your name. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll throw you outside in that state.”

“…Shintaro. Others called me Vengeful Shintaro.”

Seokhyun muttered into Yuzuka’s ear as soon as he heard his name.

“I think he got chuunibyou.” (P/n Chūnibyō (中二病) is a Japanese colloquial term typically used to describe early teens who have grandiose delusions, who desperately want to stand out, and who have convinced themselves that they have hidden knowledge or secret powers. Sometimes also called eight-grade syndrome. Sc : Wikipedia)

“Yuzuka thinks so too…·”

As the two of them said that, Shintaro’s face turned red. But looking at how violent his heart is beating right now, I think he’s really angry.

“Chuunibyou? What do you guys know! I lost everything to the Monster Alliance! I don’t want to be under the same sky as them!”

“The Monster Alliance, huh? Then, you should know a little bit about them, right?”

“No one knows better than me.”

“Tell me. Then I’ll give you a full meal. Moreover, I will release you.”

Shintaro smirked.

“Do you think I will surrender to such an offer?.”

“Isn’t that a good deal? You give information, I release you.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“You guys are very suspicious because you don’t know much about the Monster Alliance. Judging from your looks, even though one of you is definitely a complete pervert, are you guys from Korea?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I have nothing to say.”

As soon as he heard those words, Seokhyun pulled out a shotgun from my backpack and aimed it at him.

“Really? Just because we are from Korea? How about now?”

Sweat dripped down Shintaro’s temple as Seokhyun cocked the gun.

“Ask away. I’ll answer everything you want to know.”