CH-5Â Â (Slaughter)
—
Thereâs no way Iâm mistaken. Itâs not so crazy that I can confuse dreams with reality.
Itâs real.
The Pangenia monster really appeared in reality.
Bang! Taang!
The police from the police station right in front of me jumped out and responded with pistol shots, but they didnât even work.
They fell prey to the Giant Mantis without even a scratch on its tough skin.
âSave me⊠Ah!â
âEmergency! Emergency!â
The police were in a standoff while they were on the radio. Most of the civilians ran away, but there were many who couldn’t. They just stomped around in the building, watching the situation. Some were taking pictures or videos, not realizing the seriousness of the situation.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeing-!
The air raid alarm started ringing at a higher decibel level.
The cellphones were the same.
As in a disaster situation, the contents floated up on the screen at the same time as the loud noise.
ăUnknown attack occurred at 14:32. All over Seoul, Busan, Daegu, and Gyeonggi.
*Evacuate to a nearby underground shelter and listen to the broadcastă
······ It wasnât just here.
Simultaneous attacks began all over Korea.
From an unidentified life form!
But I know what it is.
A field boss monster that you will definitely encounter if you play Pangenia.
A level 4 Giant Mantis! You canât help but recognize it when you see its unique antennae-based attacks and the bright red flowers on its back.
âWhat should I do?â
My heart felt like it was going to burst. In the game, I am a flexible, capable, and versatile player, but in reality, I am just an ordinary citizen. My head hurts. My heartbeat kept getting faster and faster.
âAhhhh! Mom! Mommy!â
I came to my senses when I heard the childâs cries. I immediately turned my head.
I brought all the rewards I had received from Pangenia back to reality.
If the monsters in the game are roaming around in reality, then wouldnât I be able to use the things I got in the game in reality?
âThe Spirit of Hydragon!â
I held the stone engraved with runes.
Hydragon. It was a monster that couldnât be compared to the field boss, the Giant Mantis.
I knew the strategy so I easily defeated it, but originally it was a trial that had to be cleared by 12 people.
Swish swish swish!
âWhy canât I do this?â
I frowned.
In the game, you just double-click. Then, the character takes out the stone and pretends to wipe it with his hand, completing the summoning.
I wiped it diligently, but it didnât work.
I looked away again.
âA broken piece of the Golden Rule.â
It was said to synchronize reality and the game.
I held the Golden Rule coin as if I was intercepting it.
âOn.â
In that moment, a goddess appeared before my eyes.
The twin goddesses of Pangenia. The goddesses I always saw when I logged in kissed my cheek.
<<<<Starting synchronization with ‘Randolph’>>>>
<<<<Completed>>>>
<<<<The remaining time of the Broken Golden Rule is 24 hours.>>>>
······ The sound of my heart that felt like it was going to burst subsided.
My body’s trembling and my complicated mind were all neatly organized.
I spread my hands. Thick hands. I had become Randolph.
I picked up Michela’s sword. The thick two-handed greatsword fit snugly in my hands. I grabbed Hydragon’s soul. I walked straight to the window.
Thump!
I stepped on the window sill and jumped down to the ground.
An old-fashioned five-story villa. It was a height that would kill an ordinary person instantly, but I didn’t care.
I felt the resistance of the air as I floated in the air and rubbed Hydragon’s soul.
Gooooo!
Hydragon’s adult form was summoned on the street.
I rode Hydragon’s back and advanced toward Mantis.
***
‘Special Report!’
Intern reporter Kim Ha-na thought of the scoop the moment the monster attacked.
A giant locust has invaded the city.
If I can capture this moment, Iâll definitely win this yearâs Pulitzer.
Click! Click!
I got as close as I could and took a picture with my phone.
âAwesome.â
This wasnât a movie prop or CGI, this was a real, realistic monster.
A scoop. This tiresome internship was over. As soon as I thought that,
âAhhhh! Mom! Mommy!â
Not far away, a child who looked to be about five years old was crying sadly.
A shopping cart. A woman crushed by the rubble of a building.
The giant mantis turned its eyes.
All the arrogance came out of her.
Should I film that cruel monster destroying a family? Is that the true spirit of a reporter that my seniors talk about?
Damn it. Kim Ha-na threw down her shoes and ran, gritting her teeth.
She was on her way back from a blind date at the request of a friend, and she thought this was a bolt from the blue, but she didnât have time to consider each and every detail.
Kim Ha-na jumped in almost like a bungee and wrapped the childâs body.
âAre you okay? Are you fine?â
âMom······.â
âOh, Miss. My child······.â
The woman crushed by the rubble finally regained consciousness and opened her mouth.
The motherâs words asking her to save her child.
Those who are going to live should live.
However, Kim Ha-na overlooked something.
That was that the monsterâs tentacles were faster than she thought.
Kim Ha-na turned her head to check the tentacles approaching her, and pushed the child aside.
âAh.â
For a moment, she felt like she was flying.
Soon, the face of a giant mantis appeared before her eyes. A flashback of memories flashed through her mind.
This is how Iâm going to die. At such a young age, Iâve never had a proper relationship.
âThe young director of our company. He kept begging me to meet him. Canât I just meet him once, Hana?
âHeâs a really good guy. He was the schoolâs representative when he was in college, and heâs so handsome. Heâs tall and has a great face. Youâll regret missing this opportunity?
Shouldnât I have gone on the blind date?
He was a good guy, just like her friend said, but she didnât really have any thoughts of dating in the first place, so she was just going to spend some time and come back.
âWhy did it turn out like this?â
Kim Hana tightly shut her eyes. She didnât have the courage to face the mouth of a giant locust and the countless teeth that jutted out like protrusions.
Bam!
That was the moment.
She felt her body float up again and felt someoneâs body heat.
She opened her eyes slightly.
âWhoââ
â······.â
A man who gave off a wild vibe.
He pushed Kim Hana away as if he was throwing her.
With a âUgh,â Kim Ha-na ended up on the back of an unknown monster.
âWhat, what is this?â
Wasnât there just one monster? Was this a dragon? But for a dragon, it had many heads. With nine heads, it was a monster beyond compared to a giant mantis.
âHiccup!â
âHold on tight.â
He was Korean. Kim Ha-na grabbed the monsterâs back tightly.
A man holding a giant sword jumped up.
Kaaaak!
The nine-headed dragon began to bite the mantis like crazy.
The giant mantis screamed and howled.
The scene was like a scene from a legend or a myth.
Kim Ha-na watched in silence, lost in thought.
Every time the man swung the sword like a toy, green blood poured out like a waterfall. The mantis bitten by nine heads couldnât move.
Violence. Kim Ha-na had never seen such a cruel and brutal scene of violence in her life. The level of violence felt like a movie or drama, but it was like childâs play.
Is this what a hero in mythology looks like?
It was a raw, wild beauty that she had never felt before.
Kim Ha-na shuddered at the overwhelming sight.
âAh······.â
Her body trembled. Not because she was afraid, but because she was meeting an indescribable being.
Boom!
In the end, the giant mantis fell without even putting up a proper fight. Its eyes lost focus with its claws and neck cut off.
Then, the mantisâs body disappeared like dust. It turned gray and soon disappeared.
The nine-headed dragon was also disappeared. Kim Ha-na began to fall with a thud.
âS-save me······!â
She waved her hands and feet left and right and was soon being held by someone again.
The man who killed the monster.
He picked up Kim Ha-na as she fell to the ground and landed her safely.
âOh, thank you.â
â······.â
Their eyes met.
The man turned away without saying a word.
Kim Ha-na picked up her cell phone as she watched the man walking away.
Click.
âAh.â
Right after that, Kim Ha-na turned her head as if she realized something.
Before anyone knew it, people were joining forces to pull out the mother of a child who was trapped under the rubble of a building.
Kim Ha-na also ran out and joined in lifting the rubble.
****
The world was in chaos.
Monsters appeared simultaneously, not just in Korea, but all over the world.
The monsters killed people as soon as they appeared and destroyed human civilization.
However, it wasnât just monsters that appeared.
Warriors who cut down monsters that were impervious to guns. They mercilessly slaughtered monsters while wearing armor, swords, spears, and bows like in the Middle Ages.
âDonât worry! I will protect your safety!â
âA world of monsters is coming. We all need to join forces!â
Some of them spoke in their native language and talked about the safety of people.
What was even more surprising was their âtransformationâ.
They, who had previously been warriors, turned back into ordinary people and spoke these words.
Of course, not everyone was like that.
âAt most, they lasted about an hour. Everyone probably wants to save time.â
One man muttered while watching the articles and videos pouring in.
All the warriors who have appeared now are rankers who can ‘log out’.
They can log out when they reach the rankings for each main quest.
‘I have to save as much time as possible on the remaining time of the Broken Golden Rule Piece.’
However, the ‘Broken Golden Rule Piece’ that synchronizes reality and the character is a consumable item. It can only last for a short time of 1 minute, or a long time of 1 hour.
As a result, almost no one used synchronization in reality.
The man was the same. There were a total of eight known people in Korea who could log out.
Among them, the man was strong with a ranker character called ‘Haksal’.
Haksal took a step back from this to check the situation.
If he came forward and Pangenia’s character appearance was revealed, both the game and reality would likely be threatened.
Of course, Haksal was a player with bad manners that everyone acknowledged.
‘Anyway.’
Haksal rubbed his chin.
‘I thought a phantom would appear. There’s no one who looks like a phantom.’
Phantom. Or ghost.
The undisputed number one player in Pangenia.
No one knows his name, so everyone calls him that.
He was predicted to have hundreds of characters, and there were many speculations that the guy who recently launched the ‘Great Expedition to the Demon World’ was Phantom.
However, the great expedition failed due to all sorts of sabotage, and Phantom died and his character was deleted.
‘Is Phantom the real administrator? He was still playing the game, right?’
Haksal was also a pure game player.
However, he was summoned to Pangenia two years ago when Haksal’s character died.
The others were the same.
Only Phantom, and the person who was assumed to be Phantom, continued to dominate the game.
Everyone searched for Phantom to find out the cause.
If he appeared to be Phantom, he first interfered or betrayed him, killed him, and then deleted his character.
This was because other people were usually summoned to Pangenia when their characters were deleted.
‘No. He must have been summoned as that character. He was summoned when the strongest character he had died.’
A 5-star character with eight unique pieces of equipment and armed with all sorts of treasures and talents.
It was an insurmountable wall, having reached level 10 and five stars.
It must have been the most powerful character Phantom had.
If he wasn’t the administrator, he would have been summoned.
And although he would be reset when summoned to Pangenia, the talents of the strongest character would be inherited intact.
His appearance would change, he would become like an NPC, and all contact with others would be lost, but he would have the opportunity to become stronger as he progressed through the main quest.
‘······ Randolph. Is this guy Phantom?’
Since being summoned two years ago, Slaughter has been listed on the rankings of numerous main quests.
Slaughter is level 10. Like other rankers, he is a ranker with hidden traits.
However, there has been a recent change in his ranking, which has hardly changed.
And that too in the first main quest, ‘Survival’.
‘220 points.’
Is that a possible number?
Even if he went back two years and did it again, he wouldn’t have been able to get 220 points.
If this is possible, then it’s definitely Phantom.
Since all the rankers, like himself, would have confirmed it, it was only a matter of time before he became a target.
Eliminate your competitors. Also, if you kill a Phantom, you will get a huge amount of ‘Fragments of Broken Golden Rule’.
It was confirmed that reality and Pangenia were being ‘infiltrated’ in earnest. The competition to obtain the pieces of the Golden Rule would also become full-blown.
In the future, Pangenia and reality could become one.
Pangenia’s NPCs would appear in reality… or the Demon King would really descend.
Before that, he had to settle down. From now on, it was obvious that the stronger one, the one with more pieces of the Golden Rule, would be the main character of this era.
“… Hydragon? Who is this?”
While he was thinking about this, Haksal frowned after seeing a video.
Hydragon.
A warrior who appeared with a monster that had never been officially released, or rather, the only one that had been released.
It was definitely an appearance he had never seen before.
Haksal recorded that warrior’s appearance. He also recorded the other warrior characters that had appeared in Korea.
They were all competitors.
In the era of chaos that was to unfold, he had to be the main character.
***
“Let me go into the sanctuary? Are you crazy?”…
Snake Princess Isabella was astonished. It was none other than my request.
Desert Sanctuary. Let me in.
‘If the first main quest is survival.’
Then I absolutely had to go to the sanctuary.
‘The second main quest is to obtain a class.’
Class. Because there was a way to become stronger while progressing through the main quest.
And that wasn’t all.
“There’s a star .”
“What······?”
Isabella’s eyes trembled.
A star. She must have been surprised that there was a way to receive the star’s blessing there.
I had given up on it before, but I learned it recently while playing.
There was a star in the desert sanctuary. A way to lift the queen’s curse.
However, it was hidden.
‘A star that is in the lowest place, but can shine brighter than any star.’
And the class I wanted could also be obtained from that star.
