Chapter 16. Altar (1)
Boooom!
A strong shockwave resonated out of Mihee’s mouth.
Kududuk
The carnivorous bird that was heading towards mihee tumbled around after getting entangled in the shockwave.
And in that moment the needle in Hansoo’s right hand and the Katana in his left hand rapidly embroidered the air
Papapapak
An Elite Goblin’s Katana that came out whilst hunting.
It fell behind in comparison to the needle in terms of hardness but it had a good balance and had a good edge so it was decent to use as a sub weapon.
Since as long as you can slash with it then a weapon that can slash is more comfortable to use then a weapon that stabs.
‘Goddamit’
Mihee clenched her teeth.
Whilst she was unguarded for a moment, a bird had flown towards her.
But the reason why she clenched her teeth was not because it was dangerous.
Shugak
Mihee smacked her lips as she saw the katana that cut the carnivorous bird in a single sweep.
“I’ve received help again.”
She tried to do it alone but had gained help again.
Hansoo watched her as he spoke
“There is a difference between don’t rely on me and do everything alone. It’s obvious to receive somebody’s help when you use a skill that has a moment of pause. You need to clearly realize the pros and cons of your skills.”
Hansoo then proceeded to divide up the runes on the ground.
Extremely accurately as usual.
‘Has it already been two days’
It has been two days since the incident occurred.
It was almost the fourth day now.
And during this time Hansoo was indulged in hunting without rest.
Mihee checked her runes as she picked up the runes.
[Jin Mihee] Strength: 27.4
Stamina: 28.8
Agility: 18.1
Perception: 21.2
Mana: 18
<Skill>
Barb Snake’s Shockwave: 2.4%
Rotating Ring: 2.1%
The rotating ring which they had gained during hunting was also something she had bought which Hansoo had obtained.
<Rotating Ring> which raised the rate of regeneration of Mana and Health didn’t really show its might during a battle but if one were to look at it’s effect around the whole day, it made a substantial change.
With just this much there was nothing lacking because in the real world it would be almost at the level of a superhuman.
She can easily beat down somebody with a gun at ease.
Since she can see where the bullet will be shot by looking at the trigger of the finger and dodge them all.
No, if she started a battle in a town it would be even more than that.
Hansoo, who had seen Mihee do this, checked his own stats.
[Kang Hansoo] Strength: 54.3
Stamina: 55.8
Agility: 42.1
Perception: 42.2
Mana: 22
Magic Resistance: 13
‘Good’
Hansoo, who had raised up his agility and perception, nodded.
You couldn’t compare stats in pairs but strength and stamina, agility and perception had a close relationship with each other.
Without enough stamina then no matter how much strength you have you won’t be able to use it efficiently and no matter how high your stamina was, if your strength was low then it was just wasted talent.
If one were to move properly in the sped up time from agility they needed to have high perception and it wouldn’t matter how high your perception was if your body didn’t follow.
The best solution was keeping all the stats around the same number.
Thankfully he had Mihee who was rather lacking in strength and stamina so he raised his perception and agility while trading their runes around.
At that point a small voice was heard in Hansoo and Mihee ears.
<Ah. Ah. Everybody? Can you hear me? Please gather to the starting point this moment please>
Mihee frowned at the familiar voice.
‘Fairy…’
Hansoo spoke as he looked at Mihee.
“Let’s go back.”
Mihee nodded at those words.
But then she stopped turning around and then asked Hansoo.
“Do you perhaps have a girlfriend? Ah… would you even remember.”
Mihee had developed quite a liking to Hansoo recently.
It was scary at first.
Since she knew what happened to the people who crossed the line.
But after watching for three days, she realized that crossing the line was rather difficult.
Since it was like an adult looking over a child, it was rather leisurely.
‘He’s almost like an old man…’
And her mind was much more at ease when she figured that out.
Because he felt like someone that would deal with her no matter what she did.
‘Huh.’
Hansoo smirked at those lovey dovey words.
‘Now that I think about it, if that Gangtae guy came he would’ve been so happy that he’d have thrown a fit’
Perhaps if that guy came back, he could’ve set up a harem kingdom.
But Hansoo shook his head.
‘I can’t lose one again’
He had too long of a road to travel to do that.
Hansoo organized his thoughts and spoke with a small laugh.
“I don’t remember.”
Hansoo walked towards the Gangnam station they had met at the beginning and Mihee followed him in a hurry shortly after watching him for a while.
***
The place where they had started was already swarming with people.
Because Hansoo had told them how to eat the goblin meat, it seemed like internal fights due to food hadn’t risen up.
Without that it was likely that their numbers would’ve been much lower.
And there were some familiar faces out of the ones alive.
‘They were all alive!’
Mihee felt her mind, which was rather full of worries due to not being able to see her friends due to following around Hansoo which was rather rigorous, settled down as she saw them alive afar.
‘But the situation is a little strange’
Whilst she was frowning as she saw the weird tension, the air suddenly split.
And a familiar face popped out and shouted energetically.
“Greetings! Everybody! I’m here today with two very very good news!”
The fairy, who had shouted loudly, watched the people as it smiled.
“The first good news is that if you hold onto 72 more hours then you can get out of here!”
“…”
The people had heard the news but didn’t really make a happy expression.
Because it sounded like that even if they had left this place, the place they will go to wouldn’t really be safe.
No, since this was the tutorial it was obvious that they were going to a more dangerous location.
The fairy laughed at these people.
“I think I know what you’re feeling. But when you hear the next story you will think that this is a very good news”
And as the people stared at the fairy, it flicked its fingers.
Kugugugugugu
Something rapidly shot up from the small movements of the hand.
A structure almost the size of a small building.
‘…Altar?’
The people made a weird expression as they looked at the new building
It definitely had a similar form to the altars at the ancient aztec grounds.
The fairy laughed as it looked at the people
“It’s a magical altar. There lives a very cute pet inside.”
Then the altar shone bluish as it turned transparent.
The altar was an empty box-like structure unlike its outside appearance.
And the people gulped as they saw the creature within it.
Krrrrrr…
Something that resembled the Alien.
If you discard the fact that the size of it was 15m.
The thing inside the altar was scratching the wall of the altar as if it was pissed at something.
An even more frightening thing was that every time it scratched the wall, parts of it would fall apart as it made grinding sounds.
“Can you see it? Its called <Carnivorous Beast>. But our friend here is very hungry right now. Since there’s nothing to eat in there it wants to come out of there right now. We starved it for a whole day for this.”
“…”
“As you can see the Altar is very good in terms of looks but it isn’t really useful. It will probably get destroyed soon. Since its a structure that is faithful it’s design.”
At these words the people made a frightened expression.
Everyone knew.
That the area they were in currently was limited.
If that altar fell then they would all get eaten.
Even if they were to hide, the beast will eat them alive as it chased them one by one at night.
The people then realized why the fairy said the earlier news was a good news.
Because in other words, after 72 hours they didn’t have to be in the same space as the monster.
‘Wait it said there were two good news before’
The fairy smiled as it spoke.
“I said there were 2 good news before right? Thankfully there is a way to make him fall asleep. If he falls asleep then he would naturally stop scratching the wall to come out right?”
But nobody asked a question.
Since it had shown what happened to someone who questioned it before.
As there were no reactions, the fairy made a dejected expression for a while then spoke again.
“The answer is very simple. Five a day.”
“…?”
“If you give him five people as food then he would fall asleep. Since its 72 hours you would need to give him food three times right?”
Everyone clenched their teeth at these words.
‘What the fuck. The number of people who are still surviving is only around 60…’
It meant that only if they use a quarter of the people they had now then that beast wouldn’t escape.
‘Damn. Then it’s just better to fight’
As someone had this thought in their mind, the fairy spoke again.
“The choice is yours. Heehee. Give or not give. But I’ll show you this in order to help you decide”
And then the fairy played a short clip in people’s heads.
“These were people who decided to fight it together. From the tutorials before”
The people who had seen this made an extremely frightened expression.
The beast that was released was basically causing a massacre.
Ruthlessly ripping and smashing.
And the beast that had escaped didn’t just stop after eating five.
The beast that had came outside devoured the humans in a craze.
They had fought with combined strength but every time it ate somebody its health rose and the injuries on its body healed.
Almost 70 people had charged it but they were all massacred and the ones who ran away were later eaten.
The beast which had eaten everybody was left alone as if nothing happened.
“…”
Everyone realized what kind of decision they had to make after the clip finished.
One of the people who had seen the clip asked whilst clenching their teeth.
“How do we choose!? The people to go in!”
Then the fairy answered with a strange expression
“Why are you asking me that?”
“…”
“Pulling out of a hat, forcibly chucking them in, figure it out yourselves. You just need to put them in while they’re alive. No dead bodies”
“…”
The fairy which had emphasized <chucking> smiled as it spoke for the last time.
“By the way you should decide within an hour. If you put in a sacrifice then you will be safe for 24 hours. And then if you put in more in the next hour after that you will be safe again. Then be strong for the remaining 72 hours. Bye!”
And then the fairy disappeared just like that.
The people started to mumble.
Their opinions were all heading to one path.
That fighting was impossible.
Which meant there was only one way.
Whilst they were guarding against each other a man spoke out.
“To be fair… how about we pull names out of a hat? We pick 5 on the first day. 5 more the next day… like that”
Then one person smirked.
“Why do we need to be fair?”
At those words everybody looked at that direction.
And Mihee, who had also turned towards that direction, also drooled.
‘It’s Sangjin… and friends’
The five were emitting a different aura at a single glance now.
The scars all over the body meant that they were converged in battles until now.
‘And it seems there’s something different about Sangjin…’
His confidence was overflowing. And he was standing in the middle as if he was doing the work that Taesoon was doing instead.
Whilst Mihee was watching Sangjin, the man who has spoken before frowned as he asked.
“Then what do you want to do?”
He didn’t keep his formalities from the fact that his opinions were ignored and the one who had ignored it was a young person.
Sangjin replied to those words.
“Isn’t it obvious that we should throw in the 5 most useless people first?”
Everyone frowned at those words.
They did have a thought like that but it was difficult to speak it out just like that.
Sangjin walked forward as he watched the people and spoke.
“It isn’t the time to idle. We are separated right now but we will leave here in 72 hours! But what will happen after we get out?”
Everyone started to whisper and mumble.
“Think of the amount of people who went missing! It isn’t simply just around 100. If we go out then the people who had gone through similar experiences will be crawling about everywhere. No, we don’t know that an even stronger beast would come out. We might even have to fight a beast like that!”
Everyone nodded at those words.
Since they were all thinking along those lines too.
There wasn’t a game where the difficulty lessened as you proceeded.
And the chances of meeting people who went through similar experiences like them was high.
As the people looked at him, Sangjin shouted loudly.
“Of course, to fight with them we need to combine our strength. And it’s obvious we need stronger people more! Since if when we go out we will need to face stronger enemies!”
And then Sangjin smacked the building next to him
Boom!
The wall of the building blew off from Sangjin’s fists.
And Mihee who saw this mumbled inwardly in shock
‘When did he get so…’
She could be certain. Since she had followed Hansoo and hunted along with him she had grown faster than anybody.
But Sangjin was even stronger than her.
If his strength was that much than his other stats were probably similar.
Whilst Mihee was shocked Sangjin continued his speech.
“So isn’t it obvious that we put in the weak ones first? Hansoo what are your thoughts?”
At those words everybody looked over to the direction Sangjin spoke to.