Chapter 21: The Lost World of the Corrupted (5)

I swung my arm, bringing the mace down brutally in an arcing motion. It slammed into the zombie’s skull with a sickening crunch, smashing its head like a ripe watermelon.

“

Huff! Huff!

”

The group that had led the zombies our way collapsed as soon as they passed us, gasping for breath. Out of the five we spotted, only three had made it. The other two unfortunately lost their lives to the horde as they tried to flee.

Seo Ho-Su shouted something weird as he shoved his shield forward, guarding the newcomers.

“Bash!”

He followed the move up by quickly stabbing the stumbling zombie.

... Did he just shout out the name of a skill? Sure, priests do that sometimes, but... that didn’t seem like a skill, though.

He hadn’t done this in the earlier fights.

Is he getting more comfortable fighting with us?

Well, he did mention he was a fan of fantasy novels. If anything, it was a good sign that he was starting to get the hang of combat.

“

Gasp,

thank you!”

“Thank you, thank you so much!”

Once the last zombie fell, the survivors kept bowing and thanking us. They were three big guys, all holding swords. They looked like warriors.

“How’d you even make it down here?”

“We were heading to Chungmuro, but then the zombies suddenly shifted to the other side. We took advantage of the gap...”

“Chungmuro?”

“Yeah, my home’s there. But that... what is that?”

One of the guys glanced at the strange egg nestled behind us.

Is he just asking out of curiosity? No, I can see a flicker of greed in his eyes. Saved from drowning, yet you’re asking for the rescue boat.

Honestly, I was annoyed. His eyes kept darting to the egg and the gear around it.

Seriously? We just saved your life, and that’s what you’re thinking about?

“We are the ones who found these items. Back off.”

My words came out sharper than I intended. The guy must’ve noticed my irritation because he quickly backpedaled.

“Oh, no, I wasn’t trying to claim anything. I was just curious... Were you guys heading to Chungmuro too?”

“Yeah, that’s where we’re going.”

Seo Ho-Su answered smoothly, probably sensing my mood. The tension eased up a bit.

“Is it just me, or is this guy shady?” I whispered to Ha Hee-Jeong, but her response sent a chill down my spine.

“Yeah, we should kill him now.”

“Huh?”

We should kill him?

Surprised, I turned to her and saw her glaring intensely at the guy.

"That guy is bad news, he’ll do anything to satisfy his greed—backstabbing, betraying, you name it. Honestly, I’d love to take him out right here, but for now... we don’t have a choice, we have to let him be."

“...”

“Keep an eye on him. I will too.”

I nodded slightly, but I still felt uneasy. I had killed things that looked like people before, but the thought of killing an actual person daunted me. That was different, something I hadn’t wanted to consider.

There was a huge psychological difference between killing something that looked human and killing an actual human.

I figured this might happen someday...

But now that I had to face that reality, it felt way harder than I had imagined.

No, don’t dwell on it now. She only asked me to keep an eye on him, nothing more. Let’s just focus on what we were doing.

“Hey, Ho-Su. Do you want to come with us? Our place is pretty big.”

“Well, I should ask my group first.”

“By the way, you were amazing back there! I was shocked by the way you blocked with your shield and then... Bam! Stabbed right through!”

“Nah~ Su-Hyeok here is the real deal.”

Seo Ho-Su and the guy were already chatting and laughing like old friends.

Meanwhile, I quietly called Doppy over before approaching the egg. Ha Hee-Jeong picked up the elixir, ring, and necklace.

“You should take the ring and the elixir. I’ll just keep the necklace.”

“Okay, got it.”

She handed me the elixir and ring before slipping on the necklace. The necklace gave her quite the power boost since I instantly noticed her steps become lighter.

[Kwon Su-Hyeok (Earthling, C-66432)]

Title: Seeker of the Crossroads

Affiliation: None

Patron Deity: First class, Omniscient Thunder Axe (Share percentage: 0.00% / 100.00%)

Strength: 82.8

Agility: 77.5

Stamina: 75.9

Mana: 43.5

Skills: Lightning Essence lvl 4, Sixth Sense lvl 8, Indomitability lvl 14(+5), Combat Focus lvl 13(+5), Natural Healing lvl 5, Pain Resistance lvl 5, Lightning Resistance lvl 5, Fire Resistance lvl 2, Poison Resistance lvl 2

As expected, my stats increased slightly according to the ring’s description—Strength +4, Agility +2, Stamina +4, Mana +2. Surprisingly, my Lightning Essence skill leveled up as well. Now, it was time to deal with the weird egg.

“Doppy.”

“

Kriee!

Purification!”

A radiant light descended on the blackened, corroded egg, but nothing happened.

Was my Sixth Sense skill wrong??

Then again, I couldn’t expect my Sixth Sense skill to be right every time since it was just that—a sixth sense, not foresight.

Wait... Did the egg just twitch?

“Did you see that? I think it shook a bit.”

𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

“Hmm, I’m not sure.”

“Doppy, try it one more time.”

“

Kriee!

Purification!”

Staring intently at the egg, I saw it twitch again. This time, I was sure of it. It had flinched slightly, barely noticeable unless you were paying close attention.

“Chloe, Ha-Rin, you both know how to cast Purification, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s all do it together.”

When the three priests cast the spell simultaneously, the radiant light grew even brighter. Finally, we heard a faint crack, and the black tendrils wrapping around the egg began to fall away.

***

[■■■ ■■'s Egg]

- An unordinary egg.

- Whoever looks at it will feel curious about its origin.

- Handle with care.

“So, what was your original plan?”

“They said you’d find a key when you break the egg. So there’s this media center that focuses on movies in Chungmuro Station’s underground...”

“But you weren’t the one who broke it, right?”

“Yeah, I just heard about it. They said there’s a hidden door in that media center. I planned to find it, hide inside whatever room was behind the door, and wait out the remaining time.”

Ha Hee-Jeong and I were sitting in the apartment near Chungmuro Station and had been discussing the twist that had occurred. This place belonged to that sketchy guy, and now, thanks to the notification window, we had learned that the word “corrupted” was gone from the egg’s description.

That’s a good sign, at least.

Unfortunately, we had no idea what to do next. The change to the hidden mission had rendered Ha Hee-Jeong’s knowledge close to useless.

“So we purified the egg, but that cost us a safe hiding spot.”

“... When the twenty-four-hour time limit is up, the Queen will show up.”

“The Queen?”

“Yeah, she’s a monster of a monster. Even with our current strength, I’m not sure we could take her down. And she appears randomly. In the first round, almost everyone who encountered the Queen ended up dead.”

After Ha Hee-Jeong finished speaking, she fell silent, thinking hard.

The Queen, huh? If we manage to beat her, the rewards should be massive.

Just then, something clicked for Ha Hee-Jeong and her face suddenly lit up.

“The egg! What if it’s meant to be given to the Queen?”

Since she knew about the Queen, it should’ve been easy for her to connect the dots. I couldn’t resist teasing her a bit, and she frowned at me in frustration.

“Oh, that makes sense. This egg isn’t ordinary, so it’s probably the Queen’s. That’s so obvious! How did you not think of that sooner?”

“Ugh, well, everything I knew about the hidden mission got turned upside down, okay? You’d be just as thrown off if you were in my shoes.”

“Geez, and you call yourself a mage. Use your brain.”

“Wow, really? That’s rich coming from you, Mr. Talentless Mage.”

“Ha, but I’m a warrior now. And I’m ranked number one~”

The look on Ha Hee-Jeong’s face told me I should probably stop before she lost her cool. Who knows what she might do if I pushed her too far?

[Survive for forty-eight hours. Time remaining: 37 hours 18 minutes]

We had thirty-seven hours left. According to Ha Hee-Jeong’s timeline, The Queen wouldn’t show up for another thirteen hours.

Should we just wait here and rest until then?

“So, what do we do until the Queen appears?”

“The original plan was to get the key, then hunt down some zombie warriors to rack up achievement points before hiding.”

“And you weren’t planning to fight the Queen?”

“Well, most of what I knew was just what I had heard from others. We’ve also gone way off of my original plan so I can’t know what that has changed. There’s no point risking our lives for a reckless adventure.”

Wait, if the Queen is that powerful, aren’t we in trouble too?

Ha Hee-Jeong’s words suddenly made me anxious.

“Hey, Ha Hee-Jeong. If we mess up giving her the egg, aren’t we screwed too?”

“No, if this is the Queen’s egg, we’ll be fine. The Queen isn’t corrupted. She’s just hunting down the humans who killed her kin. And if things go south, we can always run.”

“Really?”

The way she said it so casually made me feel a bit more at ease.

Does she already have an escape plan? Well, she has been through this before, so she probably has a few tricks up her sleeve.

“Okay, let’s rest until the Queen shows up. If things go wrong, we might end up running for twenty-four hours straight.”

It turned out that she didn’t have any backup plans other than to run away if things went south. If we wanted to clear this hidden mission, we would probably have to face the Queen anyway.

Fine, let’s rest. Maybe I could even take a nap.

Looking around, I noticed the rest of the group was freshly showered and sprawled around the apartment. Some were already asleep, while others were staring blankly into space. I decided it would be best not to let our guard down too much, so I yelled out to everyone.

“Hey, everyone, wake up for a second. We should set up a watch rotation, just to be safe.”

***

[Survive for forty-eight hours. Time remaining: 24 hours 15 minutes]

We had spent the last thirteen hours resting, but I doubted anyone felt refreshed. We had the homeowner to thank for this.

Jo Hyun-Su was the guy Ha Hee-Jeong had warned me about. We didn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining the situation to the others, so Ha Hee-Jeong and I took turns staying awake.

I hoped the others hadn’t noticed our guardedness, but if they had, I could tell them our reasonings once we built more trust later.

“Is everyone ready?”

When Ha Hee-Jeong mentioned that the Queen would show up once there were twenty-four hours left, the group was split in their opinions. Some wanted to come with us, trusting Ha Hee-Jeong’s alleged foresight, but others didn’t.

“If you don’t want to come, then don’t. Just don’t blame me later if things go south for you,” Ha Hee-Jeong said coldly, staring pointedly at those hesitant to join.

In the end, six of us decided to proceed: me, Ha Hee-Jeong, Seo Ho-Su, Seo Ha-Rin, Cole Grouse, and Doppy. Chloe didn’t want to take any more risks, so she chose to stay behind with the three other guys. Honestly, I was sure it was because she felt uncomfortable with our group, but nobody commented on it.

To be honest, it was uncomfortable having her around.

I was still worried about that guy named Jo Hyun-Su. According to Ha Hee-Jeong, he was a backstabbing scumbag.

Should we warn the others to be careful around him?

Just as we were about to leave the apartment, Ha Hee-Jeong suddenly turned back.

“Hold up, I left something behind.”

She had her wand, clothes, and necklace, so I didn’t think she was missing anything.

“Really? I’ll go with you.”

I started to follow her, but she insisted on going alone.

“No, just wait in the security office. I’ll be right back.”

What’s up with her? Did she forget something personal, like a period pad?

We did pick up some stuff at the convenience store earlier. That was the only thing that made sense to me.

Yeah, that could be a little embarrassing.

About five minutes later, Ha Hee-Jeong came back down just as we were starting to feel uncomfortable in the cramped security office.

“Just had a weird feeling,” she whispered, looking relieved.

A weird feeling? Maybe she had a sudden stomach issue?

Whatever it was, I decided to respect her privacy.

[Survive for forty-eight hours. Time remaining: 24 hours 0 minutes]

[A ‘■■■ Queen’ has appeared in a random location. Be careful.]

“

Skreeeek!”

Right on cue, we heard a chilling screech in the distance. Standing at the apartment entrance, we heard it come roughly from ten o’clock. That direction led to the Daehan Theater past Jaeil Hospital, which was an area we had passed earlier.

“That’s near Chungmuro Station.”

Considering the Queen spawned randomly, we got pretty lucky. Ha Hee-Jeong had mentioned she didn’t know how far the sixth floor extended. If our luck had been worse, we could have had to search all over Seoul for the Queen.

“Let’s move.”

***

「Invisible message: The hidden mission ‘Lost World of the Corrupted Seraphim’ is in progress in Zone 54 of the Lost World of the Corrupted.」

「Invisible message: A replica of the Seraphim Queen will not be spawned for the hidden mission. Instead, the real Seraphim Queen has appeared in Zone 54 of the Lost World of the Corrupted.」