"Aaaargh! Save me! Go Jaewon! What are you doing right now!"
Go Jaewon clicked his tongue. If it were a monster, he could have just killed it cleanly, but because it was a contaminated one, he could not. No—more precisely, there were too many cameras filming the place, so he could not kill them. One of the Special Suppression Division members blocking the contaminated collapsed. Grinding his teeth, Go Jaewon unleashed his power toward the contaminated rushing at him.
"Shit, get lost!"
But strangely, the moment his power burst out, the contaminated transformed into a screaming civilian. His hand, which had been raised savagely with his weapon, halted.
"Uwaaaah! P-please spare me! Please don’t attack me!"
A sense of mortification spread across Go Jaewon’s face.
‘Just a moment ago, it was clearly a contaminated charging at me!’
The civilian who had ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) run over for help turned and fled, bawling. Yoon Seungryong quickly took them under protection and placed them inside Lee Chanha’s barrier.
Go Jaewon kept fighting the contaminated, but after what had just happened, hesitation lingered in his movements. Because of the gap that created, Park Seungmin continuously felt his life was in danger. Each time the contaminated drew close, his eyes rolled back and he screeched at the top of his lungs—it was utterly disgraceful.
The chaos only settled down a few minutes later. Seo Yakrin and Joo Hoyoung had suppressed all the contaminated in the small forest. Dozens of contaminated, subdued with golden telekinesis and ice, fell one after another to the ground. As soon as there was a little breathing room, Park Seungmin and Kim Jongseok hurriedly evacuated together with the Special Suppression Division members.
The fully subdued contaminated still writhed, their maddened eyes darting wildly as they searched for a purifier. Lee Hyunmook and the others discreetly blocked them so that Yohan would not be seen by the contaminated.
People screaming, people wailing, people fainting.... The place was sheer pandemonium. Yohan, desperate to purify the contaminated but unable to, felt anguish as Yoon Seungryong placed a hand on his shoulder with a sigh. Then, as if nothing unusual had just happened, he spoke casually.
"Looks like we won’t be eating at the buffet after all, huh?"
Seo Yakrin smacked Yoon Seungryong’s back hard as the [Rift Management Agency Abyss Survivor Return Commemoration Ceremony] came to an end.
* * *
[This Soweon Hotel Commemoration Ceremony Incident Mystery]
First, watch this video.
https://metu.be/nEmoneMoyUGoomM
A pretty famous streamer called Jiubau was live-streaming the ceremony.
At 25:21, look at the far left in the back row. Don’t you see something strange? A person with an X-shaped scar split across their forehead, and their eyes rolled sideways.
Viewers kept telling him to turn around, saying that person looked suspicious.
But he didn’t notice at all.
Even though they were right nearby, he couldn’t recognize it.
Instead, he got angry, saying if people kept pulling ghost pranks they would get banned. Isn’t that seriously creepy?
└On the Awakener community, people are saying it was an illusion ability.
└Yeah, there are monsters that emit hallucinogenic substances. But they’re really rare, usually rooted plant-like things.
└Fuck, if contaminated ones are walking around using hallucinations, doesn’t that mean they could be right next to me?
└That’s why bodycams and CCTVs are sold out everywhere now.
[Protect me first! I’m a high-tier purifier!]
You bastards! Not there, here! It’s me, Park Seungmin!
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
LOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Seriously pathetic.
This is Korea’s proud high-tier purifier?
└Legendary disgrace LOOOLLLLL
└Meanwhile, Lee Chanha ignores him and focuses on protecting civilians.
└Just light.
└Lightlightlight222222
└Light, my ass. As pathetic as he is, protecting the high-tier purifier first should have been correct. If he dies, everyone else dies too.
└Protecting the high-tier purifier first is right. Taeyang Team handled it poorly.
└LMAOOOOO This is what clueless people always say. Even if he’s a healer, he’s still a high-tier Awakener. Look at Tairon. He’s a high-tier healer, but he can solo fourth-grade monsters. And it’s not like Park Seungmin was alone—Go Jaewon and the Special Suppression Division were right there. Of course Taeyang Team had to prioritize civilians.
└Exactly. And high-tier level regeneration is so insane they won’t die easily anyway.
[Why the fuck was PSM even giving a speech there]
It was supposed to be an Abyss returnee commemoration, right?
The protagonist was shoved aside like a prop while KJS talked endlessly, and then the next one up was PSM?
Does that make sense?
└PSM’s power-tripping in his guild is no joke.
└Don’t believe rumors.
└My friend works in that guild, said PSM went to HR to throw a fit because someone didn’t greet him politely.
└Whether or not he abuses power, apparently he’s been suing people left and right these days.
└LOLOL I just commented “Are you insecure?”—literally five words—and he sued me.
[Go actually attacked a civilian, didn’t he?]
Is he sane?
The victim said they just approached asking for help, and he shouted to get lost and attacked.
If that blow had landed properly, they’d at least be half-paralyzed.
└Crazy bastard. How did he even hide his personality all this time?
└Totally different from Big Sheep Team.
└When are they changing the Sunrise Guild name? It’s not Sunrise anymore, right?
└They’re keeping it for name recognition LOOL Without Lee Hyunmook, if they change it, who would even care?
└Lee Hyunmook is gone, but hey, they’ve still got PSM.
└Protect me first! I’m Purifier Park! Seungmin Jeong!
[I don’t know about the rest, but I’m jealous of Yang Yohan]
Lucky guy, born with a silver spoon, gets to attend the ceremony, joins Taeyang Guild, huh.
The moment it got dangerous, Lee Chanha was the first to carry him off.
The Abyss bond really is something.
└LOLOLLLL Honestly, yeah, I’m jealous too. He probably got piggybacked around in the Abyss.
└True. What kind of contribution could a low-tier dealer have made there anyway.
[Hey, did you just see the news?]
They said Taeyang Guild’s treatment and custody facility for severe contaminated cases is completed.
Yohan had been amusing himself reading internet reactions to the contaminated attack a few days ago when he blurted out without thinking.
“The treatment facility is finished?”
“That already came out?”
Seo Yakrin, sprawled on the sofa in his walker boots and flicking his feet as he watched a trashy drama, asked in surprise.
“I heard it was almost finished... journalists are really fast.”
“Ah, just in time, we got a meeting call.”
The people loafing around in the lounge each got up at the summons.
After the Abyss returnee commemoration, the Rift Management Agency was chewed out endlessly. People accused them of poor event management, of not knowing contaminated were approaching until they were already inside, of lax security—it was a disaster.
It wasn’t just the Rift Management Agency getting criticized. Go Jaewon and Park Seungmin’s handling came under fire too. Park Seungmin escaped some blame thanks to being a high-tier purifier, but Go Jaewon, who attacked a civilian, was branded nearly a national traitor. He shut himself in, refusing to appear at any events, only moving between his guild, home, and rift expeditions.
Yohan found the backlash satisfying, yet at the same time he felt uneasy. Unlike what the media claimed, the security and protection at the ceremony had been airtight. Yet the contaminated had slipped through it effortlessly. The biggest problem was that no one knew where they had come from or how. It wasn’t just because of the hallucination abilities. Even CCTV footage was unhelpful.
“Deputy Leader! Is it true the treatment facility is completed?”
The moment they entered the meeting room, Yoon Seungryong asked bluntly. Lee Chanha, who had been in serious discussion with Lee Hyunmook, nodded.
“Yes. But we also called this meeting to talk about something else. Yohan, please take a seat here.”
Once everyone was seated, Lee Chanha pulled something out of his bag. It was glass, tightly sealed. Even before he revealed it, Yohan grimaced at the familiar unpleasant feeling emanating from the bag.
“This is a specimen from Hyunsan Hospital’s research lab. Could you take a look?”
During the ceremony, the contaminated had all been taken into government custody. But Yoon Seungryong had swiftly smuggled away a few into his “pocket.” The weakest of them were handed to the Hyunsan Hospital research lab, and now results had come back with peculiar findings.
“What is this...?”
What Lee Chanha took out was a nauseating creature that looked like a long roundworm. It lay motionless in the container as if dead, but when he shook the jar to agitate it, it stiffened and jabbed in all directions with its grotesquely swollen tip—uncertain if tail or head. Lee Hyunmook explained in his place.
“It’s one of the parasitic organisms found in the bodies of the contaminated that attacked the ceremony. When we removed this, they couldn’t use hallucination abilities anymore.”
“Wait, every contaminated had one of these inside them?”
Seo Yakrin asked in shock. He had immediately grasped the implication.
“Yes. Whatever it is, it means there’s some hidden force implanting these into people and spreading them to target purifiers. Most of those implanted were originally civilians.”
“If that guess is right, the situation’s far more serious than we thought.”
Yoon Seungryong’s expression grew grim. Ordinary civilians, unlike Awakeners who mainly fight monsters, don’t usually fall into deep contamination. This suggested the contamination route was different. Yohan, glaring at the parasite in the jar, asked,
“Can I try purifying this?”
“That’s exactly why we brought it, Yohan.”
Yohan touched the jar that Lee Chanha held out with his finger. Just a tap with his index finger, and the inside of the container glowed as if a bulb had switched on. Moments later, only a few tiny fragments of shell remained.
This meant the creature itself was an extremely dangerous contaminated lifeform. Purification deletes only what causes clear harm to humans. Nearly every part of this parasite was essentially toxic contamination.
