[rumble—rrrrrr]
Anxious vibrations rolled through the entire building.
“Uaaaah! Gyaaaah! Aaaaaaah!”
People inside finally started to realize something was wrong and began to scream.
Well, it’s scream-worthy.
Because I couldn’t be bothered to thread the twisted space, I froze time and lifted the entire building.
[screeeeeee]
If I had just hoisted it, everyone would’ve noticed, but the sudden displacement and thunderous noise all happened while time was stopped, so no one realized until this very moment.
It feels like a waste of mana, sure—but as a demonstration? Pretty convincing.
“Waaah!”
We’re at roughly twenty meters up.
Administrators sticking their heads out the windows saw we were flying over the forests of Surisan, gasped in horror, and retreated back inside.
“Let’s see here...”
I planted a foot on the window frame, leaned my center of gravity out into the air, and surveyed the room.
“What is this room for?”
A hospital treatment room? A cult ritual chamber?
Mix the two, then add a weapons depot function—a multipurpose space.
The shelves I just toppled had glass bottles that shattered; unknown chemical reagents pooled on the floor, coughing up nasty fumes, and the walls displayed several assault rifles and what looked like grenades.
And in here, excluding me, there were six people.
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, I trusted you! You came to save me!”
First, Park Gwangrim—mummified in a restraint suit and strapped to a wheeled bed.
“Sir, is the Chinese man lying here your friend?”
Next, Jang Hyundeok, dragging Park Gwangrim’s bed and hauling it toward a corner.
“This is private property. Vacate at once. Aggressive acts will not be tolerated.”
Beside him, a Jang Hyundeok speaking in a calm voice so creepy it set my teeth on edge.
“The building is exhibiting the abnormal phenomenon of flight. Did you, sir, exert some ability to cause this event?”
At the doorway, another Jang Hyundeok trying to assess the situation in a robotic cadence.
“I see now. You’re the ‘mage’ he mentioned. You came because of Jang Hyundeok, didn’t you? Isn’t that right, Mr. Mage?”
From the center of the room, yet another Jang Hyundeok announcing he’d figured something out.
I rubbed my forehead and addressed the Jang Hyundeoks.
“Hold on. Hearing the same voice and cadence from all of you is messing with my head. Could you give me a second to adjust?”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa! What a leisurely joke at a time like this!”
Park Gwangrim, flustered by my quip, tried to cut in.
“We aren’t exactly identical.”
As he said that, one more Jang Hyundeok was slowly extending a hand toward the assault rifles on the wall.
In short, there were five Jang Hyundeoks in this room.
“Feels like being inside my own head. Nice.”
No—strictly speaking, they weren’t Jang Hyundeok.
“You’ll soon be able to tell our individual traits apart. For now, please remain still.”
The gun-grabbing Jang Hyundeok smiled kindly—and pulled the trigger.
ch-k ratatatatat!
“Oh, come on.”
[Distortion Field]
[Rapid Retreat]
I spread a distortion field to slip the incoming rounds and hurled myself out the window.
“Wait—stop!”
“What’s with that way of talking?”
Despite the robot-kind tone, their actions were brutally aggressive and cold.
ratatatatatatat!
The assault-rifle Jang Hyundeok kept firing toward the window and sprinted for the frame where I’d been.
“Guys, I’m the one controlling this location. Heave—ho!”
[screeeeeeeee]
I shifted mana and canted the flying building about forty-five degrees.
[rumble—rrrrrr!]
A roar like the building shuddering to throw off a chill.
The wall I was clinging to slowly faced the ground—
The Jang Hyundeok charging while dumping rounds lost footing on the suddenly steep floor and skidded, bouncing toward the window.
“Uaaah!”
He barely caught the window with his free hand, rifle in the other.
[Grip of the Dead]
Uooooooo!!
Dozens of hands budded from the wall, seized the Jang Hyundeok clinging to the frame, and yanked. He couldn’t hold on—he dropped.
“Aaaaaaaaaah!!”
crack, crackle—crunch!
Branches snapped below. If he isn’t a normal Jang Hyundeok, he might live, with luck.
I pushed my head back through the window and scanned the lineup again.
Even with the floor slanted about forty-five degrees, the Jang Hyundeoks stood their ground with physical control no ordinary human should have.
“Yeah. Now that I’m getting used to it, you do look like different people.”
A colorful array of Jang Hyundeoks, each with his own slight traits and slightly different appeal.
The one still gripping Park Gwangrim even in this mess had thicker brows and a stern face than the rest—trapezius muscles bulging and callused hands—looked like a close-quarters specialist.
Half-hanging from the wall while gripping another Jang Hyundeok, a gaunt, quick-looking one—judging by his movement, specialized in stealth and mobility.
“There are innocent, defenseless people in this building besides us. For their sake, at least readjust the angle.”
The Jang Hyundeok dangling from the stealth-type called to me... judging by the size of his mana and his chubby, round face, maybe a non-combat staffer?
If their faces were perfectly identical, it might’ve felt less wrong.
“Ugh. Too many Jang Hyundeoks is uncanny.”
Those vaguely similar yet not-quite faces formed a kind of uncanny valley.
“Still, your request to change the angle—I’ll oblige.”
[rumble—rrrrr]
I shifted mana and brought the building back toward level.
“Thank you. But we are not Jang ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) Hyundeok.”
And lastly, the one with glasses.
Even among the variety, he radiated an overwhelmingly strong mana, and he watched me with eyes so shiny-clear it felt intrusive.
“I heard it earlier. Your name is Ggwok Hwejul?”
“Yes, that is my name. From here, this one is An Jipseol, Doe Makcheon, Bae Dojon, and the one who just fell was Park Parkhyeon.”
Names like someone rolled dice to assemble them.
“Mm. It’s rude to judge other people’s names, but...”
Turns out “Jang Hyundeok” was a pretty decent name.
Ggwok Hwejul raised a hand as if to say it was fine, then asked me:
“Did Park Parkhyeon die?”
I sent my senses down for a moment.
“He’s alive. Can’t move—so something’s probably broken.”
“Good. Thank you for your mercy.”
They kept repeating attitudes, phrases, and expressions that didn’t match the circumstances.
Like talking to an AI programmed to behave that way—an awkward, alien mismatch that poked at a hard-to-describe discomfort.
“Since we can basically talk, here’s my suggestion: how about surrender?”
I said it and nudged the building a bit higher.
[rumble—rrrrr]
“If you refuse, I’m throwing this junk heap into the sea off Daebudo.”
Ggwok Hwejul studied me, briefly serious.
His gaze roamed the room; then he beamed like sunlight and said boldly:
“I have a short-range teleport ability, so I can escape the threat you propose. And we have hostages, so we can refuse.”
At the end of the day, their baseline is cultist.
They won’t hesitate to throw their lives into danger.
Not the sort you settle with words anyway.
“Right. I wasn’t counting on it.”
I sighed and invoked the spell.
If I spam it, I’ll have problems, but once or twice more should be fine.
[Time Stop]
I released the Time Stop.
I can hold a freeze for roughly twenty seconds.
You could call that short, but for me, it’s plenty. I’m a mage.
“Uaaaaah?! Wh-what?”
Park Gwangrim started screaming as he realized everything had changed, then cut himself off.
He dipped his head for a second, then spoke to me.
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, where are we? Where did they go?”
His speech was a little awkward—but in a different way than the Jang Hyundeoks’.
It wasn’t madness or anything like that. His Korean is just a bit clumsy.
“I buried the whole lot over in those woods.”
I pointed at a massive, heaved-up mound of earth.
I flipped the building and slammed it into the ground, then half-entombed it.
Like they said, there are innocents, so I tuned it to keep them from dying—but getting out will take a while.
“Ha! Incredible! Well done!”
Park Gwangrim spat a string of curses in maybe four languages toward the direction of the buried structure, then stared at me wide-eyed.
“Magic—truly amazing. Or is it you, Mr. Kim Sinhwa, who is amazing?”
I shook my head roughly and tossed him the items I’d grabbed from Healing Block.
“You even brought this!”
He clutched his pendulum and lit up.
“Save the thanks. Let’s move.”
Park Gwangrim swept up his disheveled hair, tied it back, and said:
“I tried to repay my debt to you, Mr. Kim Sinhwa—and in the end, I’m indebted again.”
A debt?
Ah—he’d written “benefactor” or something in his notebook.
“Wait, you did all this for that ten billion?”
“The ten billion is appreciated, but you saved my life before, didn’t you?”
“Before?”
“You removed a ghost, didn’t you?”
What ghost?
Oh.
Right—he almost exploded once, cursed by the [Descendants of Fomalhaut]. I dispelled the curse on him and pulled him back from death.
Huh. So that’s what he meant by “benefactor”?
Not about the money?
Honestly, I’ve rated his abilities highly, but I haven’t truly trusted him.
I’ve been betrayed by him too many times.
But...
Right—that was just in the game.
The Park Gwangrim I’ve actually met has never betrayed me.
Thinking that, I felt a twinge of guilt for treating him like a thug who only moves for cash.
Waving a hand, I told him:
“Don’t put this one on the debt tab. I’m the one who put you in danger to begin with.”
“Understood. But...”
He glanced around, uneasy.
“Where are we going now?”
“Hope Block. I didn’t see any Jang Hyundeok there earlier.”
He grimaced the moment I finished.
“Jang Hyundeok, Jang Hyundeok, Jang Hyundeok—who even is that?”
He started grumbling, mixing Chinese and Korean in an annoyed face.
I’m a famous detective not just in Paju but nationally. If this Jang Hyundeok were someone I should know, I would know him. Who the hell is he that people are spending this much money to rescue him? And so on...
“No, no—relax. Jang Hyundeok isn’t what matters anymore.”
“He isn’t?”
He looked at me, puzzled.
“Yeah. Well... we are going to rescue him too while we’re at it, but there’s something I want to investigate. You saw those bland brothers and sisters, right?”
“I saw far too many.”
“Exactly. Way too many. The Jang Hyundeok I’m looking for has the same face as those guys.”
“What? The same...? You’re saying the Jang Hyundeok you’re after is one of that clan?”
Probably.
And during the freeze, I found some things in Healing Block.
I ran a few inferences off that intel and reached this conclusion:
“They’re NPCs.”
“NPC? What is that?”
Ugh. A normal person’s question—someone who doesn’t play games.
I scratched my head, then asked:
“You’ve never played games?”
“I have ones installed where, if you leave them alone, they auto-fire bows or guns.”
“I know the type. In that game, identical enemies swarm out, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ever wonder where those identical guys come from?”
He shook his head.
“It’s just a game, isn’t it? They copy the same picture. What do you mean, ‘where from’?”
Right. Normally you don’t care.
But if there were a world that literally implements a game, how would it implement mass-produced NPCs?
“They’re that.”
“Game characters?”
Yeah—and you too.
I swallowed the urge to say it, and glanced toward the building I’d driven into the earth.
Even seeing it with my own eyes, it’s hard to believe—but if my guess is right...
Those things are the mass-generated NPCs the [Cthulhu World] creates at random.
Stats are assigned randomly within certain bounds, so they can get a measure of individuality and traits—but they’re generated off the same base frame.
In-game they might drive security taxis, play minor fixers, rove as low-tier cultists, work part-time in shops—
There are probably more facilities like this outside Ansan as well.
Mass-produced NPCs don’t only come in “Jang Hyundeok” flavor.
“And when NPCs go obsolete and lose their roles, the system collects them to recycle limited resources back into the game. This is that kind of facility. Isn’t it?”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa? Who are you talking to?”
Park Gwangrim stared at me, rattled, as if doubting my sanity.
Of course he’d look like that; he can’t see what I’m seeing.
[Warning: The area ahead is an unimplemented region unrelated to scenario progression. If you approach further, play stability cannot be guaranteed.]
Amusing warning.
I drew mana up and said:
“Babble all you want. With the resources here, you still can’t stop me.”
