[Citizens, this is the Disaster Management Agency, Myeongwol 2-dong, Alarm Control Center.]
[We are issuing a monster airstrike warning.]
[Due to the rampage of the 313 Gate in Myeongwol 2-dong, a large number of monsters are respawning on the ground.]
[When this alarm sounds, please immediately stop what you're doing and take shelter in the nearest underground refuge or inside a building.]
The announcer's urgent voice echoed.
At this late hour, there were hardly any pedestrians on the streets, making it, in a sense, a stroke of luck.
"What should we do now?"
"Should we continue guarding the outer wall?"
The head of the security gritted his teeth.
"Shit. I knew this was coming when I postponed my strategic assault. As of now, live ammo and artillery are authorized for use."
"Yes, sir!"
"Squads 1 and 2, guard the entrances. The rest, intercept the monsters respawning in the streets. We need to hold out for 15 minutes until the association's support team arrives."
The guards rushed out into the streets, following the orders.
"Scatter to your assigned zones!"
"If anything happens, request backup immediately!"
Under the squad leaders' commands, they scattered to their zones.
Among them, Choi Ho-pil, with a blackened bruise around his eyes, was filled with venomous intent.
"That damn convenience store. You’re finished."
After being humiliated by a clerk and disgracefully kicked out,
after a report was made to the deputy leader of the Myungho Guild,
and after being severely beaten by the cruel Kim Chang-sik,
resulting in a ten-week medical diagnosis,
he had returned to work with his body still unhealed from the bandages.
He had fallen from being close to being promoted to squad leader,
to the lowly squad 4—now a washed-up man on the outskirts of success.
He couldn't let that damn convenience store go unpunished. He needed to see it destroyed.
"Squad 4 member, Choi Ho-pil, requests a change of assigned patrol area."
"Did this bastard just come out on a field trip? Just do what you're told!"
"I just got out of the hospital, so I can't run far. Could you assign me the patrol route along the main road?"
The squad leader cursed, reluctantly agreeing to the request.
With the request granted, if a squad member were to die in that area, it would result in severe penalties for the leader’s performance review.
‘Got it.’
Choi Ho-pil secured the area he was eyeing.
Within his patrol area, no guild member would dare to linger unless it was an emergency or a support request.
If a few monsters sneaked through and he happened to ignore them,
and if the direction led toward the convenience store,
with the chaos of the monsters' battle and not hearing screams,
the convenience store would likely suffer, with employees dead and the store destroyed overnight.
He could finally pay back all the slights and embarrassment.
‘If that clerk begs for their life, I might just enjoy it.’
Choi Ho-pil’s eyes began to gleam with greed.
Ihaechan felt a wave of anxiety.
"Turn off the lights right now."
"Huh?"
"The gate's right in front of us. Do you know where the monsters are going to spawn first?"
Jua-Young snapped back into focus.
"I’ll... I’ll lower the shutters first."
"What about the sign?"
"Ah."
The 24-hour neon sign, usually a beacon for human customers,
would today serve as a free buffet for monsters.
Monsters primarily attack anything that’s visible.
A brightly lit convenience store would certainly be one of their first targets.
"I turned off the lights!"
"Everyone, grab a flashlight and cover the light source with your hand. Only open your hand when you need to use it. Got it?"
"Uh, uh! You can’t go outside!"
"Did you turn off the sign?"
"We can’t turn it off with the power switch..."
"Then break it!"
Ihaechan placed a camcorder on the counter,
spread a duffel bag next to it, and pulled a sword out of the bag.
"Just hold onto this. I’ll be back soon."
Ihaechan walked out of the store with a proud smile on his face.
He couldn’t help but feel a bit pleased with himself.
‘That should have done it. Honestly, I look pretty cool just now.’
When standing before a beautiful woman, men often get lost in their own self-admiration.
But the woman Ihaechan was enamored with wasn’t your typical beauty.
She was a martial artist, unlike any other.
Ding ding!
"You shouldn’t go outside. It’s dangerous... huh?"
Ha Eun-eung, holding a ladder with one hand, emerged despite the emergency airstrike warning.
She placed the ladder in front of the sign, and while climbing, Ihaechan tilted his head.
This wasn’t the picture he had in mind.
Clang clang!
With a hammer-like motion, she smashed the sign,
and the light that had been visible from 100 meters away was finally extinguished.
"Now, stay inside. It’s really dangerous... wait, what the hell is that?"
The problem wasn’t the sign—it was on the road.
From across the street, an arrow painted in fluorescent paint was leading right toward the convenience store.
Hiding in the shadows, Choi Ho-pil from the Myungho Guild, squad 4, grinned maliciously.
‘Just in case, I took care of it.’
A cocky-looking man, trying to show off in front of a woman, had jumped out to help. But the sign was turned off,
the fluorescent paint on the road was impossible to remove,
and just as he had thought he was safe,
a woman, wielding a long object, stepped forward and approached the paint.
Swish.
With wide steps, she held the weapon low, eyes fixed on the ground as if about to shatter it.
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‘Crazy. She’s really going to break that? Just posturing. It’s all just posturing!’
But even though Ihaechan knew it was absurd,
there was something strangely familiar in the woman’s intimidating presence.
Despite the absurdity, a sense of fear creeped up.
Could she really break the ground?
"Hey, what are you doing? Get inside the store! Leave this to me!"
At Ihaechan's urging, Ha Eun-eung blinked,
put her sword away, and reluctantly headed back inside the convenience store.
‘Wow, just the stance alone sends chills. Is she an awakened one?’
Still, there were only two of them.
But according to the radio through Ihaechan's in-ear,
there were 3,000 monsters already respawning.
And that was just in the last three minutes.
‘Finally, the bait took the hook!’
Meanwhile, a small group of monsters appeared,
charging toward the convenience store.
The monsters were the swamp-dwelling Lizardmen.
[Large Group]
They move in packs and specialize in [Weaponry],
creating sudden [Anomalies], with a high occurrence of [Elite] monsters,
easily advancing from rank F to B.
These monsters were far too strong for just two people to defend against.
‘Too bad. Should’ve attacked when I had the chance.’
With his path to success blocked,
the woman pushed the man aside and led the charge.
‘Idiot. Hurry up and take a knife to the ribs! I hope you scream before you die!’
As the man moved forward, an unexpected turn of events occurred.
The lone man, moving with incredible speed, began to cut down Lizardmen one after another.
His abilities far exceeded those of an ordinary person.
‘No way! Who the hell is this guy?’
Ihaechan’s true strength, honed through years of training, was now on full display.
3.
First Place in the 2047 Spring Streamer Swordsmanship Tournament
First Place in the 2048 Fall Streamer Swordsmanship Tournament
First Place in the 2049 Fall Streamer Swordsmanship Tournament.
Among the top-tier physical streamers,
Ihaechan, with his exceptional swordsmanship,
held the undisputed first place for three consecutive years.
With swordsmanship alone, he was virtually the undisputed strongest active streamer in the industry.
‘I can actually do this in real life too.’
Ihaechan's eyes, hands, and feet moved as he analyzed the battlefield in three dimensions.
‘I knew the Sword of Emperors was well-designed, but I didn’t expect it to work this well in reality.’
Ihaechan’s debut game as a streamer, the virtual reality swordsmanship game Sword of Emperors,
was the game that made him who he was today.
Unlike other players who rely on assist actions,
Ihaechan was famous for mastering ‘embodiment’—the ability to execute swordsmanship techniques with his own body in real life.
His skills began to shine on the battlefield.
‘At this level, a few Lizardmen don’t even scare me.’
The swordsmanship known for being adaptable to any situation, made up of eight stances and eight sword forms,
was the Yunhwan 64 Sword—the highest form of swordsmanship.
If his stamina held up, this sword style would be incredibly efficient in skirmishes against multiple enemies,
as it demonstrated by quickly taking down over a dozen Lizardmen.
Ihaechan’s swordsmanship was proving its worth.
“Chrrrrk”
“Kerrrk”
The Lizardmen, surrounding him, tried to close in.
But Ihaechan didn’t allow them to trap him.
Turning his back to one of the walls, he slowly lured the Lizardmen into a narrow alley.
“Good. Follow me, you idiots. Don’t turn your eyes to the convenience store.”
The convenience store.
At the mention of it, one of the Lizardmen suddenly started looking around.
He found the darkened convenience store and began making a hissing noise.
‘Did that bastard just understand me?’
A chill ran down Ihaechan’s spine.
A monster that understands human speech?
‘Yeah, I’ve heard of it. There are elite monsters with superior intelligence and strength compared to regular ones.’
Unlike the other Lizardmen with green skin and ragged clothes,
this elite Lizardman, wearing leather armor and wielding a sword,
sent some of his subordinates toward the convenience store.
“Hey, you primitive lizard bastard! You think you’re so tough, playing leader just because you got a little power?”
A human would probably scoff at such a bizarre insult.
However, monsters, driven more by emotion than reason,
interpreted Ihaechan’s taunts as mockery and contempt,
their slit eyes narrowing with intense rage.
“Shyaaah!”
With the elite Lizardman’s shout,
a wave of Lizardmen surged toward Ihaechan.
Though they outnumbered him,
in the narrow alley, only two or three could attack him at a time,
preventing them from exploiting the advantage of their large numbers.
Their impressive weaponry also failed to surpass Ihaechan’s Yunhwan 64 Sword,
and even their anomalous abilities were rendered useless by his taunts.
The only remaining variable,
the elite monsters, were not specialized in close combat.
Swoosh—
Thud.
The alley was flooded with blood.
Ihaechan stood proudly atop the bodies of more than thirty Lizardmen.
‘Hah, hah. This is exhausting.’
He was suffering from extreme physical exhaustion.
‘This is harder than when I played in real mode. Well, this is real life, so it makes sense.’
Even in real mode,
there were instances where players gained passive skill effects such as physical enhancements, depending on the game progress.
It wasn’t that he was deficient—it was just strange to sweep everything away with a bare body like a mute swordsman.
‘Stupid thoughts. Focus, Ihaechan. I’m wasting too much energy.’
This was his first time fighting monsters in reality,
and even though he knew better, he unknowingly tensed up too much.
“They’re worse than ants. So many damn monsters.”
At least, it seemed that the Lizardmen were temporarily pausing their assault,
catching their breath.
“Sha-sha-sha.”
From atop an air conditioning unit in the alley,
the elite Lizardman who had been watching him began to mock him.
Clink... clink...
A faint sound reached Ihaechan’s ears.
It was the distinctive noise made when an officer’s baton strikes something.
“You little shit, no way!”
“Sha-sha-sha.”
Ihaechan thought all the monsters had entered the alley,
but that was just a misperception caused by their numbers.
What he couldn’t see
was that the battle was still happening on the other side of the alley.
‘Could it be... that woman?’
The same woman who had dared to bring a ladder or casually wandered around holding an umbrella—
the one with the plum scent, like a mute swordsman.
It had to be her.
Ihaechan thought he had tricked the monsters into following him into the alley,
but in reality, the elite Lizardman had tricked him,
leading him away from the convenience store.
“You bastard lizard! Stop messing around and come at me. Come at me!”
“Sha-sha!”
Unlike the previous reckless charges,
now that the elite Lizardman had taken charge,
the Lizardmen in the alley sheathed their swords,
pulling out spears and targeting him head-on.
A narrow space that must be broken through.
Weapons specialized for thrusting with long reach.
A countless horde.
The Lizardmen’s strengths, which Ihaechan had neutralized earlier,
were completely reversed with the crisis at the convenience store caused by one woman.
‘These bastards are deliberately trying to draw me out.’
If not,
there was no way these Lizardmen, who had switched to their weapons so efficiently,
could fail to take down a single woman in an open space.
Unable to bear the tension, Ihaechan checked his wrist,
his screen phone showing the emergency support app from the Awakener Association.
[Guild members from the Association are heading to the scene.]
[Dispatched Awakeners: Codename - Spiderman (C), Mantisman (C)]
[Estimated arrival time: 7 minutes, 39 seconds]
Seven minutes.
With that, neither the woman outside nor Ihaechan himself
could be sure they’d survive.
“Damn tax thieves. Seven minutes is too long.”
But he couldn’t just whine and hide in the alley,
hoping to save his own skin.
“Streamer in a virtual reality game trains every day, non-stop. This much doesn’t even faze me, you bastards!!”
For some reason,
the memories of the 1 vs many chaotic situations he had watched on the mute swordsman’s stream came flooding back.
Rather than relying on flashy skills or cheating play,
it was all about real swordsmanship in thorough combat.
The techniques and tricks began to surface in his mind.
And at that moment,
the Lizardmen’s spears no longer posed a threat.
He sliced through the thrusting spears, entangling them,
kicking and breaking their exposed legs,
and using the fallen enemies as shields to swiftly cut down more.
“Hah, hah!”
The red blood from the Lizardmen and the rain of arrows stained his sleeves,
as he wiped the sweat from his eyes.
Tossing the elite Lizardman’s weapon aside,
he walked out of the alley.
‘It’s too late.’
He had prepared himself for this before leaving.
Five minutes had passed since the sound of the soldiers’ batons stopped.
He should have just fled the store with the women instead of showing off.
Looking around as if to close the eyes of the dead,
he was suddenly enveloped in blinding light.
“Ugh!”
“Sis, don’t point a flashlight at someone!”
"Sis?"
Wasn’t that the clerk’s voice?
Squinting, he looked through the darkness and saw, beyond the extinguished lights,
two women standing under the streetlights,
behind them were more monsters than he had just slain in the alley.
‘It’s a dead giveaway.’
In this serious situation,
the woman, spinning her umbrella like it was a picnic,
playfully playing with her hands,
and looking over at him.
That indifferent gaze, and the monsters she had swept away—
this woman, no doubt, was the mute swordsman.