episode_0051

“What are you trying to do, this isn’t a joke….”

Lager’s hand holding the phone and his eyes were trembling. I was equally shocked by the situation.

The missions I had been given so far were at the level of protecting me, but I had never been given such an extreme ultimatum mission before.

Save me and Dakota dies.

Save Dakota and I die.

“You included this kind of development?”

I asked just in case, but Lager shook his head. Lager, who awkwardly put the phone back in his pocket, seemed to be clueless about the situation.

But one thing caught my curiosity.

“But Lager, there’s something I don’t understand.”

“What is it?”

“This world is created by you, right? Not only the setting, but also the development is all your doing.”

“That’s right.”

“But how can there be a development that you don’t know about?”

That was the question. If you really know everything as the original creator, shouldn’t you not be surprised by anything?

Lager let out a heavy sigh and shook his head with a troubled expression.

“No. Not just this development, I haven’t even created any human-like monsters.”

“Does that make sense?”

“Actually, last time during the Daemin Support, something strange happened. It was originally a dangerous mission involving the appearance of human-like monsters, right? But what happened?”

“Come to think of it, nothing really happened.”

“At that time, the mission suddenly changed. The original mission was canceled and replaced by a sudden mission.”

“What was it?”

After hesitating for a moment, Lager looked at me with a serious expression and muttered in a hesitant voice without meeting my eyes.

“To bring you to, um… climax.”

“What?!”

“It’s strange, isn’t it? Besides bringing you to climax, your character itself wasn’t even in my novel.”

Upon hearing Lager’s words, a hypothesis suddenly formed in my mind.

“Someone is interfering with this world.”

Lager nodded as if he had the same thought.

It was an important point. If Lager’s created world and events could be invaded and distorted by someone, then we would have no advantage in the information we possess.

However, based on the point system, reaching Lager’s ultimate goal of ‘saving the world’ would resolve everything.

The problem is how many points we need to accumulate to reach that goal. Given the initial 500 points we have, it’s hard to gauge whether it’s a large or small score compared to Lager’s final goal.

“So what are we going to do?”

“What?”

“Between me and Dakota.”

Was this question unnecessary?

In a situation where the answer was already decided, it was a bit funny to ask Lager, but…

…I thought.

“We have to save both. Isn’t that obvious?”

“What?”

Lager’s answer was somewhat unexpected.

“There’s no rule that says ‘one of them must die.’”

“But it says ‘choose the heroine’?”

“Hey, think about it. A week ago during the Daemin Support, you received a mission to bring you to climax, right?”

At Lager’s question, I briefly recalled the memory. Of course, I had done many embarrassing things, but ultimately, I hadn’t gone all the way.

That means.

“It’s a ‘sudden mission,’ so if you can bear a little penalty, you don’t have to do it.”

Ah.

I silently nodded at his reasonable hypothesis.

“There will be many events in the future. But because of the uncertain value of 500 points, we can’t afford to discard strong allies in Tier Red.”

“That’s true.”

“Due to the penalty, the mission difficulty has increased slightly, but it can’t be helped. In the long run, each member of the academy is precious.”

Lager’s cold judgment left me speechless, closing my mouth tightly and nodding my head in agreement.

“Everyone has gathered at the stadium. Let’s return alive this time as well. Stick with me as much as possible. Got it?”

Leaving behind a warm smile, he walked ahead, and I followed behind him.

For some reason, my mind felt strangely complicated.

It might be a bit of a selfish thought, but I naturally assumed Lager would choose me. Not because he liked me.

When we first encountered demons in this world, facing the fate of death, he left Lena behind and said that.

– She’s going to die today.

– Trying to save an extra could put you in danger too!

It wasn’t just because Lena was an extra destined to die.

I am a person.

Lena is a character.

The fact that our essence is as characters is the same for Dakota as well.

However, it’s clear that Lager chose an option that would save both me and Dakota.

Even though a more difficult journey would come as a result of rejecting the binary choice, he still chose the challenging path.

Did he start to see me as a character? Or…

Did he start to see Dakota as a human?

It’s an irrelevant area, but…

Slightly.

Just slightly, that point bothered me.

*

The place I arrived at through the portal was a familiar city, Bahar.

The street, reminiscent of the youthful energy and exciting busking sounds of Hongdae, was a mess due to destroyed cars and sculptures. Fortunately, there were no signs of blood, indicating that the citizens had evacuated safely.

“There are too many golems.”

When a female student on patrol reported to the instructor, a tall, muscular male instructor wearing sunglasses nodded lightly and sent her into the group of students.

“Don’t make a fuss. At most, there are about 100 units.”

Initially, the scale of deployment for dealing with the situation of a city-wide battle ranged from one instructor to a maximum of 50 academy students. Calling 50 people from the beginning was a very wise choice.

The reason the scale of support requests is determined is that even if demons pour out in a city-wide battle, the number is already predetermined.

As the instructor saw, there were about 100 golems. The rock-like creatures, the size of a person, were running around, breaking cars and building glass, eager to destroy something right away.

Was this what Lager meant by the ‘penalty for increasing difficulty’?

The instructor drew out his long sword as tall as his own height and ordered quietly.

“Prepare for combat, everyone.”

As soon as those words fell, the golems began to rush in fiercely.

“Goooh!!!”

In response to the instructor’s command, including me, the students pulled out their weapons and prepared for the clash. I also briefly considered which weapon to use this time, and decided to use a sniper rifle since I didn’t have a machine gun.

I was slightly doubtful if the bullets would penetrate those rocks, but since the bullets were charged with mana to maximize their attack power, I expected them to be much more destructive than my worries, so I shouldered the gun. Then, using the surrounding terrain, I aimed at them.

“Goooh!”

“Geeeee!!”

Dududududududud.

As the creatures approached, the ground-shaking sound grew louder. Their momentum was impressive enough to make the ground tremble slightly.

I aimed at the creatures’ legs with the gun barrel. After confirming that they were at the appropriate range, I held my breath.

The next moment.

Bang!!

“What?!”

In a split second, the two-legged golems that lost their legs collapsed on the ground and grabbed the ankles of the pursuers behind them. Those who couldn’t slow down in time stumbled and a chaotic scene unfolded.

To stop the advance of the pursuers once more, they aimed at their ankles.

Bang!!

“Fire!!”

Once again, at the signal of another gunshot and the shout of the instructor, a barrage of flames, lightning, flashbangs, and rays poured down on the tangled golems.

“Gueee!!!”

“Kweeee!!”

The golems screamed as they were destroyed. In the rain of flames and lightning, the golems lost their limbs and burst out without hesitation, while those trying to overcome this were hit by flashbangs or bullets I fired and fell back.

The melee attackers had no chance to do anything.

Quite a few golems were completely destroyed without leaving a trace.

As the instructor declared a ceasefire, a hot heat and thick smoke rose, and over a hundred golems were all shattered into pieces.

The enemy was completely annihilated.

No casualties or injuries among the academy students.

“…What is this.”

The battle result was so perfect that it felt ominous.

The instructor, looking around, dismissed the summoned sword and made a report on his phone.

“Situation resolved. Approximately 100 golems of the enemy. No casualties or injuries. Over.”

While everyone shared their relieved expressions and anecdotes, Lagerman and I couldn’t hide our unease.

This couldn’t be happening.

This couldn’t be happening.

However, there was no sense of crisis between the instructor and the students. And for good reason.

All visible enemies had been eliminated.

But then.

With a ominous crackling sound, the ground began to tremble thinly.

Even the instructor and students who were about to return noticed the anomaly and stopped in their tracks.

On the surface shaking as if an earthquake had occurred, the shattered remains of the golems began to gather like iron filings being drawn to a magnet.

Gradually, they stuck together and intertwined, forming skeletal structures.

As muscles and skin began to rise on top of the rock bones that made up the golems, the rocks and stones that composed the golems slowly filled the space above the rock bones.

In the place where the trembling stopped.

“Have you seen the wandering golems of this world?”

A humanoid monster revealed itself.