“You’re very strong for a human, but it will take something more than that to kill a monster like me.”

The giant goblin announced this as it landed, its eyes pinned on Jung Si-woo the whole time. The amount of mana it possessed was comparable to that of Jung Si-woo. Sensing this much power from the giant goblin was enough to overwhelm Si-woo. He would need something better than stones to defeat this foe.

“It’s an elite monster.”

He cursed under his breath. It held a stick on the one hand, and a human body in the other, the body of a policeman judging by its uniform.

‘Was this policeman responsible for the gunshots I heard earlier? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.’

“Are you a player?”

It asked, its voice deep with confidence. Si-woo made no reply. He was still too baffled at how the centurion goblin spoke human language on such a fluent level. All the other lesser goblins could barely manage to make intelligible speech using their limited vocabulary. But what caught him by surprise the most was the fact that the giant goblin knew about the existence of players.

Jung Si-Woo now took out his sledgehammer from his inventory and lunged towards the giant goblin. Mana filled his arms, making them stronger and faster. His weapon reflected the sunlight as he swung it faster than his bike could move. But for all his talent, Si-woo still had a long way to go before he could master using skills such as battle sprinting simultaneously with others. The moment the giant goblin was in range, Jung Si-Woo lifted the hammer as high as he could to strike!

“This is violence! But this is also a warrior’s virtue. Hah!”

The Centurion Goblin was left speechless. The stick it carried wasn’t strong enough to withstand the impact of Si-woo’s strike. It broke upon contact, and its head was shattered.

“Nothing of use could be dug up from this subject.”

Jung Si-woo might not possess magical powers, but he was no small fry. He once simultaneously destroyed three elite monsters in the centipede dungeon, so it would be strange and embarrassing if he were to be bested by a lesser monster. He retrieved the hammer from the skull of his fallen foe and roared in victory. For a moment, Si-woo considered whether it was more prudent to have spared the centurion goblin to extract valuable information. In the end, he decided that eliminating the threat was the more important objective.

“Look!”

Ah-rin shouted.

[Quaaahahahahah!]

[Kishaaah!]

[Being pulled back in! Because of that human!]

[Ahhhhhh!]

Immediately after the centurion goblin fell, all the other lesser goblins started disappearing; even those hiding in remote places slowly faded away into oblivion, their screams growing fainter and fainter.

[Monsters are once again sealed in the dungeon. However, if you do not enter the dungeon within the given time and clear it, the monsters will be released once more.]

[The dungeon has been activated. Time remaining until failure: 4:00:00]

This made Jung Si-woo laugh. It felt as if he were playing a deadly game. One wrong move would cost human lives. There was no time to celebrate.

“I feel like the difficulty set for this game is very hard. Funny, right?”

Si-woo joked, trying to lighten the situation.

“Aside from monsters appearing on the ground, I couldn’t find much information at all about the Sky Castle.”

Meanwhile, Soo Ah-rin muttered some words. She, a player of ten years, was shocked to see Si-Woo like that, who was more of an ordinary human despite what others might think. Since the Sky Castle appeared, people had feared the possibility of monsters appearing on the ground. Because of this, Soo Ah-rin encouraged the other players to attack the dungeon and the monsters that lurked there. But even that had dulled over the span of ten years.

Now, all the sky castles, dungeons, and monsters had become troublesome things, giving wealth and superhuman power to a few selected humans. But why was Jung Si-woo selected as an underground player just now? And for what purpose?

“I’m starting to lose my head. Just stop.”

Jung Si-Woo placed his hand lightly on Soo Ah-rin’s head as she muttered.

“Don’t think too deeply. Overthinking things won’t bring a solution. And don’t worry too much. A lot of people die, but death is something we can never truly prevent. It will come to us all at some point. That has always been the reality of this world even before the monsters came.”

“Sometimes I feel like if I listen to you, there will be nothing to worry about in this world. You are at the very heart of the problem, and you are the only one who can prevent all this.”

Ah-rin shook her head.

“But it’s true. We have to do what we can.”

‘If you clear the dungeon in time, goblins will no longer appear here. This is all we can think about; for now, the rest will have to wait.’

“Of course, I have to collect the beads before that.”

“I’m sorry for coming to you now.”

“Why?”

Soo Ah-rin stretched out a tiny finger, pointing to the bleeding body of the decapitated Goblin Centurion.

“Hey, that doesn’t look like a bead.”

He spoke as he inspected the corpse.

‘Then what did I just sense?’

Si-woo could tell the monster’s corpse still had some energy trapped in its body, but he couldn’t see any signs of the bead at all.

“I know there are different kinds of mana, but-”

Jung Si-woo’s words trailed off, his head tilted in confusion. He approached the corpse and punched it with all his might. The force was enough to cause the torso to burst apart.

“What…is this?”

Si-woo turned to Ah-rin for answers.

“This is my first time seeing it too.”

Ah-rin replied. She was as clueless as him. In its chest, the centurion goblin had a blue crystal in place of its heart. It remained perfectly concealed until Si-woo ripped it out of the lifeless body. He could sense mana flowing vividly through it. What surprised Si-woo and Ah-rin wasn’t the little amount of mana it contained, but the fact that mana could be crystalized like this.

“It’s gone!”

Ah-rin pointed at the dissipating body of the centurion goblin.

“The monsters are gone!”

With the monsters gone, it would seem at a glance that the problem was solved. But after assessing the situation, Jung Si-woo found another problem he had to solve. There was still the issue of the humans who saw the monsters, most of whom were forced to hide out of fear for their lives, although there were those brave enough to stand their ground. With the monsters now gone, most of the survivors started pouring out, asking for help.

“Thank you for saving us!”

“They were so big!”

“Here! Please help me out here! I broke my leg! I can’t move!”

The air reverberated with the pleading cries and gratitude of the survivors. Jung Si-woo bit his tongue and threw the hammer and crystal into his inventory. Now wasn’t the time to explore.

“What are you going to do?”

Ah-rin asked, feeling concerned for Si-woo.

“Well…”

Si-woo didn’t know how to explain his troubled thoughts. He looked at the dead goblins scattered around him. Many samples could’ve been extracted, but the average goblins did not possess the same mana as the goblin centurion.

‘Maybe mana crystals could only be harvested from elite monsters. There seems to be no use for the remaining goblin corpses.’

“These people can take care of the rest.”

“Yes.”

Sooner or later, both the police and the military would conduct a large-scale investigation. After confirming that the site was under control, ambulances were sure to rush in to give first aid to the survivors and retrieve the casualties. There was no need for Jung Si-Woo to remain now. Whether it was the government or other players, he didn’t want to risk getting involved with them yet. However, for Si-Woo, the most crucial objective was yet to be accomplished.

“You have to clear the dungeon within the given time.”

Ah-rin reminded him. The location of the dungeon was already known. Jung Si-Woo took the bike out of his inventory and mounted it, ignoring those who rushed towards him. Throwing the hammer into his inventory was enough of a confession that he was a player.

“Well, wait for a second!”

A stranger stopped in front of him.

“I’m a reporter for Cheil Ilbo, just one interview-”

“Ha.”

Si-woo kick-started his bike, not even letting the reporter finish his sentence and as he went on his way. The people who saw him but didn’t know he was a player started to approach him, but then became scared and backed off.

They soon arrived at a street that was largely empty save for a few empty vehicles parked nearby. It was eerily silent, with only the exhaust noise from Jung Si-woo’s bike filling the air.

“I see a dungeon over there!”

[Goblin Army Gathering Site Dungeon: Low Difficulty]

[Clear time limit – 3:54:31]

Even in this chaos, the location of the dungeon remained still. Only two people in the world, the underground player Jung Si-woo, and his supporter Soo Ah-rin remained in the Sanha-dong construction site. Dismembered human remains littered the ground.

“All those who worked here are dead.”

Ah-rin’s voice was stricken with grief for all the futures that ended here today.

“This is clearly the work of monsters. A lot of them probably spawned in this area. It would be a miracle to survive such an attack.”

Si-woo tried his best to hide his anger. This was no game, no book, and certainly, this wasn’t an action movie in which the protagonist slew the monsters and saved all the people. No matter how hard Jung Si-woo tried, he couldn’t save everyone, even if he killed the elite monster quickly. In this construction site alone, countless innocent humans perished, their screams lost to the echoes of time. The site terrified Soo Ah-rin to her core.

“What if monsters sprung up like ordinary people? What would the world look like?”

“Funny, that’s exactly what people said when the first sky castle appeared. Let’s hurry.”

‘Whether it’s the police or the military, authorities will soon be here if they followed the tracks correctly. We need to hurry before that happens.’

Jung Si-woo quickly pulled out his tail and dug through the ground. With the tail technique that he had become accustomed to over the course of those three days, he could make a hole to enter the dungeon in no time. Jung Si-woo jumped into the hole without any hesitation.

[Ant Cave Area #201 Goblin Army Gathering Site]

[Clear time limit – 3:54:14]

Upon entering the dungeon, a familiar sight greeted Jung Si-woo. The entrance was no different from the test dungeon or the centipede dungeon, providing him with a peculiar sense of security and familiarity. As soon as he entered the dungeon, he started to worry about what to do if the boss monsters and other goblins noticed him.

“Oh.”

Soo Ah-rin grabbed his sleeve.

“I think there is a ghost.”

“Good. Ask him if he knows anything.”

Jung Si-woo joked, but then a moment later, he stopped moving forward, quickly figuring out why Soo Ah-rin was trembling.

[You…are you…a player?]

The first room was home to a ghost, evident as a gloomy voice coming from the room’s center with eyes that shone an unusual shade of red. A mob of goblins slowly started gathering behind him.

‘Should I rush and attack him? No.’

The eyes of the goblins also had a light in them similar to that of the ghost.

[The player… that’s right! Abandon me, players!]

“This is a new pattern.”

Jung Si-woo muttered as he faced a ghost that seemed immediately hostile to them. His worries were yet to end.