Chapter 346: Key man (1)

Chapter 346: Key man (1)

In the darkness.

In the middle of an endless void, Piggy stood alone.

'Get out.'

A middle-aged man's voice shouted.

The moment he heard the voice, Piggy realized.

'Another dream.'

The vision he had when he was nearly crushed to death by a pile of golems during the midterms.

The nightmare he'd barely escaped with Vikir's help.

'This trash is not my blood.'

His voice was bitterly cold.

Followed by his mother's sad sobs.

'You lowly thing, you don't even know what subject you're talking about.'

'Get him out of here now.'

'... Get rid of him.'

The whispers around him follow the whimpers, swirling around.

After that it was the same again.

A fleeing mother, forests and mountains, pursuers, steep cliffs, raging rivers, hungry wolves, and the surprised faces of passing merchants and mercenaries; a mother who gradually regained her smile; a stepfather who was always kind; a difficult but rewarding exam period; a school dormitory life that was difficult and hard, but made bearable by friends.

The fantasy continues as time flows like a river.

Next thing Piggy knew, his body was covered in some sort of sticky thread.

"...hugh!?"

His surroundings, which had been nothing but darkness and emptiness, were now filled with uncomfortable walls of flesh.

The unpleasant sensation of being trapped in the esophagus of a giant monster.

Piggy pushed forward, flailing desperately.

The muscle fibers in his limbs were snapping.

Then, up ahead, he saw a door.

A large, circular gate, with searing flames blazing around it.

<Gates of Destruction, "Serpent's Tongue">.

The tip of the searing pillar of fire split into two, like the tongue of a snake.

Countless pillars of flame, each ominously shaped, hovered incessantly around the gate.

A moment. Piggy felt an intense desire.

A great, fundamental desire to enter the gate, a desire he dared not resist.

'Why am I like this?'

A normal person wouldn't even dare to walk towards the gate.

But Piggy was walking toward it, not even knowing why, even to himself.

And then.

"Hey, Piggy."

A familiar voice called out from behind him. It was Tudor's.

"You can't go in there. We're human."

Tudor's words gave Piggy pause.

Then he heard Sancho's voice right behind him.

"That gate is for demons. We can't go through it."

"Are you crazy? Get back here now!"

Bianca called out to Piggy.

Other familiar voices called out behind them.

"Come back, Piggy."

"It's safer this way."

"You can't go there!"

"Over here! Over here!"

"Look this way! Turn your head!"

His mother, his stepfather, his friends back home... all the people he missed called out to him.

Piggy finally stopped walking and stood, his eyes glazed over.

And then.

Slurp-

The head slowly turns back.

Piggy was about to turn his back on the gate.

...just then.

'Never look back.'

The voice sounded like it was speaking to his heart.

The beat restarted his heart and cleared his foggy mind.

"Huh!"

Even as Piggy snapped out of his reverie, he could still hear the shout from behind him.

"Piggy! Look over here, please!"

"Behind you! Look behind you!"

"Dodge! Run now!"

"Come on, Piggy! You have to come this way!"

The voices of family and friends demanding that he turn around.

But. Every time Piggy unconsciously tried to turn his head, a voice echoed in his chest, hot and harsh, almost the panting of a fierce animal.

'Never look back, keep moving forward.'

The voice sounded like a stubborn old man moaning and speaking.

Piggy took a step forward with his eyes tightly closed.

"Piggy! Are you crazy! Come back!"

"Why are you ignoring us!"

"Get back here now!"

"Look here, Piggy! It's your mom!"

"You ungrateful brat, if you don't look over here right now...!"

And Piggy's face fell, too.

How could he not turn around when the people he had missed so much and cherished so much were shouting at him in such desperate tones?

"Ughhhh...."

Piggy stopped in his tracks, drooling.

He closed his eyes and tried to turn his head away.

And then.

...boom!

A hand grabbed Piggy's face.

"Huh!?"

Piggy opened his eyes in surprise.

But before he could look back, the hands on either side of his cheeks jerked his head back to the front.

Piggy looked down at the hand holding his face.

A rough hand, wrinkled, scarred, and covered in sticky blood.

The hand's owner was clearly at his side.

'Walk forward.'

It was the same harsh, hoarse voice from earlier.

Piggy shuddered, but took a step forward.

When he glanced sideways to follow the hand, he saw a taller man walking beside him.

A middle-aged man.

It was hard to make out his features from the edge of his vision, but Piggy could see that his hands and face were covered in burns and slash marks.

He was limping, but he was carrying Piggy forward as if to support him.

"If they made it this far, they must have been strong and skilled enough to not die easily."

"They must have gotten used to being the last man standing, and they probably wouldn't have died easily, so they'd be stuck in their hallucinations longer...."

Eventually it all became clear.

<Mission> – Die and Kill!

※ Don't let your guard down! Latecomers become increasingly stronger as time goes by! If you don't want to be caught up, even if you're a ship owner, you have to work hard, right?

※Recognized only when everyone has cleared the mission!

Mission "Die", "Kill". It wasn't just about killing others.

It ended when you had to 'die' yourself.

Moreover, this mission was a last man standing.

It meant that if you inevitably become vicious and live with the habits of betraying and hurting someone, you will have to bear the full consequences.

The first to die would be the first to exit the illusion, and the first to be abandoned, the first to be betrayed, would not leave their competitors still sleeping.

Add to that the restriction that everyone has to complete the mission, and the difficulty level is truly unimaginable.

It's a diabolical idea, indeed, to switch sides in the blink of an eye and create new ones.

Then.

"...!"

Vikir opened his eyes.

Tudor, Sancho, Piggy, Bianca, Ahul, and the rest of the Balak warriors rushed to check on him.

"Vikir! Are you okay!?"

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

"How many fingers do you see here, Vikir?"

"No, what on earth were you doing all alone in the flowing river?"

Vikir's eyes narrowed for a moment.

Then he looked down at his hands.

" ...The wrinkles and age spots are gone, and when I wake up, I'll be back to my normal age."

Everyone who heard him was stunned.

If his hands had wrinkles and age spots..., how long had Vikir managed to survive in the flowing river?

Vikir didn't have much of an answer to that question.

Only.

<Vikir>

-LV: 1 (%)

-Titles: "Gutter Rat Hunter," "Hell Dog," "Daylily Lumberjack," "Majin Executioner," "King of Black Sea Executioner," "Demonic Dragon Great Rival," "Renowned Boatman"

-Stats

Strength: 798

?Agility: 798

?Stamina: 798

?Physical Resistance: 798

?Magic Resistance: 798

?Reflexes: 798

Level 1. Total of 6 major stats: 4,788.

The fact that he'd blossomed all three of his special stats and had 798 each only confirmed the ridiculousness of his record.

After a moment of silence, Vikir turned his head to look at Piggy next to him.

He gave a short laugh.

" ...You did a great job."

Was it because he was deep in thought? Vikir's voice was very hoarse and rough.

It returned to normal quickly, but for a moment it really sounded like an old man's voice.

Then.

Piggy's expression changed.

"This, this voice!"

At everyone's puzzled looks, Piggy spoke again.

"It's the voice that saved me from the hallucination! It's the voice!"

Piggy was certain that the voice that had led him to the gate, that had helped him not to look back, belonged to Vikir.

He knew it, too, because the scars on Vikir's hands were exactly the same as his, the position of the moles, the shape of the nails.

'Never look back. You're on your own from now on.'

Piggy remembered the voice and squeezed Vikir's hand.

"Vikir. If I had looked back then, I wouldn't have woken up, and I wouldn't have been able to wake up my friends."

Vikir paused for a moment at Piggy's genuine gratitude.

'What? I don't remember doing that.'

Vikir thought for a moment, and then came up with a hypothesis.

'The old comrades I encountered when I reached the 10th Floor Lost Paradise.'

Could it be that something similar had happened this time?

Perhaps his pre-regression self, a residual thought in his memory, had materialized in some way and helped his friends, Vikir thought.

Just then.

<Mission End> – Die and Kill!

※ The deathmatch is finally over!

※ How did you feel once you died?

※ As soon as the late comer clears the mission, the ship owner will be reverse summoned out of the tower.

※ Ship owners eligible for reverse summons are limited to those who have cleared the mission.

A loud notification sounded and the rewards began to pour in.

Whirr-!

Piles of golden candies fell in front of everyone.

At the same time, the gate to the deeper levels of the Abyss appeared.

...And the sound that Vikir had been most wary of.

<Reverse summons of ship owners will be carried out>

<Do you agree to the reverse summons?>

As Vikir had warned, Ahul refused to be recalled.

"Well thought out."

Vikir stroked Ahul's head and nodded.

Since he did not know exactly what outcome the Insectking race he met in the Black Sea had met, he decided that it would be better to remain in the tower.

"I will clear the tower. You will then leave the tower and return to the jungle. We must rebuild Balak."

At Vikir's words, Ahul and the rest of the children of Balak nodded with determination.

In the tower, their incredible talents blossomed, and they would become great warriors and restore their clan.

Then.

"Vikir."

Tudor, Sancho, Piggy, and Bianca spoke almost simultaneously.

Turning to Vikir, his friends asked.

"Do you know why only Piggy was able to wake up?"

Their questions were legitimate.

To be honest, Piggy's physical strength was the lowest of the four, and so was his mental strength.

When it came to strength, energy, persistence, and hardness of heart, Piggy was also last.

But somehow, it was Piggy who was the first of the four to wake up and save them all.

"...."

Vikir stroked his chin silently.

His gaze remained fixed on Piggy's forearm, a small wound with black blood caked on it.

"Listen, Piggy."

It was the result of Vikir, who had lived in the flowing river for decades, constantly thinking and worrying.

"Perhaps you are the key to bringing down the Amdusian Abyss."