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Chapter 12
“What the—who’s this?”
“Hm? Ah, he’s an older guy I know! This is Hyung-nim Shinwoo.”
Sitting beside Lee Jinyoon was a Korean woman around his age.
A face I’d seen before.
She was the one who’d urged him to hurry at the airport last time when it was boarding time.
“This is Yoona! Choi Yoona.”
“Hello.”
She gave me nothing more than a perfunctory nod, barely acknowledging me.
Her expression showed clear disinterest.
Though her face was still girlish, like Jinyoon’s—barely twenty at best—her impression radiated pride and stubbornness.
Her tightly tied-back ponytail only emphasized that aura.
‘She’s no pushover either.’
She possessed a historical Guardian Spirit.
{Guardian Spirit: ‘White Plague’ Simo Häyhä (History)}
She too was probably from a rich conglomerate family. That’s normal.
Even chaebol heirs don’t typically have legendary-class Guardian Spirits—Lee Jinyoon was the exception.
Most of the Awakeners in this very tavern only had rare-class spirits.
That just showed me again how outrageous the legendary class really was.
“Hyung-nim, I’m really happy to see you! Never thought I’d run into you here of all places!”
Jinyoon greeted me with overflowing excitement.
The alcohol had clearly raised his energy, his gestures exaggerated.
“There’s no one but foreigners here, so I was honestly feeling pretty lonely… But to run into you, Hyung-nim, not just anyone else!”
I knew the feeling.
When you first start living abroad as an Awakener, meeting a fellow Korean can feel like salvation.
But just as he finished, Choi Yoona quickly drew a line.
“Just so you don’t misunderstand—we’re nothing. We only came together because of the raid.”
I wasn’t even thinking that.
The retort rose to my throat but I swallowed it. No point saying something useless.
‘A legendary Guardian Spirit, huh…’
Anyway, seeing his spirit in person reminded me of my current goal—finding a comrade for the next stage.
At first, I wondered if I should recruit him for his spirit alone. But I quickly dismissed that thought.
‘No matter how strong the weapon, it’s useless if the pilot’s no good.’
Forget “Baby General” or whatever—Lee Jinyoon was simply not made for combat.
Thinking back to when I first met him only confirmed it.
Even if you hand someone a god-tier weapon, if they can’t even swing it properly and get beaten by someone way weaker than them, that weapon’s nothing but a necklace on a pig.
That legendary Guardian Spirit of his was exactly that—a pearl necklace on a pig.
But then a thought hit me.
‘…Wait. If he’s here, doesn’t that mean he cleared the first stage alone?’
Maybe he’d undergone some mental growth? My assessment of him wavered—
BANG!
“W-what are you doing?!”
Chaos erupted in the middle of the tavern.
“Where the hell does some NPC bastard get off mouthing off to a player?”
Amid the mix of languages, that was the one voice I understood instantly—Korean.
“This isn’t that kind of place! That girl’s just a worker here!”
“So what? What, is she keeping her purity or something even though she’s not even real?”
“What nonsense… We’re people just like you!”
I turned my gaze toward the commotion and pieced together the situation.
A Korean Awakener was making unreasonable demands of a female tavern worker.
Clearly, he thought NPCs weren’t “real,” so he could treat them however he wanted.
“What a joke.”
Squelch.
“Guhhhk!”
Without hesitation, he pulled out a dagger and stabbed the tavern owner.
“You’re nothing but chunks of data anyway.”
“Ugh… ghkkk.”
Thud.
Despite his words, the owner bled and collapsed with disturbingly real death throes.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?!”
An Awakener nearby tried to stop him.
“Ugh…!”
But the man’s spear, slung across his back, was suddenly leveled at the Awakener’s face.
Unbelievable speed.
“The hell are you? Beat it.”
The would-be mediator froze, unable to react—showing the massive gap between them.
Slash!
“Kyaaaah!”
And then, almost for show, the man swung and cut down the female worker.
“Stop it!”
“What’s wrong with you?!”
Other foreigners shouted at him in protest.
He just sneered in broken English.
“So what? They’re not real.”
He clearly thought of this dungeon world as nothing more than a VR game.
The NPCs bled and suffered like humans, but since they “weren’t real,” he thought killing them was fine.
Then he began slaughtering NPCs indiscriminately.
Splat! Stab!
“Kyaaaah!”
The tavern turned into a bloodbath.
NPCs tried to flee, but his overwhelming strength and speed made escape impossible.
He never touched an actual Awakener, so the situation didn’t escalate further, but…
The cheerful, hard-earned atmosphere of celebration after stage clears was utterly ruined.
And no one could stop him.
Because—
{Guardian Spirit: “Mighty Lü Bu” (History)}
His Guardian Spirit was none other than Lü Bu, the most feared warrior of Chinese history.
In this cramped tavern, no Awakener here could match him.
No one except me.
‘Do I have to stop him?’
Normally, I wouldn’t care if some Awakener wanted to troll. The consequences would be theirs to bear.
But this city wasn’t part of a stage—it was a shared hub for all Awakeners.
And its residents reacted dynamically to events, changing their behavior based on circumstances.
Which meant his rampage could ripple outward, affecting the entire raid.
If I ignored him, it could snowball into something that blocked my path later.
In the end, I had no choice but to act.
Scrape.
I shoved back my chair and stood up—
“Hey! You!”
But Choi Yoona beat me to it.
“You’re Korean, aren’t you?”
“Oh? Didn’t know there were other Koreans here.”
“Do you have no shame? If you’re gonna act like trash, at least don’t do it in Korean.”
Boldly, she stood up to the man with Lü Bu as his spirit.
Sure, she had a historical Guardian Spirit too, but…
‘Simo Häyhä… isn’t he a sniper?’
Yes—hers was the famed marksman.
And since Guardian Spirits reflected their original strengths, the matchup was the worst possible for her.
Yet she showed no fear, even after seeing firsthand how he fought in brutal close quarters.
“Well, aren’t you a cutie?”
“What?”
He sneered, dismissing her entirely, then spat the vilest words he could.
“You can play with me instead of her.”
Pointing at the NPC woman he’d just killed.
Considering what he’d demanded from that worker earlier, it was the foulest thing he could’ve said.
“You… sick bastard.”
Yoona drew a pistol-shaped Mana Gun from her holster.
And aimed.
“Hah! You think that little gun will stop me?”
“Does this look like a pistol to you?”
As she spoke, the weapon transformed—shifting into a blue-energy submachine gun with a drum magazine.
Her Authority must be Weapon Projection.
“What the—”
Ratatatatatatatatat!
The submachine gun roared.
Mana bullets poured out in a blistering spray, hundreds per minute.
Sensing danger, the man dodged swiftly—
“Tch!”
But it was pointless.
Not a single shot missed.
Even as he darted like lightning, her accuracy was absolute.
Crack!
“Damn it!”
His defensive barrier shattered instantly.
From now on, every bullet would hit flesh.
“You bitch!”
Realizing she wasn’t ordinary, he lunged with his spear instead.
But—
Whoosh.
Yoona vanished. Literally turned ghost-like, transparent, and disappeared.
“What the—where’d she go?!”
He spun around, searching.
Tat-tat-tat-tat!
“Ghhhk!”
Bullets slammed into him from across the tavern.
He endured somewhat thanks to Lü Bu’s brute durability, but bleeding meant his power would only drop from here.
He might’ve thought this was “just a game,” but wounds here were all too real.
“You rat bitch!”
Wham! Wham!
Panicking, he swung his halberd wildly, its crescent-shaped shockwaves tearing the tavern apart.
But it was pointless.
“Where are you?!”
Yoona was already far away.
From my position, I alone saw her.
On the opposite rooftop, crouched with a projected Mosin–Nagant sniper rifle, aiming.
Bang! Crack!
“GYAAAHHH!”
A sharp gunshot.
Overwhelming power.
His knee exploded, and he collapsed screaming beside the NPC corpses he’d made.
It was over.
“Guhhhk… ahhhhhh…”
He writhed, broken and howling in pain.
‘Wow… she’s seriously good.’
Yoona had finished the fight cleanly on her own.
I hadn’t even needed to lift a finger.
Her skill was impressive enough to make me whistle.
But just then—new trouble appeared.
“Park Seonghoon! What the hell?!”
A group of men entered the tavern.
All Koreans. Seemed like they were his buddies.
“Who did this to—”
And the face of their leader was one I knew all too well.
“…Huh? You’re Yoo Shinwoo, right?”
And then—
“Well, well, my little lackey. Long time no see.”
The bastard in front of me was even worse trash than Lü Bu’s Awakener.
