Grumble….
My stomach growled painfully, not just from hunger but from actual pain.
With my frail body that only had a strength and health of 5 each, descending the mountain was already pushing my limits. Now, I found myself walking through the downtown area of Paju City in a state where collapsing wouldn’t have been surprising.
Ugh… I managed to increase my strength to 5, but it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference… I should have boosted my health instead!
I needed to rest soon, and I needed food.
What would I normally do in the early stages of the game?
My experiences playing [Cthulhu World] came flooding back. It was a game with so much to do…that I was able to play with different concepts and themes in every playthrough.
I usually started my early gameplay here in Paju City. This was an area that was familiar to me.
Right after leaving the lab, I’d normally take actions fitting the concept of my character.
“A concept befitting my character, huh…”
What would be a good character concept for me, Kim Shin-hwa?
A back-alley mercenary? A trainee from a magic tower? Or maybe…
If I chose the criminal concept, I’d probably have targeted an easy guy for the [Home Usurpation].
In this world, NPCs that are killed stay dead. They don’t come back for events or stories unless they are resurrected.
So, choosing a house and killing its owner to take it over is a possibility.
It’s a completely villainous play, but [Home Usurpation] can be incredibly useful. Depending on the house, there might be useful buffs or hidden artifacts. There was a time when [Residence] lists were shared among players. Of course, that’s a story from before the players left the game…
Come to think of it, there’s the [serial killer’s mansion] nearby.
Taking over the serial killer’s mansion could be useful… It is almost a hidden piece level residence. The [Murderer’s Cleaver] can only be obtained that way, and I can also gain the [Butcher’s Sense] trait. Of course, it comes with a curse…
The [Murderer’s Cleaver] was a useful weapon even for a mage. It blocked the opponent’s magic and applied debuffs…
My mind’s wandering again. Focus, focus!
Once a gaming geek starts thinking about the game, it’s hard to stop his train of thought. Focus!
Anyway, I can’t make that choice right now. If I commit a murder and get caught, I’ll be wanted. This world has police, but what I should really worry about are the “bounty hunters”.
The higher the bounty, the more powerful named NPCs I’d attract.
These NPCs usually have abilities that are tough to beat, and messing with them could mean not having a bone left in my body.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})In the end, it’s all about money. I need to get some money, rest at a place like a motel, order some delivery food…
There are many ways to make money if I invest time, but my body is creaking under the strain with its drastically lowered stats.
I needed rest, and I need it now.
The quickest way to get out of this predicament is obviously…
I should use random encounters.
There were quite a few dangerous areas in Paju City. In the game, roaming around such places would often lead to random encounters with thugs trying to extort money from you.
They may be called thugs, but their level is predictable. I’ll capture them and take their money.
This was still a crime, but targeting criminals somehow lessened the risk of getting caught.
“Alright.”
I lifted my head and scanned my surroundings.
This was Paju City.
I was in the red-light district situated in one of Paju’s notorious areas.
In the real world, this place would have a pension or an arboretum in the same place, but it was different here.
The area was filled with the dazzling and provocative lights of neon signs. The typical, stimulating billboards of an entertainment district.
Crowds of people were bustling about underneath these signs.
“Sir, try our skewers! They are seasoned with special spices, and the taste is absolutely incredible!”
I could see a street vendor offering unidentified meat to some passersby who were chattering in foreign languages I couldn’t understand. The meat, seasoned with some kind of exotic spice, emitted a pungent and spicy aroma but wow…. To me, the scent was overwhelmingly disgusting.
“Hey, you, the sexy guy with the mask! I smell magical power from you. Wanna exchange magic stones for cash? Hey, wait! I’ll give you a good rate.”
An illegal money changer… If only I had forcibly brought that magic stone earlier, I wouldn’t have to worry about money. It’s frustrating.
If I return later…
Thinking about climbing the mountain again with this body made my head spin. I should probably level up a bit more before trying again later.
“Ah, that Flame Dancer bastard, to think he got taken down there!”
“Hey, why the hell would you bet on such a has-been? Are you stupid?”
“No, that’s how you get high odds! Don’t you know about the big score in life?”
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})These were customers coming out of the gambling arena. There was an underground fighting ring in this area. If you go down into the basement of that bar with the turned-off sign over there, you can enter the arena to place bets or… even participate as a fighter.
This was the nightlife of Paju.
Still, there were no overt troublemakers. It was a dangerous city to meddle too much with others. Paju now was a city of opportunity and pleasure.
People of all races and foreigners so strange they seemed not even from the same planet have settled here, bringing a complex mix of cultures and bizarre technologies and knowledge derived from entities of the Cthulhu mythos.
People wearing strange outfits and people with extraordinary abilities donning equipment with effects hard to gauge.
Some even openly carry artifacts imbued with magical power.
It was a strange and colorful city, but to me, it was all too familiar. It almost felt like coming home.
Even in these bizarre streets, I stood out as quite the odd one. I could hear people whispering and shushing each other.
“Look at that guy. Is he for real?”
“Shh, Yanma, keep it down.”
I can hear everything, retards.
Ah well… I’m not even angry. Descending from the mountain in my dirty straitjacket and wearing a large bread bag, I must look like a madman.
I guess I’m just treated as a bit of an odd one…
Yet there were still no overt troublemakers. It was a dangerous city if you got too involved with others.
To encounter more aggressive and lively characters, I would need to venture deeper.
It’s exactly like the game.
The layout of the streets was identical to the game.
Even the dialogue I overheard as I passed by… While there were slight differences in detail, the people were spouting almost the same lines as the NPCs in the game.
If it’s the same as the game, then near the arena… past the trash cans…
There’s an alley hidden between the stalls.
It was a damp back alley, swirling with an unusually dense darkness. Amidst the unpleasant smell of garbage, I could faintly detect the scent of blood.
“Haah…”
Alright, I’m going in. I just need one of them to catch me.
***
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})The alley was significantly darker than the bright and flashy lights of the red-light district I had just left behind.
This alley wasn’t even on the map. It was a street created due to surplus space incorrectly created between buildings in the aftermath of careless urban development. A real slum where the darkness of the city gathers congregated.
Although not its official name, everyone referred to this dark street as “Waste Alley”.
“Well…”
But that wasn’t important right now.
I’m too exhausted… Humanly speaking, I’m severely lacking in stamina.
My arms and legs were numb and I felt like collapsing on the spot.
Even when I worked from home and played games all day long, I wasn’t exactly in the best shape, but now this was just too much!
With a health stat of 5, I’m barely better than a patient undergoing rehabilitation…
In a way, it’s a miracle I’ve been walking around this long with this body.
I had never walked this alley with my own feet, but it wasn’t unfamiliar to me. To really get into trouble, I needed to go deeper… Maybe I could rest here for a bit…
Eventually, unable to hold on, I slumped down in a secluded spot. The sudden change in posture made the hidden handgun in my coat awkwardly conspicuous.
South Korea was a country where firearms were illegal.
That fact remained unchanged even in this virtual South Korea created by [Cthulhu World].
It might seem like a country maintaining public order and security even in a world with monsters, but in reality, it’s just a superficial effort.
It was a world where surreal magic, supernatural powers, and monsters truly existed.
Even North Korea could not withstand the monsters’ rampage and collapsed, leaving only remnants of the country behind.
As a result, refugees and people with special abilities from North Korea flooded into Paju, turning it into complete chaos.
In such a situation, ordinary people without any power had to arm themselves in any way possible to protect themselves in this dangerous city, disregarding public authority.
Therefore, in the world of [Cthulhu World], the rule of “no possession of firearms” only meant “just don’t carry them openly”… but it could become troublesome if one got entangled in complicated situations.
I can’t even use this thing anyway…
Haaah. Does it even make sense that I can’t shoot a gun because of low strength?
Ah, now that my strength has increased to 5, maybe I can shoot a handgun?
Even if it’s just a stop-gap measure, a weapon is still a weapon.
It’s too precious to discard in a situation where I don’t know what I might encounter.
Magic wasn’t the solution to everything. There were enemies immune to magic and situations where magic can’t be used can arise at any time.
Now that I’ve sat down, I don’t feel like getting up. If I fall asleep here, I’ll probably die…? Not from being robbed by a vagrant, but from dying of exposure with a health level of 5.
Just as I was gathering my strength to stand up, a strange sound came from somewhere. It was very faint, but I definitely heard it, probably thanks to the [Enhanced Vigilance] trait.
Thud- Thud-.
A sound like someone pounding meat with their fists. But, since there was no way there would be a back-alley chef tenderizing meat in such a place, it must be the sound of someone beating another person.
When I raised my magical power and focused it on my ears, my senses sharpened instantly.
Enhancing my senses to this extent didn’t require the use of spells. Simply altering the flow of my magical power a bit was sufficient.
The direction and distance are… roughly over there.
Now, just to go in that direction… Just to go… Come on, Kim Shin-hwa! You can do it, Kim Shin-hwa!
“Ughhh… get up… let’s gooooo…”
Before long, I found the target I was looking for.
Three sturdy men were brutally beating up a single man.
“You junkie bastard. Didn’t I tell you to bring the money?”
“…Please, please!”
“Please? What’s with the begging? You want your drugs? Ha, you’re a funny guy.”
The sound of pleading.
Verbal abuse, and one-sided violence.
To be precise, the one who wielded violence was the largest of the three, while his seemingly underling two buddies kept watch.
They were scum who extorted money from the weak under the pretext of drugs while occasionally satisfying their sadistic urges.
The one being beaten was in no better condition, and he was likely a degenerate drug addict.
This was just a trivial incident that was not even worth noting among the list of events.
But if it’s a drug-related event… which group might they belong to? Bong Gil-cheon’s gang? Or the Triad? It’d be easier if they were just unaffiliated thugs.
“Hey, hey, hold that guy right there!”
Thunk-.
“Ugh… blargh…”
The drug addict who was struck hard in the stomach vomited yellowish gastric fluid.
This seemed to further provoke them.
“Ah, shit. Do you know how much these shoes cost? You’re gonna die today, you bastard!”
Finally, a knife appeared.
The abnormally excited brute seemed determined not to stop without drawing blood today.
I hesitated to use magic against humans, but if it’s against such trash… They were more like waste fitting for a garbage alley than fellow humans.
Still, I didn’t want to go as far as murder. Spells that could control the force appropriately came to mind. Although it would be easier to just go “Kwawang!” and sweep them all away, I planned to handle it quietly with controlled power.
After all, I had no desire to kill “humans” for no reason, and I was also worried about the potential risks that could come back to haunt me later on.
As the bulky thug brandished his knife and began to go crazy, the attention of his underlings who were keeping watch wavered. Seizing this opportunity, I slowly, very slowly, approached the bald man at the outer edge.
The scalp of his head was clearly exposed. He just so happened to be the ideal target.
[Heating]
A red, glowing magical power shot from my left hand toward the bald man’s head.
It was a basic zero-order spell, designed only to boil water at a specified location. But what if it caused the blood inside his scalp to boil?
Of course, I controlled it to avoid killing him. The bald man’s head turned bright red like a boiled octopus and he muttered a “Huuh…” before collapsing with a groan.
“Wh-what’s this?”
The thug with the cap who had been giggling and egging on the bulky guy, finally noticed me and was shocked. I had to overpower him before he could grasp the situation! This time, I gathered magical power in my right hand.
[Instill Fear]
Dark, tentacle-like magical power wrapped around the cap-wearing thug’s head.
It was a spell that induced involuntary fear and extreme hallucinations. The theme of the hallucination is…. “Cicadas crawling out of every orifice in the face”.
I had experienced cicadas once myself, and it was quite the experience. Now it was his turn.
“Aaah, Aaaah!”
He started to struggle with tears and snot streaming down his face. The intensity of his frenzy made me miss the timing for my next spell by a breath. Damn it, my body couldn’t keep up with my thoughts.
“You fucker… What do you think you’re doing?”
Before I knew it, the bulky thug was sizing me up with the knife in hand. His stance with the knife was stable; he was not just any thug.
“You look like a beggar with that bag on your head… Are you a druggie too?”
I had let my guard down for a moment and now found myself in a standoff, but there was no need to hold the gaze for long. I pushed the cap-wearing thug, who was intermittently crying out ” The cicadas…! The cicadas…!” towards the bulky guy, and set off a flash of light from my fingertips.
“Kaaak!”
I wanted to close in quickly…but my body still wasn’t obeying me…. However, the bulky guy was blinded by the sudden flash of light and he couldn’t stop my approach.
Touching the big guy, I poured the completed spell into his body.
[Lightning]
If I could use first-order spells, I might have shot or spread the lightning from a distance, but with my zero-order casting ability, physical contact was necessary. But isn’t this just like holding a stun gun?
Well, that’s something at least. Take this, full blast! The magical power was converted into electricity and flowed into his body rapidly.
“Aaaah!”
To ordinary people without resistance, magic of this caliber could be lethal.
The bulky thug, struck by the bright blue lightning, convulsed unnaturally as bodily fluids poured from every orifice of his face.
His bulging eyes couldn’t withstand their own pressure, and blood vessels burst, causing blood to flow.
“Ughhhhh…”
Eventually, the thug lost consciousness and collapsed.
[You took down the thugs who extorted innocent people and led filthy lives. Although your good deeds in the shadows may not become widely known, you have acted righteously.]
That message… I’ve been thinking about it since the last time, but somehow isn’t the focus a bit off the mark…?
[You have defeated the thugs. Experience points gained.]
I had hoped for a level-up since the bulky thug reacted quite sharply, but it seemed it wasn’t enough for that.
Leaving the drug addict, who was crouched in a corner scratching himself, I began to search the thugs’ pockets. First, the cash in their wallets… Oh, there’s not much cash.
Instead of money, a bunch of credit cards were stuffed in the wallets. Even criminals use card payments these days? These are useless to take…
After combining the wallets of the bulky thug, the one with the cap, and the bald man… the cash I ended up with was around 200,000 won.
In my current needy situation, I also took their watches, mobile phones, and gold necklaces.
And those expensive shoes, right? Haha, now the shoes are mine too.
Apart from that, nothing much of value came from the bulky thug and the one with the cap, but from the bald man on the outer edge, I found something special. A small plastic bag containing divided white powder. Oh, a magical powder that makes you feel good.
How should I dispose of this…?
There are many ways to dispose of it. If I were to do it the careless way, I might start a criminal route, or the main drug distributor might send pursuers. I don’t want to mess with such people…
But I should keep it. I don’t want to regret it like I did with the research lab’s magic stones.
The plastic bag filled with drugs appeared to contain about thirty packets, and I threw one to the drug addict whose eyes were filled with greed.
Then I raised a finger to the corner of the paper bag mask I was wearing (even though my mouth couldn’t be seen…) and whispered,
“Shush.”
He desperately nodded his head while clutching the packet I had thrown before fainting.
Given that my eyes behind the holes in the mask were likely burning with a blue, magical light, it must have been quite a terrifying sight for him.
Anyway, I had gotten everything I needed.
***
Thud.
A dirty ceiling. A cramped room.
“Ah… that was exhausting.”
With trembling arms and legs, I managed to enter an unmanned hotel up in a dark alley.
I could have afforded a better room with the money I took from the thugs, but no matter how close Paju was to a lawless place, no hotel would accept a stranger wearing a paper bag over their head without any identity. Even a motel would have been difficult, so I was glad to find an unmanned hotel.
I threw myself onto the damp bed, too tired to even think about washing up.
I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and ignore everything else, but various thoughts were scrambling through my mind.
I roughly knew the scenario of [Cthulhu World].
[Cthulhu World] boasts a highly free open-world system, where players have the option to do nothing and just let time pass.
Of course, doing so would lead to unavoidable destruction and the end of the human world.
In the darkness of this world, there are cultists plotting for the world’s demise…
“Many, many, many of them.”
I couldn’t just sit idly by.
I had no choice but to move forward in a direction that was beneficial to me in some way.
Should I continue this way and aim for the ending…?
Several endings floated through my mind.
The [Blood King] ending… ends with death at the finale.
The [Infinite Prisoner] ending… results in being trapped forever in a prison between time and space.
The [Underground Master] seems pretty good… You can earn a lot of money… No, you become undead in the end….
The [Eradication of Thought]… involves brainwashing…
Ah, seriously!
[Cthulhu World] is a game with a cosmic horror concept.
Hundreds of endings were prepared, but all of them led to death, madness, or something even more horrific.
That’s right.
I realized I was trapped in a crazy game where every ending was one of doom.
There was only one conclusion I could reach.
I can’t stay in this world.
I had to escape from this world.
If I continued to exist in this world in any form, I would just be manipulated by those dreadful mythological beings.
I must return to my original world.
It won’t be something that can be accomplished quickly.
I wasn’t sure whether this was truly the world inside a game or if it was someone’s prank, mimicking that world. But somewhere, there had to be a clue for escape.
I needed to find that clue. Or perhaps I had to talk with a higher being who might know the method…. maybe even an entity from the abyss.
I also must find various artifacts.
I would probably need some mythical level stuff.
Could I negotiate with a great race known for their technology in dimensional or time travel?
None of these tasks were something a low-level mage could accomplish.
In this insane, hardcore cosmic horror game, more power was needed to survive even one more day.
And first of all, I would need an ID card and funds to guarantee the minimum level of activity.
Haah… But I’m just too tired right now…
First of all, what I needed right now was rest.
And so, I slowly drifted off to sleep.
