MORIZE EP.36
To Hall Plain! (2/4)
There was nothing special about the transfer. Having experienced it over a hundred tis, it was a so~so feeling. I was transferred to the and ca out of the second floor hallway. Arriving here, I heard a large commotion coming from the lower floor. This was a ti to wait for the Players in Hall Plain to co and introduce us to the world. Usually, there was a silent anxiety in the Inn as the survivors waited to find out what next, but this level of noise was unexpected.
The Summoning Net surrounding the Inn was released once all the new players had finished their set up and was transferred to Hall Plain. Once this net was released, the existing players entered the Inn and introduced the world to the new players. My old self detested these guides.
These guides were quite arrogant. They looked upon the new cors like fresh new recruit in the army. Though I do acknowledge that these guides had passed their Rite of Passage, had gone through these transition period and survived through countless hardships.
There was nothing worth listening to. After adjusting to Hall Plain, one begins to get conceited and look upon the new players like “I was like them once.” I rember the player who told this died three month later.
Although I didn’t like these guides, there was nothing much I could do about it. The best thing to do right now was listen to their explanation and go through the Player Academy.
Well, since I already spoke this much, let explain more about Player Academy. I think the concept of this Academy was quite ingenious. I don’t know who suggested establishing it but that person must have been a bit crazy. Rather than spending their early days being clueless about things, the Academy trained the new players. The improvent was remarkable and pointless early death drop significantly.
Regardless, I needed to et up with the party and clear up all the misunderstanding. After that, I had no idea what to say. Thinking on this, I reached the end of the second floor hallway. Now I just needed to open the door in front of .
“Fuck you!”
While I was thinking of a lie and how to clear up the misunderstanding, I heard a voice from the door. It was a familiar voice that could be heard from the other side of the door.
“Don’t bark at ! You son of bitch!”
“I am telling you, you crazy bitch. I saw it clearly with my two eyes!”
“That ans your going blind! You lying asshole!”
“You crazy bitch. You think I was the only one? You think? Bo-rim also saw it. I keep telling you, that crossbow was broken in half!”
Hearing the familiar na, I could guess who was spewing this much profanity. The troublemaker, Park Don-gul. I never have expected him to survive. Well, truthfully, I had lost all interest in them. Dead or alive, I just didn’t have it in to care. Regardless, I decided to be a positive as possible. The early mory was still seared in my mind and the ti will co when I can beat him to a pulp.
The other high pitch voice, I recognized it in an instant. The constant friction between the two, Park Don-gul and Lee Yu-jung, what an ill-fated relationship. I clicked my tongue and quietly opened the door.
“Shut…!?”
Hearing the creaking of the door opening, many people turned their gaze to it. Before Yu-jung could tell Don-gul to shut up, she heard the door opening and turned her head up. Seeing this, I laughed awkwardly.
As expected, I was the last person to be transferred. As I took a step outside the door, everyone in the Inn was looking at . There must be over forty people crowding the Inn. Last ti, there was less than twenty. Discounting the number of high-state players, it look like there was a clear effect of killing the Boss on the sixth day. Last ti, about half of the people in this room had been killed.
Walking down one step at a ti, I greeted them easily enough.
“Everyone is alive. Glad to see that you are all safe.”
Of course they were alive. I sent them off at the Warp Gate with the utmost care and affection. Even then, I received no response at my greeting. I felt slightly disconcerted while Yu-jung ca stumbling towards .
“Oppa…?”
“Yeah.”
She lifted her arms and gently rubbed her hands on my cheeks. Her eyes and lips were trembling, her emotions gushing up, amazed at my sudden appearance. Yu-jung wasn’t the only one. The faint hope had beca a reality. The party, even Wu Jung-min, looked at in disbelief.
Yu-jung asked with a strained voice.
“Oppa… Su-hyun Oppa? You are not soone else, are you?”
“Of course, do you think I am a doppelganger? Ou, ouch! Cut that out, it hurts.”
“Congratulations on coming back alive. I never thought there was a chance you would survived… amazing.”
I barely managed to pull Yu-jung’s hands off my cheeks, before I heard a husky voice next to . Turning my head, the voice ca from Wu Jung-min. He looked like he had more to say but I shook my head slightly. Wu Jung-min seems to have caught the sign as he closed his half opened mouth. Next, I caught the eyes of Won Hye-su behind Wu Jung-min, who imdiately looked away.
An-hyun looked at with a welcoming expression. Yu-jung’s expression was half happy, half crying. Sol was crying out right. An-hyun and I stared at each other for a while. He seems like he wanted to say sothing, as his lips kept moving but no sound ca out.
A case where no matter how much you wanted to speak, the words didn’t co. This didn’t matter much, but I wanted to get out of the spotlight. The situation was already awkward, but with Sol crying it just beca really embarrassing.
I tried to soothe the tearful Sol as I deliberately moved to a corner. Park Don-gul was in that place. Seeing us approaching, he took Lee Bo-rim with him to the opposite side of us.
I waited for the gaze to turn away from us and for the party mbers to compose themselves. But there was one person bothering and that was An-sol. She sat next to , grabbing my cloth and refusing to let go.
I signaled An-hyun for help, but he just opened his mouth and laughed.
“Hyung. I still can’t believe it. You are like a phoenix, coming back from the dead..”
“Haha. That’s a bit too farfetched. I was just lucky, that’s all.”
An-hyun shook his head from my reply. Never mind that, do sothing about your sister. She’s not a baby, so why is she clutching my cloth so tightly? An-sol didn’t seem to care about my position as she spoke with a shaky voice.
“That’s not it. For , I saw a miracle. I waited at the bottom of the stairs, thinking maybe… Then Oppa…”
Her voice and her grasp on my cloth beca stronger. She couldn’t finish what she was saying as she burst into tears once more. Seeing this An-sol I felt hopeless. But, I felt a bitter in my heart as it was ti for to lie to them.
“Anyways, I am glad to see you all alive.”
“If you were alive, you should have ca earlier! You are always making us worry… No, I am sorry Oppa. It wasn’t even your fault…”
I tilted my head at this scolding, apologies and tears from Yu-jung. I never knew these kids were worrying about this much, I felt happy. Yu-jung clenched her hand into a fist and rubbed the evidence of tears from the corner of her eyes.
“Oppa, tell us. That bastard was telling us that he saw your crossbow broken in half by the Warp Gate. Oppa was gone and the monster had disappeared.”
Ahem. The ti had co. How fortunated that I had the foresight to burn the Boss monster’s corpse. But leaving that crossbow behind was quite careless of . I wanted to avoid the topic but then I felt a cold glare. It was none other than Kim Han-byeol. If I answered vaguely now, I felt I would be in so kind of trouble with her later.
Kim Han-byeol had not spoken a word since I entered the Inn. Except for when she first saw , her expression hadn’t changed at all. I turned my head for a mont and faced her. Reading the emotions within her eyes, although it was really small, it was mixed.
She felt overall relief but mixed in there was small amount of distrust and suspicion. Han-byeol was definitely not like the others. She had quite a similar personality as . She never let the situation affect her or showed her emotions, always leaving room for reasoning. She would never grasp the truth about the essence of the matter, but the fact was, she had doubts about .
The Inn had settled a bit, however that didn’t an it was silent. Conversations erupted all around between the survivors. I sighed in my heart. I felt I was sighing too much these days. I decided that I would tell them I didn’t rember much of it.
“Yeah. That’s right. I was trying to avoid the monster’s attack… but that thing was targeting my crossbow from the beginning. It shattered in half imdiately. The situation was quite gloomy. Hahaha.”
“Is your left arm fine?”
Kim Han-byeol interject imdiately after I finished. She sounded sincerely, however she had an ulterior motive ‘wasn’t the crossbow on your left arm?’ I wetted my lips before answering her.
“The monster attacked with it’s tail. My left arm was raised and the tail grazed passed it, taking the crossbow with it.”
“… Then what happened next?”
“Well, truth be told, I don’t know. What can I say? I can’t rember it well. I really felt like I was going to die, nothing else ca to mind. That thing was trying to stomp to death and I rolled like my life depended on it…”
I explained in a quiet voice, twisting and looping my original experience. It ended with saying that in the dust cloud, I took my chance and ran with all my strength toward the forest. Everyone nodded at that. Of course, everyone except Kim Han-byeol. Anyone who had faced the Boss monster for three minutes would imdiately pick up on that my explanation was riddled with mistruth.
Kim Han-byeol seems deep in thought as she didn’t ask anymore questions. She kept her mouth closed as they all rembered what had happened and the atmosphere was celebratory on my survival. The suspicion in her eyes had yet to clear up. I decide to stop for now. This spin doctoring was all a delaying tactic on my part anyways.
Before we knew it, the blue light outside the window was fading.
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