NOVEL NEXT chapter 630 - Doorbell (3)
“Kim Dokja?”
At the mention of Kim Dokja, Jung Heewon glanced toward me.
She must have recalled me and the other apostles saying that name before.
「Jung Heewon doesn’t know that we’re possessors.」
All she knows is that I and the apostles know the future.
But even so, it seemed she had instinctively sensed something strange.
“Is that a name you know?”
At her brother’s question, Jung Heewon shook her head.
“No. Just… so? What else did Dad say?”
“I don’t remember everything. He kept saying he knew the future, that this world was about to be destroyed… that he didn’t have time to look after me, so I had to survive on my own somehow. Even then, he gathered people around him, slowly growing a faction. The neighbor ajusshi, the soldier downstairs—remember Sergeant Kim and Master Sergeant Hyun? They followed him. Some of the predictions Dad made actually came true.”
I thought about the Reader who had possessed Jung Heewon’s father.
In his own way, he must have been struggling to survive.
Thrown into the world of a novel he’d only been reading—there was no way he would feel the weight of being someone’s father.
And yet, because of that, the boy before us had lost his father.
I recalled something Kim Dokja once said:
That not only great cataclysms count as destruction. The real annihilation of someone comes from the small extinctions.
Perhaps we, the Readers who possessed people in this world, were already disasters in the eyes of its natives.
“Then in the second scenario he got captured by Gaebang. I haven’t seen him since. All I heard was that he’s locked up under Seoul Station…”
So Jung Heewon’s father had fought hard, but in the end lost to the native powers.
Perhaps it was inevitable.
After all, this was a region not even properly introduced in Ways of Survival.
Surviving the first scenario alone had already been a miracle.
Jung Heewon pressed him again.
“So why are you with Gaebang? You said they captured Dad, didn’t you? Then why are you under their command…?”
Watching Eunho hesitate, Jung Heewon’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t tell me.”
“Even like that, he’s still our dad. I’m not like you, Noona—I won’t abandon my family.”
His voice trembled with faint rage as he went on,
“Maybe one day his memory will come back. He could become our dad again. …Not that it would be such a good thing.”
At last grasping his meaning, Jung Heewon clicked her tongue.
“So you joined them, killing and looting people? Are you out of your mind?”
“This was the only way. Noona, you must have killed someone too in the first scenario to survive.”
A choice made solely to survive.
Who in this scenario could righteously deny that?
“Me, and all the kids here—it’s the same for all of us. We only struggled to live.”
Behind him, the children knelt together, sobbing.
“We’re sorry. Please forgive us.”
“We won’t do it again. We promise.”
Of course, I knew it was a lie.
The moment we left, they would bait people again with the message of the white flag, then rob and kill them.
With a sigh, Jung Heewon asked,
“Where’s the flag?”
Eunho sighed as well, pointing toward the master bedroom.
“Over there.”
Their plundering ended here.
And judging by their lowered heads, the children knew it too.
“You’re only being spared because you’re kids. Next time I catch you, you’ll really die.”
The children shuddered at her warning.
As Eunho said, when we opened the bedroom door, there it was: a white flag planted in the center of the room.
[You have discovered the ‘White Flag’!]
If we seized it, we could now form a new group.
“Hey! Stop them! If they take that, you’re all dead!”
The one shouting was the mole-faced boy writhing on the floor. He must have managed to spit out the gag.
“Stop them! Stop them, now!”
“Wonsik.”
“Shut up, you sons of bitches!”
The boy shrieked in frenzy, thrashing.
“Untie me right now! I’ll kill you all! Did you forget who my dad is? You think you’ll get away with this? Hey! Jung Eunho!”
“Wonsik, let’s let it go this once. This is my sister.”
“So what if she’s your sister?”
Ignoring him, Eunho urged Jung Heewon.
“Noona, if you’re taking it, do it fast. People will be here soon.”
“Who’s coming?”
“You don’t know, but this place is a Gaebang branch. Wonsik already called in the beggars. Don’t let his looks fool you—he’s the branch master’s son. He’s in charge here.”
“Doesn’t matter who comes.”
“I know you’re strong, but even you can’t take on all of Gaebang. And their branch master… he’s unbelievably strong. He can literally fly in the sky, a true martial arts master.”
A real martial arts master.
Suddenly, my curiosity was piqued.
Not that it was Yoo Joonghyuk, but still—how could someone like that exist at this point?
Why would a Murim martial artist even be in Korea?
“Inho-ssi.”
I hesitated.
Curiosity aside, clashing with a major faction here wasn’t the right choice.
We had two objectives in coming here.
One, to find the Butcher of Madness.
Two, to obtain the white flag.
Now that the Butcher was confirmed to be Jung Heewon’s younger brother, we had basically accomplished both.
“For now, let’s just take the flag.”
“Inho-ssi, you take it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I don’t even know how to use it anyway.”
This time, I didn’t refuse her offer.
“Then I’ll take it.”
The strange premonition came the moment we stepped into the master bedroom together. A chill swept over me, and the world drained to grayscale.
A trap.
[Exclusive Skill, ‘□□’ activation conditions have been met.]
It had been a while since I’d seen that message.
In the frozen instant of time, I scanned my surroundings.
But nothing looked unusual. Eunho, the children—unchanged.
Then what was it?
That’s when I spotted a red line entering through the cracked window.
A laser scope.
Someone was aiming at us.
Luckily, I wasn’t too worried.
I still had plausibility points left, and I was confident I could write a convincing enough sentence to escape.
Getting out of this much danger was—
[Exclusive Skill, ‘□□’ is unstable.]
[‘Snowfield’ cannot be activated.]
[Skill has been canceled.]
What?
The scenery shifted back, and from afar came the sound of something firing.
Shit.
I reflexively pulled Jung Heewon down with me.
But before I could move, someone else acted first.
“Noona!”
Spotting the laser, Jung Eunho hurled a chopstick straight toward it.
[Incarnation ‘Jung Eunho’ has activated ‘Throwing Lv.2’!]
[Incarnation ‘Jung Eunho’ has activated ‘Hidden Weapon Enhancement # Nоvеlight # Lv.2’!]
The moment the chopstick flew through the window gap, a deafening explosion shook the entire building.
This wasn’t an ordinary sniper shot.
Someone had fired an anti-tank rocket, at least an RPG.
When the dust cleared, the master bedroom was in ruins.
The window frame dangled, the floor beneath the window obliterated.
Across the way, on the opposite rooftop, I spotted the sniper aiming at us. Our eyes met—and he flinched in shock.
A familiar face.
「‘L-Lord Cheonga ordered me to watch that route for branch expansion. That’s all! I swear I never meant to harm you!’」
The sniper I had released earlier near Chungmuro.
Since the [Oath of Existence] bound him from speaking of us, instead of returning to Seoul Station, he had chosen to kill us.
A mistake.
I should never have trusted that half-baked Oath.
“Heewon-ssi, are you—”
As she rose from the dust, a crimson killing aura poured off her.
She was staring at her brother collapsed on the ground.
Jung Eunho, clutching his stomach.
I quickly pressed on his wound, trying to staunch the bleeding. The bullet fragments had carried poison; the skin around the wound had turned blackish-red.
[Character ‘Jung Heewon’ has activated ‘Demon-Slaying Lv.4’!]
Like a raging beast, Jung Heewon leapt out the window.
Moments later, screams erupted from the opposite rooftop.
“Aaaaagh—!”
Her movements were completely different from when she fought the kids. Limbs were severed, blood splattered, and the man howled in madness.
“Here, here! Graaaaah!”
Apparently he had already called reinforcements. At the apartment entrance, a dozen beggars appeared—reinforcements answering the [Group Chat].
Heewon’s eyes, blazing red with the power of [Demon-Slaying], turned toward them.
That’s when gunfire rained in.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Suppressive fire, aimed squarely at the beggars.
“Arghhh!”
Caught in the hail, the beggars faltered, then quickly gave the signal.
“Retreat!”
Dragging their dead, Gaebang’s men fell back outside the apartment.
And from the underground parking lot, a squad of soldiers emerged.
“Cease fire!”
Faces haggard from long encampments.
By then, Jung Heewon had finished off the sniper and landed on the first floor.
Tension crackled as soldiers and Jung Heewon squared off—until a man stepped forward.
A red flag hung at his belt.
“You… you’re Heewon, aren’t you?”
At the sight of him, her eyes softened slightly.
“Sergeant Kim?”
***
The unit was the remnant of her father Jung Munho’s troops.
They had been waging guerrilla warfare to rescue him from Gaebang, wandering near the apartment where we’d ended up.
“You’re alive. Thank god.”
Sergeant Kim grasped her hand tightly, dabbing at his eyes.
“I’m sorry. Warrant Officer Jung… he’s…”
“I’ve heard enough.”
Heewon calmly withdrew her hand and cut to the chase.
“What about Eunho’s condition?”
Her younger brother still lay unconscious from the sniper’s shot.
I had given him some Spirit of the Elain Forest and applied a basic healing salve, but such wounds couldn’t be healed that way.
A medic was continuously channeling magic into him, but his color only worsened.
“I’m sorry. At this rate, he won’t survive the day.”
The medic’s weak voice.
I silently agreed.
For this kind of wound, we’d need someone like Lee Seolhwa—or the great elixirs of Murim.
Not necessarily Shaolin’s Great Restoration Pill, but at least a Small Restoration Pill.
[This item is out of stock.]
So again, unavailable.
I rummaged through the dokkaebi sack for other medicines.
Surely some of the lesser-grade ones would be in stock—
[This item is out of stock.]
[This item is out of stock.]
All gone, as if by design.
Now that I thought about it, even in the main story Kim Dokja rarely purchased such elixirs from the dokkaebi sack.
They were usually snapped up by incarnations backed by higher-grade constellations.
The middling ones would already have been bought up by constellations eager to accelerate their incarnations’ growth.
Flipping through page after page, I finally found something. A bottom-tier medicine.
Magindan — Stock: 3
The description said it was a replica of Demon Soul Pill, one of the Three Great Elixirs of the First Murim.
That it was a replica already raised alarms. Worse, if it carried the same side effects as the original…
「Taken raw, it induces deviation, bursting all the meridians and killing the user instantly.」
I remembered Yoo Joonghyuk warning that in the main story.
In other words, if we misused it, Eunho wouldn’t be healed—he’d die vomiting blood.
“For now, there’s no way. Unless some constellation intervenes…”
The medic trailed off.
I lifted my gaze toward the sky.
Normally filled with noisy chatter, today it was silent.
Damn it. Back when Yoo Joonghyuk was around, there seemed to be more watching constellations.
Even if they were watching now, I didn’t need to ask to know they wouldn’t help.
No star would sacrifice plausibility for a boy unrelated to them.
The only hope would be a sponsor—but clearly, Eunho had none.
“Inho-ssi.”
“I’m thinking.”
To save him, we needed an elixir on the level of a Small Restoration Pill.
If it couldn’t be bought from the dokkaebi sack, and no constellation would intervene, the only option was to go to Murim directly.
But entering Murim required at least clearing the tenth scenario and obtaining a personal scenario.
Which meant—for now, it was impossible.
And yet…
That Murim. Maybe it wasn’t as far away as we thought.
“You kids.”
I turned to the huddled children.
“About that Murim master in Gaebang. Is it true?”
“A Murim master?”
“One who flies through the sky and uses martial arts?”
“Ah! Y-yeah, it’s true!”
They nodded anxiously.
Sergeant Kim, listening nearby, added,
“It’s true. Such a man exists.”
“You saw him yourself?”
“I fought him directly. Especially the Gaebang leader and his three lieutenants—they’re monsters. They fight beasts barehanded, smash tanks with their fists. Bullets don’t affect them. Our unit was annihilated by them.”
Men who ripped apart monsters with bare hands, immune to bullets.
That truly sounded like Murim masters. High-level ones.
It made no sense for such beings to exist here, in this scenario—but…
“If they exist, they might know how to treat Eunho.”
“Then let’s go to them now.”
Jung Heewon’s voice bristled with the fury to massacre the whole First Murim.
“If we go, it’ll mean a fight.”
“We’re going to fight.”
She was strong, yes—strong enough to hunt even seventh-grade monsters.
But their enemy wasn’t beasts, but humans. And an organization.
“You mustn’t go! You’ll die if you do! Warrant Officer Jung was captured the same way. They’re not human.”
Sergeant Kim’s voice shook with fear.
Heewon scowled.
“I won’t give up on Eunho. If no one comes, I’ll go alone.”
Yes. That was her.
But I couldn’t let it happen.
“Then we negotiate.”
“Negotiate?”
“We hand over a hostage, and get what we want in return.”
The children flinched at the word hostage.
Heewon asked,
“You think they’d care? Over just kids?”
“At least one of them will.”
I looked at the mole-faced boy crawling in the back.
“You. You’re the branch master’s son, right?”
I recalled Eunho’s words:
「Don’t let his looks fool you—he’s the branch master’s son. He’s in charge here.」
The boy shivered violently.
“N-no, not me! If I go back, he’ll kill me! Please, please!”
I knocked him out with a blow to the neck and slung him over my shoulder.
I didn’t know why he was so afraid—but in any case.
“Let’s go to Seoul Station.”
Even aside from Eunho, we had to head there.
[You have become the ‘representative’ of an unnamed group.]
Gaebang.
The faction that seized Seoul Station as the scenarios began.
Since they never appeared in the Absolute Throne war of Ways of Survival, they must have been annihilated by another king.
By whom, I didn’t know.
But one thing was certain—
[Your target station is now ‘Seoul Station’.]
In this 41st regression, their end would be no different.