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Seol Jihu
Seol Jihu
However, the problem wasn’t with the number of people left. The
aforementioned incident, in which the strong had sacrificed the weak, had
enough influence on the participants to temporarily stop all talks of beating the
Stage’s system.
After all, it was proven that another method existed to escape Stage 2.
The minority didn’t stay still either. They gathered together and remained on
high alert, clearly refusing to become scapegoats.
When Seol Jihu saw the minority representative from the first conference
walking around and uniting people, he felt relieved inwardly. Like the saying,
‘united we stand, divided we fall’, if the weak gathered their forces, the strong
shouldn’t be able to touch them so easily.
Members of the majority faction and the minority faction were all human
beings. No matter how careful they were, an opportunity could be made
artificially.
Furthermore, not all strong were evil, and not all weak were kind.
It wasn’t until late that night that Seol Jihu came to realize this truth.
People made their camps as far away from the pit as possible. This was
because the two plazas were only 10 meters away from each other. If
someone managed to throw six people into the Plaza of Sacrifice, escaping
through the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish was practically guaranteed. And
there wasn’t a single person present who didn’t realize this.
After remembering the white-headband girl, who gave him valuable advice
during Stage 1, he went out to look for her in hopes that she could do the
same.
Since he couldn’t see her among the majority, he walked towards the minority.
It was then…. He suddenly felt a strange current in the air. To be precise, he
smelled a sticky, unpleasant odor that seemed to drain the energy from his
body.
Soon, he heard muffled groans coming out from the campsite of the minority
faction. He had a hunch that an incident similar to that of the evening was
unfolding.
Noticing that the surroundings were eerily quiet, Seol Jihu chose to run
towards the pit rather than look around the campsite. Wishing in his heart that
he wasn’t late, he ran at full speed.
Seol Jihu caught sight of six shadowy figures in the distance. One or two
people standing in the front seemed to be throwing something into the pit.
“Uuup!”
“Uuuuup!”
A man was busy trying to block the girl’s mouth; seemingly worried that noise
would leak out and expose them. But in the next moment, he scowled harshly.
“Eii!”
Puk! The man punched the girl’s stomach with his giant fist and turned around
when he sensed a murderous intent. Seeing a spear of mana flying toward
him, he reflexively moved his head.
A sharp sensation brushed past his nose, and the terrifying gale that followed
made his expression distort.
Seeing a shadow charging towards him at lightning speed, the man passed
the girl over to his comrade and took a battle stance. Seeing a blue spear
thrusting straight at him, he swung his blunt weapon in full force.
CLANG!
Along with the ringing of metallic sound, the man’s eyes widened. He was
confident in his abilities and had fully intended to send the spear flying, but
instead ended up almost letting go of his weapon.
When his eyes met the attacker’s sharp, gleaming eyes, his body froze
automatically. He took a small breath to drive the fear away and clenched his
teeth. But the figure refused to move, even after he put enough strength to
bulge up the veins on his muscles.
“Uuuuuk!”
Seol Jihu also grasped the situation. Judging by the pressure he was feeling
in his hands and the equipment the man was wearing, he guessed that the
man was at least a Level 4.
He couldn’t help but wonder how the man sneaked into their camp. However,
he didn’t have time to be worrying about that at the moment.
“Help!”
The man requesting for help and the girl’s desperate, screaming voice mixed
together to torment Seol Jihu’s ears.
“U-Uhhh?”
After hastily rousing his mana and striking the man’s blunt weapon up, he
swung his spear in an almost twisting maneuver and smashed the man’s
head. As the man collapsed helplessly, he could see a girl chest-deep in the
pit, hanging by the skin of her teeth using both of her arms. Next to her, he
spotted another man furiously stomping on the girl’s hands.
Pang! Completely enraged, Seol Jihu activated the Festina Earring again. At
the same time, the grass the girl was clutching onto was pulled out.
“Yes! I—”
Thwack! He kicked the rejoicing man away, and immediately, Seol Jihu’s jaw
dropped open.
He saw the man’s face. He was wondering who was committing such heinous
acts in the wake of night, and he turned out to the representative of the
minority faction, who made an impassioned speech during the conference.
He couldn’t believe that the perpetrator was within the minority faction, and
their leader to boot. However, that moment of disbelief only lasted a second.
Seol Jihu quickly bent down and reached his hand into the pit. He couldn’t tell
whether he grabbed onto the girl’s hair or some other part, but thankfully, he
was able to grab onto something meaty.
Worried that the door would close, he quickly pulled her up.
“Keeeeu!”
Suddenly, a massive, muscular arm shot up. The moment it grabbed onto the
earth, a giant climbed up from the pit in a swimming fashion. He was carrying
the white headband girl on his shoulder.
‘He is….’
In a fluster, Seol Jihu remembered that the giant was the man who last
reached the mountaintop in Stage 1. It seemed he had been thrown into the
pit unconscious but had woken up and climbed out.
His eyes were bloodshot, either from the drugs or from his rage. Regardless,
he was viciously glaring at the collapsed man as if he was ready to tear him to
shreds.
That wasn’t the end of the trouble. For the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish to
open, six people needed to enter the Plaza of Sacrifice. Since the pit came to
lack two people, there was no way the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish would
open.
Soon, people who noticed the uproar came out like a swarm of bees. The
perpetrators behind the attack were left with nowhere to run.
Everyone who fell into the pit was rescued. The six perpetrators were then
killed by the enraged crowd.
With no way to stop the killing, the number of participants fell to 110.
This second failed attempt ended up pouring oil onto a burning house. It was
shocking enough that only a few hours had passed since the first successful
attempt, but the fact that the perpetrator was the representative of the minority
faction came as an even bigger shock.
Who would have imagined that the man who fought against the strong for the
benefit of the weak would give in to such temptation?
*
Seol Jihu opened his closed eyes.
“It’s my fault….” The girl raised her head slightly and muttered in a quiet voice.
In Seol Jihu’s eyes, the girl was just a human being. Seeing her eyes moist
with tears and her reddened cheeks, he felt sorry about relying on her one-
sidedly.
The giant and the girl were brother and sister. Although they looked nothing
alike, Seol Jihu wasn’t so insensitive as to bring that up.
The man was already in a sorry state after Stage 1, but apparently, he had
fought while protecting his younger sister during the battle against the Lioners
and ended up worsening his injuries.
To recover, he had fallen asleep after taking a healing potion, and the
perpetrators had apparently used this opportunity to spread the sleeping
incense and bring them to the Plaza of Sacrifice.
“If it weren’t for me….” The girl sniveled, unable to continue talking. Seol Jihu
placed his hand on the girl’s frail shoulder.
“No.”
In that instant, the girl flinched for some reason. Her head began to tremble.
“It’s not your fault, nor is it your brother’s.” When he continued calmly, her
shaking began to subside. “It was just that those six were despicable
criminals.”
The girl sniffled and asked as she looked up at him, “Oppa will be okay…
right?”
“Of course.” Seol Jihu got on his knee and smiled gently. “I requested a High
Ranker Priest to treat him, so he will recover in no time.”
Seemingly consoled by the youth’s kind words, she burst into tears and threw
herself into his embrace. Seol Jihu gently patted the girl’s back and let out a
small sigh.
Just what was the Banquet? He couldn’t understand why it was given a
welcoming name like ‘banquet’ in the first place. Wouldn’t it be more
appropriate to call it ‘a living hell’?
Seol Jihu activated his Nine Eyes while consoling the sobbing girl. The two
pits in the distance were still glistening in a golden light.
‘Why?’
He could understand why the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish would be gold.
However, he just couldn’t wrap his head around the Plaza of Sacrifice being
gold.
Why wasn’t such a dirty, dangerous place shining in the color of danger?
Did the Nine Eyes not judge it to be dangerous? Or… was there something
encompassing this Stage 2 that went beyond any level of danger?
He couldn’t rule out the former, but he was strongly leaning toward the latter.
He had a feeling — that perhaps his Nine Eyes were overlooking the entire
Banquet from the very beginning.
‘Right.’
The hourglass stopped after the first successful battle and did not move again.
The remaining participants were happy at first, thinking they escaped being
forced to make their move. But looking back, the stopping of the hourglass
provided more leisure, and that leisure mutated into betrayal and tyranny,
creating widespread distrust.
What was important to the people wasn’t conquering the Stage, but survival.
Seol Jihu smoked one cigarette after the other. He tasted nothing but
bitterness in his mouth. Although it was a little, he even felt a sense of shame.
But now that he faced reality, he was repeating the same thing he did in Stage
1.
Of course, Seol Jihu knew he wasn’t anywhere near enough to take on the
role of a leader in this place.
Unlike Stage 1, Stage 2 was targeted for all participants. Naturally, there were
many who vastly surpassed him in strength, intelligence, and leadership. Even
some High Rankers couldn’t speak out casually, having to look for the right
timing.
As a mere Level 3 Warrior, Seol Jihu had no choice but to stay put.
‘But….’
Was being a spectator on the sidelines the right choice? He didn’t do anything
that would make him feel guilty, but he was afraid of how this result would
return to him.
After all, this was the Golden Commandment. And in Stage 1, he had
personally watched and experienced how the Golden Rule functioned.
This fear made his heart beat faster. All of his senses were telling him that he
couldn’t let things be like flowing water, and that he needed to change its
course no matter what.
This wasn’t such a baseless hunch.
Only 110 people remained. It was lacking, in a sense, but he felt that this was
the line of no return.
Assuming that everyone joined hands, he could see a way out just barely. But
if the number of participants decreased even a little… then conquering the
Plaza of Sacrifice would become impossible.
In truth, this was something that everyone present knew, not just Seol Jihu. It
was just that no one was stepping up. Knowing that reaching this way out
would be extremely difficult and full of obstacles, they had simply given up.
Seol Jihu had been the same. The situation had already been twisted so
much, and with the interpersonal chasm becoming wider by the hour, just
thinking about where to begin gave him a headache.
“Haa….” He sighed yet again. No matter how many times he thought about
the matter, doing it alone seemed impossible.
[What’s wrong about using something you’ve built up fair and square?]
“Mister Kazuki.”
“?”
Kazuki looked a little embarrassed. Of course, it wasn’t his fault that things
had turned out like this, but he couldn’t help but feel frustrated inside.
“…No.” Kazuki shook his head and smacked his lips before abruptly widening
his eyes. He sensed something out of place from the young man in front of
him. Seol Jihu’s expression was strangely sunken in.
He didn’t have his usual bright, playful face. His expression was… hard to
read. The way he looked almost entranced, Kazuki felt he was looking at a
different person.
“The good ideas all went out the window,” Seol Jihu replied coldly.
“…I guess you’re right.” Kazuki folded his arms and rubbed his chin.
The way and method of doing something naturally changed depending on the
situation. What Seol Jihu was saying was that they had already lost the
opportune moment to make the ideal move.
Kazuki stared at the youth fixedly, and Seol Jihu started talking.
Once the youth finished his explanation, Kazuki fell into deep thought.
“Now that’s surprising. I didn’t think you would choose such a straightforward
approach.”
“It’s not like I can always think of good, unique ideas.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Kazuki shook his hand. “I agree with you. That is
the only way. I think everyone knows that.”
“Right.”
“The majority faction isn’t sitting still because they don’t know what needs to
be done.”
He hesitated for a moment before speaking with difficulty, “…It’s the same for
me.”
“….”
“Even if everyone cooperates, Level 4s and Level 5s will need to stand in the
frontlines of the battle. If we do as you say, each side will have to give up one
thing that can’t be yielded…. The majority side will not accept an equal trade.
They will voice their opposition without a doubt.”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.” Seol Jihu spoke, “In Stage 2, the
relationship between the majority and the minority shouldn’t be parasitic.”
“I know, but there is a definitive difference between those with a choice and
those without.” Kazuki spoke bluntly. However, Seol Jihu couldn’t deny that it
was true. “The minority faction is at a dead-end. Even if they disagree with
your plan, they have no choice but to agree. But that’s not the case for us.”
“I have a plan.”
“…What is it?” Kazuki, who had maintained his calm the entire time, furrowed
his brows.
Seol Jihu opened his mouth, “I have a way of changing the apparent
parasitism to symbiosis.”
Kazuki was about to say something when he hurriedly closed his mouth. It
was a known fact that having more people made conquering the Plaza of
Sacrifice easier. However, the majority faction knew that there was no need to
take the difficult way, when they knew it was easier to simply devour the
minority forces.
Seol Jihu saying this had to mean that he had a method of overturning this
status quo.
If such a thing really existed, it could turn the tables in one fell swoop.
“Then why didn’t you….” Kazuki was about to say something when he saw
Seol Jihu hesitating and realized why he had not said anything until now.
“I can’t be sure,” Seol Jihu muttered. “But it’s worth confirming. Three or four
times… no, once or twice is enough.”
Seol Jihu emphasized his last point one more time, “Once or twice is enough.”
“….”
“Please help me.” His voice carried a sense of sincerity and conviction.
Kazuki raised his hands and rubbed his face. After thinking for quite some
time, he opened his mouth with an exhausted voice. “…We’ll have to
persuade the minority first.”
“I’ll have to rethink my decision to cooperate with Carpe Diem next time. Every
time I’m with you, it feels like I’m walking on a tightrope.” Kazuki smirked.
Next…
“Seol.” He suddenly turned serious. “I hate to say it again, but there will be
opposition. You asked me because you expected as much, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then promise me one thing.” With an intense stare, he put more strength into
his voice.
“Now, it’s do or die. It’s unacceptable to half-ass things like in Stage 1.”
“I know.”
“I think I kind of get it.” Seol Jihu smiled faintly. “What you told me… about
finding clothes that fit me.”
“…Oh yeah?” He tilted his chin up slightly and examined the youth. He didn’t
seem to be lying.