Chapter 11
“It’s been a while,” Seong-Hwi said as he looked around and took a deep breath.
He was surely crazy for missing the fishy smell in the air, but it was fine. Now that he was in this crazy world, he was one of the sane.
The train heading to the tattered world had left the station. Choo, choo. One ticket per person.
“Kyaaah!”
“What the hell?! Where am I?!”
“W-why is it so dark?! Are we in a forest?”
The Lost people were confused, unable to comprehend the situation. They could only see a thick forest filled with giant trees and an unsettling crescent moon. Just then, the Akasha Message echoed in everyone’s heads like the Grim Reaper.
[Commencing the mandatory quest for entering the Mirror World.]
...
[The Path to the Mirror World (Mandatory Quest)
Rank: —
Description: You are in District 8 of the Dark Forest outskirts. Acquire a Teleport Rock located in the forest’s center within thirty days. You can teleport to the Mirror World upon success.]
“W-who’s there?! Who just spoke?!”
“This is insane! I must be going crazy!”
The Akasha Messages were not conveyed by language; their meaning was conveyed directly into the mind. People experiencing the odd feeling for the first time looked around to find the source of the voice, but their efforts were wasted.
“What? What’s a status window?”
“Quest... system?”
“What are cubes? What is Karma? Someone... Someone, please tell me what the hell is going on!”
“Destiny Weapon?”
Seong-Hwi could tell the others were receiving explanations about the various systems. He had his preliminary awakening on Earth, so such messages did not appear for him, but some of them were also given to him.
[The safe zone is 300m wide.]
[The Chaos cannot enter the safe zone.]
[One individual has the Dark Seal.]
[The one with the Dark Seal will be given Black Quests involving acts such as murder and theft.]
[If the one with the Dark Seal does not carry out the Black Quests, the seal will be transferred to someone else in three days.]
There it is, Seong-Hwi thought.
The Dark Seal was both a blessing and a curse. If the one with the Dark Seal completed the Black Quests without being discovered by others, they would become far stronger than the others. However, that would mean everyone else would be sacrificed for one person. Since there were a hundred people in the district, ten people at most would receive the Dark Seal during the thirty days. One of them would surely carry out the Black Quests.
“Hurgh...! I don’t want this! What the hell?! I wanna... I wanna go home!”
“Hey, you! Show yourself! Stop whispering in your little hiding spot and come out already!”
“E-excuse me! Please be quiet! You don’t know what’s in this forest!”
“My phone is dead!”
The Lost people fell into extreme panic. They needed to deny or accept the current situation as quickly as possible. However, it was like an open-book test that even a primary schooler could solve. The answer was given—they needed to accept it or they would die.
“Alright! Everyone, please calm down and listen to me!” a young man shouted at the center of the field.
The man in a white gown and glasses gave off a trustworthy aura because of his first impression as an intellectual who worked in a respectable field.
“My name is Kim Min-Su! I’m a pharmacist! We have to get a better understanding of our current situation!”
Those who were crying, gripping their dead smartphones, and raging all looked at Min-Su.
Once he got everyone’s attention, he continued, “First... it seems we have been Lost—the phenomenon that no one ever found out the cause or result of. They had all been sent here.”
“Then... my brother, who vanished three years ago, must be here too!”
“M-my mom! She was Lost a year ago. Is she alive?”
The despair in the eyes of people who lost loved ones via the Lost phenomenon disappeared and was replaced with anticipation and hope.
“I’m sure they are. I don’t know what kind of power brought us here, but I doubt it was to kill us. All of you received the mandatory quest, right?” Min-Su asked.
“H-how can I see it again?”
“Huh? It’ll appear again if you think about wanting to see the mandatory quest!” someone shouted.
“Yeah. The Path to... the Mirror World?”
Everyone read the details of the mandatory quest they had been too panicked to read properly at the time.
Min-Su continued, “It says that this is the Dark Forest and we are in District 8 of its outskirts. That means there are at least seven more districts. There might be more people in the same situation as us.”
It was a clever analysis. From what Seong-Hwi remembered, there were ten districts, each filled with a hundred people. Hence, there were currently a thousand people in the Dark Forest.
“We were given thirty days. We should be able to go to the place called the Mirror World if we get one of those Teleport Rocks. The people who have been Lost all this time must be there too. We can all survive!”
Min-Su was not wrong about that either. However, although the Akasha Messages never lied, they never told the whole truth.
There are only a hundred Teleport Rocks. There’s no way all hundred of us will get one.
Only a hundred out of a thousand people could get a Teleport Rock—a ten percent chance of survival. Ideally, everyone in District 8 would get a Teleport Rock, but realistically, competitors needed to be reduced. Most went for the middle ground since the former was impossible and the latter was too brutal. They would hope for the ideal outcome but also hope for their competitors to fall on their own or be eliminated by another’s hand—an attitude truly befitting a human.
Min-Su continued, “Since the safe zone is three hundred meters wide, this place should be safe, but that also means it’s not safe out there.”
“Urgh. What’s out there?”
“It can’t be monsters, can it?”
The others nervously stared into the Dark Forest.
“And there seems to be something called the Dark Seal. If one of you were given something like that, listen to me when I say there are only a hundred of us! We have no idea what dangers are lurking in this forest, so we have to work together! Please refrain from any rash decisions!”
“H-he’s right! Murder and theft? That’s absurd!”
“Who is it? Who got it?!”
“Reveal yourself!”
People were getting more and more riled up.
Min-Su shouted, “Please calm down! Panicking is the worst thing we can do right now! Let us all think calmly. There’s no need to worry. As long as we all monitor one another and work together, no one needs to do those weird quests. Also, it seems all of us have been given weapons.”
“Weapons?”
“I-I haven’t gotten anything.”
Min-Su fixed his glasses with his index finger and continued, “All of us have been given something called Destiny Weapons. You can summon it by wishing for it. Check for yourselves.”
Everyone began to check their Destiny Weapons.
“Huh? What’s this?”
“He’s right!”
D Weapons were summoned into each person’s hands—a young man with a manhole cover, a woman with a compact, a man with a sword, a girl with a fluffy puppy, a man with a clutch bag, and many more.
Min-Su scanned the various D Weapons and remarked, “My Destiny Weapon is these glasses. It seems they can detect malice, so I will tell the one who received the Dark Seal again to be careful!”
Everyone looked at Min-Su and nodded. Glasses with that kind of ability would prevent the one with the Dark Seal from acting rashly.
Min-Su looked around and said, “Although the situation might seem despairing, it’s not as bad as you think. Our chances of survival are lower because we’ve all been separated into districts, but there are still a hundred of us here. Let us all join forces and work together!”
Min-Su extended his right arm forward, gesturing for anyone to grab his hand. Everyone glanced at one another. Just then, one man in a peculiar outfit approached Min-Su. He was wearing a backpack almost as large as him, with silver bracelets engraved with dragons that did not match his outfit—it was Seong-Hwi.
He grabbed Min-Su’s hand.
“Thank you. As long as we join forces—argh!” Min-Su yelled as he was expressing his gratitude.
Seong-Hwi squeezed Min-Su’s hand so hard that cracking sounds echoed throughout the field.
“You’re good, I’ll give you that,” Seong-Hwi remarked.
“W-what do you—urgh!”
“I’m saying I’m impressed by how you gave them hope, then fear, reassured them by telling them about the weapons, and made use of enemies both in here and out there. You’ve already adapted to this place in that short time,” Seong-Hwi genuinely praised Min-Su with a smile.
“Guh. Let go of me!”
“Want to know something? I’ve been watching you ever since I got here, but you’ve been wearing those glasses you claim are your Destiny Weapon from the beginning.”
The light in Min-Su’s eyes changed. He shouted, “I-It’s him! This man is the one who received the Black Quests! He is showing clear mali—”
Min-Su couldn’t finish his sentence. Seong-Hwi’s hand went into his oversized hoodie to grab his Bowie knife and instantly swung it, cutting about two-thirds of Min-Su’s throat. His head folded backward like a flip phone because of the flesh still attached. Min-Su’s body collapsed as blood spewed from his throat.
“Kyaaahhh!”
“M-murderer!”
“H-he killed someone!”
It happened all too quickly. The others took their distance from Seong-Hwi and summoned their shabby D Weapons.
Seong-Hwi paid no mind to them and stepped on Min-Su’s glasses to break them.
“Your D Weapon should disappear when you die, Deceitful Pharmacist.”
Seong-Hwi shook the blood off his knife and put it back into its sheath in his hoodie. He turned away from the shocked people and left the safe zone.
[You are the first in all districts to kill someone with the Dark Seal.]
[Hidden Quest: Identify, complete.]
[500 Karma obtained.]
...
***
Kim Min-Su also stepped up when Seong-Hwi arrived in the Dark Forest in his past life. He could quickly read the situation and decipher it in a way that advantaged him.
Once he found out Seong-Hwi was a murderer, he said apologetically, “I’m sorry. The others are getting anxious with you around. I believe you when you say you don’t have the Dark Seal, but... there’s no other choice. This is also for your sake.”
He had been abnormally adept at adaptation, and that extraordinary ability allowed him to instantly become the leader of District 8. While Seong-Hwi was struggling to survive without relying on the safe zone, Min-Su organized the group and cleared each zone of the Dark Forest step by step alongside people with D Weapons compatible with combat.
Seong-Hwi had thought Min-Su was amazing when seeing him from afar, but remembered feeling dumbfounded after finding out only he and Min-Su had obtained a Teleport Rock in their district. After that, Min-Su got on a fast track to success in the Mirror World. He later joined an infamous black clan, Loaners, as an executive member.
People gave him the alias Deceitful Pharmacist. His D Weapon was a drug pill; he could add a condition to them and make whoever ingested them carry out the terms of a contract. If they failed to, they would receive penalties—it was a manipulation ability.
After hearing about his ability, Seong-Hwi was sure that Min-Su had been the first person in District 8 to receive the Dark Seal. He had cleared every single Black Quest to become stronger much quicker than everyone else.
Hence, Seong-Hwi observed Min-Su while everyone else was panicking. Min-Su rapidly looked around to understand the situation and made appropriate calculations, all expressionlessly. As Seong-Hwi expected, Min-Su did the same thing as last time. He used the unfamiliar location, the people in it, the dangers beyond the safe zone, the enemy inside the safe zone, and the properties of the forest filled with mysteries—all to elevate his position.
He had also deceived everyone by claiming his regular glasses were his D Weapon. Seong-Hwi was impressed by his boldness to lie that he could detect malice despite not even knowing how to establish rules for his D Weapon yet.
If he were left to his devices, he would have framed those who opposed him as those who possessed the Dark Seal, while carrying out the Black Quests in the shadows. Hence, Seong-Hwi killed him and cleared the hidden quest, Identify, that he had been aiming for as well. He had killed two birds with one stone.
Seong-Hwi could have slowly exposed Min-Su instead of acting rashly. That way, he would not have been dishonored as a murderer and would have gained the trust and support of everyone around him.
But there would be no use for that.
He would proudly say that he killed the cancer, Kim Min-Su, and did his duty as a member of District 8. Stories were always divided into a well-organized introduction, body, and conclusion, but only the conclusion mattered in reality.
Seong-Hwi had acted and killed the bastard. He was not obligated to explain his actions or his reason for doing so—that was the kind of place the Mirror World was. Confucius had also said something similar, albeit the context was completely different.
***
When Zigong asked about leadership,
Confucius said:
“First accomplish what you want to say and then say it.”
Confucius, Analects