Chapter 4: I’m sendo (3)

Successfully managed to escape from the café.

Following the guidance of the hero who was evacuating people outside, I moved to the shelter and sat down, contemplating endlessly what I should do.

The boss would be at home anyway and wouldn’t be able to check the CCTV immediately, so I still had time.

‘The most certain way is to destroy it, after all…’

Is there no other choice but to wait for things to normalize again and seize an opportunity while working part-time?

“Ugh… Mommy…”

“It’s okay… The heroes will take care of it…”

“It’s crazy… It’s insane…”

‘Everyone seems anxious.’

It was utter chaos because a grotesque creature had suddenly appeared in the middle of Seoul.

Recalling that there was no setting for that grotesque creature in the original work, there was only one conclusion.

‘Is this the Noble Heroes Beginning setting…?’

Unlike the original, which was a comic and a movie, mostly starting and ending with the villains’ stories, this place was a world within a game.

As it was a growth-type game, elements for growth had to be included, but setting minor enemies as villains was ambiguous. So, since it was already a spin-off game different from the original, they created a new setting: monsters.

The explanation was that due to the very free worldview, there were grotesque creatures born from experiments, and also monsters that emerged from dimension-opening devices created by scientific experiments.

If it had been the original, it might not have been this messed up.

‘What should I do…?’

The worst-case scenario was that the woman would check the CCTV footage inside the café.

If that happened, I wouldn’t be able to deny it.

If only the boss had seen the video, I might have been able to persuade him to hide it somehow, but if that woman saw it…

‘Am I going to be experimented on?’

Or she might arbitrarily decide I have powers and turn me into a hero.

As far as I know, heroes aren’t forcibly conscripted.

No, since this is Korea, it might be different…

Since I know nothing about this world, I have no choice but to approach everything cautiously.

Perhaps there are cases where military service is fulfilled through hero activities.

Of course, having already completed military service, I wasn’t in a situation to worry about it.

‘There’s really no answer…’

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t see a solution.

For now, it seems I have no choice but to forget about it and live on.

‘First, I should have checked what the situation was like outside…’

The only way to check the current situation was the internet.

“Ah… It’s over… The end has come…”

First, I needed to take out my phone and get some information…

“Hee-hee-hee-hee… It’s finally the end… Ah, O’ Apocalypse…”

What’s with this, since earlier?

Strange voices had been coming from the surroundings since earlier.

But somehow, what they were saying was a bit odd.

Seems like they’re crazy…

Wait a minute, no way.

“God has finally bestowed the path of the apocalypse… According to His will…”

At the feast of words that made me uneasy just by listening, I turned my head and saw daggers floating around a man with a deranged expression.

After that, it was instantaneous.

“W-what is this?! A kitchen knife?!”

“Kyaaaak!”

He immediately took the people nearby hostage.

“Ugh-hick… Uh-hee-hick… The apocalypse is coming… Live according to the natural order…!”

“Please save me!!”

“Hero! Aren’t there any heroes here?!”

The people trapped by the floating daggers screamed.

“Where did all the heroes go!!”

“They all went out, damn it!!”

Although it was a world where most people had superpowers, most of them only possessed weak abilities.

The possibility of the hostage having powerful superpowers was very low.

‘Hostage? A hostage?’

I looked around.

This place was inside the shelter, not outside.

I didn’t know how chaotic the situation outside was, but seeing A-rank heroes moving around everywhere was enough to tell me it wasn’t a good situation.

In such a situation, there naturally wouldn’t be any heroes inside the shelter.

They were probably outside, hunting monsters.

If I called for a hero now, they wouldn’t come immediately.

Even if they did come, it would probably be too late.

‘Ah, why is this happening to me…?’

Just when I was worried that my powers might have been exposed to that esper named Kinesis, this happened…

The best course of action to avoid revealing my identity here was to stay still, but…

Best… ?

Best?

The best?

‘Should I… just stand by even though I have power?’

That thought suddenly struck me.

I don’t know how strong my power is right now, but at least it’s not so weak that I’d get beaten to death somewhere.

I do think I need to hide my identity.

As long as I know nothing about this world, I don’t know what might happen to me if I carelessly reveal my abilities here.

To simply dismiss it as delusion, the world I entered was a game world to begin with, so isn’t it not necessarily a delusion?

I knew it in my head.

But.

I turned my head.

“Hick… H-hng…”

“Mommyyy…”

“W-why are you doing this…!”

People surrounded by dozens of daggers looked at the man with expressions mixed with fear.

“Why am I doing this…? Do these heretics dare to reject the coming apocalypse…?”

The man’s expression was tinged with fury.

“Kyaaaak!”

In an instant, a dagger grazed the skin of the woman who had screamed “Why are you doing this?”.

Seeing the woman clutching the flowing blood and groaning in pain, the man grinned sinisterly.

“Y-you guys… you’re just for… the spreading of the gospel… so shut up…!!”

“Huk… H-huk… H-huk…”

“No… Everyone’s going to die anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I kill one person first, does it…?”

“Hick… P-please… please save me…”

“Hee-hee… Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee… Save you? Why would I save you…? M-me… No one saved me… Hee-hee… Hee…”

They’re going to die.

Someone I don’t even know is going to die so meaninglessly.

“Ah.”

Suddenly, the past where I couldn’t do anything came to mind.

Of course, at that time, as an ordinary human, it was certainly not a situation where I could do anything.

How could human power deal with a simple traffic accident?

Just seeing myself, the sole survivor of that hell… I hated myself terribly.

But now it’s different.

Now I had power.

Will I stand by again this time and regret it like back then?

Will I sacrifice that person, who is someone’s family, just to hide my identity?

Can I hide it that way?

Is it an action worth doing?

“Ha.”

The premise itself was wrong.

It’s not something to weigh the value of in the first place.

“Huh…?”

Let’s worry about getting exposed later.

It’s better to worry about it when the time comes.

Whether my power is exposed or not, I won’t let anyone die in front of my eyes anymore…

*Crack!

“W-who are you…?”

Because I never want to see that again.

****

The man was flustered.

The moment he launched a sword, intending to kill the woman both to control the people here and to act according to his doctrine.

He casually caught the kitchen knife, which had been rapidly shot using the power of metal manipulation, and instantly shattered it in mid-air.

He didn’t even swing it.

He had simply crushed it with his grip strength alone.

The man wore a blank expression.

“Who… are you?”

“You don’t need to know. Stop while I’m being nice.”

“Hee-hee… Hee-hee-hick… Stop? Stop? What? Stop what??”

What was he supposed to stop?

The man couldn’t understand.

They were all dead men walking anyway.

He was trying to send them off early before they died painfully, so he couldn’t understand why he was being stopped.

“Hee-hee… Y-you want to die first, don’t you? Huh… If you wanted to die, you should’ve said something… Alright, I’ll send you off first… Huh? With the power G-God gave me, hick…”

All the knives holding other people suddenly turned towards the man who had appeared.

Doyoon looked at the man with calm eyes.

‘As expected. Considering his nature, I thought he’d target me first if I stepped forward like this.’

Not a villain with a goal to commit crimes, but merely a fanatic of a cult.

From what he was saying, it was highly likely he was from an apocalypse-related cult, so he wouldn’t have bothered taking hostages from the start.

Unless it was a last-ditch effort to take hostages when his own life was on the line… but that was only true when he seemed overly confident.

If he showed an overwhelming display of power here, the man might do anything out of fear.

He had to end it in one blow.

“D-die…!!”

He shot dozens of blades floating in the air towards the man who had interfered with him.

If it were an ordinary person, even one with powerful superpowers, they would still just be a human.

If stabbed by so many blades, no matter how skilled or powerful an esper, they wouldn’t escape unharmed.

The man looked at the loathsome human in front of him, who was about to be riddled with blades, with a look of certainty.

However,

*Clang! Clink!

The blades couldn’t pierce the man and bounced off.

While catching and shattering each of the deflected blades to prevent them from stabbing other people.

“Huh…?”

His thoughts couldn’t continue for long.

He fainted from the immense shock and pain that instantly struck his entire body.

What he saw through his vision as he fainted was…

‘Crazy…’

The sight of the man in the posture of flicking someone’s forehead.