Chapter 2: Chapter 2 - Kill the Player (2)

『Translator: RainTL』

(T/N notes are added as footnotes.)

"Hah..."

A shabby blanket, a cheap mattress so hard it could crush your back and a dirty floor... Everything was the same as the first time I opened my eyes in this world.

"Huu..."

Walking into the bathroom, I found a reflection of my face on the large mirror. Looking back at me was a fairly ferocious set of facial features and wild black hair. It was quite a decent countenance, even for a game where all the characters looked attractive in general except for the third-rate villains.

If I remember correctly, the character designer was famous for not being able to draw ugly characters.

Korin Lork.

A side character who appears in an episode where the protagonist and his party venture off to save their classmates who are in danger soon after entering the guardian academy. He was a disposable NPC there to help the protagonist shine, and at the same time, that was my name.

"Was that a dream?"

Hah, yeah. That must have been a dream. Otherwise, how could a human do such a...

Even a psychopath wouldn't kill people for annoying them. Right? A human should have standards.

Unless they have cider1*Cider = Cider (Sprite in Korea) represents a fast and satisfactory development whereas sweet potatoes represent an unsatisfactory and suffocating plot development. Comes from how Koreans drink sprite with sweet potatoes to alleviate the stuffiness of a sweet potato. instead of blood flowing in their veins, how could someone do such a thing? Haha.

Although Park Sihu is a little dark and has an icy gaze, he's not that bad of a...

That was when multiple events flashed through my mind. One of them was the flood at Roteon River, when the dam broke accidentally during the eradication of river monsters which wiped a whole village.

What did he murmur to himself again when looking at the horrendous scene with over a thousand dead monsters and thousands of human casualties?

『Huhu. Jackpot!』

"..."

Looking back, it was such a wicked smile that it gave me chills. It was disturbingly well-timed for it to be a coincidence, and there were no other plausible explanations for it.

'That demon. What did he gain by killing so many people?'

In this game, you do earn exp points by killing lives, but killing normal civilians wouldn't give that much...

Ah.

But if that reached thousands... and considering all the monsters that were killed by his other colleagues...

"H... Hah."

Maybe he was a Satan back on Earth? No, even that would be an understatement.

"Huu..."

For now, I had to confirm the current state. This room looked the same as the cheap inn I stayed in before entering Merkarva Academy.

I walked over to the window and opened it with a creak.

Outside lay the bustling scene of a city with a large train noisily rushing down the railway, and crowds of people walking across.

It was the scene of another world that appeared to be a mix of things from the 16th to the 20th Century.

How would I ever forget such a vivid and intriguing sight?

'The clock tower... is still there.'

The pride of the city, the clock tower, was destroyed during a fight against a unique grade enemy. I knew because I was the one who defeated it.

There was no way they would have repaired it already.

Looking at the calendar of the motel, I realized today's date was Year 999, February 27; which should have been 3 years ago.

Did I...really come back?

"That's impossible."

That was what I initially thought, but the calendar was not lying and the puzzle pieces that fit together were telling me this was reality.

How much had I suffered following Park Sihu? To think all that hard work was in vain...

Wait a second. What about Park Sihu?

Did Park Sihu also return to the past like me?

"..."

He would probably stay the same. While singing chants of efficiency, he would nonchalantly murder people.

He would say something like, 'It's fine because this world is a game'.

And yes, I do understand that mindset to some extent, considering how we entered the game we were playing, which still had a status screen and an ongoing scenario.

If there was some type of a reward like, 'You can go back to the real world upon clearing the game', I can understand him trying to clear it without paying any heed to the process or the method.

But that's... way too cruel is it not?

There was a line in this world that shouldn't be crossed. Even in a game, you would be called a psychopath for decapitating an NPC and placing the head in your house like a trophy, and yet this guy did things that were far worse.

He had casually killed a hundred thousand people.

If he was someone with common sense and even a sliver of a rightful mindset... he wouldn't have carried out so many unnecessary massacres.

Besides, there was a limit to how much experience points you could gain due to the level cap, and there were only so many items you needed depending on your skill tree.

After hitting Level 99, farming was no longer impactful, and you did not need 'hidden pieces' for a knight when you were going down the skill tree of a mage.

However, he had unnecessarily killed a lot of people. Was that really for efficiency?

No.

That guy was just enjoying it. He was simply relishing the pain and suffering of people he had put on display.

Park Sihu, that son of a bitch, had absolutely zero respect. Efficiency was just the excuse he came up with to mask his insanity.

If he really did love efficiency, he would have shared all the countless hidden items which he couldn't even use to his other party members rather than keeping them for himself.

Because that was how you were meant to play this game - by strengthening your party members.

The fact that he devoured all that for himself, meant he was just a greedy damn pig.

"If it's now... I can stop him."

Park Sihu wasn't monstrously strong yet.

'Do I have to kill him? Park Sihu? The player?'

Though I might not be someone with an especially strong sense of justice, I still prided myself for having enough of a moral standard.

『Who knows? I don't think the kill log was over 100k... Ah, three more and I'll hit 100k』

I clenched my fist.

The overflowing amount of money and treasures in that underground treasury. Although some of them were ownerless items located throughout the school, there were some which he had stolen from their original owners.

The demon-slaying sword which belonged to the granddaughter of the Sword Emperor, as well as the elixir ingredient that was constantly sucked out of 'her'.

Those were all things he had stolen and snatched from others. Even apart from that, his unbelievable growth in power must have been made possible only thanks to the sacrifice of many others.

"Park Sihu..."

I used to think of him as a hero.

Although he had a bit of chuunibyou, I thought he was a true hero who accepted his fate as the player of the game and tried to save the world. I thought his personality was just slightly flawed.

But I was wrong.

He was a psychopath and a ciderpath2 *Ciderpath = A web novel reader who is obsessed with 'cider' development. who did not love this world in the slightest.

Even though he was a homosexual who filled the party with handsome male characters, he did not love them.

Was that why he was ruthlessly killing people?

He took everything for himself, stole and harmed people to exploit the weak ones that could not even fight back at him.

But even so, was it correct to kill the player?

It was true he was an evil person, but at the same time he was the one destined to save an innumerable number of people. He was the protagonist who despite killing a hundred thousand people would soon save the world...

Wait, this guy lost, didn't he?

Looking back, he lost at the final boss fight.

So he wasn't even the one destined to save the world? Why was this guy even singing chants of 'efficiency'the whole time then?

It was annoying the more I thought about it.

This fucker was a mage, so why the heck did he gather so many damn swords in the first place?

Look at the demon-slaying sword as an example. It's not even usable unless you reach the very end of a knight's skill tree, so why the heck did he even get it?

He wasn't an efficiency-lover; he was just a greedy monopoliser!

If he won at least, I would have accepted it but... he lost!

****

❰Heroic Legends of Arhan❱ had various hidden items and ways that allowed one to strengthen both the protagonist and the party members.

The most symbolic of them all were the 'hidden pieces' located all across Merkarva Academy.

Those were some of the things that came off the top of my head - they were the ones I told Park Sihu about, which he probably knew about himself.

Even apart from that, meditating in front of the wobbly rock of the emerald forest inside the campus can double the effect,

And there were the grimoires hidden in the library which allowed one to gain an ability by simply reading them.

All these had one thing in common.

It was that they all had to be found after entering Merkarva Academy.

In other words, it meant Park Sihu would get stronger in full swing after entering the academy.

The entrance ceremony in ❰Heroic Legends of Arhan❱ was the day after the anniversary of the 'Continental War of Liberation', March 2nd. Currently, it was the 27th of February, and Park Sihu would most definitely be at the level of 『Grade 5』 right now.

Why was I so certain of it, you may ask?

It's because, considering his smartass personality, he would have flaunted his skills in one way or another during the admission test. He would have become the best freshman of history, or would have broken the high score to leave a record.

Why? Because that gloomy bloke had to show off his smart ass.

But during the admission test, he barely made it through, which meant he was a complete newbie on my level at this current point in time.

It was hard to imagine how much stronger he would become immediately after entering the school grounds. In fact, he might even get stronger on the day of the admission.

But right now. it was a different story. Although I was just a random 『Grade 5』 knight for now, that was the same for Park Sihu as well.

Our abilities would exponentially grow further apart, which means—

"I have to do it now."

Now was the only chance to kill the player.

Then going back to the main question at hand; where was Park Sihu?

I had no idea.

However, he had to be near this city right now, because he must be planning on killing the Sword Emperor's granddaughter, Alicia Arden, to steal her sword.

It was one of the first big events that stirred up the academy alongside the vampire event.

The granddaughter of the Sword Emperor, Garrand, famous for being an unfathomably powerful 『Unique Grade』 knight, did not show up in the entrance ceremony.

Naturally, it created an uproar as city guards were all dispatched to search for her. It was only 3 days later that they discovered her corpse.

Her death was due to a monster. It seemed that being left alone with a sharp stab to her rib had been the biggest cause of her death.

According to the state of the corpse, she was estimated to have died around 5~7 days prior.

She was discovered on March 5th. The estimated time of her death is from February 26th to 28th. Which means...

'She might be killed today!!'

In fact, she might have been killed already! Now was not the time for this.

I quickly changed my clothes and left the inn.

Alicia Arden's estimated time of death was from yesterday to tomorrow.

The reason I clearly remembered the estimated time of her death and the forest she was discovered in was because I looked into it from how strange it was for the story to deviate from the main plot.

Back then I couldn't find out anything else and had to get over it despite how unsettling it was, but now I knew exactly what happened.

It was Park Sihu who killed Alicia Arden. And...

In turn, that meant saving Alicia Arden would also coincide with an opportunity to kill Park Sihu.

How was Park Sihu able to come across Alicia Arden? Why would a strong character like Alicia Arden, who could easily reach 『Grade 2』 already be involved with a 『Grade 5』 like Park Sihu?

"......Tutorial quest."

The first quest given to a player playing the game in order to let them grasp the initial combat system.

That was the only time that Park Sihu could have been involved with Alicia before admission.

I knew the location of the tutorial quest. It was a place I naturally started to remember since I have played it multiple times.

"I have to break into the tutorial."

It won't go the way you want this time.

Footnotes:

1*Cider = Cider (Sprite in Korea) represents a fast and satisfactory development whereas sweet potatoes represent an unsatisfactory and suffocating plot development. Comes from how Koreans drink sprite with sweet potatoes to alleviate the stuffiness of a sweet potato. 2 *Ciderpath = A web novel reader who is obsessed with 'cider' development.