Encounter (1)
“Ah… I’m screwed.”
At the very moment the Invasion Event occurred, Oracle was at home.
And her house had ended up inside the Invasion Event area.
She was currently filled with regret.
“If I had known this would happen, should I have just run away even if it changed the future?”
But as always, by the time regret sets in, it’s already too late.
“But it happened much faster than expected. UG probably couldn’t even prepare properly…”
About five days ago, she had warned the World Gate Management Bureau about this incident.
However, what occurred was far bigger and more severe than she had predicted… and far sooner as well.
She was worried whether the World Gate Management Bureau had been able to prepare properly.
“What should I do…?”
Oracle pondered what she could do in this situation.
She was a mana user, but she had almost no combat ability.
In truth, depending on how it was used, her awakened ability could be very helpful even in battle… but the problem was that she had absolutely no interest in that direction.
Oracle had awakened at thirteen years old, and in the ten years since, she had never properly fought as a mana user.
As a result, her level was only Level 4.
Due to being a user, her physical abilities were far superior to those of ordinary people, but the problem was that she didn’t know how to properly use those superior abilities.
“Is there something I should be doing right now?”
For ten years, she had never once properly fought as a mana user, or even tried to. But this time, she felt like she needed to help in some way.
Even to her, the situation seemed far too serious, and so she began thinking about what she could do.
And right at that moment…
Her Divine Eye activated randomly once again.
Ziiiiing!
It suddenly pierced through every obstacle at once, revealing the figure of a man far away.
And it didn’t stop there… it even showed her own future self standing closely beside that man.
As always, like flipping through photographs, the Divine Eye rapidly showed fragmentary scenes in succession.
And then, at a decisive moment…
Stop!
“Hah…!”
Returning to reality, Oracle exhaled sharply.
“Wh-what was that…?”
She was used to her Divine Eye activating randomly, but it had never activated like this… interwoven directly with reality.
And it was still active.
Whenever she looked in the direction where that man was, all obstacles vanished and he became visible.
It felt as if the Divine Eye were urging her to hurry and go to him.
“For now… I’ll go.”
After hesitating, Oracle decided to head to the man and began packing her things.
Since she was going outside where monsters were roaming, she figured she should at least bring something to protect herself.
So she grabbed a kitchen knife and immediately began moving along the path guided by her Divine Eye.
—
—
After instantly destroying Gate No. 9, Seon Yul began moving toward the next gate.
If he went by his feelings alone, he would have sprinted as fast as possible… but thanks to the special safety helmet he was wearing, his movement speed was inevitably quite slow.
However, he had no intention of taking off his precious safety helmet, so even though it was frustrating, he moved at about the pace of a fast-walking civilian toward the direction where he felt the next mana wave.
If he had wanted to become a hero, he would have taken off the helmet and run immediately… but as he had told his aunt, he had no interest whatsoever in being a hero. His own safety was his top priority.
After walking diligently(?) and arriving at the nearest gate. Gate No. 8, Seon Yul found Sinsa Station already in complete chaos.
Large monsters were roaming everywhere, trying to devour any living beings they could find.
Fortunately, thanks to the early disaster alert, most people had already fled or hidden somewhere.
Perhaps because of that, the Ogre-class monsters called ‘Giant Zombie Bears’ were searching for hidden civilians and wreaking havoc on their surroundings.
“Alright… first, secure the point.”
Quickly assessing the situation, Seon Yul chose the tallest nearby building and immediately entered it.
Then he climbed to the rooftop as quickly as possible.
The ‘point’ he intended to secure was a sniping position.
More than twenty Giant Zombie Bears were scattered near Sinsa Station.
Since they had just emerged from the gate, they hadn’t spread too far yet and were still clustered around the station area.
Reaching the rooftop of a fourteen-story building, Seon Yul moved to the edge and looked down.
“Ah, this isn’t great.”
However, the building’s position didn’t look particularly ideal as a sniping point.
He looked around again, searching for a better vantage point.
Then a building directly in front caught his eye.
“Actually, that one’s better.”
It was unfortunate he had chosen the wrong building, but there was no helping it.
Going all the way back down and moving to the adjacent building would waste too much time.
“Since I already decided to spend some magic stones, let’s just use them boldly.”
Seon Yul could create the entrance to Absolute Space anywhere within fifteen meters of his field of vision.
Since the base point of his vision was wherever he stood, that meant he could create an entrance anywhere within fifteen meters of himself.
And that also meant that by utilizing two entrances, he could freely cross distances of around fifteen meters.
He immediately created Entrance No. 1 in the air in front of him…
And then created Entrance No. 2 in the distant building ahead.
Then he simply entered through No. 1 and exited through No. 2, easily moving between the buildings.
Arriving at the neighboring building, he secured his new sniping point.
“This is perfect.”
From this rooftop, the entirety of Sinsa Station was clearly visible.
After positioning himself properly, Seon Yul opened the entrance to Absolute Space again and stepped inside.
Time was extremely critical in the current situation, so he planned to clear Sinsa Station as quickly as possible.
Inside Absolute Space, he pulled out the Barrett M82 and prepared to snipe.
Calmly, he aimed at the first Giant Zombie Bear through his scope.
The moment he locked on, he immediately pulled the trigger.
Taaang!
Shweeeee… KWAANG!
Zombie-type monsters could be killed by destroying their heads, so with a single shot, Seon Yul blew apart the zombie bear’s head.
Given the Barrett’s power, blowing off its head was trivial, and he dispatched one instantly.
But that was only the beginning.
He quickly found the second bear in his sights and fired again as soon as he aimed.
Taaang! KWAANG!
One shot, one kill.
Seon Yul rapidly began clearing the zombie bears rampaging around Sinsa Station.
***
Oracle’s warning had not been meaningless, just as she had thought.
UG had taken her prophecy very seriously, and as soon as it was confirmed, they relayed the information to the Republic of Korea Gate Management Bureau.
At the same time, they stated they would immediately dispatch the ‘UG Defense Forces’ Oracle Response Team to Korea.
Naturally, the Korean Bureau had begun preparations as soon as they received the contact.
However, the problem was that the prophecy had been realized much earlier than expected, so preparations were not fully complete.
Additionally, while the advance party and part of the main force of the Oracle Response Team had arrived, the rest of the main body had not yet reached Korea.
“Any updates from the Oracle Response Team?”
Director Jeong Yeon Woo had established a response headquarters not in the central control room, but in the Northern Branch situation room in Uijeongbu.
At the time the Invasion Event occurred, he happened to be outside on an external schedule, so fortunately, he was not caught inside the event area.
“We just received word… they’re currently dealing with Gate No. 5. They estimate it will be resolved within fifteen minutes at most.”
“What about our strike teams?”
Since the central headquarters had been disabled after entering the event region, it was impossible to monitor all strike teams in real time.
However, the emergency communication system prepared for such situations allowed each strike team leader to report status using smartphones powered by magic stone energy.
“Alpha and Bravo teams are jointly neutralizing Gate No. 6. Delta is attacking Gate No. 10, and Charlie is engaging Gate No. 16.”
“How much event time remains?”
“Currently 7 hours and 11 minutes.”
“Assessing the damage will be difficult, right?”
“Yes. That will likely only be possible after the event ends.”
“What about the participating users?”
“We’re monitoring the community in real time. Unfortunately, the name ‘Twelve Heaven’ does not appear on the list. However… something astonishing is happening.”
If ‘Twelve Heaven’ had been in Seoul, the response might have been easier.
Unfortunately, none of the ‘Twelve Heavens’ were in Seoul.
But although ‘Twelve Heaven’ was absent, something unbelievable was being recorded in the community notice.
[1st Invasion Event]
—> Location: Central Seoul, Republic of Korea
—> Participants: 116
—> Destroyed Gates: No. 8 / No. 9
—> Time remaining [7 hours 11 minutes 16 seconds]
[Real-time Contribution Rankings: AbsoluteSafetyFirst 84.22% / Fast Blade 1.4% / Shadow King 1.3% / Double Counter 1.1% … (omitted)]
……
……
- AbsoluteSafetyFirst? Is he back again?
- Go, Super Rookie!!
- Wow, that’s insane. Is he going to solo-carry this event too?
- But what is his identity? Is he really a new user? How does a new user keep performing like that?
- His awakening ability must be insane. From Korea’s perspective, he’s basically a savior.
- I seriously want to recruit him into our guild.
- Yeah, right. He’s not joining some trash guild~
- It’s not trash. We’re top 100 globally in guild rankings.
- Even if you were top 10 globally, it’d still be hard to recruit him.
- At that level, it won’t be guilds trying to recruit him; it’ll be entire nations.
- Stop talking nonsense. So, can this invasion event even be cleared?
- Hard to say. Fourteen gates are still left, and especially the high-numbered gates are still intact… It depends on how much more Absolute Safety First can carry.
- A betting post related to the event is up! Please participate~
- Can’t posts like that just be deleted? It’s annoying seeing gambling trash even in a situation like this.
- Anyone at the scene right now? If so, post real-time updates in the comments.
……
……
Director Jeong simply nodded after hearing the real-time contribution standings reported by his staff.
“AbsoluteSafetyFirst… Is he a god?”
He muttered to himself.
With no hyper-ranker IDs appearing anywhere in the real-time rankings, it seemed that in the current situation, AbsoluteSafetyFirst was their only hope.
Comments (0)