Chapter 129

The first thing that came to mind was a single word.

Why?

CEO Cha was self-centered, but fundamentally, he was cold-hearted.

If he had decided to clear the game with the normal ending rather than the true ending, he would have acted exactly according to that plan.

It might be acceptable if he killed one or two NPCs that annoyed him in the process, but he wasn’t the type to go out of his way to commit such an inefficient act as a massacre.

I was momentarily stunned because he didn’t seem like the CEO Cha I knew.

Questions filled my mind, but now was not the time to dwell on such things.

I had to find CEO Cha.

His actions were insane, but his demeanor was calm.

In reality, CEO Cha was moving stealthily.

If Kwak Hanmuk hadn’t diligently leveled up his prison guard skills, or if the system window hadn’t informed me of the situation…

I would have ended up sleeping and woken up to the ending without knowing why.

"After all, there is a creature annihilation ending among the Warden’s endings."

I tried to guess CEO Cha’s thoughts.

If CEO Cha had decided to kill every NPC, how would he proceed?

There was no reason to kill the prison guards first.

His role was that of the Warden, and he held firm authority within the prison.

If he wanted to, he could have gathered the guards and dealt with them all at once at any time.

If he had gone out of his way to kill them, it was clear he had killed the guards guarding the inmate block.

His first target was likely the creatures in Zone X.

Because he would try to deal with the most troublesome ones first.

The moment I realized this, a sense of foreboding overwhelmed me.

Orca was recovering from a gunshot wound sustained today, so he wouldn’t be able to respond properly, and the other creatures were in a weakened state, so it wouldn’t be much different.

No, even if they were in peak condition, they wouldn’t be able to handle CEO Cha.

Picturing a scene of Daeil Yeorae slicing through creatures, I urgently opened my mouth.

“CEO Cha is planning to kill all the NPCs right now. We must go to the prison ward.”

Although I spoke out of the blue, Je Hyun-oh and Kwak Hanmuk did not question me.

A metallic rattling sound was heard.

It was the sound of Je Hyun-oh taking out the wings he had been storing and spreading them.

The moment the narrow infirmary quarters were filled with six wings…

Crunch! The stone floor beneath Je Hyun-oh’s feet crumbled.

Bang!

A dark figure burst through the wall of the infirmary quarters and rushed out.

A large hole was punched through the wall of the quarters.

As the dark figure with the spread metal wings flew away as if shot, Kwak Hanmuk grabbed me.

Wrapping me with his prayer beads, he jumped down through the hole in the wall.

It was three stories high, but that wasn’t a problem.

He extended the prayer beads like a rope and wrapped them around the surrounding terrain to reduce the impact of the fall.

As soon as we landed on the ground, Kwak Hanmuk and I ran straight to the prison ward.

While running frantically, I suddenly felt a shiver down my spine.

Dominic had been too quiet all this time.

Even though I was committing acts he would hate one after another.

Dominic was someone who particularly disliked his subordinates acting rudely.

By his standards, Je Hyun-oh and Kwak Hanmuk must have committed insubordination against me.

He should have said at least a word, but he remained silent.

I glanced sideways at my shoulder.

Despite the violent movement, the Pudding Slime did not fall off and stuck firmly to me.

I was thinking of calling him with the strange voice I had just learned, but Dominic noticed first and spoke.

“Subordinates can hear their master’s voice.”

I immediately shut my mouth. With Kwak Hanmuk right beside me, I almost made a mistake.

To think that those I registered could hear that voice.

It seemed that becoming a subordinate meant slightly deviating from Dominic’s criteria for classifying them as lowly creatures.

“Of course, they don’t hear every voice, but you’d better be careful, Roasted Chestnut.”

It meant that because I was still young, I didn’t know how to distinguish between them.

It hadn’t been long since I hadn’t even been able to use that voice.

Since there was no way I could know how to distinguish them, I kept my mouth shut.

And inwardly, I asked why he was being so quiet.

I believed that a quick-witted slime would surely answer.

As I kept glancing at him, Pudding Slime spoke.

“I’m always watching over you, so you don’t have to worry.”

The words that he was always by my side were affectionate.

However, that wasn’t the answer I wanted.

I wanted to know why he hadn’t said a word, and what he was thinking as he silently watched me.

However, Pudding Slime did not make a sound again.

A strange sense of unease crept over me.

But given the circumstances, I had no choice but to let Pudding Slime’s silence pass.

The prisoner block wasn’t far, so I arrived quickly.

By the time I returned to my quarters after treating Orca and finishing my remaining medical duties, it was already evening.

It was well past 6 PM and close to night, so there was no sign of life in front of the prisoner block.

Aside from the occasional flash of a searchlight sweeping in the distance, there was nothing but pitch-black darkness and silence.

In that place, which was eerily quiet, two men stood facing each other.

The first thing that caught my eye was the man with a sword hanging down that glowed white even in the darkness.

At CEO Cha’s feet lay a prison guard, dripping neon green liquid.

A faint twitch ran through the corpse, suggesting it hadn’t been long since it was murdered.

It appeared that CEO Cha had killed the guard in front of the prisoner block and was attempting to enter when he ran into Je Hyun-oh.

He probably didn’t expect to be discovered this quickly, either.

‘I must stop here.’

I didn’t know if I could still persuade CEO Cha.

I called out to him aloud.

“CEO Cha.”

The figure in the white mask, who had been staring at Je Hyun-oh, slowly shifted his gaze toward me.

I had spent far too much time with CEO Cha within the game.

I thought I knew him well, yet now I felt as though I were facing a stranger.

Perhaps it was because he was acting far beyond my expectations.

‘Surely he isn’t acting this way because of me, is he?’

"Because you didn’t want to regret it—even trembling in fear that just one NPC might die."

In the last conversation I had with CEO Cha, he expressed clear displeasure at me being manipulated by NPCs.

The flow of events would roughly fit if I had decided to kill all the NPCs out of that aversion.

However, the premise itself didn’t hold up.

For that, I had to be a being of significance to him, beyond mere usefulness.

But I knew.

The reason I was able to overcome CEO Cha’s distrust of humans and enter his protective circle within the game was because it was a special space that repeated itself a thousand times.

Here, the CEO Cha from the game—the CEO Cha who had been with me a thousand times—does not exist.

The figure before me is the CEO Cha before I had earned his trust.

A being whose face I had seen for a mere few hours at most.

In reality, I would never be able to earn the same level of trust or understand him as I did back then.

But as CEO Cha kept acting strangely, I found myself getting distracted along with him.

‘What if he had memories from the game?’

That couldn’t be true. Because if he had any memory, he wouldn’t have left me alone.

As a real person, he shouldn’t have any memory of being an NPC in a game…

A new thought seized me.

‘Then what is CEO Cha standing before me?’

I looked at CEO Cha with a sense of unfamiliarity.

What did he sense from my gaze?

I felt that CEO Cha, even behind the mask, had wavered for a moment.

It was just as I slowly closed and opened my eyes.

Before I could even open my mouth to say anything, Kwak Hanmuk couldn’t hold back and cursed.

"Fuck, CEO Cha. What on earth are you doing?"

He was so enraged that veins were bulging on his forehead.

"If you entered because of one trainee, you should have just quietly provided support. I’m working my ass off trying to get the True Ending right now."

But CEO Cha didn’t even give Kwak Hanmuk a glance.

He continued to look at me. It was a wait that seemed to be watching to see what I would say.

And I instinctively knew.

That at this very moment, no matter what proposal I threw at CEO Cha, it would be of no use.

No matter how unconventional or excellent the offer, he would not be persuaded.

I slowly opened my mouth.

“I’m going to clear this with the True Ending.”

“Do as you please.”

CEO Cha replied in a voice that even felt chilling.

“Because I’m going to do as I please, too.”

It was then.

A light flashed on Je Hyun-oh’s goggles.

CEO Cha and Kwak Hanmuk stared at Je Hyun-oh with equally pale faces.

Je Hyun-oh raised his voice and called out to CEO Cha.

“CEO Cha.”

It moved once, like metal wings slowly flapping.

In the split second the smooth sound of the metal stopped.

A rough, low voice spoke softly.

“You talk too much.”

Bang!

A loud impact sound erupted immediately.

Screech, screech. A threatening sound emanated from the white sword blocking Je Hyun-oh’s metal hand.

White and black separated as if shaking off each other, then clashed again.

In a span of mere seconds, an immeasurably fierce exchange of blows took place.

A trajectory of pure white light moved gracefully, blocking the rushing darkness.

As white lines slashed chaotically, making them difficult to follow with the eye, black lines also roughly clawed at everything around them.

As the black element, having soared into the sky, rapidly fell and collided with the white, the surroundings shook violently with a deafening roar.

At the same time, the metal wings disintegrated into blades, hanging down in the sky.

The dense black blades were obscured by the darkness and barely visible, but they gleamed menacingly whenever they caught the white light.

Blades poured down, raking through the air with a tearing sound.

The white sword easily deflected the black blades.

However, a metallic hand concealed among the blades could not be fully evaded.

A screeching sound, like metal scraping, erupted.

Beast claw marks were left on CEO Cha’s cognitive suppression mask.

“…….”

CEO Cha stepped back, ran his hand over the mask, and let out a short, sarcastic laugh.

Je Hyun-oh gritted his teeth at the metal hand.

I felt I knew his current state without even opening the status window to check it.

Je Hyun-oh looked very happy.

I swallowed hard at the sight of him becoming increasingly immersed in the euphoria of battle.

“Captain Kwak. I think we need to evacuate the creatures.”

I didn’t think Je Hyun-oh would lose.

However, CEO Cha wouldn’t just sit idly by either; if both of them started losing their minds and fighting, the surroundings would turn into a wasteland.

There was a possibility that the creatures would die in the aftermath of the battle.

“Ha, f*ck… Let’s go.”

Kwak Hanmuk cursed as he opened the entrance to the prisoner block.

I entered the prisoner block with Kwak Hanmuk.

The interior was absolute pandemonium.

Human prisoners clung to the iron bars, screaming curses and shouts.

“Open the door right now!”

“You bastards, open the door!”

With ominous sounds coming from outside shaking the prisoner block building, it was on the verge of a riot.

Even so, they had no way to open the prison door.

The guards would soon swarm in, so they would take care of the inmates themselves.

I thought as I ran down the long corridor.

Even if I saved the creatures, would a true ending be possible? This time, I truly had no confidence.

When I entered Zone X with a heavy heart…

Kwak Hanmuk and I encountered an unexpected figure.

The Chief of Security was standing idly inside Zone X.

He didn’t possess precognitive abilities, so there was no reason for him to come to Zone X first when a sudden commotion broke out.

The air in Zone X was chilly. The damp, ominous atmosphere that enveloped us was unsettling.

The creatures were all awake, but they remained silent, holding their breath and not making a sound.

Something was off.

The Chief of Security was a fearsome presence to the creatures, but not to this extent.

Right now, the creatures were acting as if they were facing the ultimate apex predator.

I tried to approach the Chief of Security, but my shoulder was grabbed.

“…….”

It was Kwak Hanmuk who had grabbed me.

However, he wasn’t looking at me.

His gray eyes, frozen with tension, stared intently at the Chief of Security.

The hand gripping my shoulder trembled slightly.

Kwak Hanmuk was someone who rarely got nervous over trivial matters. To think he would react to this extent…

It was a tension tinged with fear, as if he had encountered an old nightmare.

I felt puzzled by the fact that I was the only one who seemed detached.

Suddenly, a low laugh reached my ears.

Dominic was laughing.

Following that, the Chief of Security, who had been standing motionless like a statue, slowly turned his body.

He looked at me.

Standing blankly, overwhelmed by this series of incomprehensible situations, I pondered how I should react to the Chief of Security.

I was weighing whether to attack immediately or just greet him and gauge the situation for a moment, when the grip on my shoulder tightened.

“Captain Kwak…?”

Just as I was suddenly overcome with worry because his demeanor was clearly different from usual,

The Chief of Security removed his metal mask.

His hidden eyes were revealed, but there were no ‘eyes’ there.

There was nothing but something composed solely of neon green, without a distinction between iris and pupil.

The corners of the Chief of Security’s mouth slowly curved upward.

Smiling deeply, he spoke.

“Roasted… Chestnut.”

When I couldn’t answer, he tilted his head to the side and called out another name.

“Little… Lamb?”

A joy so intense it felt like my head would explode swept over me.

Feeling my heart pounding wildly, I shouted.

“Lord Octopus Tentacle!”

sorry for not updating yesterday, guys! i was super tired lol… actually as i was making this google translate broke so i couldn’t double check lines that didn’t make sense, so there might be some confusing ones in here. i’ll go back and fix it later though

i’ll also be deleting the ao3 page tomorrow assuming everyone moved over fine. hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!