The Hero Returns

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Sizzle. Crackle.

The forest was burning.

Trees turned to ashes, while burnt hides of dead monsters were everywhere.

Also, corpses were piled up in front of the ruined wall.

"It doesn't look like anything else is coming. What do you think?"

The man, Luslec, turned around to speak to Su-hyeun.

It had been 10 minutes already.

Some time had passed by now. Su-hyeun confirmed with the timer.

[Remaining time: 00:44:39]

The system helped him confirm the remaining time as set by an unknown voice. They would be cutting it close even if they started moving half of the people who were still in the 'space'.

In other words, there was no time to dither.

But then, another message came right at that moment.

[All the monsters found inside the forest have been dealt with.]

[You have passed the second trial.]

"…?"

For a moment, Su-hyeun was puzzled by the messages suddenly popping up.

Passed the second trial. Was it over?

'Different trials are supposed to be given in different spaces,' Su-hyeun thought.

He had already experienced several trials where a number of goals had to be met first to clear them. Su-hyeun nodded, thinking that maybe this could be a similar case as well.

'This means that destroying the wall has messed up the order of things.'

The original 'first' trial goal was to decrease the number of people by half. However, Su-hyeun destroyed the wall and completely burned down the forest and monsters on the other side.

All thanks to him, even the second trial had been resolved ahead of time.

The voice giving them the trial probably had not been expecting such an outcome.

'Let's worry about it later.'

Su-hyeun looked back to the crowd of people gathered to one side. They were still deeply wary of one another. He then began to address them, "Everyone, get to the other side."

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It took quite some time for 50,000 people to move to another location. Fortunately, none of them were children and old or sickly. Quite a few among the crowd were fairly strong, so the journey itself proved to be a trouble-free affair.

[Remaining time: 00:32:12]

There was still time.

Su-hyeun stood there with his arms crossed and observed the crowd as they moved.

At this rate, they shouldn't encounter any major problem dividing the number of people in the open space.

"What will that voice be thinking of right now? Can't help but wonder…," Luslec remarked as he walked towards Su-hyeun.

The latter replied without looking at him, "It's probably one of the two."

"One of the two?" Luslec inquired further, confused.

"Either it's angry or entertained."

"Those are polar opposites."

Su-hyeun shook his head. "It sounded like the type to enjoy this sort of situation. Whichever side it is, it should definitely be the one of those two."

"Well, well. Are you…," a hint of laughter was now evident in Luslec's tone, "…acknowledging us as a team now?"

"I wonder about that," Su-hyeun replied vaguely and finally turned to face Luslec.

He seemed a fair bit older compared to when the administrator chose to 'borrow' his appearance.

Su-hyeun went on, "Why are you so set on forming a team with me?" He really wanted to know.

"You're Kim Su-hyeun. So is it a yes?"

Su-hyeun's eyes instantly narrowed the moment he heard Luslec's question.

This man knew his name…

Of course, he also knew Luslec's name despite him not revealing it yet. However, that was only because of the trial back on the 43rd floor.

However, the 'Luslec' back then was a different entity compared to this 'Luslec'. The 'Luslec' then was not the real deal. However, some data from the past version of him was 'possessed' by the administrator.

"You know who I am?"

"Of course, I do," Luslec replied. His eyes widened at Su-hyeun's wary question. "I'm a fan. Well, one of the fans actually."

Su-hyeun was flustered at his response.

"Excuse me?"

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For a while, Luslec chatted nonstop in front of Su-hyeun. He looked like a man well past his 30s, but he spoke like a teenager, not even a young adult.

Su-hyeun's head ached listening to Luslec's explanation. He felt that it had gotten more complicated than it was. He cut him off and commented, "Okay. So in short, it's like a myth?"

"A myth, you say? Uh…yes. It's similar."

"Like the one about the Great Sage Heaven's equal or Hercules?"

"I don't know who those two are, but the tales of your heroic deeds are really famous in the world I come from. You're the hero Kim Su-hyeun, the one who wields a sword in one hand, a spear in the other. You're the one capable of controlling both wind and fire."

'Holy cow.'

Su-hyeun's face reddened. He wasn't sure if he was embarrassed or annoyed by what Luslec had been blabbering.

It sure had been a long time since someone said such things about him. He thought he was already used to the adulations he usually received from random people. However, this was a whole different type of situation.

'A myth? In another world?'

This 'problem' wasn't that hard to accept, though.

Hercules and the Great Sage Heaven's equal…

Greek mythologies or the "Journey to the West" were 'realities' that existed in some other worlds.

Of course, the actual details were quite different from what Su-hyeun knew. Greek mythology's Hercules or Journey to the West's Sun Wukong and the Bull Demon King had similarities to their fictional counterparts; but their appearances, their pasts and even the future awaiting them, differed quite a lot.

Su-hyeun organized his thoughts for a moment there and lifted his head to stare at Luslec's face. The latter was still smiling.

Did he mean this when he referred to himself as a fan?

"I grew up listening to your tales, you see. You are my favorite hero, and your story was my favorite, too. But I was really stunned. Wow! I have never imagined that I would run into you in a place like this."

"You grew up listening to 'my' myth?" Su-hyeun never knew that he had one.

"Yes. You are the hero that saved the world from a world-devouring giant dragon! I always wanted to become someone like you, although that was nothing more than a child's dream."

Luslec smiled awkwardly while as he said that. It seemed that he even found what he had said earlier embarrassing.

However, Su-hyeun couldn't just brush this off.

A myth was just that—a myth.

"Is that how the myth goes? That I killed the dragon and saved a world?" Su-hyeun pressed on.

"Yes. But of course, I don't believe that every part of your myth is actually true. I've already encountered entities from other myths a few times by now, but the reality turned out to be different from the tales."

"Meaning, the 'me' you know from the myth can be quite different from the real me, isn't it?"

"Yes, that is true, but…," Luslec nodded, then stared intently at Su-hyeun, "…now that I've seen you in the flesh, you don't seem that different from the myth, actually."

"I don't?"

"Your personality that I've been hearing about and your actual one seem pretty similar," Luslec explained. "For instance, the reason why you're doing something this cumbersome is to find a way to save all these people, isn't it?" Luslec smiled while saying that, then shifted his gaze to the crowd of people who had half-way crossed the other side of the wall. "I can't do what you did. No, wait. I won't do it. All these people have nothing to do with me, so I believe it's none of my business whether they live or not."

"Is that so?"

"However, Mister Su-hyeun, you are not like that. And that's why you're the hero I looked up to when I was young."

Su-hyeun nodded at Luslec's explanation. He didn't respond. He didn't know what to say.

He didn't seem to be lying even now. Of course, Su-hyeun did think that Luslec was a different breed than him.

None of his business whether the people unrelated to him lived or died…

Su-hyeun wasn't keen on criticizing such an attitude.

However, if that was Luslec's current mindset, then it would be safe to assume that the child version of him that looked up to Su-hyeun no longer existed.

Luslec knew quite a bit about Su-hyeun through all those tales, but the latter knew almost nothing about the former. He only had a vague idea that Luslec was not only a necromancer, but also a powerful individual as well.

[Remaining time: 00:03:21]

Not much time left now. Most of the people had already crossed to the other side of the wall.

Now that the number of people had decreased well past the halfway mark, Su-hyeun and Luslec began walking towards the center of the open space while chatting with each other.

Luslec remarked, "I'm really looking forward to that guy's reaction now. How do you think it will respond?"

"We'll surely find out in three minutes."

Three minutes went by in a blink.

And the two felt confident about this thing. They were confident that the 'supervisor' responsible for coming up with this game-like situation had been watching them from somewhere.

Shortly after, the timer ticked down to zero, and messages began to pop.

[Remaining people: 2]

[You have passed the first trial.]

[Second trial will start.]

[You have passed the second trial.]

[Please be on standby.]

A message appeared after the other.

Originally, the second trial should have started right away after the first one had been completed. However, the plan had gone awry—thanks to Su-hyeun's intervention.

And once the stream of messages came to an end, the unknown voice could be heard once more.

[That was an entertaining idea.]

The voice sounded slightly excited. It seemed that the voice's master was enjoying this situation.

Then again, this would be an obvious reaction if one thought that this was a 'game'.

After all, a boring game with a foreseeable end wouldn't be popular with anyone.

[And I never expected someone capable of pulling that off would show up this time. The two of you are really entertaining, though the second game I've prepared is pretty much ruined… Thanks to you.]

"If it is so entertaining, why don't you come out here and observe up close?"

Su-hyeun called out while staring at the ceiling. He was still trying to locate the voice's actual location even now.

However, this event made him certain about one thing.

It couldn't be located through the voice alone, which meant that either they had to keep going through this boring 'trial' or make the other party show up somehow.

Unfortunately…

[That does sound appealing, but I want to make this last for a little bit longer, you see.]

As expected, the voice didn't fall for Su-hyeun's provocation. Actually, it didn't think of it as a provocation at all. It must have perceived itself as all-powerful and great because it didn't even bother to process Su-hyeun's incitement. It just didn't care.

Su-hyeun didn't find that amusing at all, but still, he realized that there was no point in trying to provoke the other side anymore.

"What a weirdo that predator is. Don't you think?" Luslec whispered to Su-hyeun's ear.

The 'predator'…

Now that was a familiar word.

Although Su-hyeun had been suspecting it to a certain extent, that term leaving Luslec's lips was filled with surprising certainty.

Su-hyeun stared at Luslec with a slightly stunned face. Luslec actually knew about the existence of 'predators'.

Luslec shrugged his shoulders, but before he could say something else, the unknown voice spoke to them again.

[With things like this, more people now need to participate in the third game… Well, I guess it doesn't matter. After all, the more the merrier.]

The third game…

Originally, only humans and other races similar to humanity who managed to survive the countless monsters found in the second room, the gigantic forest, should have participated in that game.

Initially, 50,000 people had been summoned, and their numbers should have been cut down in half during the first game. However, thanks to Su-hyeun and Luslec, all those people were now going to participate in the third game.

[For those who survived despite being weak, it would have been far better for them to have died earlier. They will, eventually.]

The voice became lower, heavier, in an insidious manner.

And not too long after that, the temporarily halted system began operating again.

[Third trial will commence.]