Return To Player - Chapter 14

Virtue of Concession (1)

“What did you say?”

It took Minah less than 30 minutes to get the information.

Taking a light sigh as she unraveled her transformation, she calmly brought out the story she had heard.

“It seems that the quests with other factions overlapped. There is a boss monster at the top of Rome Tower, and they seem to be trying to prevent the other faction from killing it.”

It was not that different from what I expected.

“If it’s another faction…..”

“Probably referring to the people from our university.”

Note that this is a completely different situation from the previous round.

Because there was no need to set boundaries like this in the previous round.

Because very few survived the college stage.

“Then Rome World Tower is being occupied by them.”

“Yeah, there’s a good chance that people from college will probably avoid them as well.”

“But there are so many big buildings around here, it’d be difficult to find them.”

As Jisoo said, there were department stores nearby, and there were many large buildings.

It wouldn’t be too hard to find them if you were looking through each building one by one.

But I shook my head slowly.

“It’s not that difficult to find them. They should probably be there.”

“If it’s over there, the subway?”

I pointed to the entrance of the subway station.

“Why the subway?”

“In case of an emergency, you can run away from the subway, and it is easy to prepare for an attack.”

“Yeah, the subway station in the basement has a limited entrance, so if you defend it, there is little risk of being attacked.”

Minah added.

If you hid in the building, you could break the windows, even if it was not the front door, or if you were surrounded, you could be isolated and killed.

However, since the amount entrances to the subway station are fixed, it is impossible to attack it prematurely, and in case of an emergency, it is possible to escape by the subway path.

“Yeah.”

Hyun-Kyun, the head of the student council, was a smart guy, so he must have moved to the subway station.

As we entered the entrance to the nearest station, a few people were guarding it.

“Ugh?!”

Plus, one of them was a familiar figure to me.

When he saw us, he was startled and his eyes trembled.

“You, weren’t you dead?”

“Heeh, you’re still alive?”

The person guarding the entrance was none other than Lee Jong-hyun.

He’s a weird guy who comes up and says all sorts of odd things.

“Yeah, that’s right. Somehow, I was lucky.”

Jonghyun smiled awkwardly as he said that.

Strangely, his attitude was subservient.

What, why?

“Since I saw Sehan fighting the Minotaur, it has to be.”

Jonghyun’s body twitched at Jisoo’s harsh words.

Oh, indeed. I didn’t think much of it, but from the perspective of others, I must have looked like a valiant hero who fought against such a huge monster.

“It’s fine. Let me meet the student council president.”

“Hyunkyun-Hyung?”

“Uh.”

If it was Jonghyun, there was no need to explain.

He glanced at the others around me, then slowly nodded his head.

“All right. Then this way.”

His gaze rested on Minah, who was wearing her high school uniform for a moment, but he turned his back without saying anything.

Since Minah looked like a high school student, he seems to have decided that there is no need to be vigilant against her.

‘This guy is most wary of us.’

In this world, you shouldn’t judge others by their outward appearance.

However, not enough time has passed yet for them to accept such values.

“Eh? Isn’t he…..”

“Isn’t that the guy who fought the Minotaur?”

As I went down to the subway station, some people who spotted me chatted.

‘This.’

It wasn’t just people who were interested, the observers who were watching people inside the station also started to take an interest in me.

Of course, it’s not just me.

Many observers followed Jisoo, who was next to me.

“…..”

So Ji-soo’s face stiffened.

After learning that the Observers are still observing people, she seemed to feel repulsed by this situation itself.

We were walking while trying to ignore the gazes and observers that were following us, but we stopped after a while.

“Wait here. Hyunkyun hyung will be here soon.”

“Then where are you going?”

“It’s not time to change shifts yet, so I’ll have to go.”

After Jonghyun said that, he glanced at Jisoo and then moved slowly.

“Isn’t he different from the last time we saw him?”

“I know, right.”

Wasn’t he a little more grumpy and nervous back then?

“Are all the people here from your previous stage?”

When Jonghyun left, Minah, who had been silent, looked at me with curious eyes.

“Did you do something amazing in the previous stage? Why is the atmosphere like this?”

“There wasn’t really anything. I just fought monsters while people were running away.”

“What monster did you fight?”

“A Minotaur and some goblins.”

Minah looked at me with eyes that said she couldn’t believe it and asked.

“…..something like that came out already?”

“It came out.”

“What, no matter how….”

At first, I smiled as if I was lying, but the smile on my lips disappeared as the observers gathered around me.

Because the fact that observers flocked to me like this was proof that what I said was true.

“How?”

“it just somehow happened.”

When I answered moderately, Minaf’s mouth sprawled at once.

“No, please explain properly…….”

“Mr. Sehan!”

I tried to open my mouth again but stopped at someone’s cry.

Naturally, the owner of the voice was Hyungyun, whom Jonghyun had just contacted.

Perfect timing.

“haah, haah.”

“It’s only been a week.”

“Oh, yes. Yes.”

As soon as he heard from Jonghyun, he ran as quickly as possible to me, so he was breathing heavily.

“You are still alive? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No. I’m fine.”

He flinched for a moment as I spoke and pulled up his face.

As I did look uninjured, Hyun-Kyun could not continue his words.

At the strong gaze that is hard to describe, I avoided my gaze.

“….Are the others okay?”

“Yes. This is all thanks to Mr. Sehan who stopped the Minotaur at that time.”

Hyun-Kyun’s eyes contained infinite trust in me.

No, what the hell did I do?

As if he had noticed my feelings, Jisoo whispered in a low voice.

“From his point of view, it would seem that Sehan Oppa sacrificed himself to let the others escape.”

Is that so?

Unlike in my previous round, I thought that helping others was not a bad thing, but I didn’t have such a noble heart.

“There is one thing I want to ask you.”

It felt burdensome to have to keep having these conversations, so I turned around.

“Yes. What is it?”

“When I came, I saw that there were people who took over the Rome Tower.”

“……That’s right. They arrived before us and were in Rome Tower.”

Hyunkyun sighed with a dark expression.

“Uh-huh, thanks to that, we’re in a difficult situation right now. Apparently, they received the same quest as us. Is it the same with Mr. Sehan?”

“Yeah, seems like most people from the same stage shares the same quest.”

Our quest will be different once we pass to a certain section, but it wasn’t at that time yet.

“At first, I thought it was a good thing. If the quest content is the same, we can work together to clear it.”

Up until then, Hyun-Kyun would have seen the opponent as a strong ally.

If he had known their identities, he would never have thought so.

“Besides, they also knew information about the boss monster, so I thought we would be able to clear it soon.”

“But it doesn’t seem to be like that.”

“Yes.”

Hyungwon nodded slowly.

“The Rome World Tower has separate stages. Only those who were on the same stage in the first main quest could enter there.”

It was obvious what happened after that.

If you can’t get in at the same time, you’ll have to decide who will challenge the boss stage first.

Doing so will cause problems.

If the one who enters first catches the boss monster, what will happen to the other factions sharing the same quest?

“It’s unclear what will happen if one side kills the boss monster. It would be nice if a new boss monster appeared again, but if not…..”

The quest will be considered a failure and you will be penalized by the GM.

The early GM’s penalty is very simple.

Everyone dies.

Even Hyun-Kyun probably knows that.

Although there weren’t many people left in the school auditorium, it wasn’t that there weren’t any.

In particular, most of the professors and staff wanted to remain and wait for rescue.

Hyun-Kyun would have sent them continuous contact, so he would have guessed what kind of ending they had by now.

“Fortunately, it seems that the opponent is not able to challenge the boss monster in haste because he thinks that we may attack.”

“Then what are you going to do next?”

There was a way to forcefully fight, but Hyunkyun probably wouldn’t make that choice.

“Well, you should try talking first. I don’t know if it will actually work.”

Talking about the current situation is a waste of time.

They’ll tell each other they’ll catch the boss first for their survival, so the story will be parallel.

Hyungkyun probably thinks so too.

“Just in case you don’t know, they said they knew about the boss monster.”

“Yeah, I heard they sent a small number of scouts to check it out at first. They all died.”

“There’s something I want to ask, was the position of the boss monster at the top of the tower?”

“Oh, yes. That’s right.”

Then the answer is simple.

There was no need to worry about this.

“Then tell them to kill the monster first.”

“Yes?”

Hyun-Kyun suddenly had a puzzled expression.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m serious. If there is a monster on the roof, tell them to kill it first.”

Of course, that is if they can kill it.

“Then what about our quest? If we don’t catch the boss monster, we’re done for!”

“That’s when the boss monster is on the roof.”

Hyun-Kyun, who had been shouting with an angry face, became as stiff as a stone statue.

“….So you’re saying they’re wrong?”

“Rather, I want to ask. Why did you judge the monster on the roof as a boss monster?”

“There was a mighty monster on the roof that you can’t think of as a normal monster. It’s clear that when we first met and exchanged opinions, we checked it with the video. What’s more…….”

Hyungwon said, taking a slow breath.

“When you enter Rome World Tower, a notification window appears indicating that you have entered the boss stage.”

Yes, it is.

Because that’s the GM trick.

“Not all strong monsters are boss monsters.”

“But we have already confirmed that there are no other monsters on the other floors.”

“The other floors? All of them?”

“Yes. Before confronting them, I had a chance to get into the tower for a while. Then I checked.”

I was sure he wasn’t lying.

Because that wasn’t right.

“Then did you also check the basement.”

“….Underground?”

“Yes, the Rome World Tower’s basement.”

Hyunkyun’s pupils shook.

I guess he didn’t check it.

I definitely wouldn’t have checked.

“Let me give you one piece of information.”

I smiled and waved my index finger in front of Hyunkyun’s eyes.

“Boss monsters are different from other monsters in one thing.”

Just by looking at it, you can tell that it is a boss monster.

“It’s about building your own power and putting it around you.”(T/N: having subordinates?)

Just like the Hobgoblin in the first main quest did.

Translator: Hannaz
Proofreader: Salty