"Humph, acting arrogant as if you can actually force me to do anything," she spat. Despite being the one surrounded by suspicion and brandishing a high-tier artifact, she was clearly the one truly full of arrogance.
"Then let me ask you this," I said, deliberately raising my voice so it carried over the murmurs of the crowd. I leaned in, my gaze piercing the narrow slit of her visor. "Did you perform this test on yourself as well? Or are we just supposed to take your word for it?"
"You…" Her posture stiffened. Even through the gaps in her heavy helmet, I could see the sudden flush of red creeping up her neck. "No one here can use it but me," she said.
I knew she was partially right. Most of these survivors wouldn't even know how to activate the interface, let alone pay the activation fee.
"I can," I stated flatly. I held out my hand, palm up. "Give it to me, and I'll perform the test on you. Let's see if your blood is as 'pure' as you claim."
"How can a mere kid like you be so full of yourself?" one of the guards sneered.
"She can use it because she is the Great Witch! She's been chosen! How can a nobody like you even be compared to her?"
"As if you have powers like hers," another added, the crowd beginning to jeer.
"I do," I answered. I didn't hesitate; I kept my tone firm and unyielding, cutting through their sarcasm. "I also have psychic powers. Just like her."
Well, who said you were the only one allowed to use this lie here? If a "psychic" label was what it took to get them to listen, I would wear it. In this world, a useful lie was often more effective than a hard truth.
"Let's see then," Angelica said. Her voice remained strong, but I didn't miss the faint tremble in her fingers as she handed the compass over to me. It was a moment of immense trust—or perhaps a calculated risk. To her, she was handing over an item worth ten thousand coins for free.
But I wasn't interested in robbing her. I was interested in her. "Your blood," I demanded, mirroring her earlier command.
She didn't argue. She drew a small blade, nicked her arm, and let a few drops of crimson fall onto the sensor.
Time for the truth. I watched the metallic arms of the device begin their frantic, impatient dance. The Race Detection Gear was a complex piece of engineering; it determined the biological race of the donor and then calibrated their relationship toward the person currently holding the device.
In other words, I would know for sure if she was an ally or a hidden enemy. That was the only question that mattered if I was going to survive this encounter.
"This…" I watched in a daze as the arms finally clicked into place. They pointed squarely at 'Human' and 'Green.'
She snatched the compass back hurriedly, her eyes darting around as if she feared I would try to store it away in a spatial inventory.
"Why the surprised look? Did you expect something else, or what?" she asked, her confidence returning the moment the device vanished back into her storage. "Now, the show is over. All of you, return to your positions and strengthen the defences. We break through in five minutes."
"Break through what?" I asked. My shock hadn't fully vanished yet. I had been so certain she was a traitor—just as she had been certain about me. And we were both wrong. I knew my own nature; I was a regressor, a man from a dark future.
But what about her? How did a "pure human" know about the traitors and possess the specific gear to uncover them? There was a deeper secret she was shielding, and I wanted to know it—I badly wanted to know it.
"Through the monsters, of course," she answered, already turning her back on me. "Inform everyone. I'll take the lead, and the rest will follow in a wedge formation."
"This… is just insane," I couldn't help but say. I didn't want to see her end up as a pile of mangled meat before I could uncover her secret.
"The monsters will scatter the moment we hit them with enough aggression," she said, speaking with the absolute certainty of someone who believed they understood the rules of the world. "Don't worry. I did the exact same thing during the previous attack, and it worked perfectly."
"You are wrong," I said, reaching out to grab her arm to stop her.
"Don't touch me!" She whirled around, her glaring eyes making it clear she didn't view me as a friend just yet. I sighed. Was I acting too rashly?
"These monsters are different," I tried to reason with her, my voice low and urgent. "They aren't the same ones you fought during the first quest. The difficulty has spiked."
"And you want me to believe your words over my own experience?" she asked, crossing her arms and challenging me. "There are wolves now, I admit—a new species.
But like any monster, once they see us united and acting aggressively, they'll yield. Their numbers aren't even that great. Last time, I faced off against two hundred of them. They scattered after we killed more than half."
"Yeah, this is the fundamental rule of the game," another youth piped up. He was one of the twenty "guards" who hovered around her like a personal retinue. "I'm a pro gamer, and I can affirm the truth of this. Aggro-management and morale breaking are basic mechanics."
I looked at the "pro gamer" and then back at Angelica. They were applying old-world logic to a New World slaughterhouse.
I heard the murmur of agreement ripples through the crowd. These absolute fools! They were standing in a world of pitch-black shadows without a single night-vision skill among them, yet they were eager to abandon the stone walls of the museum.
They wanted to leave behind the only structure that held off the monster tide and protected their rears, all to clash head-on with a coordinated force of wolves and hyenas on open ground.
C'mon, be serious! I thought, my jaw tightening. They didn't even know the biological weakness of a common hyena until I had literally pointed it out to them minutes ago.
I had initially felt this group had the potential to be strong—even special—but their leader was a mad girl. She was one of those brutal fighters who would lose themselves in the red haze of combat, completely forgetting to use that small, vital organ in their heads called a brain.
I turned around, watching the front line where the fight still raged as wildly as before. They were doing surprisingly well for a bunch of amateurs. The way the youths were arranged—overlapping shields and staggered weapon rotations—reminded me of ancient battle tactics from lost human civilisations.
Was she a military brat or a history buff? For the first time, I conceded that this arrangement was excellent for a static defence. But breaking this formation to charge into the dark? That was an invitation to a massacre.
Now, the picture was becoming clearer. This was likely the reason this massive group didn't survive past the fifth quest. No matter how much potential Angelica had, she wasn't the most suitable person to lead these people through the transition from "survivors" to "warriors."
"Where are you going?" she barked, noticing me moving in rapid, purposeful steps toward the side of the museum complex.
"I'm trying to save your collective lives. You can thank me later," I tossed back. My tone was thick with annoyance. I couldn't wrap my head around how someone who clearly knew some of the apocalypse's secrets—like the existence of the Race Detection Gear—could act in such a reckless, amateurish way.
I didn't wait for her permission. I walked in haste toward a small, detached building situated on the museum's flank. I remembered the layout of this park from my previous life; there was a generator hub near the main building, and I was going to use it to turn the tide.
"What do you want from the guards' dorm?" Angelica asked. To my surprise, she and her elite retinue accompanied me all the way to the structure, their boots echoing on the pavement.
"You know this place well?" I asked. I didn't turn to look at her as I reached the heavy door and found it locked tight.
"My father used to work here years ago," she said, finally offering a scrap of personal history. She watched me inspect the lock. "If you're looking for firearms, I hate to tell you that they won't work here."
"We tested them before," one of her twenty guards chimed in with a smug tone. "The powder doesn't ignite. The physics are wrong."
I ignored them, raising my sword and smashing the hilt against the locking mechanism.
"Firearms won't work! They're just useless scraps of iron now," another youth added, as if he were explaining basic arithmetic to a child.
Why the hell are they acting so arrogantly? I sighed inwardly. This group suffered from a catastrophic lack of wisdom. They were all physically capable, possessing great potential, but that very strength made them feel invincible. In this world, the lack of wisdom brought a swifter demise than a lack of strength.
The building was deceptive—small on the outside, but sprawling once we stepped through the broken door. I began opening the doors along the main hallway one by one. All I found were the standard, utilitarian sleeping quarters of the museum's security staff.
"What are you looking for? Tell me, and maybe I can help," Angelica said. She seemed to finally realise I wasn't looting, and her arrogance dipped just enough to be cooperative.
"I want the generator," I said, turning to her. "Do you know the exact maintenance room?"
"The big generator? It's all the way in the back. But why would you—"
Before she could finish, a piercing, powerful howl erupted from just outside the dormitory walls.
"Damn! They're already here!" I turned and sprinted deeper into the building, heading in the direction she had indicated.
"Who are they? What's happening?" she tried to keep pace, but without a night-vision skill, she was stumbling in the gloom. The further we moved into the bowels of the dorm, the more the light from the museum's fires faded into nothingness.
Found you!
Just as she had said, the maintenance hub sat at the very rear of the building. I spotted the heavy, semi-opened door to the machine room. But as I drew closer, a scent hit me—a smell I could never forget.
I raised my sword, my entire body stiffening into a combat-ready stance. The scent of blood coming from that room was thick, heavy, and metallic. It didn't smell like a maintenance room; it smelled like a slaughterhouse.
"What's wrong?" Angelica reached my side, noticing my sudden rigidity.
One of the guards, eager to prove his bravery, moved in a reflex to push the door fully open. "Why stop now? Let's just go in—"
Slash!
He didn't have the time to finish his sentence. A blur of shadow flashed out from the darkness of the room, moving with a velocity that defied human reaction. In a single, wet motion, the guard's head was severed from his shoulders.
A fountain of hot blood erupted from the stump of his neck, spraying the walls and the horrified faces of his companions. Panic surged through the group, but I remained frozen, my eyes narrowed as I tracked the shadow that had retreated back into the room.
How come it is here?! My heart hammered against my ribs. I clenched the hilt of my sword so hard my knuckles turned white, not daring to take a single step forward. This wasn't supposed to happen yet.
The interior of the generator room was a vision of absolute carnage. The corpses of the museum guards weren't just dead; they were shredded, their remains scattered across the heavy machinery like macabre decorations.
In the centre of this blood-soaked sanctuary sat a nightmare made flesh. It was a massive, feline predator with the head of a distorted panther and three elongated tails that twitched with a life of their own, each ending in a stinger of polished, organic steel.
"Do you know what it is?" Angelica whispered. She was staring into the room, but without night vision, she was likely only seeing the glint of those malicious eyes and the vague silhouette of a mountain of fur.
"A predator," I said, my voice dropping to a low, lethal hum. "The Three-Tailed Cat... something that shouldn't be in this zone for another two cycles. It's a Tier-Three monster."
My heart sank as my mental map of the quest parameters shattered. How was this possible? This stage was meant to be the playground of Tier-One scavengers—hyenas and the occasional wolf pack. The presence of a Tier-Three apex predator was a systemic impossibility.
Then, the faces of the three Angels flashed in my mind. Those bastards! They must have bypassed the standard summoning protocols, paying a ruinous price in Blessing to anchor this beast here. It was a failsafe—a rear-guard executioner designed to slaughter the museum group the moment they attempted their "breakthrough."
If the Angels were willing to break the rules here, were they doing it elsewhere? A cold sweat broke across my neck. If they had dropped a high-tier monster at the very location I was desperate to reach, my entire future was in jeopardy.
"Is this... a monster?" a youth behind us asked, his voice cracking. He was only just now processing the smell of the guard's severed head and the heavy, musky scent of the predator. "How can one be in here?"
"Angelica..." I said, not taking my eyes off the beast. "Retreat. Get your people out of this hallway, go back to the main hall, and barricade this building from the outside."
"What about you?" she asked. She could hear the finality in my tone.
I raised my sword, the tip steady despite the adrenaline coursing through my veins. "I have to kill it. No... I will kill it."
I couldn't leave this disaster at their backs. If I let this thing live, it would hunt every single one of them down before the sun rose. More importantly, I needed to test myself.
If I couldn't handle a Tier-Three anomaly now, I would never survive the horrors waiting for me at my true destination. My blood began to boil—a mix of rage against the Angels and a dark, addictive thrill. I hadn't come back to the past to play it safe.
"Then I'll help," Angelica declared. It was a bold, foolish statement.
"If the esteemed Witch is staying behind, then we stay too!" the guards shouted in unison. I felt a vein throb in my temple.
"This monster is strong," I said, my voice like grinding stones. "It is exponentially more powerful than anything you have ever seen."
"We killed hyenas and wolves! We can kill this thing too!" one hot-blooded youth yelled.
I turned my head slightly, glaring at them. How did she manage to surround herself with such arrogant fools? Did they think the apocalypse was a game with a scaling difficulty curve that would wait for them to be ready?
"Let me break it down for you," I said, hoping the cold reality would pierce their thick skulls.
"If you want to compare the strength of this creature to what you know, then imagine a pack of five hundred wolves and their Alpha combined into a single body. It sees perfectly in this darkness. It can smell the fear on your skin from miles away. Its speed, strength, and hide are on a level you cannot even imagine, and those three tails move faster than a bullet. If you try to face it, you won't fight—you will just die."
"But you're going to face it alone," Angelica noted, her body beginning to tremble. A youth behind her added, "How can you be so sure of defeating it while doubting us? We aren't weak!"
"I'm not sure of my current ability to kill it," I admitted honestly.
"Then come with us!" another shouted. "Witch, please, persuade him to run!"
"H... How..." Angelica's voice was shaky, but she wasn't looking at the monster. She was looking at me. "How can you know such specific things about it? The tails, the Tier... just who in the world are you?"
She was shaking with fear, but it wasn't the cat she was afraid of. It was the person standing next to her who spoke of cosmic horrors as if they were old acquaintances.
"I can't kill it with my current strength," I repeated, staring into the purple, elliptical eyes of the cat as they glowed like twin balefires in the dark. "And that is exactly why I should fight it."
"W... Why?" Angelica whispered.
"I have to challenge myself," I said, taking my first step into the threshold of the room. "I have to challenge every hardship thrown in my face so I can force my body to grow stronger. This is the only way to survive these dark times. No... this is my way to survive."
I stepped into the generator room, crossing the invisible line that marked the predator's domain.