[Sub Scenario - Survival Activity]
[Category: Sub]
[Difficulty: C+]
[Clear Condition: Survive for 10 days in the ruined city. You must eat three meals a day, and get at least 6 hours of sufficient sleep per day. Do not forget to pay 500 Coins for daily survival expenses before going to sleep every night. If you violate any of the three, you will receive a clear penalty.]
[Duration: 9 days]
[Reward: None]
[Failure: Death]
*This scenario is subject to the [Coin Event].
*All monster species appearing in the scenario have a certain probability of dropping Coins.
An ordinary girl can never survive the scenario.
Whether killing monsters or killing other people, she had to struggle somehow to pull her own weight.
But how was the girl in front of me, Shin Yoosung?
The spirit she showed when she declared she would never betray me and immediately made an Existence Pledge was something not typical for an ordinary girl, so I had to acknowledge that, but all other factors were just regrettable.
Therefore, I.
-Kuoooo—!!!!
"Haa, haaaa…. Haaaaa…!!!"
"You'd better do it quickly. Otherwise, you will really die."
Drove that child into a deadly situation.
"Eek…!!"
"…."
Shin Yoosung swinging the dagger in her hand quickly while gritting her teeth.
Even though it was clearly an 8th-grade monster species, it tried to kill the enemy in front of it somehow with a painful roar, but.
-Seo-geok, seo-geok—!!
It is thoroughly toyed with by Shin Yoosung, who shows speed unbelievable for a 10-year-old girl's movements, and eventually breathes its last.
-Swaaaaaah—!!
A thin line on the neck left by the dagger.
It gradually became clearer, and soon a tremendous amount of blood spurted from it, emitting a terrible stench.
Thanks to that, Shin Yoosung became covered in blood from head to toe once again.
But as if she had gotten used to it now, she forcibly dragged her exhausted body, immediately gripped the dagger in a skillful posture, and urgently looked around for the next enemy to face.
As expected, there is no tree that doesn't fall after ten strokes; making her roll about 8 times made her learn well on her own.
"That's enough. It's break time now."
"I, I can do more…!!"
"I want to make you do more too, but it can't be helped due to the scenario penalty."
"…Yes."
Shin Yoosung droops her head and trudges towards me.
Watching her, I immediately opened a water bottle, poured it over Shin Yoosung's head, and wiped the blood off various parts of her face with a suitable cloth I picked up nearby.
"By the way, is it okay to use drinking water so recklessly…?"
"It doesn't matter since there's enough water for just you to use recklessly. And here, this is today's breakfast."
"…Yes, thank you."
Shin Yoosung receives two chocolate bars from me, peels one first, and puts it straight into her mouth.
It must have been a quite delicious chocolate bar, as her slowly savoring appearance was quite similar to a hamster.
"O, Oppa, aren't you eating…?"
"I already ate."
While she was slaughtering the monsters, I grilled those corpses moderately with a Magic Power Stove and ate them.
Unfortunately, except for one, all of them were inedible, so it was quite troublesome. Still, finding one more edible monster was a pretty good harvest in its own way.
[Several Constellations are appalled looking at your stomach.]
[A tiny minority of Constellations express concern that there was quite a potent poison among the monsters you ate.]
[You have been sponsored 4,000 Coins.]
"…Let's depart soon."
"Uh, then shall I gather monsters again? Or practice taming this time…?"
"No. We will move locations. Because we can't keep making a mess like this in one place."
If we keep causing trouble here, people are bound to flock.
Because of that, they will inevitably beg us for food and water, and if we refuse that request, they will turn hostile and try to attack us or just criticize us.
Well. Honestly speaking, I don't care, but Shin Yoosung was the problem.
[Constellations of the Absolute Evil alignment gaze at you.]
[Constellations of the Absolute Good alignment gaze at you.]
Because she shouldn't receive attention, whether good or bad, from these lousy guys called Constellations.
"Is it okay if I don't carry you on my back?"
"Yes, I'm okay. By the way…, where are you going?"
"…Hmm. To the East?"
I pondered for a moment at Shin Yoosung's question and answered like that.
There wasn't much reason.
"…So, when are you going to tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"About that thing earlier."
A woman crossed her arms and urged the man in front of her to explain quickly.
The man looked at such a woman for a moment and continued speaking as if it were awkward.
"It's someone I know, probably."
"…You said you didn't know earlier?"
"Not the woman who spoke to us, I mean the leader of the group you mentioned."
"The King of Wanderers?"
He nodded and recalled the King of Wanderers.
A tall woman wearing a light brown coat over a prison uniform.
A woman who didn't possess a Flag despite having the title of 'King', didn't wear a crown or dragon robe like other Kings, but covered her face with a mask.
That woman who planted trauma in him to an extent incomparable to the werewolf he had beaten to death with his fist just moments ago.
"That person isn't a dropout. To be precise, that person has probably never even read the original work."
"What? Then how does she know the contents of the original work?"
"I told her myself."
At the man's words, the woman's face crumpled violently.
Because she also had read the 'original work', so she knew how much that story shouldn't be told to others.
"You told that boring story to someone else? No, why?"
"I needed a story to tell when I met that person. Because that was the only story I had."
"…."
The woman who was about to interrogate the man flinched for a moment.
She surely must have had many questions. Who that woman is, and what the relationship between him and her is.
But she didn't ask the man anymore.
That was probably her consideration for the man.
"…By the way, I also have something to ask you, Han Sooyoung."
"What is it?"
The man noticed her consideration and decided to use it appropriately.
Han Sooyoung nodded as the atmosphere subsided, telling him to say whatever it was, but.
"You, nothing happened with Kang Yuhyeon, right?"
"…."
"…Nothing happened, right?"
The atmosphere froze over again.
But right now, the atmosphere wasn't important to him.
If his guess is correct right now, she in front of him has committed a mistake she absolutely shouldn't have done.
"Han Sooyoung, speak properly!"
"Ah, th, that is…."
"Han Sooyoung!"
"…."
The man grabbed Han Sooyoung's shoulders tightly and shook her back and forth.
But she didn't answer easily.
It wasn't that she didn't speak because she didn't want to answer.
-Tremble tremble…!!
This was not not answering, but being unable to answer.
Because a powerful fear covering her entire body was eating away at her.
[The clauses of the 'Temporary Pledge' take effect.]
"I, I was actually the one who almost died…!!"
Previously, as the Temporary Pledge made between him and her took effect, only then did the answer barely pop out of Han Sooyoung's mouth.
Although it was a somewhat unfavorable answer for the man.
"What do you mean. If you read the original work, there's no way Kang Yuhyeon would attack you suddenly!"
"I, I did try to lure him with that Avatar to steal his Flag, but…."
"I clearly told you not to touch that guy! You couldn't resist that…!!"
"B, but if you were in my shoes, able to have such a strong guy as a subordinate, how could you resist! Think about it yourself! Would you not have done like me if you could have had Yoo Joonghyuk as a subordinate!?"
He hadn't entirely never thought 'how good it would be if he could have Yoo Joonghyuk as his subordinate' as she said.
But he didn't put it into action like her. The reason was simple. Because the probability of failure was much higher than the probability of success.
'…Damn it, how should I deal with this…!!'
Yoo Joonghyuk and Kang Yuhyeon.
Several commonalities existed between the two.
One of them is being merciless to traitors. That they find and kill traitors somehow.
Thinking up to there, the man recalled the contents of Ways of Survival he had read sometime.
「For Kang Yuhyeon, betrayal is a great sin that cannot be tolerated whatsoever. Although he was a Great Evil worse than Cheon Inho, worse than the 10 Evils, he absolutely did not overlook that sin. Kang Yuhyeon, who cannot be classified as one of the 10 Evils [十惡]. There are various epithets calling him such as Great Evil [巨惡], King of Curses, Strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer in History, Fallen Angel, etc., but this was the reason he was called 'The One Who Loathes Sin'.」
Current regression turn is the 3rd turn.
Yoo Joonghyuk met Kang Yuhyeon only 4 times in total, including the 0th turn which wasn't properly covered in Ways of Survival, and the current turn.
In the 1st turn, he and Kang Yuhyeon became companions, albeit briefly, and moved towards the end of the scenario, but due to those they saved and the Constellations, Yoo Joonghyuk and Kang Yuhyeon ended up opposing each other.
How about in the 2nd turn? In the 46th scenario, due to Anna Croft, he went beyond a Fable-grade Constellation and became a villain that even Myth-grade Constellations couldn't easily stop.
Therefore, Yoo Joonghyuk currently must be deeply contemplating whether it is okay to accept him as a companion once again. Of course, Yoo Joonghyuk, not knowing that his true nature is close to Evil alignment, will try to recruit him as a companion again in the end.
However, in such a situation, Kang Yuhyeon was betrayed. And because of this, if he is feeling skeptical about companionship?
Finishing his thoughts up to there. The man's exclusive skill, Fourth Wall, rang loudly.
"…Phew. First of all, it's not too late yet, Han Sooyoung. Since we haven't met Kang Yuhyeon yet, if I explain the whole situation and persuade him before that…."
"…Kim Dokja?"
Instantly, a familiar voice was heard.
The voice of someone that absolutely shouldn't be heard right now.
"I never thought I'd meet you again in a place like this…."
"Ah, aaah…."
"And I knew even less that you would be with an unexpected person."
His eyes, dark like the abyss, scan Kim Dokja and Han Sooyoung once.
At that moment, Kim Dokja thought.
'I wish I had regression too.'