Level 4 Human in a Ruined World - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 20 8. Daytime Rest (1)

Red fog and respiratory damage warning.

The latter probably didn’t just refer to something like coughing.

Considering how this world had been operating so far.

‘Do lungs melt or something.’

The fact that they announced the nighttime weather when the daytime rest service began was essentially telling them to use the rest service no matter what.

“Should we go to a motel?”

“…Excuse me?”

“For a daytime rest.”

“There are many other houses around here though?”

As Ye-chan said, the nearby area was full of ‘residential areas.’

Behind that mart earlier, there was a residential complex and apartments packed tightly together.

But in Young-woo’s view, these residential areas had a fatal flaw.

“The owners are likely to return there. There must be people who originally lived there.”

“Huh? Oh, ah… That’s right.”

Ye-chan understood Young-woo’s argument a beat late.

“You’re right. Regular houses are definitely places where someone was living…”

“Motels also have owners, but that person doesn’t use every room. There should be empty rooms.”

Of course, that would only be true if they hurried there.

“But even if the rooms are full, you wouldn’t have a problem, right? Since you’re the First Sword of Gumi, everyone would want to room together with you.”

Young-woo shook his head at this.

“I’ll pass on that. Even if they let me in with genuine good intentions at first, once they see the First Sword asleep, murderous intent that wasn’t there before will arise.”

“Well… that could happen.”

While Ye-chan understood Young-woo’s words, he thought he was a really strange person.

Wasn’t he someone who gave up a huge amount of money to distribute it to everyone, and even in front of mutants, took care of children first?

Yet he distrusted humans to such an extent… it was impossible to gauge what he was thinking.

「In 2 hours, [Abnormal Weather] red fog will be generated.」

Soon, along with the weather announcement message, a timer appeared at the top of his vision.

Pop!

「01:59:58」

‘Two hours? So the abnormal weather starts around 11 PM.’

Considering that most people were crowded at marts or convenience stores to find food, it wasn’t exactly generous time.

Actually, Young-woo and Ye-chan weren’t in a position to take their time either.

“Do you happen to know where there’s a motel nearby?”

“I, I don’t know… Isn’t that something you should know as an adult?”

“Do adults know everything just because they’re adults?”

Young-woo protested like this and finally realized.

The fact that he had never once been to a motel in Gumi.

“Let’s just go straight along the main road. If we really can’t find one, we’ll have to go back near the station or enter any house.”

Their current location was Bisan-dong, which could only be reached by going quite far northeast from Gumi Station.

For Young-woo, who rarely went outside the dormitory, it was a completely unfamiliar neighborhood.

Creak, creak.

They rode along the main road like that, pedaling for about 10 minutes.

Finally, when he saw a family ahead, Young-woo slowed down.

“Excuse me! Could I ask for directions?”

Then the woman at the front threateningly raised the axe in her right hand.

Two men on bicycles with some kind of sack tied up with rope looked suspicious.

But soon she recognized Young-woo’s title and opened her eyes wide.

“Aren’t you Jung Young-woo?”

At the woman’s words, her husband holding a shield behind her and the children all started rummaging through their pockets.

They were probably trying to take out those damn commemorative coins again.

“Yes… Do you live around here? I’m looking for a motel.”

“A motel? There should be one somewhere…”

The woman made an expression as if she wasn’t sure of the exact location.

“Then I guess we’ll have to look around more.”

Young-woo lightly greeted her and was about to pedal again when the husband waved his hand.

“If you go straight up along that road you can see, there should be one called Riverside Motel on the left. It’s squeezed between buildings so you have to look carefully to see it.”

“Ah, thank you.”

While Young-woo bowed his head, the woman smiled and looked at her husband.

“You know the way really well.”

“Oh, that…”

Young-woo pedaled before the husband could finish his sentence.

* * *

Riverside Motel.

It wasn’t actually by the riverside as the name suggested, but as the man said, it was squeezed between large buildings making it hard to find.

Still, it was a 5-story building so there seemed to be plenty of room availability.

“That’s it, right?”

“Seems like it.”

Young-woo and Ye-chan approached the motel entrance while still on their bicycles.

Despite all that talk about daytime rest service, there was nothing special about its appearance, and only something moving beyond the opaque glass entrance door caught their eye.

‘Is the owner alive here too?’

Since they couldn’t leave the bicycles loaded with all kinds of luggage outside, Young-woo opened the entrance door while holding onto his bicycle.

Ding.

The bell attached to the door swayed, announcing to the inside that a customer had arrived, and at the same time.

Whoosh!

“…!”

With a sudden sound of cutting through air, he saw the Gumi Sword Technique hologram take a defensive stance.

「Sense stat has temporarily increased from the existing 100 to 122.」

‘What crazy bastard.’

The fact that the stolen sense stat was 22 meant the opponent’s original sense was 44.

In other words, if they were originally a lower-class human, they were a veteran who had accumulated a considerable amount of karma, and if not, then with high probability…

‘A superior human of around 1st or 2nd grade.’

Either way, launching a surprise attack out of nowhere was unforgivable.

Young-woo drew Early Bird at an unbelievable speed and deflected the opponent’s attack.

Ping!

Then he saw some sword hilt flying up into the air from across the door.

Almost simultaneously, someone screamed and fell backward.

“Ah, ahhh!

As soon as Young-woo heard this sound, he flung the glass door wide open to secure his vision.

“Groan!”

The source of the terrible screaming was a man estimated to be in his early twenties.

“….”

Young-woo alternately looked at the man’s grotesquely bent right hand and the one-handed sword embedded in the bottom of the motel counter.

“Ah.”

His counterattack had been so strong that not only had the opponent’s weapon been knocked away, but the hand holding it had been completely shattered as well.

‘Come to think of it, my strength is 300 right now.’

His initial basic strength had only been 19. He was practically superhuman already.

Nevertheless, the reason Young-woo could still hold food properly or ride a bicycle was because he had lived as an ordinary person just over ten hours ago.

Thanks to that, he still had a sense of how much force to use in daily life.

But if he ever lost that sense, it could lead to unexpected results like this.

“Oh my goodness.”

Ye-chan, who had followed Young-woo inside, also frowned when he saw the young man sprawled on the floor.

“Ugh, uuugh!”

The anonymous attacker was still making dying sounds.

Young-woo started by searching through the man’s pockets.

As expected, he didn’t have a single penny.

So he must have come to the motel early to prepare for robbery.

The next logical step would naturally be to cut the opponent’s throat.

“You, what grade are you? What’s your role? Extra? Supporting character?”

Young-woo postponed the man’s death by asking this question.

“Ugh, uuugh!”

But with a broken wrist, how could such questions even register?

The young man was busy alternating between groans and screams.

So eventually.

Crack!

“Aaaahhh!”

Young-woo’s Early Bird pierced through the young man’s thigh. He was attempting a form of torture to get the man’s attention.

“Ah, mister? Why are you doing that again…!”

A startled Ye-chan tried to stop Young-woo.

While it was true that the opponent had attacked first, he didn’t think torture was necessary.

But Young-woo had his own reasons.

To understand what kind of person Mother, who was supposedly a 1st-grade supporting character, really was, he felt he needed to investigate other high-grade humans.

“You, what grade human are you? What’s your role? Just tell me that and I’ll do whatever you want – spare you or kill you quickly.”

“Ugh, urgh… you crazy bastard!”

The indignant young man mumbled and tried to spit at Young-woo, but stopped when he saw him gripping Early Bird tighter.

“Wait! It’s… 1st grade. 1st-grade extra.”

“1st grade?”

Young-woo’s eyes widened.

He really was a high-grade human.

“Then what’s your job?”

“Uh… I don’t have one, that kind of thing.”

“Unemployed? Then what about your parents?”

When Young-woo asked this, the expression of the young man who had been crying suddenly changed.

As if he had become a completely different person.

“You guys killed them.”

“What?”

“You guys killed them! You vermin bastards…!”

It was an intensity that couldn’t simply be described as screaming.

Such terrible anger and sadness that it created the illusion that the surrounding air was boiling.

The young man’s parents were probably also high-grade humans, and judging by his extreme reaction, they seemed to have disappeared after being targeted by public vote.

“What’s with this bullshit now? Just kill me too!”

The young man no longer seemed to be under rational control.

But regardless of what had happened to his family due to the reset, the fact remained that he had tried to kill anyone who came to the motel.

“….”

Judging that further conversation was impossible, Young-woo swung Early Bird as the man had requested.

Slash!

In the blink of an eye, a red line crossed the young man’s neck, and it was soon severed.

Thud.

The severed head that fell to the floor made a squishy sound as the cut surface was crushed.

Ye-chan, who had been watching all of this, turned pale.

“….”

It was too cruel and grotesque a scene for a high school student to accept.

The mister he had recognized as a companion had tortured someone just to learn their grade, and the parents of the tortured victim had already been eliminated by the public…

It was the moment he finally realized he was living in a world far more terrible than he had thought.

“Is… is this really right?”

When Ye-chan said this while looking at the young man’s head lying alone over there, Young-woo tilted his head and asked back.

“What? Are you upset because I didn’t kill him right away?”

This was purely because he didn’t know what Ye-chan was taking issue with.

So Ye-chan became even more speechless. In fact, he didn’t know exactly what was making him feel afraid and anxious either.

Was it because Young-woo was becoming increasingly inhuman, or was this world itself the problem?

“…No.”

Ye-chan shook his head from side to side, then gestured to continue on their way.

Young-woo made a disgusted expression but moved his body anyway.

「01:16:32」

According to the fog timer at the top of his vision, there was just over an hour of time remaining.

If there were no rooms left in this motel or if lodging became impossible due to another problem, they would have to hurriedly ride their bicycles again to find another residential building.

‘Of course, if both fail and I enter a room someone else rented, I might have my throat cut during the night.’

Young-woo and Ye-chan crossed the lobby, avoiding the young man’s blood that had spread to their feet.

Then.

Step.

They carefully stepped on the stairs that were dark with all the lights off.

But for some reason, a bluish light was leaking from above, so the surroundings gradually brightened with each step up the stairs.

“…What could it be this time?”

“Who knows. I don’t think monsters will appear again at this point.”

Young-woo moved slowly while gripping Early Bird tightly in his right hand and keeping his gaze fixed on the top of the stairs.

Then finally.

Step.

Both of them reached the 2nd floor of the motel and soon witnessed the identity of the blue light.

The guest room doors were glowing softly.

“….”

It was a very surreal scene, but Young-woo walked toward the room at the end of the corridor, remembering that there wasn’t much time left.

The room Young-woo chose was Room 208.

As he approached, the border of the guest room door that had been glowing blue became even deeper.

Then it soon displayed its own interface.

「Would you like to use the hourly room service?」

[Riverside Motel Room 208]

|Space: Small

|Facilities: Bathroom

|Room Rate: 3,000 Karma

|Period: Until 10 AM the next day

「How many people will be staying? Please enter the number of guests.」

Next, a kind of Hologram Keypad appeared.

“….”

Young-woo thought for a moment, then reached out his hand.

「2」

Grade 4 Human of the Ruined World (Serial)

Author │ Oetu

Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong

Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.

Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok

Address │ 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul, Room 204 (Guro-dong, Daeryung Post Tower 1)

Email │ [email protected]

Website │ www.jayplemedia.com

ⓒOetu2023

※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and no part of the content may be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.

Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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