Level 4 Human in a Ruined World - Chapter 50
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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 50 14. The Judge Holding a Longsword (3)
If humans and cars were to have a running race, who would win?
While Young-woo could run as fast as a vehicle, the Chungju citizens currently crossing the field didn’t seem capable of that.
Vroooom…!
Young-woo’s group’s SUV, which had started much later, overtook them in just over ten seconds.
“Ugh, ahhh!”
The Chungju citizens who saw the SUV pass them screamed in terror.
Even the people running on the road stumbled left and right to clear the way when Myeong-ho honked the horn aggressively.
So to an outsider, this scene would look exactly like….
“We really look like we’re going to attack Chungju.”
Jong-su in the passenger seat looked out the window and grinned excitedly.
He was enjoying the situation where people felt threatened by them and ran away.
In contrast, Young-woo lightly tapped the driver’s seat headrest and instructed Myeong-ho.
“Please slow down a bit. It’ll be troublesome if we accidentally hit someone.”
Unlike Jong-su who was getting excited, Young-woo had no intention of causing problems in this city.
So even if the Chungju First Sword came out somewhat angry, he planned to resolve things through dialogue as much as possible.
‘Of course, if they start swinging their sword without warning, I can’t help that….’
While Young-woo was fiddling with the black sword and Early Bird attached to either side of his belt, Myeong-ho in the driver’s seat let out a groan.
“Oh, there’s something else up ahead. People are….”
“People?”
Hearing Myeong-ho’s words, Young-woo leaned toward the driver’s seat to look ahead.
Then he really saw people as Myeong-ho had said. Three people fully armed with swords and shields and even wearing police uniforms.
These three people were standing in a line blocking the road, and behind them stood a blue-painted toll gate like a fortress.
‘They’re using the toll gate as a checkpoint.’
As the SUV slowed down and approached the toll gate, the three uniformed people looked at each other with confused expressions.
While the toll gate was a facility for collecting vehicle tolls, they hadn’t actually seen a car driving since the Reset incident.
“Uh… how did you come to Chungju?”
Eventually, one of the three approached the driver’s side with his forearm resting on the handle of his sword, still in its sheath.
Just as Myeong-ho was about to roll down the window and answer.
“…Emergency! Emergency!”
Someone’s urgent voice could be heard from far behind.
It was none other than the leader of the citizen group that had been running at full speed.
“What the….”
The police officers, belatedly realizing that the SUV in front of them was the cause of the ’emergency,’ pressed Myeong-ho with threatening voices.
“Y-you people, what are you? Turn off the engine and get out of the car right now!”
Shing!
The police officers drew their swords one by one, but Myeong-ho didn’t budge from the driver’s seat.
Because.
Click.
Young-woo from the back seat was getting out of the car in his place.
“We didn’t come to fight. The First Sword here is Ms. Shin Young-ju, right? We just want to meet with her.”
Young-woo spread both empty hands to show he had no intention of fighting, but the police officers’ agitated state didn’t calm down easily.
What the police officers were seeing across from Young-woo was still a running vehicle, an outsider with Early Bird, and dozens of citizens running behind them shouting ’emergency’ instead of screaming.
So unconsciously.
“You bastard! Turn off the engine and get out!”
“You… you get down. This is the last warning!”
They became hostile toward Young-woo’s group and began excessive defense.
It was the result of instinctively felt fear colliding with their sense of duty as checkpoint guards.
Then one overly excited police officer even showed signs of trying to strike the front of the SUV, which continued to emit engine sounds, with his sword.
Swoosh!
When the blade actually rose into the air, Young-woo finally had to move.
He shot out literally like lightning and pushed the problematic police officer away with his shoulder.
Thud!
“Gah!”
It happened so quickly that the other two could only recognize the situation after their colleague had fallen to the ground.
“What?”
“Ugh!”
Then both their gazes shot toward Young-woo almost simultaneously.
「Sensory Stats have temporarily increased from the existing 100 to 122.」
「Sensory Stats have temporarily increased from the existing 122 to 141.」
It was a counterattack from the Chungju police side.
However, the combat power of the two people confirmed through the Plunder Effect was pathetic.
At most, they were at the level of having killed a few monsters.
Perhaps because of this, the Gyeongbuk Sword Technique hologram that soon appeared also displayed death marks, saying both could be killed within one exchange.
But Young-woo acted entirely on his own judgment instead of following the guide.
He decided to emit ‘First Sword’s Authority’ without using his sword.
Whoosh!
When Young-woo’s eyes flashed with strange light and he emitted a golden wave, the two police officers who were about to engage him stopped moving simultaneously.
“Huh?”
“Ugh…!”
It was because they felt pain as if their hearts were being squeezed due to the influence of the Intimidation.
And soon Young-woo’s low voice penetrated their ears.
“Where can I meet the Chungju First Sword?”
When Young-woo withdrew his Intimidation along with these words, one police officer sat down on the spot and dropped his weapon, while the other.
“Blergh!”
Fell over as if prostrating on the ground and vomited. He was someone with very weak mental strength.
“….”
Young-woo stepped back to avoid the vomit spreading on the ground and asked the police officer he had pushed away with his shoulder earlier.
“As I said before, we didn’t come to fight. Where can I meet the First Sword?”
“…Mmm.”
The other person, who had been standing there dazed and bewildered, raised his hand and pointed northeast.
“Probably at Konkuk University Campus….”
“Konkuk University? You mean Konkuk University?”
As far as Young-woo knew, Konkuk University was a school in Seoul.
When he looked northeast with a puzzled expression, the police officer nodded and added.
“There’s a branch campus here. If nothing special happened in the meantime, she should still be on campus.”
“I see.”
Young-woo caught a glimpse that the Chungju First Sword had the citizens’ trust from the phrase ‘she should be.’
“Then would you come with us?”
“Pardon?”
“The navigation doesn’t work either… We need someone to guide us to the school.”
“Th-that’s….”
The police officer looked around with a troubled expression.
Seeing this, Young-woo shrugged and added in an indifferent tone.
“If we can’t find the way immediately, this kind of thing will happen several more times on the way to the school. It would be better not to create unnecessary variables.”
The ‘this kind of thing’ Young-woo mentioned referred to the series of processes of meeting other police officers or Chungju citizens, subduing them by force, and asking for directions.
And in this process, the question of whether it wouldn’t be tragic if bloodshed were to occur unintentionally… no, it was also a threat.
“….”
The other party seemed to understand Young-woo’s meaning, as their stiffly hardened face soon nodded.
* * *
Click.
When Young-woo got into the back seat after picking up one of the police officers who had blocked the car at the toll gate, everyone in the assembly opened their eyes wide and asked.
“Wh… What’s going on?”
“Who is this person?”
“No, hyung-nim…”
But the most surprised of all was the police officer himself, who had been forced to become a guide due to Young-woo’s threats.
“Excuse me… what is this?”
The police officer couldn’t bring himself to get into the back seat and pointed with his finger under the seat.
-Kiit?
There, a relic-grade slave with golden skin, the Golden Goblin, was crouched up.
“It’s my slave. We don’t have time, so please get in quickly.”
When Young-woo, who had gotten into the car first, gestured with a somewhat coercive aura, the powerless police officer had no choice.
Swoosh.
As he put his foot into the edge of the back seat, the goblin frowned and moved to the opposite side, and Myeong-ae also pressed herself against the car window to avoid the goblin and coughed awkwardly.
“….”
An uncomfortable and bizarre seating arrangement in many ways.
Anyway, once all the people and monster had finished taking their seats, Young-woo tapped the driver’s seat headrest and gave the signal to depart.
“Uh… should we just go straight along the road for now?”
Myeong-ho asked this while looking behind through the rearview mirror.
Then the police officer cleared his throat and looked at Young-woo.
“If we go back a little and enter through Mungang-ri, there won’t be any checkpoints and it’ll be convenient.”
“What if we go straight like this?”
“Hmm…”
At Young-woo’s counter-question, the police officer showed a troubled expression again.
“Since we’d be taking the highway up, the road would be convenient, but there probably won’t be much time difference compared to going through Mungang-ri. If anything, we might be delayed more due to checkpoints.”
“Is there another toll gate? Why would there be more checkpoints if we go up?”
When Young-woo asked this question, the police officer’s true intentions were finally revealed.
“There’s a population concentration area. There’s also a national university nearby, so there are many people in various ways. There are just as many security personnel. So it’s best to avoid people as much as possible…”
“Security personnel…?”
He couldn’t understand why there would be many people near the national university when everything had turned to stone, but even setting that aside, the fact that there were many security personnel because it was a population concentration area was a culture shock to Young-woo.
This was because the cities he had seen so far had no basic living systems, let alone security.
“How is security maintained in this kind of situation? Most police officers would have to be much stronger than ordinary citizens for that to be possible, wouldn’t they? But that would be almost impossible.”
Moreover, even if that were possible, who would control the police officers who had power strong enough to maintain security?
If even one police officer were to deviate, the order would collapse in an instant.
“Ah, that’s…”
Under Young-woo’s barrage of questions, the police officer broke out in a cold sweat and averted his gaze toward the driver’s seat window.
And then.
“Oh!”
Suddenly, the police officer’s eyes and mouth opened wide as an exclamation shot out.
However, it was a reaction closer to being pleased rather than surprised, and as soon as Young-woo saw the police officer’s expression, he instinctively realized who had appeared over there.
‘No way.’
When Young-woo twisted his upper body and shifted his gaze to the driver’s seat window, sure enough, he could see a silhouette approaching at a very fast speed from far away.
Pababababat!
The identity of this friction sound from a considerable distance was the sound of someone pushing off the asphalt floor repeatedly with bare feet.
Young-woo could be certain because he had also run on roads with bare feet like the opponent over there.
‘Chungju First Sword came to find me directly. But how…?’
None of the messengers should have left the area yet, so who could have told them?
Papat!
In the meantime, the problematic silhouette had already approached close enough to make out facial features, and Young-woo was surprised once more at this point.
“…!”
This was because Chungju First Sword, Shin Young-ju22, was unexpectedly a middle-aged woman.
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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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