Life Mission

“Are you – are you saying that they all died? Does that make sense? There were 6 rankers in there!”

“Rankers are people too. They aren’t immortal.”

Nuclear raised his voice at his subordinates’ reports, and Chamma Sword calmed him down.

“Chamma Sword.....”

“Who are you? This is the first time I’m seeing you.”

His face is the same in reality and in the virtual. There are only 5 or 6 of the 36 rankers who did not virtually mold their faces, and Chamma Sword is one of them.

“Oh, I guess we’ve never met in reality. This is Korea’s Overload, who you were all very curious about.”

“Oh?”

“You’re Overload?”

The rankers’ reactions are split in half. They either do not care or are surprised.

Ice Queen and Boom Buster’s group know who he is because they have seen him, but Chamma Sword, Strategist, and Nuclear’s group were surprised because they did not know Cha Jun Sung from reality.

Weapon Master’s reaction stood out in particular.

“It’s been a while.”

“Ah, yes.”

Mechanic City is really an interesting place. It locks rankers up in 1 place and leads them to each other. He had not been able to see a single one before coming here, but he saw a majority of them today.

“I’m Strategist of the world federation. Can you give us a detailed explanation? It doesn’t seem possible to enter into that.”

Strategist looks at the white phosphorus smoke. It does not look as though it will go away anytime soon. They cannot do nothing, so they at least need to hear how this happened.

***

Several hours passed until the smoke finally settled. Park Jin Hyuk’s group ran out through the other direction, so they needed to circle around in order to meet. Cha Jun Sung explained what he saw and experienced to Strategist. The world federation had not been expecting Blood Kingdom to go so far, and many kept sighing heavily.

They have too much to consider, while the enemy is lawless. Just as it is much more difficult to prevent crimes than it is to commit them, it is the same context for the 2 groups.

“Murderers are throwing the real world away and crossing over into Mechanic City?”

“Yes. The real world is not a good place for them because there is law and order there. This place is paradise for them.”

Mechanic City is the best environment as it cuts off national interference. Blood King’s group is good at using their heads.

“We are sweeping through them by mobilizing Lifers on a national dimension. We’re getting a fair amount of results as well because we do not consider killing murderers as murder.”

But because they can move freely between reality, the mission, briefing rooms, and Mechanic City, it is not easy. If the murderers completely take root here, there will be more disasters like that of today.

It is not a pleasant thought to do the same and stoop to their level.

He knows that it is a definite crime, so he cannot steal just because others are doing it. The world would have already perished if it was overrun with such people.

“How dreadful.”

Nuclear spoke as he looked at the road in ruins. It is another hell from that they have seen in the missions. A few buildings fell over completely and a few of the large buildings were ruined.

“The device launch itself is 5 million at the minimum. How crazy.”

“I guess 5 million is cheap for this kind of force.”

There will be no point if the battlesuit is upgraded, but anything below is nothing. It could be a genocidal weapon.

Strategist gives orders. Lifers turned on their biometric detectors to look for survivors. Rankers were gathered in one place. Blood Kingdom is bound to sweep through them if they appear.

“How many points do you think would have been taken off with this kind of chaos?”

“It’ll be in the hundreds of thousands.”

“Phew! They would have earned points while killing Lifers, so it might have covered what they lost.”

Glare Gun touches a hand cannon. He really does not know how to stop these guys. If it were up to him, he would put tracking devices on them. If they could know what they were going to do beforehand, they could at least block them. It is maddening that they bring on chaos out of nowhere.

“No vitals are reacting.”

“Damn it!”

There are several thousands of people. Does this mean that all of those people died? Even those who owned battlesuits?

“It’s strong enough to melt through battlesuits. No one can survive it with its level C standard, ranker or not.”

“I thought that dying is all the same, whether you die honorably or not. But this is too vain. They couldn’t even do anything.”

They died like dogs. Cha Jun Sung agrees. Putting value on death? It might seem meaningless, but there are different meanings to different types of death.

Lifers who had scattered out come back with corpses. The best they can do is to check each person’s identity and send them to their families.

Moreover, they make a distinction between those who have battlesuits. The number of personnel is in Strategist’s PDA. He is referencing the PDA to find any missing persons.

“Breaker, Wind Wing, War Hammer, Sonic Boom.....”

4 corpses with special marks signify rankers. They barely found War Hammer among them. He has been reduced to pieces.

“What about Dual Blade and Longinus?”

“We weren’t able to find them yet.”

“Do you think they’re alive?”

“I don’t know.”

A way to stay alive? It is not non existent. They can avoid the white phosphorus if they return to the real world or briefing room, or go into a mission. It is just a matter of whether they are able to move from a complex and dangerous situation.

[Strategist?] [Dual Blade! You survived?]

Was it telepathy? Dual Blade read Strategist’s thoughts and radioed in.

[Longinus and I survived.]

Dual Blade and Longinus were pretty far from where the shell went off, so they returned to the briefing room as soon as they saw the white smoke come out.

A small 1% of Lifers in addition to them came out alive in similar ways. They have not returned to Mechanic City because there might still be smoke. They went back to the real world from the briefing room, asked the world federation Lifers what is happening, and entered again once they were sure that it is safe.

[Are you on the roadside?] [Yeah.] [Near.]

A few minutes passed. Dual Blade and Longinus appeared along with other Lifers. Everyone looked close to dead.

“Are we the last of the survivors?”

“Fuck!”

Nuclear rages. All lives are precious, but he is most saddened that Sonic Boom died. They had become pretty close.

The more hurt he was, the more he wanted to tear Blood Kingdom apart.

“Zone Z is their area, right? Assholes. They think we’re not capable of setting of a white phosphorus shell?”

Nuclear is thinking of paying them back in double. Since they took a hit, he will give them 2.

“Calm down. They’ll be quiet for the time being after causing this.”

“Take that and calm down? Strategist, are you an angel? Are you out of your mind?”

Opinions are split. Those who say they need to get revenge and those who say they need to hold back. Cha Jun Sung feels for the situation.

‘It’s like the situation I saw when I was young between South and North Korea.’

The divided nation was united when Cha Jun Sung was in his mid-20s, but it was chaos before then. North Korea repeatedly provoked and threatened South Korea.

Even still, South Korea remained patient until the end. Why? It is war the second they respond to those provocations. It seemed weak to hold out but because of that, they only had 50 million discontented citizens instead of bringing them the pain of war. If they respond to the provocation of a guy running at them toward suicide, there is no end to the loss.

Strategist is angry and dejected too. He is smart, but it is not that he has a great personality. How could it be that he does not want to get revenge? But there is timing in revenge. They need to find the right moment. For those with similar powers, war would be a shortcut to self-destruction. They will advance before their enemy and run over them with overwhelming force. That is Strategist’s plan.

“First, let’s clear the battlefield. I’m going to open a conference right away, so make sure you all attend. Oh, Overload?”

“Yes?”

“I would like for you and your party members to attend as well. It won’t be bad to hear, and isn’t Blood Kingdom a common enemy anyway?”

“We’ll do that.”

Cha Jun Sung confirmed attendance. He feels guilt that this might have happened because of him. No matter what is brought up during the conference, it will not be bad to hear. His party members did not show aversion to the idea either. The situation is serious.