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CHAPTER 120 – Round 8 Results Tally
The moment the title Time Reverser appeared above his head, the archbishop’s gaze changed.
His eyes didn’t tilt upward, so it wasn’t because he saw the title.
He sensed it instinctively.
‘As expected, there’s a reaction.’
Is it because he really is an NPC?
Whenever Ryu Min changes his title, the otherworlders instinctively come to know it.
What kind of person the other is, what kind of fame they carry.
It’s as if the setting about him is being applied directly to the world’s lore.
“Who… are you?”
“A name isn’t important. What matters is what I am called.”
“Did you truly… reverse time?”
Ryu Min nodded.
What more was there to say?
‘The archbishop already sees me as a transcendent being who moves across time.’
There was no need to read his thoughts.
You could tell just from how even his tone had changed.
“Heh heh… A time reverser truly exists. I suppose you really do live long enough to see everything. Now I understand—how you possess such overwhelming power.”
The archbishop nodded to himself, then his eyes gleamed.
“Then… are you Chronos’s proxy?”
Ryu Min nodded.
If the man was going to decide on his own that he was a god’s proxy, there was no reason to deny it.
The archbishop believed Ryu Min without question.
That title, Time Reverser, was practically proof of transcendence in itself.
“Ah… O proxy of Chronos. Meeting you is the greatest fortune of my entire life.”
“It would be.”
Ryu Min answered with a somewhat curt expression.
Seeing that, the archbishop’s mind spun rapidly.
‘Is he dissatisfied with something?’
As an archbishop who serves a god, what should he do if he encounters a god’s proxy?
Obviously, he should curry favor, shouldn’t he?
Once he reached that conclusion, the archbishop smiled faintly.
“There is a tribute I can present to the proxy.”
He drew something from within his robes.
The moment Ryu Min accepted it, a message appeared.
[You have received ‘Rune Fragment of Foresight’ as a reward from Archbishop Raber of the Holy Empire.]
[Using ‘Rune Fragment of Foresight’.]
[The acquired rune is automatically engraved onto the player’s body!]
The instant he obtained what he wanted, a smile formed at the corner of Ryu Min’s mouth.
“How is it? Isn’t it a fitting item for a god’s proxy?”
“Indeed. Satisfying.”
With a faint grin, Ryu Min saw an information window appear before him.
[Rune of Foresight]
-Effect: Sees the target’s future 7 seconds ahead. Depending on circumstances, the future may change moment by moment.
Ryu Min immediately looked into the archbishop’s future.
Seven seconds later, the archbishop was already a cold corpse.
There was no helping it, if Ryu Min wanted to live.
“How is it?”
“I am satisfied. And in return… I intend to send you back to your god.”
“Truly?”
The archbishop’s face lit up—then Ryu Min nodded and moved his hand.
He grabbed the archbishop’s head and twisted.
Crack—
His neck snapped, and he died.
‘I don’t hate him.’
Whether he was a real, living otherworlder or a manufactured NPC, Ryu Min didn’t know.
But if he didn’t kill him, Ryu Min would be erased.
Leaving the archbishop seated in the carriage with a peaceful expression on his dead face, Ryu Min stepped outside.
“Did your conversation go well?”
At the escort captain’s question, Ryu Min nodded as he shut the carriage door.
“Yes. His Grace says he has things to think about, so we shouldn’t disturb him.”
“The archbishop said that?”
Ryu Min nodded again, and the captain answered that he understood, turning away without the slightest suspicion.
After that—after obtaining what he wanted—the 26th wave began.
As Ryu Min killed the monsters, he occasionally glanced at the archbishop’s carriage.
It was to make sure no one went inside.
‘Until the 30th wave, I can’t let anyone find out I killed the archbishop.’
Ryu Min’s goal was to assassinate every otherworlder in the caravan.
Each carriage had a single driver aboard, so he had to kill fifty in total.
‘Add the escort captain and the archbishop, and that makes fifty-two.’
The archbishop was already dead, so he had to take care of the rest.
And he had to do it as fast and cleanly as possible.
‘When the final 30th wave hits… that’s when I move.’
He waited—and the 30th wave began.
“Minotaurs! Hold them back!”
“Tough bastards! They’re attacking again without even getting tired!”
“Ten minutes left! Just hang in there a little longer!”
Encouraging each other, the players squeezed out their last reserves of strength.
They had started with 1,202, but now they’d dropped to barely over a thousand.
Given the difficulty, casualties weren’t strange.
Leaving them behind as they fought like their lives depended on it, Ryu Min assassinated the drivers.
Crack—
‘Five.’
Crack—
‘Twenty.’
Crack—
‘Forty-two.’
Moving from carriage to carriage in succession, he quietly took the drivers’ lives without a sound.
He was moving extremely stealthily, but it also helped that everyone else was too frantic in their bloody fight with monsters to notice.
Crack—
‘That makes fifty.’
And then the last remaining target: the escort captain.
Ryu Min approached from behind without a whisper and twisted his neck.
Crack—!
All the otherworlders were dead.
In that instant—
[The Holy Empire’s reputation toward ‘Last Time Reversal’ has changed from ‘Neutral’ → ‘Hostile’.]
The temple’s reputation turned hostile.
But at the same time, something pleasing happened as well.
[You have eliminated all otherworlders in the human caravan.]
[You have completed the quest: Obstruct the caravan from reaching its destination.]
[Quest success rewards will be granted during the results tally.]
[The stat decrease debuff has been removed.]
[Returning to the waiting area shortly.]
Just as he wanted, he completed the traitor quest.
Then what about the remaining players in the normal group?
When he turned his gaze, they were still locked in a desperate battle with the minotaurs.
‘As expected.’
The normal group’s quest was to escort the caravan to the destination.
Meaning: if the carriages were at the destination when the time limit ran out, it was a success.
The traitor group’s quest was to obstruct the caravan from reaching the destination.
Meaning: when the time limit ran out, the carriages had to not be at the destination for it to be a success.
‘But for the traitor group, there’s another success condition.’
Eliminating all the otherworlders.
Like he’d just done.
‘If you kill all the otherworlders in the caravan, the system judges that the carriages can no longer move. Then it judges the traitor group has succeeded.’
The fact that the success message had appeared a moment ago was proof.
So did the normal group instantly fail?
‘Not yet.’
There were still about five minutes left on the time limit, so the system didn’t call it a failure.
Which meant there was still a chance.
‘If I pull some strings so the carriages reach the destination, the normal group can succeed too.’
In other words, even without NPCs, if the carriages were placed at the destination, they would meet the success condition.
‘Then the method is simple.’
Ryu Min created a doppelganger and seated it on the leading carriage.
Then he made it pull the caravan to the destination.
‘If the lead carriage moves, the others will follow on their own even without drivers.’
He’d already tested it in previous regressions, so there was no room for doubt.
This was the result of cleverly exploiting a loophole in the system.
‘This way, I win… and the normal group wins too.’
If his doppelganger led the carriages to the destination—
Even without Ryu Min present, the normal group would be able to complete the quest.
A moment later—
[Moving to the waiting area.]
With the message, Ryu Min’s figure vanished.
He blinked once, and he was in the gray space where the traitors had gathered before.
[Ohhh, Black Scythe? Since you’ve come here, that means you succeeded, right?]
The angel Ariel’s lips curled upward in an unpleasant smile.
[Heehee, so you finally chose to throw away the lives of 1,201 people and survive alone? Well, nothing is more important than your own life. It’s the obvious choice.]
It seemed the angel didn’t know what had happened in the other world.
[Don’t feel guilty. It was a quest where one side had to die anyway.]
“…….”
[And it’s more fun when a minority beats a majority, isn’t it? You gave plenty of entertainment—]
Right then, Ariel suddenly stopped mid-sentence, her expression twisting.
[What? An error?]
“What is it?”
[I just received notice that the normal group of the human caravan succeeded the quest. Something seems wrong. I need to check what happened.]
Saying that, Ariel stared into empty space as if watching system messages, falling silent for a while.
She only broke the silence after several minutes.
[Impossible. Black Scythe. What did you do?]
“What do you mean?”
[Looking at the recorded footage, your doppelganger moved the carriages. Even though all the otherworlders were dead. Because of that, the carriages reached the destination, and the normal group succeeded.]
“Did they? That’s good, then.”
[Good? Are you saying you deliberately used a doppelganger to make the carriages reach the destination? To save the normal group?]
“Yes. Isn’t it better for everyone to survive together than for me to survive alone? And it should be more entertaining that way, too.”
[…….]
Ariel was at a loss for words.
‘He made both groups survive? That’s possible?’
Even she, a guide, hadn’t known a method like this existed.
It was something you couldn’t do unless you precisely identified and understood the system’s success conditions and failure conditions.
“There’s no problem, right? The system called it a success.”
[……Yes. There is no problem.]
Absurd as it was, Ariel had no choice but to acknowledge it.
Black Scythe had cleared both groups’ quests successfully.
[The quest is a success. I’ll send you back to your original place.]
Before the words even finished, Ryu Min returned to the colorless space where everything had begun.
Looking around, he saw countless players blinking as they waited for the results.
Among them were Jo Yong-ho’s group and An Sang-cheol.
Min Juri and Seo Arin, Heo Tae-seok, and Eom Jun-seok were there too.
‘Everyone survived.’
Only a small number had died—otherwise, the thousands he’d seen at the start were gathered here together.
If he hadn’t used the loophole, half of them would’ve disappeared.
Though half of them would still be erased once the tally was done.
‘Erasure based on contribution… even I can’t stop that.’
Soon, the angel Ariel appeared before everyone.
[The escort quest ends here. Surprisingly, not many humans died. Thanks to someone.]
Ariel’s gaze flicked toward Ryu Min for a brief moment.
[For reference, since a traitor remains, there is no sub-quest completer. Now then, shall we see the results?]
★ Round 8 Results Tally ★
[All Zones]
└1st: Black Scythe (Lv80 Reaper) Contribution: 281,283 points
└2nd: Crissy (Lv40 Priest) Contribution: 86,331 points
└3rd: Democracy (Lv38 Buffer) Contribution: 82,113 points
[This Zone C2-ESKA003]
└1st: Black Scythe (Lv80 Reaper) Contribution: 281,283 points
└2nd: Democracy (Lv38 Buffer) Contribution: 82,113 points
└3rd: Jo Yong-ho (Lv39 Mercenary King) Contribution: 74,213 points
The results after converting contribution into numerical value.
Once again, Black Scythe took an overwhelming lead.
Unlike the others, he’d gone through three caravans alone and swept up monsters the entire time, so his score couldn’t help but be high.
When he took first place again, players clicked their tongues.
But more than anything, the absurd number—Level 80—left them speechless.
‘Insane. How did he hit level 80 already?’
‘I’m not even level 40 yet.’
‘We busted our asses for five hours and we still can’t even touch Black Scythe’s toes.’
‘I seriously want to know his leveling secret.’
Eyes filled with envy, jealousy, and awe all turned toward Ryu Min.
But Ryu Min didn’t care.
He was focused only on the reward floating before him.
The traitor quest success reward, hidden behind a question mark.