CHAPTER 180 – VS Ma Kyung-rok
[Memory Erasure Potion]
-Category: Consumable
-Grade: Legendary
-Effect: Read the target’s memories and delete the parts you want
-Use Restriction: Master grade or higher
-Description: You can read the target’s memories and erase the parts you want. If you really want to, you can even turn them into an idiot.
The reason Ryu Min was surprised was simple.
The Memory Erasure Potion was an item that dropped at an extremely low probability.
‘Even back when I used Joo Seong-tak to kill the doppelganger, it only dropped once…’
And now, by sheer luck, it had dropped again.
As he pocketed the potion, the corner of Ryu Min’s mouth lifted pleasantly.
‘Someday, I’ll have a use for it.’
The last time it dropped, he’d used it to erase Min Juri’s memories after she learned the Black Scythe’s identity and was shocked by it.
‘This time… who knows.’
For now, he’d have to wait and see where it would be used.
“Master. Now that we’ve achieved our objective, are we leaving the labyrinth?”
“No. There’s still something I need to do.”
“Something? What…?”
“That’s not something for you to do. It’s something I have to do.”
Avoiding a direct answer about what exactly it was, Ryu Min jerked his chin as if telling him to follow.
“Let’s go. You just watch from a distance.”
“Yes.”
As Ma Kyung-rok walked through the labyrinth, he asked An Sang-cheol,
“Is the Black Scythe still untrackable?”
“Yes… It doesn’t work even if I search for someone else, and surrounding detection won’t activate either. It seems this forest blocks outside signals.”
“Seems we have no choice but to see it that way.”
As he said that, Ma Kyung-rok suddenly gave a bitter smile.
“I’m sorry, Manager An. This is because I insisted we go look for the Black Scythe.”
“N-no, sir. If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry. I pushed for getting Min Juri’s buff…”
“We should’ve tracked Min Juri instead. If we had, we wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“No. Your judgment wasn’t wrong, CEO. We were just unlucky.”
‘Unlucky…?’
Ma Kyung-rok wondered if he really had to chalk entering this labyrinth-like forest up to pure bad luck.
‘Did the Prophet know? That I’d follow the Black Scythe and end up suffering this kind of disaster?’
He didn’t know the truth, but even if the Prophet had known, he couldn’t hold him accountable.
After all, just what the Prophet had already provided was beyond any monetary value—and then to get angry because he’d hidden future information?
Unless he wanted to cut off the relationship, it was something he couldn’t do.
‘Right now, the Prophet is the one in control. The people who listen to his prophecies—including me—are completely at his mercy.’
And there was no way to find out the truth anyway.
From the Prophet’s side, he could simply say he didn’t see that prophecy, and that would be the end of it.
In any case, one thing was certain—this outcome had been produced by his own choice.
“Hoo… I wonder what happened to Christine.”
“Are you worried?”
“Of course. She’s my fiancée.”
It was business emotion, of course, but wasn’t it still true that he was worried?
“For now, let’s get out of this damn forest. Somehow, we’ll find a path.”
“But it’s just the same path over and over…”
“We can’t just sit still, can we? And we heard something like an explosion earlier.”
An explosion in a forest that had been nothing but quiet meant someone was out there.
For them, who felt like they were sailing an endless sea without even a light, even that was inevitably a comfort.
“There’s plenty of time, so let’s not give up and keep going.”
“But, CEO. What if we get out and there’s barely any time left?”
“There’s no way it’ll take that long, is there? As long as we don’t lose hope, we’ll definitely find a way out.”
It was an optimistic story, but in reality, it was vague and without evidence.
Even Ma Kyung-rok couldn’t guarantee how many hours it would take to escape this forest.
“Maybe we won’t get out until the full twenty-four hours are almost up. Still, let’s keep going. It’s not like we have anything else to do, right?”
“Understood.”
“And if we get out and have even a few hours to spare, find foreign players. Find them, and kill them on sight, regardless of nationality.”
Kill people on sight.
It was an order worthy of a Nazi, but it couldn’t be helped.
If you killed foreign players, you gained kill points, and you could also make them lose the points they had.
Make the other country lose points while you gain points?
There was no reason not to kill.
“Other countries are probably thinking the exact same thing as me. Somewhere out there, a war might already be happening—killing and being killed for points.”
Thinking it made sense, An Sang-cheol nodded.
Killing people was something they’d done until they were sick of it back in Round 4, and even before becoming a Player, An Sang-cheol had helped Ma Kyung-rok with his “hobby.”
Getting other people’s blood on their hands was not an obstacle for either of them.
And just as they promised slaughter and continued down the single path—
“Hm?”
The two of them stopped at the same time, as if by prior agreement.
Far ahead, someone stood blocking the road.
‘A person?’
‘There’s a person?’
At the rare discovery of another person, their expressions brightened.
A person—how could that not be welcome?
A smile rose on their faces, like finding a lantern in a sea with no direction.
“Excuse me! Nice to meet you. To run into someone else here…”
An Sang-cheol approached with a smile.
But that smile vanished as soon as they got close enough to make out the face, as if it had never existed.
An Sang-cheol’s face hardened as he grabbed the shoulder of Ma Kyung-rok, who was walking beside him.
“CEO. Wait.”
“Hm? Why?”
When Ma Kyung-rok looked, An Sang-cheol’s expression was deadly serious.
There was even a hint of rage in his eyes.
“That bastard. It’s him.”
“Who? Do you know him?”
“Yes. It’s Hwang Yong-min.”
At the three-syllable name, Ma Kyung-rok’s expression stiffened as well.
He’d never seen him, but he couldn’t not know the name—he’d heard it plenty from An Sang-cheol.
“The punk who ambushed you and Actress Seo in Round 2?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Didn’t you say he was dead?”
“Seo Arin said he was. And the Prophet proved that he was dead, too.”
“Then is it really like you said before—an undead? That thing?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
He’d already heard that Seo Arin had run into Hwang Yong-min.
He’d also heard there was a job that could revive corpses.
‘Back then, I just let it slide… but to run into him in a place like this.’
Ma Kyung-rok stared at the other man again, as if he couldn’t believe it.
For an undead, he looked clean—and his appearance was unmistakably human.
“CEO. Did Seo Arin lie? To me, he looks like a real human…”
“I don’t know. But one thing is clear.”
Ma Kyung-rok drew a sword wrapped in Dark Aura.
“He didn’t show up to have a friendly conversation with us.”
The gaze of Hwang Yong-min, standing there motionless, was anything but friendly.
He glared at them like someone with bad blood, then raised his fist.
“He’s going to fight with bare hands? Guess we look pretty easy to him.”
With a snort of laughter, Ma Kyung-rok made up his mind.
He would kill him and take his points.
Undead or zombie—what mattered was that he had appeared as an enemy.
‘This is exactly when I need to take the initiative.’
His thoughts were short, and his actions were fast.
“Devour him.”
The Dark Aura coiling around the blade changed into something like a gigantic hand and shot out.
If caught by that black hand, he would have his life force drained alive, feeding Ma Kyung-rok with dark power.
But Hwang Yong-min was quicker than expected.
Whoosh—!
Like a well-trained boxer, he dodged the aura and closed the distance at the same time.
But Ma Kyung-rok was also moving in to meet him.
‘I expected he’d dodge.’
As he raised his sword above his head, the Dark Aura was recalled and wrapped the blade again.
‘Pamyeol Cham.’
The Dark Knight’s level 40 skill dropped straight down toward Hwang Yong-min.
The timing and the angle were perfect.
There was no way to dodge.
It was the kind of blow that would split his head.
“…!?”
That’s what Ma Kyung-rok thought—
right up until Hwang Yong-min barely avoided it.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAANG—!
A roar even louder than what they’d heard earlier in the forest rang out.
Where Hwang Yong-min had been standing was gouged deep, as if a meteor had fallen.
‘Damn it. I poured in a third of my dark power.’
Pamyeol Cham was a skill that allowed you to adjust how much dark power you used.
He’d poured in a third to kill in one shot, but unfortunately, the bastard had dodged.
‘Lucky bastard.’
He didn’t have the luxury of cursing.
Hwang Yong-min’s fist, having dodged the attack, was already right in front of him.
‘Dark Armor.’
Whirrrrrl—
Dark Aura instantly wrapped around Ma Kyung-rok’s entire body, protecting him.
A protection skill that was weak against magic damage, but boasted extreme defense against physical damage—
That was what he believed.
Right up until Hwang Yong-min’s fist landed.
CRACK!
“Guh—!”
“CEO!”
With the sound of something snapping, Ma Kyung-rok was sent flying in a pathetic arc.
He recovered his stance and stood up right away, but a searing pain shot through his ribs.
‘Kgh… Dark Armor stayed fine even when a minotaur hit me…’
Dark Armor was a miraculous defensive skill that absorbed up to 70% of incoming damage into dark power.
Judging by how his dark power had been shaved away in a huge chunk, it looked like the maximum had been exceeded.
‘Is that really just an undead? How strong is it?’
For an undead, the damage he’d just experienced was shocking.
And the guy looked like nothing more than an ordinary human.
“This bastard!”
When Ma Kyung-rok got hurt, An Sang-cheol charged in furiously and swung his sword.
But despite his momentum, he couldn’t even touch a hair on Hwang Yong-min’s head—
BAM!
“Guhk!”
Instead, An Sang-cheol took a punch to the face and staggered.
“Kgh… C-CEO. Get behind me! I’ll protect you!”
Even with his helmet dented and his nasal bone caved in, An Sang-cheol raised his shield.
Kiiiiiiing—
A shield-exclusive skill, “Knight’s Protection,” activated, and a wide barrier formed centered on the shield.
“It’ll slow my movement, but it can protect against 80% of physical damage. If you stay behind me, you can feel safe—”
That was when it happened.
Hwang Yong-min, who had somehow closed in right up to his nose, threw a punch.
BAAAAM!
“Kuh!”
A barrier that had never been pushed back even once, no matter how many times he’d used it, shook from a single punch.
BAM—! BAAAM—!
“Guhk—! Kuh!”
After the second and third hits in a row, An Sang-cheol spat blood.
The damage that pierced through the barrier transmitted directly into An Sang-cheol’s body.
Unable to just watch his right-hand man get beaten, Ma Kyung-rok didn’t miss the brief opening and counterattacked.
‘Pamyeol Cham.’
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAANG—!
He used half of his remaining dark power.
He fired it at the timing when Hwang Yong-min was pounding on the shield—there was no way he could dodge.
It was a blow he could be proud of as a decisive strike.
But—
‘…You monster bastard.’
Hwang Yong-min dodged even that.
It was nothing short of astounding reflexes.
It was frustrating that it didn’t land, but Ma Kyung-rok had anticipated this and already prepared the next move.
“Devour him.”
The Dark Aura spread wide like a slime hunting prey, and once again aimed for Hwang Yong-min.
As if the timing were perfect, Hwang Yong-min couldn’t dodge the net of darkness.
‘Got him! It worked!’
It had him.
Now it was time for his life force to be torn away alive.
‘Huh?’
But then, an unbelievable situation unfolded.