Chapter 237. 10th Wave
In the past, in order to get a grip on Plseba, Ryu Min had needed to gather information on its executives.
Nicknames, habits, speech patterns, behavior, faces, tendencies, jobs, runes, and so on.
He compiled every piece of information, and if there was anything he could use, he used it.
Even the fact that he was leveraging the identity of Lost Yak was thanks to information he’d obtained back then.
So for Ryu Min, remembering a Plseba executive’s nickname wasn’t particularly difficult.
‘Sosohan Mukbang. He was definitely one of the eight Plseba executives.’
From some regression onward, that executive had apparently been expelled and stopped showing up, but early on, he had absolutely been one of the guys leading Plseba.
‘And to think that guy survived all the way to this Round.’
Ryu Min briefly wondered if the guy had skills in his own way, but it didn’t matter.
What mattered was the fact that he was suspiciously avoiding Ryu Min’s eyes.
‘I should confirm it.’
As Ryu Min approached, he read the guy’s inner thoughts.
Even though the man had his back turned, just by looking at his head, Ryu Min could dig through his thoughts in detail.
‘That bastard…’
Ryu Min made a rarely seen expression of shock.
‘He’s a guy taking orders from an archangel?’
He hadn’t expected that an archangel would refrain from appearing in person and instead use such a pathetic player.
But what was truly shocking was the method.
‘If you move a player to the Heavenly Realm, you can revoke their qualification…?’
Even Ryu Min was learning for the first time that qualification revocation was possible.
He’d never been to the Heavenly Realm, and this was also the first regression where he’d been threatened with assassination like this by archangels.
‘If I get warped to the Heavenly Realm, even I won’t have a way to return.’
He’d be stuck there with no way to do anything but waste time—only to lose his qualification.
‘Qualification revocation…’
What would it mean to have one’s qualification as a Player revoked?
Would it mean losing all of the system’s power? Or would it simply mean being excluded from the survival game?
‘Probably the former.’
Judging by the part where it said he could return to being a normal person, it likely meant he would lose all the power he possessed as a Player as well.
‘It’s definitely a threatening method. Now I get why the archangels didn’t step in directly.’
Ryu Min stared at Sosohan Mukbang with wary eyes.
‘So if he presses the book the archangel gave him against my body and recites the activation phrase, he can forcibly move me?’
That was why the guy kept stealing glances at him.
Under an archangel’s instructions, he’d been waiting for a chance to send Ryu Min to the Heavenly Realm.
‘He planned to aim for the moment people get confused during the 10th wave.’
Ryu Min didn’t want to know, and didn’t need to know, what kind of grudge a former Plseba executive had against him.
‘Either way, what matters is that he’s targeting me.’
Now that he knew the method, he could respond to it.
‘Killing him would be simple, but the problem is he’s a party member.’
There was no way to kill a party member.
He could only wait for the Round to end—but it looked like he’d get hit first before that.
‘That can’t happen.’
Recalling a method, Ryu Min checked the remaining time.
[Time remaining until next wave: 00:17:41]
It looked like he could deal with it before the wave started.
“Yamtti.”
“Huh? Black Scythe-nim? Do you have something you want me to do?”
“There’s someone you need to dominate.”
“Who?”
With a glance, Ryu Min pointed to one spot.
“You see him over there? His nickname is Sosohan Mukbang.”
“Sosohan Mukbang…?”
Yamtti’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s.
“That useless punk is still alive?”
“Someone you recognize, right?”
“Yes. He was an executive in Plseba, same as me.”
“Dominate him. There isn’t room, so release Jeffrey from domination.”
“Uh… th-that won’t work, I think.”
“Why?”
Flustered, Yamtti let out a sigh and said,
“I’ve dominated him before. To squeeze information out of Sosohan Mukbang…”
You can’t dominate someone again after you’ve dominated them once and then released them.
Meaning the chance was already wasted.
Yamtti lowered his head as if he felt ashamed.
“…I’m sorry.”
“No. That was before you met me, so whatever.”
If domination wouldn’t work, he needed another method.
And right then, someone came to mind.
“The four slaves you dominated earlier.”
“The Messiah members?”
“Yeah. Give them instructions right now. Tell them this…”
After hearing the explanation, Yamtti nodded.
“Just suppressing him like you said will be enough?”
“Yes. But they have to approach quietly so he doesn’t notice. He might run.”
Why suppress Sosohan Mukbang?
Yamtti was curious, but he was a slave.
He did anything his master ordered.
“Understood. I’ll carry it out immediately.”
‘Holy shit… I almost had my heart drop.’
When he ran into Black Scythe, Sosohan Mukbang felt his insides go cold.
It was just eye contact, yet he was shaking this much—probably because he was about to do the deed.
‘N-no way… he didn’t notice, right?’
He turned his head for a quick glance, and Black Scythe was watching somewhere else.
Seems like he hadn’t been caught.
‘Phew. I almost screwed everything up before I even started.’
In ten minutes, the 10th wave would begin.
Just like the archangel had warned, once people—and Black Scythe—fell into confusion, he planned to move then.
‘Hoo… no need to chicken out. It’s simple. Hide in the crowd, wait for an opening, get close, press the book against him, and recite the activation phrase. Then it’s over. See? It’s simple.’
If he did that, he could send that annoying Black Scythe far, far away.
To the sky country he would never be able to return from.
‘Good. I’ll get ready to move when there are about three minutes left…’
That was when it happened.
Four men stuck to him like leeches.
“Y-you, you guys—what are you doing!? Let go of me!”
Each of them grabbed an arm or a leg, and he couldn’t budge.
He wondered if they were familiar faces and checked their nicknames, but—
‘Yang Chiwen, Jang So-wi, Dark Soul, Spaniard…? They’re all guys I’ve never seen before?’
He panicked as people he had no ties to whatsoever grabbed onto his limbs out of nowhere.
“Let go! Let go, you X bastards!”
“……”
They didn’t say a word, and their expressions were so blank they looked like machines carrying out orders.
‘This is insane, X damn it! Right before I’m about to do it, some crazy assholes latch onto me…!’
Since it was a party, he couldn’t even deal damage to them, so it was enough to make him go insane and flip out.
“Hey. Hey! Excuse me. Why are you doing this? Huh? Do you know me? You don’t, right? Then can’t you at least tell me why you’re doing this all of a sudden? Huh?”
Still, no answer came.
In the end, he had no choice but to try to shake them off by force, but with all four clinging to his limbs, his body felt heavy like a soaked wad of cotton.
“What is it? What is it?”
“Four guys hanging off one guy because they want to ‘have’ him?”
“What kind of embarrassing mess is that?”
“Homosexuality isn’t something to be ashamed of these days, but…”
“Did they really come all the way to another world to do that?”
“In a way, that guy’s impressive.”
Hearing the whispers around him, Mukbang shouted, sounding wronged.
“It’s a misunderstanding! I’m not like that! These bastards have never even met me!”
“Sure you aren’t. Look how happily they’re clinging to you.”
“I said I’m not! Let go! Let go, you leech bastards!”
He struggled, but there was no way he could handle the strength of four people alone.
When he couldn’t see any solution, he finally begged the people around him for help.
“Help me! Strangers are holding me like this! Please pull them off me!”
“Strangers?”
“Is that true?”
At the desperate cry, a few people were tempted—but only briefly.
The Messiah members, who hadn’t opened their mouths until now, each added a line.
“I’ll do better from now on.”
“We used to get along, didn’t we? Yeah?”
“Mukbang, please… don’t leave me behind.”
“I love you, hyung.”
Maybe Dark Soul’s last line was the final blow, because the people who had been doubtful twisted their lips and turned away.
“Figures.”
“I was an idiot for doubting it for a second.”
Watching them leave, Mukbang shouted in desperation.
“H-hey!? I said they’re strangers—please help me!?”
“I don’t plan on interfering in someone else’s love life, so…”
“Have a good love.”
Thinking it was just a simple happening, people moved away from Mukbang.
In the end, within a ten-meter radius, the only ones left were the four men clinging to him like leeches.
Watching Sosohan Mukbang stuck in a situation where he couldn’t do anything thanks to the Messiah members, Ryu Min lifted the corner of his mouth.
‘Even if I can’t kill him, I can stop him from moving.’
The order he’d given the Messiah members was simple.
Grab one limb each from Sosohan Mukbang, like leeches.
And if it looked like someone nearby might help, recite one line each, like people who couldn’t forget an ex-lover.
The effect was outstanding.
Far from being able to approach Ryu Min, all he could do was glare at him.
‘That blocks the threat.’
Some trash player dared to plot something from behind his back.
‘For now, I can’t do anything because we’re a party, but once this Round ends, I’ll make him pay for sure.’
Grinding his teeth, Ryu Min prepared for the 10th wave.
It would begin soon.
The wave that would throw everything into chaos.
‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1…’
As the remaining time dropped to zero, the final wave was revealed.
[10th Wave]
[Players 4,608 vs Devouring Parasite 1]
[This Round has no time limit.]
[To clear the Round, kill the Devouring Parasite!]
The players who saw the revealed mission blinked, doubting their own eyes.
“One is the opponent?”
“Devouring Parasite? Is it boss-class?”
They’d fought thousands at a time, or at the very least hundreds of high orcs, but this was the first time a single enemy had appeared.
“It’s fine. If five thousand of us work together, is there anything we can’t kill?”
“Exactly. We’ve got Black Scythe too.”
But the players’ panic only truly hit after they saw the next message.
[For balance adjustment, special rules will be applied.]
[The special rule for the 10th wave will be withheld.]
“Withheld?”
The opponent was revealed, but the rule was listed as withheld.
They were flustered, but soon people regained their confidence.
No matter what the rule was, they thought there’d be no problem if Black Scythe stepped in.
Even Ryu Min himself had been confident.
Until you actually ran into it.
‘Was it the 44th regression? There was a time I died after rushing the Devouring Parasite without knowing anything.’
Back then, he’d been at a point where his growth and skill were surging, so he was overflowing with confidence.
Without even having time to check what the special rule was, he rushed in and died.
‘Thinking back, it was stupid. At the very least, I should’ve watched someone else rush in and figured out the rule’s nature… though it’s not like the result would’ve changed.’
The withheld special rule was this.
<Special Rule: 90% of the damage the Devouring Parasite receives is reflected.>
Damage reflection.
Physical, magical—any damage at all.
If you attack the Devouring Parasite, it returns right back to the caster.
A full 90% of the damage you dealt.
‘In the end, you have to endure that returning 90% damage and fight the Devouring Parasite with only the remaining 10% damage.’
But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
Unless you were a tank, who could possibly endure their own damage?
Especially for dealers specialized in attack power, the Devouring Parasite was basically a hard counter.
‘People swarmed it like moths to a flame and died to their own damage. Thousands of players.’
There was no escaping the rule that damage would be reflected, whether it was melee or ranged.
That was why, no matter how many players piled on, they couldn’t beat the Devouring Parasite—and later, once they understood the situation, they were busy running away.
Because they knew they’d die if they fought it for no reason.
‘But even if you don’t fight, you die.’
Just like the message said, the 10th wave had no time limit.
Running away wouldn’t solve anything.
Not that there was anywhere to run, blocked off by a semi-transparent barrier anyway.
“Gururuk, gureureuk!”
Up ahead, a Devouring Parasite of enormous size appeared.
With a toad-like face and a hard shell like an insect’s, the thing waddled forward at the size of a house.
It looked pretty ridiculous.
‘But it’s not an opponent to underestimate. Even if it looks like that, the Devouring Parasite’s tongue is lightning-fast.’
There was no way to avoid a creature that snatched you up with its long, extended tongue and swallowed you whole.
You could only kill it.
‘Back then, thousands of players had to sacrifice themselves like moths just to barely bring it down. But now?’
There’s no need for people to be sacrificed.
All I have to do is step in.
“Why is that toad bastard so huge?”
“Don’t be scared! Let’s rush it all at on—”
“Everyone, fall back.”
Stopping the gutsy players who were about to charge the Devouring Parasite, Ryu Min stepped forward.
“I’ll kill it.”
There was 90% reflected damage, but it wasn’t a problem.
Because he had the cheat key known as invincibility.