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706 chapter - Demon King (5)

Omniscient Reader’S Viewpoint (Web Novel Kr) — novelight.net · All chapters

706 chapter - Demon King (5)

[Someone has defeated the ruler of the ‘Washington Dome.’]
At first, I couldn’t understand that message.
“What happened.”
“It might be…… the Conqueror who did it.”
Thinking simply made the situation clear.
Yu Joonghyuk had taken down the ‘ruler of the Washington Dome.’
Otherwise, a message like that couldn’t have appeared.
We immediately entered the ‘Washington Dome’ to verify the facts.
A gray city, blotched by a Demon Realm invasion.
Corpses of demon species and humans were strewn all over the streets.
“Yu Joonghyuk!”
I shouted, but no answer came back. We quickly started running toward the capitol.
From the scenes rushing by, I could guess what kind of fights my companions who came here first had gone through.
“Uncle Dansoo! Ms. Sein!”
I kept calling people’s names.
Uncle Dansoo, Gyeong Sein, Killer King, Cha Yerin, Ye Hyeonwoo.
Yu Joonghyuk’s companions Lee Hyunsung, Lee Jihye, Kim Namwoon. And……
“Ms. Yuseung!”
Even when I shouted at the top of my lungs, no answer came back.
Washington, sunk in an oddly deep silence. I couldn’t sense the presence of anything ‘alive’ anywhere.
“Anna Croft.”
I glared at Anna.
She had certainly said it.
That my companions were safe.
In fact, she still stuck to that assertion.
“The Korean group is safe.”
“How can you guarantee that when you can’t use [Future Sight]?”
“When Yu Joonghyuk declared a head-on fight against a marquis-class, everyone in the ‘Korean group’ moved on to the ‘next scenario,’ except for him.”
The next scenario?
“The Washington Dome scenario is the final chapter of the ‘seventh scenario,’ but it’s a kind of ‘choice scenario.’”
As Anna Croft said that, she raised her eyes to the sky over Washington.
A vortex shimmered, giving off a faint radiance from the heavens.
Below that vortex, I could see a half-broken rope ladder dangling and swaying.
[‘Star Ladder’ has been created.]
[Incarnations who meet specific conditions may use that ladder.]
A fact belatedly rose in my mind.
On this American continent, the ‘seventh scenario’ and the ‘eighth scenario’ were currently running together.
“You know this too. Incarnations who have hunted a sufficient amount of monsters can move on to the next scenario even if they don’t bother clearing this one.”
In short, that ladder was a door leading to the ‘eighth scenario.’
“The others wouldn’t have left with only Yu Joonghyuk behind.”
“It was the Conqueror’s final order. He threatened to kill them all on the spot if they didn’t head for the next scenario immediately. They couldn’t help but listen.”
If there had been a threat from Yu Joonghyuk, it wasn’t strange that the party had gone on ahead.
Then why did Yu Joonghyuk have to issue such an ‘order’.
—Did the bastard try to hog the items alone again?
‘Do you really think that’s the reason.’
—How would you know when you haven’t even read Extinction Method?
‘I don’t need to have read Extinction Method to know at least that much.’
While I bickered with Kim Dokja, additional messages floated up in my head.
[You have completed the subjugation mission for Grade-4 monster species.]
[‘Star Ladder’ responds to you.]
[Will you use the ‘Star Ladder’?]
[If you use the ladder, you can enter the ‘eighth scenario’ area.]
Perhaps because I had finished the Grade-4 subjugation in the Korean region, I too had earned qualification to move to the eighth scenario.
That ‘Star Ladder’—it was a mechanism I hadn’t seen in the mainline ORV.
‘Wasn’t the eighth scenario originally “Dark Star”?’
—Hmm……
Part of me thought this might actually be for the best. Because ‘Dark Star’ was among the scenarios boasting the worst difficulty in all of ORV.
The place that birthed the ‘Demon King of Salvation,’ and a scenario in which someone absolutely had to ‘sacrifice’ themself.
If you could avoid it, you should avoid it unconditionally.
But our ‘Extinction Method expert’ seemed to think differently.
—If possible, don’t use that ladder.
‘Why?’
—If you’re lucky, it could be easier than ‘Dark Star,’ but if you’re unlucky…… you could fall into somewhere even nastier than ‘Dark Star.’
‘My companions have already gone over.’
—Then we can only hope they’re lucky.
I was about to say, how can you be so irresponsible, when with a light spark, the connection to ‘Midday Rendezvous’ briefly cut.
If you look closely, this guy seems to do this on purpose whenever he’s in a bind.
“Anyway, it doesn’t look like the situation is that bad.”
With her expression a shade brighter, Anna Croft looked around and said.
“If it’s true that the Conqueror has taken down that demon, we can consider the scenario already finished. Aside from the core ruler of the dome, only the underlings remain.”
As she said, the crux of this event was the ‘marquis-class demon’ in the capitol. But if Yu Joonghyuk had taken it out alone, we could call this scenario done.
[The ‘seventh scenario’ is currently in progress.]
One ominous thing was that the scenario-end message still hadn’t appeared.
They clearly said the ‘ruler of the Washington Dome’ had been defeated.
Then why was the scenario still not ending.
That was when Anna, a few steps ahead, came to a sudden halt.
“Cheon Inho.”
A portal appeared across from the building on our right. We tensed up, each of us drawing our armaments.
Had other ‘demon species’ appeared in addition? Or—
Clatter.
The light footsteps beyond the portal weren’t human.
Next, with a flood of bright radiance, a white horse with resplendent fur pranced lightly as it emerged.
The knight on its back lightly patted the horse’s head.
“Easy, Griffith.”
Shining silver chain mail with a red surcoat draped over it. The man’s bright blond hair, fluttering in the wind, made it obvious at a glance he was of an extraordinary lineage.
“Are you Anna Croft?”
Startled to her senses by the knight’s rich voice, Anna asked back.
“Sir Elliot, could it be you?”
“It’s our first meeting in reality, Prophet.”
The knight dismounted with an easy motion and approached with a gentle smile.
“As I thought, you look exactly as beautiful as in the dream.”
Then, right there, he dropped to one knee in front of Anna and extended his hand to her. It looked like he intended to kiss the back of her hand.
But instead of offering her hand, Anna looked down at the knight with an impassive gaze.
“State the purpose of your visit, Sir Elliot.”
Looking abashed, the knight rose to his feet.
“It seems my lady is quite angry. I came personally to aid my brethren in their hardship, and to be greeted with such coldness grieves me.”
Only then did I feel like I understood how the story was turning.
—That’s one of the British representative incarnations.
True to form, Kim Dokja popped up right when he had something to say.
‘Who is he?’
—That one? Elliot Haston.
‘So who is that supposed to be.’
—Ever heard of the Knights of the Round Table?
Startled, I looked again over the man’s attire. On the surcoat I’d thought was knight cosplay, a crest I’d seen somewhere before was depicted.
[Constellation, ‘Knight of the Lake,’ thinks proudly of his incarnation.]
Knight of the Lake.
Then I knew whose incarnation the man was.
‘Don’t tell me he’s the incarnation of “Lancelot.”’
—Right.
One of King Arthur’s knights, Lancelot.
A constellation famous even in Korea.
‘But wasn’t Lancelot originally French-born? He chose a British incarnation.’
—Oh, you know that?
Of course I do. I’m a writer, after all.
As far as I know, Lancelot was a fictional figure created when ‘Arthurian legend’ was reinterpreted in France.
—A French-origin constellation doesn’t have to choose a Frenchman as an incarnation. The Great Sage Equal to Heaven or Uriel aren’t Korean-origin constellations either.
‘Fair point.’
We checked Elliot’s state via [Character List].
[Chivalry], [Advanced Applied Swordsmanship], [Horsemanship], [Fortress Defense]……
The mastery of every skill was extremely high. His composite stats were also all at or above the Korean ‘king’ class.
—A fine horse, ‘Griffith.’ He managed to procure a rare-spec spirit beast.
Neigh— the horse snorted and blew warm breath at me.
An impressive powerhouse, thorough in both equipment and mount.
You’d think we’d welcome such a reinforcement coming to help, but Anna Croft didn’t look pleased.
“I requested support three times and you didn’t respond even once.”
“Haha, Prophet. Of course we wanted to help as well, but……”
From the looks of it, Britain had been refusing support requests all along.
It was understandable—no matter the country, support would be hard to give at this point.
But the problem was this.
Why, of all times, had Britain accepted the support request now.
If you thought simply, it could be that their domestic scenarios had freed up some bandwidth.
—No way.
Regardless of nation, the incarnations of a ruined world are all selfish.
Their motive is survival only, and naturally they avoid anything that would threaten their survival.
If they moved even so, it meant that this time there was a reason to accept that level of risk.
“Who is this gentleman?”
When Elliot’s eyes turned to me, Anna answered in my stead.
“This is Mr. Cheon Inho from Korea.”
“South or North?”
“South.”
“Hm.”
At Anna’s explanation, Elliot looked at me with a curious gaze.
A look as if appraising the breed of a horse. Then he let out a faint chuckle and turned his head.
‘Backer-nature, sir.’
—He looks like someone Yu Joonghyuk’s about to beat up soon.
‘Right?’
Still, backer and incarnation—at times like this, there are things that resonate.
One after another, more portals appeared from other directions.
“Is this Washington?”
“A more unimpressive city than I expected.”
Incarnations of different races.
It looked like not just Britain but other countries had also joined this scenario.
Among them were faces I knew.
“Ren unni. Did we make it to the right place?”
“Mm, the coordinates say this is it.”
‘Asuka Ren,’ the incarnation of Miyamoto Musashi, and her fellow incarnations.
They were incarnations who, in the ORV mainline ‘Peace Land,’ had cleared the scenario together with Kim Dokja.
Regrettably, in the 41st round’s ‘Peace Land,’ things had progressed while I was unconscious, and I hadn’t formed any ties with them.
From a portal in the rear, a large number of incarnations of Chinese origin appeared.
I looked at the Chinese man at their head and asked Kim Dokja,
‘Is that Feihu?’
—No, looks like Feihu didn’t come.
Feihu was the representative incarnation of <Emperor>, the Chinese nebula.
Perhaps busy participating in their home scenarios, his face was nowhere to be seen.
—Even so, it’s rare to gather this many this early. Quite a sight.
Though famous incarnations like China’s Feihu or India’s Ranbir Khan weren’t present, the spectacle of incarnations from nations across the world gathered together was impressive in its own right.
“Mr. Ren. You’re here.”
“Prophet.”
Whether they were already acquainted or not, Asuka Ren and Anna exchanged friendly greetings.
“And this gentleman is……?”
“Mr. Cheon Inho. He’s come from Korea to help us.”
“Korea! Are you with the Conqueror’s group?”
Asuka Ren bowed to me, looking pleased.
“I am Asuka Ren.”
“Cheon Inho.”
“Delighted to meet you, Mr. Cheon Inho. In the last scenario, we received a lot of help from the Korean Apostles. Is Mr. Killer King doing well?”
Of all the many Apostles—Killer King?
I was about to ask what on earth Killer King had done there when a gravelly voice rang from the back.
“Prophet! Where is the ‘demon of Washington’ you spoke of?”
An incarnation whose looks made it hard to guess his country.
At the same time, the murmuring around us all died at once.
That made it certain.
They had all come to defeat the ‘ruler of the Washington Dome.’
“The demon has already been captured.”
At Anna Croft’s answer, the incarnations stirred as one.
“That can’t be. We came here after receiving a scenario.”
A scenario?
“A sub-scenario descended, to slay Washington’s calamity.”
Something about that felt ominously off.
Not the main scenario, but they received a ‘sub-scenario’?
“The calamity has already been extinguished. We also just received the message.”
Even with Anna Croft’s explanation, the incarnations didn’t seem to calm down.
“That can’t be. The scenario is displayed plain as day.”
“Don’t tell me America means to hog the rewards?”
“There’s no time, stop spouting nonsense and show us the way! Where is the demon!”
“We came all this way to help—do Americans not know gratitude?”
What on earth was going on.
Anna Croft and I looked at each other, both at a loss, when I saw Christina, who had gone scouting nearby, come running back in a panic.
“Anna. Something’s wrong. The invasion zone still hasn’t been lifted.”
When a ‘calamity’ hunt ends, the planetary invasion terminates automatically.
But Washington was still gray.
Ground deeply corrupted by the ‘Roots of Darkness’ spread everywhere.
[The ‘seventh scenario’ is currently in progress.]
A scenario that still wouldn’t end.
At that moment, from the direction of the capitol ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) far off, ink-black light surged up.
“That is—”
Without anyone telling them to, the incarnations all dashed that way at once.
Elliot’s horse neighed and pranced; the Chinese incarnations used lightfootwork. Asuka Ren was already skating far ahead on a board.
Anna and I exchanged a look and followed after them.
How long did we run like that.
We soon arrived at the capitol in question.
At the top of the capitol, stained with hazy smoke, someone was sitting.
Elliot muttered,
“So that is the ‘demon of Washington.’”
What was there was not a human shape.
A beast evoking a jet-black wolf.
A baleful aura emanated from the black fur bristling over its entire body.
As its golden eyes slowly swept the surroundings, several incarnations screamed.
A suffocating pressure, as if you’d choke just by meeting its gaze.
“Th-that demon—”
“All units, ready for battle!”
“We’ll be the ones to hunt the demon!”
While everyone, paralyzed by fear, drew their armaments and gripped them tight, I stared blankly at the monster.
For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
‘Backer-nature, sir.’
Because—
—Damn it, I think that’s right.
No matter how I looked at it, to my eyes—
‘Right?’
—that ‘black beast’ looked like Yu Joonghyuk.
[A new scenario has arrived!]