Albakgi (2)
According to Park Sae-rom, the survivors were broadly divided into three groups: the Sports Complex Group, the Jungang-dong Group, and the Industrial District Group.
"We belong to the Sports Complex Group."
As the now-docile Park Sae-rom explained, Kim Geon asked a question.
"This looks like a supermarket. Why is the group called the Sports Complex Group?"
I had been wondering the same thing.
Park Sae-rom answered right away.
"This isn't our main base. Our main base is over by the Sports Complex, so that's why we're called the Sports Complex Group. There's a police station near there—that's where our headquarters is."
"A police station?"
"Yes. Technically, it's not just the police station—we consider the whole area around it as our base… But anyway, our group's leader is the police chief, so everyone just thinks of the police station as the headquarters."
That was surprising.
'I didn't expect there to be more than just the thousand people at the supermarket.'
It seemed the survivor groups remaining in Ulsan were much larger than I'd thought.
"We're part of the supply unit. Supply Team 3. That's why we're stationed here."
If they were Supply Team 3, that meant there were at least two other teams of similar size.
Assuming Teams 1 and 2 were about the same, the supply division alone numbered nearly 3,000 people.
'Then how big is the whole group?'
I turned to Kim Geon and said,
[Could you ask about the organizational structure and total population of the Sports Complex Group?]
Park Sae-rom tilted her head for a moment, then responded.
"There are three supply teams and three combat teams. The total population is… a little over ten thousand, I think."
"Are the other groups similar in size?"
"Our group is the largest, but I heard the other two aren't much smaller."
That meant there were nearly 30,000 survivors in this region alone.
"There are also quite a few smaller groups that don't belong to any of the big three. Most of them are civilians gathered around apartment complexes, and they number quite a bit as well."
There were far too many people still alive.
'How can there be so many?'
It was odd.
The number of civilians protected under my ability was around 50,000 at present.
And that included everyone in Seomyeon and those near Jagalchi Market.
But somehow, tens of thousands of survivors were living here without any special protection?
'And this area is crawling with vampires far stronger than goblins or orcs…'
The higher vampires in particular were powerful enough to leave anyone speechless.
Unless there was someone with power on par with mine protecting them, such a high survival rate should've been impossible.
The sheer number of awakened individuals was strange, too. Something felt off about this whole situation.
Park Sae-rom was still eagerly sharing what she knew.
"The Jungang-dong Group is stationed near the Taehwa River. They've been a huge help in keeping the vampires at bay. We send our own combat teams to cooperate with them and block the vampires from moving north. But the problem is…"
She frowned like she had a headache.
"It's the Industrial District Group. They openly loot and commit crimes. They're worse than the vampires. That's why I said humans are more dangerous—because of them."
A strange sense of discord hit me.
'…Why hasn't anyone mentioned other monsters?'
It wasn't goblins or orcs people feared—it was "humans"?
Something felt wrong, so I gave Kim Geon another prompt.
[Mr. Kim, could you ask her about goblins or orcs?]
Kim Geon dutifully carried out the request, and Park Sae-rom responded with a snort of laughter.
"Goblins? Orcs? Are you joking?"
She was dead serious.
And she wasn't the only one.
"Have you ever seen an orc?"
"No, not even a goblin."
"But he sounds dead serious, like they're real or something…"
The others clearly had no idea about goblins or orcs, either.
As Kim Geon looked increasingly confused, Park Sae-rom offered,
"S-Sometimes we do get these giant boar-like creatures that show up. Total monsters. But they're a good source of meat."
An awkward silence followed.
"Ahem, would you like to meet the leader of Supply Team 3? I can take you to him."
That was when it happened.
[An unauthorized entity is attempting to enter.]
'Hmm??'
[An individual meeting the criteria for citizenship has approached near your home.]
[Would you like to offer citizenship?]
Along with the system message, an image of a woman appeared in my mind.
'This woman…?'
It was the winged woman who had previously rejected the offer of citizenship.
The same high-ranking vampire Kim Geon had followed.
I had clearly seen her arrive in Ulsan with the Eye of the Absolute.
'When did she—?'
Once again, she had appeared near the Jagalchi Market—my home base.
The moment I tried to expand the Eye of the Absolute to share vision of that area—
"Khhh!"
A sudden surge of pain hit me.
[An unauthorized entity is attempting to enter!]
[An unauthorized entity is attempting to enter!]
[An unauthorized entity is attempting to enter!]
A flurry of alerts appeared in rapid succession.
The searing pain was like a red-hot iron boring into my body—but I endured it.
I had experienced far worse during my level-ups.
By now, he was used to this level of pain.
The Eye of the Absolute!
Because the pain was localized, he was able to pinpoint the location immediately.
Through the vision granted by the Eye of the Absolute, he saw the female vampire fluttering away with her wings, her back growing smaller in the distance.
And then—
"There's another one?"
He saw a man drifting through the air as if swimming through the sky.
"Who the hell is that?"
The system had only identified one target—just the female vampire.
But now that he looked closer, there was a man too.
Unlike the female vampire, he didn't have wings made of blood membranes, yet he floated effortlessly in midair.
And then—
"What is… that?"
Fwoosh!
A dark crimson energy blazed atop the transparent barrier.
It was exactly the spot where he had felt the pain.
And there—
"…a hole?"
There was a hole, like someone had stabbed through it with a blade.
It slowly healed over, and the dark crimson flames vanished completely, leaving nothing behind.
"What the…??"
Beyond the now-vanished hole, the man who had been drifting away was looking back—down—at him.
His eyes gleamed with greed.
[True Ancestor (Lv. 62)]
...
The man stared at the place for a moment, then turned and followed after the female vampire.
"A monster."
That made it clear.
"It's not that they failed to conquer Ulsan."
If that man had wanted to, he could've wiped out the entire city of Ulsan by himself.
"He left it alone on purpose."
He didn't know the exact reason, but it was clear the survivors had been intentionally spared.
"Should I just give up?"
The very idea of messing with a city where a monster like that lived filled him with unease.
He couldn't shake the fear that any move might provoke him.
"This is the first time."
The barrier had been pierced.
And what that meant… was far more serious than he'd expected.
"It means someone could force their way into the zone through the barrier."
A high-level monster entering the area without citizenship—
It was unbelievably dangerous.
He couldn't even be sure whether the system's protective force—the one that would instantly behead any hostile invader—would apply to that thing.
"If that guy actually steps in here…"
Would he survive?
Ten times out of ten—
"I'd die."
Chills ran down his spine.
The primal fear he'd forgotten, numbed by the comfortable safety of the protected zone, now began to rise again.
"He left for now…"
But there was no telling when he might return.
Ulsan and Busan were far too close.
And the fact that the monster had come here himself—it was troubling.
"I can't just sit back and do nothing."
Leaving things as they were would only lead to greater danger.
"That look in his eyes…"
It wasn't the look of someone giving up and walking away.
It was the look of a hyena lying in wait, biding his time for the right opportunity.
That thing would come back to Busan.
"If it's a confrontation that can't be avoided…"
Then he had to seize the initiative while he still had the chance.
"First, I need to cut down the number of vampires as much as possible."
He wasn't about to charge in recklessly without a plan.
There was a way to deal serious damage to the vampires.
"So I finally get to use this."
Forward base construction.
He planned to dig in and stake out a claim in Ulsan.
"There are two requirements to build a forward base."
First, he had to find land that met the conditions for construction.
Second, he needed at least three vassals with the title of [Knight] or higher.
"The manpower can be handled by sending Ha Dong-gun's party…"
But the land was another matter.
From experience, to unlock a location for forward base construction, he had to hunt down a boss-level monster occupying a specific area.
An orc chieftain in a subway station or an old building was a typical example.
But the problem was—
"There's not a single goblin or orc to be found there."
But there were plenty of vampires.
In the end, building a forward base meant they'd have to wedge their way into the vampire territory south of the Taehwa River.
"That's way too conspicuous."
If they did that, the odds of that vampire leader stepping in would skyrocket.
It was just a tiny crack in the barrier, but if the one who could pierce a transparent wall got involved, there was no telling what might happen.
"If possible, his involvement must be delayed as long as we can."
Taking everything into account, the Homeplus that Park Saerom had pointed out seemed to be an ideal spot for a forward base in more ways than one.
"It's a shame, but there's no choice…"
Just then, as a sudden jolt of pain reignited the Divine Gaze aimed at Kim Geon, Park Saerom was introducing someone.
"This is Shin Jeongmin. Pleased to meet you."
"Hey! Team 3 Leader, bow lower! Do you even know who this man is?!"
"Haha, Saerom's using honorifics? Well, he must be someone important then."
A short man gave a friendly smile and extended his hand to Kim Geon.
I gave a dry chuckle as I looked at him.
'Well, well.'
There was something off about this guy.
[Mid-Tier Vampire (Lv. 33)]
***
On the way back to Ulsan, Seo Nuri hadn't said a single word.
It was because of the man walking behind her—his expression had frozen into a mask of cold fury.
Whether she noticed or not, the man stared down at his hand, replaying what had just happened in his mind.
"What was that power…?"
At first, discovering a young World Tree had made him ecstatic.
With his current level, he believed he could burn it down—or, if luck was on his side, even corrupt it and devour part of its power.
But just as he approached the World Tree, a barrier infused with an unknown power blocked his path.
He had tried to break through with the blessing of the Great One, but failed.
"It wasn't the World Tree's power."
The barrier protecting the World Tree was clearly the authority of something else entirely.
He stared blankly at his hand.
His grotesquely scorched right hand twitched slightly as it slowly began to regenerate.
Considering his regenerative abilities, this scene was nearly unbelievable.
"Unreal."
All he had done was carve out a small hole.
And the price for that… was this.
"If I'd forced my way through, I wouldn't have made it out alive."
He recalled the massive scale of the barrier surrounding the World Tree, and the overwhelming presence of divine power saturating the space within it.
"I've never felt anything like it before."
It terrified him.
And yet, it filled him with awe.
"Could it be… a god has descended upon this world?"
The man gave a faint shudder.
"The full moon night is coming."
The full moon night—
On that blood-soaked night, the land would be transformed into sacred ground, blessed by the Great One.
"If that happens…"
The blessing would rapidly expand its domain, eventually consuming even that awe-inspiring power.
"It might actually be… an opportunity."
A twisted smile slowly crept across the man's face.
[T/L: Read extra chapters on my ko-fi page "Pokemon1920" : https://ko-fi.com/pokemon1920 ]