Chapter 24
Part 23
“So it drops here.”
Yugeon smiled at the crown.
Then he turned toward Seo Hwarin.
“Hwarin. This is yours.”
“Huh?”
This item would allow her to become the true Queen of Corpse Flowers.
Ding!
[The predicted time of the world's destruction has been delayed.]
[The Sanctuary witnesses a human victory for the first time.]
[The Sanctuary becomes displeased that the predetermined result has been disrupted.]
[The Outer Realm is baffled by the Sanctuary's displeasure.]
[The Sanctuary turns away, claiming this was not what it had predicted.]
[The Sanctuary and Outer Realm watch mortal Han Yugeon's next actions.]
Feat +1
[Breaking news. The Third Monster Wave, which began simultaneously from Towers across the world this morning, suddenly ended approximately forty minutes after it began.]
[Monsters that had entered major cities including New York, London, Paris, and Seoul all stopped moving at the same time. Many later attacked one another or scattered in different directions.]
[Associations around the world report that the remaining monsters' combat effectiveness dropped dramatically. Awakeners are currently focusing on eliminating the survivors.]
[The exact reason for this behavior remains unknown. Compared to the First and Second Waves, which each caused hundreds of thousands of casualties, damage during this Wave has remained extremely low.]
[Experts are describing the event as an 'unexplained phenomenon' and are withholding conclusions.]
[Next, we will show exclusive footage obtained by our reporting team in Mongolia.]
[Before showing the footage, we want to make clear that no editing, visual effects, or image manipulation were used.]
[The location shown is the Tower in Choibalsan, eastern Mongolia. The footage was recorded at 9:12 a.m., immediately before the Wave began.]
[As you can see, tens of thousands of monsters can be visually confirmed emerging from the Tower.]
[And this is the critical moment. The man in the center of the screen swings his sword once, and the entire monster group collapses. We will replay that in slow motion.]
[According to Association analysis, at least thirty thousand monsters were eliminated in that single attack.]
[The individual shown is Korean Awakener Han Yugeon, who warned our reporters during an interview yesterday that the Wave would occur today.]
[Han Yugeon also stated that he was the Awakener who defeated the Level 88 boss monster Baruoden on Sector 1, Floor 4 last month.]
[The Korean Awakener Association has not yet issued an official statement.]
BZZZZ.
“They're here!”
“Over here! Please look this way!”
Click! Click! Click!
FLASH! FLASH!
“?!”
“Ah! W-What's going on?!”
The glass doors of the airport arrivals exit opened.
The moment Mincheol and Hwarin stepped through...
Waiting reporters exploded into action.
Camera flashes went off continuously.
“W-What is all this?”
“I... don't know?”
Mincheol and Hwarin stared at the enormous crowd.
At first, they wondered whether the reporters had mistaken them for someone else.
But their own names could be heard everywhere.
They had slept through the entire flight.
Neither had even looked at their phones.
They had no idea that all of South Korea was currently in an uproar.
“They're waiting for us. Don't worry.”
Yugeon walked out behind them.
FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH!
It looked like fireworks.
The moment Yugeon appeared...
The reporters and crowd became even louder.
Camera flashes went off so intensely that it became difficult to keep his eyes open.
As expected.
Yugeon calmly looked across the crowd.
He had known the reporter and cameraman were filming from the building during the battle.
I could've stopped them if I wanted.
He could have knocked them unconscious.
Or used Hwarin's Undead to block their view.
But he deliberately allowed it.
And hiding forever would've been impossible anyway.
Now that he had revealed himself...
The flies would gather.
Flies that eat away at the world.
Yugeon's eyes scanned through the crowd.
He recognized several faces.
The Awakener Association.
Major guilds.
Massive corporations.
They had probably come to recruit him, Mincheol, and Hwarin.
And farther behind them...
Found you.
Someone Yugeon had been waiting for was hidden within the crowd.
The person held a banner and loudly shouted Yugeon's name like a fan.
You can't fool my eyes.
Then...
A man in a suit pushed through the flashes and approached.
“Hello, Awakener Han Yugeon. My name is Kim Seunggil. I'm a department manager with the Awakener Association.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Kim Seunggil handed him a business card.
Yugeon greeted him calmly.
Yugeon had wondered how someone managed to get through the major guilds and corporations...
But it made sense if he was with the Association.
The Awakener Association.
An organization connected to the government rather than a guild.
Strictly speaking, it was not a government organization in the same way as the military or intelligence agencies.
Still...
Its role in managing Awakeners meant it worked closely with the state.
