Chapter 101

Though he had roughly checked the contents, Yuseong, who had only done quests with clear enemies to defeat until now, never imagined there would actually be quests with classic disaster movie situations like this.

‘[Unidentified Organism. Highly Hostile to Humans] was somewhat similar to the current situation, but strictly speaking that was a creature feature… Anyway, the genre isn’t what’s important right now.’

A typical disaster movie situation.

In that case, there was no need to overthink it – he just needed to follow appropriate escape methods that appeared in disaster movies.

“Does anyone have any long rope or string?”

“Rope?”

“We need it to cross to the other side! If there’s none, we need to find something similar!”

When Yuseong’s shout rang out, everyone from the uniformed police officers to well-dressed passengers began moving about noisily.

Yuseong’s identity or attire didn’t matter.

What mattered was whether they had a way to escape this situation or not.

Yuseong found the lightest and sturdiest-looking rope among what the passengers provided and tied it firmly to the end of the knife he had grabbed earlier.

‘You’re good at throwing knives and such, right? Could you hit that table over there with a knife from here?’

-I may not look it, but I’m the Empire’s finest acrobat. I could hit that blindfolded.

Though Shapiro’s words couldn’t be trusted, the B-rank Throwing skill listed in the status window could be.

Yuseong swung his arm forward with his full strength after pulling the knife back behind his head.

Thunk!

The knife that flew like an arrow stuck into the table.

After testing the rope with a few tugs to confirm the knife wouldn’t come loose, Yuseong tied the other end to a nearby pillar.

“I see! We can cross by holding onto this…”

“It’s not enough yet. That could easily come loose under a person’s weight and the rope is thin enough it might break. It’s dangerous, but someone needs to cross first using this rope and tie a sturdier one from the other side before everyone else crosses.”

“Who would do that?”

“Of course, I’ll…”

“I’ll do it!”

The person who raised their hand was the girl they had rescued first from the prison.

Everyone wore reluctant expressions.

When considering efficiency alone, having the seemingly lightest person among them take on the role was correct, but letting a girl who looked no older than a student take the lead while leaving healthy adult men behind weighed on their consciences.

Of course, this didn’t apply to Yuseong.

“Good. Take this rope and cross to the other side to tie it to the table leg. Wait there without coming back since we need to make the next path right away.”

“Eh, ehh?”

“What, can’t do it? We don’t have time, so decide quickly.”

“No, it’s not that I can’t do it…”

The girl who hadn’t expected him to give permission without even a moment’s hesitation couldn’t help but be a bit taken aback.

After stammering for a moment, the girl seemed to steel her resolve and spoke in a firm voice while looking straight at Yuseong.

“I’ll do it. But if we survive this, could you think positively about the proposal I made last time?”

“Of course.”

-How dare you decide things without my permission!

‘What exactly did she say to get such an intense reaction?’

-W-why are you asking that? Anyway, hurry and say no. I can do something like this perfectly well too.

‘…’

Seeing the girl’s reddened face and the strange emotion in Shapiro’s tone, Yuseong let out a small sigh.

They were already busy enough just trying to escape – it gave him a headache having to listen to other people’s useless romance problems.

“Alright! You can cross now!”

At the signal, Yuseong crossed over to the table using the new rope the girl had tied.

After that it was just repetition of the same process.

Yuseong throws a knife to hit the table on the other side, and the girl crosses over to tie a proper rope.

If the ship had tilted completely sideways, even with ropes very few people would have been able to cross, but since the ship was only tilted about halfway, people could pass through the dining room precariously while relying on the ropes.

Most people either gave thanks to Yuseong as soon as they reached the other side or immediately headed up to the next location without looking back.

But some people’s reactions were different.

“…”

“Is there something on my face? I don’t understand why you’re looking at me like that.”

Yuseong shrugged exaggeratedly toward the police officers who were staring at him with complex gazes.

He had been uncertain below, but after seeing him hit the table with thrown knives and cross the ropes, he seemed to finally get a sense of his identity.

“Or perhaps you know me or my friends?”

“…I thought you looked very similar to someone I know, but it seems I was mistaken. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”

The senior-looking officer bowed politely and headed upstairs with his subordinates.

It was the right choice.

If they had met in the same circumstances initially it might have been different.

Even with guns, at this close range where they would fall over if they tripped, a fight could result in casualties on the police side too, and trying to peacefully persuade with words instead of fighting would only make the atmosphere hostile without any benefit.

The officer had noticed their identity but pretended not to, and Yuseong noticed the officer was pretending not to notice and decided to play along.

“Let’s head up too.”

Even at this moment, the water was rapidly rising.

* * *

The situation was getting worse as time passed.

While flooding and explosions were problems, the most serious issue was the increasingly severe tilt.

While corridors could still be traversed even when tilted, stairs were already becoming impossible to climb, and large spaces like the grand hall used for parties had turned into unclimbable cliffs.

However, people’s eyes were filled with hope instead of despair.

That was because there was someone who would produce solutions without hesitation no matter what difficult situation arose.

“This is the shortest route to the deck, what do you mean we should go back? Going another way will take at least 10 more minutes!”

“We can’t go this way. If you’re curious why, try dropping some water on the handle.”

Hiss!

“What is this?”

“Beyond here has turned into a sea of fire. If we open it, smoke will instantly spread everywhere, and if we let in a large amount of air by opening the door, the fire could intensify and spread to other areas. Do you still want to go this way?”

“Ah, no. More importantly, how did you know such things?”

“Well, because of Hollywood… I mean, because I’ve always been interested in various things.”

“We can’t go this way either! The water is electrified!”

“We can go through the pipes. My friends and I will go first and make footholds, so follow safely after us.”

He notices dangers before they even arise and manages to pass through any treacherous terrain with ease.

Even those who initially didn’t trust Yuseong had to quietly close their mouths after seeing him and his companions repeatedly succeed and create new paths through seemingly impossible feats combining various skills with fantastical movements.

While most people seemed to have already accepted escape as a foregone conclusion given the relaxed atmosphere among them, Yuseong’s mood was exactly the opposite.

‘Too many.’

Unconsciously looking back, Yuseong bit his lip slightly at the sight of the teeming crowd.

Perhaps because it was a sudden accident in the middle of the night?

Like the people in the dining area, there were quite a few people throughout the ship who were stranded, unable to find ways to climb higher.

At first he was purely happy at the thought of earning more karma points, but seeing the steadily increasing numbers of people joining them made him realize something was going wrong.

‘Roughly 200 people? No, we just rescued more so now it’s about 230?’

It was too many, far too many.

While having more people would certainly increase the rewards, that was only possible if he could definitely save everyone.

Right now this ship was actively sinking.

A few dozen people might be manageable, but with hundreds it takes forever just to move through one area.

Yet at this point he couldn’t just announce he was escaping alone, so he had no choice but to grudgingly continue leading people along.

Even if they somehow made it up to the deck, problems remained.

‘While the ship is much bigger than expected, there’s no way they prepared enough lifeboats for everyone to escape. Plus, if the ship was sinking straight down that would be one thing, but since it’s tilting sideways as it sinks, even launching the lifeboats won’t be easy. Is this really D+ rank? Why is it so difficult?’

Though he kept grumbling internally, in truth Yuseong knew this was all self-inflicted.

The difficulty had increased because he got greedy for additional rewards and tried to save everyone he saw – if he had focused only on the base reward and Shapiro’s escape alone, he would have already completed the quest and returned to Earth.

BANG!

“Ugh! Again?”

This was already the fourth explosion.

It didn’t make sense for these to be engine explosions given how they kept occurring at regular intervals, and it made no sense as someone’s terrorist act either – if they wanted to sink the ship right away they could just detonate all the bombs at once rather than setting them off sequentially and giving people time to escape.

The only certain thing was that after each explosion, the ship’s sinking speed increased slightly.

Yuseong urged people on and picked up the pace, and before long they were able to reach the only exit leading to the deck.

And then he froze in place.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Shit! Copson! Copson’s been hit!”

“Don’t just stand there watching, throw something! We need more firepower!”

“Go out there? You’re joking, right?”

“…It’s one mountain after another.”

A gun battle was taking place between both sides of the exit leading to the deck.

Though he had a rough idea of what was happening, he still needed to confirm directly.

Yuseong approached a police officer who kept pulling the trigger with a red face and tapped his shoulder.

“W-what?”

“We’re people who came up from below. What exactly is going on here?”

The officer who had been staring at the suddenly appeared people with surprised eyes ground his teeth as he answered Yuseong’s question.

“Can’t you see? Those noble aristocrats are shooting at us to stop us from coming out because there aren’t enough lifeboats for them!”

“…Haah.”

Just as he feared, or rather, this was even worse than feared.

While he had expected some conflict over the lifeboats, he never imagined people would split into two sides and start shooting at each other in what seemed like a fairly civilized world.

-Damn those nobles! Nobles! I should have defected to the Republic long ago and abandoned this cursed country!

‘Framed for ideological crimes and collusion with the Republic, they said. Was it really just a frame-up?’

After teasing Shapiro to relieve tension, Yuseong collected himself and pondered solutions to break through this situation.

‘There are a few methods I can think of, but without using Thousand Hands they’re all uncertain approaches. Should I just start over from the beginning? No, it would be a waste after coming this far, I should try something. Going out there would be basically suicide so we need to make a new exit, but…’

“Shapiro! There! The Director is there!”

“Haah, right now the Director is less important than getting out of here…”

Yuseong’s eyes narrowed.

Where the girl was pointing, there was a middle-aged man presumed to be the Director.

But what caught Yuseong’s interest wasn’t the supposed Director but rather a man shooting toward the exit next to him.

The pistol’s form, the grip on the gun, the shooting stance. Everything down to the atmosphere somehow felt very familiar.

‘They mentioned a Republic earlier, right? What’s that Republic’s name?’

-It’s the Brant Republic.

“…Ah, the Brant Republic?”

A very familiar name.

A helpless smile spread across Yuseong’s face.