An Unexpected...

In the conference room located on the top floor of the Korean Contractors Association headquarters.

A place Yuseong had visited a few times regarding the Dragonia subjugation and Sophia’s matter.

Looking around the empty room, Yuseong turned his gaze to the massive monitor hanging on one wall.

-An unprecedented event has occurred. Today around 1 PM, a terrorist attack took place at Gwanghwamun Square. The perpetrators were all Contractors…

-They met online to plan the terrorism, and their motive was outrage at how those not chosen were safely watching from the sidelines while those chosen by great beings risked their lives fighting monsters…

-Fortunately, thanks to the quick response of hero Shooting Star Han Yuseong who was near the scene, damages were minimized. Hero Han Yuseong accurately subdued the terrorists in the chaotic situation to minimize casualties, and then intercepted a powerful energy being to save thousands of people…

-Citizens are anxious due to increasing crimes by Contractors. While discussions took place in the National Assembly about creating a new security maintenance unit composed of Contractors, citizens are demanding stronger measures…

Beep.

Kang Changseok, who pressed the mute button to turn off the sound, let out a small sigh.

When Kang Changseok showed no signs of speaking even after a long while, Yuseong spoke first.

“What exactly happened?”

“…Where should I start explaining.”

A short but critical question.

After stroking his chin with an expression like he was deliberating whether to explain, Kang Changseok seemed to organize his thoughts and opened his mouth.

“Crimes by Contractors have started increasing recently.”

“Wasn’t that always the case?”

Contractors.

Ordinary people who gained powerful abilities overnight without any effort or reason, simply because they were lucky.

It was inevitable that some people intoxicated by power would commit crimes.

While Contractor crimes hadn’t received much attention due to otherworld invaders called monsters threatening humanity’s survival as a species, they occurred everywhere at any time, and as monster-related dangers decreased over time, crime rates continued increasing.

“No, this is different. It’s not just the number of crimes increasing, but the quality has rapidly deteriorated. Just take this incident. Indiscriminate terrorism by multiple Contractors? In the middle of downtown? Do you think this could happen in Korea?”

Yuseong unconsciously shook his head.

Though he had been preoccupied with quests, he at least knew how the world worked.

Kang Changseok displayed various materials on the monitor and continued explaining.

“These are incidents from the past month. As you can see, they’re not cute levels like theft or robbery, but mostly things like terrorism and hate crimes by Contractors.”

“Someone’s behind this. A user?”

“…How did you know that?”

“Just looking at that energy being at the end makes it obvious. Only users could launch an attack of that scale.”

“Ah.”

Realizing how foolish his question was, Kang Changseok cleared his throat.

However, Yuseong’s next words genuinely surprised him.

“And there’s a commonality among the perpetrators. They had more energy than ordinary Contractors and the nature was identical… Since you said directly you wouldn’t raise Contractors’ levels, they must have strengthened through means other than contracts, and naturally only users could enable that. Am I wrong?”

“……”

Kang Changseok’s eyes trembled faintly.

He was casually stating facts that Kang Changseok had barely discovered using his privileges as a mediator after sensing something strange about the suddenly increasing Contractors and crime rates.

He said he’d returned from completing a quest less than a day ago, but Kang Changseok couldn’t even guess how he figured this out.

‘Moreover, that arrow that intercepted the final attack. In terms of pure power, it matched the maximum attack power I could produce. How is this possible? For a user of less than 1 year to grow this much already…’

As Kang Changseok continued his thoughts, he felt Yuseong’s steady gaze and opened his mouth.

“You’re right. Until recently the perpetrators were ordinary people without any abilities. Investigation revealed they received power from someone.”

“Which user orchestrated this?”

“Well, it’s not confirmed yet that a user is behind this.”

“What do you mean? There’s no way anyone besides users could do this.”

“They have the ability but no reason to do this. Why would they cause terrorism in Korea when they’re busy just taking care of themselves? Besides, they all have solid alibis.”

“Someone at the user level could easily fake alibis.”

“Well, when you put it that way, I have no counter… But at least in my opinion, there’s no one among the users who would do something this strange.”

A judgment based on experience and intuition rather than clear evidence.

However, since it was a judgment from someone who had observed users for a long time, it couldn’t be casually dismissed.

“Then who do you think is behind this?”

“One of two possibilities. Either a user, or monsters.”

Yuseong’s brow furrowed slightly.

Though it was irritating how Kang Changseok had switched from saying it couldn’t be a user to naming users as suspects, that paled compared to what followed.

“Monsters? How could monsters…”

Simple terrorism would be possible for monsters.

But turning ordinary people into ability users and instigating them to commit crimes to create social chaos wasn’t something stupid monsters could do.

About to deny Kang Changseok’s words, Yuseong trailed off as a thought occurred.

Not all monsters were stupid.

Even orcs, a common monster, had enough intelligence and reason to converse in language and make and use tools, and there were numerous other monsters suspected of having intellectual abilities like using magic or planning attacks on humans.

He had met such monsters himself.

‘Dragons and lizardmen.’

Though he wasn’t sure if classifying dragons as monsters was correct, dragons had built a civilization capable of creating massive cities that could travel between dimensions, and lizardmen showed intelligence and ambition in betraying the dragons and trying to conquer the world using Dragonia.

He recalled what the users had said when he first entered the community.

‘War between dimensions. Losers drifting through space seeking new sanctuary.’

He shouldn’t be misled by the word monster.

Among them might be beings with intelligence and reason equal to or greater than humans, not just simple beasts.

“…What kind of monster?”

“We don’t know yet. Just judging by how the captured perpetrators used holy power-type abilities, we suspect angel-type monsters.”

“Angels.”

“Don’t be fooled by the image. Not all angels are good. If anything, angels can become more evil than demons.”

“I’m just surprised that angels exist. Though I suppose if there are elves, dwarves, and dragons, of course there would be angels too. Then what about users?”

Veins popped up on Kang Changseok’s forehead.

“One…”

“One?”

After a long while of moving his lips, Kang Changseok reluctantly uttered a word.

It was a word in Yuseong’s memory.

“OneLifeOneShot.”

“……”

A cold smile appeared on Yuseong’s lips.

OneLifeOneShot.

The previous user who deceived him by claiming the goggles were VR equipment before disappearing.

Of course, if he hadn’t received the goggles then, he wouldn’t have survived until now, but that wasn’t reason enough to forgive OneLifeOneShot.

Him giving him the goggles wasn’t out of goodwill, and due to his lack of proper explanation, he had gone through an unimaginably horrific experience of 999 deaths.

“It might not necessarily be OneLifeOneShot. There’s no clear evidence, I just made the suspect list when we considered beings capable of doing this.”

Though he had transferred the goggles that symbolized users, that didn’t mean OneLifeOneShot became an ordinary person.

He just couldn’t cross dimensions anymore.

The skills and artifacts brought from other worlds, and his power, remained.

“But it could be him, right?”

“That’s true.”

“Okay. That’s enough. Where is that bastard now?”

“…Calm down. If OneLifeOneShot really is the culprit, it’s beyond what you can handle with your power. I’ll take care of it, so just stay put.”

“How strong is OneLifeOneShot?”

The materials Kang Changseok had sent in the past only contained information about current users, not about OneLifeOneShot who was a former user.

However, there were clues to roughly estimate his abilities.

‘If he had Three Strong level abilities, he wouldn’t have given up the goggles and gone into hiding. At best Three Intermediates, maybe even just Three Weak level.’

Yuseong’s guess was almost correct.

“Stronger than Three Weak but weaker than Three Intermediates. Probably somewhere between Three Weak and Three Intermediates.”

“Between Three Weak and Three Intermediates. I might not know exactly what level that is, but you do. Do you really think I can’t handle OneLifeOneShot?”

“Well…”

About to say of course not, Kang Changseok trailed off just as Yuseong had earlier.

If he had been asked this question a day ago, he could have answered without hesitation.

But after seeing the Gwanghwamun Square video, his thoughts changed.

‘If nothing else, the attack power is certain. Not sure if rapid fire is possible, but if he can launch even one such attack, he could be helpful even against OneLifeOneShot.’

Originally, Kang Changseok hadn’t planned to involve Yuseong in this matter.

Whether the mastermind was monsters or users, he thought it was beyond Yuseong’s level to handle.

‘I was planning to handle it secretly by borrowing other users’ power, but…’

After pondering briefly, Kang Changseok nodded and said.

“On the condition that you don’t take the front line, I’ll include you in the operation.”

“That was my intention anyway.”

Yuseong wasn’t foolish enough to decide to charge head-on at a user.

If he hadn’t obtained the long-range attack means of Elemental Bow, he wouldn’t have even made this request.

Letting out a relieved sigh at Yuseong’s definite answer, Kang Changseok soon spoke with a playful expression.

“Good. But before that, there’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.”

Yuseong didn’t ask who.

It was obvious who would be introduced in this situation.

‘Must be another user.’

His fourth meeting with a user after Kang Changseok, Kasim, and Sophia.

While wondering what kind of user would appear, Yuseong froze at the word that came from Kang Changseok’s mouth.

“MartialGod! You can come out!”