Demonic Idea

Once vertically, and once horizontally.

Two flashes and a tilting world were the last things he saw in his life.

“Ptui!”

Was it because his internal organs were damaged from the explosion’s impact?

Yuseong spat out the blood rising in his throat and put a potion from subspace in his mouth.

Though he wanted to collapse and rest right away, two physics still remained.

Yuseong forced his creaking body to move.

“K-Kain?”

“Stay alert! Here he comes!”

Seeing the two people in combat stance, Yuseong bit his lip.

The difference in combat power between physics and himself was clear.

He was only able to take down three physics thanks to the element of surprise and exploiting psychological weaknesses.

In a direct fight, he would struggle to handle even one physics.

Let alone now having to face not one but two.

Though the situation was incredibly disadvantageous, he couldn’t retreat.

‘They haven’t recovered from the shock of losing their comrades yet. This is the only chance to catch the physics.’

No time to catch his breath.

Attack, attack, nothing but attack.

Yuseong charged while holding his axe down, and responding in kind, the green-haired man also charged with green energy currents wrapped around his entire body while holding a sword.

Yuseong ignored the man and glanced at the blue-haired woman emitting cold energy from behind.

Though he couldn’t tell what technique she was trying to use, just looking at the amount of energy, it easily exceeded what he could handle.

Just broadly radiating that cold energy in all directions would be enough to freeze his body solid.

‘Settle it in an instant.’

Yuseong raised his axe above his head.

The man took a defensive stance with his sword at the unmistakable downward slash posture, but that was a fatal mistake.

What Yuseong was trying to do wasn’t a downward slash, and he wasn’t even aiming for the man in the first place.

Yuseong threw the axe with full force toward the woman.

The blue-haired woman who had been focusing on gathering cold energy belatedly noticed the axe flying toward her and raised both hands in a panic with a pale face.

Crackle!

An ice shield appeared above the woman’s palms.

Though it was an ice shield strong enough to easily block pistol bullets, unfortunately the opponent was too formidable.

The plasma axe’s heat could vaporize even bullets fired at supersonic speeds.

Moreover, what Yuseong was holding now was something that had been enhanced once through Sophia’s hands.

The ice shield that met the high-temperature plasma instantly vaporized into steam.

Crack!

The woman stared blankly at the axe embedded in her chest before collapsing with a thud.

“Throwing away your weapon, you fool!”

Certain of victory, the green-haired man charged at Yuseong with a cruel smile.

And Yuseong also charged back with a cruel smile.

“The fool is you. Why do you think I left you for last?”

“…What?”

The moment the man asked back sensing something wasn’t right, Yuseong’s form suddenly accelerated.

It was Flash Step performed with barely recovered magic power, but it was enough to steal the timing.

The startled man swung his sword wrapped in green energy currents, but Yuseong smoothly deflected the attack like a salmon swimming upstream.

The green-haired man’s physic power was overall physical ability enhancement.

However, he didn’t have martial arts skills matching his physical abilities.

Unless it was overwhelmingly powerful strength like Tyrant’s arms.

Simple brute force attacks thrown while drunk on moderate power could be easily deflected by a martial artist who had reached mastery.

Shadow Moon Style 16. Flow Deflection.

Shadow Moon Style 16. Dead Tree Twist.

Crack!

“Haah…”

Yuseong, who had skillfully gotten inside and unhesitatingly crushed the neck, collapsed to the floor and let out the breath he had been holding.

‘I got lucky.’

All five physics being gathered in one place.

Them looking down on and not being wary of him.

Them being taken down pathetically while panicking without being able to use their abilities.

If any one of those had been lacking, such a miracle wouldn’t have happened.

After finishing temporary treatment by drinking a potion and sprinkling it on his wounds, Yuseong got up from his brief rest.

“Now’s not the time to rest.”

The key to this quest was speed.

Having confirmed the physics were taken down, guards would be deployed soon, and if they delayed any longer there, two battalions of troops would be deployed.

If that happened, it would be over.

Though he might be able to somehow handle the guards, he couldn’t handle two battalions of heavily armed troops with this body no matter what skills he used or what items he took out.

He had to finish the quest as quickly as possible, at latest before the army was deployed.

Bang!

He moved while shooting bullets at noticeable CCTVs.

Though the facility was large and complex, he could easily reach his destination through information obtained from the researcher.

“The test subjects should definitely be here… Wait, wasn’t the quest objective to rescue a friend rather than test subjects? I thought test subjects were classified as friends since they were in the same situation, but are test subjects and friends separate?”

Muttering to himself, Yuseong opened the firmly closed door and was momentarily speechless at the sight before him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“P-please let me out! I’ll never speak of what happened here! So please…”

“Damn! You guys got the wrong person! Do you know who I am?”

Echoes coming from all directions.

Scanning the people trapped in small iron cages too small to properly lie down in and receiving treatment worse than livestock, Yuseong faintly frowned.

Skinny limbs and seemingly insane appearances.

He had vaguely guessed since checking K-17’s stats, but this facility wasn’t treating the test subjects as humans.

‘Well, they had no need to treat them well.’

Since they would just extract the brain matter anyway, as long as they didn’t die, health and sanity didn’t matter.

The problem was that in such a state, it would be difficult to escape the facility.

“This has no answer.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration or metaphor.

Literally there was no answer.

The original plan was to arm the test subjects with modern weapons to take down the guards and escape the facility.

But with the state of the people visible now, that was absolutely impossible.

Though they were somewhat better than K-17 who could barely support his body with all abilities at 1 point, that was only marginally better.

‘Can they shoot guns with those bodies? Feels like their collarbones would break from the recoil. Can they even hold guns in the first place?’

Yuseong bit his lip and looked around the huge room.

Just roughly counting the visible people exceeded a hundred.

Getting them all to escape was impossible.

But having just one or two escape was also problematic.

Though he wasn’t sure exactly who the friend mentioned in the quest referred to, it would be ridiculous if after all the trouble of getting them out of the facility, they didn’t satisfy the additional clear condition.

‘Can you hear me? Is your friend not among these?’

-…

Though he asked just in case, there was no response from K-17.

Clicking his tongue lightly, Yuseong knocked on the wall.

Silence fell instantly as everyone’s attention focused on Yuseong.

“Is there anyone here who’s friends with me?”

It was an absurd question even to himself.

However, no one mocked Yuseong.

“Hey, that guy is definitely…”

“Why is he there?”

K-17, who they thought was dead, appeared covered in blood from head to toe holding an unidentifiable weapon.

The people who quickly grasped the situation shouted without anyone going first.

“Me, me! I gave you food, you haven’t forgotten, right?”

“Don’t listen to him! It’s all lies! I’m your friend! So get me out of here!”

“Yes, you remember how well we got along before? Ha, hahaha!”

‘This method won’t work.’

After pondering briefly, Yuseong walked around the warehouse scanning the people.

At this point, all he could do was rescue as many people as possible and hope K-17’s friend was among them.

Of course, that didn’t mean he could rescue just anyone.

Among the people trapped in iron cages, there were those who had lost their sense of self and become idiots like K-17, and those who had gone insane and become madmen.

The former would just be a burden, but the latter might cause trouble.

Yuseong selected people who seemed relatively sane and released them from the iron cages.

“I’ll say this once. If you want to live, just do as I say. If you disobey my words…”

Swish.

Seeing the plasma axe easily cut through iron bars like cutting tofu, the people swallowed dryly and nodded.

‘This is crazy. What do I do now?’

Yuseong’s face was hardened as he left the room behind people clamoring to be released too.

Now that the initial plan of utilizing test subjects as combat force had fallen through, he needed to make a new plan, but that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

It was already a miracle that he had come up with one strategy while fighting life-and-death battles after falling into an unknown other world.

‘Should I just throw these people as bait and escape alone? Or should I just close my eyes and use items? If I utilize all the items I have, I could probably somehow escape with one person…’

Things were so bad he was even considering abandoning the method he had maintained until now and ending the quest with just fulfilling the basic clear conditions or a low clear rank.

“Hm? What, still alive?”

Arriving where the physics’ bodies had been, Yuseong’s eyes widened at the unexpected sight.

The green-haired man’s body had disappeared.

“I definitely broke his neck. Does physical ability enhancement include life force and recovery ability?”

Yuseong muttered in a calm voice.

Though he might have survived, a broken neck was by no means a light injury.

Evidence of that could be heard in strange sounds coming from not far away.

“Gruk, gruk…”

“There you are.”

When the man who was foaming at the mouth with green energy currents wrapped around his neck like bandages met Yuseong’s gaze, he started crawling in the opposite direction while shaking like an aspen tree.

That appearance was so desperate that even the cold-blooded Yuseong briefly felt pity.

‘Wait.’

At that moment, one idea occurred.

A terrible and cruel, truly demonic idea.

A living physics, CCTVs, skills, items, bait, traps, disguise.

As words popped up in his mind, the plan became increasingly concrete.

‘Though it’s a very gamble-like plan…’

There was no other way to satisfy the additional clear conditions.

No, there probably were other ways, but the chances of finding them in the limited time could be considered zero.

Yuseong spoke to the people staring blankly at him.

“From now on, listen carefully to what I say.”