Chapter 41

The secret of Flash Step is simple.

Concentrate all your body’s power in the Yongcheon acupoint[note]TLN: Yongcheon acupoint (용천혈) – A specific acupoint located at the bottom of the foot, in the depression that appears when the foot is in plantar flexion (when toes are curled)[/note], then burst it to gain explosive speed.

In other words, this means it’s useless for anything except the instantaneous acceleration of rushing forward.

Whoosh!

The heavy air pressure on the back of his head and his flying hair.

Realizing they had caught up right behind him, Yuseong used Flash Step to create distance.

However, his face was deeply contorted knowing they would catch up again before long.

‘There are too many!’

If there were just two or three, or even four or five, he might have attempted to take them on using skills and weapons, but their numbers were in the dozens, maybe more. In the narrow corridor that would be packed with just three people walking side by side, stopping to try to take down a few would mean getting buried by their overwhelming numbers.

‘Left? Right?’

-Left!

All he could do was flee following Jerome’s guidance, running mindlessly while avoiding the debris scattered everywhere. Yuseong snapped back to attention when he heard urgent shouts.

“Run! Run faster!”

“Don’t you see those monsters? We need to close the door right now! They’re going to get in!”

“You, shut up!”

People gesturing with desperate expressions.

As Yuseong’s form shot out of the corridor like a cannonball using Flash Step with every last bit of strength he could muster, a thick gate descended from the ceiling and sealed the entrance.

“Haa, haa.”

“Were you a runner up there? It was like watching a national athlete run.”

“…Seems I found my calling late in life. If we make it out of here alive, I might consider quitting this line of work and switching careers.”

Yuseong got up taking the middle-aged man’s hand who made the lighthearted joke, and looked around.

A massive warehouse filled with huge containers and miscellaneous items, and people looking at him with various emotions in their eyes.

Thinking this was great, Yuseong had been grinning broadly but belatedly came to his senses and cleared his throat.

“Ahem, excuse me. I was just happy to see there were other survivors besides me.”

“Understandable. I’m Carmen from the base operations team.”

“I’m Jerome, a Titan driver. But more importantly, may I ask what exactly is going on here? Does the surface know about the current situation? Has a rescue team been dispatched? What are those monsters?”

Since it would be strange for someone who barely escaped being chased by monsters to appear too calm, he acted appropriately. Fortunately, as the topic was what it was, people quickly lost interest in Yuseong and started raising their voices.

“They must be test subjects! They definitely escaped from Origin Corp’s secret experiments!”

“What experiments at 9,000m under the sea? And with how many people are here, even if they deceived everyone and did something, how could there be so many of them?!”

“Then what the hell are they?!”

“…Could they be aliens?”

“How would aliens come from the deep sea rather than space?”

Yuseong smiled bitterly watching people argue while laying out their own theories. He had a rough idea about those monsters’ identity.

‘Deep Ones.’

A race from the Cthulhu Mythos.

True to their name Deep Ones, they were beings that lived in the deep sea with an appearance that seemed to mix fish, frogs, and humans.

Having been interested in various subcultures normally, Yuseong was almost certain they were Deep Ones after realizing the creatures’ appearance perfectly matched their description in the Cthulhu Mythos.

That’s why he despaired.

‘Damn, it’s funny saying this when fantasy worlds and martial arts worlds actually exist, but Cthulhu is real too? No, what era is this for Cthulhu? Characters that should only appear in games and manga, why are they showing up here? Are you kidding me? My sanity stat is in danger!’

Just realizing the existence of beings with a cosmic scale that could view Earth’s crises as child’s play made him feel a primal level of fear and despair he had never experienced before.

However, just before his mind broke, someone’s shout brought Yuseong back to reality.

“Everyone, attention!”

Carmen, who had calmed everyone with a single word, continued in a low voice.

“What’s important now isn’t the identity of those monsters, but how we escape from here.”

“We sent out a signal, so can’t we just hold out until the rescue team arrives?”

“It will take at least 48 hours for the rescue team to arrive. It didn’t even take an hour for those monsters to chase us here. Think we can hold out here for the next 47 hours?”

“Then is it possible to fight those monsters?!”

“If you think it’s impossible, you can stay here. I’d appreciate having bait.”

“What? You bastard, now you’re really…”

Bang!

Yuseong knocked on a nearby container to get everyone’s attention and looked at Carmen while speaking.

“Can we see the current state of the base?”

“Casey!”

As the blonde woman in the corner typed on her keyboard, what appeared to be the base’s blueprint appeared on the huge monitor hanging on one wall.

About a quarter of the area was colored in warning red and the range was expanding in real-time.

“22… excuse me, 23% of the area is flooded. The damage control function is still working so we’re barely holding on, but if the flooded area exceeds 60%, the base won’t be able to withstand the pressure and will completely collapse. At the current pace of flooding, we’ll reach that in about an hour.”

“Can you show the routes available from our current position to Section C-5?”

“Just a moment… Done.”

Several green lines appeared on the blueprint along with numbers that seemed to indicate travel times.

“There’s a supply submarine in Section C-5. We’ll escape to the surface with that.”

“Who doesn’t know that? C Section is on the opposite side from here! Those monsters are swarming even on the path to the adjacent section, and you’re saying we should go across the entire base? You think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know. But I do know one thing for certain.”

“What’s that?”

“The fact that if we stay here, we’ll definitely die either as food for those monsters or as crushed meat from the water pressure. Between a choice with even a very slim chance of survival and one with absolutely no chance, isn’t it obvious which one to pick unless you’re suicidal or too cowardly to face danger?”

Beep!

Along with a sharp beep sound, one of the lines on the monitor disappeared and the time increased.

“I don’t have time to waste arguing with you. Stay if you want to stay. I’ll escape alone if I have to.”

“Y-you bastard…”

Perhaps sensing Yuseong’s true feelings of ‘I don’t care what happens to you.’

The man with the unkempt beard ground his teeth and shouted.

“…Who said we’re not going? We should at least grab some tools to fight those monsters!”

“I’ll give you 3 minutes. Get ready.”

“Damn it! Wait!”

Everyone’s attention focused on the man opening nearby containers and searching through their contents.

And watching those people, Yuseong spoke in a low voice.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you all going?”

In an instant, the warehouse turned into chaos with people looking for weapons.

And Carmen, watching this from the side, had an impressed expression.

“You’ve got quite a talent for negotiation. It didn’t feel like bluffing at all.”

“Because it wasn’t.”

If there had been time, he would have coaxed and persuaded them with kind words, but time was of the essence now.

If he wasted time trying to bring even one more person along while being distracted by additional rewards, they might fail the quest and lose even the basic reward they were aiming for, leading to the worst outcome.

And after 3 minutes, a total of 35 survivors gathered.

Looking around at the people holding various weapons from simple iron pipes to what appeared to be work tools, Yuseong turned his gaze to the people gathered in the corner.

“No matter what you say, we’re not going. We’ll hold out here until the rescue team arrives.”

“Suit yourself.”

Yuseong, who substituted a farewell with a slight nod, assigned positions based on weapons. There were fierce protests from those assigned to the front, but Yuseong quieted their complaints with a single sentence.

“I’ll take the vanguard.”

Unless it was someone just giving orders from a safe place, no one could protest against someone taking the initiative in the most dangerous position.

Standing in front of the gate opposite to where he had entered, Yuseong took a deep breath and raised his hand.

“Casey.”

Clank!

The firmly closed gate rose, revealing a corridor in complete disarray.

The lights were flickering as if the electricity wasn’t working properly, and seawater was up to their ankles as if it was leaking in from somewhere.

However, there was no sign of Deep Ones anywhere.

“This place seems safe?”

“Kieeeeek!”

“Eek?!”

No sooner had someone spoken than a Deep One that had been clinging to the ceiling right above the gate dropped down with a screech.

Just as everyone was about to panic with screams at the otherworldly screech that seemed to shred their minds and the appearance that triggered instinctive fear, Yuseong at the front activated the plasma axe and took off the Deep One’s head.

Crack!

Everyone’s attention focused on the instantly deceased Deep One and Yuseong holding the unidentified weapon.

“What are you doing? Aren’t we going?”

People let out dry laughs at Yuseong’s completely composed expression as he went ahead, then followed behind him.

“What’s that weapon?”

“I don’t know either. Just picked it up because it looked useful after someone who died fighting the monsters dropped it.”

“It looks like a weapon using plasma, but it’s strange that such a weapon would be in a base like this. Was the company really conducting some kind of experiments here?”

“Maybe.”

Yuseong internally paid his respects to the company that had suddenly become an evil corporation.

Of course, since they hadn’t actually conducted human experiments, it would probably blow over, but it seemed they wouldn’t be able to avoid becoming the subject of rumors once the people here escaped.

“We can’t let our guard down since we don’t know where they’ll come from. Casey, please guide us while paying attention to the base’s condition. Even if we take down the monsters, we’re dead if the corridor floods and blocks our path or becomes submerged. We need to take safe routes even if it takes a bit longer.”

“…Understood.”

“Good. Then let’s go.”

‘Cthulhu? Cosmic horror? In this day and age… Come all you want. Today we’re shooting a Hollywood action movie.’