Chapter 76

A few flowers in a glass bottle.

Thinking they might be ingredients with special effects, he appraised them, but the description was disappointingly ordinary.

“They’re just normal flowers? Why hide these?”

-Because they’re normal flowers!

“That’s what I mean, why would normal flowers…”

-Unpolluted! Normal flowers!

Seemingly quite frustrated, Kuzan burst out and spoke like a machine gun.

-100 years ago, when the pollution spread, everything died off. So all the nations and races on the continent built massive underground cities that could block the pollution and took refuge in them. Right here, in the Last City.

“…”

-But it was too late. While we could prevent additional pollution, every living being was already polluted. Get it? Plants, insects, animals, humans, other races – everything was polluted!

Listening to Kuzan’s explanation, Yuseong approached the window and looked down.

“This is…”

The world seen through Eye of Truth was horrifying, like a nightmare made reality.

The color of magic power was murky like sewage, and its flow was unstable as if it might backflow or burst at any moment.

Even internal energy couldn’t escape from it.

The internal energy that had been so pure when he first took the Blue Wood Pill had transformed into an unstable force just from a bit of circulation.

Only one thing remained unpolluted.

The flowers in the glass bottle.

-The pollution passes not only to the affected but also to their descendants. Even after several generations since the calamity, not a single being in the city had escaped pollution. That is, until these flowers appeared.

“So these flowers are evidence that there’s an unpolluted area somewhere, and this map shows the way there?”

-Now you’re catching on. This was exhausting.

Creeak!

As soon as he heard the door opening, Yuseong hurriedly tucked the two items into his clothes and got up.

The number and strength of enemies.

Fighting was not a good choice in a situation where everything was unknown.

Crash!

“He’s inside!”

“Enter!”

Breaking the window, Yuseong leaped outside, ignoring the sounds behind him.

-What are you doing?

‘Trying to survive.’

His body, which should have fallen downward with gravity, flew in an arc toward the opposite building.

This was thanks to hooking thorny vines to the railing of the opposite building just as he jumped.

Just before colliding with the building, Yuseong kicked off the wall to offset the impact and used protruding bricks and decorations as footholds to launch himself into the alley.

‘Given the city’s structure, if I can just get out of their sight briefly, I should be able to easily escape pursuit. First, I need to get away from here and…’

Whoosh!

Hearing the massive sound from behind, Yuseong instinctively turned his head and let out a scream.

“Boosters?!”

Hook-nosed witches on broomsticks spewing blue flames like jet engines from behind, flying at terrifying speeds while aiming their wands and launching various spells.

Frozen at the unexpected sight, Yuseong belatedly came to his senses and pulled out the gun he’d taken from the knight.

Bang!

Despite firing in mid-air without proper aim, the bullet corrected by the shooting skill precisely pierced through a witch.

While they might have dismissed the first as luck, after seeing their companions repeatedly turn into bloody masses on the ground, the witches turned pale and began evasive maneuvers.

‘Now!’

When changing direction, speed inevitably decreases.

Yuseong hooked his thorny vine onto the broomstick of a particularly slow witch and pulled with all his might.

“Kyaaah!”

Glancing at the witch falling down after losing balance, Yuseong climbed onto the abandoned broomstick and kept pulling the trigger.

Standing on two feet on a broomstick that was difficult to control even when sitting and firmly gripping with both arms, while firing a gun with heavy recoil was practically suicide.

Of course, Yuseong was an exception, having firmly secured his feet to the broomstick with Thorny Vine.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With each gunshot came following screams and falling broomsticks that had lost their owners.

Finally, when their numbers had been reduced to about a third of the original, the witches seemed to lose their fighting spirit and turned tail to flee.

“Phew.”

Exhaling his held breath and lowering his gun, Yuseong jumped to a nearby rooftop once the witches were out of sight.

“Witches riding broomsticks with boosters. This really is an astral world.”

It was truly a world fitting of the quest name [Twisted World].

Coming down to the street, Yuseong carefully walked the streets after entering a nearby shop to change into new clothes.

“…”

After hearing Kuzan’s explanation, he could see things that weren’t visible before.

First, the sky.

What he thought was the night sky was actually a massive dome-shaped structure, and what he believed were the moon and stars were merely numerous light sources embedded in the ceiling.

The same went for the people’s appearances.

At first glance, he had simply admired the stylish prosthetic arms and legs, various racial features, and the flashy, bustling street scenes, but thinking about it differently, it meant there were so many people who needed prosthetics due to disabilities.

Wheeee!

Yuseong’s eyes narrowed at the appearance of something similar to a car that spewed high-pressure steam as it ran down the street.

‘The elves’ secret weapons?’

That could be possible.

The world is infinite and so are its possibilities, so there might have been elves who developed and used ancient weapons similar in form and function to Earth’s modern weapons.

But instinctively, he could sense this world wasn’t such a case.

‘Users must have been involved. They brought in modern weapons en masse to clear the quest. Judging by the descriptions, rifles, tanks, aircraft, biochemical weapons, and finally the weapons that spread light, fire, and poison, and considering the pollution…’

It must have been nuclear weapons without a doubt.

Yuseong, who knew how much negative impact using items from higher civilizations had on clear rank in a low Civilization Grade world, could only make a sick expression.

“To challenge the entire world, they must have needed an enormous amount of weapons, but was the reward that great? No, even if the reward was tempting, at that level it goes beyond just being unprofitable to horrible losses plus penalties?”

He couldn’t understand what they were thinking to do something like this.

However, he could deduce several facts.

‘If the user who caused this in this world was indeed from Earth, they must have close ties with a major power.’

Users aren’t beings who create something from nothing.

They merely move things from one world to another.

Even Kang Changseok with his endless money couldn’t supply enough weapons to start and sustain a massive war in this world.

Even if he had the money to buy weapons, an individual couldn’t purchase that many weapons.

Adding nuclear weapons to the equation led to another deduction.

‘While many countries have nuclear weapons, if we’re talking about being able to secretly support dozens of nukes, it must be either the US or Russia? Considering the image, China could be added too.’

Unless all those weapons were obtained as quest rewards and invested in this world, the culprit was likely a user from one of these three countries.

Of course, he had no intention of finding that user and doing anything about it.

Yuseong wasn’t righteous enough to challenge another user when there wasn’t even a separate reward.

He was just curious about what kind of person would do such an insane thing.

‘When I return to Earth, I should carefully go through the materials Kang Changseok sent.’

After finishing his thoughts, Yuseong let out a long sigh.

Given that he hadn’t noticed any suspicious people or pursuing gazes despite wandering the streets for quite some time, it seemed safe to assume he’d shaken off the pursuit for now.

“Let’s eat something first.”

Having thrown up everything in his stomach and then fighting frantically, he felt completely drained.

While chewing and swallowing a green skewer with a savory smell from a nearby street vendor, Yuseong suddenly became curious and spoke to Kuzan.

‘You said this city is about 100 years old?’

-That’s right.

‘And they haven’t gone outside at all during that time?’

-Probably not?

‘Then how haven’t they run out of food?’

Even if magic could somehow handle air and diseases, food was a different matter.

From what he’d seen of the streets so far, the population seemed considerable, so he was very curious where the food to feed all these people came from.

-Ah, that? We have farms. Though polluted, we grow wheat and vegetables. The underground mines also send quite a bit of mushrooms and bats.

‘Ugh. Everything else is fine but bats are a bit…’

-Don’t worry about things you won’t have a chance to eat. Lower-class citizens never even get to see luxurious ingredients like bats, wheat, vegetables, or mushrooms in their lifetime. We have different things to eat.

‘Then what do the lower-class citizens eat?’

A casually thrown question.

And Kuzan answered just as casually.

-Bugs.

The mouth that had been busily grinding the skewer stopped mid-motion.

A scene from the movie Snowpiercer flashed through Yuseong’s mind.

-There’s something called Black Bugs that eat anything and breed quickly. After the pollution, they got bigger and bred even faster, so people catch them, process them, and use them as food. That’s what you’re eating right now too. Look, one’s passing by on the right.

“…”

The moment he saw the bug the size of a human head that looked very similar to a cockroach, Yuseong fell backward.

* * *

A street with walls dirtied by all sorts of graffiti and trash scattered everywhere.

The Last City’s security had never been good except in the upper-class citizen areas, but this place was even worse.

The final destination for people unable to work due to congenital or acquired disabilities, children who lost or were abandoned by their parents, people running from crimes they committed, and social misfits who couldn’t adapt.

A young man appeared in this place where ordinary people never set foot.

Though the young man with all limbs intact and proper clothes seemed completely out of place in the sewer, no one picked a fight with him.

This was because his aura was far too vicious.

“…”

With a menacing expression that suggested he’d kill anyone who caught his eye.

Even after throwing up everything inside and rinsing his mouth several times, he couldn’t shake off his bad mood.

‘Nuclear apocalypse, radiation-polluted giant cockroaches, and food made from those cockroaches. It’s like they took the worst settings from those types of games and movies and mixed them together.’

If he couldn’t substitute food with the fasting pills obtained from [Youngest Disciple of the Jincheon Martial Arts Family], he might have seriously considered giving up the quest.

After dry heaving several times while walking the streets, Yuseong stopped at the sight of a shabby high-rise building.

‘Is this the place?’

-Yeah. But are you really going in? They must have sent people here too.

‘To catch a tiger, you must enter the tiger’s den.’

Creeak.

The moment he opened the door, terrible smoke and alcohol smell assaulted his eyes and nose.

People swaying like ghosts to the music, drugs in one hand and bottles in the other.

At first glance, it might seem like a den of drug addicts and alcoholics, but having heard Kuzan’s explanation beforehand, Yuseong wasn’t fooled by appearances.

‘The Last City’s only information guild. Commonly known as the Sewer.’