Chapter 124. Seol Jihu (1/2)

By the time people found out about the incident, the Plaza of Sacrifice had already spat out six corpses.

The perpetrator and mastermind had to be the slick-haired man, as he and five others were nowhere to be seen. It was later found out that he had approached low-level participants offering to join hands. Clearly, he had subdued them and forced them into the pit before running away by using the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish.

The number of remaining participants diminished from 128 to 116.

However, the problem wasn’t with the number of people left. The aforementioned incident, in which the strong had sacrificed the weak, had enough influence on the participants to temporarily stop all talks of beating the Stage’s system.

After all, it was proven that another method existed to escape Stage 2.

The minority didn’t stay still either. They gathered together and remained on high alert, clearly refusing to become scapegoats.

When Seol Jihu saw the minority representative from the first conference walking around and uniting people, he felt relieved inwardly. Like the saying, ‘united we stand, divided we fall’, if the weak gathered their forces, the strong shouldn’t be able to touch them so easily.

However, that way of thinking was too naive.

Members of the majority faction and the minority faction were all human beings. No matter how careful they were, an opportunity could be made artificially.

Furthermore, not all strong were evil, and not all weak were kind.

It wasn’t until late that night that Seol Jihu came to realize this truth.

*

People made their camps as far away from the pit as possible. This was because the two plazas were only 10 meters away from each other. If someone managed to throw six people into the Plaza of Sacrifice, escaping through the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish was practically guaranteed. And there wasn’t a single person present who didn’t realize this.

Seol Jihu got to witness the second attempt by pure coincidence.

After remembering the white-headband girl, who gave him valuable advice during Stage 1, he went out to look for her in hopes that she could do the same.

Since he couldn’t see her among the majority, he walked towards the minority. It was then…. He suddenly felt a strange current in the air. To be precise, he smelled a sticky, unpleasant odor that seemed to drain the energy from his body.

Soon, he heard muffled groans coming out from the campsite of the minority faction. He had a hunch that an incident similar to that of the evening was unfolding.

Noticing that the surroundings were eerily quiet, Seol Jihu chose to run towards the pit rather than look around the campsite. Wishing in his heart that he wasn’t late, he ran at full speed.

Things were exactly as he expected.

Seol Jihu caught sight of six shadowy figures in the distance. One or two people standing in the front seemed to be throwing something into the pit.

Then, when he spotted a white headband amidst the darkness, he followed his instincts - activating the Festina Earring and throwing a Mana Spear.

“Uuup!”

“Hurry…! Fuck! Are you sure she inhaled the incense?”

“Uuuuup!”

“I, I am. She was next to the injured one….”

A man was busy trying to block the girl’s mouth; seemingly worried that noise would leak out and expose them. But in the next moment, he scowled harshly.

“Eii!”

Puk! The man punched the girl’s stomach with his giant fist and turned around when he sensed a murderous intent. Seeing a spear of mana flying toward him, he reflexively moved his head.

A sharp sensation brushed past his nose, and the terrifying gale that followed made his expression distort.

“Fuck! Hurry and throw her in!”

Seeing a shadow charging towards him at lightning speed, the man passed the girl over to his comrade and took a battle stance. Seeing a blue spear thrusting straight at him, he swung his blunt weapon in full force.

CLANG!

Along with the ringing of metallic sound, the man’s eyes widened. He was confident in his abilities and had fully intended to send the spear flying, but instead ended up almost letting go of his weapon.

When his eyes met the attacker’s sharp, gleaming eyes, his body froze automatically. He took a small breath to drive the fear away and clenched his teeth. But the figure refused to move, even after he put enough strength to bulge up the veins on his muscles.

‘H-How can such a skinny guy…!’

“Uuuuuk!”

‘H-He’s not a low-level Earthling.’

Seol Jihu also grasped the situation. Judging by the pressure he was feeling in his hands and the equipment the man was wearing, he guessed that the man was at least a Level 4.

‘The minority faction should have been on guard, so how?’

He couldn’t help but wonder how the man sneaked into their camp. However, he didn’t have time to be worrying about that at the moment.

“Help!”

“Fucking bitch! Just go in there already!”

“Ak! Aaaaak!”

The man requesting for help and the girl’s desperate, screaming voice mixed together to torment Seol Jihu’s ears.

Without hesitation, Seol Jihu utilized his full strength.

“U-Uhhh?”

After hastily rousing his mana and striking the man’s blunt weapon up, he swung his spear in an almost twisting maneuver and smashed the man’s head. As the man collapsed helplessly, he could see a girl chest-deep in the pit, hanging by the skin of her teeth using both of her arms. Next to her, he spotted another man furiously stomping on the girl’s hands.

Pang! Completely enraged, Seol Jihu activated the Festina Earring again. At the same time, the grass the girl was clutching onto was pulled out.

“Yes! I—”

Thwack! He kicked the rejoicing man away, and immediately, Seol Jihu’s jaw dropped open.

He saw the man’s face. He was wondering who was committing such heinous acts in the wake of night, and he turned out to the representative of the minority faction, who made an impassioned speech during the conference.

He couldn’t believe that the perpetrator was within the minority faction, and their leader to boot. However, that moment of disbelief only lasted a second.

Seol Jihu quickly bent down and reached his hand into the pit. He couldn’t tell whether he grabbed onto the girl’s hair or some other part, but thankfully, he was able to grab onto something meaty.

Worried that the door would close, he quickly pulled her up.

“Keeeeu!”

Suddenly, a massive, muscular arm shot up. The moment it grabbed onto the earth, a giant climbed up from the pit in a swimming fashion. He was carrying the white headband girl on his shoulder.

‘He is….’

In a fluster, Seol Jihu remembered that the giant was the man who last reached the mountaintop in Stage 1. It seemed he had been thrown into the pit unconscious but had woken up and climbed out.

He glanced at Seol Jihu before spitting out a rough breath.

“Those damned sons of bitches….” A hate-filled voice similar to a ghost’s cry flowed out. “They dare… to use… a sleeping incense…?”

His eyes were bloodshot, either from the drugs or from his rage. Regardless, he was viciously glaring at the collapsed man as if he was ready to tear him to shreds.

Then, he staggered a bit before carefully placing the girl down.

“KUAAAAAA!” He bellowed like a wounded beast. His roar resonated throughout the entire field.

That wasn’t the end of the trouble. For the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish to open, six people needed to enter the Plaza of Sacrifice. Since the pit came to lack two people, there was no way the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish would open.

Soon, people who noticed the uproar came out like a swarm of bees. The perpetrators behind the attack were left with nowhere to run.

Everyone who fell into the pit was rescued. The six perpetrators were then killed by the enraged crowd.

With no way to stop the killing, the number of participants fell to 110.

This second failed attempt ended up pouring oil onto a burning house. It was shocking enough that only a few hours had passed since the first successful attempt, but the fact that the perpetrator was the representative of the minority faction came as an even bigger shock.

Who would have imagined that the man who fought against the strong for the benefit of the weak would give in to such temptation?

Now, an almost irreparable crack formed among the minority.

*

Seol Jihu opened his closed eyes.

“It’s my fault….” The girl raised her head slightly and muttered in a quiet voice.

In Seol Jihu’s eyes, the girl was just a human being. Seeing her eyes moist with tears and her reddened cheeks, he felt sorry about relying on her one-sidedly.

“Oppa got hurt trying to save me….”

The giant and the girl were brother and sister. Although they looked nothing alike, Seol Jihu wasn’t so insensitive as to bring that up.

The man was already in a sorry state after Stage 1, but apparently, he had fought while protecting his younger sister during the battle against the Lioners and ended up worsening his injuries.

To recover, he had fallen asleep after taking a healing potion, and the perpetrators had apparently used this opportunity to spread the sleeping incense and bring them to the Plaza of Sacrifice.

“If it weren’t for me….” The girl sniveled, unable to continue talking. Seol Jihu placed his hand on the girl’s frail shoulder.

“No.”

In that instant, the girl flinched for some reason. Her head began to tremble.

“It’s not your fault, nor is it your brother’s.” When he continued calmly, her shaking began to subside. “It was just that those six were despicable criminals.”

The girl sniffled and asked as she looked up at him, “Oppa will be okay… right?”

“Of course.” Seol Jihu got on his knee and smiled gently. “I requested a High Ranker Priest to treat him, so he will recover in no time.”

Seemingly consoled by the youth’s kind words, she burst into tears and threw herself into his embrace. Seol Jihu gently patted the girl’s back and let out a small sigh.

Just what was the Banquet? He couldn’t understand why it was given a welcoming name like ‘banquet’ in the first place. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to call it ‘a living hell’?

Seol Jihu activated his Nine Eyes while consoling the sobbing girl. The two pits in the distance were still glistening in a golden light.

‘Why?’

He could understand why the Plaza of the Dissonant Wish would be gold. However, he just couldn’t wrap his head around the Plaza of Sacrifice being gold.

Why wasn’t such a dirty, dangerous place shining in the color of danger?

Did the Nine Eyes not judge it to be dangerous? Or… was there something encompassing this Stage 2 that went beyond any level of danger?

He couldn’t rule out the former, but he was strongly leaning toward the latter.

He had a feeling — that perhaps his Nine Eyes were overlooking the entire Banquet from the very beginning.