Chapter 355 (2/2)
Without a doubt at this stage, Su-hyeun wasn’t the only one summoned here.
[Exactly 50,000 individuals…Oh, two extras as well? Well, it doesn’t really matter.]
Buzz—
The ceiling seemed to vibrate.
Su-hyeun momentarily mistook that voice as one from the system, but he was wrong. It belonged to someone else.
“Who is it?”
For some reason, he wasn’t getting a good vibe from that voice.
There never had been a case where a voice similar to the system’s had entered his hearing like this, after all.
[You all must be curious about how you got here. Unfortunately, there’s only one thing I can say to you. I’m the one who brought all of you here, and you are going to do whatever I tell you to.]
“What?”
“What kind of bullsh*t are you saying?”
“Where the hell are you?! Why don’t you say it to my face first?!”
Unsurprisingly, the gathered people raised their voices of opposition.
The voice came from a faceless being. Not only that but this being also suddenly abducted them all and told them to do its bidding.
Those with very short fuses and violent temperament soon became red-faced and roared out at the top of their lungs.
However…
Crunch, cruuunch—
Shatter—
The heads of two people among all those shouting in anger were suddenly crushed without warning.
Heo-uhph…
“T—their heads…”
The interior of the open space became instantly silent.
Su-hyeun wordlessly observed this situation. He had been trying to find out where the voice was coming from, but tracking down its origin proved to be tougher than he thought.
[Stop shouting already. I’m the one talking here. Well, it’s true that I enjoy noisy commotions, but…But I’m not a fan of opposition. In any case, this is better. With that, we now have perfectly even 50,000 here.]
Gulp—
All of a sudden, that flat but flippant-sounding voice came across as rather intimidating. The gathered people swallowed back their dry saliva and began nodding without even realizing it.
The owner of the voice seemed to be looking down at this scene from somewhere because it soon continued.
[Nice, nice. Alright. The task you all need to do from now on is a simple one. Okay, raise your heads and take a look before you. What can you see?]
Su-hyeun looked to his front. It wasn’t simply because of the voice, though; no, it was more to do with a middle-aged man trembling in anxiety currently staring at him.
A few people here had already instinctively realized it.
They had a gut feeling that they knew what the next set of words would be like, and the middle-aged man in front of Su-hyeun just so happened to be one of those people with good instincts.
[Kill that person.]
“…!”
“K—kill, you say?”
“Without any reason…?”
Unsurprisingly, the people got deeply flustered.
It was already panic-inducing to be suddenly summoned to an unknown location but to be told to kill a person you had never met before…
Still, a few individuals among the crowd were already staring with a suspicious glint in their eyes. They seemed to be the sort who didn’t really feel any repulsion at the idea of murdering someone.
“This uncle is the same story.”
That middle-aged man was staring at Su-hyeun with a pair of sharply gleaming eyes.
Su-hyeun had a relatively smaller physique, so he must’ve thought that it would not be all that difficult to break the former’s neck. He didn’t seem all that averse to the idea either.
The problem he had right now was with figuring out how this situation had come about.
[You better decrease the number of people in this space by half in one hour. If the half of you aren’t dead by then, expect all of you to die instead.]
[Remaining time: 01:00:00]
A timer popped up in the heads of everyone present. It was a very similar ability to the system.
Su-hyeun continued to look around to discover the location of that voice, but even now, he couldn’t do it.
[Well now. Let’s get started.]
Tick—
The timer began counting down.
The inside of the open space remained deathly still. It was so quiet, in fact, that it was hard to believe these many people were currently inside it.
Tock—
Some were deeply frightened, while some were glaring sharply.
It seemed like no one wanted to make the first move, but that was understandable. It would be troublesome if you decided to make a move first, only to become a target of everyone else, after all.
Also, it didn’t really matter even if you didn’t kill the person before your eyes. All you had to do was to survive without killing anyone. The goal was to decrease the number of people in here by half in one hour, after all.
Even then…
“Are none of you willing to do anything?!”
Realistically speaking, no one making a move forever was an impossibility when 50,000 strangers had been gathered in a sealed-off space.
“We’re told to kill, right?! We’re told to decrease our number by half! So, are you just gonna stand there and do nothing like some bunch of losers?!”
The voice was filled with contempt. Even the energy contained in his voice seemed rather robust as well. It came from the middle-aged man in front of Su-hyeun.
“Fine, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Thud—
He took a step toward Su-hyeun, and that footstep contained considerable weight behind it.
The floor split apart with a cracking noise, and Su-hyeun’s gaze was directed toward the middle-aged man’s foot.
The latter took that as Su-hyeun trying to avoid meeting his gaze and began smiling faintly. He must have thought that Su-hyeun was scared of him.
“Hey, you. Is your sword a fancy decoration? A grown-ass man getting scared is—”
“So, you want to look strong, is that it?”
“What was that?”
Su-hyeun opened his mouth for the first time since he got here.
Unlike the middle-aged man’s voice that reverberated loudly, Su-hyeun’s voice sounded softer and lower. However, weirdly enough, everyone present could hear him crystal clear.
Su-hyeun raised his head and stared deep into the middle-aged man’s eyes. “You want to display how strong you are and, therefore, not be anyone’s target?”
“Hey, punk. What the hell are you even…?”
“Scared, you say?”
Gulp—
The middle-aged man involuntarily swallowed back his saliva.
It was the same story for the other people in the surroundings. They were all suppressed by Su-hyeun’s voice and the intense air he emitted, and they couldn’t even move a muscle.
Split—
It was at that very moment that the third eye opened up in Su-hyeun’s forehead.
[Third Eye—Predator]
“I have a feeling that you weren’t talking about me.”