Hermes's Shoes
"Jinwoo oppa······."
Kim Seo-yeon is trying to stop things from behind with a flustered look, but even that is fake.
I knew that the "flustered" expression carved onto that face wasn't because a man stepped in.
It was fluster from the lie she herself had spat out.
Honestly, it was absurd.
We didn't even break up on good terms, and normally you treat an ex like a "stalker" while talking shit behind their back?
'You're really making even the last shred of affection fall off.'
Even the few good memories I had feel like they're rotting away. Looking back, I'd lived like a total idiot.
And the bastard who believed it wasn't normal either.
Birds of a feather. There's no such thing as a better match.
"Excuse me. I've been listening and listening, and what kind of bullshit are you spouting?"
That's when Kim Hana stepped in.
With fire in both eyes, she kicked back her chair and stood up.
The man, Jeong Jinwoo, snorted.
"And who are you? A paid girlfriend-for-hire or something?"
"What did you say?"
"How much did you get? Looking at your size, maybe 50? With a salary of 230 you must've overreached a bit? I'll pay double, so how about you learn when to butt in and when not to?"
He even said the specific number, 230.
Looks like Kim Seo-yeon has opened up everything about me. Not the good stuff, mostly the bad.
In an instant, five years of memories were thrown into a sewer.
"··· I'm the one who booked this place myself, and I'm treating because I received help, okay? Just because your mouth is open doesn't mean you can say anyth—······."
"Four times? Two hundred is enough, right?"
Jeong Jinwoo pulled out his wallet and shoved a stack of 50,000-won bills forward.
Kim Hana looked at him with a face of pure disgust, like she was staring at rotten sludge.
"What kind of trash like this even exists?"
"Trash?"
"Yeah, trash. Is money all you've got? You're not even a complete human. Where the hell did you eat your age to grow up this pathetic?"
"······ Is she crazy."
Jeong Jinwoo's face hardened as he raised his hand.
Most people would stop at the gesture, but Jeong Jinwoo didn't, he swung his arm for real.
Just as Kim Hana instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.
Thwack!
I caught Jeong Jinwoo by the wrist, and his brows twitched upward.
"Ha, look at you stepping in, acting like you're a man."
"Let's go outside and talk."
"No need to go anywhere. Kneel and apologize first—······ Hup?!"
Craaaack!
Jeong Jinwoo's eyes snapped wide mid-sentence.
A pain like his bones were about to shatter suddenly surged up his wrist.
'Wh, what? Why is this bastard so strong?'
This wasn't a normal person's grip.
Strong enough that you'd wonder how many people on Earth could have a grip like this.
But as far as Jeong Jinwoo knew, Park Hyun-myung was a guy who had nothing to do with exercise.
A pathetic life of work, home, dates, otherwise holed up gaming in his room. There was no way a guy like that had trained his grip professionally.
Then maybe?
'A Player?'
A Player synchronized using the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule?
No, that couldn't be. If you synchronized as a Player, you became a character inside Pangaenia. But the Park Hyun-myung in front of him was just Park Hyun-myung.
Then he was born with this grip, which was even more unbelievable.
"Feel like going outside to talk now?"
"You little—······."
Jeong Jinwoo shook his freed wrist, twisting his face in rage.
Feel like going outside to talk?
Yeah right.
'You picked the wrong person.'
I can endure a lot, but I won't endure getting pushed around by a piece of shit like this.
Park Hyun-myung and he were people of different class, different grain. If he showed even a hint of bending to trash like this, nothing could be more humiliating.
In that moment, a golden tide began to whirl around Jeong Jinwoo's entire body.
Jeong Jinwoo was a Player.
Using the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule, he could assimilate reality.
If you became a warrior of Pangaenia, you gained transcendence that a thousand ordinary people couldn't beat.
No matter how strong someone's grip was, they were still just an ordinary person. Beating a synchronized him was impossible.
Jeong Jinwoo smiled meaningfully.
'I'll make you beg on your knees.'
The thought of forcing him down, making him apologize, kept his grin from fading.
The world had changed anyway.
From now on, Players would lead the world.
They were already being praised as "Dimension Warriors."
Who would dare blame him for subduing one ordinary guy?
"W, what is that?"
"It's a Dimension Warrior!"
"A transformation? He really transformed?!"
Seeing Jeong Jinwoo's new form, people started murmuring all at once.
Blue hair. A sturdy, muscular build. The true look of a spearman.
In Korea, fewer than a hundred Dimension Warriors were known. Jeong Jinwoo wasn't one of the famous ones, but the appearance of such a rare being stunned everyone.
A hero's arrival, truly!
Jeong Jinwoo's shoulders shot up like he owned the sky.
"Kneel, you bastard."
Jeong Jinwoo was relaxed. The duration of the Golden Rule was precious, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. To wipe Park Hyun-myung completely out of Kim Seo-yeon's eyes.
But his smile didn't last long.
Rumble!
'······ An earthquake?'
The ground suddenly shook and cracks spread through the building.
And it wasn't the only abnormality.
"A, a monster!"
"Aah!!"
Giant Bean Bugs.
Bean Bugs about a meter long, with sharp teeth, tore up through the ground into the surface.
Monsters that shouldn't exist on Earth.
But their appearance was familiar.
'Chid Worm! Is this Erosion?'
Erosion had started again.
Jeong Jinwoo clenched his fist.
'They're only level 2 monsters.'
No matter how many level-2 Bean Bugs there were, they were still just Bean Bugs.
Slow, with low aggression.
In fact, the Chid Worms had climbed up, but they weren't attacking humans.
Still, monsters are fear by existence alone.
People screamed in panic, scattering.
"You······, consider yourself lucky."
Once Erosion began, Park Hyun-myung didn't matter anymore.
Jeong Jinwoo seized the chance and stepped forward.
This was the perfect chance to become a hero.
"Everyone! Don't worry! I, Jeong Jinwoo, will protect you!"
How many people had become instant stars after the previous Giant Mantis attack?
There was no reason Jeong Jinwoo couldn't become a real hero too.
Slash!
He drove his spear straight down into a Chid Worm.
Its hide split and it exploded on the spot. Slime splattered everywhere, but Jeong Jinwoo didn't stop.
Four Chid Worms had come into the restaurant.
He finished all four in an instant, then spun his spear, set his stance, and scanned around with a relaxed face.
Click! Click!
People raised their phones and filmed him nonstop.
'Got it.'
Jeong Jinwoo cheered inside.
Yes. Once this video got uploaded, tomorrow he'd be a star too.
The thought made him smile.
Rumble!
But Erosion and invasion weren't over.
Chid Worms outside began crawling in, one after another.
A massive number of Chid Worms surged in.
"You little bug bastards······."
So many, even better.
A chance to show the whole world his heroic side.
How many more did he kill as they poured through the entrance?
-······ Who killed my children?
Something else came in, not a Chid Worm.
Chid Mamba.
A monster with a fat human-like body atop a Chid Worm's hide!
The moment Jeong Jinwoo saw it appear, spraying poisonous fog, his expression froze.
'Why is the main raid boss here?'
The Giant Mantis had been a field raid boss.
But Chid Mamba was on a completely different level.
A main raid boss that required at least ten people like Hydragon to fight, and it was even higher-ranked than Hydragon.
"Ah······."
Jeong Jinwoo's whole body stiffened.
The Chid Worm slime, altered by Chid Mamba's skill into a neurotoxin, paralyzed him.
Chid Mamba looked at the dead Chid Worms, tears welling up.
-My poor children. That human killed you for no reason at all.
"Aah······."
Drip, drip, drip.
As Chid Mamba approached right up to him, piss ran down Jeong Jinwoo's legs onto the floor.
He was going to die. If he stayed like this, he would die.
But his body wouldn't move. Chid Mamba's hand stroked down his cheek. Trapped in the poison fog, Jeong Jinwoo trembled, rolled his eyes back.
And then.
"I'll kill them all! You monster bastards!"
Hallucinations hit.
Jeong Jinwoo started swinging his spear at people.
"R, run!"
"W, why are you doing this all of a sudden?!"
Chaos. In his eyes, people looked like Chid Worms.
Then Jeong Jinwoo's gaze snapped to Kim Hana.
Fear flooded Kim Hana's eyes.
'Ah······.'
Jeong Jinwoo wasn't in his right mind.
I'd seen countless people not in their right minds, but Jeong Jinwoo right now was top tier.
Eyes crazed for slaughter.
Her feet felt glued to the floor.
"Guhk, guhhehehe!"
Madness. A pure lunatic.
Dadadadak!
He charged at Kim Hana like a beast, spear raised.
"Die!"
Kim Hana squeezed her eyes shut.
And.
Shrrrk!
Thud!
With the sound of something thick being cut by something sharp, it ended.
Kim Hana opened her eyes.
Jeong Jinwoo was staring down at his arms in shock.
"Huh? What. Where are my arms? Why, why are they on the floor······?"
The arms that should've been attached were gone.
Cleanly severed from the elbows down, like paper cut with a blade.
Only after a long beat did reality hit him.
"M, my arms. Aah! My arms!!"
He rolled on the floor, moaning in agony.
Someone had cut off both his arms.
Who?
Jeong Jinwoo forced his head up.
There stood the man who'd cut his arms.
Holding a massive greatsword, eyes like a bottomless abyss with not a trace of emotion.
Staring down at him like an insect.
Just meeting his gaze made Jeong Jinwoo shiver.
He was a destroyer.
A man who'd clearly committed slaughter on a scale incomparable to Jeong Jinwoo.
"S, spare me······ spare me."
He begged for his life, and the man simply turned his head and walked past.
As if Jeong Jinwoo wasn't even worth noticing.
As if he'd just cut him because he was in the way······.
It was the ultimate disregard.
But Jeong Jinwoo could do nothing.
Swoooosh!
The Golden Rule ended.
The transformation vanished, and Jeong Jinwoo returned to a normal human.
But his severed arms did not return.
"Ah."
The moment he fully realized reality, despair stained his eyes.
A dream.
This··· had to be a dream.
He'd stepped up confidently, pissed himself, fallen into hallucinations and attacked people, and even lost both arms.
Could there be a worse nightmare?
He'd thought by tomorrow he'd be a hero like the others.
Hope turned into despair in an instant.
Click!
Even now, people were taking photos, recording videos, even live-streaming on SNS.
And all his atrocities were captured.
·· Yeah. A dream. This couldn't be real.
He shut his eyes and opened them again and again, but reality didn't change.
***
'A Player.'
Jeong Jinwoo used the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule.
Proof that he was a Player.
[Lv. 4]
But his level was pathetic.
If you're a Player, it means you lived in Pangaenia for at least a year.
Yet he was only level 4.
Was it because he'd taken so much talent like me that the required EXP skyrocketed?
But watching the way he hunted Chid Worms, I knew that wasn't it.
'The game and real situations are different. He got scared and neglected hunting.'
The reason he was stuck at level 4 was fear of death.
Not everyone starts holding the Heart of the Iron-Blooded Monarch like I did. If anything, Jeong Jinwoo's level was realistic one.
Still, something was odd.
When I assimilated with Randolph, I became pretty strong even in reality. But Jeong Jinwoo, despite being a player, wasn't much different from an ordinary person.
Was I the weird one? Or was Jeong Jinwoo unusually weak?
A lot didn't add up, but one thing was certain, Jeong Jinwoo was the biggest idiot in the world.
He was happily killing a sudden mass of Chid Worms.
Not just hunting, he clearly hadn't pushed the main quest properly either.
'His class itself is fairly high-tier in the spearsman category. He got logout rights by ranking in the class-acquisition quest.'
What a waste of a class.
Given that he logged out, then used the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule, he must've ranked in the main quest for class acquisition.
'··· Wherever Chid Worms live in large numbers, there's always a Chid Mamba.'
Anyway, Chid Worms aren't aggressive.
But you mustn't kill them carelessly.
If you do, Chid Mamba will always take revenge.
While everyone's attention was fixed on Jeong Jinwoo and Chid Mamba, I quietly slipped away, went somewhere empty, and used the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule.
Then I cut off both of Jeong Jinwoo's arms with Michella's sword when he attacked Kim Hana.
-Ohh. There's a human who looks delicious.
[Lv. 6]
A main raid boss, stronger than even Hydragon.
Chid Mamba licked its lips as it looked at me.
My level is only 3 now. Even if I summoned Hydragon, this would still be a tough fight.
But I wasn't worried.
"Equipped 'Michella's Armor'."
"Equipped 'Michella's Helm'."
"Set option 'Celestial Dragon' activates!"
"Equipped 'Hermes's Shoes'."
"Your stats are lower than the equip requirement."
"'Fairy Queen's Tears' greatly lowers the equip requirement of 'Hermes's Shoes'."
"You can use 'Extreme Speed'."
Looking at the messages popping up, I smiled in satisfaction.
'Good thing I looted the secret auction house in advance.'