NPC Domain 30

The system window that flared up in a red more intense than anything before made my vision swim for a moment.

I had thought I’d never have to face it again — but it seemed the system binding me was alive and well.

What did I interfere with?

I grabbed the Minotaur Lord’s tail again before the wave of oncoming nausea could make me lose my grip on it.

“I said don’t fight. I told you not to go.”

The warning message appeared without fail. It was so intense that even after the warning window disappeared, my vision was swimming with red and dizziness, making it hard to keep my balance.

I think I’m going to be sick….

An overwhelming urge to vomit surged up and my head throbbed, as if I were standing on a ship caught in rough seas.

Could that message someone left be because of this?

The NPCs placed in this world were humans who had originally lived here.

They were beings designed to run shops that bought and sold goods with Players, or to provide various kinds of assistance including quests. At their core, they were still humans no different from Players.

In that case, I — an NPC designed for this world — am not supposed to want monsters to survive.

Was that what it meant?

Act like an NPC. Leave the monsters to be hunted down by the Players.

A surge of defiance rose in me before I could stop it.

Just how far did this wretched system intend to bend my will with the ‘NPC’ designation it had slapped on me without my consent?

I grabbed the Minotaur Lord’s tail — which I’d nearly lost hold of — with both hands. I knew Trait: Mental Stability would soon quell even this defiance, but I didn’t hold back.

“I told you not to fight!”

The moment I cried out without thinking —

“This damn—”

I couldn’t even finish the curse — this damn system — before I lost consciousness, just as if midnight had struck.

***

The Minotaur Lord quickly reached out for Lee Jaea as he went limp and slid backwards, his eyes losing focus. His body was safely caught in the Minotaur Lord’s enormous hand.

Pfff….

The Minotaur Lord let out a breath that seemed like relief and looked around. Among the bloodstains covering every surface, there was at least one relatively clean spot. It carefully sat Lee Jaea down there.

The Mystery Box that Lee Jaea had dropped as he fell — the Minotaur Lord nudged it over to his side using the large axe strapped to its back. Monsters couldn’t directly touch items that Players could use, so this was the only option it had besides pushing it with something else.

The Minotaur Lord gazed down at the unconscious Lee Jaea in silence for a while. What emotion dwelled in those pitch-black eyes was impossible to say, but it seemed to sigh now and then, letting out intermittent puffs of breath.

It was a little while longer before the Minotaur Lord, which had been standing still, turned around.

An overwhelming killing intent, as if it were crushing everything around it, descended upon the Minotaur Lord. Having torn its gaze away from Lee Jaea, it turned and fixed its eyes on a Player who had entered the alley.

“You….”

The Player who had stepped into the alley ground his teeth with a sharp crack.

“What did you do to him?”

Jeong Euijin, with two swords drawn, radiated more murderous intent than he ever had before.

The Minotaur Lord adjusted its grip on the axe.

This alley was already packed just with its own body.

If they fought here, Lee Jaea would get caught in the middle.

The Player across from it seemed to know that too — which was why he hadn’t simply charged in and was instead holding his ground.

The Minotaur Lord remembered who this Player was.

He was the powerful Player who had appeared out of nowhere, immediately after the Minotaur Lord had destroyed the Special Supply Station on the system’s orders.

In terms of stats alone, it had the clear advantage — but he had unleashed a potential that far exceeded his level and sliced off its arm in a single instant. The ferocity of that killing intent was still vivid enough in its memory to recall clearly even now.

It glanced back at Lee Jaea. Forcibly blacked out by the system, he lay sleeping with a peaceful expression.

The characters used by the humans of this world — it didn’t understand them well.

The intonation, the pronunciation, the nuance — it couldn’t grasp any of it, so even imitating them was out of the question.

Yet somehow, the meaning alone was conveyed with uncanny clarity.

— You’re going to die if you go back like this.

— Don’t fight. Don’t go — stay and help me instead.

Lee Jaea seemed to have been worried that it — nothing more than a monster — would end up getting killed.

Even as the warnings must have been going off, he had kept trying to stop it, until it came to this.

Lee Jaea was too kind and too soft. It had always been that way — in the old days, and now, even with all these restrictions placed on him.

But it couldn’t withdraw just because he said so.

Because it knew why it was standing here, and what it had been recycled into this strange world for.

At the message that surfaced as if to urge it on, the Minotaur Lord’s eyes changed.

Pfff—

The Minotaur Lord let out a long exhale and charged at Jeong Euijin, giant axe in hand.

Seeing the Minotaur Lord charging at him, Jeong Euijin launched himself backward as if he’d been waiting for exactly this. The Minotaur Lord’s thick horns bore down on him in an instant, as if to skewer him — but he twisted his body with fluid ease and avoided the attack without difficulty.

Even in that moment, Jeong Euijin’s gaze remained fixed on the alley where Lee Jaea lay.

He didn’t know why Lee Jaea had collapsed, but for now, the priority was to move far enough away that he wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire.

On top of that, he had already notified several people — including Heo Yunji — of a rendezvous point on his way here, so he needed to lure the Minotaur Lord there.

Fortunately, thanks to the Minotaur Lord having charged out of the alley on its own, the distance between it and Lee Jaea had already grown considerably. Thinking about the range of the battle’s aftermath, they needed to put more space between them — but somehow, he had a feeling this monster would cooperate and move along with his intentions.

This one is thinking the same thing I am.

Jeong Euijin dodged the Minotaur Lord again as it charged at him threateningly, as if trying to drive him out of the alley.

Before moving into position for the operation, Jeong Euijin had briefly asked Lee Jaea about the day the Special Supply Station was shut down. It was because if Lee Jaea had been present when the Minotaur Lord went on its rampage, he might have been hurt. If it had injured Lee Jaea, he wasn’t about to let it go easily — and so as he waited for Lee Jaea’s answer, a quiet but unmistakable killing intent had seeped out of him without him even realizing it.

But Lee Jaea had shaken his head right away.

— The Minotaur Lord was incredibly… towards me——

— No, never mind. It’s probably better not to say. I think all you need to know is that nothing happened to me.

Lee Jaea had chosen his words carefully.

It seemed to be out of consideration for the fact that Jeong Euijin would have to face the Minotaur Lord directly.

There was no point in telling someone who was about to fight a brutal battle that the monster was, in truth, inexplicably kind to a certain person — and unexpectedly compassionate.

To Jeong Euijin, who had to kill it — it wouldn’t be of any help.

Jeong Euijin had sensed it vaguely even without Lee Jaea telling him deliberately.

The Minotaur Lord, out of concern that Lee Jaea might get caught in the fight, had opted even now for a straight charging attack rather than swinging its weapon.

Its eyes were filled with the killing intent to tear apart every human in sight — but Jeong Euijin was not someone who would fail to read what that choice meant.

Even so, that didn’t mean any compassion was revived in him where there had been none.

— Save me! Save me, goddammit—!

— Aaaagh—! I don’t want to die—!

— P-please…! Euijin, me, save me—! Kgh!

Over two years, he had lost count of how many people had died before his eyes at the hands of monsters. The monsters’ roaring as they reveled in slaughter, and the desperate screams of those dying — it all seemed to ring in his ears even now, vivid and clear.

He himself had come to the brink of death more than a few times. If it weren’t for Lee Jaea, his mind would have broken along with his body, and he’d have been long dead.

If only there were no monsters.

If only those wretched creatures had never appeared in this world — he never would have had to face that kind of horrific suffering.

And yet, there was just one thing.

If there was one thing to be grateful for, now that the world had become like this…

Jaea hyung.

Jeong Euijin thought of Lee Jaea as naturally as breathing.

The one person who had always remained like an unfinished painting — someone whose face he had tried and failed to picture no matter how hard he tried over two years.

Because Lee Jaea was here now — someone he could recall more vividly than anyone — he had been able to cling on and survive even in a world this horrific.

So he would survive this time too. He had to.

No matter what monster he had to hunt down and kill.

Jeong Euijin lured the Minotaur Lord onward, and swiftly cleared the stretch of road littered with the remnants of past battles.