“Why on earth…….”
I recalled the news I’d seen before my regression.
In the Territory Game-ified Westminster area of London, there were over five thousand light clusters in the clock tower ‘Big Ben’, and the San Marco Clock Tower in Italy also had tremendous amounts of light embedded in it.
But why is our Cheorwon clock tower…….
Because it’s too much of an unknown third-rate clock?
I thought too simply before the great undertaking.
The criteria for light embedding, what are those criteria?
Tourist attractions? Ancient relics?
Damn it. I should have read columns more often.
I kicked down hard on the shabby fallen clock tower rebar debris.
“……Is this thing crazy?”
Shaking off Kim Jaei who was trying to stop me, I stood on top of it and said:
“If things continue like this, everything will be overturned.”
“Student, do you know what you just did? If the fragments had flown far, someone could have been seriously injured.”
“I apologize. I’m just glad no one was hurt……. More importantly, if there’s Big Ben in London and a clock tower in Italy, what do we have here in Cheorwon?”
“……Odae rice?”
One farmer muttered seriously.
The grandmothers and grandfathers who had been sipping warm tea just blinked their eyes.
The soldiers were reporting that they’d already found three lights.
“The lights will be embedded in large quantities. We need to search ruins, high ground, and famous places first.”
Then, first the high places.
“We need to divide personnel and visit locations where the Cheorwon land can be seen best.”
“Goseokjeong, Peace Observatory. There are many places.”
At that moment, the brigade commander approached as if agreeing with my opinion.
Over the widely spread map, we began planning a route to visit the famous places together.
There was no time.
The place we arrived at by boarding a military vehicle was the recently built Eunhasu Bridge.
I was with several soldiers who had visited before.
“I came here on leave, sir. The middle is glass, so when you step on it, your legs tremble.”
“Really? This place was built recently, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“So there’s no historical foundation…….”
“What’s the standard for foundation? If people came here and were happy, couldn’t it be the foundation of happiness? At least that’s what I think.”
I don’t know, I just got out.
Since it shared the commonality of being a ‘high place’ with the foreign clock towers where large quantities of light had been embedded, I decided to look around for now.
If there was no light here, then it would be right to search famous places with ‘history’ rather than ‘high places’.
The Hantan River flowed beneath the thousand-foot cliff. On the central glass path connecting the columns and bridge standing proudly in majesty, countless lights were planted like sprouts.
“Look at this! I was right! This is crazy, it’s light!”
As I flailed in joy and tried to rub my face on the floor, a soldier grabbed my collar.
“Kkaekaeng…….”
“Calm down. It’s not light, it’s lighting.”
“……?”
It was like grabbing my hair as it flew through the sky and slamming me to the ground.
“What do you mean this isn’t light?”
“Look. Isn’t this Eunhasu Bridge?”
The soldier swiped through his phone and found a photo to show me.
It was a night view shot taken with the light sprouts on the floor as the background from another day.
“…….”
“Time is tight, so it seems better to go check other places.”
“……Wait a moment. Let me look one more time.”
On the opposite side, a neighborhood ahjussi in a training suit was crossing the bridge, clapping his hands front and back and doing foot exercises.
“You all are working hard~”
Ahjussi, this is a wartime situation.
I brought my face close to the glass wick embedded in the bridge.
This…… is a light bulb? The light does look uniform without clumping together though.
I held my breath and watched it as if in a battle of wills.
Flicker, flicker.
Crazy, this is it.
“It is light! We need to break the glass right now.”
I jumped back. Hot steam shot out from my nostrils.
“Let’s get a hammer.”
“What if we break it with a hammer and it all shatters……. I saw a video of Chinese glass breaking before…….”
“This is Korea. Trust Korean technology and just smash it.”
“Idiots, just call the manager.”
A passing hiker ahjussi gave advice as if we were pathetic.
Thanks to that, without damaging the glass, we could harvest hundreds of light clusters like pulling out carrots.
The soldiers who came to gather light with me and I each ate one light, and gave one to the hiker as well.
After that, the strategy became clear.
During the remaining time, while searching mainly around observatories and other famous places and high ground, results far greater than in my previous life were being obtained.
I became a staff pick and did volunteer work going around to find citizens with mobility difficulties and distributing light to them one by one.
“One light per person~”
The methods of consuming light were varied—grandfathers drinking soju in front of the convenience store mixed the light with soju and drank it.
“Young man. Give me one more here.”
“One per person is the maximum.”
“There’s plenty left, why are you being stingy?”
While there was this kind of grandfather.
“I absolutely won’t eat it. Who knows what it is to eat it.”
There was also this kind of grandfather.
No, there were surprisingly many.
Whether they really didn’t want to take any responsibility, the military had each of those people sign.
“Isn’t there a separate one for children?”
“Isn’t this like a chip that controls the mind? How do you expect me to feed that to my child not knowing what’s in it? Really, this government…….”
People who absolutely refused to feed light to their children also appeared.
While floundering amid large and small squabbles, persuasion, and some violence, time flowed steadily and was already approaching the end time.
I approached a man who had taped his child’s mouth shut and was arguing with the military.
“Take the tape off the kid.”
“Who are you to tell me to take it off or not!”
“You crazy bastard, there’s 1 minute left. If they don’t eat it, they’ll die.”
The man kicked my shin hard and then stomped on it repeatedly.
“You eat this crap yourself!”
“Ugh!”
While I was down and couldn’t get up, the remaining lights were forcibly shoved into my mouth.
Why did I even bulk up? When the promised minute passed, the child in the arms of the man who had been committing violence until just now crumbled into ash.
“Seowoo!! Our Seowoo!!”
Throat-tearing screams and sounds of hitting the ground burst out simultaneously everywhere.
“Give me back our Seowoo!!”
The man who lost his child suddenly rushed at me violently.
In the process, my already beaten shin got stomped on again.
“Stop!”
The man was restrained in his movements by soldiers who came running late, but the pain didn’t seem to want to stop at all.
“Are you alright?”
“……Well, I’m alive at least.”
It really was like that. Screams, curses, violence, and crying mixed together, tormenting my ears. The military doctor, who must have been most flustered by the pouring calls, only touched the painful parts of my foot precisely, then said one thing.
“……Oh my, we’ll need to take an X-ray of this.”
The popup window appeared at that moment.
[You have collected light!]
[Reward: Sequential distribution in progress]
A child’s bloody love song with incomprehensible lyrics echoed through the Cheorwon sky. It was a final song [終歌] announcing the end of the game.
“Where is this song coming from?”
“It’s like we’re at an amusement park. Yesol-ah! Are you hurt?”
Kim Jaei and Seon Doyu, who had been resting in a corner of the convenience store eating snacks, belatedly burst out and supported me.
“No, why did they beat a person up like this?”
“Exactly. How long has it been since your arm healed, and now your leg this time…….”
The curtain in the sky was also lifting. We walked along the road to move. Cars were crowding everywhere with honking sounds, complicatedly blocking the road.
“Hyung, get on my back.”
“Ah, it’s fine.”
“Then at least lean on me comfortably.”
“Yeah, listen to Doyu and just get on his back.”
……Should I get on Kim Jaei’s back?
This guy was busy chewing gum and watching the gathered people like he came to play.
“Lee Yesol! What! Why are you hurt?”
Most of my friends including Jaeseon also succeeded in surviving. It was because the light supplied in front of the clock tower was plentiful.
On the ground, bone powder left traces like circuit breakers, and people consciously didn’t step on them.
“Lee Deobuk.”
I met Kim Seohyeon again too.
“Oh, Seohyeon-ah. Where’s Grandmother?”
“She went out first.”
Ah, senior citizen priority, right.
But, did Kim Seohyeon’s grandmother survive in my previous life too?
Many sasaengs attached themselves but I never heard that he had a grandmother.
“What about your leg?”
“Ah, someone scratched it a bit.”
While Kim Seohyeon examined my limping leg, Kim Jaei and Seon Doyu, who had been glancing at Kim Seohyeon, suddenly greeted him.
“Hello!”
“Us, us! We saw you earlier, right?”
Kim Jaei, who glanced at Kim Seohyeon’s school uniform name tag, smiled mischievously and said:
“Kim Seohyeon? If you’re Yesol’s friend, we’re friends too, right? But have you noticed people only staring at us since earlier?”
Kim Seohyeon, who shot back with eyes saying ‘so what’, subtly occupied the spot next to me. This bastard’s rudeness is the same default setting as before regression and now.
‘……Actually, everyone doesn’t need to leave Cheorwon.’
It was a procession of people fleeing, already scared they might face something like today again.
Anyway, it should appear soon. The moment I thought that, the standing people flinched all at once.
[Searching for innate potential…….]
Gulp. Saliva went down.
The sensation in my body was strange. It was a very unpleasant feeling, as if the light I’d gorged on earlier was churning through my whole body.
And this was the most important moment.
While Kim Jaei and Seon Doyu’s faces were calm, Kim Seohyeon looked very displeased.
It was natural.
I heard that naturally born S-ranks feel more precise discomfort than others during this energy generation process.
The sensation of someone examining my naked body and even my tightly hidden inner thoughts. Goosebumps rose.
If I’m this uncomfortable, how intensely do S-rank guys feel it?
I quietly held Kim Seohyeon’s hand.
Thinking it would be good to have something to lean on……. Ah, damn it. Even though this wasn’t a calculated action this time, the guy was looking at me with surprised rabbit eyes.
[Name: Lee Yesol]
[Type: Esper]
[Trait: ???]
I had secretly hoped to become a Guide in this life and walk the sweet job path of commuting to the Center, but human type doesn’t easily change just because you review your life.
The trait being unconfirmed is the same now as before.
That was the moment.
From the hand clasped with Kim Seohyeon’s, refreshing blue energy rushed in. The accumulated fatigue was swept away in an instant.
“…….”
It was a very familiar sensation to me, who had lived my whole life as an E-rank Esper, and at the same time, a delicate quality I was feeling for the first time.
I looked at Kim Seohyeon.
“You, what’s your type?”
“It says Guide.”
“What?!”
Wow…… wow, damn.
The thought that came to mind at that moment was one.
‘We’re screwed.’
Our country’s greatest combat-type S-rank Esper had suddenly become a Guide.
