Chapter 29 - A Disaster
The old man asked me before coming here to look after his race. He said to look for the golden quests.
However I never took his words to heart before. The golden quests were something never heard of before. But now… I couldn't help but be deeply shaken.
'So these quests appear after quest five? What are they? Special quests or hidden ones?' I couldn't pinpoint the answer. After all, no record from my time or a tale from the old man mentioned these quests before.
"Hye, are you ok?" Angelic waved her hand in front of my face, forcing me out of my disturbed thoughts.
"Do you know anything else about these quests?" I asked, trying to gather all the info I could.
"Why do I feel you are the one to answer this question, not me?" Angelica crossed her arms in front of her chest while eyeing me in doubt for a long moment. "Forget it," she realized I wouldn't say anything about these quests, "I told you all I heard. But I never thought they were real."
"Looks like they are," I mysteriously said before adding, "c'mon, help me cut those monsters and gather their items."
"And you want to do that for…?" She seemed ignorant about the privileges of the market.
"We can sell these in the market for coins," I said while getting a monster core and cleaning all other items from its body, "let's do it together. After all, there are thousands of monsters here."
I noticed the look of ecstasy over her face before she moved in agreement and started doing as I did. I didn't see any problem with her sharing this loot. After all, there were so many monsters for me to gather their items.
If I was alone, I would waste many hours doing that. Even the two of us working together took almost four hours before we finally stopped.
"What's time now?" I asked while she knew I didn't mean the system clock.
"It's past eight A.M."
"Good," I started walking away, "tell your friend to get on the speedboat of hers and move ten miles away from the island in the next thirty minutes."
"What is this setting for?" she seemed puzzled, "that means she will go to the depth of the ocean, right?"
"Just tell her that," I didn't explain, "she'll see the chance to survive what's coming at her when it happens."
"Can't you just tell me directly?" she tried to know. I knew what was going to happen and knew the exact time for it. However, since I came and changed a few things here, I wasn't sure about the dirty play of the angels.
I worked my best to cut the three angels dominating this region off their blessing points. However that statue of liberty was an area controlled by another group of angels.
If I told her to move early on, they might change their aim or even totally change the way to deal with her. As far as I know, these angels would use something terrifying to kill her.
Such a mighty weapon would need prior preparations, at least half an hour in my estimate. So moving during this short window would mean the angels would rush after her.
But it wasn't that guaranteed. I was just making the best guess out of my current knowledge.
As Angelica felt hopeless from me to answer any of her questions, she resigned and stayed silent for long minutes. I knew she was speaking with her friend now, and I didn't expect her friend to argue like her.
But just before I could hear what her friend's decision was, a strange message popped up in front of my eyes, deeply shocking me.
It wasn't expected! I never expected this at all!
[Warning: 25% of the people you are protecting are killed]
"What the f*ck?!!" I cursed while my whole body stiffened out of rage and shock.
I planned to return to the museum first and help stabilize things there. After all, I was sure that I killed most of the monsters in this region.
If the angels here were pissed off me, they could summon monsters from other regions. However, doing so was now harder than before.
They lacked the necessary blessing points for summoning monsters on their own. And calling other angels for help was just a mere joke.
Things seemed to be stabilized in my eyes, so how did those people die then?
I was totally confident in the ability of my team under the leadership of Isabella to safeguard the people there.
Even if a large group of monsters tried to attack, I doubted they would be able to kill all this number of people without putting up a good fight.
There was something wrong here. Another dirty plot was laid down. My mind stirred up and only one answer appeared.
'They might have used the same way they used to get rid of Angelica.'
It was the only explanation I had. They seemed to put Angelica and other ex-traitors on the top of their hit list. But after my recent performance, it seemed they decided to aim at me for now.
That subquest was nothing but a way to drain the blessing points from the angels. Ironically it started to threaten me now. Failing it would make me lose half of my current stats.
If it was before, I wouldn't have cared about such loss. My current stats were strong enough to ensure my safety. However after what I experienced with Angelica, and now this underhanded move of the angels against me in the subquest, I started to be more wary about the place I wanted to go.
If I wanted to be confident about getting that thing and keep myself alive then I had to not only protect my current stats, but also work on raising them all to the max.
This was the only insurance I currently had.
"What's wrong?" Angelica looked around as if we were targeted again.
"No time to explain, follow me," I hurriedly picked up the pace and started to spring like a loose arrow. My speed was high, much higher than that of Angelica.
"Wait for me," she shouted from behind while the distance between us was getting bigger, "where are we going? Tell me at least?"
"To the great Lawn," I said before my eyes flashed in the cold light, "we have a big fight there."
"The Great Lawn?" Angelica paused for a second before shouting from my back, "go ahead then, I know the way to it."
"Don't dawdle for long, this park isn't safe yet."
She said something I couldn't hear. I was now pushing my limits to arrive there as fast as I could. I got such a bad foreboding in my heart. They were aiming at my stats, and they wouldn't do that unprepared.
[Warning: 35% of the people you are protecting are killed]
"Dammit! They are really killing them fast!" I cursed in rage while my worst fears were happening. The people there were getting killed like they were lining up to be killed.
The distance that was supposed to be crossed in half an hour was crossed in less than five minutes. I felt my stamina getting depleted fast, but I didn't care.
I needed to see with my own eyes what was going on out there. Then I would work to solve it with my abilities.
The Great Lawn open space loomed from the distance. From my current position I could see any monster in the area.
"How can this be…?!" It was against what I expected. If it wasn't only for the next message of the system warning me of the decline of the number of people out there, I would have thought this was some sort of a joke.
[Warning: 40% of the people you are protecting are killed]
Monsters had big bodies and could be seen from far away. I had the night vision skill, so I could easily see through the dim world around me.
But all I could see was the large group of people who seemed quite distressed as if they were fighting against something.
"Is it a stealth class monster?" my mind started to bring more bad scenarios while I was getting closer to the Great Lawn.
However the moment I was less than five hundred meters, I could finally realize what was going on here.
"What the f*ck is happening here?" I shouted in rage while my voice carried heavy killing intent.
It wasn't hyenas, or wolves who were killing people. It wasn't even a hybrid monster like what happened with Angelica.
It was the traitors inside the group pointing their weapons at the throats of everyone else and killing the people without any mercy or hesitation.
All I could see was chaos! People were running everywhere while wails could be heard constantly. The traitors sprung into more than twenty groups, each had two of them. They were chasing against other people who were taken by surprise.
Without the need to ask for anything, I knew the normal people here were powerless from the start. The fight wasn't equal, it was literally a massacre.
But that wasn't all. When I calculated the number of the traitors I couldn't help but feel my heart hit rock bottom.
The traitors initially were counted from the group in the subquest. If I managed to kill them all to save others, then the quest would fail as well.
Their number was more than enough to make the death toll exceed fifty percent without doubt! I watched Isabella leading others to kill the traitors group by group.
No one of them managed to withstand the attack of my team. Especially when the traitors never tried to defend against themselves in the first place. They were all focused on killing people like mad wolves.
I stood in my place motionless while feeling more enraged.. No matter what path I took, I would eventually fail the subquest.