Chapter 42. There Is a Demon in the Sewer
It had already been a month since the World Gate game officially launched.
Even this online game, which seemed determined to be as unfriendly as possible, had fortunately become somewhat known by now, thanks to the various pieces of information being shared in the community and videos of internet streamers playing the game all day.
Some players even volunteered to become tutorial NPCs themselves, handing out basic strategy guides to complete newcomers and entering dungeons together with them.
As these heartwarming stories spread, people gradually began to recognize the game as that kind of place.
Even the community seemed to be following that atmosphere, giving it a somewhat gentler feeling compared to other communities.
“Ugh, do I really have to go in there?”
Today's protagonist, Kim Inbang, was also one of the regular users of that community and one of its internet streamers.
An unpopular one.
He had gained a certain amount of fame as the first player to obtain a knight's title.
However, since he had started internet streaming with World Gate itself, few people knew about Kim Inbang.
On top of that, his streaming skills were lacking, making him one of those unfortunate people who had failed to seize his opportunity.
“Uh, uh, today I was reading a post on the community, and apparently, there’s some kind of monster living in the sewer.”
There were around ten viewers watching him.
About three of them were actually imaginary viewers he had created using spare devices, with whom he continued conversations despite receiving no replies.
Kim Inbang began speaking hesitantly.
“Why, you know how the sewer is crawling with bugs, right?
But then they suddenly said there was a monster living there, so I thought that was weird!
So, um, I asked the knight commander about it, and he said this!
‘Apparently, there is a demon living in the sewer.
Be careful.’
No!
If that's the case, why did you send me there?!
You're just dumping an annoying job on me because you're too lazy to do it yourself!”
Kim Inbang was a person who was very dissatisfied with his own gameplay.
Because he had obtained the rank of knight, he could enter places that ordinary players could not see and interact with NPCs that were difficult to encounter.
He found that attractive.
But it didn't make his number of viewers increase.
Because of his position as an outsider and his habit of obediently accepting whatever work he was given, he had somehow become the person within the Knights who was given troublesome jobs.
Even showing the slightest sign of refusal could cause his reputation or trust to fall.
He had freely chosen this path himself.
Yet Kim Inbang was living a game life that was less free than anyone else's.
It wasn't enough to entertain the eyes and ears of his viewers, who wandered around like hyenas searching for something stimulating.
‘...Should I just start a stream where I rob the Imperial Palace treasury?’
He thought it wouldn't be a bad way to attract attention.
But now that he had a stable position, even that was difficult in reality.
“So today, I'm going to enter the sewer~.
Yay~.”
Kim Inbang opened the door leading into the sewer with a cheer that sounded incredibly lacking in energy even to himself.
If he had come with another NPC or a streamer he knew, he might have felt a little more energetic.
But of all places, it had to be the sewer.
And of all days, everyone happened to have other things to do.
So today, he was completely alone.
If there had been even one person who would play the game together with him, things might have felt a little easier.
He wished there were at least someone like that.
“Ugh, seriously.
I wish they hadn't included smells like this in the game.
The smell keeps tickling the tip of my nose, and it's strangely annoying.”
Wearing silver armor and a shining longsword, with a torch in one hand and his streaming equipment in the other, Kim Inbang looked so out of place that even the bugs seemed to avoid him.
He walked for quite some time without seeing a single bug.
Kim Inbang had already entered this place once before, so he recalled his memories and compared the surroundings.
The water seemed cleaner than before.
The walls, ceilings, and pillars, however, were frequently damaged as if they had been struck by some extremely powerful attack.
“What's this?
Wasn't there only rats and bugs in the sewer?
Looks like there must be some really strong monster here.”
There were marks that looked as if something had scratched the walls with its claws.
Some bricks had melted from intense heat.
There were also holes in the walls and ceiling at regular intervals, as if something had run along the walls and jumped.
“Guys, I think there's something here...
There might be an event!”
Considering that this game frequently created quests and situations that already looked like events, this wasn't particularly unusual.
But the sewer had changed despite countless people entering and leaving it until now without observing any changes.
Even one viewer, who spent more time living in the game than in real life but had taken a short break to watch the stream, noticed those changes.
Within moments, a post appeared on the community.
[I'm watching Kim Inbang's stream right now, and this seriously looks like a freaking horror movie LOL.]
Perhaps because of World Gate's tendency to create sudden events and different situations through interactions with NPCs, several so-called "reporters" who moved around collecting such events were drawn into Kim Inbang's stream.
The reporters entered his stream without much expectation.
They usually opened several World Gate streams at once and calmly watched them like CCTV cameras.
Even their eyes noticed that there were clearly many strange things happening here.
The deeper Kim Inbang went, the more corpses of giant rats appeared, smashed into the walls and slowly dying.
The corpses of bugs were also scattered everywhere, leaking transparent fluids.
The reporters' eyes began to shine.
Meanwhile, Kim Inbang wanted to leave the sewer immediately.
But.
“Oh my!
enlwlrpTsp님!
A thousand-won donation!
Ah~~ Thank you!”
The reporters who had rushed over after seeing the community post increased the number of viewers.
Other viewers noticed the larger audience and quietly joined as well.
His viewer count continued to rise.
Communication became easier.
Occasional donations also began coming in.
Was this what went through the minds of internet streamers who reacted excessively to everything?
Had another opportunity finally come to him?
Kim Inbang became extremely excited.
“Waaah!
Crazy!
I think some kind of ritual was performed here!”
The bugs had been spread open as if someone had laid them down and dissected them.
Their bellies were completely exposed.
Their organs had been placed all over the walls, densely packed together like insects stuffed and pinned to a display board with thin needles.
The scene was so realistic and disturbing that looking at the bugs, which resembled sacrificial offerings from some unknown tribe's ritual, was incredibly painful.
But with his viewer count rapidly increasing, Kim Inbang endured it and continued smiling as he streamed.
There were missions such as touching something in exchange for money or approaching something and enduring it for a certain number of seconds.
There was even a chat filled with viewers saying that they would participate themselves.
Kim Inbang was experiencing the greatest moment in his entire internet streaming career.
“Let's see.
I got a map of the sewer, you know?
If I compare it with the map...
We're here now.
Huh?
Isn't this underneath the café?”
It was a pleasant and cheerful time.
He chatted casually with viewers who joined midway, played around, and walked through the sewer.
Now, he felt as if he couldn't even smell the stench anymore.
He was happy.
“Huh?
Did anyone else see something over there just now?”
But then, a small voice filled with doubt came from one of the viewers, as if announcing the end of that peaceful moment.
‘Oh!
Finally!’
Kim Inbang was excited by the thought that something real was finally about to appear.
He adjusted the camera to match his line of sight and followed the viewer's instructions as he walked forward.
Whatever it was, if it was an event powerful enough to turn the sewer into this place, it clearly couldn't be an ordinary event.
After all, this had happened directly beneath the Imperial capital.
One step at a time.
Every time Kim Inbang moved forward, he heard horrible screams and the angry roars of beasts.
“Whoa...
What is this?
No, there really seems to be something dangerous here.”
“Ah, don't worry.
I brought a teleport scroll, so if things get dangerous, I can run away immediately.”
“Oh!
That's really reassuring!
Th-Then shall we keep going?
Well, even at worst, all I can do is die, right?”
BANG!!
The moment they confirmed that it was safe, a massive explosion occurred around the corner.
A thick cloud of dust rose up and blocked their vision.
An explosion in the sewer?!
No matter how large the sewer was, explosions themselves were dangerous.
Bombs were probably strictly forbidden from being brought inside.
Confused by the completely unexpected situation, Kim Inbang still acted like a knight and checked on the viewers around him first.
“Cough, cough!
Is everyone okay?!”
“Ah, I'm fi—”
SPLASH!
Something hot touched his cheek.
Kim Inbang had already become familiar with that sensation.
It was the feeling of someone nearby being killed while blood splashed across his face.
“Damn!”
Because of the characteristics of the elite knight class, Kim Inbang could use a small amount of magic in addition to swordsmanship.
He belatedly used wind magic to blow away the dust blocking his vision.
And at that exact moment—
BANG!
He felt a thick arm and hand wrapped in burning chains pass directly in front of his nose.
The dying scream of the monster that followed was difficult to distinguish from the sound of his heart pounding as if it would burst.
That was understandable.
The only thing visible before him was a blood-covered monster with sharp eyes and fur that shimmered like mist.
Nothing else.
“Aaaaaah!!”
Startled, he reflexively swung his sword.
But his sword struck the chain and bounced away, making his confusion even worse.
And when he saw the viewer who had confirmed that the area was safe lying face-down on the ground, only one instinctive thought remained in his head.
‘I'm screwed...!’
The stream exploded with excitement.
The viewers were having the time of their lives.
But when the screen briefly switched and showed Kim Inbang's face, it was filled with pure terror.
Clatter!
Slash!
The screen was filled with the face of a man running through a dark passage while relying on nothing but a single torch in his hand.
The audio contained his rough breathing, occasional screams, and the sound of chains being swung.
Someone who didn't know the game might think he was merely pretending to be overly immersed or acting scared.
But those who had actually played World Gate knew.
Kim Inbang's fear was absolutely real.
And that was precisely why the stream had become even more entertaining.
Watching a grown man run for his life without even looking behind him because he was terrified was incredibly stimulating.
“Haa!
Haa!
D-Damn it!
That scared the hell out of me!”
Even so, a game was still a game.
After some time passed and he calmed down, he became fairly stable again.
And because what he had seen was clearly human-shaped, and considering the circumstances, there was a high probability that it was a player rather than an NPC.
So, intending to talk to them, he turned his head around.
“Kyaaaaaaaaah!!!!”
Within the boundary of the light created by Kim Inbang's torch, a slime was screaming.
Inside its body were the silhouettes of countless humans.
Its distorted body dripped with fluids as it staggered around.
It was a slime that swallowed and dissolved countless humans while letting out screams loud enough to hurt the ears.
“...Huh...”
With his face turning pale, Kim Inbang made a breathless sound and ran away once again.
He thought he could hear something calling him, but he deliberately ignored it and kept running.
This time, it wasn't simply because of the fear he had felt before.
He ran with all his strength because he had no confidence that he could defeat a slime that had already swallowed countless viewers—humans.
“Haa!
Haa!
T-The map!
Where the hell am I?!”
Kim Inbang opened the map.
Calmly calculating the distance he had run in a panic and the location where he had originally been, he pinpointed his current position.
And then he encountered an impossible situation.
“H-Huh?
This path isn't supposed to be a dead end.
Huh?”
Behind him were the mysterious man with chains and the powerful slime monster.
Yet the path that was clearly supposed to be open was blocked.
Kim Inbang's thoughts began spinning faster and faster.
‘Think.
It could be a bug.
Maybe I'm mistaken.
But my memory is too clear for me to have simply gotten the distance wrong.’
‘This is a very unusual type of event.
We've never seen such a horror-movie-like presentation before.
So I have to assume there is some kind of reason behind this too.
There must be an escape route.’
“Then...
Then...
Hmm!”
Kim Inbang was actually among the stronger players.
He played nothing but games, even skipping meals, and immersed himself in the game with everything he had.
If he were still weak despite all that, there would have to be something wrong.
Therefore, when he swung his sword at the wall that wasn't shown on the map, the sword sliced through it as easily as cutting tofu.
Behind it, he discovered a hidden passage.
“Whoa!
That's insane!
This is freaking awesome!”
Just as he had expected, something had happened.
While surprised, Kim Inbang heard the sounds of fighting coming from a distant location and hurriedly entered the newly discovered path.
As he ran through the passage behind the wall, Kim Inbang was puzzled by the appearance of monsters different from the ones normally found in the sewer.
Still, he steadily defeated the monsters and continued forward.
Moving alone through a newly discovered secret passage was extremely dangerous.
But Kim Inbang had become excited by the viewers' reactions.
He had already forgotten about the mysterious creature that had been chasing him only moments ago.
“Huh?
From here on, this isn't on the map.”
After fighting monsters for a long time, Kim Inbang eventually encountered a maze-like corridor that he had to figure out without even a single clue.
Perhaps he had already forgotten the fact that this was originally a sewer.
If he ignored the narrow waterway running through the center of the path, the place felt more like some kind of cathedral than a sewer.
He had certainly charged forward without thinking because he was excited.
But he had carefully memorized the surrounding scenery as he went.
So he felt a strong sense of wrongness when he realized that the surroundings had somehow changed.
“Uh...
