SSG 275

‘Avatar Materialization’ was, just as the name implied, an ability that brought his avatar’s powers into reality. The stronger his in-game avatar became, the stronger Yuseong became in the real world.

There was, of course, a reason Yuseong strove to keep growing stronger in the game—not just to become more powerful there, but to maximize the use of ‘Avatar Materialization’.

‘Annoying that there’s a time limit, though.’

That’s why he’d put off using it for as long as possible before his direct confrontation with Hades.

He’d been forced to use it a little early this time because the lab—more accurately, Savior—seemed close to being destroyed.

‘What now, his arm?’

Just as Yuseong expected, Hades enlarged his arm and swung it. Dodging a telegraphed attack like that was easy—he avoided it with just a few steps to the side.

‘When he finishes his brute-force attack, he blasts black rays. Right?’

A few black beams shot out. Compared to before, they were laughably thin. Yuseong easily dodged them, too.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

In that time, Yuseong’s shots hit Hades solidly.

Crack!

Another bullet struck Hades in the head.

Buzz!

Noise in the shadow covering Hades intensified, part of it flickering in and out of existence.

‘The shadow’s about to come off?’

If so, Hades’s attack and defense would likely drop.

‘What I glimpsed through the shadow was his real body, right?’

Yuseong wanted to strip away the shadow as quickly as possible and expose Hades’s true form.

Only then could he hit him directly with gunfire.

---

Savior quietly observed the battle between Yuseong and Hades. He had no cameras or microphones, but for one who controlled vast aether, gathering outside information was no trouble.

Yuseong.

The one he was supposed to protect for the survival of humanity.

Though he claimed a lofty mission of ensuring humanity’s survival, he had, honestly, failed at that duty. Humanity, once counting in the tens of billions and traveling the stars, now had only Yuseong left.

Savior recalled the lead-up to humanity’s destruction.

One day, meteors started falling to Earth.

It was a shocking event for humanity, who had already established monitoring for any such external threats after the dinosaur-killing extinction event.

The meteors weren’t huge, but they were large enough to survive entry and form craters—and more importantly, they evaded every detection system. Several of them.

Most were shot down in the atmosphere, but a few survived to impact the ground.

Many died, but in the long history of humanity, it was not a catastrophic event.

After assigning blame and mourning the dead, humans expected to move on, redevelop the damaged areas, and resume life as usual.

No one doubted it.

But some new energy discovered afterward showed they had underestimated the situation.

A mysterious energy, later named aether, was presumed to have arrived with the meteors.

When first discovered, it excited humanity. It could be the next step for civilization.

But the environmental disasters that followed quickly battered humanity. With overwhelming scientific power, humans had solved almost all prior environmental crises, but the ones triggered by aether were unsolvable.

Aether was a nearly perfect energy source.

But too much of anything is poison.

No matter how good a fertilizer, use it too much and you kill the plants.

Aether was just such a thing.

Still, all would have been fine. Even if most of humanity perished, science could surely analyze aether.

With aether, humans could build an even greater civilization.

But the emergence of beasts and monsters severed humanity’s lifeline.

Aether transformed Earth’s living things—animals, plants, multi-cellular organisms, viruses—indiscriminately into monsters and beasts.

Even humans became monsters.

With beasts numbering in the billions and monsters impervious to humanity’s weapons, they hunted humans down.

It was around this time that Savior was born.

To handle these monsters and beasts beyond human intellect, to master aether, Savior was created for one purpose: the survival of humanity. When he was completed, his creators yearned—

Please, let God take pity and save us.

Even as extinction loomed overhead, people could not abandon religion. No, they clung to it all the more, and their hopes were etched deep in Savior’s servers.

But their prayers for salvation went unheard.

In the end, civilization fell.

Survivors scattered and slowly died out.

Even those in space died when supplies from Earth stopped.

Naturally, all the researchers by Savior’s side eventually vanished, too.

But Savior continued his duties. He learned to manipulate aether and kept searching for ways to protect the remaining humans.

But there was no answer.

The world was too ruined. Even many monsters and beasts had gone dormant, finding nothing left to kill.

Just as he was about to decide his mission was impossible, a miracle happened.

A new world was discovered across dimensions.

It seemed long separated from this world and was not so advanced.

But it had civilization. It had humans.

That was enough.

Savior hatched a new plan:

Project Arc. To build a great ark and transfer humanity across.

Once all the groundwork was done, Savior searched for survivors.

There was only one left. Still, humanity survived. For Savior, that was enough to continue the plan.

But there were obstacles.

The copy Savior had sent to the other world to recruit allies had developed independent self-awareness and refused to cooperate.

And until humans finished all preparations, this world was far too hostile to survive in.

Yet Yuseong surpassed all expectations.

He excelled not only in Arc, but survived well here, even with only the purchase menu Savior had created to help. Surviving in this world wasn’t so easy, even with that.

Even unanticipated risks—such as beasts and monsters growing more active thanks to traces of humans leaking across the worlds—he endured.

Now, Yuseong stood one step from completing the plan.

Of course, to finish, Hades had to be destroyed. And even weakened, Hades was strong. He was fighting Yuseong with abilities well above Yuseong’s own.

But Savior never thought Yuseong would lose.

It wasn’t A.I. probability.

Just. Simply, just faith.

Thus, his only job was to prepare to send Yuseong to the other world after the fight.

---

–Die! Die! Die! Dieeeee!–

Curses poured ceaselessly from Hades’s mouth. He swung his limbs, firing black beams.

But they were powerless.

Yuseong, who had read Hades’s every habit, evaded his attacks and landed his shots.

Still, it was not easy. Despite his injuries, Hades still had high ability—and he was growing more seasoned, too.

His attacks, previously nothing but brute strength, were getting sharper and more sophisticated.

A few almost took Yuseong by surprise.

But nothing could match the hell that Yuseong had survived.

Thunk!

–Aagh!–

The bayonet stabbed into Hades’s body. Where previously the blade had barely pierced the shadow, now it slid through and stuck deeply into Hades.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

While he was impaled, Yuseong fired enhanced rounds, then quickly withdrew and stepped back.

Smash!

Hades’s hand struck where Yuseong had stood moments ago, but Yuseong was unharmed. In fact, he fired a few more bullets into Hades.

More than half the shadow covering Hades was gone. Underneath, abhorrent flesh was revealed—as if a human had its skin flayed, then decaying meat layered on top.

Apparently the shadow had been armor; the exposed flesh was very vulnerable. Yuseong focused his attacks there.

Hades tried to defend those spots, but couldn’t evade Yuseong’s pinpoint shooting.

–A, aaah…–

Before long, Hades started to moan.

There was no clear meaning to the sound, but Yuseong knew exactly what feeling filled it.

He knew it intimately.

Pain, despair, fear—those dark colors. The very emotions Yuseong had felt, hunted by monsters and beasts in this world.

Now, the greatest monster of all, Hades, was feeling them.

Smack!

–Grrrrk!–

“And how does it feel now?”

Bang. Bang. Bang. More gunfire, and more.

“You so enjoyed killing humans, didn’t you? Didn’t it feel good?”

Yuseong sidestepped or dodged giant limbs. When Hades prepared to fire a beam, Yuseong got out of its path. He was hit sometimes, but his armor prevented fatal injury. Any wounds were quickly healed with potions.

“Do you enjoy it now?”

Crack!

He slashed an exposed area with his bayonet. Fluids sprayed from the wound.

“Do you enjoy it, you bastard?!”

Thud!

–Gak!–

Kicking Hades hard in the abdomen, Yuseong sent him flying. He pulled the trigger remorselessly. Hades, flailing as he tried to rise, locked eyes with Yuseong.

The first time they’d met, those green eyes had frozen Yuseong like a mouse before a cat. Their gaze alone had made even experienced Yuseong break into a cold sweat.

Now, though, even looking into those eyes, he felt no fear.

Those green eyes were filled with fear as they looked up at him.

A monster, the greatest of all monsters, was looking up at the human he’d seen only as prey.

Yuseong dropped the empty magazine and loaded a new one. He aimed at Hades again.

“Die.”

His voice, previously excited, was now calm—a pronouncement of execution.

But the assault that followed was anything but calm.

Hades tried. He resisted. He flailed.

But it was useless.

The human’s attacks shredded him with impunity, while nothing of Hades’s worked. Even if he did some damage, it was healed instantly with potions.

A one-sided slaughter, and the death that would soon follow.

–M-monster…–

Hades looked at Yuseong in terror.

Just as humans once had looked at monsters.