ReLife Player

Chapter 130

[Flowering Night (10)]

The barrier cracked. The dome-shaped barrier that surrounded the great hall was cracking.

Monsters poked their heads through the cracks, forcing their way through and widening them.

What, what do we do!

Monsters are in! No!

Im scared, Im scared, Im scared, I dont know what to do!

The kids were panicking.

Huddled together in the center of the auditorium, the childrens fears were swallowed up by the sight of the monster on the other side of the barrier.

They couldnt look each other in the eye. If they did, they avoided eye contact and called out for their parents, who werent there.

The other guests were the same way: they couldnt look at each other either.

No wonder.

There was no other option.

Most of them had trampled over people on their way down the stairs, ignoring the cries for help and implicitly agreeing with Byung-ins order to close the door.

They had turned away from the pleas.

And this was the result.

The monsters had begun to destroy the barriers that had been deployed in the great hall, and all they could do now was wait to become its prey.

I am in command. I will not allow any dissent.

Im Do-hon said to the people who were terrified in such a situation.

Taking the pistol from Byung-in, he looked around at the gathered players.

None of the players disagreed.

They had been hired by Lee Jeong-in and Byung-in.

Now that Byungins atrocities had been revealed, they could not accept his orders.

They had to live with it.

They had enmity against each other, but for this moment, they had to work together.

There was no fool who didnt know that.

Except for one.

Youre not! You guys are making a big mistake, Im going to be killed Ill Ill!

Byung-in struggled under the spell.

They took off his socks and stuffed them into his mouth, silencing him.

But Subclan Lord. How are we supposed to. in this situation?

Its been years since I left the clan, and I still hear that.

Im Do-hon smiled bitterly at the player pretending not to know him.

They were players from the Regulus clan hired by Doan Elementary School.

Their presence gave him the authority to take command.

His experience as a former Sub-Lord of the Regulus Clan was enough to convince the players.

Casters will modify the magic deployed in the Great Hall to narrow the scope of the barrier. Those who can fight should form two-person teams to deal with the monsters, and supporters should protect the people and provide support magic.

Dohon instructed.

The players nodded and formed groups of two to deal with the monsters that had escaped the barrier.

The casters were quick on their feet. They intervened with the magic in the great hall and reduced the size of the barrier.

The density of the barrier increased, and the cracks disappeared.

But it was only a temporary fix.

The monsters that hadnt been able to enter the Great Hall poured in as the barrier disappeared.

There was no way the players in the room could protect the people and deal with that many monsters.

Fuck.

Someone muttered.

Swear words were flying out of their mouths.

Even if they wanted to run away, they couldnt.

They had to raise their swords to defend themselves.

It was a night that seemed to go on forever.

It was a reality I didnt want to face.

When I opened my eyes, the world was hell.

People were screaming in terror, and those who had gotten inside the barrier were pushing back those who tried to enter and slamming the doors to the great hall.

All they could do was watch as the monsters broke through the barrier as if they were being punished.

A world so different from the one they knew, so cruel.

No.

This is not it.

Hayang shook her head.

The world she knew was not a world where people fought for their lives, screaming in terror.

It was a world where people worked together to survive, and fought to shake off their fears.

It was not a world of blood and tears, but a world of smiles.

Jung Hayang.

She was terrified that the world she knew had changed into a world she didnt recognize.

Hayang.

She covered her ears and closed her eyes from reality.

Jung Hayang.

Teacher?

Someone grabbed her wrist.

Coming to her senses, Hayang looked up to see Im Do-hon kneeling at her eye level.

His face was haggard with fatigue from expending mana. His face was covered in sweat.

But he didnt give up, even though the situation was hopeless.

Dont worry.

teacher?

If something happens, mana this artifact. With your mana, a protective spell will unfold that can hold out until help arrives.

Hayang stared at the pendant in her hand.

With this pendant, she could protect them all.

Her thoughts were quickly dismissed.

Protective magic can only protect a few people.

So even if they ask you to cast a protective spell on them, you must never do so.

You meanthem?

Yes, never. When the worst comes to the worst, recognize what you have to protect, and figure out the best way to survive.

Im Dohon stood up.

He was currently directing the players to keep the monsters away from the barrier.

He couldnt stay any longer.

Teacher.

Hayang grabbed Im Do-hon by the hand as he was about to run to the players.

Im Do-hon turned around.

Eunha where is he?

She looked for Eunha.

The only person who could save her from her despair.

The prince who makes all endings happy.

She looked for him.

She believed that Eunha would do anything for her.

Hed tear this cruel world apart and replace it with the world she knew.

Eunha, is doing something else.

Eunha is not here now.

Tears threatened to fall.

She pressed her fingers to her reddened eyes.

Why isnt the phone connecting!

I think the mana concentration is too high to communicate!

Damn it! What are they doing in Chuncheon City!

Mo-, a monster has entered!

Players, what are you doing, a monster has entered!

Even the narrowed-down barrier couldnt withstand the monster onslaught.

The barrier began to crack.

As the monsters used their mass to slam their bodies together, the barrier shattered.

It happened everywhere.

Players fighting outside the barrier had to turn around, unable to hide their dismay.

Some of them were hit from behind by the monsters.

Gahhhhhhh!!!

What is this! Why are you doing this to me.

Mamaaaaah.

Help me, help me!

A very strange world.

Alone in that world, Hayang was tiny and weak.

All she could do was stare.

She didnt know what to do.

The tingling sensations throughout her body told her that she could no longer withstand the monsters onslaught.

She knew it, too.

The people were exhausted.

The monsters were growing in number, but the players were dwindling.

The barrier was broken, and it was a foregone conclusion that those within it would be eaten by the monsters.

Everyone.

Im going to die.

Clutching the pendant to her chest, Hayang looked at the charging monsters.

All will die.

If she activated this artifact, she might be able to live.

Only herself, maybe her friends.

In a world without Eunha, this is all she can do now.

Jung Hayang, get a hold of yourself!

The scenery changed.

A sword that came into view from the edge pierced the side of a pig-like monster.

The monster that fell to the ground, vomiting blood, dropped a mana stone and disappeared.

Eun-hyuk Ah?

Why are you like this? Do you want to die that badly?! We need to get it together!

Ah.

Eun-hyuk groaned.

His legs gave out. Kneeling down, Hayangs eyes widened at the sight behind him.

Children were fighting.

Grabbing whatever they could get their hands on and throwing it at the oncoming monsters, players jumped in between them to protect them.

Terrified guests manifested their own mana, trying to pull the monsters off the people.

Seona, you too!

Okay!

One, two~!

Minji and Seona joined forces and threw their harnesses at the monsters.

Amidst the incessant screams, the sounds of people who hadnt given up on life could be heard intermittently.

Yes, they hadnt given up on life.

They were struggling to live.

Eun-hyeok.

What?

Eunha wont come.

I know.

Eunhyuk replied bluntly. With the mana on his player device, he held back the Eighth Rank monster that had broken through the barrier.

It was enough to stop it.

The nearby players rushed over and choked it out.

So youre going to stay like this?

.

Not me. I dont want to wait for someone to come save me.

.

So Im going to fight, Jung-Hayang, you if youre scared, step back.(1)

Eunhyuk left those words and ran out to save the others.

It was visible in her eyes.

That he was draining his mana so fast that he could barely run with his sword.

Still, he didnt stop running.

Neither did Minji, nor Seona.

They all did. They must have been at their limits, but they didnt give up and fought against the monster.

I.

I dont want to give up.

I dont want to die.

So save me, Eunha.

Eunha you are a prince.

Im not a prince.

There is no such thing as a prince in this world.

I remembered his words from the night before.

I know.

That the charming prince, straight out of a fairy tale, didnt exist anywhere.

That it was all fiction.

No, but still Eunha is a prince

Look at me properly.

Is Eunha a prince?

No, he isnt.

She just thought he was.

She was just projecting what she wanted him to be, a man who had cleared the world of the shadow of death.

The captain is, yeah, hes just a hard worker.

Eunhyeoks words were correct.

Eunha was just a person who lived harder than others.

Its embarrassing.

She untied the ribbon that held her hair. She put the pendant around her neck and tied her hair back with the ribbon.

Her mother had passed away at an age where she probably wouldnt even remember her face.

Around the time she desperately searched for her mothers photo, her father had given her a ribbon with a awkward smile.

A ribbon that looked exactly like the one her mother used to wear, the only thing that resembled her mothers warmth.

That must be why-

She treated the ribbon as if it were a talisman.

She walked around with it like a protective charm, even though she knew her mothers warmth was nowhere to be found.

She couldnt help it.

She was afraid of death, something she couldnt understand at her young age.

Although she didnt tell her father, she had searched for happy stories because she couldnt bear the sadness of her mothers absence.

Even though she knew that happiness was always right by her side.

Now, she didnt have to do that anymore.

Because her father was here.

This ribbon was not an object that reminded her of her mothers memory.

It was an object that reminded her of her time with her father.

Because she had her sister, a mother.

She didnt have to search for her mothers warmth anymore.

When she came home after school, Min Su-jin greeted her with a gentle smile.

Because she had friends.

She wasnt alone.

She wasnt sad.

There was no time to be alone or to be sad anymore.

You cant be stuck in a fairy tale and only see what you want to see.

This is a world where happy stories and sad stories coexist.

Happy endings and sad endings are always right around the corner.

And the ending is not something that someone leads you to, but something that you create.

Eunha will never come.

Stop seeing what you want to see.

Its time to accept things as they are.

You cant just see what you want to see.

You have to accept the world as it is.

You cant project what you want the world to be.

It is time to graduate from fairy tales.

Jung Hayang infused the pendant with mana.

As the artifact absorbed the mana, a blue barrier began to unfold around her.

I knew it from the beginning.

The charming prince was nowhere to be found.

She was just turning away from the fairy tale.

She just didnt want to admit it.

Because the moment you admit it, you have to accept that there are sad endings in this world.

A world where happy endings and sad endings coexist.

You are the only one in control of your ending.

Not the prince.

There are no princes in this world.

So she said,

I have to do this.

The blue barrier did not protect her alone.

The explosion of mana forced the artifact to tear through the spell, repairing the crumbling barrier.

More robust than before.

Stronger than before.

Jung Hayang!

Her friends called from afar.

She happened to pick up a trump card that had fallen to the ground.

It seemed someone had dropped it.

It was good timing.

She opened the card case and scattered the trump cards into the air.

Im not giving up.

All stories had to be led not by someone else but by oneself.

Cinderella had to prove herself worthy of the glass slipper.

Rapunzel had to use her hair to climb down a tall tower.

The Little Mermaid had to confess her love or stab her prince with the sword her sisters gave her to avoid being turned into foam.

Yes, like that.

Mana-filled trump cards flew in all directions and stuck to the barrier.

The mana glowed more intensely.

The mana was responding to her mind.

A strange, yet somehow familiar sensation.

She knew what it was before.

A sensation she couldnt put into words, but it was always there.

It was growing, like a sprout from a broken seed, sucking in more information as it grew.

I wont give up.

No more Snow White waiting to open her eyes for the prince to come, no more Sleeping Beauty falling into eternal sleep after pricking her finger with a spindle.

Something greater.

Like Alice, who courageously explored Wonderland.

No, I cant give up.

Magic is the manipulation of the world through concrete imagination, mana, and sometimes a medium.

A concrete imagination encompasses knowledge of principles, understanding, and senses.

A mind that believes in things, even if they are sometimes unrealistic.

Yes, the mind.

At this moment, she believed that the magic she was about to perform would be possible in reality.

Declaration of Queen Heart.

Finally, the seed woke up from its long sleep and blossomed into a pure white flower in the middle of the night, not knowing when dawn would arrive.

The situation was reversed.

Just as the barrier was about to collapse, the barrier that Jung Hayang had deployed had taken its place.

Its amazing.

It was a magic that could only be admired.

Im Do-hon glanced at Jung Hayang, who maintained the protective magic at the center of the barrier, and defeated the monsters.

The other players did the same.

Though they couldnt put it into words in the midst of the fierce battle, they all stared at her.

They couldnt help it.

Shed managed to turn the small protective enchantment on the artifact into a large one.

The modification of the formula was difficult.

But she poured mana into her body, disrupting the formula, changing what it was supposed to protect from a few to many.

As if she knew where to put her hands.

It was evidence that her sense of obtaining information through mana was exceptional.

That wasnt the only surprise.

Her true power was revealed in a spell called Queen of Hearts Declaration.

Trump cards stuck all over the barrier would sound an alarm whenever a monster approached.

Upon receiving a certain amount of impact, the magic released from the cards repelled the monsters attacks.

Im Dohon couldnt understand how her magic worked.

The imagination of childrenits amazing.

Young minds could come up with the most unexpected ideas.

Sometimes they think they can do things that are impossible in reality.

For him as an adult, it was impossible.

As he grew older, his thinking hardened, and all he could do was create magic based on his imagination, which was grounded in reality.

But he was still an amateur.

Im Do-hon looked at the monsters that had been knocked back by the trump cards magic.

Some were injured, but none were dead.

It was a child, not a player.

It was inevitable that she would have some resistance to killing something.

But what if she was able to kill them?

Would that barrier really just bounce them off?

Im Dohon shook his head at the thought.

Maybe Im looking at the one of the Twelve Seats of the future.

Nevertheless The person that the players were silently admiring wasnt just Jung Hayang.

Eunhyuk swung his sword almost as if he was exposing his mana and protected the children.

Sorry, I think Im done.

No, you did well. Thank you, Eunhyuk.

Eventually, he lost consciousness and collapsed.

Seo-na put his head on her lap.

I still! I can still do it! I can still do it!

Min-ji was running back and forth inside the barrier, encouraging the panicked players and throwing harnesses to help those struggling outside the barrier.

The mana she threw didnt do much more than make a popping sound.

But for the players, it was enough to draw the monsters attention away from them.

Seona, 11 oclock.

Yeah, okay.

[Monster at 11 oclock, please!]

Seona telepathically relayed Hayangs instructions.

In order to maintain the magic of the Heart Queens Declaration, Hayang was using two magics in parallel.

She had also used her mana-fueled senses to determine where the protective spell had weakened.

Once she relayed the information, nearby players jumped in to defend the barrier.

Dual-casting and reading information from all directions at the same time.

It was as if she was reading several books at the same time, processing information from multiple directions at once.

Im Dohon understood how difficult that was.

It was impossible for most people.

Perhaps her gift was-.

The chairman must be very worried.

The gift was nothing right now.

The dual casting she was able to accomplish with the mana in her body and the Gift, and the magic he couldnt understand how it worked, was bound to interest anyone.

Players from the Regulus Clan, mercenaries hired by Lee Byungi-n, and those hired by Lee Jeong-in have already shown interest.

It would be very difficult to cover this up.

One day, information about her will spread throughout the player world.

When that happens, there will be people everywhere trying to recruit her.

A whirlwind.

But that was something to worry about it later.

Defeating the monsters was the priority.

At some point, the monsters stopped coming to the hotel.

Someone must have stopped the flow.

Somehow, Im Dohon felt like he knew who it was.

He couldnt believe it, though.

Not much time left! Do everything in your power!

He shouted at the top of his lungs.

When the monsters in the great hall have been dealt with, this night will have passed.

(1) Eunhyuk is my fav, I said what I said. Hayang is so lovely, tqm linda.

Wow, they grow up so fast, dont they? Its incredible! (Im not crying)