Chapter 383

Invasion (4)

It was a day like any other. No, it was a day he'd believed was like any other.

Julian Sanderson woke up rubbing his sleepy eyes. He stuffed the half-cooked pancake his wife had made into his mouth without much thought, half-listening as she talked about restaurant reservations. By the time he'd finished changing into his suit, his daughter had woken up too and greeted him, and then he headed out the door for another day of work.

'Honey. At least pretend to listen when I talk.'

'What do you mean, eat out? We need to pay off the debt. We don't have money.'

The little spat with his wife at the front door wasn't exactly out of the "usual" either. The two of them had been fighting and making up in equal measure since they started dating. Her nagging was just the familiar background music of daily life.

'Sanderson. I don't need to say it, but you already know. Performance.'

'...I'll show you results, sir.'

'Right. There's a line of young guys out there who'd kill for your spot. Some of them would even take half your salary just to get in the door. You need to prove your worth.'

'Yes, sir.'

Struggling to survive at work, clawing for a higher position, that was part of daily life too. Staying at a good company, covering New York's brutal rent, giving his lovely family a happy day, every day. To protect this precious "daily life," he had to grind himself down every single day.

He wolfed down a sandwich for lunch and buried himself in metrics and reports, the same routine on repeat. Quitting time? Sure, it existed on paper, but hardly anyone actually left then. Everyone had something they desperately needed to protect, and nobody wanted to fall behind.

Deep in work, drinking coffee like water, his focus slipped for a moment. Out of habit, he pulled out his phone and checked the screen. A message from his wife.

-Bought a cake. Let's eat it together when you get home. I'll wait to have dinner. Love you. :)

"...Ah."

Right. Today was his birthday. It was already past 8. The message had come at 4. Four hours, and he hadn't even replied.

He worked to be happy, and here he was losing his happiness because of work. It hit him like a hammer to the skull.

"I'll head out now."

He stood up in a hurry. On the way out, he stopped by a flower shop and bought a single rose. As an apology, and to go with a special dinner.

Fighting was part of daily life. But making up was too. Through all of it, they reaffirmed their love, hardened their bond a little more. That was family. That was marriage.

"Something good happen to you?"

"Ah, yes. It's my birthday."

"Well, congratulations."

He traded small talk with the taxi driver, and soon enough they were almost there. Through the window, he could see the building where his wife and daughter waited. The light was on in the 17th floor window. They'd be waiting. A little late, but still waiting for their father to come home. Their husband to come home.

The grind repeated day after day, every single day was hard, but he liked where he stood right now. A life with somewhere to return to, that was happiness.

"Traffic's bad. I'll hop out a bit early. It's close enough to walk."

May this happiness last. May tomorrow look like today. Carrying that simple wish, Sanderson stepped out of the taxi.

Zzzzt.

Right after, a massive crack tore open in midair, and a dragon emerged.

"...?"

That was really the only way to describe what he saw. Like a scene from a movie, or a cutscene from some game. He blinked once, opened his eyes, and there was a dragon the size of a building floating over New York.

But a dragon? Suddenly? Why? Now?

He'd known the world had changed. This was an age when humans flew through the sky and shot fire from their hands. But he'd assumed that was all it was. A few unusual people had appeared, sure, but he still went to work, still shopped at the grocery store, still ate dinner at home. He'd thought his daily life would stay the same. Change was something that happened to a handful of special people, not to Sanderson.

Fwoooosh.

The dragon's maw glowed. Flame licked between its sharp teeth. In the direction it stared lay the building where his wife and daughter waited.

It felt unbearably unreal. Was he seeing some kind of illusion? No. Screams rang out from every direction. Even mid-flight from the scene, most people had their phones out, filming.

"No."

Humans tend to assume, unconsciously, that tomorrow will look like today. They take it lightly, assuming the people they love will always be by their side. That's why they sometimes say hurtful things, why they fight.

If only he hadn't argued with his wife this morning. If only he'd spoken more gently. If only he'd just booked that restaurant.

"NO!!!"

The dragon's jaws split wide open. Even from this distance, he could feel the searing heat.

This was the end. Right as that thought crossed his mind.

"I'll go."

"Understood."

As if mocking the laws of reality itself, two figures appeared abruptly on the dragon's back. A hulking, golden-axe-wielding white man, Michael Zetter. A ponytailed beauty who'd drawn Bung-bung from her hip, Choi Ji-won. Neither hesitated for even a second.

Shhhhk!

Choi Ji-won's sword moved first. Blue lightning burst out of Bung-bung, and a strike too fast for the eye to follow sheared through both of the dragon's wings in one pass. Right after, Zetter's golden axe, carrying destructive force, came down with pinpoint precision and severed both wings completely.

"GROOOAAAAR!"

A scream loud enough to burst an ordinary person's eardrums. Its balance lost, the dragon's massive body crashed down into the lake in Central Park.

BOOOOM!

Lake water shot up to building height with a deafening roar, then came crashing back down like a waterfall. Fish flung out by the impact flopped on the grass, and wild animals scattered, gripped by instinctive terror, desperate to put distance between themselves and the beast.

"Breath!"

Right before impact, Choi Ji-won leapt lightly free and landed on the grass, shouting Zetter's name.

"I know."

Almost at the same moment, Michael Zetter shot out of the lake as if flung from it, and answered back. The spray that had drenched everything had already evaporated in an instant. There was no mistaking the dragon's overwhelming presence. Heat rolling off the ground, hot enough to scorch it to ash. It had lost its wings, but it still had a breath attack stored up. The dragon's slitted pupils locked onto Michael Zetter with precision.

"KUOOOOOOOR!"

A breath attack that looked like it had poured straight out of hell's furnace shot toward Michael Zetter. Too close to dodge. No material on Earth could withstand even a single second of the dragon's breath at full power. Every human, players included, would be reduced to ash in front of that flame.

"So it's true."

Except Michael Zetter was the exception. He'd already heard from the regressor that a dragon would appear, and that its main weapon would be a terrifying breath attack.

So for about two months now, Zetter had focused solely on this one moment, "adapting" his own body to resist searing heat. The cost was that his reflexes and overall physical capability had dropped from overcommitting to heat resistance, and he had no room left to adapt to any new threat that might show up.

But right now, in this moment, this was the most "efficient" form for blocking its breath.

Step by step, one foot after another, Michael Zetter pushed forward, cutting straight through the flame with his own body. He wasn't fully blocking it, his entire body was on fire, but not enough to stop his stride.

The instant Zetter reached the dragon, he swung his golden axe upward into its gaping jaws.

BAK!

With a violent crack of shattering upper jawbone, the dragon's massive head snapped back. Just a brief flinch, but brief was enough.

KRAKOOM!

Thunder cracked in that narrow gap. Choi Ji-won, already at the dragon's face somehow, slashed across its eyes as she passed. Blue sparks scattered like afterimages from the ruined sockets.

"Fall back now."

The dragon thrashed in agony, blind. But that alone wasn't enough. Choi Ji-won settled into her stance, steadied her breathing. This had to end it.

KRAKAKAKOOOM!!!!

New York's blacked-out forest of buildings, powerless in the wake of the dragon's arrival. Blue lightning struck down between them, lighting everything up bright. No, the lightning was bursting out of Choi Ji-won's own body.

Her long ponytail whipped side to side as if riding the wind. The crackling sound rang loud enough to sting the ears. Wreathed in lightning from head to toe, deep blue light spilling from her eyes, Choi Ji-won stared straight at the dragon.

Heart of Lightning Flash.

A self-destructive technique that converts all of one's mana into lightning. Just using it would be enough to turn an ordinary player into charcoal, unable to handle the mana burning through their own body. You had to control mana running wild while also adapting to physical ability and reflexes boosted well past common sense.

But after countless regressions alongside Kim Jun-ho, memories accumulating cycle after cycle, Choi Ji-won's swordsmanship had already reached a level nothing on Earth could compare to. She'd also grown used to a strange method of combat, splitting her consciousness with Bung-bung, one half moving the body, the other controlling the mana.

'Flash Step. Jun-ho really did teach me well.'

As she focused, the noise around her gradually faded away. Only the dragon and herself remained in her awareness, two beings, nothing else.

She slowly crouched, gathered power into both legs. Wrapped it in the force of lightning.

She stepped forward.

A blue line was drawn perfectly horizontal. Choi Ji-won appeared on the opposite side of the dragon's neck in an instant. Behind her trailed a long tail of blue lightning.

The wild, raging lightning cut through the dragon's neck in perfect silence. Heart of Lightning Flash had already ended before anyone noticed.

Thud!

Along with the horrific stench of burning bone and flesh, the dragon's enormous head dropped onto the dried lakebed. For a creature meant to become "New York's worst nightmare," it was a pathetically small end.

This was the dragon Michael Zetter should have spent days and nights fighting to bring down. The casualties and property damage in that process would have been too massive to even tally. The scale could be guessed from the fact that even Zetter, who eventually won only after a brutal struggle, would have taken blame for it.

But this time was different. The right people, at the right time, and that alone was enough to completely change the outcome.

"D, did you get it all?"

"Y, yeah... somehow, I got it."

"Nice work! I told you not to run, didn't I? We're gonna be rich! This is an exclusive!"

Compared to before, when footage and photo evidence had mostly been destroyed and little survived, having clear proof of a glorious victory spread everywhere was good news too. The victory itself mattered, but so did the size of the spoils to collect afterward. Hope planted in the public, goodwill toward players, that was one of the biggest prizes of all.

A glorious victory. A perfect plan executed flawlessly. Under normal circumstances, this would call for a toast.

"Where's next?"

"I'm headed to Russia. I believe Ji-won-yang is going to Europe. Someone in charge will contact you shortly."

"Understood."

There was no time to rest. This was only the first wave they'd managed to stop. There were plenty more monsters to kill, and not nearly enough strong people to go around.

The world needed them.

"Zetter, your clothes didn't burn. Impressive."

"Ah. This is my body reshaped to mimic clothing. That's why it didn't burn either."

"...Don't come any closer."

"Ha."

Watching Choi Ji-won's fight from headquarters, I let out a deep sigh. The large sheet of paper in front of me was covered edge to edge in scrawled handwriting.

It was a relief that Ji-won and Zetter had won, but... things had gone seriously sideways.

This was already the fourth regression. And the problems piling up now numbered far more than one or two.