Chapter 297: Friend (2)

Translator: Dreamscribe

Hello! New York!

New York was peaceful.

It had been peaceful last year too, but this year even more so. Jerry, a New York police officer, yawned as he patrolled alongside his partner. Just four years ago he had walked these streets in a constant state of tension, but now things were calm enough that even a cop like him could let his guard down.

New York's crime rate had dropped so far it made a person wonder whether it was even allowed, and thanks to that, the police fatality rate had fallen ninety percent compared to four years ago. It was a figure so close to a miracle that it was hard to believe it belonged to the real world.

"You think New York's actually got a superhero like Spider-Man running around?"

Jerry snorted at his fellow officer Jackson's question.

"If it does, it'd be the Creator God."

"Heh heh, fair point."

Both of them were, naturally, Heroes who played Arsilan Saga. The claim that the extreme drop in crime was thanks to Arsilan Saga had come to be accepted as fact. The phenomenon had appeared immediately after Arsilan Saga's release, and the more people took up Arsilan Saga, the faster the crime rate fell.

There was a world where anyone could show off their madness to their heart's content.

There was no need to go committing crimes in real life.

Maybe that was why, or maybe it was for some other reason, but the huge criminal cartels had vanished with startling speed. The dominant theory was that they had fallen apart after losing their driving force.

In any case, Jerry and Jackson patrolled at an easy pace, chatting as they always did. Most of it was about Arsilan Saga.

By their own standards, Jerry and Jackson counted as high-level Heroes. Jerry in particular belonged to the Helby Fan Club and had made it into the ranks of the Named. He even held the glorious achievement of having massaged Helby's shoulders.

Jackson grinned as he glanced over at Jerry.

"I finally made it into that Dimensional Realm you told me about last week. It's incredible."

"I told you, didn't I? The longer you put it off, the more you lose out."

"Looks like Episode 6 is about to wrap up, so I need to level fast. Hey, but the Dimensional People are aliens, right? If Dimensional People from different dimensions got married, would they be able to have a kid?"

Jerry frowned at Jackson's question, thinking it was a pointless thing to wonder about. Then all sorts of thoughts suddenly occurred to him.

"Come to think of it, we're aliens too."

"Ah! I guess we are."

"Maybe that's why no kids come out of it."

"You're a genius."

Jackson nodded, thoroughly impressed.

The thought that any of them were NPCs had already disappeared from Jerry and Jackson's heads. Thinking that way only stirred up an unpleasant feeling, so they brushed it aside without much effort.

After finishing the morning patrol, they were assigned that afternoon to provide support at the FS Convention Center. They arrived at the FS Convention Center still trading all sorts of idiotic remarks.

The crowd that had come out to the FS Convention Center was enormous.

Every one of them was either wearing a robe that looked like something out of Arsilan Saga or carrying an item.

Since it was an event hosted by FS Games' American branch, most of the Heroes attending had brought at least one item along to get the Arsilan feel right.

What was truly remarkable was that it didn't even feel all that out of place, since blending fashion trends with Arsilan Saga had become the going style lately.

Jackson drove the patrol car, circling the area around the convention center.

A man in a robe approached carrying something. When they stopped the car and rolled down the window, the man held out a box of donuts.

"Thanks for all your hard work. These are Dimension Donuts, please have some."

They were donuts shaped after the form of the Dimensional Realm, popular enough that they were being sold in the real world too. Jerry smiled and accepted the box packed full of Dimension Donuts.

They patrolled diligently around the FS Convention Center while eating Dimension Donuts, but sure enough, everything was peaceful. It was calm enough to make a person think the Creator God had descended to watch over New York.

"Ahh! This is the life!"

"Long live the Creator God!"

"Heh heh!"

Jackson offered his thanks to the photo of Lee Jinwoo hanging beneath the patrol car's rearview mirror.

"Looks like nothing's out of order, as usual."

"It's almost shift change, so let's do one more loop and head in."

"Yes, boss!"

Jackson answered with gusto.

Jerry was casually scanning the world outside when something suddenly felt off. He could have simply ignored it, but whenever he got a feeling like this, something bad tended to happen. Lately it seemed his instincts had gotten noticeably sharper.

"Hold up."

"Hm? What? You need to go to a bathroom or something?"

"Just pull over."

Jackson tilted his head, then stopped the car as Jerry had told him to. The building next to the FS Convention Center was empty. A large Soul Shop was slated to move in, so demolition work had been scheduled.

They went up to the entrance and found the gate locked.

Jackson chuckled and put a hand on Jerry's shoulder as he peered inside.

"There's nothing wrong here."

"Guess not."

Something still nagged at Jerry, so he took another look inside. The building was screened off by a temporary hoarding, but the entrance itself was a chain-link gate.

Looking through it, he could make out part of a black vehicle. If he hadn't been studying the place carefully, he never would have spotted it.

It didn't look like a construction vehicle.

"I think we need to check that out."

"You know it's illegal if we just walk in, right?"

"The Creator God will forgive me."

"I keep telling you, you're not a Hero out here."

Jerry snorted.

"Then I'll take responsibility."

"Haah, I give up. Well..., as long as we don't get caught, right?"

Jackson sighed, knelt on the ground and held out his arms. It meant, climb up on me. With Jackson's help, Jerry went over the hoarding.

His knees throbbed when he landed.

'If this were Arsilan, I'd have cleared that in one hop.'

Jerry shook his head and approached the vehicle. Its doors were open and the inside was completely empty. There were traces of heavy equipment having been loaded in it.

Following the trail leading away from the vehicle, he found it ended at a staircase heading down into the building's basement. Instinctively, he sensed danger. Jerry drew his pistol and descended the stairs carefully.

It was a basement that had once housed the building's various utilities.

Looking further in, he saw a large hole punched through the wall, with heavy equipment scattered all around it.

They had bored through the thick concrete wall, then broken through the floor where it met the sewer. A temporary ladder had even been lowered down into the sewer.

"Insane...."

It looked like the tunnel ran all the way beneath the convention center.

Was it because of the construction work?

But the moment he glanced to the side, that thought vanished. Magazines and what looked like explosives lay scattered on the ground.

He urgently radioed headquarters.

He was supposed to wait until the bomb disposal unit arrived, but the thought that it would be far too late came first.

KABOOOOM!

The sound of an explosion came from outside. In that instant the radio cut out and he could no longer hear a thing.

"Fuck...."

This was as far as he could go. And yet a courage he couldn't explain welled up inside him. If he could save even one more person....

Jerry squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, and climbed down into the sewer.

"I've done this plenty of times, haven't I? Arsilan or reality, it's about the same."

They were about the same, sure.

Except out here he only had one coin's worth of life.

He had pulled off insane stunts and survived plenty of times before, so why not once more?

"Haha...."

Even to him, it was absurd.

But there was something he had learned through countless experiences.

To make choices he wouldn't regret.

To be the kind of person who used courage to change things rather than bowing to oppression.

That was worth more than any treasure.

"Let's just call it a dangerous quest."

[Earth]Take Down the Terrorists.

Take down these fucking terrorist bastards and save the people!

*Reward: There might not be one

If this were Arsilan, a quest window like that would have popped up. Framing it that way, he found himself surprisingly unafraid. Walking along the sewer, he came upon a shattered ceiling. A ladder had been set up there, letting him climb up easily.

"Cough! What a disaster."

Searing heat and acrid smoke had already filled the interior. Explosions kept going off, shaking the entire building along with them.

RRRUMBLE!

At that moment, the whole path he had come through collapsed, sending up a dense cloud of smoke.

Jerry instinctively ran forward. The smoke made it hard to see ahead, but he managed to get out of the passage.

The convention center was a scene of total chaos.

People who had been blocked by the flames and couldn't evacuate were gathered together, while men who looked like terrorists herded them into one place at gunpoint.

It was the second-floor event hall, the one spot the flames hadn't reached yet. The terrorists showed no intention of getting out. They had rigged every exit with booby traps or simply collapsed them outright.

The terrorists set up the broadcasting equipment they'd brought in, then pulled off their masks and outer clothes. They wore specially made bomb vests, and rifles were in their hands.

More than several hundred people were gathered in the second-floor event hall. There were probably others who hadn't managed to escape because of the fire, but right now something had to be done about the terrorists.

The most dangerous kind of terrorist was the sort so filled with blind conviction that negotiation never even crossed his mind.

Jerry held his breath and moved closer to the event hall.

"Heretics who have drowned in a false world and turned your backs on the truth! Listen well!"

The one who appeared to be the leader switched on the broadcast and spoke.

"God is with us, and our flame shall spread across the world."

To these men, Arsilan Saga was a corridor to hell blocking the path to God, and Lee Jinwoo was the chief of all demons.

When the leader pointed a finger at the man in the very front, the terrorists dragged him forward.

He was a man wearing a set of Helby horns.

The terrorists drew a knife and held it to his throat.

"Read it."

As the camera turned toward the man, the leader shoved a document at him and demanded he read. Ordinary people in that position would normally read it while shaking with terror, but the man shook his head.

"What...?"

The mood among the hostages was strange too.

Every last one of them was dressed ridiculously, and their eyes were calm, as if they were waiting for an opening. The odd atmosphere gave the leader a bad feeling. But he laughed it off.

They were all going to die here anyway.

Every demon-worshipper who defied God would fall into hell. The goal of this attack was to make God's will known to those who believed in a demon, and to fill them with fear.

"Kill him."

At the leader's order, the terrorist holding the knife moved to slit the man's throat.

Jerry, who had been watching it all, leveled his pistol.

If everyone was going to die anyway, he wanted to at least try something.

BANG!

As the terrorist took the bullet and toppled sideways, the others flinched in shock and swung their guns toward Jerry. Jerry fired wildly, but the terrorists were spread out too widely for him to bring them all down.

With muzzles pointed at him from every direction, he sensed his own death.

There would be no fantastic, action-movie rescue of the hostages here.

CLICK!

Was it the heat? Or was it the smoke and dust that had begun settling thickly over everything?

The terrorist pulled his trigger, and the weapon malfunctioned.

It was the moment the terrorist faltered.

"Fuck!"

"Take 'em down!"

"RAAAAGH!"

"You sons of bitches!"

The hostages rose and threw themselves at the terrorists. They seized arms and legs and wrenched the guns away. Like an organized army, they overwhelmed them with astonishing speed and snapped their limbs.

The leader hurried to pull out a pistol and fire, but it slipped from his hand.

"Wh-what is this."

All of it was going out live.

Rattled, the leader took out the detonator and gripped it.

Remove the safety, press the button, and it would all go off at once. It was high-performance explosive supplied to them, packing more than enough firepower to level everything nearby. He tore the safety off in a panic and put his hand over the button.

Once the safety was removed, it was rigged to detonate after a set amount of time even if nobody pressed the button.

Jerry lunged at him, but the leader kicked him away and thrust the detonator high into the air. At that sight, everyone had no choice but to freeze.

"The day of judgment shall come!"

It was just as he shouted that and moved to press the button.

WHUMP!

The ceiling caved in and someone dropped through. The figure landed in front of the leader and, in the blink of an eye, caught the hand holding the detonator.

"G-GAAAAH!"

CRUNCH!

The leader's wrist snapped and he lost his grip on the detonator.

RRRIP!

The bomb vest strapped to his body was torn straight off him and hurled at tremendous speed into a wall far across the hall.

KABOOOOM!

It detonated on impact, shaking everything around them.

Jerry and the others could only stare blankly at the scene. Through the billowing dust cloud and the smoke beginning to settle over the hall, they saw a girl rolling her shoulders loose.

Horns holding starlight.

Hair streaming like a curtain of night drawn across the sky.

A long tail was tapping the floor irritably.

"L-L-Lady Helby?!"

Helby turned her head and looked at Jerry.

"Hmm?"

When their eyes met, she tilted her head.

"You. IsitnotLanjeributNanjeri?" [TL: Helby runs the words together; Lanjeri, Jerry's Hero name, is a pun on the Korean word for "lingerie".]

"...J-just, please just call me Jerry."

Now that Helby had revealed his Hero name, Jerry felt mortified. Helby walked up to him and ruffled his hair roughly.

"Lanjeri. You've put in quite the effort, it seems."

The corner of Helby's mouth lifted slightly.

She picked up the horned headband lying on the floor, dusted it off, and set it back on the head of the man who had had a knife to his throat. In that instant, tears came streaming down the man's face.

Helby gave a small jerk of her chin, and everyone got to their feet.

They had been forged by the Dimensional Realm war and by Arsilan Saga's content, so they moved together with remarkable unity. It looked as though they had trained side by side for years.

They were displaying what one might call the Arsilan style of movement.

When Helby pulled emergency medical supplies out of the bag on her back, they treated their wounds without needing to be told.

"Aaagh! Somebody give me Pain Blocking!"

"Um..., on Earth we call that anesthesia."

"Unlike Arsilan, this hurts like hell."

Their lives hung by a thread, yet the people were perfectly relaxed. Anyone who didn't know them would have thought they'd lost their minds. The Heroes of Arsilan Saga, however, would have nodded along.

Once Helby had knocked out every terrorist still conscious, the people bound them. Helby looked around, then tore down one of the tents set up for the event and bundled the terrorists inside it like so much cargo.

When Helby took off running while dragging the terrorists behind her, everyone followed her.

Most of the escape routes had collapsed, and the flames were everywhere. Helby drew up her mana and searched for a path leading outside. When she saw a wall blocking the way directly ahead, she clenched her fist.

WHAM!

She drove her fist into it with everything she had. Seeing cracks spread across the wall, she struck it several more times until it came crashing down.

BZZZT!

She clicked her tongue at the sight of her broken arm. Putting on a properly restrained performance really was difficult. As fresh air came flowing in, the people's faces brightened.

"Ah! There must still be people who couldn't evacuate!"

When Jerry said that and refused to leave, Helby shook her head.

"Someone every bit as impressive as I am has gone in, so there is no need to concern yourself."

"What?"

"If it's him, he would never stand to watch Heroes get hurt."

Jerry's eyes widened.

Because he thought he knew who she meant.

If that was the case, he could evacuate without worry.

"Let's get out of here, quickly!"

"LET'S GOOO!"

Jerry and the others followed Helby out of the building at a run. They pushed through where the flames were thinnest, and when they reached the broken wall, they saw firefighters waiting.

"S-survivors!"

"Get them out, fast!"

The firefighters evacuated every one of them.

Ambulances had already arrived, and agency after agency had deployed in force upon hearing news of the attack. Several helicopters hovered overhead as well, unable to move in because of the flames.

Short of actual magic, survivors had seemed too much to hope for. And yet the moment the broadcast cut out, this many people came walking out, and the firefighters and everyone around them rejoiced.

Jackson came running over to Jerry.

He looked at him with an expression of pure disbelief.

"You lunatic."

"Haha."

"Sheesh, a Hero's a Hero."

Jackson said it while shaking his head in amazement. Then he spotted Helby, standing perfectly still and gazing at the burning convention center. The terrorists she had hauled out like cargo had all been safely arrested.

Everyone was expressing their gratitude to Helby.

"Hmm...."

Helby's tail swayed gently.

This sort of thing wasn't so bad either.

Turning a catastrophe into a performance was rather enjoyable work.

She, too, was an employee of FS Games.

*****

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