Something isn’t right (1)

Through the window, Cale noticed the monsters outside, marking the start of the apocalypse, and his gaze sank.

He was fed up with fighting monsters but now he would have to do it once again.

Around the mysterious man, blood had splashed on the floor, windows and walls.

Body parts were scattered on the ground and the corpses were unrecognizable. Yoo Jonghyuk didn't know if there were people he knew among them.

As he stared at the gruesome scene, the regressor recalled some distant memories.

They were memories of his first meeting with Kim Dokja in the 3rd round.

["You, how the hell are you alive?"]

["I'm sorry but you are younger than me, pro gamer Yoo Jonghyuk-ssi. Therefore, you should be the one using honorifics."]

["…You know me?"]

["You are famous. At one time, I was a fan."]

["How did you survive on the subway?"

"Will you spare me if I answer?"

"I'll see."]

["…You cleared the scenario by killing insects?"]

["You have keen eyes. How did you know there were insects in the carriage?"]

["An explosion."

"Explosion?"

"I was able to find an insect due to an explosion from the carriage in front."

"Explain it in a simpler manner."]

Yoo Jonghyuk felt choked as he remembered Kim Dokja's words.

As that time, the man had said..

["When the explosion occurred, a kid fell and dropped his insect collecting net. I picked it up by chance."

"…It is a suspicious coincidence."

"Coincidences are always suspicious. If you don't believe me, ask the people beyond the ward. The boy standing there dropped the net."]

Yoo Jonghyuk wondered if Kim Dokja wasn't able to survive because he didn't cause an explosion that made him discover the grasshoppers.

Only at this moment did he realize that if Kim Dokja had indeed told him the truth then it would be his fault that he didn't survive in this round. However, he didn't know that he wasn't the reason why Kim Dokja wasn't alive, since the latter wouldn't have lived even if everything had been the same as the third round due to not having read Ways of Survival.

The 'Kim Dokja' he knew had only existed in the third (1864th) round.

The regressor turned his gaze to the person he had never seen before.

It was a young man in a black suit with dark brown eyes and short black hair. He had soft facial features and seemed to be Chinese. If Yoo Jonghyuk looked at him closely, he could even see that the man was wearing wireless headphones.

However, the strangest aspect was that the man didn't wear any shoes and the soles of his feet were covered in dry blood.

Klein turned his gaze to them and made a polite smile. He didn't want to act scared when he was already much more powerful than them.

Moreover, he had a lot of experience in acting as a lofty and mysterious existence.

In the flying train, Xin Jian turned to the Oldest Dream.

"Wait, wait."

The Oldest Dream sighed.

"What is it again?"

Xin Jian explained:

"Earlier, your friend's eye shone with a gold color. Does he have a skill that lets him see others' Attributes' Windows like in novels?"

The Oldest Dream didn't get her point.

"Yes, so what?"

His companion made a troubled expression.

"Hmm… Can that skill work on angels?"

The Oldest Dream nodded.

"And on gods?" She added.

In Ways of Survival, it worked on constellations so it should be the case.

The Oldest Dream nodded again.

Xin Jian finally went to the main point.

"And does it work on outer gods?"

"…"

The Oldest Dream stared at her and saw that she was serious.

"…No, it shouldn't."

"…Ah."

It would be a problem.

The Oldest Dream questioned her.

"Why do you want to know that?"

The woman crossed her arms.

"…Because my friend is an outer god."

"You are friends with an outer god?"

Facing the surprised Oldest Dream, Xin Jian solemnly affirmed it.

"Unexpectedly, I have a lot of powerful connections."

"…"

What 'unexpectedly'? So you didn't know?

Xin Jian shook her head, interrupting his thoughts.

"Anyway, that won't do. Is it possible to create a replica of his current Attributes' Window to-"

"No."

The Oldest Dream cut her off.

"What? Why?!" She whined.

"Because I can't. And what exactly are you trying to do? Do you want everyone to know all the abilities of your friend?"

"Well, yeah, he is cool-"

The Oldest Dream decided to stop listening to her nonsense and ignored her.

Anyway, his regressor was cooler.

Meanwhile, as Xin Jian expected, Yoo Jonghyuk used Sage's Eyes on Klein. The latter saw the right eye of one of the people who had come in shine with a gold color and felt something prying into him.

"Tsk."

Was this similar to the Mystery Pryer Pathway? Klein decided to warn the man and deliberately concealed his specialness to not accidentally kill him.

Sparks flew in the air and Yoo Jonghyuk's body staggered.

As he covered his right eye and watched the other man in confusion, he heard Klein click his tongue.

"Don't look at anything, there are some things that shouldn't be seen. It could even kill you."

The regressor stared at the mysterious stranger.

'That man is dangerous.'

As a beginner, he was also too confident. Was he a transmigrator, a reincarnator, or a prophet? Or maybe another regressor?

The Oldest Dream choked.

"Your friend was really an outer god…"

Xin Jian frowned.

"…So you didn't believe me?"

"Well, how do you want me to believe that the one person who came in this place is acquainted with an outer god who also happens to be participating in a scenario among normal people. Is this even allowed?"

"Hmm… Fair enough, but I still don't forgive you for not believing me."

Kim Dokja's brow twitched.

"And how do you want me to blindly trust you when you usually say such bullshit? Will you also say that you're an outer god after that?"

"…What if I am?"

"What?"

Xin Jian seriously considered scamming the Oldest Dream in front of the person concerned (Error Pathway genes are in action) and repeated:

"What if I am an outer god?"

The Oldest Dream stared at the woman's face and wondered if she was serious for a while.

At the same time, Yoo Jonghyuk held back the questions that came up in his mind and began by the most important one.

"Was anyone else here?"

Maybe Kim Dokja had just left in advance and only needlessly saved another person this time.

Even though it was extremely unlikely, Yoo Jonghyuk decided to hold onto this hope.

Klein blinked once and shook his head.

"No, should there be anyone else?"

Yoo Jonghyuk's heart sank. Kim Dokja was definitely dead then.

His gaze became colder as he interrogated the man.

"Who are you?"

The stranger smiled softly then dramatically put his hand on his chest and bowed, introducing himself with a long forgotten name.

"Zhou Mingrui. Nice to meet you."

'Zhou Mingrui' then looked at them as if it was their turn to tell their names as well.

By this gesture, Yoo Jonghyuk narcissistically determined that the man shouldn't be a prophet because Zhou Mingrui didn't know him.

Since Cale was more polite than Yoo Jonghyuk, (even though he was a trash, at least he was a polite trash), he stoically answered Zhou Mingrui's question.

"My name is Cale Henituse."

The regressor gave a brief reply.

"Yoo Jonghyuk."

Then, he continued his interrogation.

"How did you survive?"

Zhou Mingrui showed a complicated expression and told them the excuse he had prepared while observing them in the next cabin with Beyonder abilities.

"Maybe the terrorist had accomplices who carried bombs to other cabins. You should be careful."

After all, there was a terrorist in cabin 3707, why couldn't there be one in this cabin or in another compartment? It was a reasonable assumption to make; it was only phrased in a way that would make the listener misunderstand things.

As for the warning at the end, it was added to prevent the two people who came from understanding that he knew what happened in their cabin and completely fool them.

Making others interpret his words in a wrong way and misunderstand them was Zhou Mingrui's specialty.

Moreover, his spiritual intuition was telling him that one of the two men had the means to detect lies, and that befriending them would benefit him in the future.

Zhou Mingrui made a troubled expression, as if he felt guilty.

"I didn't want to kill anyone."

That was also true. When he first appeared in the train, he hadn't imagined that there would be scenarios which would make him kill people and originally intended to observe.

"…But I happened to get it…"

He happened to pull out a demigod-level charm from the pores of history.

"…and threw it far away from me, to the other end of the cabin, but… by my fault… because of me… It exploded and everyone died."

He had thrown the charm to the other of the cabin and, because he had injected spirituality into it, it had exploded and everyone died.

Zhou Mingrui had manipulated the truth and technically didn't say any lies. After that, it was their fault if the other two misunderstood and thought he was talking about a bomb.

Zhou Mingrui acted like any mysterious existence feeling guilty would; it was quite an absurd metaphor when he thought about it. In short, he didn't overly exaggerate his facial expressions and seemed embarrassed, as if he really hadn't intended to kill everyone.

However, compared to an ordinary person, his reaction was obviously far too calm, making him suspicious; that was the problem with keeping a mysterious facade.

[The character 'Yoo Jonghyuk' has used the 'Lie Detection' skill.]

[Lie Detection has confirmed that your words are the truth.]

After a moment of silence, seeing that Yoo Jonghyuk didn't have any more questions, Cale glanced down and asked what was bugging him since earlier.

"Why aren't you wearing shoes?"

Zhou Mingrui once again demonstrated his amazing sophistry honed in his time as a Nighthawk by twisting the truth.

"Shoes are very useful as a self-defense weapon when it's the only thing you have. You can throw them on others to deter them when you look weak like me."

Except that he didn't throw his shoes on anyone and didn't even wear any to begin with.

[The character 'Yoo Jonghyuk' has used the 'Lie Detection' skill.]

[Lie Detection has confirmed that your words are the truth.]

However, Yoo Jonghyuk was still on guard against Zhou Mingrui. After all, he hadn't heard about a terrorist or a bomb appearing in cabin 3807 before.

But at the same time, it was also only his 4th round, he couldn't know everything.

The regressor decided to keep an eye on the mysterious individual and kill him if there was anything suspicious.

As Cale saw Yoo Jonghyuk's face who looked like he was about to murder someone, Cale shivered.

'Scary bastard.'

This time, instead of directly leaving the subway train to throw the man off a bridge, Yoo Jonghyuk acted like a civilized psychopath and tried to not commit a homicide (which would only scare the crimson-haired man and waste the time Yoo Jonghyuk had spent waiting for the end of the scenario instead of killing Cale and ending it right away) and voiced out his doubts, giving Zhou Mingrui a last chance.

"Why are you so calm?"

Zhou Mingrui tirelessly manipulated the truth and spoke vaguely.

"There was a weird blue panel that appeared before me. Maybe it's a skill?"

Once again, these two sentences were completely unrelated.

[The character 'Yoo Jonghyuk' has used the 'Lie Detection' skill.]

[Lie Detection has confirmed that your words are the truth.]

As Yoo Jonghyuk barely stopped suspecting Zhou Mingrui, accepting his explanation, one of Cale's passive skills was in effect.

['Premonition' Lv. 2 is activated.]

Cale vaguely felt that something was off about this man.

The man in question innocently made an awkward smile before Yoo Jonghyuk turned away from him, then looked in Cale's direction.

When Cale met his gaze, chills ran through his body.

Somehow, Zhou Mingrui seemed even more dangerous than the psychopath next to him.