Chapter 47 – Bandits (2)

Majang Premium Rest Area.

The rest area, which the raiders had made their base, was located between the Jungbu Highway and the Second Jungbu Highway, just like any other rest area.

Seeing the large logistics center next to the rest area, I understood why they had chosen this place as their base.

But with a logistics center like that, wouldn’t they have no need to rob people?

After checking the name of the company on the logistics center, I realized why they couldn’t use it.

Unfortunately, it was a well-known clothing company, one even I recognized.

As we passed the logistics center and headed toward the entrance of the rest area, gunshots rang out from the direction of the rest area.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

At the same time, a bullet ricocheted next to me.

All three of my party members were heading toward the rest area, but the shots were aimed at me.

It made sense since Hoffman and Zahina had taken cover behind abandoned cars on the access road before the shooting started.

There was no need for me to tell them anything.

Even though we were far away, with such murderous intent aimed at us, there was no way my mana-wielding party members wouldn’t sense it.

As for me, I didn’t care if I got hit by a bullet, so I kept walking as usual even after sensing that murderous intent.

If I didn’t hide myself, it would make my party members safer.

It was easy to predict that more gunfire would follow.

If one of their underlings outside had a gun, there was no way the ones guarding inside or their leader wouldn’t have one as well.

However, those stationed at the rest area weren’t as skilled at shooting as I had expected.

They couldn’t hit a walking target from less than 200 meters away.

The dead man on top of the car wall must have died feeling wronged, unable to close his eyes in peace.

After several bullets missed me and only one managed to bounce off my armor, the gunfire finally ceased.

It seemed that their claim about running low on bullets wasn’t a lie after all.

Of course, they probably hadn’t run out completely yet, but they clearly didn’t have enough left to waste on shooting at someone far away.

“There are a lot of cars here. There must have been a lot of people too?”

Except for a few empty large parking lots scattered around, most of the parking spaces were packed full.

Before that car wall was built, many people must have fled to this rest area for safety.

Just counting the cars here meant there should be over a thousand people at this rest area.

Naturally, there weren’t nearly as many signs of life coming from the direction of the rest area now.

At most, there were only dozens of people left.

More than a thousand people had vanished without a trace.

As we passed through the access road and entered the parking lot in front of the rest area, I noticed something that hadn’t been clear from afar—the disorder in the parking lot.

Every car had its doors ripped off and windows shattered. The ground of the parking lot was stained black with blood.

I had thought that the parking lot looked darker than usual compared to the road. It turned out it was all blood.

“Do you think this might be the work of undead since we don’t see any corpses?”

“Well…”

It was still too early to tell who or what had caused this. Even if we found out, it wouldn’t change what I had to do anyway.

“But sleeping here might be something we need to reconsider.”

If something more serious than expected had happened here, staying overnight at this rest area could be dangerous.

Hoffman quietly moved between cars and gave a chilling smile.

“Then we’ll have to ask properly.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head at Hoffman’s eager expression. 

I thought this would be over quickly, but it seemed like it would turn into more trouble than expected. 

“I guess there’s no choice. Keep some alive.”

“As long as I don’t kill them?”

I nodded in response to Hoffman’s question. 

As long as they could still talk afterward, it didn’t matter much. 

After answering Hoffman’s question, I turned to Zahina and asked,

“Can you check inside the building from here?”

Now that I knew Zahina was more useful than I thought, I planned to make full use of her abilities.

I decided not to judge her limits and simply asked if she could do it.

Unfortunately, she shook her head.

“I tried, but I can’t see inside the building from out here. Neither the wind nor the earth can move inside from outside the building. It doesn’t seem like it’s blocked by magic either…”

She shook her head, but her answer was different from what I expected.

It wasn’t just about a lack of skill—there was something inside that building.

Though something was there, fortunately, my senses weren’t sending me any warnings.

Since I didn’t feel that familiar chill down my spine, it was clear that whatever was inside wasn’t something beyond my ability to handle.

I briefly considered passing by the rest area without stopping, but no matter how much I thought about it, it didn’t seem like a good idea.

After killing the bandits at the rest area, any survivors would have already become our enemies.

There was no guarantee they would just let us pass by without incident.

In a situation where a monster might be following us, we couldn’t afford to have more enemies trailing behind us.

Since there wasn’t the same sense of urgency as there had been at the bridge, it was better to finish things quickly.

I simply heightened my caution before entering the rest area.

I had realized that the people inside weren’t just random gunmen.

As we crossed the parking lot and passed by the row of empty shops lining its side, we reached the entrance of the rest area without hearing any more gunfire.

Instead, my senses picked up on movement inside the building—restless movement.

I could feel people moving around and gathering at the entrance we were approaching.

“Prepare for battle.”

When I arrived in front of the glass doors, which were so smeared with blood that I couldn’t see through them, I signaled to my party members.

Both of them drew their weapons and took cover behind cars parked in front of the main entrance.

Once I confirmed they were in position, I walked up to the glass doors.

Rrrrrr…

Before I could open them myself, the glass doors slid open with a rough sound.

Just as I expected, there were people gathered inside beyond the doors.

However, instead of raising their guns at us, they bowed their heads toward us.

“Welcome.”

More than ten women stood on either side of the door, bowing their heads in greeting. The men further inside were also looking at me with welcoming expressions.

The people standing inside were dressed much more cleanly than I had anticipated.

Both men and women were wearing clothes that looked expensive—so expensive that they seemed almost new.

The women’s faces and hands were as clean as their clothes, but unlike them, the men looked quite dirty despite their fine attire.

Perhaps because of this contrast, they looked grotesque standing against a backdrop of windows and floors still stained with blood that hadn’t been cleaned off.

I frowned at this bizarre sight before me.

“What’s with this? You shoot at us first and then act like this?”

At my cold words, one of the women who had been bowing her head raised it to speak.

“We apologize. The gunfire was an impulsive reaction after hearing your approach. Our representative learned of what happened and immediately ordered it to stop.”

She answered calmly in response to my words.

When she raised her head, I saw that she was an astonishingly beautiful woman.

If it weren’t for Zahina being with us, she would have been one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen in this world.

Before all this happened, she could have easily become an idol or a celebrity with looks like hers.

On top of that, even in this situation, she was clean and dressed in what looked like a brand-new suit-like outfit.

As I stared at her, she continued speaking,

“Our representative has already punished those responsible.”

The men standing in front dragged someone out from behind them—a filthy middle-aged man dressed in ragged clothes. He had a broken gun slung over his shoulder and was being dragged out by others around him.

“I’m the one who fired. I’ve committed a grave sin. Please… please spare me.”

He begged for his life over and over again while his broken limbs dangled helplessly as he was dragged toward me and the others around him.

“We’ve already punished him for his wrongdoing. Please forgive us. Also, we’ve prepared a meal inside. Would you care to join us for some food first?”

As I listened to her calm voice, I lowered my helmet’s visor and replied coldly.

“It’s painful to listen to, wondering whose idea this little play was.”

Unlike the woman speaking to me in a calm tone, everyone else around her was trembling in fear.

Though their expressions were composed, the men dragging out the prisoner were shaking even more than the man being dragged out.

Among the women standing on either side of the door with their hands clasped together, one had wet herself in fear.

Even the woman speaking to me with a calm expression had gone pale, as if all the blood had drained from her face.

If I weren’t someone from this world, and if these people weren’t so terrified of me, anyone else who came here might have been fooled by them.

Of course, they wouldn’t have had guns from the start. And not everyone coming down from the highway would have been weak.

The fact that they could keep blocking the highway like this meant they had something other than brute force at their disposal.

“What do you mean by that…?”

“The clothes you’re wearing must be from that logistics warehouse next door, right? Instead of washing them, you just wear new ones each time.”

“The men look like they threw on whatever was lying around over what they were already wearing.”

Seeing only the woman in front wearing a suit made it clear that this was probably the leader’s preference.

“And that man being dragged out doesn’t seem like the one who shot at me. Does your leader decide who gets to be the scapegoat?”

It was easy to tell who these people were just by looking at them.

These weren’t the bandits who had taken over this rest area as their base. These were their slaves.

The women were likely used as sex slaves, while the men did menial labor and were used as disposable pawns when needed, like now.

There was no way these people would willingly come out and perform such an act on their own accord.

And yet, they were carrying out their roles without breaking character or showing any signs of hesitation.

If I hadn’t exuded my killing intent, they probably wouldn’t have even shown any fear.

“What could have forced these slaves to act like this?”

I raised my sword and pointed toward the second-floor railing inside.

*Clap. Clap. Clap.*

A slow clap echoed from above on the second-floor railing.

“Bravo. I thought you were just some crazy guy in armor, but it turns out you’re more competent than I expected.”

A man appeared above on the railing.

He was… dark.

That’s all I could say to describe him.

His face and body were clearly visible, but his appearance didn’t register properly in my mind.

All I could perceive was a sense of darkness emanating from him.

Seeing him brought a sigh of relief to my lips.

“So that’s what it is. You’re possessed by an evil spirit.”

For a moment, I had wondered if he might be an Awakened or some new kind of monster, but that wasn’t it.

He was just an ordinary human possessed by an undead spirit I was familiar with.

“Oh? You even know what this is? Now that’s interesting. No one else has ever known what it was before. And you’re not going crazy just by looking at it either. You must be quite a villain yourself, huh?”

A person engulfed by such a wicked spirit…

If an ordinary person saw him, they might have gone into convulsions on the spot.

Only those with mana or those accustomed to evil things could maintain their sanity after witnessing such a sight.

“Tsk. If this doesn’t work on you, there’s no point in showing it off.”

The spirit was sucked back into his body.

The darkness surrounding him vanished, leaving him looking like an ordinary man again.

I frowned as I watched him manipulate the spirit at will.

“So you didn’t get consumed—you consumed it.”

“Of course. It keeps whining about killing and cutting and making noise all day long, but that’s nothing new.”

The man smiled at me as he finished speaking.

“You’ve come inside nicely. You seem to be able to withstand bullets too. Let’s see how long you can keep that up.”

He raised his hand as he looked at me.

“Do you know how many guns I have?”

As he raised his hand, the doors shut and people with guns appeared along the second-floor railing and various spots on the first floor.

Five people armed with rifles emerged in total.

Seeing them appear made him frown in confusion.

“Why are there only this many? Where are the rest?”

Before he could even finish speaking, one of the gunmen collapsed onto the floor.

Standing behind the fallen man was Hoffman.

At that moment, a gust of wind swept through the interior of the building.