Chapter 17

The Dignity of the Greatest Sword (1)

After Yeongwoo finished his first proper meal, a brief silence settled over the group.

Everyone had been so hungry that, for a moment, they had almost forgotten that the world was in the middle of the horrific process known as the Reset.

"U-um... Mr. Greatest Sword."

The elderly man with the wolf cut from the Hanulchae group spoke first.

"Huh? Ah, well... if you're comfortable with it, just call me Yeongwoo."

"Yes, Mr. Yeongwoo."

What was he trying to say?

Yeongwoo looked at the old man's stiff expression.

The old man carefully held up one of the commemorative coins and asked,

"If it's alright with you... may we use this?"

Thirty thousand Karma per person.

He was basically asking whether Yeongwoo intended to reclaim them.

"Ah, that."

Yeongwoo stared blankly at the face engraved on the coin before nodding.

"Of course. I handed them out so you could use them however you wanted."

"W-wow..."

"Y-you really mean it?"

Only then did the people of Hanulchae finally relax.

Yeongwoo smiled faintly along with them before suddenly asking,

"By the way, would you mind telling me exactly how you plan to use them?"

He wanted to estimate how the tens of millions of Karma that had flowed into Gumi City would be spent.

"We haven't decided everything yet, but..."

This time, the wife from one of the married couples answered.

"We'll probably keep ten thousand each for taxes and use the rest to raise our stats. That way we'll have an easier time fighting monsters."

"I see. Then... what about the children? Will they raise their stats too?"

At his follow-up question, everyone from Hanulchae fell silent.

They hadn't actually thought that far ahead.

"Well... wouldn't it be better to increase the combat ability of the guardians first?"

"Yeah, I suppose that's something you can discuss among yourselves. I was just curious."

After that, Yeongwoo turned toward Yechan, who had been quietly waiting behind him.

"Hungry?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's go find something to eat."

"Where?"

"Anywhere that might have food. We're in a residential area, so there should be a supermarket or something nearby."

The old man politely pointed south.

"This is our neighborhood after all. I know where the supermarket is. I'll guide you there."

Obviously, he wanted to stay close to the Greatest Sword.

Still, Yeongwoo needed to secure food before it got any darker, so he simply nodded.

When they first set out, there had been exactly nine people.

Yeongwoo's group plus the Hanulchae group.

But now...

"Uh... is this really okay?"

Yechan repeatedly gripped and released his spear while glancing behind them.

The reason was the crowd that had gradually begun gathering.

"...Not much we can do. It's not like we can kill them."

When Yeongwoo glanced back, he was greeted by a flood of reactions.

"Wow... it's really the Greatest Sword."

"He looks exactly like the guy on the coin."

"He seems less intimidating than I expected."

Within less than fifteen minutes, dozens of people had gathered and were following them while whispering endlessly.

Pretending not to hear the comments about himself, Yeongwoo asked the old man leading the way,

"Sir, are we almost there?"

"We've arrived. It's right up ahead."

The old man glanced behind them and continued.

"You're bothered by them, aren't you?"

"Well, naturally..."

"But I don't think they mean any harm. Who would hold resentment toward the person who saved their lives? Especially people with families."

Ironically, the old man himself had no family.

"And besides, this is the first time."

"Hm?"

"The first good thing that's happened since this Reset business started. What you did for us, Mr. Yeongwoo."

The old man smiled with his sunken cheeks and prominent cheekbones.

Yeongwoo unconsciously lowered his head.

"There it is."

At last, the old man pointed ahead.

By now it had grown dark enough that most objects were little more than silhouettes, but Yeongwoo immediately knew where the supermarket was.

A huge crowd had gathered there, and it was incredibly noisy.

"Is this really how you're going to do it?"

"What the hell are you trying to pull? You want everyone to starve?"

"At least let people eat! Can't you compromise a little?"

More than a hundred people crowded around the supermarket entrance, shouting.

And at the center of it all—

"Compromise? Are you idiots? This is robbery! Do you understand that?!"

A man with murderous fury in his eyes stood at the entrance alongside people who appeared to be his family, barricading the store.

Both sides were armed.

"Damn..."

The old man clicked his tongue after grasping the situation.

Yeongwoo also frowned.

Everyone came here looking for food, but the supermarket owner refuses to let them in.

Honestly, it was understandable.

Most objects had turned to stone during the Reset, but that didn't automatically erase ownership rights.

Even Yeongwoo still considered the chocolate bars he had grabbed when the Reset began to be his own property.

He had legally purchased them before everything happened.

From that perspective, the supermarket owner was simply defending what he believed was rightfully his.

That's true.

Until now, Yeongwoo had assumed people would simply pay Karma to unseal items and use them.

But if the items already belonged to someone else, then paying the owner would be the proper thing to do.

After all, unsealing an item didn't magically compensate its original owner.

Which meant that even the bicycles he and Yechan were riding could technically be considered stolen property.

The cause of the current crisis could be summarized in two points:

First, the supermarket owner's family had survived until now.

Second, society had not yet reached any consensus regarding pre-Reset ownership rights.

A difficult problem.

Feeling a headache coming on, Yeongwoo slowly approached the supermarket entrance.

Followed by dozens of self-appointed paparazzi.

As soon as he did—

"Huh?"

"It's the Greatest Sword!"

"Oh my god!"

The crowd's attention instantly shifted to him.

Meanwhile...

"...Fuck. We're screwed."

The supermarket owner spat on the ground.

Judging by the circumstances, even the Greatest Sword had come to loot the store.

Ownership rights wouldn't matter if the Greatest Sword decided to force his way in.

And if that happened, the massive crowd would storm the supermarket and strip it bare.

The owner instinctively looked toward his family.

At the same moment, Yeongwoo noticed and instead tucked Early Bird into his waist.

There are too many people. If the owner keeps resisting, blood is guaranteed to be spilled.

And what the crowd wanted wasn't luxury goods.

It was food.

The second most important thing for survival after taxes.

They weren't going to leave peacefully.

As Yeongwoo continued walking toward the supermarket, the crowd naturally parted for him.

The combined authority of the commemorative coins and the title floating above his head was immense.

"Greatest Sword..."

"Please do something about this guy."

"Please solve this for us."

Everyone voiced their grievances as he passed.

And finally—

Yeongwoo, Yechan, and the Hanulchae group arrived in front of the supermarket owner's family.

"Damn it."

"A-ah, Dad..."

There were only three of them:

The owner, his wife, and a middle-school-aged son.

Compared to the hundred-plus people surrounding the store, their strength was pitiful.

But the crowd wasn't hesitating because they pitied them.

The silver blade pointed cautiously at Yeongwoo trembled.

An Early Bird. So he wasn't an ordinary man either.

Yeongwoo calmly examined the Early Bird gripped in both of the owner's hands.

"Listen."

He extended his golden gauntleted hand and gently pushed the sword tip aside.

"You need to move. I understand your position, but if things continue like this, you're going to die. You know that, don't you?"

"...What did you say?"

The owner's gaze remained fixed on Yeongwoo's golden fingers.

Even he could tell that the equipment was extraordinary.

"The world has already reset. Nobody has the luxury of worrying about someone else's circumstances. Trying to hold onto everything you owned before the Reset is greed. Right now, survival comes first. Everyone became penniless overnight."

The owner exploded.

"Greed? You're calling it greed because I'm trying to protect what's mine?"

"It is greed if you're desperately clinging to things you can no longer keep."

As he said that, Yeongwoo remembered the young policeman at the Exchange Station.

The one who kept collecting coins from the ground even as looters closed in.

"If this continues, you and your family will die horribly. If I were you, I'd take as much food as I could carry and leave."

"Are you threatening me?"

In truth, it was a threat.

Yeongwoo had no intention of starving himself merely to respect the man's property rights.

"You have an Early Bird too. Use the coins I gave out to raise your stats. You'll be able to hunt monsters. Start over from there. Everyone else is doing the same."

After hearing all that, the owner's wife quietly turned toward the inside of the store.

"I think we should listen to him. If this continues... we might not be able to take anything with us."

The word anything included not only food, but their lives as well.

After all, even the Greatest Sword had shown up.

What else could they do?

Yet the owner still couldn't abandon his stubbornness—

or rather, his pride.

And so...

"Damn it!"

While Yeongwoo glanced toward the store interior, following the wife's gaze, the owner launched a sneak attack.

Whoosh!

The silver blade brushed past Yeongwoo's golden fingers.

But Yeongwoo had already seen the entire trajectory.

Choosing the worst possible option in front of your family.

The hologram of the Gumi Sword Technique appeared before his eyes, while a familiar notification informed him that combat had begun.

[Your Sense stat has temporarily increased from 100 to 116.]

It was the sensory theft effect of Golden Flash.

At least I learned something useful.

Yeongwoo moved to subdue the owner, but—

"...?"

After seeing the next notifications, he immediately changed priorities.

[Your Sense stat has temporarily increased from 116 to 131.]

[Your Sense stat has temporarily increased from 131 to 145.]

[Your Sense stat has temporarily increased from 145 to 163.]

Someone hidden within the crowd was glaring at him from behind.

At the same time, he realized that Golden Flash effectively functioned as a rear-view camera.

Ting!

Yeongwoo casually knocked aside the supermarket owner's Early Bird.

Then he turned around and released the overwhelming presence of the Greatest Sword.

Crackle!

Golden light blazed from his eyes as he snarled,

"Alright, you bastards."

"Disaster relief payment revoked."