Genius Salsu of the World to Be Destroyed - Chapter 145
Only Noblemtl
Episode 145
Wild shopping center main gate.
The guard on guard saw Youngsoo approaching.
“Huh? Where are you going at this early hour?”
“To investigate.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah. It’s annoying when people rush in like this.”
Oh, right.
“When people wake up later, send about 20 people to the Cheonghwa Guild headquarters. They are strong people.”
“What is that for?”
“There’s a fish I caught there. If you ask for some, saying my name, I’ll give it to you.”
“You mean one fish? One fish?”
“huh.”
“It takes twenty people to bring one… …?”
“A little bigger.”
“Okay, uh, I understand.”
“I’m going out.”
Phew-
Youngsoo disappeared before his eyes.
Leaving only a small amount of dirt on the floor.
* * *
Hooooo-
Youngsoo ran for a while.
Now I could run between buildings without having to use my light skills.
This was because my physical strength had been greatly strengthened by absorbing so many KPs over the past month.
A sufficiently developed physique was indistinguishable from skill.
Of course, if I used light air, I could go a little faster… … .
‘Let’s think about it.’
I deliberately did not use lightness, as I wanted to think while running.
‘Why on earth did the bloody smog happen again?’
The first bloody smog event occurred on the east coast.
Red fog also rolled in from the East Sea.
Because of this, the damage was limited to the eastern coastal region and its surrounding areas.
But this second incident was different.
‘It suddenly exploded inland.’
Of course, during the first incident, the red fog did move inland a little bit.
This is because some of the red fog had crossed the Taebaek Mountains and invaded the inland.
But even that wasn’t that deep inland.
However, the place where this second incident occurred was the Mujin Guild’s area.
It was an inland area, much further inland than the areas previously invaded by the red fog.
In this way, the fundamental question of this situation could not help but converge to the following question.
‘Where is this bloody smog coming from?’
The first incident occurred in the East Sea.
So where did this second incident occur?
‘Did it originate in the West Sea? No, if so, our wildness would have been hit first. In the South Sea? Too far away. In the East Sea, like the first time? But even when it originated in such large quantities in the first time, it didn’t come this far inland?’
Still, the East Sea was the only place with a chance.
Because a much larger red fog than the first one may have formed and flowed inland.
‘Then should we start by looking at the east coast region… … .’
Before that, there was actually another, bigger problem.
The ‘second’ Bloody Smog event has never occurred in the game.
It didn’t happen in the game, but it happened in real life?
‘There is a high probability that some variable was involved.’
That ‘variable’ that may exist, but I don’t know what it is.
As much as finding the source of the bloody smog was key to the investigation, finding its variables was also key.
chin-
Before he knew it, Youngsu had reached a place where the corpses of zombies were strewn about.
I’m talking about the place where the fierce battle between the Mujin Guild and the zombies took place yesterday.
‘The fog is coming from the east. Let’s proceed with the investigation by moving east from here.’
Youngsoo started running again, jumping over the rooftops of the buildings.
Then, Youngsu saw people gathered on a rooftop.
Three men huddled together around a drum can.
At first glance, you could tell that they were people warming themselves by a bonfire lit inside a drum.
‘Good. I’ll go and warm up for a bit.’
It is dawn now.
A time when the sun has not yet risen and the cold air has not yet gone away.
It was a time when my body was starting to get a little cold.
‘I’ll do some research as well.’
Thinking like that, Youngsoo approached the drum can.
But when I actually got there, there was no bonfire.
“Hey, Mr. Lee, who put out the spark!”
“This is crazy, do you have a torch?”
“But the gas… … .”
From what I could hear from the conversation behind him, it seemed like he had put out the fire last night.
Besides, it seemed like the torch’s gas had all been used up.
Eventually, a man stuck a wooden stick into the plywood and started spinning the stick like crazy.
Friction ignition is a last resort in situations where there is no ignition device.
As expected, it was an extremely difficult ignition method that even experts would have to take dozens of minutes to ignite.
And these men didn’t look like professionals at all.
In the end, Youngsoo stepped forward.
“hey.”
“Eek!”
The men were extremely surprised because Youngsoo had approached them without making any noise.
Of course, I didn’t hide it on purpose.
Hiding one’s presence was just an occupational disease for assassins.
“Who, who, who are you?!”
“No, it’s just that the situation seems a bit difficult.”
Exactly!
Youngsoo flicked his gloved hand.
A fireball formed from his fingertips and flew into a drum full of firewood.
Hurrruk!
A fire that burns so quickly that it’s ridiculous.
The men spoke in embarrassment.
“Oh, that over there… Thank you.”
“Can I have some too?”
“Oh, of course. Who started the fire?”
So the four men gathered around the campfire.
Without missing this opportunity, Youngsoo began to investigate.
“By the way, did you see the red fog yesterday?”
“Of course I saw it. That’s why I’ve been up here on the rooftop since dawn.”
“Oh really?”
“When that fog rolled in, the monsters went wild and ran wild. I barely managed to survive.”
“But what does that have to do with being on the rooftop?”
“I’m keeping an eye on it. If I see it coming again, I need to run away first.”
“aha.”
Yeongsu nodded and asked.
“But did you see where that fog came from?”
“I didn’t see it. By the time I noticed, the surrounding area was already covered in fog.”
“Hmm.”
“But the wind was blowing from that direction. Then the fog must have come from that direction, too.”
As he said this, the man pointed to the east with his finger.
Then the man said,
“But why that red fog?”
“I’m personally investigating.”
“Hoo, investigation… Cool!”
That moment.
“Cluck, cluck!”
“Ugh… … !”
“Coolook!!”
All the men except Youngsoo suddenly started coughing violently.
Youngsoo was embarrassed.
‘what?’
Youngsoo looked around calmly.
And soon the cause was discovered.
It was because I inhaled the smoke from the campfire.
Youngsu was not harmed because the smoke was neutralized by the unicorn horn necklace.
however…….
‘The coughs are so bad that I think it’s because of the smoke.’
Youngsoo looked inside the drum.
It was clear that there was some sort of toxic gas inside the drum, not just simple smoke.
Youngsoo activated his skill.
—-
[Skill] ‘Attack Interference’ activated.
—-
Less-
Yeongsu started to chop the firewood with a fork.
And soon the cause was discovered.
“This is it.”
As Youngsu gestured, a piece of firewood was pulled out from inside the drum and floated into the air.
At first glance, it looks like just an ordinary piece of wood.
But it was something that shouldn’t be used as firewood.
Yeongsu lifted the firewood and threw it into a corner of the rooftop.
Then, after a while, the men’s coughing stopped.
A man asked.
“What… what is it?”
“That firewood is a tree called Sayangsong.”
“Special offer?”
“A tree containing a sap that causes itching.”
By the way, the main ingredient of the itching agent that Oh Yang-ho was trying to feed to Young-soo was also this tree.
“It is only natural that you would cough if you inhaled the smoke from burning such a tree. The sap contained in the tree would have been completely released as smoke… … .”
wait for a sec.
“dispose……?”
At that moment, a flash of inspiration crossed Youngsoo’s mind.
“The substance the tree was holding was released… …?”
I thought I knew.
Where did the bloody smog come from?
And even why it happened.
fault!
Youngsoo started running straight east.
This time I ran using light air.
Because I was confident.
‘The source of this bloody smog is not the sea. It’s the forest!’
There is a tree called ‘Heupsa-mok’.
It is not a tree that originally existed on Earth, but a tree that only grows in Eldrunia.
Of course, now it is growing on Earth too because of the mass production.
‘The biggest characteristic of the mosquito is that it absorbs all kinds of toxic substances in the air.’
The toxic substances absorbed in this way are all stored in the roots.
So last year, during the first blog smog incident.
The red fog that had rolled in at that time would probably have been completely absorbed by the forest of maples.
So it may have been unable to spread further inland.
However, there were also problems with the similar tree.
The point is that it does not ‘purify’ toxic substances, but rather ‘stores’ them.
That is, rather than detoxifying the toxic substance, it simply retains it.
That’s why… … .
‘When the moss dies, all the toxic substances stored in the roots of the moss are released!’
That was the cause of this second bloody smog incident.
‘The red fog had already crossed the Taebaek Mountains. That fog suddenly disappeared as it was spreading inland? This wasn’t disappearance. It was absorbed.’
There is one reason why Youngsoo is so confident.
Because I knew that there was a grove of trees at the spot where the red fog from the first incident had dissipated.
‘Damn, why didn’t I notice this sooner?!’
It was worth it.
In the game, no matter how many times you loop, the bloody smog situation always ends once.
It wasn’t a matter worth worrying about.
Choaaaak!
Youngsoo stopped, leaving long skid marks on the ground.
“…think.”
This place is like a grove of trees.
No, to be exact, it was a place that ‘used to be’ a colony of trees.
Because all the similar trees that had grown here and there had disappeared, leaving only stumps behind.
“… It’s been logged.”
It was as if someone had cut down the trees and taken them somewhere.
So the trees died, and the red mist stored in their roots began to emanate again.
Even-
‘I can smell blood too.’
Not the usual smell of blood, but the strong smell of blood characteristic of bloody smog.
The second bloody smog incident did indeed originate here.
It was the moment when Youngsoo’s reasoning was correct.
‘The question is, who did the logging?’
Actually, I had no intention of blaming the logging itself.
Now, we are in a situation where ‘the collapse of civilization’ has occurred.
The city gas pipes have been leaking for a long time, and the gas stations have probably run out of gas long ago.
So, in the end, we will have no choice but to use wood as fuel for cooking and heating.
So, while we can’t blame logging itself, we need to make the news known.
‘At the very least, we must prevent the cutting of the similar trees. If we cut down other similar trees, the third and fourth bloody smog incidents will occur.’
Youngsoo examined the traces left on the floor.
Faint tire marks could be seen on the dirt floor.
Perhaps it is a trace of logs being loaded onto a cart and transported.
Youngsu followed the wheel tracks and headed south.
But after walking for a while, the wheel marks disappeared.
Because it came into an area where people live.
As many people walked over the place where the cart had passed, the tracks were erased.
From here on out, there was no choice but to find out through inquiry.
“Hey, listen.”
“yes?”
Youngsoo grabbed a young man nearby and asked him.
“Do you happen to know where the trees that were cut down in the forest over there went?”
“Ah… That probably went towards the ‘Citadel’.”
“acropolis?”
“yes.”
“What is a citadel?”
“Hmm? You don’t know what a citadel is?”
“… … ?”
“Well, you’ll know when you go.”
Yeongsu went straight in the direction the man pointed.
On the way, Youngsu felt something strange throughout the street.
It was active.
The entire street was filled with the liveliness of an old downtown area.
It’s amazing that in this day and age when everything seems to be in decline, there is such vitality.
‘Anyway, what on earth is the castle…?’
Yeongsu guessed that it was a den of gangsters or a warlord.
The place Youngsoo arrived was a hotel.
Hotel Citadel.
As soon as he saw the name, Youngsu instinctively felt that this was the ‘Castle’.
Because the meaning of citadel was fortress.
This place was renowned as the best hotel in the country, so Yeongsu also knew the name.
It was also famous for its ultra-expensive suites, which cost up to 40 million won per night.
“Anyway, these guys here took the tree, right?”
Youngsoo entered the hill road leading to the hotel.
at that time.
“You’re here!!”
Ssak!
Five men surrounded Youngsoo.