[Safe Zone - Time Remaining 05:03h]

[Safe Zone - Time Remaining 05:02h]

[Safe Zone - Time Remaining 05:01h]

[Safe Zone - Time Remaining 05:00h]

The timer ticked away minute by minute until the time agreed by everyone arrived, for Baek Hyeon that time in between was mostly spent getting to know his own skills and the skills of his would-be colleagues, he actually wanted to follow the example of Mr.Judgment Spear who never disclosed one bit of his class to stay on the safety side but let’s be honest, what can a [Warrior] hide?

Two things of notice that happened on this time is that on affinity bases Baek Hyeon and Diego were assigned to the same party along with an archer called Park Seo-Jun and a female mage called Kim Ji-Ho. A healer was not assigned to his party as is seems that healers are a rare class among the common classes, the whole station only got two female healers which Michael Becking assigned one to be on standby healing arriving parties and the other to be his second in-command in the party he formed for himself with the ‘Elite’ of every party role. Diego actually got ‘enlisted’ to this party but he refused vehemently as Baek Hyeon wasn’t invited. Which actually brings us to the second thing of notice that happened.

Michael heavily implied that the party Baek Hyeon was a member of wouldn't be having a bright future and that he should obediently follow him. Of course he didn’t use these words but besides Diego not everyone is an idiot to not understand. Baek Hyeon along with his other two party members got enraged and a heated discussion followed where he questioned on what basis Michael was the station leader, that coupled with his ‘hoarding of talents’ made his position shaky among the station members.

“You are right, I apologize and won’t be forcing no one to become a member of my party, but I still believe that having a powerful main party is important” Michael gave in in the end but inside his thoughts were different. Baek Hyeon… I will remember this.

***

“Alright everyone, it is time, everyone already knows their parties and destination so lets climb the stairs together”

Being in one of the parties at the back Baek Hyeon could see most of the parties, but all he could see were faces of excitement that thought all that was happening was a game, including Diego, it made him uncomfortable.

It is a game though, not just the one you think it is. Baek Hyeon lampooned.

Despite having the cool headedness necessary to ignore the bloodshed and find an exit, it does not at all mean that Baek Hyeon was unaffected by it, far from it, he was just pushing the effect back.

I’ll have all the time in the world to deal with this shit after it is over. Baek Hyeon tucked this thought to the back of his mind and continued following everyone in silence.

Soon they arrived on the surface, where someone from another party couldn't help but exclaim.

“Finally! Fresh air!” The man said and followed by breathing in deeply, but his face changed as soon as he tasted the metallic air.

Not just him, but everyone’s faces changed after smelling the foul air full of blood and other fluids, and as soon as they had the time to look around…

“Oh my god is that still a body!?”

“I think I see something moving!”

“*Blaaaargh*”

The ‘tight’ formation immediately broke with people averting their eyes, covering their mouths or outright vomiting. The only one seemingly unaffected by it was Diego, who looked at the other survivors with curiosity and confusion, he then turned to Baek Hyeon as if asking what was happening.

Baek Hyeon was already expecting a scene of this kind even if not as exaggerated, but the reaction of Diego left him very amused.

He is literally on another wavelength compared to others. Baek Hyeon thought.

Soon Michael Becking, even though he was also pale, started screaming for attention.

“HEY! HEY! Listen up! I know it looks bad, I'm shocked too but we need to keep moving. We were fortunate enough to be in a safezone when it all happened but most didn’t have our luck. Now, remember what we were supposed to do, I don't believe that everyone not in our safezone died or that there was only one safezone, most people should have survived.”

That managed to calm down most people, and when Baek Hyeon glanced at his status window he saw:

[Courage]

>

He was really made to be a leader huh? Baek Hyeon was impressed but even more so he was jealous, he didn’t even have a skill.

“I know that most people here won’t find it easy to get used to this scene, and even more won’t be able to kill a goblin, this is not a game with numbers after all, they bleed and their bodies won’t vanish after they die. So I used a skill that I received from my pantheon to help everyone, it only lasts one hour so use this time to get more used to it.”

With their newfound courage the partys got separated and each one went their way.

***

Baek Hyeon and his party walked with him and Diego at the front, Kim Ji-Ho at the back and Park Seo-Jun walking ahead of everyone scouting. The difference between a Lvl.1 archer and everyone else was not big enough to make a difference in scouting but Park Seo-Jun said he received a quest to be the scout of the party, the reward was only Xp for his rune but it was still something extra for him.

It didn’t take long for Park Seo-Jun to come back from scouting, three minutes tops.

“I found two goblins 100 meters ahead in that direction, they seem idle”

“Alright everyone, like we trained!”

One hundred meters later the goblins were spotted, they were playing with the dead bodies poking with their bone shivs.

Following their plan for dealing with solitary goblins, an arrow flew together with a magic missile to hit one of the goblins chest while the other was held back by Diego shield.

While Park Seo-Jun and Kim Ji-Ho were reloading or recharging Baek Hyeon ran to the injured goblin holding his sword in a back right guard and slashed with all his strength.

Slash—!

A green head flew.

After finishing off the goblin he helped deal just enough damage for Diego to end the other.

“Hyung, i got it!” Diego excitedly showed a shining floating rune of the outline of a small head with big pointy ears, the [Goblin Race Rune (Common)].

Diego then proceeded to put the rune over his [Guardian Totem] rune drawn in his hand. Every rune one had equipped appeared as a tattoo drawn somewhere on the body unless someone willed it to be invisible. Otherwise someone with a total level of a hundred might not have a clear spot of skin on their bodies, even though some might see it as fashion or a show of power.

As soon as the runes overlayed themselves he watched as Diego’s ears grew pointy.

“I got +1 Agility!”

“Haha you look like an elf” Park Seo-Jun pointed at Diego and laughed.

“Does every race rune you overlay bring cosmetic changes? And if so, does it affect your perception like if you got an eagle's eyes you see better?” Kim Ji-Ho raised a valid question but no one knew the answer so they could only move on to another topic.

“I got a level up, everyone's the same?” Park Seo-Jun asked and everybody nodded.

Baek Hyeon status screen had the message:

[[Warrior Rune (Common)] Leveled up!]

Warrior rune now gave double the attributes, bringing his strength and constitution to a total of 7 each.

***

‘The strongest party’, named by Diego, continued picking up stray goblins here and there until everyone got another level up, bringing Baek Hyeon's main attributes to 8.

They have been hunting for about an hour and a half and between one hunt and another they found a few survivors here and that.

Sometimes they were asked to scout them back to the station but nobody wanted to play babysitter Diego included, so they just pointed in the right direction and continued hunting goblins.

Soon when they were preparing to go back they heard swears from afar.

“Fuck you ugly ass goblin!…Your mom is a troll!…Nobody loves you!” The party ran to the scene to find a man with ginger afro and weird clothes who was hanging by the top of an energy pole cursing a bunch of goblins who tried to get to him. And the weird part, everytime the man cursed a goblin would jerk back as if it had taken damage.

“Isn't that guy the stand-up comedian infamous for swearing at his crowd?” Kim Ji-Ho pointed out after making out the face of the man.

“Ae-Cha right? How the hell did he manage to survive the apocalypse?” Park Seo-Jun answered back.

“His name is Ae-Cha?” Baek Hyeon couldn't help but ask about the peculiar name.

“Haha his parents were expecting a girl hahaha” Park Seo-Jun snickered. “Anyway, we should help him, it's free Xp”. The rest of the party nodded.

Everyone being lvl3 almost lvl4, coupled with the ‘moral support’ from Ae-Cha the bunch of goblins died easily.

Ae-Cha climbed down the pole and greeted the party.

“Thank you for your help, i was almost out of mana, let me introduce myself im [Foul Mouthed] Ae-Cha”

“Oh we know you are foul mouthed”

“I meant my class, my class is [Foul Mouthed], it’s an uncommon rarity one even” Ae-Cha corrected Park Seo-Jun exasperatedly.

Baek Hyeon invited Ae-Cha back to the station over some small talk so after a while the party came back with one more member.