Chapter 54: A Shopkeeper’s Wrath
Donape’s hearing was vastly superior to that of any healthy human. Coupled with his Qi Perception, his senses were unnaturally sharp—even comparable to those of a greater wax moth.
Yet, while eating and stressing over the possibility of the banquet being canceled or postponed, his ears caught the faint, deadly sound of a high-speed bullet tearing through the distant air.
To confirm his suspicion, he immediately expanded his Qi Perception, enhancing his awareness with internal energy.
In an instant, he pinpointed the bullet and calculated its precise trajectory.
Intercepting it physically at that distance was impossible, leaving a split-second warning as his only option.
Thus, Donape shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice booming across the hall as it was infused with natural Qi.
Thanks to Donape’s split-second shout, Patriarch Baek managed to react just fast enough to slump his body down.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t entirely outrun the speed of a bullet—the projectile tore straight through his left shoulder.
THUD!
The heavy round continued its destructive path, shattering the antique timber behind the throne into splinters before embedding itself deep into the stone floor. The violent impact sent a plume of dust spilling across the dais.
There was no lingering silence—only immediate, blinding chaos as high-pitched screams erupted throughout the venue. Regular guests panicked and scrambled for the exits, while the elites instinctively ducked beneath heavy banquet tables, shouting for their personal bodyguards to come and shield them.
Within that same split second, the Baek Family’s servants and internal guards rushed toward the VIP area, while the outer security team scrambled to communicate, pinpoint the sniper’s location, and lock down the perimeter.
Mareum, who had been standing some distance away from Patriarch Baek, dashed over without a second thought for manners or decorum. As he ran, he bellowed, "Cover the Patriarch! Get the medics here, fast!"
Regaining their composure, the three Elders pulled Patriarch Baek behind the safety of the dais, attempting to apply pressure to his heavily bleeding shoulder wound.
Meanwhile, Baek Ji-Gal quickly subdued Jo-Hyun and sprinted toward his father.
"Father!"
Meanwhile, perched on an adjacent mountain ridge, two mercenaries from Babylon—the elite duo assigned to assassinate Patriarch Baek—monitored the chaos inside the hall.
It was Zyrgoive Marteen and Carl Mustang, executing Babylon’s Plan A.
Marteen clicked his tongue in frustration. "Tch!"
"What happened?" Mustang asked, his brow furrowing as he tightened his grip on his rifle.
He briefly considered reaching for his binoculars to scan the venue himself, but quickly dismissed the thought. His primary duty was to guard Marteen and ensure no unexpected threats interfered with their sniper position.
"Unexpected," Marteen grunted. "The shot failed."
Mustang frowned deeper. "Can you re-acquire the target and take another shot?"
"I can. Give me a minute."
Marteen regulated his breathing, steadying his posture as he peered through his sophisticated high-magnification scope.
He tapped a control on the housing, toggling his optic to thermal detection mode. However, with the VIP section in complete disarray and bodies scrambling over one another, distinguishing Patriarch Baek from the surrounding targets was proving difficult.
But Marteen didn’t hesitate. If a precise hit wasn’t an option, he would simply saturation-fire the entire area with every round he had left.
He harbored zero concern about revealing his position. After all, their fellow Babylon operatives had already secured the ridge and established a defensive perimeter, ensuring no one from the estate could reach him before the job was done.
"Oh. Smart," Marteen muttered under his breath, noticing through his optic that the venue’s guards were already rushing to cover the shattered window frames with heavy wooden planks.
He decided to shoot right through them anyway. At this high caliber, thin wooden barricades meant nothing.
Though pinpointing Patriarch Baek’s exact silhouette based on thermal signatures alone was difficult, firing into the dense heat cluster where the family had gathered was more than enough.
BANG!
CLACK!
Marteen ejected the spent casing, chambered a new high-caliber round, and pulled the trigger again without hesitation.
BANG!
Inside the venue, absolute bedlam reigned. Panicked guests rushed the main exit doors, nearly triggering a fatal stampede in their desperation to escape.
Then, the sudden thunder of high-caliber rounds splintering through the wooden window barricades sent a fresh wave of horror through the crowd, escalating the hysteria to a fever pitch.
The first blind bullet tore into the VIP area, missing its mark and embedding itself deep into the stonework. The second bullet, however, found flesh.
THUD!
A body collapsed onto the elevated dais.
It was one of Mareum’s trusted subordinates—a guard who had thrown his own body over Patriarch Baek to shield him, taking the heavy armor-piercing round squarely in the back.
Nearby, Mareum was frantically dragging heavy antique tables and thick wooden decor to build a makeshift rampart around the bleeding Patriarch, his eyes burning with helpless rage as his men took the fire.
"Medic! What’s the Patriarch’s condition?! Can we evacuate him?! We need to get him out of here, fast!" Mareum shouted over the chaos.
"Evacuation is possible! We’ve managed to stabilize the bleeding for now," the lead medic called back, applying heavy pressure to the wound.
"Good. Some of you head outside and neutralize those shooters," Patriarch Baek commanded, his breath coming in ragged hitches as he fought through the pain.
Elder Su-Su and Elder Li-Si exchanged a sharp glance, nodding in agreement. They immediately began mobilizing the remaining family members, inner-court martial artists, and venue security to coordinate with the local police forces surrounding the compound perimeter.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, Donape was crouched behind an overturned heavy banquet table alongside Ji-Hong, Butler Lee, A-Ji, and Ji-Ga.
"Boss Don, what’s going on?! Is my grandfather safe?!" Ji-Hong asked. Remarkably, his voice remained calm and composed despite this being his first real-life gunfight.
It was all thanks to his countless hours in Counter-Injustice: Global Retaliation—modern ballistic warfare wasn’t a total shock to his system anymore, even outside the VR world.
Butler Lee and the two bodyguards were equally unflinching, their composure anchored by a mix of real-world military experience and VR combat training.
"Your old man is fine. The bullet only tore through his left shoulder," Donape replied, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the room. "Though if they delay proper medical care, it could turn serious—that kind of arterial bleeding won’t stay sealed for long without proper stitches."
Before anyone could begin the evacuation, a deafening storm of automatic rifle fire tore into the outer walls of the venue.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The pristine hall dissolved into a total madhouse as a thick, blinding cloud of pulverized concrete and dust choked the air.
Unlike the polished violence of the movies or anime he used to watch, the reality was raw and gruesome. Scores of guests were caught in the relentless crossfire—some killed instantly where they stood, while others collapsed to the ground, screaming in agony as high-caliber rounds shattered their limbs.
Donape witnessed the carnage, struggling to maintain his composure despite his intense VR combat training and his tolerance for the System’s punitive lightning bolts.
His shock, however, lasted only a fraction of a second before raw frustration took over. He was absolutely convinced his System Quest was about to be ruined.
"Find me a way out of here! I’m handling those bastards myself!" Donape roared, his voice cutting through the gunfire. "F*ck! How dare they mess up my quest?! How the hell am I supposed to handle the penalty?! Goddamn it!"
Ji-Hong and the other three were dumbfounded, unable to understand what that was supposed to mean.
Donape barked again, his eyes flashing with fury. "Hey! A way out?! Move!"
Flustered, Ji-Ga snapped to attention. "C-Come with me! Follow me!"
Ji-Ga ducked low and darted toward an exit on the far right, with Donape right on his heels.
Behind them, Ji-Hong exchanged a bewildered glance with Butler Lee and A-Ji under the cover of the heavy table.
"What’s wrong with him? Is Boss Don trying to run away?" Ji-Hong asked, stunned.
"N-No? I don’t think so..." Butler Lee blurted out, still processing the words. "I-I think he just said he’s going to go outside and deal with the shooters himself?!"
The trio fell dead silent beneath the barrage of high-caliber rounds tearing through the ceiling above them. They stared at each other, utterly stumped as to what a single man without a firearm could possibly do against a heavily armed squad.
Meanwhile, crouching low beneath the low-hanging smoke, Ji-Ga guided Donape out toward a side courtyard entrance.
"S-Shopkeeper, are you sure about this?" Ji-Ga whispered, his voice trembling.
"I’m sure. Go back inside and protect your Young Master," Donape commanded, rolling his shoulders and flexing his wrists. "It’s about to get ten times more chaotic out here. Just survive and keep the others safe until I’m finished. I need to take care of that sniper first... I have a rough idea where those bastards are hiding."
Ji-Ga swallowed hard, unsure of what to make of the shopkeeper’s supreme confidence.
’I’ve never tried using Qi like this in real life, but screw it!’ Donape cursed inwardly, his teeth gritting as he flooded his lower body with immense internal energy. ’Those bastards are going to pay with their lives for ruining my QUEST!’
Donape planted his feet, his thigh muscles surging with compressed Qi.
BOOM!
He launched himself into the night sky with a violent, earth-shattering stomp, leaving a spiderweb of deep cracks in the stone pavement below.
Ji-Ga watched in jaw-dropping, absolute disbelief as Donape rocketed upward like a human missile, vanishing into the darkness above the compound. His mouth hung open, his mind completely failing to comprehend what he had just witnessed.
’How did he do that?!’ Ji-Ga thought, his brain short-circuiting. ’Even after learning the Heavenly Martial Arts... is a human even supposed to jump like that?!’