NOVEL WEB Chapter 136 - Massive Blast
Chapter 136 Massive Blast
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“So close, I almost got them.”
On the bridge of the cargo ship, one player was looking for the disappeared Dice.
The number of containers was now so sparse that it could be described as patchy. The sight of this container ship was not the typical imposing image one would think of—a vessel filled with tens of thousands of boxes, majestically sailing across the sea.
This was due to the nature of the port city Tannhäuser, which meant that most of the cargo had already been unloaded here. According to common online analyses, only about 33% of the full load remained.
Moreover, the ship itself was not that large.
Roughly, it could carry 1000 TEU, which means it could hold a thousand containers. Since each container could carry about 10 tons, the ship’s capacity was around 10,000 tons.
Of course, all this information was from Tree Wiki.
Summit, the main pro gamer of TK1.
As he reloaded his magazine, he was pinpointing the positions of those moving around him. However, even if the cargo ship was only 10,000 tons, it was impossible to cover everything with just one person’s gaze.
There was nothing he could do if he narrowly missed the target. Moreover, if he continued to engage in firefights, his position would inevitably be revealed through the sound of gunfire and muzzle flashes.
Such situations often occurred in Apex Predator. And letting go of greed was the way to achieve better results.
At least, that’s what he believed.
───Boom!
“…What was that?”
A noise came from outside the bridge as he was cautiously and skillfully scouting the surroundings. It was the sound of a grenade exploding. Since it came from near the ship’s edge, he carefully aimed in that direction but found nothing unusual.
Dice had also vanished.
He fired a scan grenade to sweep the area, but no one was found. It took him about 30 seconds to completely disregard her, and Summit resumed his scouting.
‘If the kill zone moves, I’ll parachute down, get in that car, and take the bridge I set up.’
Securing a retreat route was always important.
The sound of popcorn popping continued to echo from all sides. Even the occasional grenade explosion could be heard. As the game moved into the later stages, it was natural for the kill zone to shift, but today, it was strangely converging perfectly in the center of the map.
Therefore, it was only natural for KSM participants to gather around here. Moreover, this cargo ship was almost at the midpoint of the center. If luck was on his side, he could keep holding out here.
It was a risky choice, but he had already set up the gate. Although other players could come and go, the bridge was so open that anyone passing through would be in danger.
The important thing was a sure kill and victory. He needed to place at least in the top ten to earn meaningful points.
───Bang!
However, when the ship shook violently, he couldn’t help but be surprised.
Several containers were on fire.
“Damn, this is bad…”
A troublesome situation.
The only revolution in the port city of Tannhäuser was this ship’s very existence. If someone set a fire, the explosives inside the containers would cause a massive explosion, rocking the ship, and the remaining containers would all spill into the water.
Although today’s explosion was somewhat smaller, the plan he had carefully devised was now disrupted. Was Dice aiming for this? It was indeed a smart choice.
The problem was, it wouldn’t have a significant impact.
Anyway,
“I have to get down.”
He glanced around, starting to think rapidly.
He wasn’t sure what exactly was loaded on the ship, but the explosives had already detonated. The explosion must have drawn everyone’s attention to this direction. Using the parachute could be dangerous now.
The final chosen method was to quickly leave the bridge on foot.
He continued to check the outside as he descended the stairs. With the initial plan ruined, causing a commotion would be disadvantageous, so he had to be even more cautious.
After roughly 2 minutes, he reached the bottom of the bridge without being detected.
Only when he reached the edge of the deck did he see the devastation from the fire. The flames were spreading, heating up the surrounding containers. He had to escape quickly.
He tied a steel cable to a thick chain and threw it over the fence. Using the stairs would take too long and would make him visible, so he chose a quicker method.
───Creak!
After descending using the ascender, he abandoned the cable and ran quickly. The vehicle he had noted earlier was still there. Fortunately, it seemed no one had noticed him yet.
Before getting in the vehicle, he hid behind it and opened the mini-map to decide where to go. Today didn’t seem to be his lucky day. His goal now was to survive as long as possible—he thought, as he hurriedly started the engine.
The loud, attention-grabbing roar of the engine resounded, but by the time anyone noticed and turned in that direction, the vehicle’s wheels were already spinning, making Summit the outlaw on the road.
Vroom.
It had been 30 seconds since he got in the vehicle.
‘…Huh?’
The sound of the world disappeared.
Suddenly, light and darkness flashed before his eyes, and everything went black. Before he could even make a sound, time slowed to an extreme, and his body floated.
In an instant, the screen turned completely black. Before he could wonder what was happening, a familiar scene appeared before his eyes.
He was in the lobby.
A few lines of text informed him of what had happened.
[Notification: KIA]
[Cause of death: Explosion]
“…What the hell?”
The story of being so stunned that one couldn’t speak.
Summit felt the reality of it and, with an incredulous expression, held his head.
───Boom!
3km away from there.
Yoo Jin barely dodged the shattering glass from the tremendous explosion and looked in that direction with a rather bewildered expression for her.
A mushroom cloud was rising from the center of the map.
She knew what it was.
“…They finally did it.”
She could guess the culprit without saying a word.
Yoo Jin wiped the bewilderment from her lips and replaced it with a smile.
Inside the empty factory, only her small chuckling echoed.
“Wh-What on earth is happening…!”
The kill log under Dice’s name continued to rise endlessly and stopped at eleven.
But that wasn’t the important part.
The small fire that had started from the central port of Tannhäuser was not just a simple fire; it was a fuse closely tied to an unimaginable massive explosion.
Over 2 million people witnessed the spectacle, which could only be described as astonishing.
In a split second, a fire pillar over hundreds of meters high rose above the cargo ship, enveloped by a hemispherical cloud. The enormous explosion compressed the atmosphere, causing the vapor to condense.
Everyone had to cover their ears from the deafening sound, followed by a massive shockwave that blew away the cranes and nearby buildings like matchsticks and styrofoam. Naturally, all the glass windows shattered.
Within a 100-meter radius, everything was scorched, and players within 500 meters who couldn’t escape suffered significant damage. But that wasn’t the end. Like pieces of chocolate thrown by someone, tons of containers flew and crashed into buildings.
At precisely 700 meters from the explosion, Dice, who was fleeing in a car, was caught in the sonic boom and flew with the vehicle, but managed to survive by crashing into a building wall.
However, that wasn’t the important part.
The incident stunned the commentators. The explosion, which should have been a moderate one, splitting the ship in half and spilling the cargo into the water, turned into a massive explosion that etched itself into the memories of over 2 million people.
They had opened all the propane gas tank valves, burst powdered sugar to scatter inside the container, distributed batteries and propane tanks into the ammonium nitrate container, and damaged the batteries to heat them up.
All this preparation took just 3 minutes.
With such simple preparations, Dice managed to annihilate most of the players within a 200-meter radius.
The commentator, regaining his composure, shouted.
“…No one could have imagined such a play! While there have been many explosions in Tannhäuser, who could have predicted this in a tournament-scale match! SSM’s Dice is racing ahead in a most extraordinary way!”
Silence turned to astonishment.
Astonishment turned to cheers.
Cheering turned to applause and shouts, but it took a while for the tremendous explosion to erase the presence of Yoo Jin from the minds of millions—even just for this round.
Just minutes ago, they had cheered for Yoo Jin. The second wave of cheers was for Dice—and during this time, the ones most bewildered were the players caught in the explosion and killed.
It wasn’t just a bolt from the blue, it was the unluckiest event they had ever encountered. They closed their eyes and found themselves back in the lobby.
Of course, the deceased players couldn’t speak as they saw the 500-meter-high mushroom cloud and the obliterated central port of Tannhäuser.
“…Damn, this is…”
“Haha, what the…”
No words could describe the bewilderment.
They wouldn’t have anything to say in the debriefing later.
‘Why do you think you died then?’
‘We couldn’t stop Dice from 200 meters away and got blown up.’
‘Yeah. Let’s try harder.’
Such a scenario… wouldn’t happen.
Their coach, teammates, and analysts would all be baffled. At least they had a story to tell at the bar. They had to think positively, or they’d be consumed by anger.
Hey! Have you ever been hit by a nuclear explosion up close? I went
to the sauna with ammonium nitrate and hugged a propane gas tank! It was sheer madness.
By the end of the day, a stunning video of Dice’s explosion would be uploaded on Tree Wiki, and the list of eleven players who perished in the blast would be included.
“…What a terrible day.”
In retrospect, wasn’t this all Yoo Jin’s fault?
If Yoo Jin hadn’t been there, Dice wouldn’t have gone crazy like this.
While lost in such bizarre thoughts, a rather plain-looking Cheese Cat—an avatar of a female character—was lying on the floor, making strange noises.
The AP soloing pro scene was small, so it was easy to identify who it was. TK1’s Summit. TK1’s face and skill. He could have made it to the Asian preliminaries, maybe even the finals.
But, well.
Thud.
“How can a person beat a natural disaster? Just let it go.”
“…Ugh, damn it. I can’t play AP anymore. Where do these crazy people come from this year…”
Indeed.
With silent agreement, the eleven players just lay there until the match ended.
It had been 30 minutes since KSM started.
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