/
As soon as Seo Jun-Ho returned to the hotel, the others flocked around him.
“What the hell were you doing? It’s dawn already!”
“Are you hurt anywhere? If so, let me heal you before anything else!”
“Is Community broken for you? Why weren’t you answering?”
They scolded him for a long time.
However, he didn’t exactly hate it, as they were worried about him. He let out a small chuckle.
“Why are you laughing? Is this a joke to you?” Gilberto chided.
Seo Jun-Ho dismissed him with another laugh.
“The experiment was a success.”
“...That’s good to hear, I suppose.”
“Yes! Then, we should be able to really quickly clear the 4th floor!”
“Can we go right up to the 5th floor? We’re already halfway there.”
Their faces were giddy, excited for the hopeful future. Seo Jun-Ho watched them for a moment before he clapped his hands together to get their attention.
“Let’s rest until morning. We’ll start hunting tomorrow night after everyone’s done collecting their marbles.”
They all returned to their rooms, hoping to reserve their stamina for tomorrow.
“Oh, Skaya. Can we talk for a moment?” Seo Jun-Ho asked.
“What is it?”
“I have a favor to ask.” Seo Jun-Ho took out the diary from his Inventory and showed it to her. Considering how much she knew about magic and artifacts, she might be able to find out what this was used for. “Can you check this and tell me what this does?”
“An artifact appraisal? Sure. I’ve done it hundreds of times at the Magic Tower, so it’s not difficult.” Skaya inspected the diary all over.
“Where and when did you get this?” she asked.
“Just now. I got it from the broken vending machine you mentioned.’
“Whaaat?” Skaya frowned. She whipped her head up. “That’s weird. Why did you get one but not me? I didn’t get anything.”
“It only came out after I put in a thousand marbles.”
“A thousand?” Skaya’s jaw dropped. “Wow, you’re crazy. You tried it even though I clearly told you it was broken?”
“I got a feeling that I should...”
“...Well, I suppose the five of us do have a few screws loose.”
“Why are you including me? I’m extremely normal,” Seo Jun-Ho protested, feeling wronged. However, Skaya wasn’t convinced in the least.
“That’s just what you think.”
“...Forget it. Just do the appraisal.”
“I got it, so stop whining. Give me a moment.”
Skaya closed her eyes and slowly mustered her magic energy. It spread out in a wide area and transformed into dense threads similar to a spiderweb. The threads then touched the diary.
“Ow!” A spark flashed, and the diary fell to the ground.
“What was that? Are you okay?!” Seo Jun-Ho asked, shocked.
“Ugh, shit… Who do you think you are?” Skaya rubbed her stinging hand on her forearm, glaring at the diary with narrowed eyes.
“What happened?”
“I was trying to analyze the type of spells it possessed, but it rejected me. Very strongly, at that.”
“That means…” Seo Jun-Ho also looked at the diary. It meant that the magic it contained far surpassed Skaya’s own skills—so much so that it didn’t even let her take a cursory glance at it.
“Interesting. I wonder what kind of bloke made this.” Skaya opened the diary in her hands again. “Did you try writing something on it?”
“Yeah. But as soon as I finished the sentence, it disappeared.”
“Give me a pen.” Skaya took Seo Jun-Ho’s pen and quickly scrawled something down.
- Frost is adorable. Frost always follows me around. She follows me like a little duckling.
The Frost Queen froze as she watched what Skaya was writing. Her body trembled, and she muttered that Skaya was a liar.
“Oh, it really does disappear.” Just like before, the words on the page vanished. Skaya remained indifferent. “I didn’t sense any oscillations in magic energy when the words disappeared. Really, what is this?”
Skaya then handed it back to Seo Jun-Ho, who put it away. The latter could only swallow his frustration.
Skaya watched him plainly.
“I want to try it, too,” she declared.
“What?”
“I’m going to put nine hundred more marbles into that vending machine tomorrow and get my own diary. It looks like it’s worth researching.”
“Whatever you want.”
After all, it was ultimately up to her to decide on how to use her marbles.
***
The next day, Seo Jun-Ho spent all his time locked up in the lounge, practicing his instrument. Since he had already collected a thousand marbles, he didn’t need to get any more of them.
- Toooo. Tooo… Taaaa!
“Oh!”
For a very short moment, a sound was produced. Seo Jun-Ho turned, looking proud, but the Frost Queen only looked at him with pity.
“Why do you feel so accomplished when you could not even maintain the sound for more than a mere second?”
“What’s important is that I went from nothing to something. The first blow is half the battle, you know.”
“...Your optimism is commendable. Continue.”
Seo Jun-Ho then continued to practice with enthusiasm until Skaya came to him, looking very annoyed.
“Why do you look so pissed today?” Seo Jun-Ho asked.
“Because of this…” Skaya piled a bunch of items on the table.
“What’s all this?” Seo Jun-Ho asked as he inspected each item. There were eight orbs, along with one box.
[Stamina Orb]
Grade: Rare
Effect: Increases stamina by 5.
[Magic Orb]
Grade: Rare
Effect: Increases magic power by 5.
[Surprise Box]
Grade: C
Effect: Summons a box that surprises the user.
Seo Jun-Ho seemed to understand. “So, you used the vending machine. But didn’t you say you were going to try to get a diary?”
“...Yeah, I used the broken vending machine.”
“What?”
“I put my marbles into the broken vending machine in front of the school, but I got these kinds of stuff instead.”
These rewards were from the broken vending machine?
Seo Jun-Ho took another look at them.
“But… These are just items that come out of normal vending machines,” he said.
“That’s what I’m saying. I think the broken vending machine became a normal one.”
“...” Seo Jun-Ho thought for a moment.
“Other than Players, doesn’t everything reset at 6 AM?” he muttered.
“I guess vending machines are also excluded,” Skaya said.
“Hm.”
So, the broken vending machine had become a normal one after it dispensed the diary.
As if to say that it had finished its job…
Seo Jun-Ho shook his head and stood up. The sun was setting outside the window.
***
Dududududu!
The party members were a little nervous when they heard a loud noise filling the streets. However, just like yesterday, once the cockroaches were a fixed distance away, they were frozen like machines.
“Now that I am looking at them up close, it’s quite amazing.”
“So all bugs are afraid of you, not just cockroaches?”
“Hey, Jun-Ho. Wanna start a business with me once we go back to Earth? Let’s make a bug repellant with your blood.”
“No…”
“Tsk.” Rahmadat clicked his tongue and rolled his shoulders as he looked up at the insects that had piled up like a mountain. “Looks like we have no choice but to kill all the bugs in the city and raise our levels.”
“There’s a sewage treatment plant in the east. Let’s go there once we kill off all the ones on the ground.”
“A sewage treatment plant?”
The advance party hadn’t been able to explore it. More specifically, they saw no need to do so. After all, they didn’t have to go there to find marbles. Moreover, the entire place reeked as well.
‘Since it’s darker and more humid there, there should be more cockroaches, too.’
But with the ‘Exterminator’ cheat key, they had no reason to be scared.
“Let’s think about it after we kill every cockroach on the ground.”
“Okay!”
Rahmadat was the first to rush forward, and he swung his fist without any hesitation. The wind generated by the force of his strike made a vicious sound as it cut right through the cockroaches. Each blade of wind was infused with an aura.[1]
“His fighting is as unsophisticated as always,” Skaya commented as she clicked her tongue. She began to prepare a large-scale spell while Gilberto infused his bullets with magic and shot down the cockroaches one by one.
‘What about Mio?’
Seo Jun-Ho turned his head to look for her. He hadn’t seen her on the battlefield even once since she emerged from the ice.
‘There she is…’
She was with Kim Woo-Joong. More specifically, Kim Woo-Joong was watching her earnestly from behind.
‘So it does bother him.’
His nickname, Sword Saint, had been one of Mio’s titles.
“...”
At that distance, Mio could easily sense Kim Woo-Joong, but she didn’t bother to look back at him. Seemingly indifferent, she gripped the hilt of her sword and smoothly unsheathed it.
Shing!
Her slender body burst forward with the sharp style of the swift sword.[2] When the blade reflected moonlight, it resembled a bright cherry blossom blooming in the spring. Sometimes, it would flutter lonesomely like autumn leaves.
‘She’s the same as always...’
We are bit.ly/3iBfjkV, find us on google.
The movements of her sword were as immaculate and beautiful as always, without any unnecessary elements.
Once upon a time, Seo Jun-Ho was mesmerized by her sword and practiced endlessly to try and copy her… And it took him six whole months until he realized that her skills were at a level that couldn’t be replicated.
‘I have never devoted myself to one weapon like what she had been doing...’
Of course, thanks to Weapon Mastery (S), he could use any weapon he wanted. However, he could not be compared to true masters like Mio, who had trained with only the sword for as long as she could remember.
“...”
Kim Woo-Joong silently joined her in battle as if Mio’s sword had inspired him.
‘Miss Si-Eun is working hard to heal the others.’
They were doing good.
Seo Jun-Ho smiled and tapped into his magic energy.
***
“...”
A creature was sitting inside the biggest room of an elegant red building, resting with its eyes closed.
Just then, its ‘antennae’ started to vibrate.
“Hm?”
Sensing trouble, it entered into the hivemind, flipping through the eyes of hundreds; no, thousands of cockroaches.
‘Not here… And not here either.’
It needed to find where this one-sided massacre was happening. After peeking all around the hivemind, it finally discovered something.
“Hm.”
They were humans—or rather, humans from another world called Players. And there were only seven of them.
‘Those mere seven Players… They killed ten thousand cockroaches?’
After leading a tedious life, his[3] interest was finally piqued. He quietly watched the bloodbath occur in real time. And as time passed, his face uncannily darkened.
‘This… This is dangerous. It’s dangerous.’
He was watching one lone Player. The man instilled a primal fear in the cockroaches, and he was one of the other few special entities who could kill all the cockroaches.
“Perhaps he is my natural enemy...”
Indeed, it was about time that he found one.
Chichichik.
His mandibles clicked, making a sound akin to human laughter. And then, the creature stood upright.
He was easily over five meters tall. He flexed his back, spreading four pairs of wings.
***
“There isn’t much at the treatment plant either,” Rahmadat commented.
“That’s because we have a cheat key. From now on, I’ll call you Jun-Homon,” Skaya said. The two chattered and laughed.
The party had finished killing all the cockroaches downtown and entered the sewage treatment plant at around dawn.
“There aren’t that many times when I leveled up more than ten times in one day,” Gilberto said.
“This is my first time,” Kim Woo-Joong said. Even he sounded a little excited despite his usual reservedness.
“Let’s just think of this floor as a vacation spot,” Seo Jun-Ho said. Mio gave a small nod, and he could see that she was happy as well.
- W-w-what? What is this? How do I analyze…
Just then, Keen Intuition muttered. This was the first time he acted like this, and it concerned Seo Jun-Ho. “Hey. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
- It shouldn’t be me who should worry about…
“...!”
“...!”
Everyone’s hair stood on end. A shiver ran down their spines, and their faces fell.
“Something… Something’s coming!”
“Dammit, this isn’t a good place to fight!”
“Everyone get out of the way!”
Rahmadat shooed them away and punched the ceiling. He pierced a hole that would lead them straight above ground.
They quickly made their way up, but their faces filled with dismay.
The sky and the ground were covered with an impossible number of cockroaches. And ‘special entities’ resembling bears, tigers, eagles, whales, and other animals caught their eyes.
“But… Chun-Hak definitely said that the first city does not have special entities, didn’t he?”
Something had gone very, very wrong.
1. Same idea as a sword aura. ☜
2. A style of swordplay found in wuxia. ☜
3. The pronoun here changed in the raws as well. ☜