Chapter 138 - Episode 20. God of Yesterday (2)
Chapter 138: Episode 20. God of Yesterday (2)
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“You got here before us.”
“I told you, I’m a veteran!”
Jaehwan looked at Rene, who was grinning brightly. Beside her stood a lightning-haired young man he had never seen before, and the moment he spotted Jaehwan, he looked slightly excited.
“This guy here is a longtime fan of yours.”
A fan?
“Nice to meet you, Naked Stab. First time seeing you in person.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m hurt you don’t recognize me.”
The lightning-haired man stuck out his lower lip like he was genuinely upset, then his eyes turned pure white.
[The God of Flash ‘Rayray’ looks at you as though hurt.]
Jaehwan nodded as if he understood.
“So you’re that god with the strange name.”
“What do you mean, strange name?”
Rayray grumbled.
“Anyway, I saw what you did. I never thought you’d take down three of the Six Gods at once. The other passengers are really looking forward to you coming too.”
“There are more passengers besides you?”
“A few. Friends who want to get the hell out of this damned Seventh Floor.”
With that, Rayray opened the door of the abandoned factory behind him.
[You have entered the safe area, 「Black Moon Inn」.]
Inside the abandoned factory, passengers were sitting around chatting among themselves. There seemed to be roughly fifteen of them.
“Alright, everyone, the person you’ve all been waiting for is here!”
At Rene’s words, all eyes in the room turned to Jaehwan.
[The God of Red Dragon ‘Drake’ looks at you.]
[The God of Wind and Rain ‘Gale’ looks at you.]
[The Sun God ‘Apollo’ looks at you.]
······.
Messages sprang up in an instant.
They were faces he had seen at least once before in promotional ads for 〈Metaverse〉.
“Nice to meet you. So you’re the rumored Naked Stab.”
“Ooooooh!”
“We might actually succeed this time.”
“You beat the Metaverse Six Gods... Then does that make you third in the rankings now? Then if I beat you, I...”
Some gods had possessed Dolls, while others had joined alongside their Vicegerents.
Jin Eunsae of the Rupture, who had helped them in the ‘War of the Six Gods,’ was nowhere to be seen.
Leaving the noisy gods behind, Rene began introducing them herself.
“That big one over there is ‘Gale.’ They’re a mid-grade god who’s pretty good at fighting, but it’s best not to bring up grades around them.”
“We should have a match soon. I may be a mid-grade god, but as you know, grade is...”
“And over there is Drake’s Vicegerent, ‘Pilgrim.’ You know them, right? They’re famous.”
Drake’s Vicegerent gave him a nod.
“We meet again, dragon hunter.”
“You.”
“We met on the First Floor. Do you remember?”
Jaehwan recalled Drake’s Followers from the First Floor.
Pilgrim had been among them. The one in crimson full plate armor. What stood out most in his memory was their odd interest in Dokbul.
Pilgrim had been leading a group back then, but it looked like most of those Followers had been eliminated by the time they got here.
“Alright, that’s enough introductions. Let’s get started. You’ve all been waiting a long time, right?”
Rene lightly clapped twice to draw everyone’s attention, then started speaking.
“The Task details should be announced any second now, so if anyone here hasn’t read them yet, please check your Task first!”
A message appeared the moment Rene finished speaking.
[The Task for the Seventh Floor has arrived.]
Jaehwan checked the Task.
+
<Metaverse Seventh Floor - ver.3.12>
Task: You may join the game by choosing either the ‘State’ or the ‘Terrorist’ team. Lead your team to victory and obtain control of the ‘Seventh Floor’.
Time Limit: To be announced later
Reward: Eighth Floor admission ticket, 300,000 trust ??? (conditional reward)
+
It seemed this Task was about joining a side and leading that team to victory.
+
You have become a ‘Terrorist’.
The minimum conditions for the ‘Terrorist’ team to win are as follows.
1) Capture Plants and make your name known to the residents of the Seventh Floor. The more Plants you liberate, the greater your fame becomes.
2) Free the residents trapped inside the Plants and gain supporters.
3) Twenty-four hours after the Task begins, the [Election] will start.
4) If you win the [Election], your team wins.
+
After reading through the Task, Andersen spoke.
“The Seventh Floor is almost the same as it was five hundred years ago. Then again, it probably would’ve been hard to tear much apart and rebuild it from here onward.”
“So you’re planning to be helpful this time?”
“What? Isn’t that harsh? Do you know how hard I’ve been helping?”
Runald, who had been staring at the explanation, also chimed in.
“What’s a Plant? And what’s an election...? This Task uses too many difficult words.”
“There’s no need to overthink it. Capture the ‘Plants’ and free the ‘residents.’ Win the ‘Election.’ Simple, right?”
“You’re just repeating what the instructions say.”
“That’s a ‘Plant.’ The power plant we passed earlier.”
Andersen pointed out the window with her beak.
Outside the abandoned factory window stood the power plant, filled with cocoons hanging everywhere like light bulbs.
“The ‘residents’ are the passengers inside those cocoons. Simple, right? You were trapped too. All you have to do is raid the Plants and free residents like them.”
“Then what’s the ‘Election’?”
“That is...”
“Rene team, gather up!”
It looked like the Task was already about to begin, and Rene was gathering the passengers.
[The Plant capture battle will begin in five minutes!]
[Put on the combat suits provided to distinguish teams.]
A relief crate full of combat suits dropped at the entrance to the abandoned factory.
Andersen gave a bitter smile.
“It’ll be faster for you to try it yourself and understand.”
A little later, Jaehwan and the other team members had changed into their combat suits and were standing at the entrance to the abandoned factory.
[The target Plant is Plant ‘A-56’.]
[Capture the target Plant and shut off its power supply within thirty minutes.]
[Team Members: Jaehwan, Runald, Rene, Rayray, Pilgrim.]
Jaehwan narrowed his eyes and glared at Rene.
Rene gave him a coy smile, then ignored him completely and turned on her camera.
“Hi, everyone! The live stream is starting! We’ve even got special guests today!”
Rene’s camera swept across the members of the team one by one.
The chat showed no reaction when it pointed at Rayray, the God of Flash. It reacted briefly when it showed Pilgrim, Drake’s Vicegerent. But once it passed Runald and landed on Jaehwan, it practically exploded.
[‘Anonymous God 158’ cries out Jaehwan’s name!]
[‘Anonymous God 654’ says Jaehwan is the true Six God of the Metaverse.]
[‘Anonymous God 535’ cries out for revolution!]
[The God of Mortality ‘Thanatos’ says they knew from the beginning that Jaehwan would make it big.]
[The God of Flames ‘Ignis’ criticizes Thanatos for changing sides.]
[Many gods praise Jaehwan’s name!]
Runald murmured with an impressed look on his face.
“Jaehwan-nim. The messages are coming in so fast.”
On top of that, the list of viewer gods entering the broadcast showed no sign of ending.
[‘SirwenTV’ has entered the broadcast.]
[‘Slashing Only TV’ has entered the broadcast.]
[‘The Man Who Knows Edicts’ has entered the broadcast.]
······.
“Wow, Sirwen-nim. You’re here again!”
[‘SirwenTV’ says to show them Jaehwan.]
Watching the stream from the corner of his eye, Jaehwan briefly wondered whether that was really the Sirwen he knew.
[‘Slashing Only TV’ says they would be fine with seeing Rene instead.]
[‘The Man Who Knows Edicts’ begins reciting Edicts as if in prayer.]
The other nicknames also felt strangely familiar.
“Today, we’re all going to conquer the Metaverse Seventh Floor together. You all know it, right? That infamous Seventh Floor!”
[The God of Flames ‘Ignis’ answers that they do.]
[‘Anonymous God 32’ asks if the Seventh Floor is easy as long as you choose the right team.]
[The God of Mortality ‘Thanatos’ says they must have obviously chosen the ‘State’ team.]
“Why would we be on the ‘State’ team? Of course we’re on the ‘Terrorist’ team!”
With Rene’s declaration, messages of shock poured in from the gods.
[The God of Mortality ‘Thanatos’ asks if she is out of her mind.]
[Some gods say Rene has gotten cocky after earning a little trust.]
“Come on, we’ve even got ‘Naked Stab’ on our side.”
[Some gods say that even Naked Stab will have a hard time this time.]
With the gods reacting negatively, Runald whispered,
“Why is everyone like that? Is this team really at that much of a disadvantage?”
“It is at a disadvantage, and more than that, it’s troublesome.”
“Troublesome? What is?”
“On the Seventh Floor, if you choose the right team, you don’t need to carry out the Task at all. The ‘King,’ leader of the ‘State’ team, can open the Door to the Eighth Floor whenever they want.”
“What? Then wouldn’t it be better to switch teams even now?”
“Well then, who do you think the ‘King’ of the Seventh Floor is?”
“Uh...”
As Runald hesitated, Rene gave the signal.
“We’re moving out!”
The team’s plan was simple.
A-56 Plant was a small-to-medium-sized Plant located on elevated ground.
Their plan was to occupy all five checkpoints in A-56 Plant, then cut the Plant’s power.
“I’m going on ahead!”
True to the title of the God of Flash, Rayray started racing ahead at high speed and had already reached the vicinity of the first checkpoint.
“I shall go first as well.”
Pilgrim, riding a crimson wyvern, also launched into a high-speed glide.
As expected, the gods who had made it all the way to the Seventh Floor were no pushovers.
Pilgrim in particular did not seem far behind even compared to Six Gods like Galateon or Rakers.
Dududududu!
[You have gained 1 occupation point!]
Every time they killed incoming drones or guard hounds, [occupation point]s piled up. The core of the Task was to build up points at each checkpoint, and once a checkpoint had been secured, move on to the next one.
After all five checkpoints were captured, they would get a chance to cut the Plant’s [power supply].
Of course, the enemy side was not going to stand by and watch them keep gaining points.
“There they are! The Terrorists!”
On the rooftop of the Plant, passengers in pure white combat suits appeared alongside guard hounds. At a glance, they were clearly rankers of the Seventh Floor decked out in flashy Parts.
“There are some impressive ones this time.”
“I’ll take Rayray.”
“Pilgrim is here too. I’ll test Drake’s reputation.”
The World Pressure they gave off was considerable.
Jaehwan released his energy without hesitation.
The World Force he had used on the Sixth Floor had not fully recovered yet, but even what little he had recovered in the safe area was more than enough to deal with them.
Rumble.
“Huh?”
“Wh-what is that guy?”
The passengers who had been striding toward them confidently faltered the moment they spotted Jaehwan.
“No way.”
“Damn it. Nobody said anything about this.”
The moment Jaehwan took the stance for Stab, the passengers turned pale and started fleeing. They ran like they had seen something they never should have seen, throwing away even their mission without a second thought.
Jaehwan frowned and asked,
“What is this?”
Rene shrugged.
“Beginner-nim, you still don’t really understand what you did, do you?”
Rayray’s flash and Pilgrim’s Breath rained down on the gods who turned tail the instant they saw Jaehwan.
Watching the enemies burn away amid screams, Rene continued.
“In this tower, the ‘Metaverse Six Gods’ were fear itself.”
The Metaverse Six Gods. The six pinnacles that existed in the Metaverse.
Everyone in the Metaverse respected them, and stood in awe of their Combat Power.
But then one day, an unidentified man appeared and brought down three of those Six Gods. And not just that, he did it with overwhelming Combat Power, while tearing apart three of the Alliance’s main weapons, the great warships 「Nebula」, all at once.
[‘Anonymous God 654’ cries out Jaehwan’s name!]
[‘Anonymous God 588’ cries out Jaehwan’s name!]
[‘Anonymous God 849’ cries out Jaehwan’s name!]
[Many gods chant Jaehwan’s name!]
As if confirming that fact once more, Rene said,
“Right now, in 〈Metaverse〉, your fame is greater than that of the ‘Metaverse Six Gods.’”
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion