Rapidly Changing World (2)
Seeing my little brother’s buzz cut almost made me burst out laughing. “Have a good trip.”
“…”
“I’ll be cheering for you… Loyalty!!”
I snapped a salute at him. My brother just frowned. Frowning won’t help. There’s nothing you can do about it, right? You just have to go. I kept my hand raised in salute and followed right on his heels. We were having fun when Mom and Dad came out.
“Mom…!! Dad!! Have a safe trip!!”
“Yeah.”
“See you later.”
“How are you getting there?”
“We’ll take the train. KTX is pretty fast.”
“Oh… Got it! Travel safely!”
“Eat well, okay?”
“Yes!! Have a safe trip!!”
I saw my family off. I went downstairs and waited about five minutes before the taxi arrived. Off you go. I waved enthusiastically. The car slowly disappeared from view.
“It’s cold.”
Waving from outside is harder than it looks. Shivering, I hurried back inside. The house was warm, just the way I liked it. I thought we’d eat, but there was nothing prepared. Well, it couldn’t be helped. I’d come home too early. Between all the grinding for Mark and the lack of sleep, I was exhausted. I flopped onto my bed. The moment I lay down, drowsiness washed over me. I shouldn’t sleep… I really shouldn’t… but I’m so sleepy. Still, I have to hold out. If I sleep now, my whole circadian rhythm will be ruined.
“Demon… angel… demon… angel…”
Inside my head, a demon and an angel were arguing. Let’s hear their logic. The angel says I mustn’t sleep!! Sleeping now will destroy my entire body clock. The demon insists I should sleep. That way I can recover enough rest to grind even harder at Mark, right? Ugh… both arguments are logical. I lay there debating for a while, then fiddled with my phone. The moment I opened the streaming site, I shot upright.
“I’m going home.”
I’ll go home and play Mark. Yeah, let’s do that. Right now Moddeok is hunting for a hidden item on stream… and so is Joseph. Moddeok’s hidden-item race had drawn a huge crowd—7,500 viewers—while Joseph had around 250. I didn’t need angels or demons. I just needed to play Mark. That would solve everything, wouldn’t it? Right… let’s go grind.
I was already deep in Mark addiction. My hands itched. I wanted to start mining right away. I threw on my padded jacket, called Mom, and headed out.
“Hello? What’s up, Seon-a?”
“Mom, I’m going home.”
“Huh? Already? Why?”
“I’m going home to… eat.”
“There’s plenty of food at home.”
Home-cooked meals are a hassle to prepare. Delivery, on the other hand, is easy to forget about once you’re done. I couldn’t say that out loud, so I racked my brain.
“I just want to eat at home.”
“All right. Fine.”
“Yes!!”
Normally she would have grilled me with questions, but she must have been distracted. She gave permission without a fuss. With that settled, I went home.
The moment I got home, I turned on the stream. A morning broadcast—almost unheard of for me. I’d never done this before.
“Hello, everyone. I came to play some Mark.”
The chat instantly turned chaotic.
After more than two weeks of grinding, everyone was on edge. For the record, they’re all angels. Probably. I know because… I’ve taken the red pill myself. I used to check the chat logs thinking the complainers were the cool ones, but before Mark they were all angels. The realization shocked me so much that I stopped checking chat logs after that.
“I’ll talk a lot today. I promise.”
The reason I said that was because of my bad habit of going silent when I concentrate. I’m really going to try today. I’ve grown a lot. I can do this. Honestly, I’m already better than when I first started.
“I’ve improved so much!! Let’s grow again today!! Fighting!!”
Even though it was early morning, I poured every ounce of energy I had into my voice. Yeah, time to show everyone the new, improved Seon-a. This time will be different!!
“I’m going to talk nonstop. I’ve really drilled it into my head.”
I’ll keep talking while I play. Just trust me this once!! I kept forcing myself to speak.
“I’m logging into Mark now. Connecting.”
Once I loaded in, I started reacting to the vast landscape.
“Waaah! Everyone, fourteen days of effort are right here!!”
That reaction was pretty good, right? Right?
The reactions were nothing like what I’d imagined. Really? Fine. Whatever. There’s nothing I can do about it. I always try to stay positive. I push away negative thoughts and focus on good ones, good words, good feelings. That’s the only way I can change myself… at least, that’s what the self-improvement YouTubers said.
“Kya-kya-kya. All right, let’s play. What do I need to do today…?”
I headed into the cathedral. Compared to day one, it had changed dramatically. A serene, reverent Renaissance atmosphere… high ceilings and a majestic portrait of Maru hanging at the front. The moment I saw Maru’s pure white smile, I couldn’t help but drop to my knees in reverence.
“Great Maru…”
I offered a prayer to Maru.
The viewers were just as pure as the goddess herself. Great. Maru. Everyone could feel Maru’s holiness. This was perfect. I’d wanted to show them. Not knowing about the most feminine Maru would be a 100% loss in life.
“Did everyone pray?”
After praying to the sacred portrait of Maru, I headed to work. The workplace was filled with countless believers.
“You’re here early, Sir Paladin.”
“Ah…!! Yes. What’s today’s task?”
“Just rest.”
Joseph’s words hit like a bolt from the blue. Rest? There’s no resting. Being a paladin doesn’t give me special privileges to slack off. I can’t accept that.
“I can’t do that. I’ll work too.”
“Then… don’t touch the buildings. Just place torches around the area.”
Honestly, the only things I’d messed up were stacking blocks wrong while building the cathedral and not digging enough, which caused some confusion. But at some point Joseph had stopped letting me build. That stung a little.
“Ugh…”
“We’ll handle the rest…!”
Joseph… you’re too much. I took the torches and headed outside. Minecraft has one special rule: monsters won’t spawn near torches. So I had to place them carefully.
“Everyone… was I really that bad at it?”
I chatted while placing torches.
“Tsk… tsk… I see.”
The truth always tastes bitter. I had nothing left to say. After that I kept talking while placing torches. Whenever a creeper dropped gunpowder nearby, I dealt with it using quick reflexes.
“Guys, what should I do now?”
“No… guys!! Let’s enjoy Mark together. Other streams have tons of immersion. I watched Moddeok’s and Raming’s streams, you know? They had so many ‘this is a loss’ and super-immersed chats. Why don’t we have any of that?”
I said it, but it felt ridiculous. In other streams, even a single won donation gets flooded with “this is a loss… no no no no, don’t donate, save your money.” And not just that—chats were so immersive you could barely open the window. Our stream had none of that. They were telling me to stop and do something else instead. Our stream culture was completely different!!
“Guys?”
I scratched the side of my head. Maybe my idea of immersion and theirs were very different.
“Just spam ‘turn off Mark’ in the chat.”
Was it just my imagination, or was this getting scary? Why did I suddenly feel chills…?
Marumoddeok—Moddeok—was almost there. The finish line of her 36-hour no-sleep stream was in sight. The end of her journey to find the hidden item was near. After discovering the hidden NPC, Moddeok screamed at the top of her lungs. She’d done something similar on another server before, so she knew for sure. There had to be something. She was certain. The moment she joined, she was crowned as a saintess and immediately set off to find the hidden content. Day after day… by day twelve, six hidden items had already been claimed, making the remaining competition even fiercer. In the end, she’d pulled an all-nighter and found it.
“I found it. I really found it, right?”
When she spoke to the NPC:
“It’s Maru. Damn, it’s Maru. Seriously. Goddess, I really missed you. Damn. I stayed up all night looking for you. Ah. Ha. I found it. Really. Thank goodness. Seriously.”
The scenery transformed completely. A pure white sky bathed in sunlight—a heaven. Right in front of her stood an angel NPC smiling kindly. When Moddeok clicked the angel NPC:
[Notice: Marumoddeok has acquired the hidden class (Crusader).]
The news spread across the entire world.
“Ha… seriously. Thank you so much. Great Maru. Thank you so much. Maru. Thank you so much. Ah. It was so hard. Haa. Haa. I’m dizzy. Really.”
While Moddeok was celebrating, three operators descended from the sky.
“Congratulations!! You are now the Crusader of the Maru Church!! It suits you perfectly!!”
“Crusader… you fit right in with the order.”
Moddeok looked up at the sky and spoke. If it had been any other hidden class, she would have accepted her fate. But this one, she couldn’t.
“No. I’ll give the Crusader class to someone else. It can be transferred, right? If it were any other hidden class I might have taken it, but the Crusader already has an owner. Of course it does.”
“Huh? Who are you giving it to? In principle, it’s possible if you’re in the same guild.”
“But it suits you so well. Why?”
“Can that person become TP? I need to do the coronation. I’m about to die of sleepiness.”
“Uh… they can, but… who is it?”
Without hesitation, Moddeok answered. In her mind, there was only one person in this server worthy of the Crusader class. As a devout follower of the Maru Church, only she deserved it. From beginning to end, everything had been born from her hands. The goddess, the church, even fate itself. From the very start, there had only ever been one person meant to protect the goddess of the Maru Church.
“I’ll give it to UlzzangHam.”