The Age of Adaptation
My head feels like it’s about to split open.
Even when the Higher Being forced the application method into me, even when I ate Muaz’s brain, it hadn’t been this bad.
Back then, it had only been a brief blackout, or pain that passed in an instant.
“Ghh...! Why the hell is it taking so long this time...!”
I curled up, clutching my head and groaning. I tried to judge the passing time, praying the pain would end soon.
Fortunately, it faded after a few minutes.
Those few minutes had felt like an eternity, though.
“Hoo... so it’s over now.”
My face was hideous, sweat and crusted blood dried together across my skin. I steadied my breathing and asked Loki to heal me.
I’d lost so much blood my head was spinning.
If my little brother had been here, he would’ve given me emergency treatment.
A wound like this couldn’t be handled with the kind of healing items I could carry around.
How was I supposed to stop the bleeding when my ears and cheek had been blown off by the penetration damage?
“Loki. Why don’t they sell an upgraded version of healing items?”
I’d wondered why a thing like that had never existed in the game, and since the thought came to me, I asked. Loki, who had already started treating me, answered.
[Because the amount of materials required to rapidly restore the body or stabilize the mind, as well as the size of the equipment, is not suitable for transport or transmission.]
“So sending it over causes problems?”
[Correct. Even putting equipment failure aside, the medicine itself can’t withstand the strain of transmission.]
So for simple injuries, maybe not, but for serious ones, you absolutely had to go through the Enter Room first.
I nodded, and Loki shouted at me.
[Do not move! You’ll make the wound worse, Yoo Sung-jun!]
“I know the whole treatment is synchronized with my movements.”
[⊙△⊙]
I ignored her, enjoying her flustered reaction to having her little pun seen through, and looked at the points that had been settled.
When I checked above the settlement window, I saw the mission had changed.
I must have missed it because I’d been too focused on Soji.
At the Crossroads of Choice
Type: ???
Difficulty: C+
Description: A life form that shattered the self you once were. All choices are respected. Worry, then move.
Reward: Points awarded according to choice.
The difficulty had gone up by one rank.
The type was unknown. Probably because it changed depending on the choice made.
Since I’d defeated Soji, would the type become extermination?
Still, that was unexpected.
I’d faced a level 7, so I’d assumed it would at least be B-rank difficulty.
Did the System figure out Soji’s unfinished state before I did?
I nodded to myself and lowered my gaze.
And there, Yoo Sung-jun could only widen his eyes.
Settlement Complete
Infector Extermination: 123,680 points
Confirmation Kill: 1,200 points
Slaughterer: 2,000 points
Cleaner: 6,000 points
Executioner: 6,000 points
Clear Reward: 600,000 points
Total: 738,880 points
What the hell is there so much of?
The points awarded through achievements were meaningless now.
Achievements had long since ceased to be a means of making points and had become something used to raise a user’s grade.
So Yoo Sung-jun focused on the infector extermination and the rewards.
About 730,000 points.
Add the 442,000 points he’d gotten for taking down Soji, and that came to 1,180,880 points.
11.8 million points...
He’d known from E-rank cooperative missions onward that the point scale changed completely.
But to think the reward for clearing a C-rank almost entirely on his own would be this high.
Did they set it up so users who surpassed the benchmark could keep gathering points smoothly?
Five hundred and fourteen users who had already surpassed, or would surpass, the benchmark Jack Kalt had mentioned.
For users who didn’t fall into that group, it was nothing more than a dream hanging just out of reach.
But Yoo Sung-jun knew better.
To users who had crossed the benchmark, these points might look like a lot, but they weren’t actually that much at all.
Body Enhancement Level 4 costs one million points. The Omega Suit costs three million.
Yoo Sung-jun’s result had come from a chain of special cases stacked on top of each other.
Most users gathered points by repeatedly taking on missions below their level with a large group.
In the end, it meant I’ve raked in an absurd amount of points in a short time.
The moment he saw his final remaining points, Yoo Sung-jun broke into a broad grin.
Enough to feel reassuring just by looking at it.
Duration: Until spent
He’d even thought about investing in Body Enhancement Level 4 right away.
But he shook his head before long.
Jeyca’s treatment comes first.
He wanted to get her healed now, so his mind could finally settle.
He still hadn’t gotten a clear answer from Jack Kalt about when the million points he’d promised could actually be delivered.
So he planned to use one million here, then make Jack Kalt cover what was spent.
But are they done with the extermination?
Undomination was the most annoying of the many forms of infector, an undead-type.
Ghosts, Dullahans, and Undying all fell into that category; unless you burned away their entire body, they wouldn’t die.
Which meant you had to burn them completely to kill them.
I’m not worried, since Cruiser’s a user who’s pretty decent at Another Earth.
Still, just in case, he checked the user information for the three of them.
<Yoo Sung-hwan>
User Grade: 9
Body Enhancement: Lv. 2
Omega Suit: Lv. 1
Status: Alive
<Pellet Jeyca>
User Grade: 9
Body Enhancement: Lv. 2
Omega Suit: Lv. 1
Status: Alive
<Alexei Cruiser>
User Grade: 9
Body Enhancement: Lv. 3
Omega Suit: Lv. 1
Status: Alive
All three were alive.
As for whether they’d returned or not, he’d know once he left the Enter Room.
Just as he was about to close the user info, one thing caught his eye.
When did Jeyca update her user information?
If she’d updated it, then she must have met the Higher Being.
She’d asked the question that had been bothering her and gotten information, then.
Why didn’t she tell me?
They’d implicitly agreed to share anything they asked the Higher Being and any answers they received.
But Jeyca hadn’t said a word.
He wondered if it was because of her early-onset dementia, but... maybe not.
It doesn’t seem like it’s worsened enough for her to forget even recent events.
I’ll talk to her once I see her.
Right now, I’m also worried about their safety.
If she still hasn’t come back, then I’ll have to go provide support.
[Loki]
Duration: Permanent
“Thanks.”
At Loki’s words, he ran his fingers over his cheek and ear.
Fresh skin had grown back, smooth and clean.
It felt different from the roughness of the rest of his skin.
That’s an odd feeling.
He closed his eyes and requested a return.
And before Yoo Sung-jun’s eyes, in the darkness, the level of innate talent appeared.
Breathing Lv. 3
It looked like Soji’s brain had given him growth in his innate talent instead of an application method.
They said there was a high chance of getting the application method. So is this the low-chance case where an innate talent grew instead?
While he was still guessing, he was transmitted home.
No presence could be felt.
Only his smartphone was ringing like crazy.
Frowning, he checked the flood of messages.
Most of them were from Jack Kalt and Choi Hyun-seok.
They cleared out the clans targeting the bunker? Well, if they asked the Higher Being, they could easily find sanctuaries with no infectors.
It seemed the two of them had gone around the region cleaning things up.
They’d used Gear Jammer to disable smartphones, then hunted down the clans once they could no longer access the Enter Room.
A textbook method. Clean, even.
Five clans had been dealt with that way.
They must have killed a lot.
The two of them had carried out a massacre.
Yoo Sung-jun didn’t think that was wrong.
From a moral standpoint, it was a grisly string of murders.
But if they didn’t kill, they’d be the ones getting hurt. Their shelter would be taken, someone precious might die, or they themselves might be killed.
They’d done it for their clan, and by extension for themselves.
And Yoo Sung-jun was the one who benefited from it.
They both worked hard.
He sent them both messages thanking them for their effort.
He also asked Jack Kalt to prepare the million points as soon as possible.
A reply came back quickly.
Seeing the reply, the corner of Yoo Sung-jun’s mouth twitched.
Worried, huh? Should he get her contact info right now and call Yoon Choi?
Problem was, the girl talked too much.
Yoo Sung-jun hated women like that.
Just as he was closing his smartphone and wrapping things up, he felt a presence.
“Gwaaaagh!”
It was his little brother.
He seemed to have safely secured the Undomination core and come back.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“...Haa, I finally feel alive again.”
After retching his guts out for what felt like forever, Yoo Sung-hwan rinsed his throat with bottled water.
He wiped the water from the corner of his mouth and shuddered.
“If someone asked me what I’d pick for the worst thing I never want to experience again, I’d say this thing I just ate.”
Yoo Sung-hwan pointed at the item sitting beside Doug Spider Queen’s mineral sample.
Next to it lay the walnut-sized Undomination core, writhing as if it were alive.
“I thought it’d be manageable since it was only an intermediate level-5 infector. Man, was I wrong.”
“That bad?”
“Bad? It just... drained everything. My mind, my senses, all of it.”
Banshee and Chaos, the two entities commanded by Undomination.
Banshee dragged nightmares up without warning or pattern.
Chaos provoked confusion that was weaker than Muaz’s, but still vicious.
“We were lucky all three of us had been tempered by Muaz’s confusion. Without that, we’d have been wiped out. You knew and sent us anyway, hyung?”
“Yeah. I figured you’d handle it easily.”
“...It wasn’t easy.”
“So it was hard?”
“Not exactly hard either, but... Jeyca noona was in a bit of danger.”
Seeing his brother’s startled expression, Yoo Sung-hwan bit his lip.
Every time he thought about it, his chest still lurched.
“It was when Cruiser hyung was holding back the infector and Undomination at the front. Jeyca noona was in the rear with me, focusing on sniping and support. That’s when it happened.”
“Did Jeyca’s incurable illness drag her down?”
“...Yeah. It suddenly got worse. I think the Banshee’s nightmares and Chaos’s confusion were the cause.”
“Probably from putting severe stress on the brain...”
“That’s what I think too. Noona suddenly stopped. She forgot what she was doing here, who I was, who all of you were. She’d forgotten a lot, and she could barely control her own body.”
At that moment, Yoo Sung-hwan used his new application method of Innate Talent, Momentary Prediction, to the limit.
Before Jeyca noona could become completely defenseless, she had pointed out the enemies marked in red.
He’d locked onto them and fired accurately, spraying particle rounds of the incendiary type.
“After that, things were smooth enough. Once Jeyca noona had done her part, her condition worsened even more, so that was the end of it.”
“I see...”
Even now, Yoo Sung-hwan had to steady his heart whenever he remembered that moment.
“She’s getting mental treatment in the Enter Room right now. She’ll probably contact us once she’s done.”
He cautiously looked at his silent brother.
Unlike the rest of his skin, which was a bit scorched, his cheeks and ears were pale and clean.
Just from that, he could tell.
His brother must have fought through the hardship of investigating Kalaqua’s Soji as well.
At the end of it all, he’d probably secured at least several hundred thousand points.
What if he lent those over for Jeyca noona’s treatment?
It was easy to think, but not something he could say so easily.
Because the points are something you only earn after going through hell.
So he stayed quiet, and several minutes of silence passed between the brothers.
Then Yoo Sung-jun finally spoke.
“Tell me when Jeyca contacts you. We’ll start treatment right away.”
“Hyung?”
“Why, you were thinking the same thing, weren’t you? At this rate, we could lose a teammate to an incurable disease. Hell, if one thing goes wrong, we could end up in danger too.”
“It’s a million points, hyung. I know that much too. You don’t need to carry it all by yourself. I’ll pitch in too...”
“Forget it. You helping me means upgrading your gear with something better. I’m already set to the point where I can handle C-rank missions without trouble, but you’re not there yet, Sung-hwan.”
Getting stronger was the way to help his brother.
Yoo Sung-hwan knew that too.
Still, a million was too much.
Compared to the hundred thousand he’d borrowed from his brother, it was ten times as much.
So while he hesitated, his brother stood up, threw on his coat, and gave him a light tap on the shoulder.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat out for a change. Somewhere bright, not this gloomy hole we live in, and we can talk more there. You’re curious too, aren’t you? About what I went through.”
“Huh? Y-yeah. I am curious.”
“Then get dressed. Let’s go grease our guts.”
Yoo Sung-hwan rose awkwardly and started toward his room.
Then his brother’s calm voice came after him.
“Jeyca is a good teammate. So let’s make sure she gets treated and keep going together until the end.”
The words were flat and emotionless, but Yoo Sung-hwan could still feel the warmth in them.
And for some reason, his eyes were drawn to the Ryong-i figurine sitting in the room.
“...Yeah. Let’s do that.”
Yoo Sung-hwan nodded and went into his room.
At his younger brother’s answer, Yoo Sung-jun smiled faintly.
He’d grown up well, not a bit crooked.
Still... once the announcement is over, we probably won’t get to have a dinner like this again, will we?
Was this their last supper?
Tilting his head, Yoo Sung-jun soon started looking up good restaurants.
It was a peaceful afternoon, just as the day of embargo release was slipping into D-day.