Equator's Dominion
With the acquisition of the Equator as a reward for Stage 4 Challenge 087, the event [Equator] automatically concluded. I temporarily granted the authority over the Equator, received from the 'Ruler of the Sea,' to the Pink Dolphin zombie. He was an experienced hand, after all, so he would be familiar with its operation. The dolphin immediately produced new calculations.
“Ooh… At this rate, we should be able to leave within a day. It’s a bit risky, but if we dig aggressively, we might get out even faster.”
Having obtained the Equator, I finally felt some breathing room. There had always been the pressure that the 'Golden Lord' might recover at any moment and come charging in. But with proper land under my control, most of that anxiety had vanished.
Events really are the answer.
“Take your time digging. Once we’re out, let’s rebuild the lab too. No, not just the lab—let’s remodel the entire Equator.”
“I’m all for it!”
And so the island fortification project was decided. The island itself was already formidable, but an armed island would be far more powerful. I intended to fill the bare island with cannons.
Kurung—kururung—
Before long, I was able to dig through the tunnel and see the sky again, thanks to the Equator moving according to my will. Whenever the ground threatened to collapse, I applied pressure to reattach it, speeding up the process.
Emerging onto the surface and heading toward the ship, Park Seona greeted me with a hand over her chest, visibly relieved. She must have been quite startled by the volcanic eruption. I had already explained the situation via text, but I gave her a brief recap anyway.
“From now on, the Equator is ours. I received full authority transferred from its original owner.”
“I heard that, but I’m not sure what it actually means.”
Without complicating things, I simply created red reefs around the ship. The land began to shift according to my will.
Kugu—kugugu—
In an instant, the surroundings were filled with reefs.
“As you can see, I’ve inherited every authority the Equator could wield. With this, we should be able to take on the Golden Lord, don’t you think? It’s not unlimited, but it’s a pretty significant achievement.”
“W-World…”
“In that sense, we’re going to fortify the island. No more living on floating debris. Where’s No. 100?”
Even after I spoke, Park Seona stared blankly at the reefs with a dazed expression. She couldn’t quite process the situation. Of course, it was quite an astonishing accomplishment.
“Park Seona? Snap out of it.”
“Ah? Ah, sorry. No. 100’s battery ran out, so it’s in storage. But can we really build a fortress with just floating debris? The island is bigger than I thought.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got something in mind.”
I headed first to the storage to retrieve Mingming and No. 100. I planned to introduce them to the dolphin. As expected, the moment they met, they hit it off instantly.
The two engineers, moved by each other, immediately sat down at the table and began discussing how to fortify the island. It didn’t seem like there was any need for me to get involved.
They’ll be fine if I just leave them to it.
The first step of fortification was deciding where to place what. And that began with surveying. First, we needed to understand how large the land was and what kind of terrain it had. I pulled out every last one of the guys stored in the warehouse and put them to work. The great construction project had begun.
While I was directing various tasks across the Equator, Park Seona came looking for me. She waved her phone and shouted.
“Nanggun-nim! It’s started!”
Has that much time already passed?
What Park Seona was referring to was the “Stage 4 Challenge” that had once set the community ablaze. A whole month had already gone by. Back when I had advanced to Stage 5, I had agonized over which zombie to submit. Baengnae had already participated in Stage 3, so there would definitely be people who recognized her. But I couldn’t submit a weak one either, so I had chosen an appropriate candidate that happened to be nearby.
The one I had decided on was the user zombie that had taken over Park Manager’s body. His name was Yoo Seonho. He wasn’t particularly remarkable, but I had heard rumors that he had learned swordsmanship, so I selected him. Since he had no prior connection with me, he was originally chosen as a combatant rather than a box-opening consumable.
Yoo Seonho had been a quiet individual. Even at the very end, when I asked if he wanted to keep operating after I transferred him to another body, he had said he wanted to rest and closed his eyes.
But now he’s going to have a hard time in the Stage 4 Challenge.
Well, he probably knew. He had watched me register him for the challenge right beside me.
Park Seona looked at me with anxious eyes and asked.
“The chances of us meeting are low, right…? I do want the encouragement prize, though… Ah, I was really weak back in Stage 4.”
For the record, Park Seona knew that I was a returnee—because of Success Myth. They had formed the four of us into a single party and created a chat room, which exposed my ID. I could have changed it, but since I hadn’t known a party had been created, I missed the chance. That was how both Mingming and Park Seona ended up learning my identity as a returnee. But they hadn’t said anything about it.
“Wow! My opponent’s been matched!”
Park Seona’s match came first. She had submitted one of her leopard beastmen, Renold. The leopard beastman, now the vice-captain, appeared on screen wielding dual swords.
“He doesn’t feel very pirate-like right now.”
“Oh come on… Please forget about the pirate thing…”
The cloned Renold fought quite well. He defeated a cockroach-like creature and even a massive plant that looked like a Venus flytrap.
“Thank goodness…! One more win and I get the encouragement prize!”
If you say that…
And as if by magic, in the very next match she was paired against a user who was already in Stage 7. Park Seona let out a sigh.
“Uwaaang… No way.”
“Don’t give up already. The opponent is also from Stage 4.”
The opponent that appeared against Renold was a Ratman. I remembered the rat summoner from the Stage 3 tournament—he had been very weak.
What about a higher-ranked rat summoner?
The black rat beastman made some kind of gesture with its hand and then disappeared into its own shadow. Then shadow rats began pouring out of a black hole in swarms.
What, ninjas?
The leopard worked hard to slash through the rats, but it wasn’t making any progress forward. In the end, Renold collapsed without even landing a single attack. The real Renold beside me clicked his tongue repeatedly.
“Tch! At this point, those things wouldn’t even be a handful!”
Renold wasn’t being arrogant. Thanks to the rewards from Success Myth, Renold had awakened two attributes. Shadow rats like those would have been torn apart easily. Of course, those rats had probably grown stronger too, but from the leopard beastman’s perspective, it must have felt unfair.
I felt a sense of enjoyment while watching the match. I could understand why people had been so passionate about the Stage 3 tournament. It was oddly entertaining to watch beings I could easily defeat now struggling and fighting with everything they had.
Eventually, Park Seona, who had failed to win the encouragement prize, put away her phone and looked at me with a deeply resentful expression.
“Ing, I lost… How’s your match going?”
“My match? Nothing worth watching.”
“Right. If only the bracket had been better!”
Yoo Seonho cut down every opponent in a single stroke. The power of a Stage 6 user who had also awakened a direct combat-type transcendence was immense. It was literally a massacre of civilians. No matter how strong the Stage 4 summons were, none could block Yoo Seonho’s sword. When he faced the rat that had defeated Renold in the next match, he split it in half before it could even form a contract.
Park Seona muttered beside me.
“Just by not meeting Nanggun-nim, it feels like I used up all my luck. There’s nothing to regret now…”
Before long, the tournament had reached the round of 32. From here on, chat was provided for the matches. However, only the top 512 participants in this challenge had the right to speak.
The screen appeared and the chat logs scrolled up rapidly.
The chat window suddenly went quiet. Even they, being high-ranking users, could guess what kind of power the aura Yoo Seonho was emitting was.
This chat room had an interesting feature: when a match participant spoke, their messages appeared in bold. The following was not something I said—it was the opposing user’s chat. Apparently, since everyone had been talking only about returnees, the opponent had gotten a bit heated.
There was another peculiar fact: match participants could only post chats they genuinely believed to be true. In other words, this user truly thought of the people in the chat room as insects. It wasn’t for mockery or slander—he genuinely regarded other users as nothing more than bugs.
That guy was ranked 6th on the Benevolent World Tree server, wasn’t he? What was his summon again?
The summon he had submitted was a mantis. He seemed to be a mantis summoner. The mantis wielded its sharp scythes with complete freedom, moving with incredible agility as if it had trained in martial arts. Flashy footwork and dazzling weapon techniques. And the moment the battle began, the mantis’s head was severed and fell to the ground.
Seogeok—thud.
Infuriated, the opponent immediately started spamming the chat.
Unable to watch any longer, I finally chimed in.
With my final, heartfelt message, the room disappeared. The round of 32 had ended. Now only the final 16 remained to compete. And every single one of their nicknames belonged to people I was very familiar with.