Poppy Is an Excellent Means of Communication

Around the time Haram finished cleaning up Ansan and relocated to another region, a bombshell dropped on the hunter community.

The community dismissed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it as just another common troll post. Because of that post, however, every executive of the Cheongung Guild was summoned.

"Vice Guild Leader, a call from the military."

"Haaah… again?"

"Yes. Just now another Void Hound appeared at the Ansan-bound checkpoint on the West Coast Expressway. Same as before—it left a white flower and vanished."

"What kind of dog carries flowers around? That's a mad dog…"

It was hard to write the whole thing off as pure trolling when the situation in Ansan was anything but ordinary. How long had it been since the massive lake had turned into a Void Pond? Dimensional Predators already swarmed the streets of Ansan.

On top of that, once the Dimensional Predator Legion entered a collapsed gate and emerged again, satellite photos captured the gate sealing shut.

"So it really is true that the Impossible Difficulty user is controlling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Dimensional Predators."

It was already common knowledge that countless users on the previous expedition had received help from the Void Hounds. That the Impossible Difficulty user who ranked first on the expedition was a summoner was all but an established fact.

"Vice Guild Leader, in three days the multinational survey team will enter Ansan."

While Haram had been asleep, the entire world had already noticed the anomalies unfolding in Ansan. The top-tier guilds belonging to the International Federation had pooled their strength and decided to enter Ansan in three days.

Officially the survey team's purpose was to investigate the disturbances in Ansan, but no fool failed to understand that the real goal was securing the Impossible Difficulty user.

"Has government approval gone through?"

"Not yet, but…"

"Refuse the survey for now. We need to make contact first."

"We won't be able to hold out long."

Ever since the Awakened had appeared, the old power structures had effectively become vegetable governments.

That the Cheongung Guild sat above the South Korean government was an open secret, yet the International Federation still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠formally recognized each nation's government. If the South Korean government publicly exercised its veto, they could buy time.

"I'll send the absolute elites of the Southern Gyeonggi management team to Ansan."

"No. I'll go myself."

The Hard Difficulty 93rd floor clear was right in front of them. As vice guild leader of the Cheongung Guild, Cheon Seoah needed to focus on the 93rd floor, yet contact with the Impossible Difficulty user was an equally critical task.

Of course, the Haram that Cheon Seoah was looking for had long since left Ansan and was already riding the roof of a bus bound for Wonju.

Haram spent a leisurely stretch of time on the roof of the speeding intercity bus, playing with Lucy who was under invisibility.

Thermal cameras monitoring the roads occasionally caught Haram's stealthed form, but Awakened with stealth skills freeloading on public transport was common enough that no one paid it any real mind. In the Gate era, freeloading barely even counted as a cute little deviation for an Awakened.

The forest of buildings vanished, replaced by tall mountains and dense trees.

"Haram, when do we get there?"

"Almost there. Just kill time on the community."

"Yes! Haram's the best!"

Lucy's ban from HunGal had been lifted in under six hours. Looking over the posts she had written, there was nothing that could let anyone guess at information about me or the Legion. Instead the board was full of nothing but confusing nonsense posts, so Lucy's twenty-four-hour HunGal ban was reduced.

"From now on, no posting anything about our Legion, got it?"

"What do you take me for?! I'd never do anything that would hurt Haram!"

I handed the system window over to Lucy and recalled the status window I had checked a moment earlier.

"I really do need to spend some points…"

Clearing the boss stage on the 10th floor had pushed my points past the ten-million mark. The reward for taking down a top-tier lesser god that I currently had no business fighting. Even though the corpse had been buried under a pile of boulders and I couldn't recover it, the Tower's rewards were solid.

I recalled the messages that had appeared after dissolving the Doppelganger Lord.

You could think that extracting a lesser god's DNA only to get Telepathy (F) was underwhelming, but Telepathy (F) let me communicate with the Legion within a twenty-meter radius. It had a cooldown, yet if I conserved it for issuing orders, the Legion's movements became far more organic.

"Subspace is already at D-rank."

Using the Subspace Upgrade Ticket had expanded the interior from a two-meter cube to four meters. The length had only doubled, but the internal volume had increased eightfold. The space that had been packed full of magic stones collected in Ansan now had room to breathe again.

"If I pack carefully I can fit even more."

Uki!!!!

"Just hang on a little longer. I'll let you out soon."

Right now the Subspace held the five elite Void Monkeys I had brought from the 10th floor. I still needed to store magic stones as well, so the interior was at capacity.

"As expected, I should raise Swarm Lord first. Lucy, hand over the system window."

"Huh? No way! I'm mid-flame war! I have to keep the last-comment streak going!"

I snatched the system window from Lucy and upgraded Swarm Lord.

"Are you kidding me? Still not enough even after this?"

Just what were they planning to give me that even this rank wasn't enough?

"Five million points… I could invest it, but…"

Taking down the Basilisk on the 10th-floor boss stage had been half luck. The Basilisk had stupidly fallen for Poppy's lure, and there had happened to be a mountain right above the underground ruins, letting us land an abnormal attack. Our Legion's combat power was still insufficient to take on a top-tier lesser god.

The Tower's 11th floor was a completely different dimension from the one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that had run through the 10th. We would drop into some other world rather than the low-power world that had continued up to the 10th floor. With no idea what enemies might appear, I couldn't casually dump points.

"I'll have to think about it more. I still need to farm items on Floor 10-1."

From what I had figured out and what the Transcendents had advised, the dimension where the 11th floor took place was a world halfway into an apocalypse.

The problem was that all we knew was that it was a ruined world; how ruined and why it had fallen differed every time. I needed to know what enemies would appear before I could properly distribute points and strengthen the Legion.

I put the point distribution on hold for now and handed the system window back to Lucy, who was still raising hell beside me.

"Aaaaah! That guy just mental-victory'd and ran away! Come back! Come fight again!"

"…Even the villains would get confused looking at this, right?"

Sooner or later it would come out that the account Lucy was posting on belonged to the Impossible Difficulty user. Still, looking at the posts she wrote, there seemed zero chance anyone would deduce my true identity.

If anything, the confusion would only pile higher; nothing she wrote would actually harm our Legion. So I didn't stop Lucy from posting on the hunter community.

While all that was happening, the bus kept racing along and finally arrived at Wonju, the front line of the Taebaek Mountain Range that had been half-eaten by monsters.

Earth after the Gates appeared. Gates opened everywhere except mid-air—mountain peaks, the deep seafloor, anywhere. Naturally the gates in places human hands could barely reach were hard to clear regularly. The harsh lands humanity had never fully claimed even in the days it ruled the planet had become monster paradises.

"In that sense, Korea got pretty lucky."

"I saw on HunGal that seventy percent of Korea's land is mountains?"

"Compared to India sitting next to the Himalayas, the former Chinese territories, Russia whose territory is mostly Siberia, or South America with the Amazon jungle and Andes right there, we're getting off easy."

The Gate era had redrawn the global balance of power. More population meant more Awakened, so countries with low population density and vast territory struggled to manage their gates. Many nations simply abandoned large stretches of land.

"What about the sea? Three sides ocean—isn't that dangerous?"

"People worried about that the most… turns out the ocean was a blessing."

Gates that appeared in the sea mostly spat out only marine monsters, and cases of those marine monsters attacking land were extremely rare. On top of that, the vast majority of monsters that appeared on Earth were mid- or low-tier. Weak monsters couldn't punch through humanity's steel ships.

"Aside from the marine insurance companies going bankrupt, ocean logistics are still running fine. The fact we can still eat pork cutlets like this is thanks to that."

"Woof!"

"Let's eat more, Haram!"

Even in this situation, international trade continued, so even with half the world half-ruined, a minimum quality of life could still be maintained. I pulled pork cutlets out of Subspace and shared them with Poppy and Lucy.

We had to stay hidden, so I hadn't been able to buy them openly, but I had left the cash collected in Ansan on the counter. They would probably forgive us.

"If you're done eating, let's go."

"More!"

"We have to save some. Once we head into the mountains this time, who knows when we'll come out."

We left the distant view of downtown Wonju at the foot of the mountains behind us and headed deep into the forest.

"What if a super-strong monster shows up?"

"Cheongung Guild is staking their lives on closing every A-rank and higher gate, so it's fine. Gates that strong can be detected from far away."

"What if something comes down the mountains from the former North Korean territory?"

"That's exactly why Cheongung Guild is desperately holding the armistice line. They're using the defensive facilities built before the Gate era to stop monsters coming down from North Korea, Manchuria, and Siberia."

"Then this place is basically our paradise, right?"

In this vast Taebaek Mountain Range right now, there was no monster stronger than Poppy. Of course there was a chance a lesser-god-class monster that Cheongung Guild hadn't managed to clean up yet was lurking somewhere, but if I started worrying about probabilities that low I would never get anything done.

"Let's make a huge Void Pond! Big enough for everyone to swim!"

"Sorry, but this time we're just making a modest hideout and focusing on clearing the Tower."

"What?!"

The Taebaek Mountain Range overflowed with resources for the Legion. If I felt like it I could pump out millions of units, but doing that would draw every Awakened on the planet to the Taebaek range. I found a suitable cave, created a Void Pond, and raised only the bare minimum Legion to set up a base.

"Alright! Ready? We're going right now?"

"Let's go! To the 11th floor?"

"No? We farm first."

"Alright, shall we go collect our rewards from the Empire and the Holy Kingdom?"

"Woof!"

I had looked over the items the knight order and the Saintess had carried on the 10th floor, but nothing reached the level of the holy relics we had used on the 5th. Everything was mediocre at best. I had somehow picked out the ones that weren't completely terrible and stuffed them into Subspace, but I was far from satisfied.

"The imperial capital and the papal palace should have something decent."

"Are we doing righteous thievery?"

"No? We're going to walk in and claim them properly."

We had saved the lives of the Saintess and the imperial knights and even taken down a lesser god for them. Taking a few items shouldn't be a problem.

"On HunGal they say people are different when they go into the bathroom and when they come out!"

"It's fine. Our Poppy is excellent at conversation."

"Woof?"

"Whoa! So it wasn't righteous thievery—it was righteous robbery!"

And so, in less than a day, we thoroughly cleaned out the treasure vaults of the Empire and the papal palace, selected only the best items, and returned to Earth.

The imperial emperor had tried to stand in our way, but once Poppy used Gigantification the conversation became very easy. With Subspace upgraded to D-rank, the maximum item capacity had also risen to twenty, so we were able to finish a very satisfying shopping trip.

The emperor and the pope turned out to be people with whom conversation flowed extremely well.