This Face Is a National Treasure
This face is a national treasure!
The moment I confirmed that item had entered my inventory, I didn't cheer. I didn't spit out a curse. I didn't cry.
"Bathroom! Right now!!!"
That was all I said before I tore off toward the bathroom in a frantic scramble.
…Yeah. It was a complete disaster. The blood wasn't confined to my face—it was on my clothes, and it had run down my neck onto my body, bad enough that a shower was simply the better option. …Well, then I'd wash. The second I ended the stream and lay down, I was going to pass out cold, so cleaning up first didn't seem like a bad decision at all. Before that, though, I had to tell the viewers I was stepping away to wash.
"I'm all drowsy after washing up. …Still, I should finish what I need to do before I end the stream, right?"
"I'll just look at the medal's color and go to sleep. Just the color!"
With that, I pulled up the medal's details in my inventory.
"A medal commemorating the feat of being the first on the server to defeat Techsecular…. This is the one…! Worth every drop of that nosebleed!"
"Hmm…. I figure you get a medal no matter what, as long as you beat the boss. It just wouldn't have the English words First Clear, and the details would only say it's a medal commemorating the feat of defeating Techsecular. If they wanted to set them apart more than that, maybe the color?"
As I said it, I went into the Raider board on the fan cafe, hoping someone might have posted something relevant.
…Whoa. The flood of new posts was monstrous. The board was lively on a normal day, but today's stream seemed to have kicked it into overdrive—it was several times more active than usual. The info was piping hot, so I hadn't planned on searching at all. But with posts flying in this fast, searching would actually save time——
"Oh, there it is! Let's see…. Okay, not a bait post."
Color: Gold
Details: A medal commemorating the feat of defeating Techsecular.
Even the detailed info. Everything was exactly as I'd predicted.
"The other rewards… are the same."
"End the stream? …But I feel like there's still a bit of story left, like an epilogue. Should I check just that and then call it?"
"Then I'll warp to the City first and check on our glasses-wearing mayor…. Huh?"
Warp unavailable? That message only showed up in combat. Had some new mobs respawned?
I scanned the area around the Sanctuary at once. There wasn't a mob in sight—not even the shadow of one. …Maybe you couldn't warp from inside the Sanctuary? In that case, I'd step outside and try again. Thinking that, I headed back the way I'd come in.
Or rather, I tried to. I failed.
The moment I moved to leave the Sanctuary, an in-game cutscene suddenly began to play. Sensing something, the protagonist stopped and turned her head. Something translucent was planted in the center of the Sanctuary, and as if under a spell, her steps drew her toward it.
One step. Two steps. Three.
Before she knew it, she stood at the center, and she reached for the translucent thing at once. In the instant her right hand was about to touch it—
"Huh?!"
The screen flooded white.
A third phase? Surely not. That didn't make any sense. I'd already received the boss-defeat medal—phase three? What phase three? There was no call to make someone bleed from both nostrils all over again. Even so, just in case, I squeezed the controller tight.
Fortunately, there was no third phase, no event phase, nothing of the sort. The translucent something had simply vanished.
"…That's it?"
And with that, the in-game cutscene ended.
And then——
✦ The level cap has been unlocked by "something"!
✦ The power of the Apostles and the Rulers has grown stronger by "something"!
✦ The Sanctuary has become a warp-accessible area!
"…Wow."
I felt it in my gut. This was it. This was the moment to end the stream. Heaven—Raider—had ordained this ending for me.
"Alright then, I think I'll be heading off!"
And so, without a moment's hesitation, I launched straight into the sign-off.
I wanted to kill the broadcast and drop straight into a deep sleep, but unfortunately, I still had work left to do.
"Yep, have a good day too, Yeryeong! I'm off to get some god-tier sleep, for real!"
The work in question was reassuring the people who had watched me pour blood from my nose—Eunha and Yeryeong. I checked my phone after the stream, and the messages were just… oof. Well, I'd brought it on myself. Nothing to be done. Honestly, the visual had been more than enough to start a full-blown panic!
"…I really ought to start taking some kind of tonic. Or vitamins, at least."
Muttering that to myself, I crawled straight into bed. The moment I lay down and pulled the covers up, fatigue came crashing over me like a tsunami. My eyelids grew heavier and heavier, as if I'd mastered some thousand-pound weight technique. I grit my teeth, forced my eyes open, and grabbed my phone. I had an alarm to set.
Waking up around dinnertime ought to be fine, right? I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch, after all. Dinner, at least, I had to actually have. I set it for roughly seven in the evening, and……
"Mmph!"
I'd nodded off for a second, and the phone smacked me square in the face.
This face is a national treasure!
…Apparently, the dinner hour stored in my body clock was 10:15 p.m. Piece of junk clock. And a body clock, to put it in game terms, was a bound item—you couldn't throw it away, and you couldn't replace it. What a tragedy!
"I definitely set the alarm, though…."
Still, I must have slept deeply, because I felt wonderfully refreshed. Of course, I was hungry enough for it to be actively unpleasant, so the whole thing netted out to zero.
I needed to eat something. Taste didn't matter, so long as I could make it fast, it took the edge off the hunger, and it didn't leave me uncomfortably stuffed….
"This is misutgaru!"
Honestly, where would I even be without roasted grain powder…?
Given the nosebleed, tonight's late dinner was settled: samgyetang, ginseng chicken soup, the undisputed champion of meals you ate to restore the body. Fortunately, a place was still open at this hour. Heaven, it seemed, was slipping me a little support for all that First Clear suffering.
I cranked the air conditioner until the kitchen was pleasantly cool, set the samgyetang on the table, and sat down in my seat. Then I seized the left leg of the chicken submerged in the broth——
"Hot, hot, hot!"
I dropped the leg at once, then hastily blew on my throbbing palm to cool the burn.
…I'd just pick at it timidly with chopsticks. A person ought to know how to use tools. Yes. Quite so.
Timidly teasing the meat off the bones with my chopsticks, I worked my phone with my left hand. I was hunting for new Raider memes.
Unlike before launch, finding Raider memes was no longer a struggle. Raider was growing into an emerging powerhouse of fan creation. To put it in a suitably scholarly tone, a meme-oversupply phenomenon was underway. Every time I faced this moving reality, Raider pride welled up in me and a corner of my chest went tight.
Back when Raider memes were so scarce that I'd shoehorned a Raider category into my fan-art contest and poured nearly two thousand dollars in prize money into it, that past already felt like ancient history. It really hadn't been that long.
Soaking in that Raider high, I fished a brilliantly shining gem out of the flood of images pouring past.
…Oh? Techsecular memes were turning up here and there, too. Well, say what you would about the rest of it, the design was genuinely cool—the sort of thing that plucked at a man's heartstrings. The look was already something, but a dragon with a greatsword, a figure that split the sky, and a transformation on top of that? Born a man, could you really hold that in?
As a former man, I could say with full confidence: absolutely not.
If only it hadn't run me ragged enough to give me a nosebleed, I would have been quite fond of it myself…. Even so, as a mark of respect for a worthy foe, I saved the image.
I'd scavenged enough memes. Time to plan tomorrow's stream and get some singing practice in. As for tomorrow's stream….
"…Maybe I should do that, as a reward for how hard I've worked?"
As I said it, I looked at the VR headset resting in a corner of the living room. Already, I was really looking forward to tomorrow's stream.