All Eyes Upon Him
Everyone was looking at him. The weight of all those eyes was hard to bear.
Yujun forced his mouth open.
"A proper speech would be overdoing it... It's good to meet you."
"Yeah. Same here."
Watching the two of them fumble through the exchange, the rest of the party couldn't keep still. Yujun was managing well enough, but Jo Su-a looked distinctly more flustered. He had never seen her like this. She had always been confident, her face an unbroken blank. Meeting people she used to game with must have thrown her more than she wanted to admit.
"We ran together all that time. How did we never realize?"
"I did suspect it once. But running into each other by chance in a place like that felt too absurd, so I talked myself out of it."
"Really? You could have just asked."
"I wasn't sure. And it wasn't exactly a moment when I could."
"Unbelievable. To think Jo Su-a was OnlyIDontHaveACat."
"I never thought we'd meet like this either."
"I assumed you were a man."
"Now that I think about it, I never mentioned my gender."
To Yujun, the user OnlyIDontHaveACat had been the best partner he could have asked for. Whether they were hunting or running a boss raid, their teamwork had been flawless. Only now, having watched Jo Su-a fight, did he understand why they had clicked so well.
Her control in the game was one thing. Her raw talent is simply on another level.
Combat sense, in the end, is largely the brain's domain, and hers was almost certainly far sharper than most. More than once she had stunned the whole party with a flash of deduction that uncovered some hidden element of the game. She had never spent a single coin, and she had still kept pace with him. There was no need to belabor her talent any further.
Should I lend her some gear?
The thought came unbidden. Facing the Demon God was one thing, but the enemies beyond him — the Demon God Worshippers — would demand powerful allies. And she had handed him a Synchronization Marble without asking for anything in return.
OnlyIDontHaveACat never could stand being in someone's debt.
She had insisted on repaying even the smallest favor twofold, and Yujun had found that scrupulous streak rather exhausting. Which meant that if he lent her equipment, Jo Su-a would try to pay him back one way or another. A perfect chance to secure a trustworthy, powerful comrade. Putting her a little in his debt wouldn't be a bad thing. It might look calculating, but if the aim was to stop the end of the world, even that became a noble step in the practice of justice.
Still, there was no need to hand anything over with everyone watching. If he found a moment to speak with her alone, he could lend her the items then.
Jo Su-a still didn't seem able to believe it. She kept blinking, staring at Yujun as if he were something wondrous. Kim Yohan, Dokgo Minsu, and Do Jiyun were looking at her in much the same way.
"I did think you might be a woman, but I never imagined you'd be this beautiful."
That was Do Jiyun.
"Seriously. You could slap an elf across the face and still come out ahead."
When Kim Yohan piled on, Jo Su-a couldn't hide her embarrassment and ducked her head.
"Oh, right. Where did your summon go, Yujun?"
"That elf is Paranet."
"What?"
Yujun had already released his own illusion magic, but Paranet's remained in place at his own request. With the players gathered like this, the disguise was meaningless, yet Paranet seemed determined to keep the elf's face a little longer. It was vanity with no purpose whatsoever. Still, Paranet himself was satisfied, and Yujun couldn't quite bring himself to refuse.
This makes ten Synchronization Marbles already, doesn't it.
The notice that synchronization was underway sat beside a figure climbing toward 120 percent. Each marble raised the rate by 2 percent, which meant the one Jo Su-a had given him was the tenth. He was gathering them faster than he had ever expected. At first he had worried that even scouring the whole Continent would turn up only a handful. Instead, Synchronization Marbles kept appearing in the most unexpected places, and often enough that he couldn't begin to guess by what principle they had spread.
He was grateful to Jo Su-a all over again. He hadn't gone looking for her. She had simply been on the messenger, so he had called her over — and she had arrived holding a Synchronization Marble. If he had known she was OnlyIDontHaveACat, and that she was carrying one besides, he never would have left her to fend for herself. He would have kept her alive somehow, or kept her close.
Woom. Woooom.
The vibration rising out of the ground grew stronger and stronger. Even players who had been through hell and high water wore the tension plainly on their faces. The air had turned unmistakably wrong. At least the omens of the Great Cataclysm were thickening now, when his old comrades had happened to gather in one place. That much was a mercy.
"What if we get scattered, like in an event?"
Kim Yohan's face was tight with worry.
"That would be the worst case. What can we do? Survive as best we can."
Do Jiyun said it, then looked at Yujun.
"If the messenger still works, I'll contact you right away."
"Yes. That would be best."
Nothing was certain, but they had to be ready for the chance of being flung apart.
How much time passed after that? By now the ground was shuddering so hard that simply staying on their feet was a struggle. The sky was still red, and the moon had vanished completely.
The Great Cataclysm has begun.
A new race has found the Tower of Infinity!
The newly appeared race is exceedingly particular. Befriending them will require a considerable investment of time and grueling effort.
New — yet seasoned — players have been summoned to the Tower of Infinity!
This Great Cataclysm came without warning. As compensation, an experience event will run for a time.
Mortal Players gain all experience at 1.2×.
Players from Earth gain all experience at 2×.
Fifth-year players gain an additional 30% experience.
Fourth-year players gain an additional 40% experience.
Third-year players gain an additional 50% experience.
Second-year players gain an additional 60% experience.
First-year players gain an additional 70% experience.
A new region has been created. Be advised, however: it is a perilous land where players of level 800 or below cannot set foot.
Item drop rates rise slightly.
Monster levels rise across the board.
The strength of giant monsters rises dramatically.
Experience gained from monsters increases.
Experience gained from players decreases.
Read as text alone, it might have been a massive game update. The sight before their eyes was nothing a game could match.
Fireballs beyond counting were falling out of the sky. They were far too large to ignore, and Yujun spread a wide shield — one large enough to cover the entire village. The mana drain was no joke, but if he drank a mana potion in time, he could hold it.
The experience event itself is welcome enough.
A new region, they had said. Set aside the new race and the new players, and it was a development much like the ones he remembered from War of the Gods. He had not yet reached level 800, so the new region was closed to him, and he felt the need to raise his level. The experience event seemed made for exactly that.
Experience from players goes down... Are they just telling me to hunt monsters day and night?
Yujun was fairly sure he had gained more experience killing players than monsters. A great many Demon God Worshippers had already become offerings for his levels. By that measure, a cut to the experience he could take from players was anything but good news.
Then the players' murmuring reached his ears.
"What is that?"
"Huh?"
The red drained out of the sky, and the color returned to what it had been. But something that had not been there before had appeared. A blood-red moon, so crimson it looked ready to drip, hung squarely overhead. The moon that had been there before was gone without a trace.
The shaking of the ground — violent enough that it seemed the planet itself might come apart — had stopped. Even so, the landscape had changed so starkly that the players had to fight just to keep hold of themselves. Fireballs slammed against the shield in a furious rain, knocking the sense clean out of them. It was only because the shield Yujun had thrown up in an instant was stopping every one of them. Otherwise the players might have scraped through, but most of the villagers would have been on the road to the afterlife.
Having sheltered them, Yujun watched the synchronization rate creep upward.
This one's unusually slow.
Slow was the better sign. It meant a good item was on its way. Even so, a worry sat beside the hope.
Is there really anything better left?
If No-Pay Casual Gamer still had something beyond the Planet Destroyer's Sword, it might be a windfall for Yujun. Or it might not.
The moment he realizes I'm taking his items, there's a very good chance he becomes an enemy...
He had no confidence he could beat No-Pay Casual Gamer as things stood, not while the man was carrying several absurdly broken items like the Planet Destroyer's Sword. The best case was that No-Pay Casual Gamer was already dead, or unable to move, and that only the items in his inventory were being sent across as they were. No lingering threat. The only outcome that would let Yujun breathe easy.
Worrying about it now would change nothing. All he could do was take whatever came through and use it with thanks. If it was being given to him, he could hardly refuse.
Yujun checked on the others first. They were all absorbed in the system messages. Only Paranet stood there, blank and idle.
"You can't see them?"
"I finished them ages ago."
"That was fast."
The briefing on the Great Cataclysm, it seemed, was not finished after all. A new hologram message appeared before Yujun's eyes.
The Tesilla who have come to the Tower of Infinity are a race adept at wielding the four great elemental attributes, foremost among them dark demonic energy.
As the dark demonic energy of the Tesilla takes root across the Continent, the might of the Demon God Worshippers has grown.
Experience gained from slaying Demon God Worshippers rises slightly.
As the Primordial Player, the time has come to fulfill the duty entrusted to you.
The message seemed to have appeared for Yujun alone, the Primordial Player.
They don't give me a thing and just tell me to do my duty? Unbelievable.
Of course, the system had not given him nothing. There had been perks with tremendous effects.
Even so, asking me to do it empty-handed is a bit much.
Even if the system had never said a word, he had already meant to go about purging Demon God Worshippers on his own. Better to treat it as the system simply handing him information.
The Tesilla. To everyone else, all that had happened was the appearance of a new race. Yujun now knew their name — and that dark demonic energy was what they wielded above all else.