The Stage's Turning Point (2)
And what filled my vision was a clear, high blue sky—and
Enormous letters. Just like the numbers and words that had embroidered the sky on that day, March 31st.
...Classic that bastard. An Administrator really is an Administrator. Whether he showed up late or not, the guy had a real talent for pissing people off in his own special way.
But then—
Greetings, survivors. We have a public notice to deliver.
The moment that utterly mechanical voice drilled into my ears, I jolted so hard I could only manage a dazed croak.
"What...?"
"Huh?"
"Was it... always this voice?"
"Right? It used to be way more..."
"Annoying as hell, wasn't it?"
The people around me startled, then wore equally bewildered expressions. Even the calmer ones had their eyes going wide.
As of 12:34 on May 6th, Jeong Hoon and approximately seventy-six other survivors have defeated the Area Boss of Seoul, capital of the former Republic of Korea region: the Vampire Lord. As compensation, experience and gold settlements from monster kills are currently being processed and will be distributed to all participants in the battle following this announcement.
Once again, that businesslike, mechanical voice. Similar to that Administrator bastard's—and yet chillingly different.
Separate from the experience and gold rewards for monster kills, we will now distribute the rewards for defeating the Area Boss.
No, more importantly... I really, really want to know what the hell this voice even is. Could you just tell me the identity of this voice as a reward instead? I don't even need any items!
They say humans are creatures of habit. At first it had been irritating, and after that... well, it had still been an irritating voice! But when the Administrator who used to talk like that suddenly changed everything from his voice to his whole atmosphere without so much as a word of explanation, the result wasn't joy so much as a spike in tension.
Yeah. If I had to put this feeling in cruelly blunt terms, it felt like someone dumping ash all over a perfectly cooked meal.
As of 13:00 on May 6th, the Seoul region becomes a zone usable only by survivor Jeong Hoon, his companions, and residents within Seoul. No monsters will spawn in this region outside of dungeons, and all currently existing monsters will be pushed beyond the zone's borders.
...Huh? This explanation is insanely familiar!
"O-Oppa. This is... that, right? It's that, isn't it!?"
"Anyone can tell it's that, Sora unnie!"
"Girls, a little quieter... I'm taking notes right now."
"Seyeon unnie, his voice is loud enough that—oh, wait, it's not that loud this time. Maybe we should lower our voices a bit."
Yeah. Anyone who'd been through it before was thinking the exact same thing.
A purified zone...!
Due to the defeat of the Area Boss, the Seoul region has been purified as of this moment. Henceforth, any region from which an Area Boss has been eliminated shall be designated a Sanctuary, and recognized as the domain of the individual or group representative who defeated said Area Boss. If defeated at the guild level, the guild master is recognized as that representative.
Ohh, Sanctuary...! A name that called to mind a Cleric's Sacred Ground. No—it felt even more solemn and majestic than that.
And as for it being the representative's domain...?
Of course, we hereby inform you that the owner of the Sanctuary is Jeong Hoon. Further information regarding the Sanctuary will be provided going forward; however, we advise in advance that external survivors seeking to enter the Sanctuary will find entry difficult without Jeong Hoon's permission.
So it really is me! But unlike a purified zone, it didn't seem like only the people already living in the area got special privileges. The way it was openly talking about external survivors made that clear.
We will now explain the Sanctuary. A Sanctuary is permanent by default; however, the first month is treated as a probationary period, during which external interference from outside to inside is rendered impossible. Survivors within the Sanctuary may freely undertake all manner of activities for the development of the domain. Concurrently, dungeons within the Sanctuary may only be entered with the permission of the Sanctuary's owner.
An upgraded purified zone! A one-month probationary period. That basically meant I could focus entirely on internal organization during that time.
However, please note that ownership of dungeons within the Sanctuary is only recognized by the Sanctuary's owner after each dungeon has been cleared at least once. If you wish to freely utilize a dungeon, you must clear it at least once. The current status of dungeons within the Sanctuary is as follows.
Gangbuk: "Old Center of National Defense" — Uncleared
Gangnam: "Old Sanctuary of Education" — Cleared
For the "Old Sanctuary of Education", the Sanctuary's owner Jeong Hoon may adjust difficulty and various detailed settings as desired. Please visit the dungeon directly for further details.
It had been a while since I'd gotten confirmation that there was a dungeon in Gangbuk.
Right. I'd need to clear that place during the one-month window. Run people through both dungeons on a rotation, get everyone growing hard, and I could turn this place into a real Sanctuary—not just one in name.
Beyond that, I also needed to establish criteria for how to accept survivors who wanted to come in from outside. I couldn't just let anyone in, could I? People with impure intentions looking to cause chaos existed everywhere.
This concludes the rewards related to the Area Boss defeat. Shortly, experience and gold rewards from various monster kills will be compiled into a list and transmitted as a notification. Experience and gold rewards will be distributed the moment the list is sent, so please take note.
Incredibly bureaucratic, seriously! Still, having received rewards similar to—no, greater than—the purified zone days left me feeling deeply satisfied.
No. Thinking back on the role I'd wanted to take on in this world... from now on, Seoul itself would become the true focal point of hope. Gather survivors here, and gather more still... and maybe, at least within this Korean region, we could restore civilization to what it once was.
Notification: Reward List for Defeating Area Boss: Vampire Lord and Subordinate Monsters (Ranked)
I'd been letting my imagination run wild about the future when a notification suddenly popped up right in front of my eyes.
Oh, so this was the experience and gold reward list they'd mentioned!
Wait, though... ranked? Divided by rank? Not alphabetical or anything—actual rankings? Were they expressing the differences in each survivor's payout through a ranking system?
1st: Jeong Hoon — Gold 120,000 / EXP 120,000
Major Achievements: Defeated Vampire Lord and 5 High Vampires, etc.
2nd: Kim Seyeon — Gold 100,000 / EXP 100,000
Major Achievements: Treated and blessed 35 injured survivors; applied continuous damage to vampires and undead, etc.
3rd: Han Sora — Gold 95,000 / EXP 95,000
Major Achievements: Defeated 14 vampires, 70 orcs, 40 goblins, etc.
4th: Yun Mina — Gold 90,000 / EXP 90,000
Major Achievements: Dealt damage to Vampire Lord and defeated 2 vampires; defeated 50 orcs, etc.
5th: Park Seeun — Gold 88,000 / EXP 88,000
Major Achievements: Dealt damage to Vampire Lord; defeated 40 orcs, 50 goblins, etc.
. . . .
Oho. The rewards for all seventy-seven people who'd participated in this expedition were laid out by rank, appearing as text before our eyes.
We'd set out with fifty-five, but some of the survivors we'd rescued along the way had also joined the fighting, and that had been factored into the settlement. I couldn't remember their names, but the unfamiliar ones lingering in the lower ranks were definitely them. Ah, and thank god that bastard Han Daegeon wasn't on there. Not that he would have been!
Naturally... for me, who'd fought the hardest on the front lines and personally sent even the Vampire Lord packing with these two hands, the gold and experience that came with first place was enormous.
WarriorLV13
EXP to Next Level: 360,000 | Current EXP: 321,843
MageLV11
EXP to Next Level: 330,000 | Current EXP: 321,843
RogueLV13
EXP to Next Level: 330,000 | Current EXP: 321,843
MP:— / —
I never expected all three classes to level up in a row...!
My Warrior class had jumped two levels to 13. My chest swelled at the thought that I could finally take that other Warrior skill I'd been craving. There were plenty of good ones among the Warrior skills. Steel Skin, maybe? Agility would drop, but with that up I could block most physical attacks outright.
And now that Mage was level 11... I could finally learn 5th-level Mage spells. Top candidates were Confusion, the best mental-type magic, and Chain Lightning, a top-tier large-scale damage spell. Considering what lay ahead, Blessing of Magic Resistance was also worth considering.
As for Rogue... well, I could just rank up a skill. From here on, the Rogue class had basically no point to leveling except raising skill levels. That was why even in Dragon Gate RPG, Rogue was classified as essential but not particularly useful. The Backstep carry was real, though!
"Whoa, whoaa! Massive level-up! Another massive level-up!"
"My goodness, I only specialized in treating the wounded... and that counts toward the settlement too?"
"Huh, did my magic actually deal damage to that Vampire Lord...? Hmm..."
"...Good. Next time I'll work even harder!"
From a short distance away, I could hear my women celebrating.
Han Sora was practically jumping for joy, Kim Seyeon wore a slightly sheepish expression, and Yun Mina looked puzzled even as she smiled with the pleasure of growth.
Park Seeun steeled her resolve as she studied the rankings. Honestly, if Seeun hadn't helped at the end, I might not have been able to kill that bat-monster bastard. And she was still only fifth... Why was I the one feeling more disappointed? Seeun herself was just doubling down on her determination.
The hard work had paid off. It definitely had.
But for my women and the others, the results had come out roughly on par with a dungeon-clear reward, which left me with a strange feeling.
Experience reset while the EXP required for the next level grew exponentially, and meeting that demand meant risking your life with enormous effort. This was all because the original game, Brave Saga Online, was built around mass-hunting—or so Han Sora had griped once.
Every time I heard her vent like that, I wondered the same thing. How the hell did BrSaOn ever get treated like a god-tier game? And why did it have such a ridiculous player base?
Anyway... thanks to the relatively fair(?) reward distribution laid out in ranked form, a whole lot of people were wearing expressions that ran the full gamut of joy and sorrow.
The faces of the former Seo Hyejin guild members were especially striking. Some were overcome with emotion; others shed tears, clearly thinking of Seo Hyejin.
And some of them...
"This is all thanks to Lord Jeong Hoon's grace! Everyone, let us dedicate this achievement entirely to Lord Jeong Hoon! By offering a tithe—"
"Stop that."
That damn Jang Seoju again! She'd been quiet for a bit and now she was back at it. Did finishing a fight jack her tension through the roof or what? She'd been well-behaved during Hyejin's funeral, but the second a stage was set she had zero hesitation about going full cult-leader mode!
I immediately shut down the pseudo-religious leader's radical(?) behavior. She needed to read the room a little. Seriously!
"O-oh... my rank is higher than I expected?"
Among those surprised by the rankings was someone else—Jung Yun, guild master of Armorum.
Jung Yun — Gold 30,000 / EXP 30,000
Major Achievements: Guild-unit orc and goblin kills; dealt damage to vampires, etc.
That was the beauty of being a guild master. That was why Lord-type classes were so enviable.
In most games, a guild master was recognized as contributing to combat just by existing.
Well, I wasn't far off myself, in a way. Just the stat buffs I'd granted my officers and knights as guild master (the system was a bit different, but still) could be called an enormous contribution.
Thanks to that, my four women had gone absolutely berserk out there, hadn't they? Yun Mina had put on a spectacular show through pure class advantage even without that, though. Thinking about it was a little scary. What even was Yun Mina? She was still a woman overflowing with mysteries. Seriously...
This concludes all settlements. Additionally, effective 1:00 PM on May 7th, a shop system update will be implemented exclusively for survivors residing within the Sanctuary. New items will be stocked, so please be sure to check. This concludes all announcements. May fortune be with you.
With those words, the enormous CONGRATULATION embroidered across the sky vanished in the blink of an eye. The voice ringing in everyone's ears cut off with a sharp click.
No—it really did cut off with an audible click. A few people nearby actually jumped in place from the shock of it.
...This is massively unsettling. Having that previous irritating voice gone was nice, but this felt like... like I'd just experienced cosmic horror.
That Administrator bastard's obnoxious voice and manner of speaking had clearly been diluting the terror. The mechanical tone and voice that had been grating on our ears until just now felt like something belonging to a being looking down from that sky—no, from above the cosmos itself.
And it made the day I'd get to punish the bastards who'd created this whole goddamn mess feel even further away.
Ah, shit... I'd gone negative and ended up thinking about it again. That Q&A with the merchant back in the dungeon.
"Jeong Hoon-ssi, about this announcement..."
Kim Seyeon had somehow drawn up beside me and whispered carefully. I nodded.
"Yeah. Let's call an officers' meeting once we're back. We can set the date for that guy's trial—"
I pointed at Han Daegeon, who was crumpled in a corner glaring daggers at us.
"—there. Though today's been exhausting, so better to convene sometime tomorrow."
"Yes, let's do that. Heehee..."
Hm? Why was Kim Seyeon suddenly blooming with laughter?
"Your way of speaking, Jeong Hoon-ssi... pfft..."
Ah. Aah...
I'd let my guard down and just talked however I wanted!