Max, the Museum Manager (4)
I thought I wouldn’t be the only one to receive the quest.
It was said to be a title bestowed only on the expedition members who had protected the continent, so by now the news would have reached the people waiting for us out of sight as well.
And, as expected, it did not take long before the expedition members began filing into the management room.
Park Yeonju and Kim Hyunsung came in first, followed by Jung Hayan and Park Deokgu. Sun Heeyoung and An Gimo also entered with the other Black Swan members and took seats deeper inside the room.
Seeing a few unfamiliar faces, it seemed the rescue of the isolated survivors had also been completed without incident.
They’re in better shape than I expected.
It was more or less within the range of what I had anticipated.
After all, Mak Sah-yang wasn’t a named monster in this place, but a concentration of mana that could be categorized as a dungeon guide.
There was no reason for a mere administrator like Mak Sah-yang to torment them.
His personality’s practically a pushover, too...
In any case, I could see bewilderment spreading across the faces of those who had come into the management room.
Most of them wore the same expression, as though asking, “Hyung, what are you doing there?”
Given how absurd I looked myself, it was hardly strange that they would feel that way.
Not only was I fiddling with devices I had never seen before with astonishing ease, I was also taking coffee from Mak Sah-yang, who had genuinely brewed some for me. It was a picture so far removed from the scene from a moment ago that they clearly couldn’t make sense of it.
It was only natural that I would need to explain.
The first to speak, unable to hold back, was Park Yeonju.
“This is... what exactly is going on?”
“I made a trade. I said I would help clean up the seal on the ancient god.”
“I-I see. And the devices...?”
“I’m not entirely sure myself, but it’s a system that’s easier to understand than I expected. In fact, the moment I saw it, I had a rough idea of how it worked, so I proposed the trade. There were a few obvious errors, after all. I’m fairly good with machinery...”
“Wouldn’t that be an understatement?”
Her voice was still full of doubt, but there was no way I could tell her that the Mind's Eye had let me understand the operation method.
My lovely regressor also looked surprised, but before long, a pleased expression settled on his face.
He began to look at me as though I were a treasure all over again.
He didn’t show it openly, but Park Deokgu was already raising his voice again.
“See? Told ya, our hyung’s a genius! Kyaa! Our hyung’s incredible!”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what else would you call it? He didn’t even know how it worked, but he saw it once and just went, bam! That’s exactly what happened, ain’t it?”
“...”
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t that I was smart. It was that my eyes were good.
There was that saying that it didn’t matter how you got there as long as you reached your destination, so if you looked only at the result, it could be seen that way. But without those eyes, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything at all.
Maybe because of Park Deokgu’s words, which had begun stirring up the expedition members, the Black Swan people also seemed to have firmly latched onto the idea that I was the brains of the operation.
As if remembering the formation we had arranged before departing on the expedition, I could see one member after another nodding along.
Park Deokgu and Kim Hyunsung both looked even more self-satisfied, and perhaps because of the strange looks from the Black Swan members, Jung Hayan started glancing warily around us again.
I would have liked to spend this time bantering with them, but I didn’t have that luxury.
We’re busy.
The backup program maintaining that bastard’s seal wasn’t something that ended simply because mana had been supplied to it.
As for the main defense system, it was a setup left behind by the Rift Guardians that moved on its own. But the backup one was a system that required manual operation on our side to keep the thing pinned down.
Now I understood why Max had been able to do nothing but cling to this place.
We have to keep it locked down.
The filthy fragment of the ancient god was not completely sealed yet.
It was still writhing, struggling in every possible way to grind down the backup program.
What the monitor showed at the moment was merely blue mana binding it in place, but the task was more complicated than it looked.
Mana had to be continuously poured into the holes being forced open. In other words, I had to reinforce with my own power the places where the bastard pushed hardest.
It felt almost like playing a game.
It seemed like a defense game, but if I had to describe it more precisely, it was more like a bullet-dodging game.
In this case, it’d be like saying I have to shove every plane I own straight into the bullets...
Of course, the controls couldn’t be compared to some one-dimensional game.
That’s exactly why the difficulty goes up...
In short, this wasn’t the sort of thing I could solve while doing something else.
Because of my grave expression and my hands moving in a frantic blur, the noisy atmosphere quickly died down.
After a little while, the only sounds left were the magic circles operating, and Mak Sah-yang was also pacing anxiously in place while staring at the monitors.
Anyone looking at this would think things weren’t going well.
In truth, I did feel a little short on hands. Kim Hyunsung spoke at that exact moment.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
You’re the only one who understands how my mind works.
“Hmm... yes. That would make things much smoother.”
I had already been thinking that I needed more hands.
“Mak Sah-yang, take this for a moment. Don’t pump mana into useless places... and keep it as stable as you can. It won’t take long.”
-Yes!
He sprang to his feet and hurried over to the seat I had been using, where he began tapping at the magic circle. Turning my head, I saw the expedition members watching me.
After bringing up a mana hologram, I began briefing them on the situation.
“I’ll explain the situation briefly. As concisely and quickly as possible.”
“All right.”
Just as I was about to continue, Park Yeonju asked a question.
It wasn’t a difficult one to answer. The inconsistency created by the lies I had told together with Dialugia could be covered up without much trouble.
“Excuse me. May I ask you something, Kiyoung?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“Before this... didn’t you say that fragment of the ancient god had entered a rest period?”
“Yes. It definitely had entered a rest period. That was Dialugia’s judgment, and from what I heard, the administrator Max believed the same.”
Of course, that was a lie.
“I’d say the simplest explanation is that we tried to reseal the one that had gone into rest in the museum, but the fragment of the ancient god noticed the backup program’s activity and began resisting. I’d like to explain it in more detail, but we don’t really have the time...”
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
“No need. It’s natural that you’d have questions.”
“To get to the point, as you can see, I think almost everything is already sealed. But as you can also see, cracks have started appearing in the seal. What Mak Sah-yang is doing now is filling the holes with mana from the backup program.”
“Hmm...”
“Fortunately, we’ve been able to draw backup mana from elsewhere and maintain the current state without much issue. But my judgment is that we need another means of restraining it, because the thing has started moving again. We also need workers to handle any unexpected situations.”
“I see.”
“One thing I can say for certain is that if this were truly dangerous, I wouldn’t have asked you for help. Of course, there’s not zero risk, but...”
“You mean it won’t be enough to cost us our lives.”
“No. I’ll make sure none of you are put in danger. I’ll do that with the backup program here.”
“I think I understand what you’re saying...”
“If I judge that things aren’t going well, I’ll open a retreat route and prioritize your safety above all else.”
“And if the seal breaks because of that...”
“We were the ones who broke the seal in the first place. We’ll find a way to clean this up somehow.”
There was no way to clean it up.
If the seal collapsed, we’d just have to wait three tens of thousands of years for the continent to collapse afterward.
Honestly, the survival of the continent had nothing to do with me, but the painful part was that I had something to lose this time too.
My museum...
Not only would these control devices become unusable, I wouldn’t even be able to make use of them anymore.
The museum would devour the backup program as it entered the management room, and every function in this place would come to a halt and turn into a lump of filth.
If possible, it’d be better to keep the seal intact.
I nodded and continued speaking.
This time, in a slightly heavier voice.
“I’ll move with the expedition members’ survival as my top priority.”
“Yes. Understood.”
“When our hyung says things like that, somehow it really does make you feel at ease.”
“Understood.”
“Ahem. And if I may say something that doesn’t quite suit the mood...”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m sure everyone has received the quest.”
They definitely had.
Legendary Rank Quest - Salvation of the Continent (0/1)
Sure enough, everyone seemed to be staring at their status windows.
“To be honest, I’m just a small-time citizen who finds your survival more precious than the continent’s fate. In fact, it was precisely because of that that I ended up messing up the earlier task. Getting a quest like this all of a sudden left me feeling a little strange.”
In truth, it wasn’t all that strange.
“It even made me wonder whether someone was watching over us. If I had to put this strange feeling into words, I’d say it gave me a sense of responsibility. Ah, of course, that’s not because I’m tempted by the stat increase attached to the title reward. Haha.”
When I laughed softly, I could see everyone snickering along with me.
Of course, I had no sense of responsibility, and the reward was tempting.
One point in mana was precious right now.
“If I think about it, this is really just a process of cleaning up the mess we made, but... I can’t stop hoping this quest ends successfully. Without a single casualty, of course.”
For the museum!
“For the sake of our descendants who will live in Lindel from here on out.”
Cho Hyejin, who understood at least part of my true nature, and Dialugia, who had until just now been helping me with my trashy little act, both wore expressions that said they had no idea what nonsense I was spouting. But most of the others were nodding along.
In particular, Sun Heeyoung and An Gimo seemed to like my speech-that-wasn’t-really-a-speech.
An expedition imbued with this strange sense of uplift and responsibility would be strong.
Even if it doesn’t look like much, morale is one of the elements that plays an important role in getting through situations like this.
“Let’s move out.”
“We’ll depart.”
Kim Hyunsung spoke, and the expedition members nodded as they began to move.
I did feel a twinge of guilt at the expression on Dialugia’s face as she stared at me to the very end with eyes full of disbelief, but right now we were indeed the chosen saviors of the continent.
I’ll show you the power of humanity! You filthy fragment of the ancient god!
The real battle had begun.
For the bastard, it would be a very unfair fight.
---