The Great Upheaval
What the hell is going on right now?
Manager Kim's face drained of all color.
He had been shocked when the monster invasion began and Park Hyunmyung shattered one of them in a single blow — but that was nothing compared to this moment.
Lee Arin.
Who was she, exactly?
— Youngest Deputy Association Leader of the Hero Alliance!
— The heroine who became the Alliance's second face in record time!
— Charisma that eclipsed even Park Taewoo!
— The Eye that Sees Potential, Korea's hope who forged countless powerhouses!
And on and on.
The titles attached to her name were countless. A hot potato who had streaked across the sky like a comet and burned herself into everyone's minds overnight.
But no one had ever actually seen her fight.
She only raised others. She picked out those with potential and turned them into powerhouses in the blink of an eye — and within the Hero Alliance, Deputy Association Leader Lee Arin was already known as the Grandmaster.
And yet Lee Arin had just looked Park Hyunmyung in the eye and said it plainly.
He had talent. He should join the Hero Alliance.
I've never once heard of her personally scouting anyone…!
Manager Kim trembled from head to toe.
The Korean Hero Alliance. Without question the greatest organization in the country — and its second-in-command was the second most powerful person in Korea.
And if Park Hyunmyung was a Dimension Warrior talented enough for even Lee Arin to covet him…
He was a Heavenly Dragon incarnate!
Out of the world's billions of people, Dimension Warriors numbered only a few hundred thousand. Irreplaceable, they were already treated as nobility. The bodyguards corporations hired and assigned were nothing more than the lowest-tier Dimension Warriors.
Looking at the current hierarchy of the world, the moment Lee Arin offered him a scouting invitation, Park Hyunmyung's value and rank had soared into the stratosphere. Even a bottom-rung Alliance member held a status no ordinary person could touch — and a Muggle like Manager Kim couldn't even dare look Park Hyunmyung in the eye.
W-what have I done…
Manager Kim's face went past white and turned blue.
A mere corporate manager. One word from the Hero Alliance and he would be a kite with its string cut. He had humiliated Park Hyunmyung while clinging to that single thin thread — a thread that snapped at the slightest tug — and no matter how loyal his company claimed to be, they would never shield him now.
Getting fired would be the best-case scenario. They might fabricate charges and drag him into court, or exile him to the frontier and throw him to the monsters as feed. Every employee who crossed the Hero Alliance had met a similar fate. From a corporate perspective, the Alliance's favor was always desperately needed.
"Contact me. I'll be waiting."
Thud.
Watching Lee Arin hand Park Hyunmyung her business card, Manager Kim collapsed where he stood.
Snip. Snip.
He kept hearing the sound of a kite's string being cut, right beside his ear.
I-it's a dream. It has to be a dream. Park Hyunmyung of all people getting a scouting offer from Lee Arin…
The Park Hyunmyung Manager Kim remembered was an utterly ordinary rank-and-file employee. An insolent brat who had suddenly quit one day. No outstanding abilities, no powerful backers — a completely, thoroughly ordinary civilian. The Park Hyunmyung he had always insulted, who always bowed and scraped no matter how much he was berated…
— Contact me. I'll be waiting.
Strength drained from his entire body.
Lee Arin left those words behind and departed. Park Hyunmyung casually tucked the business card into his coat.
Receiving a scouting offer from the Deputy Association Leader of the Hero Alliance should have been cause for celebration — yet Park Hyunmyung's expression didn't change in the slightest.
People like that were the scariest of all. The ones who didn't get easily excited even by good fortune.
Manager Kim snapped fully awake.
"I-I'm sorry. I… misjudged you…"
"…?"
Manager Kim barely managed to right himself, then slammed his forehead into the ground as if performing a full prostration.
"P-please forgive me! A worthless man like me has committed a capital offense against a promising warrior! Please, please — just don't tell the company…!"
The world now ran on the logic of power. Dimension Warriors above ordinary people, ordinary people who built their own corporations above them, stronger Dimension Warriors above those, and even stronger Dimension Warriors above them still. Manager Kim's place was simply to die when a stronger man stepped on him.
Park Hyunmyung looked down at him. Then he set the ten-thousand-won bill he had received earlier down in front of Manager Kim and said,
"If I see you again, I'll buy you a meal."
"… Sh-should I come find you at the Alliance…?"
Pride — discarded. His instincts told him this was not the time to cling to such things.
"Who knows."
Pat, pat.
Park Hyunmyung gave him a couple of taps on the shoulder and slowly walked away.
Was that forgiveness, or wasn't it?
"Ah… aah…"
The lack of a clear answer made him feel like he was going to lose his mind.
"… Was he truly that exceptional?"
On the road back to headquarters, a man asked Lee Arin the question.
But he wasn't the only one curious. Everyone around them was hanging on her answer. They were people who had sought out the Alliance of their own will, passed interviews, and among them delivered outstanding results to earn Lee Arin's personal instruction. Powerhouses called stars of the future, who had rapidly reached Level 10. Some among them had even obtained a Star and become Transcendents.
… And even so, Lee Arin had never personally extended a scouting offer. They had never seen her take this much interest in anyone.
So what they felt now was something close to jealousy — though not quite.
Lee Arin, still wearing her sunglasses, held up two fingers.
"Second."
"What… is second, exactly?"
"He was the second most exceptional person I've ever seen."
"… Then who was the first?"
"Who knows."
Lee Arin.
Basara, Seventh Lord of the Demon Realm, had judged the man she just gave her card to as the second most gifted individual she had ever encountered.
The first, of course, had been Wilhelm.
If Wilhelm had been radiant light, then what was this man? Something closer to damp, clinging darkness. Wilhelm had been a being of pure, undiluted brilliance. That man, by contrast, was like the Abyss itself — no bottom in sight.
A Star of Calamity.
To think someone with the temperament of an evil god existed on this Earth.
Water and oil.
A nature utterly different from Wilhelm's. Water and oil that could never mix. Which meant there was no possibility whatsoever that this man was Wilhelm's true body.
"Deputy Association Leader. If he was the second most exceptional, why only hand him a business card?"
"He'll come looking for me eventually."
She shrugged.
A Star of Calamity inevitably craved power. And on this Earth, there was no powerhouse capable of raising someone with that kind of talent. Nothing but players. Fools who merely borrowed Pangenia's power. Half-baked creatures no different from ordinary humans the moment they couldn't transform.
That man would eventually find his way to her of his own accord.
I look forward to seeing what kind of jewel he becomes.
Her eyes gleamed.
Of course, what she anticipated most of all was still the true body that controlled Wilhelm. A radiant existence beyond comparison, beyond peer! Just how nobly was he shining on Earth right now?
And if she could meet him — there was something she absolutely had to ask.
… How did you discover my weakness?
Isera.
Even she, blood of a mutant Dragon God, had a weakness. But unlike Isera, not even the Demon King had ever uncovered hers. Not the Demon King alone — no one had known. She herself hadn't known.
But he had been different. The true body that controlled Wilhelm had found a weakness no one else had discovered… a weakness even Basara herself hadn't known… and exploited it.
So she wanted to ask.
How, exactly, had he found her weakness? How had he exploited it?
That weakness was none other than—
… Making me feel love.
Something she had never once felt in her entire life. Love.
"You are not true heroes!"
"False heroes built on lies — get out!"
In front of the buildings of the Hero Council — the world alliance — surprise protests erupted one after another. They were no longer the brilliant heroes of the past. False heroes. Hypocrites who had climbed to the top on nothing but lies! Protests against them continued every day across the entire world.
Kim Hana…!
Inside the headquarters building, listening to the demonstrators' chants, Lucifer ground his teeth.
It hadn't originally been this hostile. But once Kim Hana began exposing confidential documents and secrets related to the Hero Council, the situation had deteriorated beyond control.
Drakestar. That bastard handed over every last secret.
This was exactly why the man's nickname had become "Runstar." The moment Main Quest 11 was completed and the Hall of Fame rankings flipped, Drakestar had fled to Korea. He must have met Kim Hana there and passed her the classified documents.
Thanks to that, the Hero Council was falling apart. In Pangenia, and here on Earth as well.
But the situation was still better than in Pangenia.
"You can't turn your backs on us — on me. You have no replacement."
Players were a finite resource. They had to be the heroes who protected this Earth. No matter how much the public cursed and spat at them, replacement was impossible. The timing might be bad and the insults might fly now, but the moment they handled the invading monsters well, the public would turn around as if the hatred had never existed.
The Hero Council will not fall.
That was the pride he had built. It would never collapse like this. His vow to stand at the pinnacle of this world was still in force.
What should he do? How could he break through this situation?
A method to accelerate the invasion…
Once the invasion began, the public would look to his power again. They would howl for help. Players were an irreplaceable, finite resource. They would grab him by the pant leg and beg for forgiveness over and over.
That was when it happened.
God's Island is rising.
The Tutorial has begun.
Lucifer lifted his head and looked out the window at the sky.
Above, a massive island was floating through the air.
And more than that—
Tutorial?
… Something had gone wrong. Events that had been frozen until now had finally begun.
Randolph… you bastard, don't tell me…
Lucifer understood in an instant. Randolph was at the center of this change.
But a more important fact than that—
"Are you… there?"
The Angel of Blessing… was in that place.
He could feel it. He knew it. She was there.
Lucifer reached a hand toward God's Island.
And then—
Completed Ones (Players) cannot enter.
The hybrid that had burst up through the ground.
My thorough search of the underground, trying to figure out why an Abyss monster had invaded, had paid off.
It's connected to the Abyss.
In the underground waterway, I had found a warp linked to the Abyss. But the warp had been inactive.
Ziiing!
The moment I touched it, it finally began to activate.
At the same time—
Administrator (Randolph) confirmed.
Authorize linkage?
It had confirmed me. Apparently I was the catalyst — the intermediary connecting both worlds. And without my authorization, the linkage couldn't proceed.
But there was only one choice. To resolve every last one of my questions, I had to authorize the link.
Authorized.
Linkage of God's Island commencing.
Linkage complete!
Shiiing!