The Eighth Commission (1)
Junil realized it the moment he smashed through the wall of his officetel.
This wasn’t human strength.
It was the power of mana.
It meant mana flowed through this place, and he had unconsciously unleashed it.
When he faced the goblin, he became certain.
He could still use a portion of the power he’d possessed during his time as a hero.
That was why he could kill a goblin so easily with nothing but a ballpoint pen.
What had cut the goblin wasn’t the pen’s ink cartridge—it was the mana that had gathered around it.
So as he watched the roulette wheel spinning before him now, Junil thought:
‘Maybe an S will come out?’
He would be better at killing monsters than any human currently in this place.
The whole point of becoming an Awakened was obviously to slaughter the monsters here.
In that case, he deserved an S rank.
And one more thing.
‘Besides… I’m the protagonist, aren’t I?’
When Pam had sent him off as a hero, she hadn’t simply tossed him into the world empty-handed.
Heroes received all kinds of special privileges.
A kind of protagonist buff.
Arrows fired thoughtlessly by extras would miss on their own.
Important items would appear at crucial moments inside dungeons.
The details differed slightly depending on the world, but because heroes were chosen beings, they generally received favorable treatment from the setting itself.
So he had expected an S rank.
The highest possible grade.
Ting!
[F]
An F rank appeared.
“…What?”
Junil muttered aloud without realizing it.
[Potential: F]
Awakened Weapon: None
Class: None
Skills Granted on Level Up: 0
Stat Increase on Level Up: 0%
Additional Experience: 0%
Why were his stats like this?
This was basically the same as not being an Awakened at all.
“No, what the… Me? I failed?”
The hero of the seventh round.
The champion of seven worlds.
That was him—Julian?
The Line 4 Goblin Slayer, Moon Junil?
Only then did he notice the tiny disclaimer written beneath the rank roulette.
[*This roulette determines your potential grade completely at random and with perfect fairness.]
“…Are you kidding me? Who the hell decided to determine potential at random?”
Did they not understand what the word “potential” even meant?
It wasn’t based on actual hidden ability. It said “fairly” and “random.”
“Can I raise this?”
As if in answer to his question, a new message appeared.
Ding.
Low potential? Just work harder and level up! You can catch up that way!
It didn’t say he could raise his potential. It just told him to level up.
Well… potential wasn’t the kind of thing you could raise in the first place.
“But still…”
Junil stared closely at the window that had appeared again.
Awakened Weapon: None
Class: None
Skills Granted on Level Up: 0
Stat Increase on Level Up: 0%
Additional Experience: 0%
Even if he leveled up, he would gain neither stats nor skills.
And additional experience was at zero percent?
“What the hell is this?”
It made no sense.
If Pam had created this story, something like this should never have happened.
The possibility of growth should have been wide open.
“Is F basically telling me to die?”
This was completely different from everything he had experienced so far.
Had they changed the writing style when they switched to a modern fantasy setting?
‘Why is there no protagonist buff?’
Having lived as the protagonist every time he went to another world, Junil couldn’t hide his bewilderment.
The Constellations’ reactions were even worse.
One by one, they stopped watching him and moved on to other streams.
‘Well… these guys have always been like this.’
It was nothing new.
Even when he had been active as Julian, there were always people who threw a fit the moment anything went even slightly wrong.
Since he had received an F right from the start, there was no way the impatient ones would stick around.
‘Besides, do I even need to impress these bastards anymore?’
Junil didn’t feel particularly disappointed.
After Pam had betrayed him by releasing monsters into the world where he lived, he had no reason to care about looking good for the Constellations.
But that was where Junil was mistaken.
Boom!
White smoke billowed up, time suddenly froze, and—
“J-Julian-nim!”
A desperate voice rang out as a fairy was summoned.
The moment Junil saw the fairy, he shouted.
“Hey! Pam! What the hell is this, you son of a—huh?”
But then Junil tilted his head in confusion.
Pam had become way too chubby.
That couldn’t be right.
Pam was small, but she had the slender, elegant figure of a classic Disney Tinker Bell.
She didn’t look like a flying dumpling.
Had the modern fantasy setting changed her to a contemporary Disney style?
“Pam… what happened? Did you get patched or something?”
“No! I’m Ham!”
“…Ham?”
It was a different fairy.
“Yes, I came to deliver a message from Pam-nim.”
“Where’s Pam?”
“Um… well, that is…”
Ham hesitated for a moment, then whispered.
“She got sent to prison.”
“…?!”
Junil honestly found it a little funny.
But he couldn’t laugh comfortably.
Because—
‘Wait. Then who the hell is responsible for this mess?’
If Pam was locked up, who had turned the world into this state?
“The situation is… rather complicated.”
After listening to Ham’s explanation, Junil was utterly shocked.
* * *
A few days earlier, at the Fairy Corporation.
Pam had finally purchased the modern fantasy Story Board and was about to send Julian there.
“How… did this happen?”
[This dimension already belongs to another Story Fairy.]
The dimension had already been bought by someone else.
It made no sense.
This was Julian’s home dimension.
“They bought this place?”
Bought it?
That was impossible.
This dimension was a Blue Zone.
“This is a place where we’re supposed to sell stories!”
A Blue Zone was a dimension with massive story consumption. It was far more profitable to leave it as a consumer base rather than convert it into a Story Board.
The largest population, the busiest lives, the most spiritually barren people living in the midst of material abundance…
It was the perfect place to sell stories.
Only two types of intervention were permitted in Blue Zones.
Hero transmission.
Fairy business trips.
Anything beyond that required headquarters approval and could not be purchased.
The only one who had received headquarters approval was Pam, who had scored seven consecutive hits.
This was strange.
“W-what’s wrong, Pam-nim?”
Ham asked with worried eyes.
After all, Pam had been acting like she owned the universe just moments ago, and now her eyes were filled with panic.
“It’s been sold.”
“Huh?”
“It’s been sold! Julian’s dimension has been sold! How could this happen?! I’m going to see Cap right now!”
Bang!
Pam flapped her wings furiously and burst out of her office.
* * *
“Branch Manager!”
Bang!
Pam stormed into the branch manager’s office without even knocking.
She had no patience left for courtesy.
“Right now, without headquarters approval, something unbelievable has—!”
Pam stopped mid-sentence and stared blankly at “them.”
Cap and Ram were there, but instead of another short, stubby Story Fairy, there was a tall, elegant, blonde elf-like woman.
Opalescent light scattered from her wings and sparkled around her.
‘Headquarters…?’
They were fairies who worked at headquarters.
Beings who had shed the constraints of all stories and reclaimed their true forms from the World Tree.
The fairies called them Seraphim.
“Oh my. So you’re Pam?”
Seraphim seemed to recognize her and greeted her warmly.
“You’ve done something quite unusual, haven’t you?”
Her bright smile was somehow terrifying.
Gulp.
Pam swallowed dryly.
“Ahem.”
Cap cleared his throat and stepped in.
“Pam. I know why you’re here. It’s because Julian’s dimension was sold, right?”
“Yes…”
“Well, as you can see, headquarters gave permission. In fact, they went beyond permission… and came here in person.”
Cap gestured toward Seraphim.
Pam shrank back a little, but still asked boldly.
“What exactly happened? Why did you suddenly lift the Blue Zone restriction and sell it? That dimension ranks in the top ten among our demand zones…”
“Hmm. No, no.”
“Pardon?”
Seraphim cut her off.
“That’s not the issue here, Pam.”
“…Then what is?”
“This is an emergency.”
“…An emergency?”
“The Constellations have taken an interest in that place. And whose fault do you think that is?”
“…!”
Was that even possible?
Could Constellations become interested in a dimension that a fairy hadn’t even opened yet?
“Hm? Surprised? I made the same face, Pam.”
Seraphim smiled and approached.
“What kind of insane bitch sends the same hero not once, not twice, not three times—but seven times!!!”
Whoosh!
Seraphim’s wings turned crimson, and her hair rose like flames.
The corners of her eyes shot upward like a demon’s.
“!”
Pam’s legs went weak and she trembled violently.
“Seven whole times she pulled that stunt? How could the Constellations not be interested?!”
After that, Seraphim unleashed a torrent of every curse word imaginable.
“……! ……!! ……!”
Pam was drowning in terror, feeling like she was losing her mind, but—
Ssssss…
Steam rose from Seraphim’s body, and her face returned to its usual elegant, delicate appearance.
“Haah. I got a little excited after so long. Anyway. Pam? I need to deal with that hero. You know how difficult it is to handle someone the Constellations have even the slightest interest in, right?”
Of course she knew.
The source of the protagonist buff was the interest of the Constellations.
Even a tiny amount made it extremely difficult for a Story Fairy to intervene.
“But we’ve found a very beautiful solution.”
Tap, tap.
Seraphim lifted a single disc.
[Story Board 3.0 ver]
It was a 3.0 version disc, boasting the latest Story Board system.
“With Story Board 3.0, we purchased Julian’s dimension.”
“!”
So they were the culprits after all.
That was why she hadn’t been able to send Julian.
“And we downloaded Ram’s story into that dimension.”
“Ram? Suddenly?”
“Oh my. Suddenly?”
Seraphim stroked the head of the fairy standing beside her.
“Ram was the greatest contributor to stopping this incident. What would have happened if she hadn’t reported you to headquarters in advance?”
Kiiiri~!
Ram pulled her cheeks out mockingly and stuck out her tongue.
‘You fucking…’
She even snitched?
Pam wanted to curse but barely held back.
She didn’t want to see Flame Seraphim again.
“So from now on, Ram will be in charge of that dimension. Headquarters has approved it. Oh, and of course, in Ram’s story Julian is nothing more than Extra Number One, so… he’ll be ‘dealt with’ soon, won’t he?”
Pam was shocked at the mention of Julian.
“You’re really planning to kill Julian? With all the Constellations watching!?”
“He’s just an Extra Number One, isn’t he? The Constellations will gradually lose interest in him as they focus on the main story and the true protagonist. And the moment that interest hits zero…?”
Seraphim drew a line across her own throat.
“Kkgh.”
“Kkaght!”
Ram copied the motion beside her.
“Kiiiriririri~! By the way, Pam. Shouldn’t you be worrying about yourself right now?”
“What?”
“You’re about to be sentenced to ‘permanent suspension.’ Did you know?”
“!”
The ultimate punishment for a Story Fairy.
Permanent suspension.
“You will be confined in the Root Prison until the trial.”
“Yes!”
At Seraphim’s command, countless guard fairies swarmed in and bound Pam.
She was thrown into prison in the blink of an eye.
* * *
“Dun dun…!”
Ham even made drum sound effects with her mouth as she finished the story.
“And that’s how it happened.”
“What a truly tragic tale.”
“Put some emotion into it!”
Junil ignored Ham’s protest and asked again.
“So right now, this whole thing is Ram’s story?”
Ding.
As he floated his potential rank above his head.
[F]
Awakened who received a rank had the ability to display it above their heads.
It was essentially the only skill permitted to an F-rank Awakened.
“Pffft… hup…! Yes!”
Ham barely held back her laughter and nodded.
“Why are you laughing? Is F-rank that funny? Isn’t it because of you people that I got F-rank in the first place! Ram must have manipulated the probabilities so the Constellations would all leave.”
“Oh?”
Ham nodded, seemingly impressed by Junil’s analysis.
“Amazing deduction, Julian-nim! It really was Ram’s doing!”
At Ham’s praise, Junil scratched his head awkwardly.
“Well… I’ve been a hero for thirty years, so…”
“Just as you said, Ram will keep interfering in all sorts of ways to make the Constellations lose interest. Don’t expect any luck. There is no protagonist buff anymore.”
That was right.
The moment the Constellations’ interest disappeared, Junil would vanish without a trace.
‘Because I’m an extra.’
No one might even notice the death of an extra.
“The good news is that you’ve already become the ‘Line 4 Goblin Slayer,’ so quite a few Constellations are still interested in you. That’s impressive!”
“Ah, it’s nothing… I just did what anyone would do.”
Junil scratched his head again, looking bashful.
He was surprisingly weak to compliments.
Ham seized the moment and got to the main point.
“But just receiving interest isn’t enough to be safe.”
“…What? Why?”
“You saw it yourself, didn’t you? She applies weird bad luck so the Constellations go ‘Ugh! This is so frustrating!’ and run away. We need way, way more Constellations!”
In other words, just like how he had been slapped with an F rank regardless of his actual potential, anything relying on luck from now on would turn out terribly.
‘Damn it.’
At this rate, no matter how much he performed, the Constellations might end up hating him.
“Then exactly how many do I need to be safe?”
“You’ll be safe once you have more Constellations than the protagonist! Then the initiative over this Story Board will pass to you, Julian-nim!”
“More Constellations than the protagonist? Is that even possible?”
The protagonist was literally the protagonist.
The being this world favored.
The Constellations would be the same.
“That’s why Pam-nim said this: attack is the best defense.”
“Huh? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“So, Hero Julian-nim, this is a commission…”
A commission all of a sudden?
He had no idea what she meant.
Not until he heard the next words.
“Please ruin the protagonist of this story.”
“!”
That was it.
It wasn’t about becoming more popular than the protagonist.
It was about making the protagonist less popular than him.