The Attention-Seeking Hero, Julian (3)
In the monitoring room of Fairy Corporation.
Bang!
Ram slammed his fist down on the desk. Far from the Constellations abandoning Julian, their interest was actually climbing.
“Damn it! He’s posting photos again!? Delete that right now!”
Ram jabbed a finger at the SNS post and roared.
“That would require coins…”
Clink.
Ram hurled a handful of coins across the desk.
“There! Now wipe every last one of them!”
“This isn’t enough.”
Sam shook his head, completely unmoved.
“What? That’s a whole Heart. Isn’t that more than enough to intervene?”
“Calm down, Ram. At least a hundred Constellations have already seen this post. Deleting it would cost far more than that.”
“Ugh… Still, delete it! We have to deal with that bastard, don’t we!?”
Sam shook his head again.
“There’s a more efficient way, Ram. That kind of popularity is fleeting anyway. Our priority is our own protagonist. Trash like him gets forgotten on his own. He’s an F-ranker! The number of Constellations watching Kang Hae-il is hundreds of times greater. This side is what matters!”
“…Haa.”
Ram took a deep breath and nodded.
That’s right. Attention like this always cools off eventually. In the end, the spotlight always returns to the true protagonist who stays at the center of the story.
Sam was correct. Ram had been blinded by jealousy toward Julian and was making mistakes.
“We just need to prepare steadily according to the scenario. We have to get Kang Hae-il’s debut battle ready.”
“Yeah. You’re right, Sam… I got worked up. I’m already busy enough raising my own kid.”
Kang Hae-il.
The protagonist Ram had chosen for this modern-fantasy stage.
“An absurd number of goblins like this. Most A-rank Awakened would probably give up. But Hae-il is different.”
“…Yeah. He is.”
Ram grinned with confidence.
“My Hae-il is special.”
On the subway heading to Myeonmok-dong, Julian kept scrolling through strategy posts on the community boards.
Most of what he read wasn’t about the monsters themselves, but about the Awakened system.
A popular thread sat pinned in the “Hot” tab.
I tested it with a friend.
Potential has nothing to do with current combat power.
Higher level = stronger right now. Stats crush everything.
Of course, at the same level, the one with higher potential wins.
Honestly, level and potential don’t even matter. The only thing that truly counts is your class.
Mages are basically royalty, ranged attackers are nobles, tanks are commoners.
Melee dealers are the lowest of the low lololol. They have no answer.
The old saying “Thieves should shut up and wrap bandages” has been proven correct by our ancestors.
The comments below it were just as lively.
From posts like these, one thing was clear.
The gap between ranks could not be overcome.
Claiming you could close it with levels was nothing but wordplay. The speed at which levels rose and the rewards you received at each level were both better for higher ranks.
So they’ve simply created a new class system.
Julian could see exactly what Ram had intended with this system. It was a brand-new caste society. Society hadn’t fully adapted to it yet, but it soon would.
Still, there are quite a few interesting stories here.
Having lived so long in the medieval era, Julian found browsing online communities surprisingly entertaining. He continued absorbing the world of the Awakened and the thoughts of ordinary people until the subway finally reached his stop.
The announcement crackled to life.
This station is Saga-jeong. Saga-jeong Station—
The broadcast cut off with a burst of static.
Ahem. Attention passengers. A large number of g-goblins have been sighted near Saga-jeong Station in the Myeonmok-dong villa complex. Passengers planning to disembark, please proceed with caution.
The car filled with uneasy murmuring. The memory of goblins bursting out of subways and airplanes during the so-called tutorial was still fresh. It was only natural for trauma to linger.
Yet while most passengers looked terrified, a few wore entirely different expressions.
“Looks like we came to the right place.”
“This is it.”
“Hoo… time to power-level.”
Groups of three or four people got off together. It was obvious they had formed parties specifically to hunt goblins.
Users from the community, huh.
Julian didn’t bother striking up a conversation. He didn’t want them asking to see his rank.
The quick-witted Constellations were already teasing him. Julian endured it in silence.
I have no emotions… I am…
Patience was his specialty, after all.
While the other party members headed straight for the exits to begin their goblin hunt, Julian slipped away to the underground shopping area instead.
He had noticed a hundred-yen shop nearby earlier. Fortunately it was still open. He bought a plain black mask.
The Constellations voiced their confusion, but Julian offered no explanation.
It’s good to become famous among the Constellations, but having my real face exposed in this world would be troublesome.
Explaining all that out loud to himself would have been even more ridiculous. He simply slipped the mask into his bag and headed for the exit.
This way.
The location from the distress call posted on the community board led him to the villa complex in Myeonmok-dong, exactly as the subway announcement had said.
Still about ten minutes on foot…
Yet screams were already echoing through the streets.
“Uwaaaaaah!”
People were sprinting across a red pedestrian light like their lives depended on it. Green lights were chasing them from behind—swarms of goblins.
“Kiiiik! Kyaak!”
The creatures had already flooded this far.
“S-save meeee!”
Most of them were probably Awakened, yet the terror still gripped them.
Julian was wondering whether he should help when a sudden gust of cold air swept through the street. All the goblins froze solid.
“Kiiik?!”
“Kek!”
A figure walked up and casually kicked the ice statues. They shattered into pieces.
“Haa… haa… Are you all okay?”
The caster of the ice magic was a boy in a school uniform.
“Oh my, thank you so much, student. We’re fine.”
The fleeing citizens expressed their gratitude, but then their expressions changed.
“Goodness gracious! What on earth is that embarrassing mask?!”
“You scared me… damn…”
They were staring at Julian.
He was wearing a black cat mask.
The high-school boy noticed Julian and flinched, but quickly tried to stop him.
“Um, Mister Cat Mask? It’s dangerous if you go that way.”
The boy clearly thought the masked man was an ordinary civilian and was trying to warn him.
“Then why are you heading there?”
“Ah, I was hunting but there were too many, so I came back out.”
“You were hunting alone?”
“Uh… yeah. I don’t really have friends… I was just clearing the ones that spawn on the outskirts.”
“I see.”
Why did he feel the need to mention not having friends?
Julian glanced at the Constellations’ reactions.
He’s not the protagonist.
If he were, the Constellations would have recognized him. That was Julian’s reasoning.
“All right. Do your best.”
He patted the boy’s shoulder and strode off toward the heart of Myeonmok-dong. If the kid wasn’t the protagonist, he had no further business with him.
“H-hey! If you go that way…”
The boy tried to stop him, but it was already too late.
“Kyaaaaaaaak!”
Thudthudthudthud!
A massive wave of goblins came charging.
Insane.
The boy hurriedly began casting another spell, but a huge truck suddenly barreled past, blocking his view.
Huh?
He canceled the spell in panic. When the truck finally passed…
“…Huh?”
The boy was stunned.
“They’re… all dead?”
The countless goblins had been sliced to pieces. The Constellations watching the boy were equally shocked.
As Julian walked deeper into Myeonmok-dong, the number of attacking goblins increased dramatically. He extended the blade of his utility knife from two segments to three.
“Kiiik!”
“Kyaaaaak!”
The goblins charged with blood-red eyes, but Julian’s blade flashed like lightning.
Shiiing! Slice!
The creatures collapsed without even understanding how they had died.
Newly arrived Constellations were calling Julian strange.
Compared to these goblins, I’m perfectly normal.
The creatures’ behavior was far more bizarre. Normally their life’s purpose was to attack everything around them and cause chaos. In game terms they were monsters with an extreme aggro mechanism. Yet right now their reactions were off.
Unless he got extremely close, they ignored him and tried to run off somewhere else.
Why do they look like they have a destination?
It was unusual for goblins to ignore so many human targets in favor of another objective. Julian observed them from a distance, cross-referencing the map on his phone with the scene before him, and reached a conclusion.
That place?
The location where the original distress call had been posted. It seemed the goblins were after something there.
There’s more than just goblins here.
Julian quickly realized someone—or something—was controlling them. Goblins didn’t develop coordinated purpose on their own.
At that moment—
Hm?
Static crackled.
Objective: VIP Rescue
보*#@(#($@&$*
*@$아38@()
VIP rescue?
The rest of the text was corrupted, but the objective was clear. It was a hidden quest requiring him to save someone.
Julian blinked behind the mask.
Can I see all of this?
No, that couldn’t be right. If everyone could see it, it wouldn’t be hidden. He checked the Constellations’ reactions.
They were talking about completely different things.
So only I can see it.
From the Constellations’ comments to their numbers… and now even hidden quest areas. More and more information was becoming visible exclusively to him.
Then a desperate scream rang out.
“Save meeeeeee! Communityyyyyy!”
It was a cry mixed with agony. The person who had posted on the board.
“Help meeeeeee!”
Julian adjusted his mask and kicked off the ground.
Boom!
He soared like a bird, leaping from rooftop to rooftop.