Free Chapter: The Broke Hero
After upgrading the shop, the Narrative Trick series appeared.
'An invisible sword, huh.'
Junil quite liked it.
The fact that it was an item he had never seen even during his hero days made it all the more intriguing.
He had already seen most of the artifacts set up by Fairy Corporation, after all.
'I should browse a little more······'
He wanted to keep looking at the shop even after Ham left.
'Huh?'
Thud.
Suddenly, he collapsed as if fainting and began sleeping without a care in the world.
“Mmm······ mmm······.”
He dreamed.
A dream where he swung a transparent sword.
Anything the sword merely grazed was sliced clean through.
Why?
Because it was transparent.
“Kuaaah, it's the Transparent Dragon Sword.”
Muttering such sleep-talk, he tossed and turned.
The extremely small number of maniac Constellations watching the sleeping Junil were thoroughly entertained.
Though it could have been unpleasant, thanks to these Constellations, even while Junil slept deeply, Ram could not lay a hand on him.
While he slept soundly under their protection, time in the world continued to flow.
Time Remaining 00:00:00
The main quest's remaining time had ended.
A whistle sound spread throughout the world.
Beeeeep—
Congratulations!
You have passed the first quest!
Since Junil had reached Level 10, he safely passed the first quest.
But what about the others?
All Awakened below Level 10 will lose their Awakened powers.
Everyone would lose their Awakened powers.
It was fortunate that Ram specialized in game fantasy.
If it had been an apocalypse scenario, an extremely cruel development like everyone's heads suddenly exploding might have occurred.
Instead, a humane measure was taken where they simply lost their Awakened powers.
Out of a total of 53,445,138 Awakened based on server standards······
Shrrrrrrk!
Ting!
9,620,124 have passed.
Out of approximately 50 million, about 9 million remained as Awakened.
Unless one was F-rank like Junil, reaching Level 10 was not a particularly difficult quest.
E-rank individuals were production classes, so they leveled up differently from the start, and the rest could have achieved it if they had steadily hunted goblins.
Survival rate approximately 18%
Only 18% of the people passed.
After all, there were many Awakened who could not act from the beginning, such as children, the elderly, and those who were easily frightened.
That was how modern people were.
Even if they were suddenly given power, they could not beat goblins to death.
Most could not even kill a single insect and were reluctant to slaughter even the food they would eat.
Those among them who remained as Awakened were different humans.
They either adapted terrifyingly fast, were cruel, lacked morality, or possessed overflowing courage.
The Awakened have completed their minimum preparations.
Regardless, they would become important beings in the new world.
Random Item Boxes have been distributed.
Poof!
As if to congratulate them, boxes appeared above the Awakened's heads. Like Christmas presents.
They would probably open them with excited hearts when they woke up in the morning.
Of course, Junil was an exception.
After all, it would be a dud.
Gate levels have been raised.
Lv.1 —> Lv.2
The amount of mana that can pass through has increased.
Thud—
Level 2 Gates began appearing throughout the city.
Ding.
Free Chapter
This is a Free Chapter with no main quests.
Interference between dimensions will be minimized in consideration of the Awakened's adaptation.
Train your mind and body until the next quest arrives and prepare yourselves.
From this point on, the world entered a period of great upheaval.
* * *
Junil woke up with messy hair.
“Haaaaam.”
Stretching, he habitually checked the remaining quest time.
“Ah.”
But the time was not visible.
“It's over.”
Instead, notification windows had piled up.
“······Free Chapter?”
Reading the explanation, it seemed to refer to the period without quests.
A time to prepare until the next quest arrived.
'Hmm······ what is this?'
Junil felt slightly puzzled.
Giving them a breather period.
'There must be something going on.'
There was definitely some hidden agenda.
The Constellations' chat scrolled by.
'What box?'
Looking around, he saw a packaging box by his bedside that looked like the one from yesterday.
“Quest reward, huh. Yellow with pink······ their taste is really······.”
A bright yellow box with a pink ribbon.
The colors were so eye-catching that it was hard to miss.
Swish.
Junil opened it without much expectation, just casually.
Poof.
Black smoke rose and text appeared.
The Constellations were laughing their heads off.
'Yeah, laughing is fine.'
It seemed he had moved past the stage of disappointment and reached the level where it was just funny.
That was rather fortunate.
It would continue like this from now on.
Wasn't it better to adapt in advance?
For now, Junil showed no particular reaction, simply threw the box into the trash, and headed to the bathroom.
'Anyway, the items from my shop look better.'
Narrative Trick Phantom Sword.
It did not seem like anything better than that item would come out.
One might wonder what use a transparent sword had.
'But I have a feeling. That one.'
Junil had experienced Fairy Corporation's world seven times.
Just by looking at the design, he could tell its combat power.
A simple design with a dark, ominous aura flowing from it.
Just by looking, one could feel its performance.
'No wonder I even dreamed about it.'
Shhhhhhhhh······
He turned on the shower and calculated the price.
'But one Heart is······ 1,000 Feelings······ Damn. It's too expensive. When can I buy it?'
The concept of story currency was also new to Junil, so he could not get a feel for it.
Even though he wanted it.
'The sword······ I want it.'
Amid the rising hot steam, old memories flashed by.
The days when he crossed the threshold of life and death every single day.
Those who repeated such life-or-death battles.
Mercenaries and knights strongly believed in superstitions or had eccentricities.
Yulian was no exception.
Collecting cool-looking swords was one of those eccentricities.
Even if it was a cursed item from the demon race, if he won a battle, he would collect the sword and carry it around for a while.
'There were so many good ones.'
* * *
After finishing his shower.
Junil came out after roughly drying himself.
He picked up his phone without much thought.
Buzz.
[Automatic Transfer Notice]
A text message arrived.
It was an automatic transfer notice.
'550,000 won?'
It was the monthly rent for the studio he was currently living in.
'······Ah. Damn it.'
Junil only now remembered.
Most of his money had been invested in the apartment, and now he did not have much left.
His gaze naturally turned to the sword he was holding.
'I need to······ sell this quickly?'
He needed to turn the items obtained from the goblin raid into money.
When would such a market appear?
'Or maybe the Constellations can't give me money?'
He casually glanced toward the Constellations.
Current Viewing Constellations: 801
The number of Constellations he happened to see was too high.
He was surprised.
'What?'
Even when he defeated the Champion Goblin, he had been happy that it exceeded 700.
Now it had surpassed 800.
Considering that nothing had happened and he had just slept and woken up, it was an unusually high number.
'Is this sword good?'
That could not be.
It was just a cheap curved sword used by goblins.
Junil stared intently at the chat.
The number of Constellations asking if it was Sagosul had increased. They seemed to have flowed in from somewhere.
But from where?
What did that mean?
Junil tilted his head.
'YouTube?'
He had no memory of uploading anything to YouTube.
In fact, he did not even know how to do it.
Because he was half a medieval person, he was not very familiar with such devices.
* * *
A little later.
Junil sat at the computer and entered YouTube.
He had been wondering how to pretend he found it by chance.
But there was no need.
'It just popped up in the algorithm anyway?'
Since he had already searched a lot about Awakened-related topics, the exact video was at the very top of his recommendations.
[Bukhansan Goblin Massacre Show ㄷㄷ]
[18 hours ago]
[Views: 1,348,000]
It had an enormous number of views compared to the upload time.
Even Junil, who was half a medieval person, could tell that.
Why?
#4 on Trending Videos
It was clearly written there.
'4th place?'
It was not easy to reach that ranking unless it was uploaded by a famous YouTuber.
A channel that had just been created yesterday to upload this one video had reached 4th place.
This was an enormous level of buzz.
BEST) That's Sagosul, holy shit, the mask and body type are exactly the same, and the weapon too ㅇㅇ
Above all, the best comment said it was Sagosul.
That was why the Constellations had found their way here.
“When the hell was this filmed?”
The video was filmed really well.
The background music matched perfectly too.
It was mentioned in the comments as well.
'Huh?'
While quietly watching the video, Junil noticed something.
'The timing really matches perfectly.'
His movements matched the song's beat exactly.
However, the 'Cool BGM' music he had played was not actually playing.
He read the description written by the uploader.
[I just tried adding music once, and strangely, it matched a specific BPM;]
That was it.
It seemed that if the beat the song was made with matched, it would appear to sync perfectly.
The speculation that he was massacring goblins while listening to music — which was surprisingly half-true — came up.
Well, in the comments, it had simply become something to tease him about.
Of course it had.
Massacring a goblin swarm while listening to music.
Wasn't that completely insane?
“Ahem. Interesting.”
Junil stopped watching YouTube at that point and headed to the 'Goblin Slayer Method' community.
He needed to find out where the main stream would go next.
“Let's sell some items.”
Above all, he wanted to sell the items obtained from the goblin raid.
If he connected with the alchemists and blacksmiths in the community, he could probably sell them?
It seemed people were not yet interested in things like that.
“······Sigh. What do I do about money. I won't even be able to pay rent.”
He let out a sigh without realizing it.
'I need to find other information.'
Since it had come to this, Junil browsed the popular posts in the community.
Maybe there were some requests?
However, there were almost no stories that could make money.
Even scrolling down to 20th place, there was nothing.
But there was a post that caught his eye.
20th) Real-time hiking elf girl, beware of the rear
Tsk tsk.
Yulian, who had been tempered through seven cycles as a Constellation's hero.
He had neither emotions nor sexual desire.
Click!
His mouse moved on its own.
'What? Is this magic?'
While suspecting it was definitely mind magic.
Junil felt slightly disappointed.
'Eh?'
Because the photo did not particularly require one to beware of the rear.
However, the post content was not clickbait either.
It was exactly as the title said.
A real-time hiking elf.
An elf of the forest.
'This······'
Junil could tell at a glance.
'It's a real elf.'
A real elf had appeared.
And the thought that immediately came to mind.
'Elves······ had the ability to purify magi and turn it into mana stones.'
In Fairy Corporation's world, elves knew how to purify items imbued with magi and turn them into mana stones.
They liked this purification work, so if he just gave them items that goblins had been carrying, they might exchange them for money.
'Where is this?'
There was no map uploaded.
Even if he asked in the comments, there was no answer.
'The Constellations?'
In times like this, the Constellations' information power was strong.
They possessed information that transcended space about events happening in the present.
'Pocheon······? Green Gate?'
Junil searched more on the internet.
Gate, green······
Then an article appeared.
[Rumors of 'Ghosts' near Pocheon Cemetery, could it be monsters?]
Thanks to the name Pocheon, he immediately knew.
This was the ghost story related to that elf.
A fairly accurate location was marked here.
'So it's here.'