Chapter 116. The Store.
Chapter 116. The Store.
[ All humans have completed awakening. ]
The alarm didn't come as a surprise. When the System first turned all ordinary people into Awakened and then notified me of the Second Awakening, I had already vaguely assumed it would eventually alter every survivor on the planet.
The alarm that followed, though — that one honestly caught me off guard.
[ All humans may use the Shop by utilizing their Karma of Origin. ]
"The Shop...?"
"Representative, what on earth...?"
I had no idea. In the first place, I'd never even heard of anything called a "System" while I was on Titan, let alone seen one. Everyone around me was staring at empty air, apparently checking their System to see what had changed. Watching them, I opened my own System to confirm it for myself.
But when I checked my System, nothing else had changed. No — strictly speaking, the text had changed.
The entry that used to read 'Stat Points' had been replaced with 'Karma (業).'
"Huh..."
Wondering if it was only me, I asked around. Everyone said theirs had been changed to 'Karma' as well.
"For me, the Karma value is..."
"Oh, mine is..."
The Karma value varied greatly from person to person. I distinctly remembered that the old Stat Points had gone up whenever you killed a monster like a zombie. Listening to people talk, however, some had less than their old Stat Points, and some had more.
Comparing them made one thing clear: people who had accomplished great things in the past — like Chairman Lee Hyeon-cheol of a major group, or President Min Seok-woo — had substantially higher Karma values than ordinary survivors. I shared this observation with my companions.
"That tracks. It seems to have been calculated based on the Karma accumulated in one's Origin."
When I clicked the button labeled 'Shop' at the bottom of the floating System window, an uncountable, staggering number of items was listed.
I'd already come to terms with the supernatural nature of the System. It operates on the same principle as appointing an Apostle or granting power to a subordinate entity.
'But this is...'
I hadn't checked every single item in detail, but it had everything — from trivial foodstuffs to countless varieties of sword techniques, magic, Mysteries, and sorceries. If someone could create something like this, they had to be at least a 'transcendent' divine being, on my own level.
"What exactly is the System's purpose...?"
"Representative, even so, for the survivors out there, being able to obtain food by any means like this is a blessing."
He was right. People who didn't really understand Karma would see this as a stroke of luck. But killing someone with high Karma? That, too, would be counted as an achievement. Once my companions learned this, their expressions turned grim.
"There are also items in here that should never exist. Of course, at a normal person's level of Karma, they couldn't even afford to buy them — but the fact that they *could* be purchased, if someone just accumulated enough Karma, that itself is a problem."
"..."
"And there will undoubtedly be those who kill people in order to make a purchase. Before, you only had to watch out for the occasional lunatic. Now, you'll see people who won't hesitate to kill for the sake of Karma."
"Still, all of humanity is Awakened now. Won't that make it difficult?"
"An ally could still drive a knife into another ally's back. Most people don't usually suspect their own acquaintances."
"..."
Even for our village, I couldn't give a 100% guarantee. Human greed is endless. While I was thinking about all this and browsing the Shop, Jia spoke up — she'd noticed something strange.
"Sihu, this bow... isn't this the one you gave me?"
I checked after hearing Jia and, sure enough, there it was. In theory, the possibility existed that there were two bows made from the branches of Yggdrasil. You could simply assume someone else had crafted another one.
But the bow listed in the Shop looked exactly identical to Jia's bow.
"Huh? Hyung, my sword is in here, too."
"Mine is as well..."
Weapons belonging to other companions were also present. The Shop didn't just contain items from Titan; it had things from Earth, too. It even held materials that an ordinary person would never be able to approach.
"Representative, the good news is that those particular items seem to be priced at extremely high Karma values."
I'd thought vaguely in terms of "high Karma" and "low Karma" before, but I'd never conceived of it broken down into a concrete numerical value like this.
"Sihu, how much Karma do you have?"
The Karma belonging to these people was, at most, barely in the hundreds of thousands. So perhaps they were curious about mine.
"Mine doesn't display a number."
"Huh...?"
The numerical value shown in my System was corrupted into strange, unreadable symbols. That it couldn't even identify me meant the entity behind this was either on my level or of a lower divine rank than me.
When I first returned to Earth, I didn't block the System from flowing into me. That implied I could still *use* it...
To verify, I purchased a single loaf of bread from the Shop window. Immediately, particles converged before my eyes and produced one loaf of bread. I fiddled with it, then actually took a bite — perfectly ordinary bread, nothing strange about it.
"Using it works, and it didn't tamper with the goods..."
'Putting aside the fact that they can create something like this... how the hell did they figure out the secret traditions of entire clans well enough to put them in the Shop?'
If anyone could acquire a nation's most classified martial techniques or mind techniques this easily, anyone could become powerful. Although goods from Titan were overwhelmingly in the majority, there were still quite a few things from Earth in there. Hell, there were even items that some people would dismiss as science fiction.
"Awakening has only just finished... for now, we need to organize the items in the Shop so they're easy to browse."
"Yes, I'll give the order. It's going to be quite a headache to organize it all."
"Since there are descriptions listed, we can group similar categories together."
Once they catalogued the list and brought it to me, it would probably be best to decide on our highest priorities and purchase accordingly.
Rather than equipment, we'd likely need to buy martial techniques and mind techniques that multiple people could use.
'Anyway, as for consumables... food, medical supplies...'
Scrolling further down the Shop window, I spotted items of staggering worth.
'Elixir, Holy Water, Tears of the Divine Beast... this is insane...'
I didn't even need to go as far as an Elixir. I felt like a mere high-grade potion would be more than enough to fully heal her father.
"Jia, go bring Father... No, let's go see him ourselves."
"Hm? Why is that?"
I smiled faintly at her questioning look, and we all went together. I wanted it to feel more like a surprise than something you know about in advance. We headed to where her father was staying, and he welcomed us warmly.
"My dear son-in-law, you must be busy. What brings you here?"
"Father, I've come to fix your leg."
"The bones seem to have already fused incorrectly... would that really be possible?"
I opened the Shop and bought the Tears of the Divine Beast — and, sure enough, my own Karma still showed no readable value. But if you measured the Karma of my Origin, even if you combined the Karma of every other human alive, it probably wouldn't even come close to comparing.
"Drink this."
He downed the blue liquid in a single gulp — contained in a bottle so beautiful it looked like a piece of blown glass. Immediately, the muscles in his injured leg began to spasm, and cellular tissue visibly reorganized itself.
"Is it painful?"
"It doesn't hurt. Strangely, it feels... cool, actually."
After roughly a few dozen minutes of spasms, the convulsions ceased. Father rose slowly and walked around the house, here and there. Afterward, he expressed his gratitude to me.
"Thank you... I assume you obtained this from that Shop thing as well?"
"Yes."
"A medicine capable of a complete cure in one go must have been incredibly expensive... From the very start, I've done nothing but receive your help."
"Not at all. Thanks to you, our crop yields have become outstanding, and most importantly... it makes Jia happy."
Father looked at Jia — his own daughter — and smiled with deep satisfaction. We spent a little more time talking there, then returned to our home. The moment we stepped through the front door, Jia wrapped herself around me from behind.
"Sihu... thank you."
"Between us, you don't need to thank me for something like this..."
"Still. I'm grateful, and that's that."
After taking off her shoes, Jia grabbed Chaeyeon by the hand and headed for the bathroom. Chaeyeon, clueless about the sudden move, was simply being dragged along.
"Heehee. Sihu, we'll wash up first, okay?"
Somehow, I had a feeling tonight was going to be another sweltering evening. Well — it's not like that hasn't been the case all along anyway. After the two of them washed up first, I went and showered as well.
"Sihu..."
"Sihu..."
Right as we were about to enjoy our happy time, a communication suddenly came in. I figured it would be nothing important, but the contents were seriously grave. We immediately changed clothes and headed for the Assembly Hall.
"What happened all of a sudden?"
"The United States has detected anomalous signs in the terrain. I thought you should see this too, Representative, so I called for you."
"Anomalous signs...?"
"Yes. They said they'll explain it themselves, so we'll be connecting shortly."
The soldiers fiddled with various equipment, and a beam projector and microphones were set up surprisingly quickly. On the American side, they seemed to have restored their facilities to some degree as well — a video conference with us had become possible.
"Ah, can you hear me?"
"Yes, we hear you clearly. But what exactly do you mean by anomalous signs?"
"Not long ago, the topography and substrata underwent changes so drastic they were visible from the sky."
"...?"
"Canyons have shifted position, their shapes have been distorted, and in some places, sections have collapsed entirely."
"If it was some time ago, I assume you've already sent people to investigate."
"We haven't dispatched personnel directly, but we did send an unmanned aerial vehicle."
"What was there?"
"We don't know."
I was mildly baffled — they themselves didn't know? — when he continued.
"For reasons unknown, the UAV was shot down as soon as it approached within a certain distance."
"It shot down something moving at that speed?"
"It's astonishing, but it's the truth."
To shoot down an unmanned aircraft — not just a drone — meant something had flown at an incredible velocity and struck it. According to them, they couldn't even capture what it had collided with. And they couldn't recklessly dispatch people to a location that held such an unknown danger.
"Where exactly is this?"
"The UAV was shot down above the Grand Canyon."