The World Is a Game
"It's like a game."
"You know, that feeling like they took a Western medieval background and just pasted monsters all over it."
It really did feel that way.
At the woman's added comment, Kang Tae-sung looked at her and raised an eyebrow. It was clearly a reaction asking what she meant, so the woman stared back at him with a dumbfounded expression.
"You really don't know anything?"
Tick.
In response to her question, Kang Tae-sung snapped his fingers instead of answering and lightly flicked something forward. The woman caught it easily and realized the object in her hand was larger and thicker than any normal coin. She brought it closer to her eyes.
"Is this... gold?"
"Stop the chatter and tell me everything you know. I'll give you another one."
"Are you rich? In a world like this, flashing something like that around can get you killed without anyone even noticing."
The woman spoke with genuine worry on her face, then carefully tucked the gold coin into an inner pocket of her field jacket.
"Don't put too much faith in that long lifeline of yours. I've seen plenty of guys who trusted it and got wiped out in a blink."
"I don't believe in luck."
"Fair enough. So where was I?"
The ground had split open. New lands and new cities had risen from nowhere. Monsters roamed everywhere—not the kind that simply lived in one area, but ones that suddenly burst out of the earth, fell from the sky, or walked out through cracks in perfectly empty air.
Modern weapons could repel those creatures without much trouble, but the real problem was the global situation. The world map had changed so drastically that past geopolitical relationships had to be completely redrawn.
The United States, which had once played world police, found itself so far from other countries with its territories now heavily subdivided that predictions showed it would need more than five times its previous defense budget to maintain its old status and control. As a result, it recalled every single overseas unit back to the mainland.
They had no choice but to concentrate their military power to prepare for conflicts with the new lands and monsters on American soil, as well as the strange new nations that looked medieval but wielded bizarre powers.
Other countries faced the same reality.
The United Nations became a name without substance, and meetings were replaced by video calls.
Even that was difficult. Most low-orbit satellites had been dragged down by the expanded Earth's stronger gravity or had their orbits warped and flung into deep space. Only a handful remained.
Every nation scrambled to recalculate orbits based on the new Earth and launch replacement satellites. Some made absurd claims to nullify previous orbital rights, while others simply launched as many as they could, operating on a finders-keepers basis.
"After it became known that those monsters could be turned into money, the wars continued... or maybe the wars happened before that? I can't quite remember which came first."
"It was probably before," the assistant gunner whispered from the side.
The woman shooter scolded him to focus on his guard, then muttered "I suppose so" with an uncertain look before turning back to Kang Tae-sung.
"After we shot down the ones rampaging through city centers, these strange objects started dropping. Some people called them cores, others called them nuclei, and some even called them relics... that last one's bullshit. Anyway, they turned out to be energy sources. Now they're being used fairly well."
When you killed a monster, you could sometimes obtain small beads. They didn't always drop, but when they did, they generated considerable profit.
It had been inconsistent at first, but now devices existed to measure the exact amount of energy contained in the beads, and prices were set accordingly. The woman continued, moving on to the war itself.
"No one thought we'd lose against a medieval civilization, right? Of course we won. The United States did too... pretty much every country with decent military strength came out on top."
But the process had come with heavy losses.
"In the end they used nukes. The beings they called mages were incredibly powerful. There were also plenty of bastards who enhanced conventional weapons with strange powers and went on rampages."
Countries that possessed nuclear weapons gained clear dominance by using them. The warring nations that witnessed both the overwhelming destructive power and its aftermath surrendered without hesitation.
Of course, many nations chose peace treaties, trade, and the exchange of knowledge instead of war.
"Since you said you know nothing, I should mention this country was one of those."
"A peace treaty?"
"There were crazy bastards up north. In the end, after picking sides and fighting together, both sides seemed to reach the same conclusion—that it was better to become friendly."
The lunatics in the north had taken advantage of the global chaos to launch a sudden invasion of the south.
But terrain changes had affected the Korean peninsula as well. The landmass had grown massively larger, and two or three new medieval-style nations had sprung up in the buffer zone between north and south. The northern forces had tried to treat them as obstacles and crush them underfoot.
Yet after witnessing the alien power's unexpectedly strong defenses, the northerners moved to use nukes, just as the United States and China had done.
At that moment, southern forces that had been carefully monitoring the north barely managed to stop them. They then fought alongside the medieval nations in a loose alliance and eventually defeated the invaders.
But the troops and resources consumed in the process became a problem.
There weren't enough soldiers to protect the entire expanded peninsula. The high officials struck a deal with the military to concentrate the remaining forces primarily around the capital region.
A few provincial cities with connections received military deployments, but they received less support and inferior equipment compared to the capital.
Rural areas and small cities where troops could not easily reach—or found it too troublesome to reach—lost all ability to defend against monsters. Just as had happened once before, a great migration of people flooding toward Seoul from across the country became inevitable.
"People said it was a miracle that the Republic of Korea still existed as a nation. Plenty of countries completely collapsed. China, for instance, has a landmass similar in scale to before... but it couldn't stay the same. With how much bigger everything became, the whole thing apparently splintered apart."
"What about Japan?"
"Asking because you're Korean?"
The woman chuckled, then scratched her head out of habit as she answered.
"They seem to have held their own fairly well. But the distance between us isn't like the old days, so it doesn't feel like we're right in each other's faces bickering anymore."
New land and new sea had appeared between Korea and Japan, creating a much greater distance than before.
The only notable event was Okinawa using its increased distance from the mainland as an excuse to declare independence.
Everyone was busy dealing with their own domestic problems, the woman said, so they showed little interest in what was happening in other countries.
"Still, Dokdo is much closer to our side."
"Hmm."
"Don't laugh. You have no idea how happy people were about that. ...Though now that I think about it, it is pretty funny."
Over the long conversation that followed, Kang Tae-sung was able to gather a considerable amount of information from the woman.
"Why don't we use guns? We would if we had them."
"I see."
"During the war they swept up nearly everything from gun manufacturers. A few leftovers are still floating around, but even if you have one, it's hard to use properly."
"Ammunition supply issues?"
"That's part of it, but the noise is the bigger problem. Those monsters... apparently they hate the guy shooting from a distance more than the one swinging a blade right in front of them."
It could have been sensitivity to sound, or perhaps they felt more threatened by powerful attacks. But after hearing that they would charge even when the gunfire wasn't aimed at them, the idea that they reacted violently to noise became quite convincing.
"Even when hunters hunt, the rule is to be as quiet as possible. Of course combat creates noise anyway... but it still doesn't travel as far as gunfire."
The woman mentioned that new-technology firearms existed as well, but then complained that unless you were a proper hunter, such equipment cost far too much to use.
"They apparently incorporate monster byproducts. Even a single special arrow costs around ten points."
"Points?"
"Do I really have to explain that too? We barely use won anymore. The old currency system has collapsed. It's basically a barter economy now. Coins might still hold some value as metal, but paper money is finished."
The woman explained that points were a kind of experience value obtained after hunting monsters, then showed Kang Tae-sung the back of her left hand.
A number emitting a faint glow, as if tattooed with luminescent material, appeared there.
"This is points. It's also like an ID that proves you're a hunter."
Current trade was basically bartering, the woman explained. However, hunters could use the points earned from hunting monsters in place of money or goods.
"I said it was like a game. No, it's not like a game. It is a game."
She spoke in a bitter tone and explained that at some point, beings known as hunters had begun appearing among people.
"I believe it first happened among the military units fighting monsters, but over time it started appearing among civilians too."
When ordinary people became hunters, people usually compared it to old game terms like awakening or job change.
"We found out how it happens not long after."
The woman said that hunting monsters above a certain rank made awakening as a hunter possible. She added that succeeding with fewer kills accumulated more experience, which increased the chance of awakening sooner.
"But no matter how many ordinary people gather, it's still hard to take down even one decent monster. Unless they're firing a machine gun, that is."
Even when using the same weapons, the difference in effectiveness between ordinary people and hunters was like heaven and earth, she said. She also added that even after becoming a hunter, one could continue accumulating experience the same way to raise their level.
"It's a game."
"It is a game. Seems God has a thing for games."
At the woman's joking remark, Kang Tae-sung suddenly remembered the god he had met in another world—the one who loved games similar to chess. That god had even created similar pastimes and distributed them to the surface.
Looking at it that way, the idea that the changes to Earth were the prank of whatever god oversaw this place might not be a joke after all. It could very well be true.
Still, even a god probably wouldn't play a game that involved people dying and the land itself being overturned. There had to be another reason.