The Morning After and the Usual Routine
As soon as I opened my eyes in the dorm the next morning, the events of yesterday came rushing back with crystal clarity, and a wave of pointless regret washed over me. After getting completely swept up in all that madness, I realized I had failed to do the one thing I truly should have done. Even if no one else kept their sanity, I at least should have held onto mine. I was busy blaming my own weakness for that failure when Piece noticed the turmoil in my emotions and spoke up.
[My dear, are you regretting what happened yesterday?]
'To be honest, yeah, it's pretty disappointing.'
[Speak to me. What weighs most heavily on your heart?]
Waves of regret were slowly gnawing away at me. Amid the crashing tide, the only thing I could do was desperately cling to my sense of self. Pouring every ounce of emotion into the words, I groaned miserably at Piece.
'When we were burning the president, we didn't boil oden stew in the flames.'
[Fuck, I knew it! This body was an idiot for expecting anything from you!!]
'But it's an absolutely necessary step if I want to become a true hero of the jianghu.'
I thought about it. What if I really had boiled oden stew in those flames?
'Would this novel have become a god-tier novel then?'
[Would you please stop letting the word "god-tier" crawl out of that filthy mouth!!]
Curious about the aftermath of yesterday's chaos, I turned on my phone and logged into the Academy's anonymous bulletin board. I'd had notifications turned off for a while, but the board was currently exploding with posts. Although the signal fires wishing for my ascension had died down yesterday, the flames on the anonymous board showed no signs of going out—they were blazing hotter than ever.
[Even if this novel went full BL drift, it wouldn't burn this hard.]
'Shut the hell up with that nonsense. This novel wouldn't show any signs no matter what it did anyway.'
Most of the posts were either roasting or mocking the coin addicts, usually accompanied by clown photos. Occasionally, though, truly disgusting images would appear—the kind that made you wonder why such things even existed in this world. Naturally, those posts didn't fit the board's atmosphere and were deleted almost instantly. Still, countless posts kept getting uploaded and deleted in an endless cycle, like the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.
[Managing a board like this must be exhausting.]
'It's tough, but it's doable. These people are all on fat salaries, after all.'
Even though it was an anonymous board, there were still actual moderators. One absolute authority marked in orange, and several admins marked in blue. The countless users of the board mocked and despised them using all sorts of terms: armband-wearers, slaves, orange-dicks, blue-dicks, and so on. But the fact that the absolute authority and the admins received high salaries was already common knowledge. In the end, people used those insults simply because they were jealous and envious. It was nothing more than a petty, childish form of self-comfort. That was all.
When I told Piece about their salaries, she immediately pushed back as if it were impossible.
[Even if it's managing a board full of chaos, they really get paid that much?]
'Otherwise, why would they camp on the board twenty-four seven?'
[Now that you mention it, you seem to be right. After all, no one would do this kind of work for free.]
'For free? Please, say something that actually makes sense.'
[This body's thoughts were too shallow. I apologize.]
I cut off Piece's doubts with surgical precision, shoved my phone back into my pocket, and—since it was still the weekend—called Hye-ji and stormed the Martial Arts Guild once again. Even though I was banned from entering, there was no way they could stop Hye-ji. Ignoring the wary glances from the people around us, we started looking for Jung Ayeon. It didn't take long to find her, and I suggested we take on a request together, but...
"This lady is busy, so leave me be."
"......You're not busy with requests, you're busy doing chores."
"This too is part of my training."
Right now, Jung Ayeon was single-handedly polishing a massive life-sized statue of the Heavenly Demon with great enthusiasm.
"How the hell does polishing the Heavenly Demon brat's statue count as training? Someone explain it to me."
"Shinwoo, I wanna use that thing for target practice with a rifle."
"Hyeji, stop acting like a kid already."
"Still, the young lord has truly become a proper person. To think he can now distinguish right from wrong."
Hye-ji wore a gloomy expression while Jung Ayeon looked proud of herself. Of course, that only lasted until...
"He's an adult now, so we should at least use a fifty-caliber."
"I see!"
"Please don't! In the end, the one who gets scolded is always this lady!"
Their expressions changed in an instant. Hye-ji looked delighted, while Jung Ayeon looked like she was begging for her life. Judging by the number above Jung Ayeon's head that had gone up by one as she desperately tried to stop Hye-ji, it seemed that in the real future before the regression, Hye-ji really had destroyed the statue.
The beautiful culture of downward bullying still remained strong in the Martial Arts Guild. Unusually, this downward bullying culture ignored ranks entirely and purely prioritized how long someone had been in the guild. That was why the Martial Arts Guild had no new blood coming in and had become completely stagnant, like stagnant water under an iron fist.
But then Jung Ayeon suddenly volunteered to become their slave and placed herself beneath them. It was no different from a puppy bringing miso paste, a duck bringing green onions, or a grad student showing up saying they wanted to do an integrated master's and PhD program. And so, even though she was technically a full-rank member, Jung Ayeon was currently getting her joints thoroughly crushed by the long-time members.
"Shinwoo, are you just gonna leave her like that?"
"Let her enjoy it."
Hye-ji and I left Jung Ayeon behind and exited the Martial Arts Guild.
The Academy life for a while was just the repetition of the same daily routine. On weekdays, I attended classes and monitored the student cafeteria. Occasionally, when professors tried to sneak into the student cafeteria, I would catch them and shave their heads regardless of gender.
'If they've grown a conscience hair, we should at least remove the external hair.'
[Just kill them, please.]
'How can you kill people so casually? I don't have it in me to do that.'
Still, I didn't shave all their hair. I conscientiously only shaved the middle part and left the rest. Wasn't that enough? After all, if they were human, their hair would grow back eventually.
And on weekends, Hye-ji and I would wander around to different guilds by ourselves and complete requests. Since Jung Ayeon was busy clocking in at the Martial Arts Guild, we didn't go pick her up anymore. As for Elsia, the tier difference was too big, so she said we couldn't form a party together. In the end, it was just Hye-ji and me handling the requests.
It wasn't a bad thing doing requests with Hye-ji. In fact, it was pretty good. The only problem was...
"I'm sorry, but our guild no longer has any more subjugation requests."
Hye-ji's power was simply too overwhelming. In more ways than one. Of course, every guild had plenty of requests prepared for Academy students, and there were quite a few subjugation ones among them. But they were still just requests meant for Academy students. They were nowhere near Hye-ji's level.
[......Wasn't Hyeji clearly a supporter at the beginning?]
'Let's just say an aircraft carrier is a tool too.'
Completing requests wasn't just about building up achievements; it was also a nice way to earn some pocket money. Everywhere Hye-ji swept through was left with piles of ashes and monster flesh scattered everywhere, so we'd carefully gather it all up and sell it to the guild. The guilds didn't always want to buy the stuff, but it wasn't a big problem.
"We cannot purchase this kind of trash."
"Hyeji, if you would."
Whenever Hye-ji gave them her sincere and heartfelt persuasion, the guilds would buy everything without fail. They deposited the money directly into the account so we couldn't use it right away, but just watching the balance grow made me feel good.
'It's nice that there are so many reasonable people in the guilds who can be persuaded so easily.'
[......Giving them such defective goods... what exactly makes you any different from a scammer!]
'At least I don't accept returns claiming the price went up.'
Because of environmental destruction, we didn't get very high evaluations. But an achievement was still an achievement. One request gave a small achievement point. So all we had to do was keep completing requests until we had a big one. Thanks to this way of thinking, we cleared every request we could find in a high-volume, low-margin style. The phenomenon where supply couldn't keep up with demand was only natural. As a result, every weekend we bounced from guild to guild, completing every single subjugation request we could find.
[Do we even have a conscience? Us? Isn't Hyeji the one doing everything by herself!]
'Just pulling her over to our side is enough.'
[......Well, since she's on our side, I suppose that's fortunate.]
'Ellen you son of a bitch, try land-clearing. We have Hyeji.'
It wasn't like there were no complaints. The number of completed subjugation requests was too high. The time taken was too short. The number of people involved was too small. Suspicions arose that multiple people had worked together and funneled all the achievements to us. In the end, guild staff even followed us personally to monitor the request completions and verify it.
And they regretted it. A sea of fire unfolded before them, accompanied by countless gunshots and the accompanying screams of monsters that drilled directly into their ears. At the same time, every monster that encountered Hye-ji was transformed from a living creature into a pile of meat. Whether it happened quickly or slowly, the process of slaughter left the monitors suffering from severe PTSD. They would tremble at the mere sound of fireworks. Some even quit being hunters and joined monster rights associations, claiming that monsters were pitiful.
As a result, our achievements were officially recognized as legitimate. Though the guild did lose a few members in the process. Thanks to that, we were able to go about our business freely without any further complaints.
It was like its own little ecosystem. The sight of one insane whale devouring all the krill known as requests, with one barnacle living parasitically on that whale.
"You son of a bitch, it feels like the way you treat me keeps getting weirder."
"......No, it's the same as it was from the beginning."
"Tsk, is that so? I thought I heard something."
'Is she actually crazy?'
[That's not something you should be saying.]