◈ Chapter 149. City of Gloomy Rain
In the early days of the Cataclysm, rifts were disasters.
A calamity that could not be resolved unless the whole world joined forces and rushed in together.
Naturally, the number of Awakened players was relatively small.
And a systematic structure like the one now had yet to be established.
Thanks to that, the world stopped its meaningless competition between nations and cooperated to respond to the rifts. The international cooperation organization AAU had been founded on that basis.
“Back in my day, you know. We didn’t have this kind of bullshit.”
Clatter—Park Minjae, head of the AAU’s Korean branch.
He bought a canned coffee from the vending machine in the break room.
Likewise holding canned coffee were two men, Seong Hyeonjun and Yun Sugyeom.
Seong Hyeonjun whispered softly.
“……
I mean, sunbae. Who says they’re treating you to tea in this day and age and then buys you a 300-won canned coffee? I didn’t take the branch manager for one, but he’s a total cheapskate.”
Tsk.
Yun Sugyeom answered by smacking his lips.
How long had it been since he’d bought canned coffee from a vending machine?
But the atmosphere was too grave to be discussing the type of coffee.
Chik—“You all saw the news pouring in, right?”
“Yes, I saw it.”
“I’m still watching it now, and honestly, it’s infuriating.”
Seong Hyeonjun’s brow furrowed mercilessly.
“They’re doing this even though they know everything, aren’t they? If it were for money or power in the first place, would he put up a quest so openly like this? Hoyeol-nim isn’t an idiot!”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Let’s see, how many years had it been since he’d rolled around in this filthy society?
Since taking on the title of AAU branch manager, he had naturally come into contact with government officials, and if there was one thing he’d learned from that, it was this: that kind of feigned ignorance was what truly drove people insane.
“Do you think those smart gentlemen, every last one of them graduates from prestigious universities, don’t know what even common folks like us can plainly see? They’re just pretending not to know. It’s not like getting cursed at is anything new to them. They’re planning to play dumb until the very end.”
He always felt this, but humans were truly cunning.
“Maybe humans and those demon bastards aren’t so different after all.”
“Come on, Branch Manager, even if you say that……”
“I’m not joking. I mean it sincerely.”
Now that the number of players had increased and the system had been established.
An ordinary rift of an appropriate level was no longer a major problem for humanity.
But if one asked whether there was no damage caused by rifts at all.
Of course, the answer was no.
“Even if it’s not like the early days of the Cataclysm, people, innocent civilians, are dying every single day. But those gentlemen called the big shots, now that life’s gotten a bit easier, are using their heads in a really fucked-up direction?”
Last night, in other words, on a precious Sunday evening.
Park Minjae had received a call from a government official.
“These gentlemen have no manners as human beings. No manners.”
Calling on a weekend?
Even thinking back on it made his temper flare, but the summary of the call was simple.
Park Minjae sneered.
“They say they want to control Lee Hoyeol in earnest.”
“……
What?!”
“Why? Because the way things are going now looks unusual.”
Lee Hoyeol, what had his conduct been like all this time?
Despite possessing ability great enough to be called the pinnacle, he did not pursue wealth or fame.
He merely cleared rifts in silence, like the players who had been called heroes in the early days of the Cataclysm.
And who had benefited from Lee Hoyeol more than anyone else?
Naturally, the Korean government.
“From the VIP down to the lower ranks. They must have been bluffing with every card they had and didn’t have from behind the scenes. Even if Lee Hoyeol looks like he’s acting on his own, he’s connected to us. Well, I can understand other countries falling for it. Why? Because they themselves have mutual-aid, cooperative relationships where they help each other out.”
……
They had expected it, but it was true?
High-level information pouring from the mouth of the AAU branch manager.
In case someone might be listening in.
Yun Sugyeom cautiously looked around and whispered.
“Well, Inazuma was like that, wasn’t it?”
Inazuma’s guild master, Hisagi Kazuma.
Immediately after the Hokkaido Frost incident.
He had officially declared in front of the reporters that he would cut ties with the Japanese government.
Criticism toward the Japanese government, which had not only violated the AAU international agreement but had also been doing shady things behind the scenes, had been no joke.
Park Minjae snorted.
“Think carefully. If you recall back then too.”
“……?”
“The ones who criticized the Japanese government were only ordinary citizens and netizens. The countries that should have been the most sensitive never stepped forward to criticize them. What do you think that means? It just wasn’t exposed. Their circumstances are all the same.”
And on top of that, another link: the AAU.
“So what the big shots want is to turn that link into a dog collar and snap it on. Don’t you think they’ve really got guts? To put it bluntly, they’re the kind of gentlemen who’d die by the truckload if a player so much as lifted a finger.”
……
At this point, wasn’t this not cider but hydrochloric acid?
As a listener, it certainly felt refreshing.
But he kept glancing around, afraid someone might hear.
The level of the remarks was that severe.
Ting—But as if he did not care at all.
Park Minjae tossed the neatly emptied can into the trash bin.
Then continued speaking.
“So I received an offer.”
“An offer?”
“They told me to arrange a nice meeting with Lee Hoyeol. Me.”
Yun Sugyeom and Seong Hyeonjun watched Park Minjae’s expression.
‘……
They must have put forward an incredible offer.’
There had to be a reason the branch managers of other countries cooperated with their governments even while violating the AAU agreement. Branch Manager Park must surely have received an incredible offer as well.
They could be certain of that.
That was why they wondered.
Seong Hyeonjun swallowed dryly and asked.
“But is it all right for you to tell us this much?”
Park Minjae chuckled.
“Sure. If you’re going to do something bad, doing it in secret is the basics.”
He flung the break room door wide open.
“As for me, I’m obviously going to refuse, so I’m telling you.”
“?!”
Seong Hyeonjun could not help being surprised.
It must have been an offer any person would feel pressured by. He hadn’t said it outright, but there had surely been threats that weren’t quite threats mixed in. On top of that, material temptations as well.
As Park Minjae left the break room, Seong Hyeonjun spoke.
“Sunbae, weren’t you surprised?”
“I was. Surprised that even after taking the branch manager position, he’s still exactly the same as before.”
“……
Exactly the same as before?”
“Ah, you don’t have enough experience, so you wouldn’t know.”
Memories of his time at Cosmo resurfaced one after another.
“Our Branch Manager Park was famous even back when he was an ordinary employee.”
“He was famous? For what? Being a cheapskate?”
“Well, that’s also an undeniable fact.”
Even thinking about it again made Yun Sugyeom laugh.
“Among hundreds of thousands of Cosmo employees around the world, he was the only one who officially defied the great Raymon Sean. Our Branch Manager Park.”
“……
Y-yes?!”
...
Park Minjae tugged at his stifling necktie.
Damn it, since when did developers start going around in suits?
From now on, he would have to dress comfortably first.
“Since I never know when or where shit water might splash onto my clothes.”
Park Minjae recalled his vow from last time.
Lee Hoyeol. If he could not walk alongside him.
Then he would at least knock down the obstacles that tried to interfere with his path.
The AAU?
The big shots?
Even better.
The corners of Park Minjae’s mouth rose to their fullest.
“It’s my specialty. Butting heads with higher-ups.”
Even in the past, when he had less than nothing compared to now, I was the one who butted heads with Raymon Sean, the CEO who was like the heavens.
Park Minjae loosened up his body lightly. Good, fine. Where would be a good place to start? Park Minjae sat down at the desk in the branch manager’s office.
“I’ll play with them as much as they want, in Lee Hoyeol’s stead.”
Click—“……
What the hell is this?”
But there was nothing Park Minjae needed to step forward for right away.
No, perhaps there would never be anything, not even in the future.
Park Minjae, staring at the monitor, muttered.
“W-what kind of bullshit is this?!”
What was playing on the screen was a live news broadcast.
The camera was showing a fog so thick one could not see an inch ahead.
Soon, subtitles appeared on the screen.
[According to witnesses, London disappeared at the same time the rift formed……!]
Literally.
Exactly as it appeared.
London had vanished into the rainy fog.
Without a trace.
*
A state of emergency.
The trivial power struggles from just moments before returned to nothingness.
They had gone back to the early days of the Cataclysm.
Because this rift was on a completely different level from all those until now.
Yes, it seemed like the beginning of the apocalypse the AAU had warned about.
Guild ranking 7th, Britain’s Second Sun.
The guild master, Shreig, was silent.
Drip, drip—He looked at London while being drenched by the pouring rain.
……
No, could this place even be called London anymore?
Even for London, where clear days were rare, this was on another level. Truly, it was a rainy fog in which one could not see an inch ahead. All of the widely spread fog was the domain of the rift.
Bzz, bzz—The vibrations had not stopped since earlier.
It was probably contact from the higher-ups demanding he produce a solution.
But Shreig’s mind had stopped turning a while ago.
“……
What the hell do they expect me to do?”
All of London had become a rift.
What that meant was simple.
Along with London.
London’s citizens had disappeared into the rift.
Second Sun’s executive, Zachary, clung to the thread of reason.
“……
It’s not only civilians inside the rift. Players are there too, and among them are our Second Sun guild members. There’s no need to worry too much. They’ll be responding properly.”
Shreig let out a hollow laugh.
“……
Haha, do you really think that?”
“What?”
“This has gone beyond the level we can deal with. You know that, don’t you?”
A message appeared before his eyes.
Information on the rift.
[Dungeon: City of Gloomy Rain]
[Appropriate Level: Lv.600~Lv.900]
[Collapse Progress: 0.1%]
He could understand the wildly fluctuating appropriate level.
From the [Cracked Rift Between Dimensions] to the [Tepern Labyrinth].
There had been rifts that boasted appropriate levels even more ridiculous than this.
Yes, the problem was [Dungeon].
Those two words attached before the rift’s name.
Shreig clutched his throbbing head.
“It’s a dungeon. That means it can’t be cleared simply by hunting monsters. Damn it. To find the clear conditions, we’ll have to bash into things one by one and search for them!!”
Dungeons from the days when Arcana was nothing more than a game.
Dungeons were infamous for their atrocious difficulty.
To explain it simply, they were places overflowing with monsters as powerful as those in [Predator Zones], and filled with traps as threatening as those in [Labyrinths]. That was what a [Dungeon] was.
Shreig’s voice grew even more heated.
“If this were a game, I’d have been happy. Even if I had to take the experience penalty. Considering the rewards of a dungeon, it would still be a profit even if I died a few times. But that’s not it, is it? Everyone’s lives are on the line.”
In order to clear a dungeon.
One absolutely had to find the [Dungeon Depths].
But it was a dungeon filled with powerful monsters and traps.
As if that were not enough, what about its scale?
At minimum, it was London.
“……
I’m sorry, Zachary. I don’t have the confidence.”
Shreig looked at his trembling hands.
Fear.
A rift devouring ordinary people who weren’t players?
Until now, that had been impossible.
In the first place, ordinary people could neither enter rifts nor witness them. But perhaps because this was a dungeon. It had swallowed not only London, but even its citizens, and on top of that.
“My wife is in there, in there!!”
Even ordinary people could clearly see that alien rainy fog in which they could not see an inch ahead.
The shouting did not cease.
Shreig gritted his teeth.
“……
Damn it.”
If he followed his heart, he would have leaped into the rift any number of times.
But he was not alone.
Because there were guild members who would follow behind him.
To jump into a dungeon without any proper plan?
He knew, through experience from the days when Arcana was nothing more than a game, that it would be nothing but throwing away experience—no, throwing away lives.
How could someone like me be called the hero and hope of my homeland?
The sense of powerlessness he felt.
The pouring rain made his body sink heavily.
It was not only Shreig.
Shaaaaa—It weighed heavily on everyone watching London wrapped in rainy fog.
It made them gloomy.
It made them helpless.
To a strange degree.
Shreig, no, everyone being drenched by the rain murmured.
“I can’t do anything……”
Shaaaaa—It was around the time their bodies were growing cold.
In the mercilessly pouring rain.
The sound of dress shoes rang out.
Click—Among the countless crowd.
A single black umbrella unfolded.
As if it would not allow even a single raindrop to splash onto his clothes.
The one holding the umbrella with upright, proper posture was a man.
Soon, he opened his mouth.
“Can you hear me, Shreig?”
“……?”
At the same time, Shreig’s vision flickered.
[Status abnormality, ‘Helplessness,’ has been removed.]
Only then did Shreig realize it.
‘……
When did I get afflicted with a status abnormality?’
Soon, reflexively.
He looked at the man who had awakened him from the status abnormality.
A long black umbrella, and silver hair contrasting with it.
He met Hoyeol.
Before Shreig could open his mouth to say anything, Hoyeol continued.
“I would like to ask you to guide me through London. Would that be possible?”
...
A status abnormality this widespread.
Judging by the appropriate level alone, it must be at least Demon King-class.
Yes, it had to be about this much to be called a dungeon master.
Naturally, this was my first time witnessing a dungeon.
But if you asked how I could be so calm.
This time, I would proudly answer that it was thanks to my preparedness rather than Granfell’s brazen face. To be precise, it must be that my desperate resolve to get my money’s worth had shone through.
That’s right.
I am talking about the [Map That Communes with All Things], which I used according to plan.
A brooch asserting its presence from the lapel of my jacket.
[Hexagram Brooch 1/6]
[Grade: Unique]
[Restriction: Lv.100]
[Effect: When using magic, recover 10 percent of the mana consumed.]
[Description: Part of a brooch in which six gather to become one. Because it is only an extremely small part, its effect has been significantly diminished.]
Yes, [City of Gloomy Rain].
Beyond that rainy fog.
There is a second [Hexagram Brooch].