Main Quest (1)
Paht!
The man disappeared from his seat as soon as he finished speaking.
‘Where are you?!’
The observer attempted to chase his tracks as it panicked, but he had already disappeared.
An ominous foreboding stormed into the poodle’s head.
Just a moment ago, the man stared straight at Ilyusha, who activated the [Observer’s Eyes].
Even though thousands of kilometers were distancing the two apart, it was certain. The creepy sensation it felt couldn’t be a misunderstanding.
‘He identified my location!’
If he found out where it was, then his next move was obvious.
When Ilyusha turned its head around, It found Sergei unaware of the situation and simply knitted leisurely.
It felt a sense of crisis that froze its entire body.
‘He might be coming here right now!’
Ilyusha urgently reported the current situation to the Union Headquarters via a multi-dimensional network and asked for help from the five observers monitoring the different regions of the planet.
After finishing all that, it shouted to the young man. It briefly explained the dire situation they were in before giving him an order.
“Sergei! The ‘enemy’ has located this place. Runaway now! Wait at the place we talked about before!”
Sergei was weak compared to it, but by the standards of the Earth’s native species, he was at the very least a B-Rank hunter.
If Ilyusha could succeed in pulling him out of the impending battle before it could commence, there would at least be no danger of death.
However, despite being surprised by the alien’s sudden outburst, he rebelled against its orders.
“What about you, Ilyusha?!”
“If you wait there, I’ll follow–!”
“No! Ilyusha is coming together with me!”
The observer clenched its teeth. It had no time for quarrels and arguments.
Woong!
Ilyusha caused flashes to emerge and converge around Sergei as if holding onto his very being.
It was trying to teleport him forcefully away from the danger.
Sergei, wrapped in light, extended his hands out as if to tell it that he didn’t want to be taken away from Ilyusha. The knitting materials on his knees fell on the ground.
“Wait for me! I promise that I will follow after you soon!”
However, they soon found out that their cries were meaningless.
Paht!
The flow of light that was flocking toward him stopped and dissipated immediately.
The young man frozen by the sudden change in the situation was still standing there.
The teleport had been canceled.
“… De-spell?”
She tried it again, but it was as if a firewall was blocking her.
The observer felt a sense of abnormality in the environment.
There’s one more element that felt strange to it.
‘I called them using an emergency line. Why isn’t anyone answering my requests?’
If it’s a reply from the headquarters in a far-away dimension, it would be understandable if it was late. However, it was uncommon for none of the other observers on Earth to reply.
[Observer’s Eyes]!
The observer, who was looking around with a tense heart, realized the situation.
‘We’re sealed in!’
A simple spell like de-spell didn’t cause the current phenomenon.
The effect of [Observer’s Eyes] was blocked around the house, and its vision couldn’t be extended beyond it.
All magical and non-magical movements that went beyond a certain range around the cabin were blocked.
‘Teleportation is impossible, and the Union’s network is down!’
Perfect isolation.
There was a high probability that its rescue request didn’t reach anyone.
‘What do I do?!’
The moment she was trying to figure out a solution in extreme tension, she heard a calm voice on one side of the cabin.
“… This is a low-quality breed that isn’t worth wasting my seeds on.”
Pshk!
Even before the echoing end of his words could be blown away by the winds, Sergei’s jaw dropped.
“… Huh?”
His blank eyes slowly hovered down at his chest.
A hole had pierced through his chest, crushing his heart as well.
His body tilted to the sides slowly.
Thump!
Like a broken marionette, the young man fell down without any signs of life in his eyes.
His heart was torn off in an instant without warning, causing him to die in that manner.
“Ser…”
The observer’s body trembled, and the ensuing cry ripped through the air.
“Sergeeeiiii!”
There was a man beyond the space where Sergei was standing.
The observer was oblivious of when he got there and how his power was released to kill Sergei.
The human was killed off so easily.
The pale-brown-skinned man spoke, looking at the screeching observer and the body lying in front of him alternatingly.
“I see. Was it a child raised with affection and not for food? I made a mistake.”
The following words stabbed the observer’s chest like a fire poker.
“If I had known, I would have skinned and tortured him instead of killing him immediately.”
“Aaaaaaaaargh!”
The observer, who quickly released the dog’s disguise, spread out its six legs and released an energy bomb around it.
Pa-paht!
Boo-boo-boo-boom!
A flash and heat storm struck the man and blew the whole cabin away.
Amid the debris pouring like volcanic ash, the observer leaked a voice stained with abomination.
“You–!”
In the smoke, the man stood straight without faltering.
His glance stopped at the body that collapsed at the foot of the observer.
The body was still intact in the explosion. Ilyusha had protected it.
After seeing that, the man raised a question.
“Have the Ghenuts stopped eating humans already?”
The words only made Ilyusha’s wrath even worse.
It’s been a long time since her race, the Ghenuts, had agreed not to eat any more intelligent beings.
His words sounded like an insensitive joke to harass her.
“My common knowledge must have stayed too far in the past. My bad.”
“Youuuu!”
“Before I kill you, I have a few questions to ask. Will you answer me?”
The man raised his hand with a smile.
Ilyusha once again unleashed a storm of flashes without an answer.
*
An untimely storm hit the countryside of the Sakha Republic.
It was a vortex created by light and flames instead of rain and wind.
After a frantic conflict that seemed to shake the core of the Earth had passed, the winner of the battle was decided, and the two aliens faced each other with different faces.
“… Have you changed your mind yet?”
“Keuuup–!”
As if to prove that powerful forces clashed at that place, the terrain had changed.
Dust clouds and smoke rose across the lands, and the ground, which melted due to the intense heat, was blazing.
The man seemed to have had almost no change from his first appearance. With an aloof look in that mess, there wasn’t even a grain of dust on him.
On the other hand, Ilyusha looked devastated.
“No… fucking way!”
Shadows had been cast all over the place because of the dust clouds that filled the sky.
Ilyusha was pinned in the dark atmosphere with her body ragged like a mop.
“K-argh!”
In pain, It tried to catch its breath.
Even at that moment, the power that the man displayed was penetrating the observer’s body and was brutally assaulting it. It caused terrible agony that felt like it was mutilating it all the way down to its cells.
After his overwhelming victory, the man repeated his question, tormenting Ilyusha.
If Sergei were alive, he would have tortured him in front of the observer to force it to answer.
“The assignment of as many as six observers to this small planet… causes me headaches, but I let it be. However, the story has changed since you found me.”
He cast a heavy glance down at it with his steel-like eyes.
Looking at her face distorted by pain, he raised a question again.
“You must have read my race information through the system. What I’m curious about is the stage just before that. What’s the secret of pinpointing my existence and location mixed with billions of native species? How did you find out? From from who?”
In pain, Ilyusha solidified its determination.
At first, it thought it only had to hold on until the other observers came to save it.
But as it realized that they’re still not on the move…
‘They can’t sense anything that’s happening here from the outside!’
The flash, noise, and shock that seemed like a carpet bombing that had happened where they were didn’t leak out from a certain area at all.
The man’s ability to make that possible was remarkable.
Ilyusha sensed its fate. It couldn’t expect outside help.
At that moment, the remaining options were to be tortured to death or to spit out the information he wanted and die swiftly.
It didn’t like either of the two.
‘I will never give you what you want!’
It put up one last struggle.
The observer gritted its teeth and pondered.
No matter how great that man was, he couldn’t overcome the Union.
“My… revenge will be… from the Union!”
The impression of a man who came to a realization frowned upon it.
“Oh, my…!”
The man already failed several times after the battle, but he attempted to execute the failed method one last time.
He, who destroyed Seo Gyu-Choel’s ego instantly, was spending time trying to get the information he wanted from the observer.
[The Mercadius’ Seed]!
‘Geeeeek!’
The red Mana, which stretched out of his body, failed to penetrate the observer’s body again that time.
The mental defense system planted in the observers’ spirits from the Union headquarters was working faithfully and properly.
“Tsk.”
The man clicked his tongue.
At that moment…
“…!”
A huge wave began to stretch out tremendously from Ilyusha’s small body.
It had enough power to break the barriers that isolated the space if fully unfolded.
However, the cost of pulling out such a powerful force was…
“This must be the end.”
It was a precursor to the collapse of the core of a powerful Awakened.
When he dropped its body, realizing it’s a bust, Ilyusha cried out in a bitter voice.
“Khahaha… Just you wait… The Union will soon–”
It glared at him with murderous eyes.
The man who had already lost interest in it turned away from it. The moment his form faded, a flood of flashes covered Ilyusha’s body, and a huge explosion occurred around her.
The light swept everything away.
*
The day after Russia’s big explosion hit the news.
I was talking to Adam.
“I’ve looked into it from the dimension…”
What followed was that our ominous foreboding became a reality.
“There’s a rumor that an observer sent by the Union to the member dimension is dead.”
My face became distorted.
“… Damn. It failed.”
The main source of the curse clashed with the observer.
The match seemed to have ended with the observer’s defeat.
“Yes, we don’t know Mercadius’s whereabouts. He wasn’t found at the scene, so he’s probably alive.”
He continued to talk with a bitter expression.
“Only one of the six observers died, and it happened in the place where they lived. The only scenario I can think of right now is…. that the Ghenut was watching him alone without informing other observers.”
“Did it get caught in the process?”
“There’s a good chance it did. He saw through the [Observer’s Eyes] skill and reversed it, identifying the location of the observer and attacked the observer… Huh.”
He slowly caressed his beard as his eyes darkened.
“Neither the observer nor I have a choice but to admit that we were complacent. I couldn’t evaluate the power of the opponent.”
“…”
My mind became complicated, too.
“How’s the movement of the Union?”
“It seems like they will send an investigation team. I think they will send a few more people to find him beside the replacement observer.”
“But since he felt threatened, he would hide even more meticulously.”
“There is an option to leave the Earth and disappear to a different dimension, but we can’t be optimistic because we don’t know why he’s staying here in the first place.”
In other words, the situation had worsened.
Adam rolled his eyes as if he was perplexed before continuing.
“Now that we have confirmed how dangerous that Mercadius bastard is… We need to strengthen our power. Again, if you die, it’s a big loss for me.”
Whatever the reason might be, our purpose aligned.
We had to upgrade our power.
It was hard to let go of it and simply trust the alliance.
Considering the content that I saw in Seo Gyu-Cheol’s memory and that even an observer had been attacked… If we were to meet ‘him’ at that moment, I wasn’t confident with my chances of winning.
“I agree on that.”
“It’s good to collect experience points and get items by Clearing dungeons, but we need to speed up. So…”
He scratched his chin.
“It may be a bit sudden, but I kept thinking about it yesterday and today.”
“…?”
What was he trying to say that made him hesitant?
“Has it been about 20 years since this dimension started the tutorial?”
“Yes.”
“The duration of the tutorial may take hundreds of years depending on the dimensions, but if situations allow, some may end quickly in decades.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“And Seo Jin-Wook, you will definitely be chosen as an Awakened to climb the Tower of Choice later on. I assure you.”
It was already given.
“At this moment, this world is handling the tutorial pretty well. They will probably choose to enter the main quest.”
Since the situation was different from the previous life, the probability was high.
A lot of industries on Earth had already been completely reorganized, centering around Mana Cores.
It’s wise to start the main quest unless Earth reached an extreme case in which civilization was at the brink of collapse like in the past.
“Why are you saying that now?”
When I wondered why he turned the subject around, he immediately followed up with an unexpected story.
“If you’re going to do that anyway, why don’t you finish this world’s tutorial quest as soon as possible?”
“…”
It was an option I had thought about, but it was difficult to push ahead.
My current life had already changed a lot compared to the past life because of me. If I finished the tutorial quickly, I couldn’t guarantee how far the extremely amplified butterfly effect would change history.
Adam, who didn’t know my situation, added an explanation.
“There are three reasons why I recommend that. First, It would strengthen the power of your entire dimension. Second, you’d be able to secure your safety. Third, it’ll allow Earth to establish external partnerships.”
He explained the first reason.
“One of the reasons most beings choose the main quest is the rewards that change. The items we’re getting from Earth as a dungeon reward are mostly combat-related personal equipment, right?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s because the most urgent issue that the tutorial dimension resident is facing is ‘survival.’ Since survival comes first to them, they are handed weapons and armors.”
That was a logical explanation.
“When you enter the main quest, you get rewards that go beyond the mere survival of an individual and accelerate the pace of civilization in the world by several hundreds of times.”
He then used my [Stardust Wing] as an example.
“With that item, interplanetary flight is possible… But there is a limit to an item that individuals equip. After all, it’s just a simple means of personal transportation and a piece of acceleration equipment that can help in combat. On the other hand, among the main quest rewards, there are things like the tachyon engine that allows spacecraft to fly faster than the speed of light.”
I got the gist of it.
There were items that affected the entire civilization beyond survival.
Just as weapon-type artifacts were copied from Earth, that kind of item would be able to establish its principles. As a result, technological advancement would exponentially be on the rise.
“Plus, the probability of Awakening will gradually increase. Old dimensions like Ghenut have a 99.9% Awakening ratio to population. We’re over 50% too. Isn’t the Earth around 0.05% now?”
I nodded.
“Increasing the number of Awakened raises the force of a dimension. But that doesn’t happen within a year or two. Rather, it’s a long-term reward. Anyway, next.”
He explained the second reason.
“When you enter the main quest, you can modify or enhance your unique skill.”
He continued with a grin.
“The farther your starting point is ahead, the greater the effect of the upgrade. In other words, I don’t know your exact identity, but it means that your unique skill, which is obviously great, can become much more powerful!”
… I felt like he just added a strange emphasis to the sentence ‘I don’t know your exact identity.’
Was that just in my head?
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