◈ Episode 149. The City of Gloomy Rain

In the early days of the Cataclysm, the Rift was a disaster.

A disaster that could not be solved unless the world united to fight it.

The number of awakened players was relatively small.

There was no organized system in place like there is now.

Thanks to this, the world stopped pointlessly competing between nations and worked together to close the rift. The AAU, an international cooperation organization, was founded on his idea.

“In my day, we didn’t have this shit.”

Dulgduck

Minjae Park, head of AAU Korea.

He opens a can of coffee in the lounge.

Two other guys, Sung Hyun-joon and Yoon Soo-gyeom, also had canned coffee in their hands.

Sung whispered in a low voice.

“……No, senior. In this day and age, there’s no one who offers a cup of tea and shoots a canned coffee for 300 won. Mr. Branch President, I didn’t see that, but you’re a total jerk.”

Bitter.

Yoon Soo-gyeom replaced his words with his taste buds.

Is this the first vending machine canned coffee he’s had in a while?

But it wasn’t the type of coffee they were discussing.

Chick.

“Did you guys see the news all over the place?”

“Yeah, I saw it.”

“I’m watching it now, and it’s really pissing me off.”

Sung’s brow furrowed impatiently.

“You know all this, don’t you? If it wasn’t for money or power in the first place, he wouldn’t be so brazen as to put up a quest like this! Mr. Ho Yeol isn’t an idiot!”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Let’s see, how many years have you been rolling in the dirt?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from wearing the title of AAU branch president and having access to government officials. I realized that being an asshole can really turn people on.

“Don’t you realize that all these smart people who graduated from prestigious universities know what we, the little people, know, and they’re just pretending not to know. They’re going to get their asses kicked, and they’re not going to stop until they get their asses kicked.”

I’ve always felt that people are very clever.

“Maybe humans and demons are no different.”

“Aww, even if you say so, I’m not going to…….”

“I’m not kidding, I’m serious.”

Now that the number of players has grown and the system is established.

Ordinary, moderate rifts have not been a major problem for humanity.

But if you ask me, are they harmless?

Of course not.

“People, innocent citizens, are dying every day, just as much if not more than they were in the early days of the Cataclysm, However, the so-called high-ranking people have now become a bit more comfortable with their lives, you’ve got your head in the wrong place, haven’t you?”

Last night, a golden Sunday evening.

Park received a call from a government official.

“These guys have no manners, man to man. No manners.”

Calling on a weekend?

It was a simple way to summarize the angry call.

Park frowned.

“You want to take full control of Lee Ho-yeol.”

“……?!”

“Why? Because I’m not happy with the way things are going right now.”

Lee Ho-yeol, what has he done so far?

He has the ability to be called the pinnacle, yet he doesn’t seek wealth and fame.

He simply clears the rift in silence, just like the players who were called heroes in the early days of the Cataclysm.

Who benefited from Lee Ho-yeol more than anyone else?

The South Korean government, of course.

“From the VIPs to the bottom of the line, the ones in the back, the ones without, they’ve all been. Even if Lee Ho-yeol seems to be acting on his own, they all have connections to us. It’s understandable that other nations would be fooled. Why, they have their own system of mutual aid and cooperation.”

……I expected it, but was it real?

Advanced information coming out of the mouth of an AAU branch president.

Just in case someone was listening.

Yoon Soo-gyeom, cautiously looking around, whispered.

“It’s been like that since Inazuma, right?”

Kazuma Hisagi, Inazuma’s guild master.

Shortly after the Hokkaido Frost.

He had publicly declared, in front of the press, that he was severing ties with the Japanese government.

He had been very vocal in his criticism of the Japanese government, which had violated the AAU’s international agreements and done some dirty tricks behind the scenes.

Park snorted.

“Think about it, even back then.”

“……?”

“It was only ordinary citizens and netizens who criticized the Japanese government. The countries that should be the most sensitive never criticized them. What does that mean? It’s just not out in the open. It’s the same for them.”

And then there’s another connection, the AAU.

“So the higher-ups want to turn that connection into a dog collar. You guys have big livers, don’t you, you know, these guys will kill you by the truckload if the player even lifts a finger.”

…… Isn’t that hydrochloric acid, not cider?

As a listener, it was refreshing.

I kept looking up to see if anyone was listening.

The level of speech was quite high.

Ting─

But he didn’t seem to care.

Park Min-jae threw the neatly emptied can into the trash can.

Then he continued.

“That’s why I got an offer.”

“An offer?”

“I want you to get a good job with Lee Ho-yeol. For me.”

Yoon Soo-gyeom and Sung Hyun-joon looked at Park Min-jae.

‘…… It’s clear they made a huge offer.’

There was a reason why other branch in other countries had cooperated with their governments, even in violation of the AAU agreement. Surely, Mr. Park must have received a huge offer.

I was sure of it.

The question was.

Sung swallowed hard and asked.

“But, is it okay for you to tell us all this?”

Park Minjae smirked.

“Yeah, if you’re going to do something bad, do it in secret.”

He joked, opening the door to the break room.

“I’m just telling you because I’m sure you’ll refuse.”

“?!”

Sung couldn’t help but be surprised.

He couldn’t help but be surprised by the offer, which was sure to be a pressured one for any human being, and though he didn’t say so, it was probably a mix of threats and non-threats, as well as material temptations.

As Park Min-jae walked out of the lounge, Sung Hyun-joon spoke up.

“Senior, weren’t you surprised?”

“I was surprised, but he’s still the same person as before.”

“……The same as before?”

“Ah, you don’t know because your career is short?”

I recalled my time at COSMO.

“Well, Mr. Park, he was famous even when he was an office worker.”

“Famous? For what, being a jerk?”

“Well, that’s an undeniable fact.”

Yoon laughed on second thought.

“Out of the hundreds of thousands of Cosmo employees in the world. The only one to have been officially offended Raymond Sean. Our Mr. Park.”

” ……, huh?!”

.

.

.

Park tugged at his frustrating tie.

Damn, since when did developers wear suits.

I’ll have to start dressing more casually from now on.

“You never know when or where you’re going to shit your pants.”

Park Minjae remembered his last resolution.

Lee Ho-yeol, if I can’t walk with him.

I’ll take out anybody who gets in his way.

AAU?

Higher-ups?

It’s actually good.

The corners of Park Min-jae’s mouth turned up.

“It’s my specialty. Kicking ass.”

I was the one who had bumped into the sky-high CEO, Raymond Sean, in the past, when things were less tense than they are now.

Park warmed up a bit. Okay, okay, where to start. Park Minjae sat down at the desk in the branch president’s office.

“I’ll hang out with you as much as you want in Lee Ho-yeol’s place.”

Click.

“……What is this?”

But there was no immediate need for Park to take action.

In fact, it might never happen.

Staring at the monitor, Park muttered.

“What the hell is this?!”

The screen was playing a live report.

The angle illuminated a fog that made it impossible to see even an inch ahead.

Soon, subtitles appeared on the screen.

[Eyewitness says, London disappeared at the same time as the rift was created……!]

Literally.

Just as you see it.

London disappeared into the rain.

It disappeared in a flash.

*

Emergency.

The last petty power struggle had been reduced to nothingness.

Back to the beginning of the Cataclysm.

The rift was unlike any other.

Yes, it was the beginning of the apocalypse that AAU had predicted.

Second Sun, UK, ranked 7th in the guild rankings.

The Guild Master, Schreig, was silent.

Drip-drip-drip.

He looked at London through the pouring rain.

……No, can this place be called London anymore?

Even if London was a city that rarely had sunny days, this was something else. Indeed, it was a rain fog where you couldn’t see a thing, and the entire fog was an area of rifts.

Whirring.

The tremors hadn’t stopped since before.

Probably a call from above to come up with a solution.

But Schreig’s head stopped turning a while ago.

“…… What the hell do they want me to do?”

London, the whole city, had become a rift.

What it meant was simple.

Along with London.

That the citizens of London had disappeared into the rift.

Zachary, the Second Sun executive, held onto the threads of reason.

“…… It’s not just citizens inside the rift. There are players, especially our Second Son guild members. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Schreig spat out a mocking laugh.

“……Haha, do you really think so?”

“What?”

“This is way beyond what we can handle. You know that, right?”

The message flashed before my eyes.

Information from the rift.

[Dungeon: City of Gloomy Rain]

[Recommended Level : Lv.600~Lv.900]

[Collapse Progress : 0.1%]

I could understand the rampage up to the recommended level.

From the [Broken Dimensional Rift] to the [Teffern Labyrinth].

There were other rifts that boasted a higher level than this one.

Yes, the problem was [Dungeon].

Those two words at the beginning of the rift’s name.

Schreig ran a hand through his greasy hair.

“It’s a dungeon. You can’t just kill monsters to clear it, dammit. You have to bump into them one by one to find the clear conditions!”

Dungeons back when Arcana was just a game.

Dungeons were notorious for their extreme difficulty.

In simple terms, it’s a place that’s overrun with powerful Predator Zone-level monsters and filled with dangerous Labyrinth-level traps. That’s what a [Dungeon] was.

Schreig’s voice grew more intense.

“If this were a game, I’d be happy, even with the experience penalty. A few deaths would be worth it for the rewards of the dungeon. But it’s not, is it? Lives are at stake, everyone.”

To clear a dungeon.

I had to find [the dungeon’s core].

But it’s a dungeon full of powerful monsters and traps.

As if that wasn’t enough, what was the scale of it?

At least it was London.

“……I’m sorry, Zachary. I’m not confident.”

Schreig looked at his trembling hands.

Fear.

A rift swallowing up a normal person who wasn’t even a player?

It had never happened before.

Normal people weren’t supposed to be able to enter or witness the Rift in the first place, but it was a dungeon, and it wasn’t enough that it had consumed London, it had consumed its citizens.

“My wife is in there, my wife is in there!”

Even the most casual observer could see clearly through the strange fog.

The constant shouting.

Schreig gritted his teeth.

“……damn it.”

Desperate, he jumped into the rift several times.

But he was not alone.

His guildmates would follow.

Jumping into a dungeon without a plan?

You’re just throwing away your experience, or worse, your life. I know this from experience, from the days when Arcana was just a game.

What makes someone like me a hero and hope for my country?

I feel helpless.

The pouring rain made me feel cold.

It wasn’t just Schreig.

Shoot!

It weighed heavily on all those who watched as London was shrouded in fog.

It was depressing.

Helpless.

Strange.

Schreig, or rather everyone who was hit by the rain, muttered.

“I can’t do anything…….”

sswaaaa─

Their bodies were chilled to the bone.

In the pouring rain.

The sound of shoes was heard.

Again.

In a crowd of people.

A single black umbrella spread out.

As if he wouldn’t allow a single drop of rain to hit his clothes.

Holding the umbrella with a stiff, upright posture was a man.

Soon, he opened his mouth.

“Can you hear me, Schreig?”

“……?”

At the same time, Schreig’s vision flickered.

[The status abnormality, ‘helplessness’, is canceled.]

Schreig suddenly realized.

“……, where did I get a status abnormality?’

Then, reflexively.

He looked at the man who had brought him out of his state.

A black umbrella and contrasting silver hair.

He faced Ho-Yeol.

Before Schreig could open his mouth to speak, Ho-Yeol spoke.

“I would like to ask you to show me around London, is that possible?”

.

.

.

Such a wide range of status abnormalities.

Just looking at the recommended level, it would mean that it would be at least the level of a demon king.

Yeah, that’s what you call a dungeon master.

Naturally, it was my first time witnessing a dungeon.

But how can I be so calm, you ask?

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not the iron skin of Grandfell, but my preparation. Or, more accurately, my desperation for the main event.

Right.

I’m referring to the deliberate use of the Map of Everything.

A brooch that stands out from the lapels of the jacket.

[Sixth Sight Brooch 1/6]

[Rank: Unique]

[Limit: Lv.100]

[Effect : When using magic, recovers 10% of consumed Magic].

[Description : This is a part of the brooch where six come together to become one, but since it’s only a small part, its effectiveness has been lost quite a bit].

Yes, [City of Gloomy Rain].

Beyond that rain fog is the second [Sixth Sight Brooch].