Translator: HunterW
Editor: RED
Section 3…
The party here was in full swing now and was noisy, to say the least.
“Did you see it? Lee Jiwon practically threw the enemy commander all over the battlefield.”
“Of course I did. That was some show.”
“Yeah, it was. The enemy soldiers were so shocked that they started panicking.”
“Can you blame them? Their own commander lost it in the middle of a battle and started killing them. There’s no coming back from that.”
“That’s not all. You saw what they were doing after Lee Jiwon killed the enemy commander and turned his attention to them. Pft.”
“Hah! They were so scared that they practically tripped over each other to get away from Lee Jiwon. I almost felt bad for them.”
“You know what I thought was cool?”
“What?”
“It got to the point where our army couldn’t chase after them any longer. But Lee Jiwon said that he didn’t get enough exercise yet, and still went after them. Damn. I still can’t believe he did that.”
“Yeah… he was still good to go even after spending so much time fighting the enemy commander. Man…”
“I’m really glad Lee Jiwon is a Terran like us. If he was our enemy instead…”
“…”
“Don’t joke around like that. I actually got goosebumps from that.”
All everyone talked about was Lee Jiwon. He was now not only the leader of the Empire, but also the man everyone thought could save Earth from the Judge’s Continent. Countless people from other guilds followed Lee Jiwon around during the entire party, trying to acquaint themselves with the hero. This, of course, didn’t sit well with everyone.
—
During the party of Section 3, I and the top-ranking officers of the Empire who fought by my side during the battle were gathered in one place. Some guild masters who had sent mercenaries to join us were there as well. As we sat, reveling in our glory, I noticed Zulova walking around aimlessly.
“Hey, over here,” I called out to him with a smile and a wave.
Zulova frowned when he saw me, but that didn’t faze me. I only waved harder at him. He really did help me during the battle and I was going to make him help me out more in the future. Zulova stalked over and plopped down on the chair next to me. No one stopped him, as they had all seen him fight against the enemy with me.
“Are you going to explain to me what happened?”
“What do you mean?” I knew what he was referring to, but I feigned ignorance for now.
“How did you bring me over here?”
“Oh, you meant that. I thought you came here by yourself to help me out. Is that not what happened?”
A vein pulsed on Zulova’s forehead at my sarcastic reply.
“Ah, don’t mind it. I want to talk to you about something else. Have you ever thought about becoming a Diamond Class?”
Zulova looked at me in confusion.
I leaned over to whisper to him. “Are you still in contact with the other Monarchs? Or do you know anyone else who is almost as strong as you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ha… okay, I guess you don’t know yet. Zulova, you’re a Silver Class. That means you have to repay me for introducing you to a decent hunting grounds. The rate is usually 50% of what you made, but if you bring in more clients, I’ll bump you all the way up to Diamond Class. You know, like a MLM.”
“…”
I explained to Zulova what awaited him at the highest level of my little pyramid scheme if he did what I asked. “I’m only telling you this so don’t squander this chance.” I still had Zulova registered on Call and there was no way I was letting him go.
“I did say that Silver Classes have to fork over 50% of their earnings, but I’ll just take a hundred million golden rings from you.”
“What?”
“You got to earn all of those golden rings thanks to me. You have to at least toss something my way.”
“…” Zulova stared at me with a horrified expression as he slowly handed over the golden rings. I told him to quickly get up to Diamond Class if he didn’t want to have to pay me each time, and then I returned to the party.
—
Section 115…
Every single Crootian on the Judge’s Continent were sullen. They had all found out that the recent expedition to enemy territory had failed spectacularly. The Crootian High Council did its best to keep the news of the failure a secret, but it couldn’t do anything about the leaderboard that was constantly looming over them in the sky. The atmosphere during the current High Council meeting was no different.
Finally, Coby broke the silence. “It’s here, ma’am.”
“Bring it in,” Claudia replied.
Soon, the door to the conference room opened and ten devas entered, carefully carrying a statue. The devas left the statue at one end of the conference table before leaving. The statue looked so realistic that it could have easily been mistaken as a real person.
“He still looks exactly the same,” one deity said.
“That’s because I have stolen his time,” Claudia replied. Claudia, known also as the Master of Time, was the strongest Crootian deity. She was so powerful that all other deities could never openly contest her authority.
It was all thanks to her exclusive ability, which gave her the power to freely control time itself. She couldn’t travel forwards or backwards in time, but she could steal away someone else’s time and add it to her own. She used this power to become stronger at a faster pace than anyone else. To Claudia, time itself was like EXP. But, like all other deities, she had a limit to this power.
Claudia pointed a finger at the statue. “I return your time to you, Dunia.”
Dunia was called many things. Troublemaker, traitor, and cheater were a few of his most well-known nicknames. Soon, the still statue began to stir little by little until its eyes opened, its pupils alternating in red and black colors.
“If you dare to show those red eyes again, I will take back your time,” Claudia said sternly.
The statue laughed, its pupils a solid black color now. “Your most humble deva servant thanks Mistress Claudia for her mercy and swears to obey her forever. Oh, what’s this? Why are there so many empty seats here?”
“You don’t miss anything, do you?”
Dunia cackled. He was surrounded by deities, but he didn’t feel intimidated. He promptly made himself at home once he regained control of his body. And strangely enough, the deities who always seemed so keen on oppressing devas didn’t say anything to Dunia. Just about everyone in this room had fallen victim to Dunia’s schemes at least once, including Adora and Skyla.
“We are no longer on Croot. The Otadolon stage came to an end some time ago.”
“Is this the Judge’s Continent?”
“…How did you know?” Claudia and the other deities were shocked. Claudia had taken away all of Dunia’s time five years ago.
“Some idiot couldn’t control his inner thoughts while he was near me.” It was an outright lie. The deities knew that Dunia didn’t have the ability to read people’s thoughts, but somehow, he knew things before others, especially well-hidden secrets.
“Well, it’s fine either way. This is the Judge’s Continent. Money is power here. We don’t need to spend every waking minute trying to level up for Stat points anymore. We can buy them with golden rings. We can also spend golden rings to gamble and try to rank up our items to Rank 10. We can even buy skill points. We don’t even need to worry about leveling anymore. We have 1.3 billion enemies that yield more EXP and golden rings than the strongest monster.”
“Is this heaven?”
“Well, I’m not sure if this is heaven or hell. If anything, I want you to make this place our heaven, for all of us.”
“For all of us, you say…Bwahahaha! You expect too much from me.”
“Is that right? Well, I just want you to do the same as before. Do the same thing you did to us five years ago.”
“Ah, those were the days. I always regret it to this day. If I wasn’t so ambitious, I wouldn’t have to see your ugly mugs ever again.”
“Well, it’s a lesson we all learn in the end. Greed gets us nowhere.”
“Which is why I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”
“That’s good thinking.”
“Shall we get to the point? What is it exactly that you want from me?”
“Yes, let’s talk.”
—
Section 35…
“Let’s go see what the high-grade dungeons here are like.” I had spent the past five days trying to figure out how to spend my time. I had even thought about crossing over to enemy territory on my own. I was confident that I would be fine, but Critical Weakness still had three days left on its cooldown and Fated Crossroads had six days left. I still needed to use Death’s Harrier as much as I could before its effectiveness completely dropped.
So, I decided to see what the high-grade dungeons on the Continent were like. I had heard that they yielded dismal amounts of golden rings and EXP compared to their difficulty.
I headed for the Ogre Dungeon that was located at the westernmost point of Section 35.
“There really isn’t anyone around here.” On my way here, I passed by many people. But once I arrived at the dungeon, there was nobody in sight. It was an unfamiliar sight compared to the high-grade dungeons back on Earth. Just about all dungeons on Earth were controlled by someone, and were always surrounded by people wanting to hunt inside them. But the Continent’s dungeons were completely empty, meaning that they were that useless to the people here.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter to me. It’s better than just wasting time doing nothing.” Five days of partying was enough time off.
“Mana Conversion – Fire. Warrior’s Brave Spirit. Howl of the Wolf.”
==[Mana Conversion – Fire Level 7 has been activated.]==
==[Warrior’s Brave Spirit Level 2 has been activated.]==
==[Howl of the Wolf has been activated.]==
“I guess using Ripped Advance here would be overkill, wouldn’t it?” I practically played around in the high-grade dungeons back on Earth when I was a bit weaker than I was now. I probably didn’t need to use Ripped Advance right now and I could at least save it if I really needed it. I walked towards the entrance of the Ogre Dungeon, completely relaxed, and went inside.
==[You have entered a high-grade dungeon.]==
“Huh?” Messages like that usually didn’t appear just for entering a dungeon. The only time messages ever came up was when dungeons were discovered for the first time. I knew that for a fact, since I had discovered all of the dungeons in South Korea first.
When I first came to the Judge’s Continent, many others were curious if we could receive bonuses for discovering dungeons on the Continent. I was curious too, as Anton had told me that there would be dungeons here. I was annoyed when I discovered that I had arrived to the Continent later than everyone else, because I may have lost out on the dungeon bonuses.
“But there weren’t any.” I felt relieved when I found that out because I didn’t want others getting stronger before me. “So, what is this now?” I asked, as more messages appeared.
