Editor: Tide

Seoul (1)

“I’m back.”

“Good. Now come and take a look at this.”

He acted as if he was just meeting a friend on an errand to the convenience store.

“…Would it bother you to tell me that I’ve done a good job on my trip?”

“Ah, well done. Joon-suk, look at this.”

Lee Joon-suk frowned at his insincere attitude. But, as far as he knew, Kim Min-hyuk was a kind and considerate person, and so, instead of being annoyed, he calmly received the note from Kim Min-hyuk.

“It’s from a guy who came out a few days ago. I heard that Ho-jae’s clone did something during the Tournament. He met a hostile challenger from a different planet. They talked for a few minutes. Black smoke appeared, and then, the opponent was found dead.”

Black smoke appeared, and the opponent died. The results were clearly stated, but the cause was vague.

“Is something omitted? Or maybe he didn’t see it right.”

“I don’t think so. This is information from the Order of the Vigilance.”

“…the Order of the Vigilance?”

The Order of the Vigilance knew how difficult it was to communicate from outside and inside the Tutorial.

There were months when people often got deficient and distorted information, and sometimes, the news didn’t come in at all.

The Order of the Vigilance members, who were well aware of these facts, had always meticulously written down the information they knew.

Most of all, Lee Joon-suk didn’t think Park Jung-ah, who was strict about news like this, would have sent out such inadequate information.

“I don’t think they know what’s going on either. That’s why they sent it.”

If they added a personal opinion, it could make the wrong information real.

Kim Min-hyuk asked Lee Joon-suk again, “What do you think?”

“Well, I think I can do something about it.”

Kim Min-hyuk was surprised when he asked, “You can do it too?”

“No… I mean, Ho-jae can do it. He used to be obsessed with invisible techniques. He’s done it before. I’m not surprised, I guess. Wouldn’t you die if a hole was poked in your heart or something?”

It was a valid opinion.

“He said there was no apparent wound. And since the opponent is a Hell Difficulty’s challenger, would he die instantly on the spot just because he had a hole in his heart?”

“It could be a mixed attack. If you had a high fever, there would be no blood flow to some affected areas, and as soon as you penetrate a vital point, you’ll collapse, so the impact would be enough to make you die suddenly. Of course, it’s a different matter to keep it out of sight, but it’s Ho-jae we’re talking about here. Do you think it’s impossible?”

Kim Min-hyuk murmured, “I think it’s possible.”

Kim Min-hyuk had cleared the Tutorial’s Normal Difficulty level and had plenty of experience, but he could not estimate Lee Joon-suk or Lee Ho-jae’s abilities.

Whenever common sense, which he understood, was denied by others; he felt wronged.

“How strong would he be now?”

“He’s going to be very strong, I guess,” Lee Joon-suk answered naturally.

It was an answer that Kim Min-hyuk had heard several times before. When Kim Min-hyuk last saw Lee Ho-jae, he already had unrivaled power. More than a decade had passed since then. It was hard for Kim Min-hyuk to guess how powerful he was now.

“I heard Lee Yeon-hee reached the 60th floor. Are you tense?”

“Have you seen the article?”

“Yes, I saw it as soon as I got off at the airport.”

Lee Yeon-hee had eventually reached the 60th floor of the Hell Difficulty’s level. The whole world was talking about this fact, and the media was going wild.

It was no wonder, considering the Awakened status these days and the symbolism of Hell Difficulty.

The problem was that news about such Tutorial challengers had been spread around. That kind of atmosphere was formed around the time developed countries gradually emerged victorious from the threat of monsters and gates.

The stakes were high on which challenger would be the first to pass the Hell difficulty level, or which floor they’d arrive at. On TV shows, they had made numerous documentaries about Hell Difficulty.

In the U.S., they were idolizing and characterizing them. In the past, the U.S. and Korean servers were chosen for the challenge. In the case of the United States, they had the most significant number of Hell Difficulty challengers.

There was an irregular challenger named Lee Ho-jae on the Korean server.

The media had turned the two servers into a competitive structure. It had been making hot bets on what country would produce the first Hell Difficulty level’s awakening, or what country would recruit that Awakened and would take a new form of leadership in the world.

Until a few years ago, the U.S’s Hell Difficulty had as many as ten 30th-floor challengers. The media predicted that it would be possible for them to clear faster than the Korean server.

Challengers of the U.S. server, who were being targeted by multiple people simultaneously, would not be blocked on the 60th floor where party play was forced.

(T/N: ‘Targeted’ here refers to how Ho-jae made Yeon-hee his target.)

But it wasn’t the 60th floor that blocked them, but the 30th floor. Years had passed since the American challengers reached the 30th floor, but the highest floor they breached was still only the 33rd floor. They had not taken a step forward ever since five challengers died on the 34th floor.

Meanwhile, Lee Yeon-hee’s advance began. Lee Yeon-hee slowly and steadily surpassed the 30th-floor mark while the U.S. server’s challengers were left behind.

After reaching the 40th floor, her speed seemed to have slowed down, but recently, it had increased dramatically. Every time Lee Yeon-hee’s floor numbers were revealed, people went wild.

And then, Lee Yeon-hee finally arrived on the 60th floor. Naturally, the media was excited about the Hell Difficulty attack.

They predicted Lee Ho-jae and Lee Yeon-hee’s post-clearing moves or talked about their past once again.

They had been talking all day long about the Awakened world’s perceptual changes that would begin with their clearing the Tutorial. In a way, people’s enthusiastic support may be called natural.

Major cities were now somewhat free from the monsters’ threat, but they were still not completely free yet.

There was still a chance of being attacked by monsters while walking the streets at night, and there was still some amount of traffic caused by the occasional spawning of gates. Even at this moment, in areas occupied by monsters, the population of monsters was growing exponentially.

Moreover, most people shared the experience of losing close friends due to the aftermath of the cataclysmic upheaval that occurred more than a decade ago.

Kim Min-hyuk was also aware of their expectations and hopes for the Awakened from Hell difficulty level.

The problem is that he’s not what you expect him to be.

Lee Ho-jae, whom Kim Min-hyuk knew, was like a monk who was uninterested in the world. He always did what he wanted to do and what he thought was right. Above all, regardless of what he wanted to do or didn’t want to do, he hated the fact that someone made him do something.

In short, he was crazy.

Whatever people expected from him, Lee Ho-jae was likely to ignore those expectations. Kim Min-hyuk didn’t know about Lee Yeon-hee, but he knew there was only one person who could clear the 61st floor. And between Lee Ho-jae and Lee Yeon-hee, Lee Ho-jae had a very high probability of clearing the 61st floor.

“But didn’t we originally decide not to do this? I think she was supposed to report only to the 59th floor and notify you later that she went up to the 60th floor,” Lee Joon-suk asked.

As far as he knew, Kim Min-hyuk had agreed with the South Korean government to bury the information for a while, as soon as he obtained information that Lee Yeon-hee had gone up to the 60th floor.

“The government has gone off-track.”

Thanks to that, Kim Min-hyuk’s headache was getting worse day by day. Kim Min-hyuk wanted to keep this fact hidden for a little longer. Before Lee Ho-jae came out, he had to prepare more.

But now that it had already been reported, preparations would be even more difficult.

“The one who leaked must’ve been a civil servant.”

Unlike Lee Joon-suk, who talked calmly about this, Kim Min-hyuk wanted to visit the person who leaked the information, grab him by the collar and shake him.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad. It was not too late to complete the building of the summoning portal.

The challengers who had cleared the Tutorial would be summoned to the center of each nation’s capital’s main streets. In Korea, it was in front of Seoul Station. Naturally, the place had become a landmark.

Every time the news of someone clearing out came out, the media camped out in front of it. As soon as the Awakened came out, they pointed the camera at them.

Sometimes, when the weather was good, people gathered in front of Seoul Station to wait for them. Whenever that happened, the broadcasting company’s ratings soared, and the buzz and business near the Seoul Station, where people gathered, rose along with it.

For them, the summoning of the Awakened was a festival.

Even though some liked the situation where people interviewed them as soon as they came out of the Tutorial world, most didn’t like it. Most were locked up in the Tutorial for years or a decade at the most. Their return to Earth made their feelings complicated.

They could be happy, but on the contrary, they could also be afraid. It was never a good thing to draw attention, recite cheers, and hand over a microphone to the confused Awakened.

In Kim Min-hyuk’s opinion, ordinary Awakened people would not be able to withstand Lee Ho-jae’s anger and irritation. Kim Min-hyuk had made a building around the summon portal in front of the Seoul Station.

Despite a lot of opposition, the building was completed early this month with the aid of Human Rights groups and the Awakened that he drew to the World Association of the Awakened.

The reporters would camp in front of the building for an interview, and the audience would remain the same, but the Awakened would at least be able to prepare their minds to face them.

The final problem was that the building was under the jurisdiction of the government. Given the government’s recent behavior, they could not be sure what would happen if they let Lee Ho-jae meet with government officials.

The Korean government was already in full swing due to the leak of the news of the Awakened and the power struggle amidst groups. There was no telling what those crazy officials would do.

“I have to discuss this with them.”

“It’s going to be a pain to deal with the government.”

“Well, there’s nothing else I can do but tolerate it.”

The damned government may disappear if something went wrong. Kim Min-hyuk intended to win concessions from the government even if he had to give up quite a few things.

If an agreement was not reached, he would be the one to meet Lee Ho-jae first, even if he had to mobilize his association’s members to occupy the Seoul Station on the same day.

Of course, that was the last resort, and perhaps, a condition of handing over or returning some of the association’s interest to the government would satisfy them.

“You’ll be busy again for a while. Oh, right, what happened to your business trip?”

“You finally remembered,” Lee Joon-suk replied with a big smile.

“As a courtesy, could you at least give me tea and snacks? I just got back from Antarctica.”

* * *

Lee Joon-suk said while munching on a piece of chocolate pie, “There’s so much to be said about how the G-class monsters were hunted around in the U.S.. The most plausible theory is that the U.S. military used nuclear weapons, but their radiation level was low. I think it’s better to contemplate more about the theory.”

One of the G-class monsters that existed on Earth had settled on the United States’ eastern coast. Since then, any attempt to hunt a G-class monster has failed.

When Lee Joon-suk came out of the Tutorial, the first thing he did was hunt that G-class monster.

In fact, he attempted to hunt it with the World Association, but at the last minute, he gave up hunting and returned to Korea. Criticism was poured on Lee Joon-suk, but he did not change his decision.

Lee Joon-suk thought it would be better to kill other monsters scattered worldwide than to suffer damage from killing a G-class monster that didn’t even move in its territory.

“This is the last trip you were going to take, to Antarctica, right?”

“Yes, I’ve scouted all the G-class monsters.”

“How was it?”

Even if he couldn’t kill the G-class monsters right away, Kim Min-hyuk wanted to know their power.

Lee Joon-suk checked on the G-class, who were spread worldwide to confirm the possible attacks.

“Bad. I can’t touch them.” He gave a firm answer.

A G-class monster had been successfully hunted under the leadership of the United States nearly a decade ago. It was still challenging to get ahead of them because they couldn’t recover the power of the Awakened who were lost at the time.

Lee Joon-suk wedged Kim Min-hyuk, who was doubtful.

“I don’t think Ho-jae would be able to take out the G-class monsters.”

Seoul (1) Finished

Note/s from Imagine:

I remember briefly when Ho-Jae killed that other hell challenger, he had bracelets on his arm which disappeared before he used his powers, the fact that he had braceletS to hold back his powers is quite cool and something I didn’t catch the first time I read through it.

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