“I humbly ask this of you. The fact that you are under the guidance of the U.S. government and God is a true blessing for this country. Please understand that you are now the only hope of the great United States of America...”
“I fully understand. I, too, wish to love and protect the United States of America, the country whose soil I now stand upon.”
“Thank you so very much for saying that. Truly...”
Skin so pale it looked almost transparent, and a face so beautiful it seemed unnatural.
A girl with transcendent beauty, silver hair, and red eyes clasped the hand of an old white man.
While saying things about love and patriotism that she did not truly mean.
“Then, I will be going now···”
“Yes.”
She nodded with a stiff expression.
Before Riley’s eyes stood someone she would not have dared meet eyes with until yesterday.
The Vice President of the United States was bowing his head so low that his nose nearly touched the floor.
The head of state of the United States, who now held the position of acting president.
―There’s another body here!
―Confirm the identity!
―Ah, this person is still alive!
―Medical team! Medical team!
Behind them, countless agents, medical teams, and rescue teams moved about.
They were working hard to clean up the terrorist scene at the half-destroyed White House.
―Oh, God.
―To think this was all done by a single person!
―Wait, we have another survivor here!
“Phew.”
Riley Granger felt deep fatigue and slumped down onto the sofa.
Then she recalled how she had ended up coming here.
“Terrorism, you say.”
The background behind the shocking incident of not merely terrorism, but the assassination of the president and the devastation of the White House.
Twelve hours ago from now.
While the president of the United States was playing golf, he had been turned into a corpse by a mysterious attacker who suddenly appeared.
And then he was immediately resurrected.
Naturally, every bodyguard at the scene saw and understood it.
The bodyguards died as well, but before they died, they succeeded in transmitting that information.
“The president was assassinated?”
“...And then resurrected? As an Undead?”
The shocking news was immediately delivered to the White House.
The unbelievable news of the president’s death and resurrection.
However, America’s system was extraordinarily sophisticated.
So much so that even though the president had been assassinated by a superhuman, it moved according to that system rather than falling into chaos.
Information urgently gathered by the White House think tank, FBI, and CIA was combined with the terrorist attacks occurring simultaneously all over the world.
Among that information, meaningful pieces were organized into a report in only two hours.
Once again, the working officials carried out the tasks they had to perform.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the Defense Intelligence Agency put their heads together.
―This is the current global situation.
―The center of the rapidly changing situation is.
―Quickly, the currently most probable analytical projections.
America’s bureaucrats were truly capable people.
They did not try to explain the reality that had changed beyond belief. A reality that had changed without any causality or logic.
They merely analyzed it and predicted the structure of the world to come.
And so, only six hours after the president was assassinated.
“What kind of nonsense is this?”
The personal information of every World of Yggdrasill ranker and the terrorist attacks they had caused were neatly organized and placed on the vice president’s desk.
“Superhumans··· and not just superhumans, but game players?”
It was the power of the PRISM Project, the great system of the U.S. government created by a president from two administrations ago.
A system created so that the personal information of civilians not only throughout the country, but all over the world, could be wiretapped and monitored at any time.
“And on top of that, they’re all Korean? What absurdity is this···”
Unfortunately, World of Yggdrasill was not a globally popular game.
More precisely, it had been at one point.
But after more than twenty years of operation, it was now a game where most rankers were Korean, from the same country as the developers.
Unexpectedly, however, there was a single max-level player in the entire world. In America, no less.
Of course, by the standard of the present after Han Woo-hyun’s regression, she was not the only one, but that had not yet become known to the world.
“Still, the number of players in America is not that small.”
The vice president was a capable man, and after analyzing the scenarios of the changed world, he made the best judgment he could at present.
“Immediately send the Federal Bureau of Investigation to every player who exists in America. And make sure they are not coercive as much as possible—no, invite them as politely as possible.”
And after some deliberation, he added one more sentence.
“Riley Granger. Player Name: Nero. Ask this person with particular courtesy.”
That was the reason Nero, the highest-level player in the world, had suddenly come to the White House while she had been lost in thought inside her home.
The reason this decision was the greatest decision the vice president had ever made in his life was clear.
The Necromancer who had subordinated the president as his own Undead summon soon squeezed the information inside the president’s brain dry.
And only after quite some time did he realize it.
America was not a country with a system that one could control however one wished simply by controlling one president.
The Necromancer’s school life had been that of a second-generation Korean American with a small build, hearing “ching-chong” while getting beaten up every day.
A life in which he had not properly completed school at all, let alone studied civics.
It was not knowledge or judgment that Character Name [Apostle of General Cho] could have possessed.
In truth, his subordination of the president had not been something he had done out of some grand ambition to rule America.
“The president is playing golf? At the golf course right in front of me?”
It had been an impulsive decision made because he wanted to try using the power he had suddenly gained.
“U-uh, ah... Master.”
In any case, because of that decision, the president of the United States became his minion.
An Undead whose soul had been mortgaged.
And so, the president obeyed his master’s will.
“Nothing. Not now.”
When asked what he could do now, the president explained that there was “nothing.”
The enslaved president diligently explained the systems of America’s executive branch, legislative branch, and judicial branch.
And he said as simply as he could that his death had already been transmitted to the U.S. government.
“Fuck, what the··· The president is my subordinate, so why can’t he do anything?”
The Necromancer could not understand even a tenth of it.
“Then what if I make the entire White House mine? And turn the senators and representatives into Undead too?”
“Everything would be possible.”
So the Necromancer set a larger next target.
Soon, a Dimensional Gate opened to the White House.
And he tried to use [Darkness of Genesis], the Necromancer’s level 130 domain declaration skill.
The skill’s effect was to grant the Undead attribute to non-boss monsters below a certain level within a designated area, then subordinate them to himself.
In the game, it was a typical trash skill with no practical effect.
Not anymore.
Ordinary people who were not players were systemically judged as level 0 Players and level 0 Monsters at the same time.
Therefore, the Necromancer’s [Darkness of Genesis], from a certain point of view, became a skill more terrifying than the skills of any other class.
"...A Priest? Nero?"
"...Who are you?"
In other words, the entire American administration had been on the verge of becoming Undead.
If not for the single player who had happened to arrive there first.
Level 300 Priest, Riley Granger. Character Name: Nero.
Her class was Priest. More precisely, a Priest on an orthodox support skill tree specialized in healing and blessings.
So in Nero’s body, rather than blood and electrical signals, immense holy power and blessings now flowed.
Therefore, before the Necromancer tried to use the wide-area skill [Darkness of Genesis] in the White House.
He naturally felt a power that was his opposite.
The Necromancer was confident.
World of Yggdrasill was a game that currently had few players outside Korea.
Most players above level 250 were Korean. And this was America.
So even when he sensed a player’s presence, he did not worry much.
―I heard a max-level player appeared on the global server? That’s insane. What kind of person are they?
―A girl, apparently? A healer.
―What countries mainly play on the global server?
―China and Southeast Asia have separate servers, so America and South America?
―But I heard there are almost no high-level users except her?
―Ah, the global server is mostly an orphanage server? Those Ancient bastards are all like that, tsk tsk.
―Still, it does seem impressive. If she’s a Priest, she should need party play, but she hit max level without party members.
The global server was called a global server, but even combining America and South America, it had less than one-tenth the users of the Korean server.
Moreover, even those users, fewer than one-tenth, mostly belonged to a dedicated world with a special system that restricted spending called Ancient World—meaning an ancient world, so users from other worlds used the derogatory names “orphanage” and “Ancients” for them.
A ruined server where, due to the game company’s Normalization Patch, most levels had been cut in half, and users above level 250 had dried up completely.
In other words, the Necromancer was certainly one of the strongest players in America.
"...Damn it, die!"
“Kyaaaak!”
In truth, that judgment was not wrong.
Nero, the max-level rank 1 player, had been somewhat famous because she had streamed online and had been active for a long time.
But that meant she was famous as the rank 1 player, not that her nationality, job, residence, and the like in reality were famous.
Nero had not revealed her face and had shown on stream that she was not particularly good at English.
So most people did not think she was American. The Necromancer had thought the same.
And in fact, they were right.
She had been born in Quebec, Canada, and although she could speak English to some degree, her native language was French.
It had only been one year since Nero began living in America. The reason was not special either.
It was simply that her father’s workplace and her younger sibling’s university had both been decided in America, so they had immigrated.
So originally, it would have been correct that America had no ranker players.
―The rank 1 player was American?
―...Fuck, this is no time to stand around stunned.
However, what the Necromancer saw when he arrived by teleportation at the place where he sensed holy power was different from what he had expected.
There was a girl with the customized appearance of the sole max-level, rank 1 player, together with a bodyguard hurriedly trying to draw a gun.
―Take her out with a preemptive attack.
After a moment of confusion, the Necromancer quickly made his judgment.
As far as he knew, the world ranking number one player was a Priest, and someone who had chosen the buff and healing trees rather than the DPS tree.
―Whoooong!
―Zooooong!
Therefore, he immediately gathered the power he had newly obtained and attacked.
That was mixed with various irrational reasons rather than being purely rational.
His rage over the discrimination against Asians he had endured for so long in America as someone of Asian descent, the hatred toward holy power and Priests systemically imprinted into him as a Necromancer, an inferiority complex and jealousy toward beautiful women, the gambling impulse that since retreating would not erase the crimes he had already committed, he might as well go all the way, and the calculation that since he had encountered the rank 1 player, he had to eliminate her first through a surprise attack...
-[Death Strike]
But in the end, that became a bad move.
Because the moment the arrow of darkness flew toward her, Nero unconsciously used a defensive skill.
-[Angel’s Touch]
A tremendously powerful defensive and counterattack skill.
“Uh, kuh, khaak!”
―ZZZZZAAAAAK!
The Necromancer melted under the reflected holy power.
―Kghh!
―Khaaak!
―Khaaaargh!
Along with their master’s death, all the Undead summons who had been subordinated to him and were wandering inside the White House committing slaughter melted away together.
―Ahhha...!
Naturally, the former president, who had been diligently killing White House staff while holding a sword of darkness, melted away with them as well.
“Kya, kyaaaak!”
Nero only opened her eyes after quite some time.
And faced the melted corpse of the Necromancer.
“Ah.”
It was shocking, but because it was too shocking, she was able to regain calm and reason as if struck by cold water.
Because only at that moment did she finally understand why she had to come to the White House.