"···."
After melting the Necromancer with a reflexive defensive skill, Nero looked again at the dozens of players around her who were standing there blankly, just like her.
Their levels were far too low compared to Nero’s, so they had not changed very much.
They were ability users whose skill power and appearance were closer to ordinary people.
Because she had unconsciously operated the defensive skill on the people she recognized as party members, none of them died.
However, if not for her, it was certain all of them would have died without even knowing how.
And so she realized something new.
"We cannot remain like this."
Nero did not love America. She did not have much patriotism for Canada, her homeland, either.
She had not held such old-fashioned feelings since elementary school.
But naturally, that did not mean she wished for the order of every society to collapse at the hands of mad villains.
"Rankers. Players. The global server···."
Nero naturally recalled the list of users who maintained high levels in the standard worlds of the global server.
Players who, even if they did not reach her level, would still be meaningfully and transcendently powerful.
Since high-level users were rare on the global server, she had naturally spoken with them often.
―All the fucking rich bastards should be squeezed dry, killed, and then used to achieve a trickle-down effect. I am the representative of sacred democracy and···.
―The parasitic welfare leeches who dare live off the taxes and welfare of America, the strongest nation in the world, should all be euthanized···
―Only one race, the pure white race, achieved the advancement of the world, and every inferior monkey besides them deserves to be turned into soap···
Not a single one of them had been capable of meaningful conversation.
―Nero! Fuck! Why are you the only one pretending to be nice?! We all know you’re mentally ill too! You’re a game-addicted shut-in who hit max level!
―Nero, where do you live? What state? What city? If not America, Canada? Mexico? Or farther south?
―Why won’t you notice me? Do you know how much I’ve donated? I’ve watched your stream since the very first broadcast. I know you better than anyone!
Every one of them possessed noble personalities that combined pathological delusions and aggression.
She did not know how many of them lived in America. The global server was a server that covered the entire American continent.
“Agent. You said I was the only one among the people who completely changed like me who responded to the summons, correct?”
“...Yes.”
However, no player she knew from the global main server who had surpassed level 250 had come to this White House.
Had they simply refused the request for cooperation?
··She did not think that was the case.
Nero’s father, mother, and younger sibling all lived in America.
Although they scolded her for playing games too much, and sometimes even fought with her over it.
They were still her precious family, well-assimilated into American society.
Therefore, the society they lived in was not worthless either.
Faint screams, curses, and groans came from all over the White House.
Her body, now flowing with Force that bore the settings of holy power and magic instead of blood and electrical signals, recognized all of them simultaneously.
"[Field of Blessing], [Healing], [Recovery]..."
Her nervous system, which transcended the realm of human cognition and consciousness, used holy power as a bundle of senses and spread throughout the entire White House.
Bodyguards killed by Undead summons, several politicians, bureaucrats, civil servants... those groaning as they bled entered Nero’s domain.
"[Prayer to the Goddess]."
Nero used a wide-area blessing skill so all of them could be healed.
Because they were ordinary people without Force, the healing did not have a dramatic effect. However, for those suffering from critical bleeding or mental panic, that skill acted as first aid.
"[Healing], [Healing], [Healing]..."
She repeated it until she felt that at the very least, no one’s injuries would worsen further.
Then she stood.
"[Character Preset], [Boss-Fight]."
Her final equipment set, enhanced almost to the maximum in every category, was equipped.
The stats and skills of the level 300 Priest Nero were readjusted for combat.
Riley Granger did not want American society to be destroyed by mentally ill players who possessed nothing but strength.
Therefore, for now, she decided to stand on the side of the U.S. government.
For now.
***
“···That’s what she must have gone through.”
As he had just crossed the South Sea and passed Jeju Island, Han Woo-hyun ended his recollection.
He knew Riley Granger.
Far too well.
Since the two of them had spent more than ten years alone in the ruined world, it was only natural.
Her tastes, her life, her personality, her goals, even her nobility··· he remembered everything.
And at this very moment.
The first day the world’s destruction began.
He also knew what she had experienced and how.
He had heard it in excessive detail, over and over. He could draw her actions minute by minute.
"···Riley."
He wanted to go meet her and help her right now.
But that would not be desirable for Han Woo-hyun, for Riley Granger, or for the future of the world.
Because now was the time to return.
The greatest cause of the world’s destruction, and inversely, the greatest force capable of stopping it.
It was time to draw in the players of the Korean server.
―SPLASH···!
How many minutes had passed since he began running across the sea at a speed beyond the limits of living beings?
―SPLASH···!
Far in the distance, he saw planes attempting to take off and land, as well as land.
Incheon International Airport. He was almost there.
1:00 PM. After checking the time, Han Woo-hyun felt relieved. It seemed he would have time to rest a little.
―SPLAT.
"Taxi!"
After quietly landing on a suitable western coast of Gyeonggi Province, he hailed a taxi.
―VROOOOM.
If he leapt as though running through the air, he would reach home quickly, but it was daytime now.
At present, when the existence of players had not yet been officially acknowledged, doing something like that would stand out far too much.
Until the end of today, he had to move quietly.
“My goodness, you’re a foreigner, but your Korean is amazing.”
“I like K-pop. BTS, Bong Joon-ho, Son Heung-min, Yggdrasill, let’s go.”
“I don’t really know what the last one is, but I feel good hearing it! I’ll knock one thousand won off your taxi fare!”
“Thank you. As expected of the nation of BTS.”
“Enjoy your trip!”
While roughly answering the overly talkative taxi driver’s questions, Han Woo-hyun sank back into thought.
The reason he had gone around foreign countries rather than Korea at dawn was clear.
Foreign players basically could not know about him.
In that situation, a level 300 max-level player suddenly appeared. At the same time, he possessed the four great discontinued items and countless assets.
It had been easy enough, no, rational enough for them to be deceived.
Korea was different.
Because Han Woo-hyun was a ranker, there were many people who knew about him.
Therefore, it was difficult to bluff simply with his level and items.
He had to prove before them that he had truly gathered the rankers of other servers.
Because Korean players were a truly difficult group, and without that, they would neither listen to Han Woo-hyun nor believe him easily.
It was not that foreign players had good personalities at all, but compared to Korea’s ranker-class high-level players, they were truly kind people.
Even their numbers, levels, and Combat Power were overwhelming. Greater than all other countries combined.
There was no particularly special reason. It was simply because Korea was the country that developed the game.
“Damn it···.”
However, that did not mean Korea had a brighter future compared to other countries.
Rather, it was closer to saying its future was the darkest.
That was why he had to return in such a hurry to stop the incidents that would occur in Korea.
This evening.
The president, the ruling party leader, and the opposition party leader would be dragged out and tortured by players. Horrifically.
It would be so terrible that the president, politicians, and ministers would scream not for their lives to be spared, but for someone to please kill them.
Some of them were people who had once been arrested while participating in protest movements in the past.
In other words, politicians who had actually been tortured by the police before.
It was torture so severe that even those politicians lost their minds.
If this could not be stopped, the relationship between Korea’s political world and the players would become irreversible.
Of course, in that process, Han Woo-hyun had no intention whatsoever of siding with or attacking either the ruling party or the opposition party.
No matter whose side he took, they were powerless and incompetent bastards.
Fools who could not even be compared to the U.S. government, which had scientifically analyzed the players’ abilities, tactics, and strategies and devised plans.
The greater problem was that another incident just as important would occur.
A civil war between Yggdrasill YouTuber subscribers.
An incident where Korea’s number one and number two DPS players in the rankings died absurdly, together with the ape-brained idiot players who followed them.
On top of that, the collapse and massacre of the game company servicing World of Yggdrasill.
Due to the explosion of its servers and headquarters, and the public execution of its director, not even a trace of them would remain.
All of those incidents would occur in a single day.
And they would happen almost simultaneously, around 6:00 PM.
He could not stop all of them at the same time.
Han Woo-hyun had only one body.
Nor could he bring in rankers from foreign servers.
To begin with, except for Li Haoran, they could not speak Korean well, and most were weaker than Korean rankers.
The players of foreign servers were already busy maintaining order in their own countries.
Bringing them to Korea and using them as fighting strength would put the cart before the horse.
It was time to choose.
"···Haa."
Han Woo-hyun closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and sighed.
“···Saving the rankers is most important.”
Then he gloomily murmured the answer that had already been clearly decided.
The Blue House Terror—whether that was fortunate in the end or not.
In any case, the players did not kill the president and politicians.
In their own way, they had judged that keeping them alive and playing with them was more fun than killing them.
And the destruction of the game company’s headquarters and servers was, at first glance, something one might wonder the significance of when the world was ending.
But if, even after the world became a game.
One could gain abilities by leveling up in the game?
It was something that could not be known before his regression, because the game’s original servers had been blown up.
The U.S. government had used and attempted every imaginable means to mass-produce players.
―Damn it, the servers, environment, and code implementation are clearly the same, so why!
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had tried to recreate the servers exactly and operate the service.
However, level 300 players mass-produced by manipulating logs did not gain abilities.
―Is log manipulation the problem? Have them level by truly hunting!
Players who had properly leveled by hunting without manipulation also did not become ability users.
―Does that mean only people who were players from the beginning can become ability users···?
―The Yggdrasill Replica Project is a failure.
Judging from that, even if the game company was maintained.
It was unknown whether raising characters late would truly lead to the mass production of players.
Therefore, the other two incidents could somehow be dealt with and were within his expected range.
But the deaths of countless rankers could not be reversed. Because they were irreplaceable in boss raids.
"···."
Even if they became corpses, as long as the pineal gland, the source of player Force, was not too severely damaged.
They could be revived through the Priest’s [Resurrection] skill.
However, the absolute majority of players who died in the Gangnam District Civil War did not even leave traces of their corpses behind.
Because the players were so powerful that even they themselves could not control that firepower.
It was not just one or two people who died.
Leaving aside the damage only to the buildings of Gangnam and Seocho Districts, which were called the heart of Seoul.
Even leaving aside the deaths of countless civilians.
The players who died hollow deaths in the civil war that broke out in Gangnam District.
The number of dead players above level 250 exceeded one thousand.
It had not been a civil war that broke out for any particularly special reason either.
It was said to have happened because the absurd misunderstanding of an argument between rival YouTuber subscribers spiraled completely out of control.
And in the midst of it, Korea’s two strongest DPS players would die as well.
The two great rival streamers of World of Yggdrasill.
"···Let’s not hesitate. I’ve already made my choice."
Yes.
In order to preserve the player force and establish the guild, this decision was the best.