“Hahaha! Miss Cha, you don’t need to worry. Call me if anything happens. I’ll come running at once! I, Wei Chen, have skin so thick that even the dragons of the legends cannot pierce it!” A bulky man continued to attempt conversation with Cha So-yeong, boasting his muscles… It was ridiculous. His voice was thin compared to his body. It felt as if an annoying mosquito was buzzing in her ear. It was also absurd how he was bragging about himself.
‘And what? It’s hard for dragons to pierce his skin? Get a grip on yourself, old man.’ Knowing the gentlemen who’d be blown away with just a snort from a dragon was talking a big game, Cha So-yeong wondered what kind of face her mother, a half-dragon, would make if she heard. She muttered, “You’re quite empty-headed for someone who has all those muscles.”
“What?”
“Miss Cha, you don’t need to worry since you have me. You know how sharp my sword is, don’t you? This sword is the one that killed the drake that appeared in California a while ago.” Another man looked over, which annoyed Cha So-yeong even further. He pushed aside the bulky man and proudly pulled out his sword.
The man had a slender figure with a face that was somewhat good-looking. Apparently, he was a model back in his own country. He seemed to think he was handsome as well based on how much he kept trying to appeal to her.
‘Where does he think he’s trying to appeal his sea cucumber-like face… Urgh. I can even smell his body odor.’ Cha So-yeong, more often called her old name “Sesha” by her family, couldn’t hide her discomfort toward the two men trying to catch her attention.
Cha So-yeong knew Big Mountain and Kill King were some of the top players on Earth, and that they were both quite popular within their respective motherlands. However, the problem was that they kept trying to emphasize their popularity to her. From her standpoint, their popularity meant nothing.
‘Do these crazy bastards know I’m sixteen? They’re not pedophiles or anything like that, right…?’ It was true Cha So-yeong was attractive since she was nice, pretty, smart, and well-built for her age, but it was still a bit wrong for men well over thirty to get on her good side.
‘Well, it’s probably because of Mom.’ Of course, Sesha knew their interests weren’t really toward her, but her mother, Ananta. Due to her recent public activities, her hidden family was being exposed to the media occasionally. Ananta had been caught on camera once, and it had become such a hot issue that she’d been the number one search term for an entire day. It seemed these men had seen that.
Cha So-young didn’t know how such rumors had spread, but people appeared to think that Ananta had raised Sesha for over ten years without any husband by her side. That was probably why these bastards were blatantly acting like this…
‘They’d be nothing in front of Dad if he comes back… Ha! What should I do? Should I let them keep this up?’ Despite Ananta’s objections, Sesha had actively used the media and her fame for her purpose, but she was starting to regret it now. ‘Still, at the time, this method was the best way to find Uncle…’
After the Tower was destroyed, Sesha and the rest of her companions were able to take the Ark that the last successor of Quirinale left behind to escape. Their place of arrival was Earth. She didn’t know why of the many planets there were, it was Earth.
However, Cha Jeong-woo was glad that he was back home, and Ananta and the others seemed relieved that this strange location was a place the Cha brothers had once lived. But the problem came after that. ‘The twisting of dimensions resulted in Earth becoming a part of all this.’
Everything was fine when they escaped through the Ark, but a small part of darkness had crept into their escape route. It led to many environmental changes for Earth. Gates opened, dungeons appeared, monsters poured out, and the system began. The same things that happened in the Tower were happening on Earth. From having to eliminate gruesome-looking monsters to having to find certain objects—even the reward system was the same in that players were rewarded for clearing “trials.”
If anything was different, it was that you had to complete a trial if you entered a gate, contrary to how trials began upon climbing floors. And based on the difficulty of the trial, the colors of the gates were all different. There were cases when hidden pieces were activated and hidden trials were revealed.
No one knew why this phenomenon had occurred. All Sesha and her companions could guess was that a part of the “dream” was being materialized through the gates after things were distorted. They came to accept that the functioning system was proof that Yeon-woo was still battling darkness.
I’ve seen in my brother’s memories that the Black King originally was asleep on Earth. That’s probably why the Ark headed for Earth. The fact that the system still works means my brother is still alive…so I have to find a path that leads to darkness. As soon as Cha Jeong-woo came to this conclusion, he disappeared with the familiars Yeon-woo assigned to him. He needed to find where Yeon-woo was and settle down the hectic incidents that were happening on Earth as soon as possible.
Even now, in many other dimensions surrounding Earth, the fierce war between Day and Night was still going on. For it not to reach Earth, Jeong-woo quickly began to move. However, despite the ongoing war, many gods and demons were taking Apostles for themselves to spread the influence of their society. Kill King, who was blabbering endlessly next to Sesha, was an Apostle of Deva’s Vayu.
Anyhow, while Cha Jeong-woo was waging war against Night in other dimensions, searching for Yeon-woo, Sesha did what she could to find Yeon-woo as well. ‘If the gates are really parts of dreams Uncle created like Dad thinks, I have to examine each of them.’
In the end, Sehsa decided to become a player. Ananta and the others disapproved, but no one was able to defeat her stubbornness. At the age of eight, she had the title of “most talented child,” and at ten, she became an S-rank player, of which there were less than thirty of on the entire planet. Of course, this was only an extremely small part of her true strength.
Anyhow, after that, Sesha diligently used the world’s attention on her. She created events to “find the missing” multiple times and attempted to collect evidence relating to Yeon-woo. ‘It’s hard for me to search through all these gates alone. But if I use a touching message like this, it’ll gather more attention.’ Her mission coincided with the purpose of international organizations who were seeking a symbol of peace to settle down the confusion, so she was able to quickly spread her political influence as well.
Then, when it became exactly ten years since she arrived on Earth, Sesha finally succeeded in finding a hint related to Yeon-woo.
Ee-eeng! A black piece of metal trembled in Sesha’s hand. On the outside, it looked like any old piece of metal, but anyone who came from the Tower like Sesha and knew the secrets of the universe would recognize it in an instant.
‘A part of the Cast… The deeper I go in the gate, it’s showing a more intense response.’ A piece of the black chains that used to be wrapped around Yeon-woo’s right arm, the Despair of the Black King, was discovered in this dungeon. The problem was that this gate was never cleared despite having opened quite early on.
Sesha used the influence she had stacked up all this time to successfully create a search team. ‘Uncle. Stop making our family sad and appear already. Everyone’s waiting for you.’ Remembering Yeon-woo always hugged her tight when she was young, Sesha was filled with thoughts of finding him no matter what.
‘Anyway.’ Sesha narrowed her eyes and looked around her surroundings.
[You are currently entering ‘Swamp of the Faraway Beginning.’]
[Trial completion rate: 25%]
In front of Sesha was a message window that was completely different from the Tower’s—it had taken some getting used to. Beyond the window lay a forest. ‘This forest… Why isn’t anything coming up but trees? The air’s becoming damper. And it’s faint, but there’s poison mixed in the magic power.’
The “forest” was vastly different from a forest made of trees that could be seen on Earth. Trees that were twisted and dry like one might see in a desert stood tens of meters tall, and the earth was wet and swampy. There was no path, and it was exhausting to move forward because Sesha’s feet kept on sinking into the ground. There were usually at least one to two monsters in the innermost regions of most dungeons, but she didn’t see anything like that either.
Unlike Big Mountain and Kill King, who were busy blabbering next to her, Sesha kept her senses raised sharply. Gates always had a different environment from Earth. To be exact, they were called Other Worlds, and when the trial was complete, they disappeared. It was a similar concept to the instant dungeons she saw in the Tower. ‘Has any dungeon like this ever been found…? I don’t remember. I should’ve studied up if I knew this was going to happen.’
Sesha actually didn’t feel any threat from the gates of Earth. Their difficulty was absurdly low compared to the trials of the Tower’s higher floors. In addition, since the people around her were all some of the most powerful in the Tower, her standards couldn’t help but be high. ‘It’s funny how these guys are drawing lines like S-rank and A-rank and boasting about it. I wonder if they’re as strong as rankers from the past.’
Big Mountain and Kill King smiled widely, seeming to think they’d gotten on Sesha’s good side because she was gazing at them, but they only looked more stupid in her eyes. ‘Oh well.’
The history of trials on Earth was too short.
“Ha. Haha.”
Sesha chuckled awkwardly in response to their smiles when a nasal voice suddenly rang in her head.「Ohahaha! Miss Sesha, you can’t keep on depending on me like that! I told you multiple times already!」
The problem was that the “cute” voice was one of a low-pitched middle-aged man. Sesha couldn’t get used to it even though it had been several years. It was her guardian, the only one who remained of Yeon-woo’s familiars in her shadow. Just when Sesha was about to say something…
「So be careful. I think it’s about to start now!」
‘What?’ Chills ran down Sesha’s back, and she instinctively looked up.
“Miss Cha?”
“What is it? Did something happen…?”
Big Mountain and Kill King tilted their heads as Sesha suddenly stiffened. They knew her senses were sharpest out of all the S-rank players in the world, so they couldn’t help but become nervous as well. When they followed her gaze and looked up, they became speechless.
Krooo! A gruesome-looking creature suddenly began to appear in the gray sky that was empty up until a few moments ago. The search team made of tens of players all stiffened.
“O-O-Otherworld god…! This gate was only four-star, but why is it here?”
“I-It’s an emergency! Raise the difficulty of this dungeon to seven-star and contact headquarters immediately!”
“C-Communication with the outside is down…!”
“The Apostles say their Channels to the heavenly world have been canceled! We need to get to safety!”
“Dammit!”
Unlike the gods and demons of the heavenly world who were relatively friendly toward the people of Earth, nothing was known about the motive of the otherworld gods. Most people went mad due to the difference in power just by attempting to have a conversation with the otherworld gods, and even if they managed to stay sane, they became overridden by fear and weren’t able to resist.
Once, an attack team made of hundreds of people had been sent to eliminate a lower-class otherworld god, but the team had been annihilated. After that, otherworld gods were ruled as “impossible to clear.”
Why was such a creature here? The unprepared search team turned frantic. Everyone was frenzied, but they moved according to the manual. One thing that was a relief was that the otherworld god didn’t have any interest in them and was moving busily in another direction.
Ding!
[The hidden quest (Black King’s Dream) has been created!]
In the meantime, unlike the others, Sesha’s eyes were wide. It was due to a short message that appeared only to her. ‘Laplace, this is it, right?’
「Yes, you’re right! It seems my mean master is here, and that guy is here to find my sleeping master! My master is a total sleeping prince of the forest!」
‘Then let’s go.’ Finally, Sesha’d be able to find her uncle after ten years. She broke away from the frontlines and began to run to where the otherworld god was headed.
“M-Miss Cha?”
“Where are you going? That’s dangerous! Come back!”
The unknowing search team members were left calling for Cha So-yeong desperately.