27 – Call Me Ishmael – 2

—All summoners of Earth civilization must pay a tax in Leta Points (RP) once a year for the operation of Leta. Leta Points can be obtained through quests, achievements, dungeon exploration, raids, trading, etc., and you may become highly unfortunate if you fail to pay the points.

—Earth civilization is part of the ‘Light’ faction. Therefore, alliances with civilizations belonging to the ‘Dark’ faction are impossible.

—You are one of the three representatives existing in Earth civilization. Representatives receive dignity maintenance points every month, but if all representatives die, Earth civilization is ‘defeated’.

—All summoners of Earth civilization must pay a tax in Leta Points (RP) once a year for the operation of Leta. Leta Points can be obtained through quests, achievements, dungeon exploration, raids, trading, etc., and you may become highly unfortunate if you fail to pay the points.

—Earth civilization is part of the ‘Light’ faction. Therefore, alliances with civilizations belonging to the ‘Dark’ faction are impossible.

—You are one of the three representatives existing in Earth civilization. Representatives receive dignity maintenance points every month, but if all representatives die, Earth civilization is ‘defeated’.

Ye-min, who opened her eyes in the new land, Leta, after the transfer was completed, quietly stared at the messages that rose before her eyes and thought.

Now she had no intention of leading others anymore, yet she was a representative; would anyone be happy to take on such a troublesome role?

Of course, it was a relief that as long as she did not die, Earth’s humanity would not be defeated, but that was all.

It did not matter who had designated her as a representative.

The mistake of playing the hero of justice, wasting time and mental strength to take care of people who were not even that important, only to end up neglecting the person who was truly important, must never happen again.

Never.

“That’s right, Jun oppa!”

Thinking of the words she had heard from the fairy after defeating the Demon King, Ye-min lifted her head.

The fairy had definitely said that Gi-jun could not regress due to a bug, remained alone in a closed tutorial channel to train, and would move to Leta together.

Although it was fortunate that she was able to grow even further by discovering the Behind Dungeon and grow even further after running wild, thinking about what her ten years had been and how Gi-jun had endured ten years alone upon hearing those words.

Anyway, what was important now was Gi-jun.

“Nuna.”

“Thank goodness, everyone was together.”

“Ha, it really wasn’t the end. I’m seriously craving a drink…”

The party members who had been together until the moment of clearing the ruins were all summoned nearby.

The problem was that everything else was in disarray, making it not easy to find Gi-jun.

Ye-min asked her party members to scatter and look for Gi-jun, but not long after starting the search, she soon realized.

That the people gathered in this place were not all of Earth’s humanity.

That Gi-jun was not here.

“Ah…!”

A deep irritation and despair washed over her, but the belief that Gi-jun would be alive somewhere in the same world as her somehow held her mind together.

‘Still, oppa is somewhere here. I just need to find him.’

If it were someone of Gi-jun’s caliber, rumors would spread no matter what he did or where, and even if not, once her party spread their name, he would come to find her.

No, rather, meeting that way might be even more romantic.

After all, she would be happier if oppa came to find her rather than her finding him!

Gi-jun calmly welcoming her, who returned exhausted with her party members at the hour of the evening glow, as if he had been doing so every day until now.

He would smile gently and hug her as she dropped her weapon in surprise.

And if he whispered, ‘I finally found you,’ and kissed her as she wept profusely, unable to say anything—!

“Everyone, focus! The tutorial fairy has come for you all, who must be confused having just arrived in Leta! Now, from here on, about this continent Leta, and about the civilization representatives—”

It was the voice of the fairy, annoying just to hear, that cut off Ye-min’s happy delusion.

At the end of the second round of the tutorial, Ye-min’s anger toward the fairy who had told them the truth too late was already at its peak.

Because of that, even as the fairy who appeared now was spouting words about tutorials and civilization representatives, she received the creature’s words askance.

‘If the civilization representative dies, that civilization ends. It means they are an extremely important existence. But you’ll help us, so tell you who the representative is? There’s a limit to scamming.’

Only now did Ye-min fully comprehend the phrase ‘tutorial fairy’.

Since the tutorial was a space designed to educate the ignorant Earthlings before entering Leta, the main stage, the fairies were beings that were only helpful there.

They had already undergone the tutorial for twenty-five years, adding ten years to fifteen, and now they had to receive a tutorial here again?

There was no way; that fairy was no longer an NPC.

It was an enemy trying to scam us.

“Keuk—!”

The moment she thought so, the head of the fairy floating high in the air flew off.

The fairy, too, probably did not expect that among the Earthlings who had just entered Leta, there would be someone who could stealthily leap to such a high place without its knowledge to strike off its head.

The rigid head of the fairy, staring with wide eyes in shock as if unable to believe it,

Could not fall to the ground and rolled down the invisible dome-shaped protective barrier.

“A protective barrier?! Moreover, the corpse is sliding on top of it—”

“Who killed the fairy? No, was the fairy perhaps our enemy?”

“So what on earth is a representative?!”

While hundreds of thousands of humans clamored in confusion, Eun-shin, with his hood pulled down, quietly appeared behind Ye-min’s back and spoke.

“I did well, right?”

“Perfect, Shin-ah. Since it was a scammer.”

“I thought that was what you were thinking, nuna, so I moved right away.”

Soon, the rest of the members, who had finished their fruitless search, also rejoined Ye-min.

Just by the four of them gathering, they drew the eyes of everyone around them, which was not only because of Ye-min’s beauty that captivated everyone who saw her regardless of gender, but also because of all kinds of legendary records they had made in the tutorial while active as a party.

Of course, even if they were called legendary there, the achievements they received were only at the Rare level, and now that they had entered Leta, they were fully realizing that they were nothing.

“I think we need to think about how we will move from now on.”

Ji-hye spoke as she looked around the chaotic surroundings.

Ye-min naturally wanted to say they should find Gi-jun, but what Ji-hye meant to talk about was likely not that.

“Indeed… Hundreds of thousands of people moving together as one is not realistic.”

Mok-su, too, was examining the surrounding people, the land, and the barrier covering it in his own way.

Especially, like a former carpenter, he was paying attention to the ground.

“This isn’t land where people can live. There’s no productivity, and to begin with, it’s not spacious enough for many people to settle down. In the end, it means we have to leave. No matter how I look at it, this is just a starting point.”

“A starting point.”

“Yeah, a temporary shield made so we wouldn’t collide with some flying dragon and die as soon as we dropped into this other world. You know, like when you start a game and it blinks for a few seconds to keep you invulnerable. It’s exactly that.”

“Besides—the eyes looking at our party aren’t very friendly either.”

At Ji-hye’s addition, Mok-su smiled bitterly and nodded.

“It can’t be helped, we did take quite a lot for ourselves.”

As would be the case for any hero, Ye-min’s party had not been very considerate of others in the second round.

To strengthen the party’s power, they had selected and secured only the cream of the crop, even if the quantity was small.

If necessary, they had not hesitated to harm those they competed with in the process.

They believed they had no choice but to do so in order to defeat the Demon King, and everyone else did the same.

The problem was that the party that became the strongest through that was Ye-min’s party.

And overwhelmingly so.

Now that the second round had ended like that and the ‘real game’ had begun.

It was no wonder that those who had been sacrificed to the desires of other heroes, or those who had been excluded from competition with other parties, watched and resented Ye-min’s party.

Of course, with Ye-min’s charisma, turning this atmosphere around would be no problem, but all the party members knew she was not in a state to do so right now.

“Who would have thought that was a tutorial?”

“So, there is something I want to say.”

Eun-shin, who quietly nodded at Mok-su’s words, spoke up.

His Unique-grade dagger brought from the tutorial was shining in his bosom.

“If you’re leaving this place, I’ll stay behind for a bit to clean things up before I go. You can go on ahead.”

“Shin-ah.”

“I have to do it.”

Ji-hye, who understood what ‘cleaning up’ meant, spoke in a stern voice, but Eun-shin replied firmly.

“There are many people who can never forgive each other, right? And there are many who will target our lives at any opportunity. I’ll only clean up the truly serious ones. …Fortunately, they are all gathered on this side.”

“How can we make only you do such dirty work? We can’t do that, we might as well do it together.”

Ji-hye spoke with a serious expression.

If Gi-jun was the one who tried to take on the troublesome work of the party, Eun-shin was the one who always stepped forward first whenever the party was about to be defamed.

No matter how suitable his abilities were, what kind of thing was this to make the youngest child do?

But before Ji-hye could add any more words, Eun-shin cut her off.

“It’s work I have to do. And it suits me.”

“Ugh…”

Just as Ji-hye groaned, unable to refute.

A man stepped forward, raising his voice.

“Everyone, please listen to me just once!”

He was a blonde Caucasian.

It was a fairly familiar face, and as the group pondered why, they realized he was the leader of the opposition faction who had claimed to have secured purification magic and argued against killing the Demon King.

Coincidentally, he was also one of Eun-shin’s targets for ‘cleaning up’.

“First of all, I am a representative of Earth’s humanity.”

A representative? A representative?

At the man’s words, people whispered all around.

His words, amplified by the voice magnification magic cast by his party’s magician so that at least tens of thousands of people could hear, were amplified again by other magicians and spread in all directions.

This was because he was the leader of a party that had been famous in both the first and second rounds, and everyone intuitively felt that the content was important.

“Do you remember that the fairy who died earlier mentioned the term ‘representative of Earth’? That is because the civilization representative plays a vital role in the survival of the civilization.”

There were people nodding their heads here and there.

Ye-min, who disliked getting involved with the people here, also turned to look at the man, narrowing her eyes.

“This is a sort of chess. Just as the game ends when the king dies, if the civilization representative dies, this entire civilization will be defeated. You probably remember the explanation the fairy gave when the tutorial ended, but if a civilization is defeated, no matter how outstanding individuals are, it is useless, and all members of the civilization will become slaves.”

The man then brought up what the fairy had said.

“You must have also seen the message that you have to pay points as tax every year upon entering the other world. That’s right. The civilization representative is the one who collects these points. Therefore, if there is no representative, the civilization that fails to pay the points has no choice but to be destroyed entirely…”

“Ha.”

Just as plausible words continued, there was a man stepping forward with a snort from the opposite side.

This side was also very familiar; it was Choi Kang, the man who had almost been killed by that blond man who opposed killing the Demon King.

Choi Kang, who amplified his voice with the help of a magician in his party just like the blond man, shouted.

“You don’t know jack shit about what a representative is, do you? You scammer bastard. A representative isn’t some tax collector. They’re just like public servants who help people receive welfare benefits in this world using the points paid on behalf of the civilization! You probably spout such lies because you don’t even know what’s in the status window, right? Or did you plan to make a fortune and run away immediately?”

“Are you also a representative?”

At the blond man’s words, Choi Kang snorted and shouted.

“Yeah, I’m a representative too! And you are definitely not one, you bastard! Do you even know how many civilization representatives there are in total? Speak up!”

“It should just be us. If there were other representatives, shouldn’t they have stepped forward sooner than you, at least? Isn’t that right? Although the probability of you lying is also the highest.”

“Ha, how ridiculous. You were spouting such absurd nonsense that they were probably just listening to see how far you’d go!”

When the blond man replied in a calm voice, Choi Kang let out a sigh in sheer disbelief—but the other people seemed to find it quite plausible.

First of all, not only was Choi Kang very short-tempered, but he also only claimed to be a representative without much logic overall… and though it was a bit awkward to say, he did not have an impression that easily inspired trust in people.

“Ah—forget it! You bastard! You said you’re a representative? Then show your status window! Since the status window shows whether you’re a representative, show it and prove your innocence!”

“Are you crazy? My information as a civilization representative must be more important and secret than anything else. Why don’t you open your status window first instead?”

“…Alright, let’s go now.”

Ye-min turned away after watching up to that point.

While Ji-hye and Mok-su, who were bewildered watching the status window innocence battle between the two men claiming to be representatives, only blinked at Ye-min, she spoke to Eun-shin in a quiet voice.

“Can I ask this of you, Shin-ah? I’m really sorry. But I have no choice but to ask you.”

“Leave it to me, nuna. I told you, it’s my job.”

Eun-shin, who nodded with a bright smile, added in a slightly anxious voice.

“So… it’s okay to clean them up, right?”

“No problem at all.”

At those words, the group also realized.

That if a representative were to be chosen from Earth’s humanity, the person who should absolutely be selected before those two was in this very place.

Ji-hye asked with a serious expression.

“Is it really okay if you don’t step forward?”

“That blond bastard is acting up like that because he knows I won’t step forward.”

What Ye-min learned while confronting that blond guy during the second round was that he was extremely political.

Perhaps he already predicted that Ye-min was a civilization representative.

But beyond that, he was confident that she would ignore the Earthlings here and leave.

Because he knew what she was obsessed with during the second round, he saw through the fact that she would never let herself be held down by a position like civilization representative, which once taken, could never be backed down from.

In fact, since his guess was correct, she was only annoyed.

However, if there was one miscalculation of his, it was that there was not only one civilization representative here.

As Choi Kang stepped forward as if he had been waiting, the blond dismissed his logic by saying it would be strange for other representatives not to step forward if they existed, and furthermore, made him out to be a liar.

What would happen if Ye-min stepped forward now?

First of all, she could be accused of being a liar for not stepping forward early just like Choi Kang, or he would likely drag up their confrontation in the second round and badger her, claiming she was lying simply to screw with him.

Even though Ye-min’s high Charm, which exerted absolute influence on everyone, was a variable, from his perspective, it was a gamble well worth taking.

“He’ll think that until his skull gets smashed. Now, let’s go.”

“Ah, seriously…! I’m sorry, Shin-ah. I’m sorry…!”

“I really don’t mind. Uncle Su, don’t make that face and go on ahead, hurry.”

“Sigh—that should have been with me. I’m sorry, Shin-ah. Hyung will pour you a drink later.”

At the same time Ye-min’s party left, Eun-shin’s body melted into the air.

Partly because his stealth technique was so exquisite, and partly because most of the gazes directed at Ye-min’s party were fixed on the dazzlingly beautiful Ye-min, no one noticed that Eun-shin remained there.

Thanks to the bright light that was Ye-min, Eun-shin’s shadow was cast even more naturally.

“Ah…!”

“Whew, this won’t end. Let’s rest for now. This is a place where we don’t know what might happen.”

“Tch!”

The confrontation between the blond and Choi Kang reached a temporary stalemate with neither side backing down.

Night fell over the safe zone that Ye-min’s party had departed, leaving their shadow behind.

Morning came as the night departed once again.

Not a single representative of Earth’s civilization died.

At least, among the civilization representatives.