REWCS 02

Chapter 2

The Constellation’s Game [Leica]

About a week had passed.
During that time, I hardly left my room.

“Siyul-ah.”
“Yeah?”
“Your brother… he’s not sick or anything, is he?”
“Hmm… I don’t think he’s sick.”
“But?”
“I am kind of curious how someone can do absolutely nothing to that extent.”

However, it wasn’t that I had truly done nothing at all.
You could say the past week was like a ‘rehabilitation period’ for the returned warrior.
Whenever I had the chance, I looked up how the world had changed in 10 years, contacted my few friends, and made my own efforts to regain my lost social skills.

“What? Jung-min, you and Dongsu.. both of you still haven’t gotten married yet?”
[Hey, what do you mean ‘still’! We’re still young, man!]
“You’re thirty-six.”
[Excuse me.]
“Yeah?”
[As of 2035, the average age for first marriage in Seoul is 40, you know?]
“This country is doomed.]

And as a result.
I also found out that Kyungjun, one of my closest friends, had already been working as a warrior (Hunter) for 8 years.
In fact, Kyungjun was also the friend who used to live next door.
Though I didn’t know if he still lived there.

“By the way, Kyungjun is a warrior?”
[Hey, calling it ‘warrior’ feels a bit off, call it Hunter.]
“If he’s worked for 8 years, he must be quite the veteran?”
[I guess you could say that?]
“Anyway, Kyungjun is unreachable, right?”
[Right. If you want to contact him, you have to find him inside Leica. Once he goes in, he usually doesn’t come out for at least a month.]
“Okay. Anyway, thanks, Jung-min.”
[Let’s meet up soon then!]

“Ahem.”

Anyway, thinking my rehabilitation(?) was somewhat complete, I finally decided to leave the house.

Click—

“Son, where are you going?”

My mother, watching her son leave the house, had an expression half-worried, half-relieved.
Reassuring my mother, I tightly tied my shoelaces.

“I was feeling cooped up staying inside all the time.”
“O-oh. I guess you would be.”
“I’m just going out for a walk!”

I really did intend to just go for a walk.

‘Today, for real… I’ll just get a taste and come out.’

To Seoul Forest.
More precisely, to the starting village of Leica ‘Bereshit’, accessible through the Seoul Forest Gate.

Truthfully, I had no other choice.
Having just returned after 10 years, my bank balance was naturally zero, and I couldn’t possibly ask my parents for allowance money.
Even if I’m a worthless warrior, I’m not worthless in character.

‘If I’m going to live off my parents at thirty-six… I should at least earn my keep.’

Therefore, preparing for employment at a guild or public institution, or attending some academy again, was an even more impossible option.
So, choosing the Seoul Forest Gate was a perfectly natural train of thought.

‘Let’s just earn enough for lunch money.’

The only worry was whether I could enter the gate without any issues, but…

“Oh ho.”

Arriving at the gate, I saw there didn’t seem to be any particular access restrictions.
Actually, that was obvious.
Only ‘Awakened’ could enter the gate anyway.
(I later found out that on Earth, the moment you awaken, you must undergo all sorts of Awakened education and sign a pledge.
And that pledge apparently includes scary(?) content stating you acknowledge you could die at any time inside the gate.)
Of course, right now I was worried about something else.

‘It’s not that I’m… not an Awakened on Earth, is it?’

A moment of anxiety surfaced, but I shook my head.
Of course, I’d never specifically seen a system message saying I had ‘awakened’ like normal Hunters.
But I can summon the system window, right?

〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓
<Player Information>

[Info]
Name: Dave
(Dave#GARQW)
Race: Human
Age: 26
Level: Unknown
Class: None
Title: None
〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓

According to information I confirmed from lurking in various Awakened communities, only Awakened can voluntarily summon the system window before their eyes.
So it should definitely work.
Unlike during the beta version play, my player name wasn’t my real name but ‘Dave’, a tag I’d never seen before, but…
That didn’t seem like it would be an obstacle.
Looking at the communities, cases where the player name was the real name were non-existent.

Woohoo—!!

Thinking such thoughts, I stepped toward the gate.
Soon, a very familiar sensation began to envelop my entire body.

[Attempting to access ‘Laika’.]
[Server: Earth]
[Access Path: Seoul – Korea]

The system notification sound and message, heard so often they were almost sickening.

[First-time users detected.]

Of course, there were also unfamiliar message contents I hadn’t seen during the beta…

[Syncing player data.]
[1%……24%…27%……98%]
[Data sync complete!]

Well, that was a trivial issue.
Anyway, the access itself succeeded without any problems.

[Access Location: Starting Village – Bereshit]
[Welcome to the world of ‘Leica’, ‘Dave’.]

Following that, a very familiar landscape unfolded before my eyes.

“Phew. It worked.”

A sigh of relief escaped me.
Until returning to Earth, I never thought this wretched message would feel welcoming.
Indeed, you never know how things will turn out in this world.

‘Then the quest should pop up now, right?’

The scenery, even the sensations, the all-too-familiar view of Bereshit.
As I took a step while looking around…

Ding-!

A quest I’d probably done about twelve hundred times appeared before my eyes.

[Tutorial quest has occurred.]

〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓
Starting Village – Bereshit
Category: Tutorial Quest
Difficulty: F

You have begun your journey to become an adventurer.
Find the village chief ‘Mordini’ of the primordial village ‘Bereshit’ and inform him of the birth of a new adventurer!

Reward: Novice Adventurer’s Equipment Box
〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓

Celia, a fairy belonging to the HR team at ‘Leica Inc.’, was also working hard today.

“Ugh, why is there such a lack of talent?”

Celia’s most important task was to find beings with the talent to become ‘warriors’ among the numerous dimensional planes managed by her team!
However, finding a warrior promising enough to send a ‘Truck’ was as difficult as plucking stars from the sky.
Therefore, Celia was again sifting through the mountain-like pile of databases today.

“This… level, maybe we could give it a try?”
“No. This isn’t enough!”
“If we’re too lenient, we might end up suffering terribly again!”

Moreover, Celia had recently suffered severe karmic retribution due to a poor choice.
Thinking he had decent talent, she brought him in, only to suffer for over ten thousand years!
Of course, those ten thousand years weren’t ten thousand years on the actual timeline.
But anyway, that time was painfully difficult to endure even for a manager fairy.

‘So this time. I really have to find truly certain talent.’

But no matter how much she searched and reviewed the data, finding a sprout better than ‘Lee Gun-yul’ wasn’t easy.

“Phew.”

The reason was unknown.
Clearly, ‘Lee Gun-yul’ was a warrior candidate with mediocre talent in all aspects.
Clearly, that was the case…

‘Why is it so hard to find even that level?’

Even searching with wide eyes, she couldn’t find a warrior candidate reaching, let alone matching, Lee Gun-yul’s level.

‘No, if I keep looking, one will surely appear. It’s just bad luck.’

Though she felt something was strange, Celia simply thought her ‘effort’ was lacking.
So today, too, she was working harder than any other fairy.
Until just a moment ago.
Until she saw the shocking system message.

Ding-!

[Data of watched warrior ‘Lee Gun-yul’ has been synchronized.]
[Would you like to check?]

“……?”

When the message first appeared, she thought it was some system error.

“What is this… nonsense?”

Lee Gun-yul was clearly a warrior candidate with whom she had played the beta version countless times.
The fact that such ‘Lee Gun-yul’s data had not yet been synchronized with the system…
Was something that could not, should not, be possible.

“W-wait a minute.”

But feeling something was off, Fairy Celia, after checking all the ‘System Logs’, could only slump into her seat a moment later.

“H-he really has never been synchronized before?”

Surprisingly, during the over 1200 sessions of beta play, Warrior ‘Lee Gun-yul’s data had never been synchronized with the system even once.

“M-madness?”

Playing without system synchronization meant playing without receiving any ‘system adjustments’ whatsoever.
In other words, a ‘human’ race catching the ‘Demon King’ without ‘system adjustments’ was fundamentally impossible.
No.
Across dimensions, most ‘humans’… couldn’t even face an Ogre without considerable talent.
That is, assuming no help from the system.

“T-then Lee Gun-yul… caught the Death Knight without system adjustments?”

Understanding the situation, Fairy Celia unconsciously began chattering her teeth.

“That kind of nonsensical human can’t possibly exist!”

Even the top-ranking ‘7th Floor’ rankers on the warrior charts would find it hard to guarantee catching a Death Knight without system adjustments.
Of course, the possibility would be slightly higher in the ‘Beta’ version made for talent identification, but…

“W-what… have I done?”

At this point, at least one fact was crystal clear.

“Kkaaa!!!”

Any warrior candidate Celia had ever handled… would likely be no match for Lee Gun-yul.

“This is no time for this. R-right. The formal player name! At least I need to find that out.”

So Celia had no choice but to be even more devastated.

[‘Earth’ is a server where ‘official launch’ is already complete.]
[Manager access is impossible.]
[Cannot access the DB of the ‘Earth’ server.]

““Huh, huh, huh-”-“

Actually, Celia knew too.
The fact that the ‘data synchronization’ message appeared even now was proof that Warrior Lee Gun-yul had accessed ‘Leica’ again through some route.
And there was only one possibility for that.
It was only possible if Leica had ‘officially launched’ on Earth.

“Stupid fairy bitch… sob sob sob sob!”

So now, Celia had only one way to approach Lee Gun-yul again.
The moment the first main episode of the ‘Earth Server’ ends and the first ‘large-scale update’ begins.
That moment when the ‘Earth Server’ connects to the main server, the only way is to send a ‘formal offer’.
The only slight consolation was that the Earth server’s large-scale update wasn’t that far off.
However, if by that time ‘Lee Gun-yul’ was a ‘high ranker’ on the Earth server, Celia would have no chance.
So Celia decided to pray.

‘Please let the warrior slack off…’

The Gaslighting Celia had done countless times over the past thousand years.
Hoping that because of the ‘you have no talent’ line, Lee Gun-yul would lose interest in growing as a warrior.