At Least A-

“Thank you for your consideration!”

After waving goodbye to Alice who bowed deeply before leaving, Kang Changseok sank into the sofa and emptied his third bottle.

Though his high constitution stat and various skill effects made it impossible to get drunk, he couldn’t bear it without drinking.

“To think I’d end up begging even that guy.”

The God of Wealth, Ruler of Finance, Master of the Shadow Government.

How did he, known by countless titles and even called the ruler of the 21st century, end up in this situation?

The value of his countless cash holdings, physical assets, account numbers, and connections with power players had plummeted after the monster invasion.

What replaced them was power.

In a world where the power accumulated by a user of less than a year was worth more than the financial and political power he’d built up over decades.

Though that user wasn’t an ordinary one, he couldn’t help feeling bitter even taking that into account.

“If I’d known this would happen, I would have built up power too.”

Though he muttered with regret, it was far too late.

He lacked the talent to quickly and perfectly clear quests like Three Strong or Han Yuseong, and even if he wanted to become stronger, he could no longer perform quests.

His goggles were being used to create links between countless powerful beings existing outside Earth’s dimension and millions of people.

Kang Changseok was about to empty his fourth bottle but stopped and slapped both his cheeks.

He had no time to waste drinking alcohol that wouldn’t even get him drunk.

Even now, the countdown to destruction was ticking down and the value of financial power was steadily falling.

He needed to do as much as possible before the world order and financial system collapsed and his greatest weapon, financial power, lost all value.

“Though we somehow resolved the undead situation, Europe is practically done for now. Britain is an island nation so damage is minimal and they have Isaac, so leave them be, but gradually reduce support for other countries. Africa was devastated when the elves tried planting a World Tree, South America is half ruined due to bugs, so what’s left is Asia, North America, and India?”

Kang Changseok unconsciously clutched his head.

Even after seeing it several times, he could only sigh.

Not even a year had passed since monsters appeared, yet over half the Earth was ruined.

Though he’d prepared based on experiences visiting some worlds swept up in the dimensional war and Bruce’s warnings, he never dreamed the situation would deteriorate this quickly.

‘Even after establishing an academy, I’m not sure we can last another year at this rate. The small number of ability users is really proving fatal.’

Though he’d mass-produced millions of ability users using the goggles’ functions, that wasn’t enough to protect Earth from the infinite dimensional castaways.

Two options remained.

Either create a transcendent powerful enough to interfere with the world’s rules and perfectly protect Earth, or…

“There I go overthinking again.”

After tapping his head, Kang Changseok flipped through screens on his tablet.

Energy, food, machinery, labor, capital, time, space, and so on.

All resources were limited and it was his job to distribute them as efficiently as possible.

Browsing the tablet, Kang Changseok muttered bitterly.

“I guess China and Japan are the only countries worth investing in.”

While Korea had blocked the monster invasion with minimal damage and preserved the most combat power, from a global perspective Korea’s forces and geopolitical position weren’t particularly advantageous.

In contrast, China could maintain forces to resist monsters and act as the world’s factory using its population of hundreds of millions, vast territory, and cheap labor, while Japan had low combat and production power but could potentially serve as humanity’s final stronghold in emergencies thanks to its geographical advantage as an island nation.

“I don’t like either option but if forced to choose one, China would be better. The problem is that Changwei is quite suspicious.”

One of the Three Strong.

A user classified as equal to Bruce and Kasim with comparable power, but lacking corresponding responsibility.

‘He didn’t even come during this undead incident. He sent a message days after it was resolved saying he couldn’t come because he was doing a quest, but…’

Users who solve problems by traveling between worlds naturally can’t always be on Earth.

But this wasn’t the first time Changwei had avoided fights with such excuses.

Kang Changseok considered various countries that could replace China like America and India, then muttered softly.

“Considering food and transportation issues, China really is the only answer.”

After contemplating for a while, Kang Changseok made a disgruntled expression and tapped on China.

Of course, this didn’t mean supporting only China.

Modern society is like a precise machine or domino effect.

The collapse of Europe in this incident had dealt astronomical damage to the world’s economy, industry, and society.

To minimize the damage even slightly required astronomical investment across all fields worldwide.

“They say it’s hard to earn but easy to spend.”

Kang Changseok clicked his tongue seeing the digits representing his total assets decrease.

His seemingly infinite wealth that looked like it would never run out no matter how much he spent was rapidly heading toward bottom.

“I wonder if I’ll go bankrupt before Earth is destroyed?”

Shaking with fear, Kang Changseok shook his head.

Even so, such a thing surely wouldn’t happen.

* * *

“Kang Changseok asked you to deliver this?”

“Yes!”

Yuseong shifted his gaze from Alice’s energetic response to the thick documents.

The contents were quite complex.

Extensive information and know-how about quests Kang Changseok had gathered as a user, inquiries about purchasing additional ability awakening potions, proxy purchases of resources and materials that were hard to obtain even with money, unconditional investment in Han Yuseong personally and support with various items.

In short, it could be summarized as comprehensive support.

“What did this guy eat wrong?”

Documents unbelievable as coming from Kang Changseok who had always insisted on strict give-and-take relationships.

That question was answered upon reading the final page.

[Humanity Preservation Plan]

Yuseong hadn’t revealed much about Dragonia to other users.

He’d only introduced it as a flying fortress obtained by chance.

However, Kang Changseok had noticed something about Dragonia and asked sharp questions.

‘If I’d only seen the floating and defense functions, I would have accepted it as a flying fortress. But what you obtained is different. Thousands of lizardmen lived in the city, and it even had terraforming functions to change Earth’s environment into that of another world. In my opinion, that city isn’t just a flying fortress but some kind of dimensional ark, or invasion weapon…’

Nearly perfect deduction except for the hidden facts only he knew.

Though he’d tried hard to cover it up, Kang Changseok seemed certain about Dragonia’s true nature.

Otherwise he wouldn’t have sent these documents.

“What does it say?”

“Nothing special. Just all useless talk.”

“Your expression doesn’t seem that casual for useless talk.”

“I’m trying not to laugh.”

Yuseong threw the documents into subspace.

Despite the grandiose name “Humanity Preservation Plan”, the contents weren’t much.

It proposed creating an ark to continue Earth’s humanity and civilization in another world in preparation for the worst case scenario.

‘You’ll provide infinite money and resources, add Sophia’s technology and other users’ abilities to make cryosleep capsules, so lend you Dragonia?’

It was quite a plausible proposal, but it had fatal flaws.

One was that dimensional travel is never easy.

Dimensional travel using Dragonia required dragons sacrificing themselves as energy sources, and took so long that even dragon-kind with far more powerful bodies than humans rotted away in their capsules.

Could humans possibly endure that kind of time?

Even if by some miracle they quickly reached a dimension where humans could settle, another problem would arise.

‘There are two types of dimensions we could reach. Those swept up in the dimensional war or those that weren’t. The problem is the former are already doomed worlds, while the latter would be doomed by dimensional war the moment we arrive.’

They say there’s no paradise in a place you run to.

That was exactly right.

Once they started running, they would keep running forever while slowly withering away.

Running away wasn’t the answer.

‘In the end, we absolutely must end this on Earth no matter what. Someone among the users must become transcendent.’

Though it wasn’t certain a transcendent could stop destruction, that was the only option now.

And the user with the highest possibility of becoming transcendent was himself.

“Sigh, if only Kang Changseok hadn’t suddenly appeared then, I could have just sold it to Bruce and enjoyed watching the show while eating rice cakes.”

“Show? Rice cakes? What are those?”

“Things you don’t need to know about. More importantly, can you really fight?”

“Of course! Would you like me to demonstrate?”

There was no need to check.

He’d just watched the combat footage Sophia sent hours ago, and had finished inspecting Alice’s android body.

An android rated A+ rank equal to Tyrant’s arms despite being just a prototype.

But while his head knew Alice was strong, his heart couldn’t accept it.

“H-how about this? Do I look stronger now?”

Alice struggling to make muscles.

Though they’d grown her form to increase performance and mount various weapons, it was still only like a middle schooler becoming a high schooler.

Combined with her innocent attitude, Yuseong just couldn’t imagine Alice fighting.

‘Come to think of it, I have no choice whether to believe it or not.’

The quests he needed to challenge ahead had difficulties on a completely different level from the ones he’d cleared so far.

Even if Alice’s combat power was below expectations, in a situation where even a cat’s paw would be welcome, he had no choice but to take her along.

“Before starting the quest, let me explain first. Should I start with what users are?”

“Oh, I heard all about that from Sister Sophia!”

“Sophia told you about users and quests?”

“Yes! She said she was bored without anyone to talk to so she told me all sorts of things!”

“Could you tell me what she said?”

After listening to Alice’s lengthy explanation, Yuseong let out a small groan.

Whether she spoke without thinking or decided it wasn’t information worth hiding, the information Sophia had shared with Alice held considerable value.

With the information Kang Changseok had just sent plus Sophia’s information added to the experience he’d built up so far, it seemed possible to somewhat quantify the skill and artifact usage rates he’d been estimating by instinct.

“She said quests get harder as their rank increases! Since this is my first time, should I start from low ranks to get used to it?”

Yuseong avoided meeting Alice’s innocent gaze and muttered in a faint voice.

“At least A-.”