Gift Offensive

“…Just to make sure – is this mobile fortress something like an aircraft carrier, you know, a massive ship?”

“If it were that, I would have called it a ship. Vimana is a giant fortress that flies through the sky. Length 12km, height 1km, capable of housing 400 flying ships and 3,000 magic-powered armors, with its own production facilities enabling repairs and manufacturing, plus fire support…”

As Teresa’s explanation continued, Yuseong’s eyes grew wider.

During his year as a user, he had developed a sense of the correlation between quest difficulty and rewards.

A fortress-class item, no, a city like this wasn’t something you could get as a clear reward no matter how high the quest rank.

There was only one way to obtain it.

Purchasing it from the karma shop.

‘What was Dragonia’s rank again?’

The specs Teresa described for the mobile fortress Vimana were no less impressive than Dragonia’s.

Though he hadn’t specifically appraised it, considering its functions and influence, it wouldn’t be strange if it had the newly discovered EX rank.

Even within the same rank, more complex items like tanks or fighter jets cost more than weapons like swords or guns.

With each rank increase, the price went up more than tenfold.

Items were priced higher than skills.

Considering these and various other factors, the estimated price of Vimana would be…

“Wow.”

“Pardon?”

“Ah, sorry. I was so surprised listening to the story that I couldn’t help but exclaim.”

At least tens of billions of karma, maybe even hundreds of billions.

The moment he realized this fact, a question arose in Yuseong’s mind.

‘How did he purchase Vimana?’

The expected karma from clearing an A-rank quest with SSS rank was at most 1 billion.

Though Changwei had been active as a user for a long time, users were entities whose expenditures increased along with their income.

It was practically impossible to have saved enough karma to purchase Vimana while buying stats, skills, and items.

“After Vimana disappeared and the suicide squad lost their base, they couldn’t hold out long before falling apart. The portal connecting to their original world collapsed, and those who couldn’t escape in time were left in the demon realm.”

“How long did you stay in the demon realm?”

“Three years.”

“…Not one year then.”

“Pardon?”

“Ah, nothing. That must have been difficult.”

“Yes. It was hard. The demon race pursued us, supplies and morale dropped, and survivors decreased day by day. But the real problem was something else.”

“Changwei himself, or users related to him, kept coming after you, right?”

Though Teresa widened her eyes in wariness, Yuseong continued speaking calmly.

“Something seemed odd as I listened to your story.”

“What’s odd about it?”

“Your excessive wariness of users.”

He could understand their wariness and aversion to users.

But what happened with Changwei was three years ago.

No matter how wary of users they were, was it possible to set and memorize passwords every day without fail in preparation for encountering an uncertain existence they might never meet again?

Even if possible, what were the chances they could set trap magic that could be activated by trigger words alone, or activate it instantly without a moment’s hesitation upon feeling something strange?

This wasn’t the kind of countermeasure someone who had met a user just once would think of.

“You’ve met users several more times since then, haven’t you? Seeing how you intensely asked if I was related to Changwei and dropped your guard immediately upon learning I wasn’t, it seems all the users you’ve met so far were related to Changwei and caused you great harm. Am I wrong?”

“…How did you figure that out?”

“Just my deductions after hearing Ms. Teresa’s story. What I don’t understand is why Changwei kept coming…”

Teresa opened her mouth with a strange smile.

“Vimana isn’t just a simple fortress, but a crucial facility and strategic weapon containing the entire continent’s resources and technology. Naturally, we put in safeguards to prevent it from falling into someone’s hands or being misused by the demon race.”

Vimana’s purpose was subjugation of the demon realm.

It had restrictions preventing it from attacking anything other than the demon race or demon realm monsters, anywhere outside the demon realm.

“The only way to remove the restrictions is by accessing the main system and modifying the commands. And accessing the main system requires a special item. But Changwei didn’t know about this item’s existence, and tried to obtain it either personally or by sending other users.”

He could intuitively understand.

That this special item was what Changwei had called the Prime Code.

‘So that’s why he only told me the name Prime Code without detailed information – was he aiming for this situation? No, that’s too dependent on chance even considering how wary they are. I only survived because I happened to have an item that could distinguish truth from lies, originally…’

Lost in thought, Yuseong returned to reality upon feeling gazes directed at him.

“So what will you do?”

“Hmm.”

It was truly an ambiguous situation.

The image these people had of users remained that of evil spirits who possessed and stole bodies from anxious people, nothing more, nothing less.

They needed help but couldn’t trust users – that was Teresa and her companions’ thinking.

“You can’t entrust your back to someone you can’t trust. If you can’t trust me, I’ll return to my world right now.”

The situation was equally ambiguous for Yuseong.

No matter how clever he was, clearing an A+ rank quest without cooperation from the client and helpers was impossible.

Though it would be a shame to give up a special quest, he had no choice if they wouldn’t cooperate.

“…No. I’ll trust you. Please help us.”

“Princess?!”

“Your Highness! Users are not to be trusted!”

“Walter, Nathan. I’ll be honest. We’re at our limit. The rescue squad isn’t coming, and our condition keeps deteriorating as the demonic energy’s corruption progresses. How much longer do you think we can hold out in this situation?”

“…”

The two lowered their heads weakly.

Realistically speaking, they couldn’t hold out much longer.

“At this rate, we’ll all die anyway. Mr. Han Yuseong, was it?”

“Please call me Yuseong.”

“Mr. Yuseong, to be honest, I still doubt you. There’s no guarantee that the scroll distinguishing truth from lies doesn’t work on users, or that Mr. Yuseong isn’t deceiving us all with brilliant acting. But as you just heard, we’re not in a position to be picky about such things right now.”

Even if it was a rotten rope, they had no choice but to grab it now.

Teresa bowed her head and said.

“Only one thing matters now. Survival. Even a user is fine. I don’t care even if you’re related to Changwei. Please help us survive, help at least one of us escape from this hell back to our original world.”

Trembling body and voice.

Walter and Nathan, who had tried to stop her, knelt behind her and bowed their heads when she wouldn’t budge.

And shortly after, a hand suddenly appeared in Teresa’s downcast field of vision.

“I’ll help you. But I have one condition.”

“What is it?”

“Promise that you’ll trust and follow me no matter what happens.”

Teresa grabbed Yuseong’s outstretched hand without hesitation.

“I promise.”

* * *

As mentioned repeatedly, information is the most important thing in quests.

You need to know what situation the client is in, what the average power level of the other world is, what kind of civilization and technological level they have, to plan how to solve the quest.

If the power level is low, he would plan to solve it through force.

If the power level is high, he would plan to exploit civilization differences and use items that don’t exist in that world to strike at weak points.

Even supreme masters or high-ranking mages can die to bombs if they don’t know about and guard against them, and conversely, aircraft carriers or military facilities can be breached by unremarkable warriors or mages.

So Yuseong kept conversing with Teresa’s group without rest and was able to obtain more information.

However, there was one thing he couldn’t properly understand – the explanation about the demon race.

This wasn’t because Teresa’s group explained poorly or because Yuseong’s comprehension was lacking, but due to civilization differences.

While Babel could flexibly translate things like units and metaphors, it wouldn’t translate words and proper nouns that only existed in other worlds.

Is it possible for someone from one world to properly explain that world’s civilization to someone from another world in a way they can understand?

After silently listening to explanations from three people, no, four including the client Marcus, Yuseong concluded it was impossible.

The more he listened, the vaguer his image of the demon race became, so it seemed better to see them with his own eyes.

“How is everyone’s condition?”

“Very good!”

Teresa’s face had gained some weight compared to when he first saw her, and her voice was full of energy.

Since Teresa’s group had been in a state where they could collapse at any moment due to chronic fatigue from excessive forced marches, malnutrition, and demonic energy corruption, Yuseong had taken time to let them recover.

Replenishing nutrients with high-calorie food, purifying their bodies corrupted by demonic energy using holy water obtained as quest rewards.

And after equipping them with clean new equipment instead of old broken gear, the group’s appearance changed dramatically.

“…Can I really use this?”

Walter asked in a trembling voice.

Just days ago he had blocked Teresa from approaching Yuseong, but his attitude changed completely when lent the blessed mithril sword and full plate armor obtained as rewards from [The Hero Who Couldn’t Become a Hero].

“Mr. Walter, you are the shield protecting the princess. How can the shield be weak?”

“Of course not!”

“Please protect the princess well.”

“O-Of course. Thank you so much.”

“How about you, Mr. Nathan?”

“Hmph, well, not bad.”

In Nathan’s hands was a pure white great bow.

Learning that he was skilled enough with a bow to be called divine archer, Yuseong had given him the Elemental Bow.

Though he had openly resisted until the end, unable to trust users, for someone who had been using a crude wooden bow, the temptation of the Elemental Bow was too fatal.

‘That should do for now.’

Though it was shallow trust gained through gifts, it was better than nothing.

After checking the party members’ conditions, Yuseong equipped Thousand Hands and Blessing from his subspace and stood up.

“Shall we get moving?”

Translator Notes:

Wait, if users bought item with Karma on Karma Shop the real item on the original world is gone? I make sure to double-check this and, as far as my knowledge of Korean goes, the translation is correct for that section.

Or maybe we will get more information regarding this (OR maybe it’s already been told in the early chapters and I forgot about it LOL). We’ll see.