Limit

“Quickly get inside the gate!”

“You go in first! I’ll hold off the demons!”

“Stop being stubborn and just go in!”

“Huh, what?”

After grabbing Walter’s collar and throwing him through the gate, Yuseong started placing explosives on the gate’s structure.

Though the quest’s clear condition was to return as many people as possible to their original world, Yuseong didn’t plan to stop there.

Even if the survivors escaped, as long as the gate remained, the demons could invade their world again anytime.

He needed to blow up the gate too to prevent future problems.

“Would’ve been nice to have a more powerful bomb.”

Beings who indiscriminately open dimensional gates and invade weak worlds to plunder resources.

He fundamentally disliked them and there was no guarantee they wouldn’t discover and invade Earth someday.

He wanted to blow up this entire plaza but didn’t have enough firepower.

As Yuseong was settling for just destroying one gate, a slender arm extended before him.

“Here you go.”

“Alice? Why are you still here?!”

“I have to go with you. More importantly, take this.”

“What is it?”

“You said you needed a powerful bomb, right?”

What Alice held out was a silver sphere about the size of a child’s head.

Taking it reflexively, Yuseong naturally used his appraisal skill.

<Miniature Black Hole Bomb>

-Rank: S-

-Type: Bomb

-The ultimate bomb that creates a micro black hole that sucks in everything. The time until detonation can be adjusted by how long the button is held. Cannot be reversed once used, so handle with caution.

-Black hole duration: 5 seconds.

Yuseong stared at Alice with a dumbfounded expression, forgetting the urgent situation.

The various terrifying weapons he’d confirmed on the network.

A bomb that could create black holes.

The massive craters that suddenly appeared in the intact city.

The weaker than expected resistance from the demons.

Various thoughts converged into one conclusion.

“Um, did I do something wrong?”

Yuseong extended his hand toward Alice who wore an anxious expression at the ominous atmosphere.

“You did well.”

“…You’re not going to get angry?”

“Angry? Why would I be angry?”

“Because I caused too much damage.”

For Yuseong, the most important thing was clearing quests.

Though he tried to proceed in ways that minimized damage when possible, he could be ruthless if he deemed it necessary.

In Yuseong’s opinion, what Alice did was necessary to clear the quest.

“Just in the past month we’ve killed over four digits worth of demons, and the number I just killed here equals or exceeds that. Only the order of magnitude changed, nothing else is different.”

No need to feel guilty or worry about demons at this point.

That would just be hypocrisy and self-satisfaction.

After passing through the gate with Alice, Yuseong turned back one last time.

Beyond the blurry gate, countless demons were approaching from both ground and air.

“Here’s a farewell gift.”

After throwing the silver sphere toward the plaza center with all his might, Yuseong activated the detonator he’d installed on the gate structure.

That was it.

The gate connecting the demon realm to other worlds twisted and vanished without a trace.

Though the demon realm turned black for an instant before the gate disappeared, that wasn’t Yuseong’s concern.

“Haah.”

The deep blue sky unseen in the demon realm and refreshing grass scent tickling his nose.

Watching people pinching their cheeks with dreamy expressions or burying their faces in trees and grass while sobbing, Yuseong let out a sigh of relief.

He’d worried demons might exist beyond the gate, but fortunately there were none.

“Mr. Yuseong! Thank you, thank you so much! If it weren’t for Mr. Yuseong, we would’ve…”

“Never mind that, just give it to me.”

“Huh? What?”

“What you promised to give me. Don’t tell me that was just empty words?”

“Ah, no. Of course I should give it to you.”

“Then hurry. The quest is over so I don’t know when I’ll return to my original world.”

“…Yes.”

Teresa pulled out a small token from her chest and held it out to Yuseong with a very complicated expression.

“Thanks.”

Snatching the token instantly, Yuseong ignored Teresa and gathered his thoughts.

‘Let’s focus.’

He’d temporarily forgotten due to the sudden special quest and unexpected difficulty, but this quest had a separate purpose.

Where exactly were the karma points received from clearing quests stored?

To solve that question, Yuseong activated Eye of Truth.

[You have cleared the quest ’24-Member Suicide Squad Wanting to Escape from Demon Realm’.]

[Analyzing clear process, please wait a moment.]

[Fate Change Rate 495.7%, Otherworld Skill Usage 81.1%, Otherworld Artifact Usage 100%.]

[Final Evaluation SSS Rank]

[Amazing! User Han Yuseong not only helped the client and companions escape, but achieved the incredible feat of dealing a massive blow to the demon realm that had plunged countless worlds into misery! Rewards will be given!]

[Basic Clear Reward: 60,000,000 Karma, Horn of Advance×1, Dragon’s Claw×1, Arrow of Demon Destruction×3, Supreme Magic Stone×15, Supreme Demon’s Heart×21]

[Additional Condition Clear Reward: 380,000,000 Karma, Shadow King’s Boots×1, All parts from demons defeated during escape.]

[SSS Rank Clear Additional Reward: 200,000,000 Karma]

[Return to original world will begin shortly.]

Numerous message windows appeared.

But Yuseong’s eyes were looking elsewhere rather than at the message windows.

“……”

The moment the quest clear message appeared, the world seen through Eye of Truth began changing drastically.

Sky, earth, wind, water, rocks, trees, grass, people, insects.

Everything composing the world transformed into vibrantly colored karma and gathered in one place.

A beautiful and dreamlike radiance that induced ecstasy just from looking, something you’d want to gaze at forever.

Shortly after, the karma composing the light mass began unraveling like thread being unwound, as if rewinding time, and started returning to its original form.

The world literally collapsed and was rebuilt.

And during the process, some karma was shot toward Yuseong.

‘Where. Where is it going?’

At first glance it seemed to be absorbing into him but that wasn’t it.

The karma was passing through him and flowing somewhere else.

Yuseong carefully observed where the karma was ultimately heading while accelerating his thoughts with Asura Perception Way.

A flow so subtle it could be missed with the slightest carelessness.

Just as Yuseong discovered something at its end, a familiar message window appeared before his eyes.

[Initiating Deus Ex Machina Program.]

[Ariadne’s Thread tracking complete.]

[Initiating spirit particle transfer.]

* * *

“The time ratio flowed the same.”

After checking the date, Yuseong sat in his chair while wiping his chest in relief.

This quest was very successful.

He cleared an A+ rank quest on the first try, the time ratio didn’t differ much, and he succeeded in finding out where karma was stored.

But Yuseong’s interest was focused elsewhere rather than on karma.

The phenomenon of the world collapsing and being rebuilt when the quest cleared.

That majestic and beautiful sight remained stuck in his mind.

‘Just what are these goggles?’

An item that could solve problems someone in another world was facing and bring back skills and items as compensation.

That’s all Yuseong had thought the goggles were.

But seeing the system errors recently and just now witnessing heaven and earth being remade, he wanted to know more about the goggles.

“…I’ll worry about it later.”

This quest took an entire month to clear.

Anything could have happened on Earth during that time.

First he needed to finish organizing things and check what had happened on Earth.

[Congratulations on clearing the quest!]

[Han Yuseong’s rank has increased from ‘First-class Solver’ to ‘Special Solver’.]

[New items have been added to the ‘Karma Shop’.]

It had been a while since his last rank increase.

However, worry rather than joy was etched on Yuseong’s face.

[Current Karma: 1,003,600,000]

[Product List]

-Mana Control(A+): 10,000,000

-Circle Magic(A+): 10,000,000

-White Tower’s Mana Training Method(A-): 7,000,000

-Mana Enhancement(A-): 6,000,000

-Elemental Enhancement(B+): 4,000,000

-Strength Increase(B): 1,000,000

(Strength points increase by 1 each time this skill is purchased.)

(Maximum strength that can be grown through this skill is 999 points.)

-……

-……

-……

“…I knew this would happen.”

The price of B rank stat increase rights was 1 million points.

Exactly ten times the price of C rank stat increase rights.

Though he’d expected this, seeing it with his own eyes made him sigh.

“Status Window.”

Name: Han Yuseong

Class: User

Level: -*>&

Title: One Who Makes the Impossible Possible

Strength: 634

Agility: 669

Wisdom: 2,995

Mental: 2,994

Constitution: 954

Magic Power: 704

Internal Energy: 710

Spirit Power: 705

Skills: Forbidden Knowledge skill(??), Infinite Origin Force(S), Eye of Truth(S-), Crimson Blood Divine Art(S-), Nine Phases Manifestation(A+), Amplification(A+), Shooting Star(A-), Cloud Mist(B+)……

“Looking at it like this, strength is the lowest.”

Pure stats unaffected by any items.

His strength, which he hadn’t felt the need to raise due to Tyrant’s arms, remained at just 634 points even adding the 50 points from Enhancement Procedure skill and 200 points from Combat Nanomachine skill.

Agility was second lowest, though he hadn’t felt lacking thanks to explosive power from superhuman strength and thought acceleration from Asura Perception Way.

Constitution maintained the highest value except for wisdom and mental bloated by Forbidden Knowledge skill, since he’d paid attention to properly utilizing superhuman strength.

“Strength and agility can be postponed, and having more energy isn’t bad, so to raise magic power, internal energy, and spirit power all to 999 points…”

Yuseong’s face turned pale after finishing the calculation.

The karma needed to raise stats from early 700s to 999 points was in the late 290 million range.

The conclusion was he needed a whopping 870 million karma points to raise all three stats – magic power, internal energy, and spirit power – to 999 points.

‘And if I raise constitution too, the karma points needed would be…’

“900 million points?”

A hollow laugh unconsciously escaped at the ridiculous amount.

The total karma points he’d saved up plus what he got from clearing this quest, about 1 billion karma points, would be completely wiped out.

“This really makes me want to curse.”

After letting out a long sigh, Yuseong first purchased constitution stat increase rights.

It didn’t actually solve anything, but buying the cheaper item first would make him feel at least a little better mentally.

[Constitution stat has reached its limit.]

[Stats that have reached 999 points can only be raised through special enlightenment, training, or items.]

[After successfully achieving Limit Break, stats can be raised again using stat increase rights.]

“…Huh?”