Bingo

The conflict between Contractors and ordinary people.

Carlos, once a hero who became a traitor after colluding with monsters and selling out humanity and Earth.

The spores of death that turned normal humans into zombies and the tree of calamity that created dark elves.

Major incidents that could have endangered not just Japan but the whole world were quickly resolved through the heroes’ brilliant activities.

However, that didn’t solve Japan’s problems.

Tokyo, the capital city, was turned into a wasteland from the aftermath of battle and direct hit from the collapsing World Tree, zombies swarmed throughout the Kanto region, and the entire country became a land of death where not even a single blade of grass could grow properly due to excessive energy drain from the World Tree.

These weren’t completely unsolvable problems.

Collapsed cities could be rebuilt, zombies could be restored with status recovery potions, and the devastated land could be recovered by planting new vegetation and spreading fertilizer.

The problem was that the funds and time needed for this process were astronomical.

While it might have been different in the past, humanity currently had their hands full just blocking monsters and lacked the resources to support Japan.

Eventually, people began fleeing overseas one by one, and as a result, Japan, once considered the safest country in the world, collapsed in less than a month.

And those aftershocks swept across the globe in an instant.

* * *

-Global stock markets have been crashing for a week straight. Despite continued circuit breaker activations, stock market boosting measures from various countries, and defense plan announcements from heroes and the International Contractors Association, the economy shows no signs of recovery while real estate prices and commodity prices continue soaring daily…

-Crime rates are surging. Major crimes like looting, arson, robbery, and murder are occurring consecutively across the country, and the government has decided to increase the number of Contractors and military personnel deployed for maintaining public order…

-This is reporter Park Won-gi in Busan. As you can see, Busan’s waters are currently filled with boats that escaped from Japan. However, due to fierce protests from citizens and the government not granting permission to land, they continue circling nearby waters. The government announced they cannot grant landing permission until quarantine measures are in place and sufficient status recovery potions are stockpiled, citing the possibility of zombie spores hiding among the refugees.

“Hmm.”

Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but grim news.

Yuseong let out a small sigh as he put down his smartphone after checking internet articles.

The situation was already precarious after the European undead incident, and Carlos had delivered the final blow.

Though order was barely being maintained thanks to Kang Changseok’s desperate efforts, if just one more major incident occurred, that would truly bring about an apocalyptic situation where law and order collapsed and civilization crumbled.

“Is escaping to another dimension and abandoning Earth really the only answer?”

Yuseong, who was seriously considering the Humanity Preservation Plan that Kang Changseok had proposed, shook his head as he recalled the dragon people who had died in glass tubes.

Unless humanity was truly driven to the brink of extinction, that had to remain as a last resort.

Yuseong shook his head to clear away stray thoughts.

Worrying and contemplating here wouldn’t yield any solutions anyway.

‘I’ll put this aside and solve other problems first.’

Yuseong wrote down the contents of the future he had seen using the Universal Vision skill in a notebook.

Lucifer’s revival, and the Outer God’s invasion.

Writing just those two sentences made him feel utterly overwhelmed.

‘Let’s start with Lucifer first.’

Though he couldn’t know exactly when the revival would occur, judging by the overall feel of the city and the Chinese characters written on car license plates and signs, the location was likely somewhere in China or Taiwan.

China and Taiwan.

Common sense would suggest the latter was more likely.

Someone who had nearly died once by Bruce’s hands would have zero chance of heading to China where the hero Changwei was stationed.

But Yuseong thought differently.

‘What if Changwei was persuaded by Lucifer?’

Though he hadn’t gone down underground with them at the time, he had heard through Kang Changseok what proposal Lucifer had made.

If they worshiped him as Earth’s one true god, he would protect them from monster attacks in return, was it?

Bruce and Kang Changseok refused, but objectively speaking, it was quite an attractive proposal.

Religious freedom and protection from transcendent beings.

Would there really not be a single user among the ten who would find the latter appealing?

“That’s impossible.”

There were more than enough who would.

‘Let’s assume the worst case scenario.’

The negative thinking habit that had disappeared while clearing various quests revived.

Events with extremely low probability of occurring in reality, things that couldn’t happen by common sense, negative clichés that seemed possible only in fiction.

As his thoughts continued, Yuseong recalled the question he had in Japan.

“Why Carlos, who was in Mexico, caused turmoil in Japan.”

Though it changed due to Universal Vision, in the original future Carlos had evaded capture for months while causing various incidents in Japan.

He wasn’t after money, wasn’t spreading ideology, and wasn’t building up forces.

All Carlos could gain from the series of events was just people’s attention.

Back then he couldn’t understand why Carlos had done such things, but connecting it to Lucifer led to one speculation.

‘Could the goal have been to draw the world’s attention to Japan so Lucifer could safely operate in China?’

It was closer to delusion than deduction, but it had quite a bit of plausibility.

“I’ll have to ask Kang Changseok to investigate this.”

Though he wanted to investigate personally if possible, he didn’t have that luxury.

‘The Outer God’s invasion.’

He felt not just overwhelmed but completely hopeless.

At least he could imagine fighting Lucifer, but he couldn’t even muster the courage to try confronting the Outer God.

Thwack!

As he recalled the Outer God’s appearance, Yuseong lightly slapped his own cheek.

Just thinking about it briefly made his head spin and stomach churn.

Yuseong took deep breaths to calm himself.

‘Three months from now. No, two months and three weeks to definitely obtain divinity and become transcendent.’

Yuseong swallowed dryly as he recalled his horrific future self that he had seen.

The image of becoming a puppet who had lost all will and summoning the Outer God to Earth was still vivid.

“Haah, easier said than done, but how exactly do I do that?”

Gain enlightenment to obtain divinity?

He couldn’t even begin to grasp how to obtain this enlightenment in the first place.

Create divinity through the Sun-Moon Ritual?

It would take another thousand years for Earth’s celestial cycle to return.

If there was absolutely no other way, he was considering making his karma points negative and taking the skill confiscation penalty to eliminate the Outer God’s thoughts themselves, but he wasn’t confident such methods could remove a forcibly acquired skill that ignored system limitations.

‘I’ll have to try as far as I can go for now.’

Letting out a small sigh, Yuseong took out the goggles from his chest.

In the end, all he could do now was quests.

“Huh? What’s wrong with this?”

Confused by the goggles’ display showing nothing, Yuseong suddenly recalled something he had forgotten and reached into his subspace to take out another pair of goggles.

[Accessing multi-dimensional exploration system.]

[Successfully observed quest.]

-I was playing a VR game, but when I came to my senses, I had fallen into another world.

-Some crazy terrorist is about to destroy the planet.

-60 until the end… 59… 58…

-Humanity’s final operation.

-……

-……

-……

“So this was mine.”

Currently Yuseong had two pairs of goggles.

One was purchased from OneLifeOneShot for ten thousand won, and the other was secretly taken from Carlos’s corpse a few days ago.

“I grabbed it without thinking but I’m not sure how to use this.”

Getting two pairs of goggles didn’t raise his user rank or combine them into an enhanced single pair.

He could only use his original goggles.

Carlos’s goggles showed no reaction even when worn.

‘Since Carlos died, the ownership must have disappeared. Is it not responding because I’m already a user?’

Yuseong looked at Carlos’s goggles with a sour expression.

Something he couldn’t even use himself.

Logically, just passing it to another ordinary person would be most rational.

However, Yuseong was hesitating.

‘Would gaining one more user with this really help in the current situation?’

Users could grow endlessly stronger but that required time.

To pull their weight as a user on Earth currently required at least Three Weak level, and judging by users’ average growth rate, that would take at least 2 years even at the fastest.

‘Humanity would go extinct before then.’

Humanity was in an emergency situation right here and now.

Moreover, even if no new powerful monsters appeared, Lucifer’s revival was scheduled for the near future, and if the Outer God’s thoughts weren’t resolved, doom would arrive in 3 months through the Outer God’s invasion.

One year?

Honestly speaking, humanity would struggle to last even 3 months.

And it was absolutely impossible for a new user to grow strong enough to pull their weight within 3 months.

‘I need to find a more efficient way to use the goggles.’

Yuseong began carefully comparing the two pairs of goggles.

The two pairs had perfectly identical appearances.

After being lost in thought for a while, Yuseong pushed aside his goggles and grasped the temple part of Carlos’s goggles with both hands.

“……”

After hesitating briefly, Yuseong applied force with both arms.

Despite using considerable strength, the goggles didn’t budge at all.

However, no matter how durable something was, it had limits.

As he kept applying force, the goggles began to bend slightly.

Tick.

Along with a faint cracking sound, the goggles developed a crack.

Now there was no turning back even if he wanted to.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Yuseong twisted both arms with all his might.

Crack!

The sound of something hard breaking.

Opening his eyes slightly, Yuseong swallowed dryly at the sight of the goggles with broken temple pieces.

“…I’ve done it now.”

One of only ten in the whole world.

He had destroyed with his own hands a divine object that could grant user qualification and freely cross dimensions.

If other users saw this, they would have asked if he was crazy.

“Phew…”

Yuseong took deep breaths to calm his pounding heart.

This was a gamble.

If successful it would be huge, but if it failed he would have just destroyed perfectly good goggles.

Steeling his resolve, Yuseong picked up the broken temple piece and began examining its interior.

At first glance it looked like an ordinary eyeglass temple.

But Yuseong’s eyes with Eye of Truth activated saw something different.

“…Bingo.”