One Day Suddenly

Users had extremely limited information about the goggles.

They only knew about the goggles’ functions, like being able to move between dimensions, bring abilities and items from other worlds, and raise stats through the Karma Shop.

They knew nothing about who made the goggles or for what purpose, or the principles behind how they worked.

Most users never tried to find out such things in the first place, and while users like Kasim and Sophia had attempted to analyze the goggles using magic and science, they all failed.

Yuseong was the same.

Though he had scanned them a few times using Eye of Truth, he couldn’t learn anything about the goggles.

“The outside is just a normal pair of goggles, so there must be something inside.”

The goggles were a seamless, unibody item.

To check the inside, he would have to break the goggles.

Obviously, he couldn’t break the goggles that were the source of a user’s power just to satisfy his curiosity, so Yuseong had no choice but to give up on analysis like the other users.

However, now that he had another pair of goggles, things were different.

Crack.

Using Blood Energy drawn out as thin as thread to completely disassemble the goggles, Yuseong observed the remains of what had been goggles using Eye of Truth.

When he increased his spiritual eye’s magnification using spirit power, patterns similar to what he had seen in the Outer God’s thoughts and Lucifer’s halo and horns began to appear.

‘As I thought, the goggles were related to transcendent beings.’

Since he had vaguely suspected this, it wasn’t particularly surprising.

Rather, he would have been more surprised if the goggles had been made purely through science or magic.

Yuseong carefully observed the goggles broken in half.

Unlike the Outer God’s thoughts containing the Forbidden Knowledge skill that humans couldn’t fully comprehend, or the halo and horns that only retained traces of divinity, the goggles contained clear and diverse information.

Though that information was too complex for a human mind to possibly understand, Yuseong could perfectly comprehend and interpret it with his monstrous wisdom stat that had surpassed 3,000 points.

[You have acquired the Akashic Records Limited Search(S-) skill.]

[You have acquired the Ariadne’s Thread(S-) skill.]

[You have acquired the Parallel Dimension Search(S) skill.]

[You have acquired the Spirit Particle Transfer(S) skill.]

[You have acquired the Mental Protection(A+) skill.]

[You have acquired the Magic Power Collection Engraving(A+) skill.]

…..

…..

…..

“This is……”

He gained over ten S-rank skills just from analyzing a single pair of goggles.

Hastily opening his skill window, Yuseong checked the information for the Akashic Records Limited Search skill at the very top.

‘There’s not really any useful skills here.’

The Akashic Records were said to be a virtual space where all information in the universe was stored, but as could be guessed from the word “Limited,” there were restrictions on what information could be searched.

The only information that could be found using the Akashic Records Limited Search skill was information about people desperately needing help – no other information could be searched at all.

“So it used Akashic Records Limited Search to find quest clients? And Ariadne’s Thread just prevents getting lost during spatial or dimensional travel… So quest retries don’t actually turn back time, but restart by moving to a parallel dimension from before the quest started?”

Yuseong checked the other skills.

While there were a few skills that caught his interest, most of the newly acquired skills were half-baked ones that were specialized for implementing the goggles’ functions and thus had little use in normal situations, or had extremely limited applications.

After confirming the information and stable activation of all skills, Yuseong wore a strange expression.

He had thought it would be fortunate to understand even a little about the goggles’ principles, but perhaps because his wisdom stat was too high, contrary to expectations he had perfectly understood the goggles’ principles and operating mechanisms.

“Wait, doesn’t this mean I could make the goggles too?”

The goggles weren’t items made with special materials or incomprehensible technology.

The goggles themselves could be made with Earth’s materials, and if he backed them up, Sophia and Kasim’s abilities would be enough to engrave the patterns.

Gulp.

Yuseong swallowed dryly.

One of the biggest reasons current humanity was helplessly losing to monsters was the absolute shortage in the number of ability users.

Despite creating hundreds of thousands of Contractors through Kang Changseok’s abilities and producing ability awakening potions and academies, there were still too few ability users.

‘If, and this is just hypothetically, but if we could mass produce the goggles…’

Until just a year ago, Earth’s population had surpassed 8 billion.

Though many countries were destroyed and billions died after monsters appeared, even so, billions of people still remained on Earth.

If all those people became users, they might be able to stop the monster invasion.

“No, we definitely could stop it.”

Can’t get strong immediately.

Slow growth rate.

Such disadvantages could be overcome with overwhelming numbers.

Yuseong closed his eyes and began organizing in his mind plans for mass-producing and distributing the goggles, and the ripple effects that would arise in that process.

‘Just mass-producing goggles won’t be enough.’

The goggles were items that could freely cross dimensions and bring items and skills from other worlds.

If he mass-produced and distributed billions of such items, they might be able to stop the monster invasion, but it would surely cause even bigger problems afterward.

What if someone brought dangerous items or unknown viruses from other worlds?

What if billions of people all became as strong as Three Weak, Three Intermediates, or Three Strong level?

Making the goggles wasn’t difficult, but considering the countless problems that would arise, he needed to create safety measures in advance.

“…First I should confirm whether I can make the goggles.”

Finishing his thoughts, Yuseong put the broken goggles’ remains into his subspace and put on his own goggles.

Most skills engraved in the goggles are activated using magic power gathered through Magic Power Collection Engraving, but some skills like Universal Vision use karma as their energy source.

His current karma was 0 points.

To make goggles, he first needed to clear quests and gather karma.

[Accessing multi-dimensional exploration system.]

[Successfully observed quest.]

Normally he would have carefully chosen a quest considering various conditions like quest structure, difficulty, and compatibility.

But now humanity – no, he himself – had less than 3 months left.

Naturally, his criteria for selecting quests had to change as well.

‘As expected, there are no quests with Divine Fragments.’

After searching through the entire quest list, Yuseong let out a sigh.

He had hoped, but of course things wouldn’t be that easy.

“If the best option isn’t available, I have to choose the next best.”

Yuseong began searching for quests that gave the most karma possible.

‘I have more than enough items and skills. What I need now is karma.’

Through the battle in Tokyo this time, he had realized just how incredible a power karma was.

A power that could overturn causality and change reality.

Though it couldn’t match becoming a transcendent being, using karma might delay the time until he was consumed by the Outer God’s thoughts.

After rifling through the quest list for quite a while, Yuseong finally found a quest that met his conditions.

[One Day Suddenly]

-Civilization Classification: W-99

-Civilization Grade: 0.99

-Difficulty: S

-One day suddenly the sky opened, the earth crumbled, and calamities appeared. The calamities toyed with humanity using unbelievable power and abilities, and humanity ended up becoming the calamities’ playthings. Please defeat the calamities and save humanity from extinction.

-Clear Conditions

1. Deal with the calamities: 150,000,000 Karma, Calamity Fragment×1

-Additional Conditions

1. Overtime: 200,000,000 Karma and Calamity Fragment×1 for each additional calamity dealt with

An unbalanced quest with both the highest rank and simplest reward list among all quests he had seen so far.

Yuseong stared blankly at the quest information with half-closed eyes.

The [24-Member Suicide Squad Wanting to Escape from Demon Realm] quest that he had barely cleared after such hardship and thanks to Alice’s efforts was A+ rank, but [One Day Suddenly] was S rank, a full two levels higher.

Thinking rationally, he should choose an easier quest, but the clear conditions of [One Day Suddenly] caught Yuseong’s attention.

“It ends just by dealing with the calamities?”

Though not always true, generally as quest difficulty increases, the clear conditions become more difficult as well.

Low rank quests have simple clear conditions like escaping from somewhere or teaching someone a lesson, so they can be resolved quickly and easily.

In contrast, high rank quests have complex and difficult clear conditions like finding hidden treasures without any clues, or finding a way back to the original world from the middle of another world crawling with trillions of enemies, so they inevitably take considerable time.

Yet the [One Day Suddenly] quest, despite being S rank, had a very simple condition like low rank quests – just deal with the targets.

‘If the calamities aren’t hiding somewhere or running away from fights, I can finish the quest instantly.’

He was lacking in many ways to challenge an S rank quest.

He had no karma points so retries were impossible, and using skills or items would convert directly to negative karma points so he would have to risk penalties.

But the single advantage of time outweighed all those disadvantages.

Recalling his appearance as the Outer God’s puppet, Yuseong gave a bitter smile and selected the quest.

[‘One Day Suddenly’ is starting]

[Initiating Deus Ex Machina Program]

[Dimensional coordinates specified and Ariadne’s Thread connection complete]

[Initiating spirit particle transfer]

* * *

When his vision changed, the first thing that came into view was the scene of a ruined city.

Gloomy sky, collapsed buildings, broken roads and abandoned cars.

Realizing he was on a building rooftop, Yuseong immediately lay prone.

-Wh-what? Why is my body moving on its own?

“Shh.”

-Wait, don’t tell me I’ve been hit by a mental attack? No! If I stay like this, the operation will…

Though it was a brief exchange, he could tell there were beings capable of mental attacks in this city and that the client was carrying out some kind of operation.

Once it was confirmed hostile entities were present, Yuseong immediately shut his mouth and just moved his eyes.

Users are most vulnerable in the moment when a quest starts and synchronization is in progress.

Normally he might act a bit more boldly since retries were possible, but this time one death would be the end.

-Ugh! When did I get hit? Wake up! Wake up! Please wake up! I can’t stay like this!

Yuseong let the client’s words go in one ear and out the other while focusing all his attention on observing the city.

However, Yuseong was watching completely the wrong direction.

Woooooo!

‘Kuh?!’

An unpleasant howl that seemed to echo from the depths of hell shook his brain.

Grasping his shaking consciousness, Yuseong realized the sound came from above and hurriedly turned to look at the sky.

And blankly muttered.

“…A brain?”

A massive brain was floating leisurely through the sky.