Nothing to Lose

It didn’t take long to learn about the real world.

While the man was eager to share information, the main reason was that the real world’s history wasn’t much different from the virtual world’s.

One day suddenly, monsters began appearing across the world with the Great Disaster, and humanity united to fight them off.

Then true monsters called calamities, which couldn’t be stopped by human power, appeared and humanity rapidly declined.

Even the order in which the calamities appeared was identical – Brain Eater, Mad Magician, Leviathan, Magical Girl of Death, and Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

But everything after that was different.

“…After realizing they could never defeat the calamities, humanity gave up resistance. They had to choose between two paths – surrender to the calamities or live in hiding.”

Unlike other calamities whose behavior patterns were unpredictable and who killed and destroyed anything noticeable, Brain Eater possessed high intelligence and accepted surrender.

The problem was the conditions of surrender.

Brain Eater demanded a steady supply of human brains, its food source, in exchange for sparing a small portion of humanity and protecting them from other calamities.

Extinction or survival of the species.

Though there was fierce debate and conflict, the answer was ultimately predetermined.

Humanity chose species survival and received Brain Eater’s protection by sacrificing their own kind.

“There weren’t any problems at first. Since Lord Brain Eater…”

“Lord?”

Grip.

“…Since Brain Eater only ate about 1,000 brains per day.”

“You’re saying sacrificing 1,000 people per day wasn’t a problem?”

“In-in those days, tens or hundreds of thousands of people were dying every day from calamity and monster attacks! 1,000 people per day only amounts to 365,000 per year – that’s hardly a problem in comparison!”

“Are you yelling at me right now?”

Squeeze!

“I’m sorry! I must have gone mad for a moment!”

“…Lower your voice and continue explaining.”

“Y-yes. So there weren’t any problems at first. But issues arose as time passed.”

In peaceful times, sacrificing 1,000 people per day wouldn’t have been a burden when the population was in the billions.

However, as casualties mounted daily from calamity and monster attacks and the population kept decreasing, that number of 1,000 per day became an increasingly heavy burden.

Initially, they attacked other survivor groups to gather sacrifices, but that had its limits. As Brain Eater’s demanded brain count gradually increased, maintaining the system through hunting and gathering alone became impossible.

Though the situation was hopeless, humanity eventually found an answer.

Like their ancestors before them, they advanced from hunting and gathering to the next stage.

“The next stage after hunting and gathering?”

“A-agriculture and livestock farming. Creating human brains to offer to Brain Eater through artificial insemination.”

“…Then what’s the virtual reality for?”

“Brain Eater didn’t particularly like artificially cultivated human brains. It preferred trained and developed brains. So virtual reality was used to stimulate and develop the brains…”

“…”

The man who had been earnestly explaining fell silent as the atmosphere grew cold.

Alice glared at him without saying a word.

Though Alice typically maintained a cold mindset of not caring what happened to anyone besides Yuseong, she couldn’t maintain her composure hearing about people in similar circumstances to her past self.

If Yuseong hadn’t asked the next question, she would have lost control of her anger and cut off the man’s head.

“What is this facility?”

“I-it’s an island that Brain Eater keeps floating with telekinesis. Basically it’s Brain Eater’s defensive structure and a weapon that amplifies telekinesis, while also serving as living quarters for those who surrendered to Brain Eater, as well as a production and cultivation facility for creating and growing human brains.”

“What’s the exact scale and structure?”

“5.3km in length, 320m in height. Around 200,000 people live here, and Brain Eater is in the center of the facility…”

A long silence followed after the man finished explaining.

After fully grasping the situation, Yuseong’s first thought was.

‘I should ask Alice to kill me. At least I won’t feel pain since I’m just a brain.’

Quests are inherently difficult.

Even F-rank quests, the lowest grade, are premised on situations that are difficult or impossible to resolve with just the client’s abilities, and both scale and difficulty increase exponentially as ranks go up.

Naturally, he expected the S-rank quest [One Day Suddenly] would be harder than any quest he’d undertaken so far.

‘But isn’t this going too far?’

First of all, it’s nearly impossible to realize this world is virtual rather than real.

Even Yuseong only managed to guess it was virtual because he’d seen movies depicting similar situations to Eye of Truth. In a world where even S-rank skills were naturally implemented, it would be nearly impossible to discover the truth with just the clue that spatial and mental abilities couldn’t be used.

Even after discovering it’s virtual, problems remain.

You have to find a way to escape from the virtual world to the real one, realize you’re just a brain in a container without any of your five senses, and find means to affect the outside world to escape the human farm.

Let’s say through incredible luck and skill you somehow overcome these four impossible walls?

Then finally, in your state as a brain in a container, you have to defeat at least one transcendent being or equivalent.

‘Are you kidding me? You want me to clear this?’

The difficulty made the A+ rank quest [24-Member Suicide Squad Wanting to Escape from Demon Realm] look like child’s play.

He could guarantee it.

This was absolutely impossible to clear.

S-rank quests don’t exist to be cleared.

They exist to show you ‘hey, such messed up worlds exist too.’

‘I should quickly give up and look for another quest…’

Yuseong, who was about to convey his wish for Alice to kill him, stopped the flow of spirit power.

The inventory window floating in a corner of his vision, or rather a corner of his mind.

The text showing negative 63,100,000 karma points burned deeply into his consciousness.

‘Fuck.’

Giving up wasn’t an option.

With that level of negative karma points, there would definitely be penalties.

Even if he was going to give up eventually, he had to try as much as possible first.

After contemplating, Yuseong used spirit power to form different letters instead of asking to be killed.

“…Have there been attempts to kill Brain Eater in this facility?”

200,000 people total.

It was hard to believe all those people were completely obedient and loyal to Brain Eater.

There must have been people who felt resentment, and likely some who tried to kill Brain Eater.

His guess seemed to hit the mark as the man spoke with a slightly bitter expression.

“Well, there were three or four attempts. People who thought dying was better than living like this attacked Brain Eater or committed acts of terrorism against the facility.”

“Were?”

“Yes, they all failed and each time Brain Eater punished everyone through collective responsibility, causing the population to decrease until people stopped resisting.”

‘Rallying dissatisfied elements for rebellion seems unrealistic.’

Just look at this man who used honorifics like ‘lord’ when first mentioning Brain Eater.

Though not everyone would be like that, it was safe to assume most people had already submitted to Brain Eater.

While threatening him for information might be possible, anything beyond that seemed difficult.

“How did they try to kill Brain Eater?”

“The first attempt was with bombs. Not long after surrendering, a hunter who had been capturing people found a nuclear backpack somewhere and approached Brain Eater to detonate it.”

“Did Brain Eater take any damage?”

“Of course not. It couldn’t even penetrate the telekinetic shield Brain Eater always maintains. Only people died.”

“What about other attempts?”

“They targeted feeding time. They put all sorts of poisons in the brains. This obviously failed too.”

Despite consuming enough poison to kill all of humanity several times over, Brain Eater took no damage.

“Finally, there was an attempt to bypass the telekinetic shield and directly damage Brain Eater’s interior by placing bombs inside brains.”

“That sounds like it might have worked.”

“No. It was caught midway. Brain Eater detected the foreign objects in the brains before they even got close. After that, no one tried to kill Brain Eater anymore.”

Explosions, poison, traps.

Nothing worked against Brain Eater.

While Yuseong was lost in thought, Alice spoke up.

“Mr. Yuseong, shall I try fighting it? I don’t know how strong this Brain Eater monster is, but I think my abilities would be enough to give it a try.”

-…No.

The virtual world’s Brain Eater was a monster among monsters with defense that could withstand nuclear strikes and attack power that could instantly reduce a city to dust.

Though he hadn’t seen the real world’s Brain Eater fight, judging by the fact that it could float an island containing over 200,000 people, it was clearly no weaker than its virtual counterpart, if not stronger.

Of course, Alice was no pushover either.

Hadn’t she not only fought equally but overwhelmed that elf woman who even Three Strong Kasim had struggled against?

‘But I’m not certain of victory.’

He’d already taken massive losses of over 63 million karma points.

If Alice were to suffer catastrophic damage here on top of that, he didn’t even want to think about what would follow.

Though Yuseong continued asking a few questions through Alice about other calamities and this world’s situation, he gained little insight.

‘The other calamities are just as strong as their virtual counterparts, humanity is on the brink of extinction so we can’t get help either. This is driving me crazy.’

Just like in the virtual world, Brain Eater was the relatively easiest opponent.

Unlike other calamities, at least approaching Brain Eater was possible.

‘What should I do? Should I really leave it to Alice? What if she gets broken? I need to find some other way…’

Suddenly a thought flashed through Yuseong’s mind like lightning.

-Ask if this world’s Brain Eater also takes the form of a brain.

“Does this world’s Brain Eater also take the form of a brain?”

“Except for the eyes and legs, it’s basically brain-shaped.”

“How does Brain Eater eat brains?”

“It absorbs them through tentacles.”

“How are they supplied? You don’t just serve them on plates, right?”

“There’s a massive pipe connected to Brain Eater. We put cultivated brains in there to send them to Brain Eater’s main body.”

Yuseong’s mind began spinning rapidly.

At first glance, it seemed like an absurd plan.

A hundred out of a hundred people would say it’s impossible.

But theoretically, it was quite possible.

‘The problem is there’s no way with the magic power I have now…’

Kim Ganghyeon’s magic power was only 25 points.

The plan would require far more magic power.

After checking which skills he could and couldn’t use by casting a few of them, Yuseong firmed his resolve.

‘Nothing to lose. Let’s give it a try.’