Chapter 8

The brilliant light and floating sensation now felt almost familiar.

When he opened his eyes, instead of collapsed building debris and orc hordes, he saw an oriental-style palace hall.

‘Second time, no, strictly speaking the 1001st time. This time…’

Looking down at himself, Yuseong let out a sigh of relief.

Though he didn’t know what problems he’d have to solve in this world, just being in a man’s body made him feel lighter somehow.

“Glory to the Heavenly Demon! Ten thousand years prosperity!”

“Ahem!”

Hearing voices from beyond the door, Yuseong cleared his throat to buy time.

Just as he was about to act according to the situation to draw out more detailed information, a new message appeared.

[An unknown force is interfering with synchronization]

[Restarting Deus Ex Machina Program]

[Synchronization restarting…failed…restarting…failed]

[Synchronization has failed]

‘…What?’

While he was bewildered by this unfamiliar message, his mouth moved independently of his will.

“What’s the situation?”

“The hypocrites of the Murim Alliance and remnants of the Unorthodox Alliance have reached our doorstep! The elders are leading our forces with the Black Cloud Unit, Blood Sky Asura Squad, and the great masters of the Demon Valley fighting to the death, but they cannot hold back the Heavenly Sword Emperor and Crimson Blood Demonic Sovereign!”

“Fall back.”

“Yes, my lord!”

Receding footsteps.

After a long while, the man’s mouth opened.

“So what do you think?”

-……

“Can you not hear this one’s words? Or are you ignoring them?”

-…Are you talking to me right now?

“Your voice is too faint.”

[Synchronization in progress]

-I temporarily relinquished control. Though it pains me to entrust my body to a mere commoner, given the situation there was no choice.

“Uh, is that something you can just do as you please?”

-Please?

“…sir?”

-For one such as I who has reached the level of Demi-God and achieved the realm of Heaven Communication, it is no difficult matter.

Though terms like Demi-God and Heaven Communication were completely foreign, just the fact that he could arbitrarily reject a system capable of exploring countless worlds and possessing bodies across dimensions made it clear this was no ordinary level.

Name: Hae Cheongyeong

Class: Demon Sect Leader

Level: 999

Title: Heaven-Communicating Divine Demon

Strength: 955

Agility: 1122

Wisdom: 2144

Constitution: 1211

Internal Energy: 3252

Magic Power: 3767

Skills: Demi-God(S-), Heaven Communication(S-), Heavenly Demon Body(S-), Heavenly Demon Divine Art(S-), Yang Spirit Art(A+), Ten Thousand Poison Immunity(A+), Diamond Indestructible Body(A+), Five Elements Mutual Reinforcement(A+), Transcendent Twelve Swords(A+)…

‘What are these insane stats?!’

Seeing the four-digit stats and skills filled with S and A ranks, Yuseong felt an indescribable terror.

‘High stats aren’t necessarily good! If someone with these stats finds it impossible, just how crazy is this situation? World War? Demon King revival? Since this is the martial world, is someone trying to conquer it? I clicked something in a hurry but I’m sure the rank wasn’t that high?’

Checking the quest window, Yuseong could only become more bewildered.

[The Final Moment of the Heavenly Demon Sect]

-Civilization Classification: B-15

-Civilization Grade: 0.99

-Difficulty: F

-The entire martial world has united to prevent the 49th Sect Leader of the Heavenly Demon Sect, Hae Cheongyeong, from ascending. Please help buy time until the Sun-Moon Ritual can be completed and help Hae Cheongyeong ascend while protecting against the invasion by the Murim Alliance led by the Heavenly Sword Emperor and the Unorthodox Alliance led by the Crimson Blood Demonic Sovereign.

-Clear Conditions

1. Hold out until the Sun-Moon Ritual completes: 10,000 Karma, Great Revival Pill x1

Looking at just the situation, it seemed incredibly hopeless.

The Murim Alliance and Unorthodox Alliance, representative organizations of the righteous and evil factions commonly appearing in martial arts fiction, had joined forces to attack.

However, for such a dangerous situation…

‘The difficulty seems too low?’

“Please, Anyone, Help Me!” had difficulty rank E, but this was even lower at F rank with much better rewards, which seemed suspiciously odd.

-What this one seeks from you is wisdom.

“Wisdom?”

-If this one were to act directly, dealing with those two youngsters, the Heavenly Sword Emperor and Crimson Blood Demonic Sovereign, would be no difficult matter. However, right now this one is performing the Sun-Moon Ritual and cannot leave this place nor properly use power.

“Um, couldn’t we first stop the Sun-Moon Ritual, deal with the enemies, then do it again later?”

-Once in a thousand years. The Sun-Moon Ritual gathers the essence of sun, moon and stars when the celestial cycles align to create divine energy. Miss this chance and we must wait another millennium, so the ritual absolutely cannot be stopped. We need a way to stop the invaders without this one’s direct intervention.

Only then did Yuseong understand why the difficulty was so low.

Unlike [Please, Anyone, Help Me!], while the situation was unfavorable, the protagonist’s abilities were more than sufficient to resolve it if they chose to, hence the low difficulty rating.

-I’ve called many users before, but all have failed. I hope you will be different.

“W-wait. Users? Did you just say users?”

-I mean those who take up the same profession as you.

“Wait. Do you perhaps know more details about these users?”

Hoping to get hints about the goggles from the word “user” that shouldn’t appear in a martial arts world, Yuseong was firmly shut down by Hae Cheongyeong.

-This one called you to find a way out of this situation, not for idle chatter.

“Then if I find a solution, will you answer my questions?”

-If it’s something this one knows, certainly.

“Hmm.”

Simply thinking about it, they could try using subordinates to hold them off, but if it were that easy they wouldn’t have needed to call these “users.”

Though Yuseong had only cleared one quest so far, looking at the descriptions of the numerous quests in the list, he realized they had one thing in common.

That was that the quest difficulties were impossible to overcome with just the protagonist’s abilities alone.

‘No, not impossible. Maybe like 0.1% possible?’

Since he did solve it after nearly a thousand attempts, more precisely it would be “nearly impossible” rather than completely impossible.

“…May I ask a few things?”

-It seems you didn’t properly hear this one’s words. This one clearly said idle chatter would not be permitted, did I not?

“These aren’t idle questions. They’re questions. They say know your enemy and know yourself and you’ll never be in peril in a hundred battles, but right now all I know is that you can’t move from this spot and enemies are flooding in to stop the Sun-Moon Ritual. How can I come up with any solutions in this situation?”

-Hmph, currently the sect’s remaining forces include First Elder Yi Hosan, a half-human half-demon master of the Manifest realm, and Iron Armor Demon Fist, Ten Thousand Poison Demon, Blood Swo…

“Ah, that’s not what I want to know. What good would it do someone ignorant of military tactics like me to know such things?”

A place like the Heavenly Demon Sect must have at least one brilliant strategist who dedicated their life to military tactics and strategy, yet they posted this quest – meaning even such strategists failed to stop the enemies.

So how could someone like himself who knew nothing of military tactics possibly command troops to stop them?

‘That approach is absolutely impossible. Maybe if I had infinite retries like with Alice, but that was only possible due to the beginner’s benefit and my rank is now Novice Solver. I don’t know if Novice Solver gets any benefits, but considering they sell quest retry rights in that Karma Shop, I should assume I only get one chance.’

To break through a 0.1% probability with just one attempt, the first step is clearly recognizing and distinguishing what is and isn’t possible.

-Then what exactly do you want to ask?

“First, I’d like to know exactly how many days we need to hold out.”

-Fifteen days.

“How long until the enemies arrive?”

-Three days.

Though it seemed an impossible situation no matter how he looked at it, Yuseong maintained an expressionless face as he continued questioning.

“You mentioned earlier users who failed. I’d like to hear what methods they tried and how they failed.”

-Nine attempts failed trying to defeat the enemy through strategy and tactics. Eleven attempts failed trying to buy time using abilities and items from other worlds. Finally, two gave up saying it could be solved but wasn’t worth the cost. That’s roughly it.

“What do you mean it wasn’t worth the cost?”

-It means the karma required to solve this would exceed the karma gained from solving it. They mentioned something about android armies and orbital weapons? Said those would definitely work but the cost-benefit ratio made no sense.

“…That would certainly work. But what is this ‘karma’?”

-Simply put, it’s a spiritual resource. Called by various names like karma, causality, interference power, faith, influence… Wait, why are you asking this? Aren’t you a user?

“Ah, karma…”

Hearing the familiar word, Yuseong opened his inventory window and gave a bitter smile.

[Current Karma: 0]

-Smartphone(D): 1,000

‘If a mere smartphone costs 1000 points, I can’t even imagine how many points android armies or orbital weapons would cost.’

The karma reward for completing the quest was only 5000 points.

Even accounting for bonuses, the cost would clearly far exceed the reward.

“Is there a way to abandon quests partway through, since you mentioned users giving up?”

-Your questions seem to be going off track. Don’t you think?

“Ack! I-I’m sorry!”

-I’ll forgive it once. But there won’t be a second time.

Feeling intense pain rising in a corner of his mind, Yuseong apologized without hesitation.

There was no benefit in provoking a being beyond common sense who could arbitrarily stop and control synchronization.

“Is it impossible to gather all the sect’s forces to stop the enemies?”

-The numbers are roughly even, but they have the Heavenly Sword Emperor and Crimson Blood Demonic Sovereign. Even if Elder Yi Hosan handles one, we absolutely cannot stop the other.

“What about sending envoys to negotiate?”

-No matter what conditions we offer, those hypocrites of the righteous path and dregs of the Unorthodox Alliance would never allow our sect to produce an ascendant.

They must have already tried all conventional methods in this world.

What was needed now was a special solution that only users from other worlds could conceive.

“What about taking civilians hostage to threaten them?”

-Though they sing of righteousness and honor on the surface, martial artists are no different from back alley thugs on the inside. Do you think those bastards would hesitate over three or four hostages?

“Who said anything about three or four?”

-Hm?

“If we’re going to do it, let’s do it big. Let’s take an entire village or city’s worth of people hostage. Even they would hesitate with thousands or tens of thousands of lives at stake, right?”

-……

Even Hae Cheongyeong, the Demon Sect Leader said to be devoid of blood or tears, was momentarily struck speechless by this outrageous scheme that could only come from someone from another world with absolutely no sense of belonging to this world or the Heavenly Demon Sect.

-Are you serious?

“Do I look like I’m joking? Quickly tell me if you think it would work or not.”

-It might have been possible with more time, but they’ve already entered Shinkang territory. The only people we could take hostage now are sect believers, which wouldn’t be effective. Come to think of it, it’s quite a good strategy – what a shame.

“Then…”

From borderline delusional schemes that didn’t even merit a bitter laugh to fresh conceptual strategies possible only to otherworlders, Yuseong voiced every thought that came to mind without hesitation, while Hae Cheongyeong systematically pointed out why each wouldn’t work.

As the endless back-and-forth continued until the sun’s position changed and Hae Cheongyeong’s voice grew increasingly lower showing his patience wearing thin, Yuseong swallowed dryly and spoke.

“Let me ask one final thing.”

-What is it?

Through 999 failures in “Please, Anyone, Help Me!”, Yuseong realized these quests were impossible to clear with ordinary or even somewhat special ideas.

To achieve something near impossible required thoughts transcending common sense, and the determination and madness to see those thoughts through to the end.

“Would you be willing to sacrifice the Heavenly Demon Sect for the Sun-Moon Ritual?”

And fortunately, Yuseong possessed all three.