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Chapter 96. Cerulean Being (4)
By the time I regained consciousness and opened my eyes, it was already dark outside the window.
There was still a strong smell of alcohol deep in my throat, so I felt nauseous just by swallowing my saliva.
Perhaps, the reunion with my friends that I hadn’t met for a long time was good enough to make me drink a little too much.
Now that I thought back about it, it felt like we only drank a load of alcohol, and didn’t have any meaningful conversation.
‘It’s been a while.’
‘How have you been?’
After that, the conversations were all half-playing with words, just as we knew each other in high school.
Of course, there were some times that we had some serious conversations.
Who could’ve known that drinking alcohol after not drinking for a long time could feel this awful?
Obviously, if I knew beforehand, I wouldn’t have drunk that much.
Someone's loud voice erupted from the laptop over and over again.
Seeing that I couldn't get up even though the volume was so loud, I could understand why people suffering from insomnia drink alcohol to fall asleep.
In a dark room, the blurry laptop screen started to become more apparent as time passed.
I cautiously got up and started walking toward my laptop.
Bump.
The shopping bags that had been thrown on the floor without being organized got caught on my feet.
The remnants of my desires are all gathered here, after doing all the things I hadn’t been able to do for the past few days.
All I had left now were dozens of clothes and my intoxicated body from alcohol.
Obviously, suddenly getting a huge amount of money for me, who was an ordinary college student who worked part-time while preparing for job interviews, didn’t mean that I could enjoy the wonderful life that appeared on TV or in novels right away.
I would be able to live the life I dreamed of only if I have a more detailed and well-designed plan.
I am still sloppy and without a plan.
I didn’t have anything like superhuman vitality or intelligence accompanied with brilliant senses that Mose possessed.
For Lee KiHo, who is almost independent of his parents, has nobody to support him such as Khea.
The reality was a problem that I had to go through on my own.
The dorm room that I had already complained about for its small size suddenly looked so huge.
Could it be because I felt like a small being after such thoughts?
As I crossed upon various thoughts after looking at the shopping bags on the floor,
The loud noises coming from my laptop became clearer for me to listen.
[Ah..., another airship falls from the sky once again. According to the local breaking news, 'The Horace of Sanpetus escaped with about 360 NPC survivors, but it was eventually sunk.]
[It would be better to think that Lundebarun is already taken over by the cerulean beings, that is, an alien race called the Rebaccans.]
The two anchors were talking seriously in a gloomy atmosphere.
We will inform you of the status of the quest that has occurred so far. On the quest window, it is specified that 12,000 Rebaccans had been annihilated. Since they still have an overwhelming number of 1.5 million, the damage of 12,000 can be considered very minor.]
[Fortunately, the future for this quest can be seen as positive, as players who have improved a lot compared to the previous quests continue to engage in active battles in the form of guerrilla warfare.]
Behind the anchor's appearance, the scene of the entirety of Lundebarun burning down to ashes could be seen.
And a moment later.
Fragments of the crashed airships were caught on the screen.
It wasn’t just one or two ships.
It was reasonable to view what was captured on the screen as a ‘Tomb of Ships’.
[Are you aware of the most famous player online named, ‘Mose’?]
[Yes, the in-game information guild already recognized his existence and accepted it as very reliable information, and that became a hot issue for a while, correct?]
[According to the previous ‘witness testimony’,  it seems that the ‘golden ship’ presumed to be owned by ‘Mose’ was also taken down. That is quite unfortunate. It is said that the ship also jumped in to rescue the survivors left in Lundebarun.]
[It's really mournful that even the only player-owned airship  was shot down this quickly.]
What are they talking about?
Before I could even notice, I was on my knees and eye-level with the laptop screen.
Sky Lord was shot down?
The two people on the screen clearly said something like that. However, when I looked at the pier of Lundebarun...
No.
She must’ve, Khea must’ve gotten out of Lundebarun safe.
Could it be that she went back?
[While the ‘player hatred’,  which is quickly becoming a huge problem in the Circuit these days, is getting worse and worse, I'm afraid that the actions of a player named Mose, who had been ventilating within this unsettling atmosphere between the players and NPCs in the middle would come to an end in such way.]
[It is strongly suggested to stay alert as there are a lot of cases where users in certain areas hear severe insults and profanities from the NPCs, or get kidnapped, imprisoned, or even assaulted in recent days.]
[It is my hope that the players will solve this quest as soon as possible so that the perception of NPCs on players will be improved.]
[The information guild has revealed that the cause of this quest also has to be investigated to find out the truth, correct?]
[That is indeed correct. There is a high probability that it will turn out to be an incident committed by a player. In that case, the player hate problem is likely to get worse.]
[In any way, there must be individuals or groups who belong to the ‘the formidables’ who can add strength to the current situation among the NPCs. It is a mystery that they still hadn’t shown any movements at all.]
Nothing came into my ears after listening to that.
It felt as if the sound of my heartbeat was getting further away from my ears.
It felt as if a certain string that was interconnecting my body and the brain had just been cut off.
Khea,
Is a very altruistic person.
And she is strong enough to be altruistic.
And it is obvious that she could not ignore the pain and suffering people were receiving in the burning fields of Lundebarun.
Right.
She must’ve decided to do her best to save her others.
And so, she tried to save and rescue the survivors of Lundebarun with Sky Lord, prepared even for death, and
And...
“Why...”
My hands were already touching the floor before I could even realize it.
My insides roared like the intense waves of the sea being swept by a thunderstorm.
Soon everything started to look blurry again.
And my mind became clear.
I remembered her eyes that took me by completely breathless.
We would have conversations as I looked into her beautiful, ever-so emerald green eyes.
I remembered her tendency to love reading in the corner of a room with a blanket to cover her.
She had grown up to be strong despite her bitter and unfortunate past.
She’d come to see me every time I logged on with a tea made from the kefile leaves, with a strange scent of flowers.
Khea, your image has become clear in my mind.
“Why...”
Something fell on the palm of my right hand.
And another one on the other side,
Again on the right...
“No...”
I had to see it for myself.
To find out if I can’t ever see her again.
To find out if she can’t smile along with me anymore.
I had to see her myself to confirm her death.
Only then, I’d be able to accept the truth.
I hurriedly raised my upper body like a spring.
Large teardrops fell from my eyes as a result of the recoil.
Shopping bags clung to my feet and were scattered on the floor.
Not giving a single piece of my attention to them, I laid my body on the connector.
A soft light shone from below the connector.
Then, in an instant, I felt a temperature appropriate to my body temperature on my back.
[Enter sleep mode.]
No,
“Connect.”
[You cannot connect to the game.]
“Connect!”
[You cannot connect to the game.]
“Connect...!! Please... Please...!”
[You cannot connect to the game.]
I cried and shouted out loud on the connector. Every time I spoke with my mouth open, tears ran down from the corners of my eyes.
However, the connector only returned the answer that it was impossible in a cold and dry tone.
***
Reaper Scans
[Translator - Dawn]
[Proofreader - Karane]
Join our Discord for updates on releases! https://dsc.gg/reapercomics
***
Khea had never seen a player come back to life from death.
In fact, it was like that for everyone including her.
It would be more specific to say that they had never seen the ‘process of resurrection’.
Nobody knew how that one player who was stabbed to death came back to life and was seen walking down the Asparagan Square with a smile on his face.
For that reason, people including Khea couldn’t explain this phenomenon other than saying that it was ‘the blessing of Bellica’.
Khea too couldn’t explain the phenomenon to Mose in any other way than that.
It was only after she met Mose that Khea became interested in the aforementioned blessing of Bellica.
In fact, the books that she was reading after having conversations with Mose were all about immortals.
But she would always put books that weren’t related scattered around her in order to prevent Mose from finding this out.
‘7 days of twisted time.’
That was one of the precious pieces of information that she found in the books. That was the amount of time needed for the immortals, the players, to return to this world after death.
After 7 normal days had passed, Khea had experienced great despair.
However, in other words, the 7 days mentioned in the book did not simply mean 7 days.
She was able to find confidence once more.
In the cases of Swordsman, and Guile, it took even longer for them to return due to the extraordinary circumstances of the temples destroyed by Lidornn.
However, she believed that Mose would return back to her firmly, since this was not the case for Mose, nor there were zero extraordinary circumstances to take into consideration.
‘Khea, from here on, the clouds are heavier than steel, and the thunder blows like the wind.”
Elsha's urgent voice came out from inside the hull shaking violently.
Khea was barely standing on the floor while holding onto the handrail beside her as she spoke softly as a stream of cold sweat ran down the nape of her neck.
“Please hold on for a bit more, we’re almost there.”
* * *
“Their levels got higher all of a sudden.”
“I think there’s a buffer boss monster on the inside.”
“Well, let’s just repeat the same tactic over and over until the ‘order’ arrives.”
“Why aren’t we still receiving orders?”
A single candle faintly drenched the middle of the darkness with light as it was shaking precariously.
The candle flickered simply by the people around it talking as it barely defeated the darkness around it.
“But at least we will find out using this as the chance.”
“Find what out?”
“What do you think? I mean ‘players like us’.”
“Guess you have a point. It’s about time that they appear. If we get the ‘order’ that would mean that players like that had appeared.”
“I’d love to see that player named ‘Mose’.”
“Do you really think a person like that would really show up that easily?”
“He did always appear out of nowhere, right?”
The candle continued to flicker as they talked in the narrow space they were in.
“I heard that ManJuk is also a player to be recognized. He can pump up his strength up to 400% with his own buffs.”
“What about Wine?”
“Hmph, that guild master of Watch Tower? Personally, I think he’s pretty useful, but the people in his guild are pretty trash. You can even call that guild an ‘one man army’.”
“And Kellion?”
“He stopped posting on the threads recently. Either he decided to leave the thread, or he’s stuck in here somewhere.”
“There’s gotta be more monstrous people than that out there...”
“Anyways, these are the most notable ones.”
“But the one that really intrigues me the most is Mose.”
“I can agree with that!”
“I don’t know honestly. Maybe his fame ranking is that high only because of all the attention that he gathered from the events or something, and he himself isn’t really anything to be impressed by.”
“We will have to find out soon or later.”
“Well, let us disband for now. We do have to keep a certain amount of occupation rate so let us maintain that.”
“Aight.”
A moment later,
“Ru’MU!”
As a loud resounding voice echoed through the room, the candle that was barely withstanding was instantly put off.
However, the space was lit up despite the fact that the only source of light in the area had been put off.
In a dense forest, on a relatively flat floor, six players surrounding the table appeared.
The branches swayed from the fierce wind that swept through the trees.
“No matter how many times I see that skill, it seems so useless, no?”
One of the players complained to the other player that was just about to put the table back into the inventory.
However, the player with especially bright eyes that had put the table back into the inventory raised his voice in rage.
“Useless? This is the ‘party group chat’ that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Circuit, y’know!? It’s a skill that creates a space for myself after completely excluding external environmental factors!”
“It’d be useful when you’re dating elves or something. You’d be able to get ahead super quick!’
Then, this time, the other user responded with a hoarse voice with a smile.
“Anyways, let’s disband.”
With that short phrase, all of the players disappeared like the wind.