Chapter 9 (1/2)

Often, people have strange dreams. Call them dog dreams. A few cannot shake them off. There is nothing they can do. It is not reality. But it bothers them.

If multiple people have the same dream and acknowledge that they are not dreaming and that it is reality, they would work to figure out what the phenomenon is.

-[I killed 5 Kawods with a hammer.]

-[3 Gremlins.]

-[Everyone. My friend did not come back. I think he died there.]

-[Mine was to steal something weird.]

-[Same with me. I had to steal 2 eggs from Beck and it felt like I was shooting Mission Impossible.]

Tatak.

Cha Jun Sung looked through the conversation in the chat room on his blog.

As he had expected, there were a lot of people who had gone through what he did. It had not yet been reported on the news, but that was not far off from happening either.

-[I caught 21 Kawods by using cognate predators as bait. My goal was to escape, but there was nothing I could do because they were blocking the exit.]

-[Amazing!]

-[Are you a UFC world champion or something? How could someone catch 21?]

-[Don’t lie.]

“I can’t believe it either ok.”

Cha Jun Sung had been learning fencing since he was young, and added boxing in order to maintain his health while playing Life Mission. Had that helped?

Reading the text in the chat room, it seemed the average time getting in and out was 3 hours. It was fast because they had only faced 5 to 6 Kawods.

“Some people had an easy time while some spent an entire day on it. That’s pretty shitty.”

The day after his return, he read the manual. If he spent a day inside the mission, a day passed in real life as well. It was an exact 1:1 ratio.

It was important that he could not bring items from reality into the briefing room or mission location. The helper decides what is allowed and what is not.

-[Will you go again?]

Cha Jun Sung thought for a second before texting back.

-[I’m going to go. Why?]

-[Hey fake Overload, you haven’t gone into the store yet, right? Try going in.]

Cha Jun Sung looked at the PDA on his wrist. It was a piece of equipment with a lot of functions. There were so many that he could not even list them all.

‘Alright let’s open it.’

He did not open the store as people expected him to. He was curious, but had completely forgotten about it with his thoughts about whether or not he would go again.

Ping.

He operated the PDA. A clear hologram and a list window flashed.

-[Store: Level D]

-[Equipment] [Food] [Medicine] [Materials] [Reinforcements] [Synthesis] [Transformation] [Miscellaneous] [Body Modification] [Daily Necessities]

The list became more detailed when he clicked on a menu item. For example, if he went into Equipment, there was Weapon and Armor.

-[Did you open it?]

-[Yes.]

-[There are a lot of things on the menu, but try going into just one. Go into Materials.]

Cha Jun Sung went into Materials. A motley of materials made him dizzy. There was a wide variety of materials. Most of them were strange.

-[Try typing precious metals or gems in the search window. You’ll be surprised.]

He tried searching precious metals. Platinum, gold, silver, etc. – they were sold by weight.

-[Gold 100g: 100 points]

-[Description: Material that goes into item synthesis, reinforcement, and transformation.]

“Was the price of gold $5,000 for 100g? The reward for the tutorial was 100 points. No, it would be 150 points for 150g since he had killed a bunch of mutants. He had earned $7,500 in one go. So in the end, it was money?”

$7,500.

It is too little to change a person’s life, but it was more than a month’s wages at a good job. This was a world where people would sell their souls for money.

High risk, high return. Even if it was a hell where people had to risk their lives, there would be plenty of people willing to do it as long as the return was appropriate.

-[If you become strong with the equipment, money comes in. It’s an opportunity!]

-[I agree!]

-[If you go through body modification and use the battle shoot, you’re a walking one-man army! An opportunity in Life Mission! Let’s fly our employment worries to Andromeda!]

-[I bought 50g of gold with 50 points. $2,500 is in my hand!]