Clack! Ding-ring—Hearing the sound of the door lock engaging, I staggered and untied my shoelaces.
“Finally… home…”
[16:00]
The time displayed on my smartphone screen was 4 PM.
I had just finished the first meeting of the Begin Again Project and was finally returning home.
I felt utterly drained from head to toe.
Maybe because I had lived as a hermit for years, every single minute I spent outside felt like my HP was dropping in real-time.
Then—
ᅳDing!
My phone lit up with a message notification.
[Moon Ari: Creator! Thank you so much for today! I’m truly grateful for this opportunity and honestly so happy!] — 1 minute ago
[Moon Ari: I will do my best so that everyone who listens to my song can resonate with the ‘Little World’ you gave me! Fighting~!] — 1 minute ago
It was a message from Moon Ari.
I faintly smiled and threw myself onto the bed.
These days, every day felt different.
Unlike the past five years, when I shut myself away and let each day slip by.
‘…Overall, it feels like things are moving in a good direction.’
I tapped my phone to reply to Moon Ari.
[Creator: I will support you until the end. Fighting.] — 1 minute ago
[Moon Ari: Waaah! Fightinggg!! ^~^b!!!] — 1 minute ago
The reply came instantly, bursting with energy as always.
Even during the business meeting, Moon Ari was so lively that she never paused a moment in conversation.
Thanks to her passionate attitude, I found myself naturally encouraged.
After entering my room, I stretched lightly and stood before my desk.
The Little World, overflowing with diverse sources that don’t exist in the real world.
Thanks to that, from now on, not only songs but also food, paintings, and various artistic Mutube contents would flood in.
“…Feels like things are only going to get busier from here on.”
But this was just a side job.
My main job was being the Creator.
I smiled faintly and reached out toward the fortress icon on my desk.
—Ding!
[System]
- Entering the Little World ‘Fortress’!
As my hand reached for the fortress icon, a sensation of being pulled into a massive whirlpool enveloped my entire body.
“…I guess I’m getting used to this feeling too.”
After blinking twice, the familiar scenery of Rivera unfolded before me.
At the same time, the system window appeared in front of my eyes.
—Ding!
[System]
- The devotees have sent offerings!
‘…Come to think of it, it’s about time for Rivera to send offerings.’
A miraculous battle where a force of about 100 troops won overwhelmingly against a monster army at least five times their size.
Since the Great Victory of Rivera, all residents of Rivera had become devotees who followed the Creator.
[Number of devotees: 2,400]
The number of devotees had now exceeded 2,000.
With such explosive growth in devotees, it was natural for the amount of offerings to increase noticeably.
However, the problem was…
[System]
- Would you like to accept the offerings? …… (Y/N)
- Offering: Food ingredients x 2,570
- Origin: Fortress World Rivera
I swallowed dryly and carefully tapped on the ‘Food ingredients x 2,570’ offering slot.
Immediately, lists of various food ingredients offered by the devotees filled the system window, scrolling endlessly without end.
[Offering List]
- Potatoes 240
- Sweet potatoes 120
- Corn 94
- Apples 43
- Peaches 55
These were food offerings sent individually by the 2,400 devotees of both the Sanctuary and Rivera combined.
Staring at the list, which stretched like a long receipt from a grocery store, I quietly pressed the reject button.
Then.
「Almighty Creator! We humbly beseech you to please accept our offerings!」
As soon as I rejected the offerings, a reaction came immediately.
In the central square of Fortress City Rivera, a clergyman was kneeling before an altar piled high with ingredients, crying out loud.
Soon, all the devotees of Rivera knelt down, repeating the clergyman’s words in unison.
「God, please accept the offerings!」
「Please accept them!」
「Please, sir, we beg you!」
「We implore you!」
The devotees of Rivera brought offerings like this every week.
The problem was that most of the offerings sent were food.
Apparently, after hearing that Sanctuary residents offered food ingredients on a regular basis, Rivera’s people followed suit.
Aside from the royalty, nobles, and a few wealthy people, the majority of the Franz Kingdom’s citizens suffered severe food shortages.
Therefore, offering food was a demonstration of deep faith.
‘…No matter what, you should accept an appropriate amount.’
The weekly food offerings I received in the Sanctuary before had been just enough for me to eat alone.
Anything left over, I would freeze or plant in the backyard garden.
But with thousands of devotees suddenly sending food bombs all at once, the situation was different.
Thanks to my Creator Level having risen, I could now receive food offerings in their original size intact.
Last time, I had forgotten this and accepted them without realizing, and my room was soon packed with food ingredients.
I had no choice but to register the items on ‘Carrot Market,’ a popular secondhand market recently, and sell them.
But food has an expiration date.
Most of the piled-up food offerings ended up spoiled and thrown away.
If this continued, I’d end up spending more on garbage bags for food waste than anything else.
I tried hinting to the devotees of Rivera that it was okay not to send food offerings, but they stubbornly insisted that they couldn’t offer anything worthless to the God and kept sending food anyway.
‘…Can being too faithful actually become a problem?’
Unless I proposed alternative offerings to replace food first, this problem would never end.
‘I already have one idea in mind, though…’
Ding-ring! Ding-ring!
At that moment, the old-fashioned ringtone on my phone rang loudly.
[Faith Gem Appraisal Center Madam]
It was a call from the Madam of the Faith Gem Appraisal Center at Dongdaemun Market.
“…I’ve been waiting for this!”
It was a welcome call.
I quickly pressed the call button, and soon Madam’s gruff voice burst out.
- [Hey! You rascal—!]
A hearty phrase reminiscent of a grumbling grandmother at a soup restaurant.
I quickly pulled the phone away from my ear and said,
“H-H… sorry. It was urgent. Did the package arrive safely?”
- [Damn it… who the hell sends gemstones packed inside a plastic water bottle! If you’re going to do that, at least wrap it with bubble wrap! What the hell do you mean by sending it through a convenience store courier!]
The package I sent to Madam contained lots of gem particles stuffed into an empty water bottle lying around the house, and then casually packed into a cardboard box also lying around.
‘Looking back, I guess it did seem pretty rough.’
I’d been too busy these past few days to do better.
By the way, you’re probably wondering what kind of gems these were? That was…
- [Just try sending it like that again! You think you can just cross the River Jordan with a free pass! Anyway, these are all natural emerald raw stones! Pretty high purity too! Where did you even get these to send them?!]
Natural emeralds.
They were the green crystals that brightly illuminated the interior when we cleared the Greenwood Dungeon.
I had some devotees mine the green crystals and sent them to Madam for appraisal.
“I’m really sorry about the water bottle. Next time, I’ll bring real, truly delicious and fresh fruits and vegetables grown in the garden!”
I wasn’t planning to just offload the food offerings I received from the Little World.
I intended to bring carefully selected, truly fresh produce. That’s all.
- [You’re hopeless. Anyway, you want to know the appraisal value, right?]
“Yes! How much would one emerald particle be worth?”
Whether it had value or not was the most important question.
Madam took a moment to catch her breath and spoke in a calm voice.
- [Natural Emerald. I’ll give you 10,000 won per stone. If they were over 1 carat, they’d be worth hundreds or thousands more. But let’s see, just counting the ones you sent in that damn water bottle…]
Four million won.
Madam said the emeralds in the small water bottle alone were worth at least 4 million won.
I couldn’t help but grin.
The remaining emerald deposits inside the dungeon were beyond imagination.
That meant if I quickly raised my Creator Level and started receiving offerings close to their original size, sitting on a fortune was only a matter of time.
After receiving the money from Madam, I hung up the call.
Right away, I gathered the residents of Rivera and gave this order.
“Everyone, attention!”
「Ah, the God has spoken holy words! Everyone, please listen!」
When the clergyman said this, the devotees gathered in Rivera’s square all looked up to the sky.
I spoke with the most firm and solemn voice I could muster.
“From now on, offerings will be accepted once a week. Instead of food, I will only accept the green crystals mined from the Greenwood Dungeon.”
“How can we offer useless stones that we can neither eat nor use to the noble Creator?”
「Among the offerings we can give, food ingredients are the most valuable. God, please accept the food.」
These were roughly the expected responses.
“Choose green minerals, you say? Of course, I’ll pick branches! Why branches? Because branches can at least be used for firewood! Hahaha!”
This was an actual reply I received from a devotee who had mined emeralds in the Greenwood Dungeon.
Aside from gold, silver, and a few gems, most gemstones in the Little World were treated terribly.
‘…Emeralds were no exception.’
So it was time to be firm.
“You must mine and offer green stones from the Greenwood Dungeon! Once a week! From now on, the Lord of Rivera will personally manage the offerings and ensure at least one emerald stone per person is collected!”
The devotees had their own livelihoods to maintain; I couldn’t have them mine minerals all day long.
It would be more efficient for the Lord of Rivera to manage it directly as a form of taxation.
Besides, if I assigned Shylock to bring in professional miners, production would increase, and jobs would be created.
“From now on, any food sent will be rejected and sent back!”
I gave one more stern warning.
Send emeralds instead of food!
To my surprise, the devotees of Rivera began shedding tears and praying solemnly.
「The Almighty God cannot bear to watch us offer food and starve! That’s why He accepts stones instead! Let us be thankful for His merciful love!」
Unable to grasp their profound meaning… really, the God cared for us like a father…
「He listens to us and embraces us like a mother.」
To think that the God would share such great love with mere creatures like us. How could we ever repay this grace…
“You heard that, right? The God has spoken to us with deep and warm love! From now on, let’s offer the shining stones He mentioned!”
To the residents of the Little World, emeralds were just green stones.
They might even have mistaken the Creator accepting these ‘pretty trash’ offerings as a gesture of consideration toward themselves.
It seemed our thoughts didn’t quite align…
‘…Well, anyway, it’s a win-win situation. Isn’t that what matters?’
However, the devotees’ deep(?) misunderstanding brought an unexpected result.
—Ding!
[System]
The faith of Rivera’s devotees grows stronger!
[System]
- The faith of Rivera’s devotees has grown stronger!
‘…Is it really such a wonderful thing that it rises twice in a row?’
[The faith of Rivera’s devotees has risen from ‘Normal’ to ‘Very High’!]
The effect of saying I would accept emeralds instead of food offerings was enormous!
Truly a two-birds-one-stone achievement.
But it didn’t end there.
Ding!
[Challenge]
- Achieve over 2,000 devotees [Completed (V)]
- Raise devotees’ faith to ‘Very High’ [Completed (√)]
[System] - Challenge completed!
Skill: Advent activated!
“…Advent?”
It was a skill name that sounded rather ominous.