Chapter 183: Invitation from the Past

Description

S-class dungeon clearing ended in the blink of an eye.

Of course, it still took a little over 2 hours, but considering it was an S-class dungeon, even calling it “the blink of an eye” felt insufficient.

Moreover, after also clearing the dungeons that Gwang-taek’s team and Seon-hwa’s team had cleaned up, it took a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes.

Clearing three S-class dungeons in under 4 hours was unprecedented.

“Wow! That’s no joke. Three S-class dungeons, not even A-class, cleared in under 4 hours.”

“Even with thousands of S-class monsters swarming around, I don’t feel any tension anymore. If anything, they look like delicious prey.”

Not to mention Seong-jun, who was G-rank, but for Gwang-taek, Seon-hwa, Yuseon, and Chang-su, who could use EX-class abilities, S-class monsters were no longer a source of tension.

They were merely prey that could be swept away at any moment.

“By the way, when are we going back to the Forest of Darkness?”

“Let’s finish the other preparations first. It won’t take that long.”

With that, he took out the Crystal of Dimensions from his subspace.

“And while we’re at it, let’s check how many people can cross over with the Crystal of Dimensions… huh?”

Seong-jun, who was speaking, suddenly wore a surprised expression.

The Crystal of Dimensions’ information had changed.

No, strictly speaking, it hadn’t changed—it was more accurate to say that information that hadn’t been visible before was now newly displayed.

[EX-class] Crystal of Dimensions

A crystal imbued with the power of Chaos that can open dimensional gates.

Can move to the dimension the crystal is connected to.

Currently connected dimensions and locations: Planet [Earth] of the 1324th Dimension’s [South Korea] and the [Forest of Darkness] of Planet [Alchemon] in the 3427th Dimension.

Cannot be used outside the designated areas.

Can travel back and forth up to 5 times.

When all travel counts are exhausted, the Crystal of Dimensions splits into 3 pieces and scatters.

[Up to 100 people can move.]

Everything was the same as before, except for one line at the end.

The exact information he’d been wanting to know—how many people could move—had been added.

In fact, this wasn’t just new information being added; it was more accurate to say that Robelate’s Eye was outputting the additional information it wanted to see.

“Hm? Seong-jun. What’s wrong?”

Seeing Seong-jun’s surprised expression, Gwang-taek asked curiously.

Seong-jun replied as if it was nothing.

“Ah! It’s nothing. I just saw information I hadn’t seen before on the Crystal of Dimensions. Apparently, up to 100 people can move.”

At Seong-jun’s words, Gwang-taek said in surprise.

“What? 100 people? Really? That’s quite a lot more than I expected.”

He had thought only about 10 or so people could cross over at best, so hearing that as many as 100 could cross was surprising.

It was far higher than his expectations.

“It’s still worrying, but with about 100 people, we might be able to make a fight of it. Now what’s left is recruiting people?”

The maximum number of people who could move had been confirmed.

Now what remained was recruiting the personnel to move to the Forest of Darkness based on that number.

“But are you only bringing those above A-rank? If so, the Top 10 Domestic Guilds won’t be enough.”

Even gathering all the A-rank hunters from the Top 10 Domestic Guilds would be woefully insufficient.

If they wanted to resolve it with domestic hunters alone, they’d need to include B-rank, or otherwise, they’d have to expand the scope to overseas hunters.

“Higher ranks are better, of course, but I have no intention of bringing just anyone along. For now, I’m planning to focus on the Top 10 Domestic Guilds and look for others worth bringing along. If worse comes to worst, I’m considering including B-ranks as well.”

It was true that bringing higher-ranked hunters was the right call.

Why? Because the time needed to adapt to EX-class abilities naturally differed.

Of course, even among lower ranks, there were those with abnormally high adaptability.

But on average, it was also true that the higher the rank, the faster one adapted to greater power.

That said, he had no intention of recklessly bringing just anyone.

More important than rank or adaptability was whether they could follow orders well.

“B-ranks too? Of course, with the Guardian’s Authority applied, everyone becomes EX-class, but are you sure that’s okay? You said it yourself. That there seem to be differences in adaptability depending on rank.”

At Gwang-taek’s question, Seong-jun nodded and spoke.

“I did say that. Still, it’s better to have someone less adapted than to recklessly bring anyone and have them not follow my orders. That would be a bigger problem. At worst, it could cause internal division.”

When they needed to unite their strength just to have enough, if someone refused to follow orders and caused internal division?

If such a situation occurred in the Forest of Darkness—not even in this world—they could truly face an irreversible crisis.

“Right, that makes sense too. Ah! But the stone tablets? Did you check them?”

The stone tablet obtained from the Dark Elf village and the 2 additional stone tablets obtained from China’s Artifact Warehouse.

A total of 3 stone tablets were sleeping in Seong-jun’s subspace.

“No, not yet. It’s about time I did. With Robelate’s Eye, I should be able to decipher them without much difficulty. Should I do it now?”

“Sounds good. I was curious too.”

“Me too!”

Seeing that everyone seemed curious, Seong-jun took out the stone tablets from his subspace.

As he took out the stone tablets and looked at the letters written on them.

[You have discovered a new form of writing. Robelate’s Eye is beginning translation of the writing.]

A moment later, a notification appeared saying the writing was being translated.

[Translation complete. From now on, the same writing can be read immediately without separate translation.]

Along with the notification that translation was complete, it said that from now on, whenever the same writing was discovered, it could be read right away without separate translation work.

“Huh? This actually reads now?”

Indeed, the writing on the stone tablet read as naturally as if he were reading Korean.

Just moments ago, they were completely unrecognizable characters, but now they were imprinted in his mind as if he’d been using them for a long time.

“Really? What does it say?”

Seong-jun pointed at the stone tablets one by one and spoke.

“It says that if you put blood on these and pay tribute, the god will respond. For reference, the one we got from the Dark Elf village is a tablet that allows communication with the God of War, Palcation, and these two I brought out from China’s Artifact Warehouse are tablets that allow communication with the God of Dimensions, Fadelaina, and the God of Earth, Cartemian.”

The stone tablets were each for communicating with the God of War, the God of Dimensions, and the God of Earth.

“Oh! So can we communicate with those gods right now?”

At Gwang-taek’s question, Seong-jun shook his head.

“No. First of all, we can’t know exactly what kind of tribute is being referred to here, and more importantly, even if we knew, it doesn’t seem like just anyone can communicate with the gods. Look here—it says only high priest-level figures who serve each god can communicate. In other words, only those who possess a considerable amount of that god’s Divine Power.”

If they were high priest-level figures, they would possess correspondingly powerful Divine Power.

Naturally, that meant Divine Power received from that god.

But the Divine Power Seong-jun possessed was, at the end of the day, the Divine Power of the Goddess of Light, Hemeyas.

Unless there was some other method, even Seong-jun would find it difficult to communicate with those gods using the stone tablets.

“Ah! You have the power of the God of Light? No, was it Goddess? Anyway, you said you possess the Divine Power of Light, right? The nature of the Divine Power is different, so communication is impossible? Then aren’t those stone tablets useless?”

At that, Seong-jun put the stone tablets back into his subspace and spoke.

“It’s too early to say that. There might be other methods I don’t know about.”

For now, he hadn’t found a proper method, but he had a feeling there were definitely other ways he didn’t know about.

The problem was that he had no clue how to find those methods.

“Anyway, you’ve all worked hard. Let’s head back early and rest today.”

Since they had entered the dungeon immediately upon returning, Seong-jun suggested stopping here and going back to rest early.

They had been pushing forward relentlessly without much rest, and since they might have to keep moving with hardly any break in the future, he judged it best to rest whenever they had even a brief moment.

“Should we?”

Of course, “rest” here didn’t necessarily mean going home and resting.

For some, going shopping might be rest, and for others, meeting a friend for a drink after a long time might be rest.

And for some, dedicating themselves to research was rest, while for others, watching that from the sidelines could be rest.

Of course, for Seong-jun, rest meant going home, watching TV without a care, and cracking open a can of beer.

Returning home from the hideout, Seong-jun first sent an invitation to Rina Mei via email.

Of course, it wasn’t an invitation to Rina Mei personally, but an invitation addressed to the Cheonghwa Guild.

Additionally, he contacted the heads of the Top 10 Domestic Guilds separately.

He judged that explaining everything at once in a single gathering was far cleaner than meeting each one individually.

Naturally, Karl Buckman was also invited to that gathering, not just the Top 10 Domestic Guilds.

His plan was to explain the details to Karl Buckman first, then gauge whether they could receive help from the Holy Emperor’s main forces through him.

“I’ve sent out the contacts, but I wonder how many will actually respond. After all, this is a life-risking matter.”

Even though the hunter profession inherently involved risking one’s life in dungeons, pursuing the safest hunts possible was the basic principle.

However, the fight against Bakjehwang was far from safe.

Just Bakjehwang alone was difficult to guarantee victory against, and those around him were certainly not weak either.

Of course, having 100 EX-class individuals meant they probably wouldn’t be at a disadvantage, but the problem was that they knew far too little about the enemy and their sympathizers.

Going to an unfamiliar world to fight an unknown enemy.

That was the current situation.

“Ah, headache. Let’s leave tomorrow’s problems to tomorrow’s me and just rest for now. I’ve showered, there’s plenty of beer in the fridge, and today I’m going to binge-watch an OTT series for the first time in a while.”

Just as he sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV.

[The Goddess of Light, Hemeyas, is inviting you. Will you accept the invitation? Yes / No]

Suddenly, an invitation notification from Hemeyas appeared.

“Huh? What’s this. An invitation from Hemeyas? Out of nowhere?”

As far as Seong-jun knew, after he reached EX-class, all of Hemeyas’s authority to formally invite him had disappeared.

But an invitation out of the blue?

“Well, works for me. While I’m at it, I should ask about the stone tablets too.”

Conveniently, he had questions about the stone tablets anyway, so Seong-jun immediately accepted the invitation.

Whoooooooosh!

As soon as he accepted, a portal was created, and Seong-jun entered it as is.

Whoooosh!

Arriving at the Temple of Light through the portal, Seong-jun.

-Welcome.

However, Hemeyas’s atmosphere was quite different from before.

How to put it. It felt like her divinity had weakened somewhat?

“Hm? What’s going on? You seem a bit weaker than before?”

At that, Hemeyas nodded and spoke.

-That would be correct. A fifth of my divinity has been consumed. Of course, it will recover over time, but it will take a considerable amount of time to regain my original divinity.

Divinity consumed?

Seong-jun asked with a puzzled expression.

“Divinity was consumed? Why?”

-To invite you here.

As I said before, I had exhausted all authority to formally invite you.

To exercise authority beyond what was given to me, I had to pay a fitting price. For us, that is the consumption of divinity.

In other words, she had invited Seong-jun even at the cost of her divinity.

“What reason did you have to invite me that you’d go that far? Did something happen in the Forest of Darkness?”

What reason could Hemeyas have to call Seong-jun to such lengths?

-That man Bakjehwang has begun to move in earnest.

The problem is that the direction of his movements points toward the continent.

If Bakjehwang advances into the continent as he is, an enormous chaos that would pale in comparison to the Demon King’s arrival will occur.

Currently, Bakjehwang’s power was estimated to have surpassed Hemeyas’s.

In other words, he was so powerful that he couldn’t even be compared to a mere Demon King, let alone a Demon God.

The continent had faced enormous chaos with the Demon King’s descent alone, and that was precisely why the gods had summoned Bakjehwang to this dimension.

But now, a power incomparable to even that Demon King was threatening the continent again, so Hemeyas had no choice but to be desperate.

“So you’re saying we need to speed up the plan. But we can’t recklessly confront Bakjehwang. We’re at a disadvantage in every aspect, so can’t we just charge in carelessly? We need to make sufficient preparations before acting.”

-I know. That’s exactly why I called you here.

“Does that mean you have something more to give me?”

If she knew their preparations were insufficient and that was why she called him here, there was no other way to interpret it except that she intended to give him something to compensate for those insufficient preparations.

At Seong-jun’s question, Hemeyas nodded and spoke.

-I’ve told you about the Forgotten Gods before, haven’t I? Though they have lost almost all their power and have reached a point where they can barely be called gods, their divinity itself hasn’t disappeared, nor has their existence vanished. They still exist on the land of the gods here, and they dream of the day of their revival.

Suddenly bringing up the Forgotten Gods, Hemeyas.

“The fact that you’re bringing that up now must mean what you’re going to give me is related to the Forgotten Gods.”

-Yes. Please accept this.

As she spoke, she made a light gesture, and a stone tablet materialized before Seong-jun.

Whoooosh!

Seong-jun already knew what that stone tablet was.

“Huh? Isn’t this a stone tablet for communicating with gods?”

As Seong-jun recognized the stone tablet, Hemeyas smiled and continued.

-You’ve obtained several stone tablets, haven’t you? But before you meet them, I recommend meeting the owner of the tablet I’m giving you first.

At that, Seong-jun read the contents of the stone tablet.

“This is… the stone tablet of the God of Insight, Robelate.”

The stone tablet Hemeyas had given Seong-jun.

It was a tablet that allowed communication with the God of Insight, Robelate.

-As for the other gods… I issued oracles to the earth to have all the followers of the other gods eliminated. In other words, their being forgotten was all my doing.

What was she saying now?

Seong-jun had simply thought the gods had fallen victim to human religious wars.

But rather than that, wasn’t it Hemeyas herself who had instigated the religious wars to attack the other gods?

Seong-jun asked with a blank expression.

“I had a rough guess. Was it to become the sole god?”

Hemeyas, who had been merely one god among many, had seen her divinity rise dramatically upon becoming the sole god.

The Goddess of Light, Hemeyas, called the sole god of the continent alongside the Demon God.

At the question of whether she had deliberately attacked the other gods to obtain that title, Hemeyas shook her head.

-Of course not.

In truth, I didn’t want to do it either, but I had no choice.

The one who planned all of this from the beginning was the God of Insight, Robelate.

While sealing Bakjehwang, he seems to have predicted that something like today would happen.

He told me to erase all the gods, including himself, from the continent and to be reborn as the sole god.

And with that, he gave me that stone tablet.

He said that someday, a rival to Bakjehwang would appear.

He asked me to give that stone tablet to that person and have them meet him.

So that was it.

The reason Hemeyas had instigated the religious wars and attacked the other gods.

It was because of the God of Insight, Robelate’s request.

“So he predicted this situation a thousand years ago? Is he some kind of god of prophecy rather than a god of insight?”

-Heavens, no.

The scope of insight is broader than you think.

And predicting future outcomes through current phenomena is also part of insight.

Robelate calculated from the moment he sealed Bakjehwang that things would flow this way.

And he began preparing for it from that moment.

Insight wasn’t simply about grasping the structure and principles of things or understanding current situations.

It was about predicting events that would occur in the future beyond the present.

That was insight.

And the God of Insight, Robelate, had predicted events that would occur a thousand years later and prepared everything.

“The God of Insight, huh. I wanted to meet Robelate anyway. Even before absorbing the essence of Jirin Lumia, I had a special ability. It was only recently that I learned that ability was related to the God of Insight, Robelate. And I had things I wanted to ask him about that.”

The Deep Analysis he had possessed since his Awakening.

That was the ability of the God of Insight, Robelate.

Perhaps that was why Seong-jun had thought he wanted to meet Robelate someday.

-I see.

Good.

You should hear the full details directly from Robelate.

“But I was told that to communicate with a god through a stone tablet, one must possess that god’s Divine Power. And a massive amount equivalent to a high priest at that.”

At Seong-jun’s words, Hemeyas smiled and spoke.

-That’s right.

But I can solve that problem.

Meet Robelate first.

Then I’ll arrange for you to meet the gods of the stone tablets you possess as well.

He had been agonizing over how he could communicate with the other gods using the stone tablets, and Hemeyas had rendered all those worries moot in one go.

“Alright. I’ll go meet Robelate. What do I need to do now?”

It was something he’d wanted anyway, so Seong-jun readily agreed.

-Place your blood on the stone tablet. I’ll handle the rest.

It seemed the act of putting blood on the stone tablet was unavoidable.

‘Form Transformation! Dagger!’

Transforming the weapon he carried into a dagger, Seong-jun.

Snikt!

He slashed his palm with it.

Then he smeared the flowing blood onto the stone tablet.

“Is that enough?”

-Yes. Now I’ll send you to Robelate’s residence. Take care and come back.

The moment her words ended, a powerful light began to burst forth from the stone tablet.