WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The World Is Not a Game ◈
Chapter 6
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After brushing the dust off the feathers on his shoulders, Hyeokjin looked himself over with a slight frown.
To be honest, he didn't like his new outfit.
Its design reminded him of the Grim Reaper.
His old outfit had been rather creepy too, all black with a gas mask covering his face, but this one seemed to take that unsettling look even further.
Yet everyone except him said it suited him perfectly. He couldn't understand it.
‘Well, I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that it doesn't interfere with performance.’
After checking that nothing was wrong with the outfit, Hyeokjin nodded and followed the aide waiting outside the door.
The moment he left the soundproofed room, a voice booming from the speakers filled the hallway. As he followed the aide, it only grew louder.
“...But today, we have succeeded in taking a step forward as one. Through this expedition, we cleared an S+-rank core dungeon and reclaimed our lands that had been consumed by the shadow world! Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and northern Mexico! Thanks to the recovery of these major agricultural regions, America's food supply capacity will increase by at least 60 percent!”
“Waaaaaaah!!”
The moment the speaker finished those words, delivered with all the flair of a demagogue, cheers shook the entire building. The aide opened a rolling shutter leading toward the noise and gestured for Hyeokjin to go through.
Beyond the doorway lay...
Tens of thousands of spectators filling a vast Metrodome, with brilliant fireworks bursting across the night sky.
Hyeokjin glanced at the crowd cheering in a near frenzy, then quietly sat down in a seat beside the door.
“Mr. Road. Your speech...”
“I've memorized it all. And I know how I'm supposed to make my entrance.”
“Understood. Judging by how much of his speech is left, the president should finish in about two minutes.”
Hyeokjin nodded in acknowledgment, then silently watched the man in his late twenties standing on the platform in the center of the field.
The white man in a suit wore a friendly smile as he raised both hands, asking the cheering crowd to settle down. Watching him, Hyeokjin frowned slightly.
Who would ever think that young man was the leader of a country, let alone the president of the most powerful nation in the world?
Until twenty years ago, most politicians had been old people in their fifties or sixties. But after encountering warp energy, humanity had conquered aging through tireless research.
The world had become a place where those who received expensive life-extension treatments and rejuvenation surgery could remain young for hundreds of years. Elderly people in power now appeared before the public looking young and full of life.
Hyeokjin had received rejuvenation treatment himself as a Closer, but honestly, he didn't like seeing politicians look that young.
It made them seem too frivolous. Or perhaps he felt that way because this particular president was so shallow and flippant.
‘No, maybe I'm the only one who finds it off-putting...’
As Hyeokjin watched the “young old man” calm the crowd and continue his speech full of rabble-rousing rhetoric, he remembered his own situation and smiled bitterly.
With his body fixed in its prime, he kept forgetting his age, but he was already sixty himself.
He was reaching the age when people's thinking grew rigid and they became stubborn about change. His body had grown young again, but his mind hadn't.
He found that appearance unsettling because he wasn't used to it. But people in their thirties and younger, who would have grown up seeing it, probably thought it was perfectly normal.
That was likely why they were cheering so enthusiastically.
While Hyeokjin was smiling at his own expense, the president paused his passionate speech to take a sip from the bottle of water on the platform. Then he let out a deep breath and raised a hand.
“My fellow citizens! I still have one more piece of good news to share with you. In fact, it's the most important news in this address to the nation! Well, in my opinion, at least. Oh dear, the press will tear into me for that later.”
Laughter at his little joke echoed across the field. Hyeokjin rose from his seat and slowly steadied his breathing.
It was almost time for his entrance.
He drew up his warp energy and activated the ability he had recently learned for this performance.
At his command, the warp energy inside his body transformed into another kind of energy. Billowing darkness formed over the surface of his body, swallowing the light around him.
He looked like a monster made of pitch-black smoke. Just as Hyeokjin finished his preparations, the president made one of his usual dramatic gestures and shouted excitedly from the platform.
“Over the past two years and six months, we have cleared a total of six S- dungeons and one S+ rank dungeon! And throughout that long and difficult journey, we haven't suffered a single death! This incredible achievement was made possible by a new hero! It is a true honor to introduce that hero to you today. Now, let me call out our new hero's name. Please welcome him with a cheer! Mister... Raven!”
“Waaaaaaah!!!!!”
The roar was louder than any that had filled the stadium so far. Answering the crowd's demands, Hyeokjin became the clown they wanted and flew toward the platform where the president stood.
* * *
The power of an S-rank Closer was on an entirely different level from that of an A-rank Closer, the rank immediately below.
If an A-rank Closer's supernatural abilities had “reached the limits of humanity,” then an S-rank Closer's had “surpassed the limits of humanity.”
When an A-rank Closer whose ability to use warp energy had effectively reached its limit underwent “a certain mental change,” their body began to evolve, breaking through its limits to advance to the next stage.
As warp energy spread through their bones and muscles, their entire body twisted and contorted for roughly three hours. During that process, it changed into a structure better suited to releasing warp energy.
Their mental capacity to absorb and control warp energy also improved dramatically.
Closers who had completed this mutation process, commonly known as “awakening,” possessed power beyond the normal scale. They were the ones called S-rank Closers.
With humanity's fate hanging by a thread as shadow worlds encroached on reality, governments around the world were doing everything they could to uncover the mechanism behind the transformation to S-rank. They had even resorted to human experimentation, but nothing had been established for certain.
All they had were vague guesses, such as, “Awakening seems to depend heavily on talent, and often occurs after a life-or-death crisis.”
Considering the enormous amounts of manpower and money poured into uncovering the S-rank mechanism, the results were truly pathetic.
Given that S-rank Closers underwent this highly unusual mutation process called “awakening,” Hyeokjin was not an S-rank Closer.
Having replaced almost every part of his body with high-performance augmented prosthetics, his combat strength far exceeded that of other A-rank Closers. But compared with an S-rank Closer, there was “a gap in power that he could never bridge.”
Despite that, he had been publicly announced as an S-rank Closer for purely political reasons.
Reality was hopeless, hurtling ever closer to destruction.
Governments around the world were desperately controlling information, but the truth was slowly spreading, making society increasingly uneasy.
Some predicted that things would descend into anarchy within a few years if this continued. To delay that moment even a little, politicians had promoted Hyeokjin to S-rank despite his failure to meet the requirements.
They wanted people to see a new hero, forget reality for a little while, and cling to empty hope.
Well, there was also the minor issue that all his other teammates were S-rank. It wouldn't look good to introduce the team to the public with Hyeokjin alone still at A-rank.
Several somewhat complicated interests were involved, but whatever the reasons, Hyeokjin had gained the glorious title of “the eighteenth living S-rank Closer.”
A week had already passed since his S-rank debut at the Metrodome in Washington, DC.
Even after becoming an S-rank Closer, little had changed in his life.
It wasn't that the US government had treated him poorly.
He might have been an S-rank in name only, but he was still an S-rank Closer. They couldn't afford to treat him lightly.
They had prepared all kinds of benefits for him that anyone would envy, but Hyeokjin had refused them all and returned to his “usual life.”
He entered dungeons, risked his life to clear them, took a short rest while his body underwent maintenance, then entered another dungeon. That ordinary routine had continued until “just a moment ago.”
“Mr. Gil Hyeokjin, I'm Jin Miyeong from Hangallae! You've become the first Korean S-rank Closer...”
“Mr. Gil Hyeokjin, I'm Choe Junsik from the Global Daily! Your younger sister is a candidate for governor of the recently reclaimed Texas region...”
“Mr. Gil Hyeokjin, I'm Bae Hoyeong from the Hankook Ilbo! As a proud Korean, could you say a few words to Koreans around the world...”
After clearing a dungeon as usual, Hyeokjin had come to the maintenance shop to have his body serviced. There, he encountered a group of civilians waiting outside.
The moment they saw him, these self-proclaimed “reporters” pulled out the small microphones they had been hiding and rushed toward him, bombarding him with questions.
While Hyeokjin stood slightly stunned by this absurd and completely unexpected situation, one of the Closers who had entered the dungeon with him acted first.
“Huh? Wh-whoa!”
The Closer waved a hand toward the reporters surrounding Hyeokjin. Telekinetic force spread outward from Hyeokjin like an intense, crushing weight.
Hyeokjin had resistance to hostile warp energy and felt nothing, but the civilians were different.
It felt as if their weight had suddenly increased four or five times over. Under the pressure bearing down on their heads, their knees gave way and they collapsed to the ground.
“Are you all right, Mr. Raven?”
“I'm fine. Sorry you had to step in because of me. Still, I'm certain I already said I wouldn't give any interviews...”
After thanking the Closer who had acted on his behalf, Hyeokjin looked at the subdued reporters.
They stared up at him, their mouths opening and closing like carp tossed out of the water. The sight made his head throb.
This was a military facility where civilian access was strictly controlled.
Yet there were civilians here, and they appeared to be “Korean reporters” at that?
‘...Don't tell me...’
Struck by an ominous thought, Hyeokjin asked the other Closers to detain the fallen reporters for the time being, then hurried into the maintenance shop.
Inside, as he had more or less expected, he found “a guest he didn't want to see.”
A young East Asian woman was chatting and smiling with the lieutenant colonel in charge of the dungeon cordon unit.
When Hyeokjin opened the door and stepped inside, she stopped talking, rose from her chair, and gave him a slight bow.
“It's been a while, big brother.”
Footnotes:
Hangallae is a fictional newspaper name that echoes Hankyoreh, a real South Korean newspaper.
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