Chapter 235

Do-Jin’s videos were like a machine for generating public attention. They drew focus not just to him, but also to LOST, mages, and everything connected to them. He was essentially a magnet, pulling the public’s interest across the entire scene.

Because of that, from the perspective of LOST creators who made their living off that ecosystem, Do-Jin was a godsend. All it took was to upload a deep-dive combat analysis or post something like “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Do-Jin” and the views would explode. Even mage-focused info channels that usually got treated like leftovers saw a surge of new traffic.

For those reasons, even after all twelve episodes finished uploading, the world kept buzzing about it for a while. Meanwhile, Do-Jin himself had already checked out long ago. Three days was all the time he gave himself to enjoy the fame before going back to his normal routine. His time was now split between hunting grounds and dungeons, grinding Adventurers’ Guild quests to grow stronger, selling off piled-up loot, and tweaking his build to push his specs higher.

Everything was running smoothly again after he’d screwed over the Cult of Ruin. His friends were doing well too. Theresa looked busy taking care of her suddenly exploding stream and channel. Tanto also went live from time to time and raked in donations like it was nothing. From the outside, everything looked great.

Although things were going great both in game and out, Do-Jin still wasn’t in a great mood. Even after all this time, the special rewards from this quest still hadn’t come through, even though the basic rewards had arrived right away.

[You achieved the highest contribution during the quest. Special reward settlement is currently in progress. Please wait a moment.]

The message had popped up weirdly late in the first place, and now that settlement process still hadn’t finished even after more than a month had passed.

So it’s not happening either today... Is this a glitch?

These days, it was the window he checked the moment he logged in. Every time, the same thoughts ran through his head: Did anything change? Was there progress? When the hell am I getting my reward?

It wasn’t just right after logging in. He’d pull it up while taking a break from hunting, while drinking a potion, while walking somewhere, or while waiting at the Adventurers’ Guild. It had turned into a habit at this point. Eventually, the tension was too much and he simply exploded.

“Are these motherfuckers serious right now? What, am I supposed to sit here until I die of old age or some shit?”

To anyone watching, he probably looked like a lunatic yelling at himself. But anyone who knew the situation would have understood completely. Do-Jin had grown up in a country famous for its fast-paced culture. For someone raised in that environment, putting up with a delay like this deserved a round of applause.

“How insane does this thing have to be for them to slow-roast me like this? What, are they planning to hand me something burnt to a crisp or what?”

If he sent an inquiry to the Möbius devs, they’d probably tell him no issues had been detected or that they couldn’t disclose anything about in-game systems. But that wasn’t even what pissed him off most. What really drove him crazy was that there was nothing he could do except write it off and assume he’d get it eventually.

Whatever... Getting worked up over this is only bad for me. It’s not like my whole life falls apart without it.

Pushing down the surge of anger, Do-Jin closed the message window. He’d probably check it again before long anyway. For now, though, he told himself to stop dwelling on it and just switch his brain off.

The moment he made that decision, a loud alert went off and a new message popped up. Normal messages didn’t come with alerts this obnoxious.

Is this a world message?

Whether it came from Möbius or from Lostania, this was the kind of sound that went out when something was being announced to the entire world.

[World Event Notification]

At a glance, there was nothing strange about that. Even factoring in how Do-Jin had caused a World Boss Raid to get shoved in once with Galante, it was about time for another World Event to happen. However, the problem was in the details.

[The World Event Dimensional Link will begin soon. During the event period, all Rift Dungeons appearing in Lostania will be upgraded. A wider variety of monsters will appear, and both difficulty and rewards will be increased.]

As far as Do-Jin could remember, this wasn’t an event that was supposed to be happening at this point.

There was a World Event around this time, but that one was the Kraken extermination, wasn’t it?

The next World Event Do-Jin remembered was a full-scale expedition organized by the Adventurers’ Guild to wipe them out. It was a Kraken of absurd size, followed by an insane swarm of sea monsters that came pouring in behind it.

Contrary to his expectations, they were suddenly introducing a Dimensional Link on top of a Rift-related event. And this was no ordinary Rift. The term dimension only started being used much later, after the Rift phenomena had escalated in both frequency and severity and multiple large-scale disasters had already occurred. It was a term from years in the future, from a time when massive Rift outbreaks, the kind normally seen only during World Events, had become almost routine.

Did I piss off the Cult of Ruin too much? No... they don’t have the firepower to cause something this big right now.

Then did the World Boss Raid happening once force the next World Event to change? That was the hopeful line of thinking Do-Jin clung to, but it shattered the moment it started.

[Quest contribution and reward settlement has been completed.]

The quest reward settlement message, which hadn’t changed no matter how hard he stared at it just moments ago, popped up.

[All accumulated contributions have been reflected in this reward.]

[As someone who has changed the fate of the world in many ways, you are being given another chance to bring about change.]

[You have obtained the Empty Key.]

The settlement process which had been dragging on forever wrapped up in an instant. He wasn’t an idiot to consider it all as a mere coincidence. There was no way he could see a message plastered with lines like that, at this exact timing, and think it was random.

So this was why they’d been putting it off, Do-Jin thought as he opened his inventory and pulled out the reward. It was a transparent cube about the size of his palm.

[Empty Key]

A key meant to open something. It is currently empty and cannot open anything. However, if the key can be filled again, it will be able to open doors that cannot be opened by any other means.

Do-Jin immediately recognized it as the key to the dimensional dungeon. It would let him face powerful enemies before they were diminished by crossing worlds, and in return, it offered rewards to match, before places and creatures from other worlds crossed the boundary and became Rift phenomena.

This isn’t something I’m supposed to be seeing at this timing though...

Staring at the transparent, cube-shaped key really made it sink in just how much he’d changed. It felt completely different from just reading a system message that said he’d changed fate. He felt the flow of energy speed up as the world shifted phase.

Do-Jin felt excitement, anxiety, and frustration all at once. He knew sudden, radical change could turn into opportunity, but it could just as easily turn into a crisis he couldn’t handle.

The Rift frequency increasing had happened a few times in this life too. But starting with this World Event, the difficulty was going to be on a whole different level. For players, that could mean a huge chance to grow, but if they fell behind, monsters from other dimensions would start settling in and claiming territory.

So what’s my role in all this? And how the hell am I supposed to use this?

It seemed important but it could just as well be nothing. There were too many possibilities flying through his head to tell which guesses were even close to the truth.

In the end, I’ve got no choice but to deal with whatever’s right in front of me.

He was still a regressor, but he had changed the future so much that even he no longer knew it. Still, what Do-Jin had to do was obvious. He didn’t know why this had been placed in his hands, but an Empty Key was useless unless he charged it, and the way to do that was by feeding it things infused with Dimensional Power. In other words, killing Rift monsters and closing Rift Dungeons would fill it automatically.

The more I think about it, the more this Dimensional Link event feels like it’s just here to make me charge this damn thing.

If that was really the case, then what kind of massive storm was coming that they needed to use a World Event like this as a setup? That was what Do-Jin really wanted to know.

***

“Team lead... Are we seriously allowed to do this?”

At the employee’s question, he answered with a sigh in his voice. “I don’t know. But what choice do we have? If we’re told to do it, we do it.”

“Still... using up all the fate this user has built up to pull something like this is...”

The reason the reward settlement had taken so long was simple. The two of them, along with many other staff members, had diverted the points Do-Jin had accumulated so far. On top of that, they’d skimmed off what was generated during this fate quest and spent time converting the reward into a completely different form.

This time in particular, the circumstances were unusual. For the first time, the world had a possible ending other than total destruction, which meant the accumulated points were enormous.

Is it really right to use resources that should go toward creating the user’s reward to instead reshape a World Event...?

The employee looked at the message he had written with uneasy eyes.

[As someone who has changed the fate of the world in many ways, you are being given another chance to bring about change.]

The team lead pointed at the same line. “Think of it as rewarding him with the opportunity.”

“Aren’t we placing way too much expectation on him? I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

In response to the employee’s concern, he let out a quiet sigh. He couldn’t deny that he had the same doubts.

This is way too big of a gamble. Our equipment can’t even predict the outcome with this.

The sheer number of variables, combined with the lack of reliable data, had basically broken their fate calculation formula. Perhaps running it on better equipment would give different results, but the fact that they even had to consider that was already a problem.

The highest probability was thirty-one percent. At that point, the machine might as well have said it didn’t know.

“It’s fine. We did what we were told. Now all we can do is watch.” The team lead tried to sound calm as he added, “We put a lot of work into setting up this board. If things proceed smoothly, this user, Do-Jin, will end up getting an even bigger reward in the end.”

The plan seemed to be to let the Dimensional Link event play out safely, charge the key, and then move on to a major dimensional dungeon. But given how many insane variables were involved, simply trusting Do-Jin and waiting might have been the better choice.

Did they really think this would go exactly as planned? Or is trusting him too much the real issue? The team lead let out another long breath. Either way, I’m not getting any proper sleep until this is over.