Clearing the Game at the End of the World

Creaak-

- Noru_is_druig : Wow, he just opened it.

- takealook : That confidence of doing a 10-pull without even a sacrifice! So that’s the confidence needed to become the leader of a group!

- Soygaybar : Rare ★★ Cultists x 10

Ignoring the jeering of his viewers, he placed his hand on the door handle. This isn’t just an ordinary game; it’s the world’s top reality game, Gedroits’ Game. Those myths won’t work in a place like this.

‘_Senadis had said something about the Archbishop. That means this suicide mission was officially created by the main headquarters of Light’s Order. It’s not just a little poke to check the enemy’s size.’_

There were many things the headquarters of a large organization like the Light’s Order needed to do. They need to expand their influence and deal with cults. Of course, to do that, they need to produce paladins. They also need to fight inside the political matters of the nobles in the capital because of their authority. This was an operation created by spending that precious time. It meant that proper preparations should be made to at least get into the heart of the enemy’s base.

Clack-

And the first thing that came into Professor’s eyes when he opened the door was—

Crash!

“Graghhh!”

“You… beast of the heretics! You have finally revealed your true colors! Perish!”

—was a skinny, bald monk in a white robe and a furry man jumping around.

“H—hungry….”

“Ah—aahh… Teacher, I will soon return to the palms of mana…”

“No, you can’t! Hello! Is anybody there? Just please give us water and food!”

A group of people was on the brink of fainting even when there was a table prepared with food in the corner of the room.

And…

Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff—

“G—grwar?”

He thought it was some kind of metal statue, but the thing turned around and looked at him. The creature has thick limbs the size of pillars and massive metal sheets covering them. And a green skin peeking out between the armor.

Barging towards Professor with its massive jaw and round nose, it sniffed him and then suddenly brightened up.

“Small… big human?”

“You. Wait, are you… Notum?”

“Small big human! We see again!”

Notum greeted Professor with a bright expression as if she didn’t believe what was happening.

He was positive. The troll that was nice to him and gave him the nickname small big human—the armored troll in front of him was the talking troll he met at the beginning of the game in the woods, Hero Unit Notum.

Whoom! Whoosh!

Putting aside the happy reunion with Notum, he decided to get a hold of the people in the room first. Once his Weak Mentality changed to Sensitive Observation, the terrible headache disappeared and only left him with the easy absorption of the information collected from his surroundings.

Making a quick scan, it looked like, unlike his first impression, most of them were people he was familiar with.

First was the easiest to identify, the starving group.

“Ughhhhh… y—you there. You just came from the outside, right? D–do you have something to eat?”

The one who asked was a thin and fragile old man. Even though there was some stale yet delicious-looking bread on the table, the old man did not once look towards it. Instead, he held his stomach.

“Ottman. Are you the Reedflow Academy mage Ottman Bodlair?”

“D—do you know me?”

Professor let out a sigh and nodded his head. Of course, I do. However, you won’t recognize me.

Ottman Bodlair. He thought the old man looked familiar when he first came, but it was him after all. He’s that mage he met on the mage tower that day. The kind old mage that he swung around to threaten the Tobrune troops.

“And the ones behind you are your students.”

“Y—you must be from the church… seeing you know everything.”

After looking disappointed, the old man suddenly grabbed onto his pant legs.

“Then please tell the church to reconsider the judgment put on us Reedflow Academy people! That experiment was only done just by Isaac and his disciples! Even the tower master was out at the time, so second highest rank Isaac bastard was using the mage tower however he wants—”

Ottman’s desperate pleas stopped. It was because Professor had removed fish and freshwater pouches from his inventory.

Stumble!

“T–this smell!”

“Food!”

“It’s edible food!”

It was the fish he caught in the river before coming to Tobrune and the freshwater he carried around for emergency calming usage.

Looking at them glint their eyes like wolves that starved for days made Professor certain. The group of people starving in the corner are the Reedflow Academy mages that he had seen at the mage tower.

Looking at the mages that shoved the raw fish, which was also stinking because it was a day old, into their mouths while tears streamed down their eyes, Professor separately handed Mage Ottman another fish, who was just sitting to the side, eyes glimmering with longing.

“In hopes, our lives flow like the river. Please take this, sir Ottman. I am also one that walks down the path of water.”

“M—may our paths reach the same point as the river and seas. Ahhh, the flow has truly led you here! Thank you! Thank you so much!”

As Professor said the greeting of the water mage tower people and created a small water bubble with his hand, Ottman’s expression instantly changed from wariness to relief.

Seeing Ottman devour the raw fish, although, with more restraint and skill than his students, Professor could roughly predict the situation they were in.

“Is the church… suspecting the Reedflow Academy for the events of that day?”

To Professor’s question, Ottman responded with a grim shake of the head.

“It’s not suspicion, it’s a certainty. Not long after the Crimson Mute made the tower like that, the paladins from the Light’s Order came.”

“You just stayed inside the tower? I heard that an incredible amount of water had come out of the tower and swept away everything and everyone nearby…”

“Ah, that only applies to normal people. Aren’t we all water mages? Even if we’re tired without mana, it’s not like our awakening disappears as well. Since the enemy left, we decided that it would be safer to stay where we were familiar with and made it so the water flowed around us, and used the water pressure to undo the ropes while we were at it.”

Hmm, this makes me feel embarrassed that I called myself a mage just because I was a Rank 1 mage. So this is what real mages that spent their entire lives on water magic were like. There was an incredible amount of water rushing towards them with the void stone blocking their mana, and they just sat there calmly.

Listening to the situation, it seemed like the paladins that came in after asked questions like [Why are you just sitting here when the mutes have attacked?], [How come the enemies of humanity just left without killing you all?] and ended up here because they couldn’t answer the questions.

“We’re truly innocent. Those monsters were the ones that destroyed the tower, so how can we be on the monsters’ side? I was looking out the window, and it seems that you walked in here yourself with a priest! You’ve heard something from the church, right? Please save us! I don’t care about an old man like me, but I need to save those young ones that still have such a bright future ahead of them! Heretics! What kind of blasphemy is that!”

Like last time, and this time as well. This old man was always talking about saving his students first.

- takealook : this is a hate crime

- Jokass : professor, have you no guilt?

- takealook : Hmmm… I wonder who’s the one that pushed that kind teacher and students, who’s happy just from eating raw fish and a cup of water, into this hellhole?

- Highwaynachoman : A round of applause from the devils! We the masters of hell are waiting for the day sir professor dies! When the job transfer season comes around, we will make sure professor can have the best—

‘_Mmm… it’d be a lie if I said I feel completely guilt-free.’_

He honestly didn’t think the mages would be this down bad. The mage tower was completely looted, but they were still nobles, and above all, mages. He thought they were the type that won’t just starve on the streets.

But to think that they were accused of being heretics and were dragged here. It was clear as day. They were looking for people to put in the death squad, and there just happened to be a group of mages that were related to this case. This was just a kidnapping labeled as an arrest.

Professor watched as the mages looked up to him with a relieved faces after reducing the fish he gave them to clean bones. There were 5 mages including Mage Ottman. There were over 15 mages, where did the rest go? Don’t tell me… is it because of..?

“Is this….. everyone from the Reedflow Academy? I thought there were more than these. Did…. The church people k–ki–!”

As Professor trailed off, imagining something terrible in his mind, Ottman grimaced as he replied.

“Thankfully, it’s not what you’re thinking. The rest of the children have been taken back to their noble families. The children left here all are commoners.”

“Not everyone. Someone from Master Ottman’s family as well, but he volunteered to stay here.”

“Don’t go mentioning those things. It’s the natural thing to do. How do you expect me to sleep comfortably when I know that you all are stuck in this suspicious place.”

“M—master!”

“Master! I will follow in your footsteps for the rest of my life!”

Woomph!

Now that they weren’t starving to death, the mages started to hug each other and shed tears. It doesn’t look like there’s anything more to research here. I’ll check their individual battle abilities later.

Next up is Notum, who has been looking at me with a happy expression since a while ago.

- Soygaybar : Now this is the real deal.

- Speedwagon : Ask her what exactly happened. She is a Hero Unit no one has intel on. Seeing that you were forced to ally with her even after failing to recruit her must mean she’s pretty important.

- Jokass : This really makes me realize how easy Emperor Qianliu had it. There isn’t a single bit of information for Hero Units that seems really important just at first glance. This is why there’s been no progress for World 4 for years.

- takealook : Armored Troll! Armored Troll! Armored Troll! Armored Troll!

- Hgihwaynachoman : A Hero Unit Armored Troll is at least a 4-star.

Yeah. I was pretty curious about her too. That was only natural since they talked about something about becoming independent and returning to the woods. But I don’t have the slightest idea why she was captured by the church.

As Professor left the mages that were still talking about forever, life, father, swearing on mana and stuff, he headed to Notum. Notum roughly pats the ground next to her.

It seemed that she was still friendly toward me.

When Professor sat down next to her, Notum raised her hand and patted Professor’s head.

“Small big human. Incredible growth. Is now small medium human? …..Hm. No. Still smaller than Notum. Still small big human. Still changed a lot. Independent, very hard. Small big human, wound a lot. Was it hurt?”

“Uh…mhm…”

Pat pat.

“Good job. You grew well.”

‘_Snuff!’_

Seeing Notum stare at him with a pleased expression as she checked the scars on his body, he could start to feel his eyes start to water up. To think that there was an ally that genuinely cared for him in this cruel GG world. This guy have have the ability to warm a person’s heart.

After swiping his stinging nose with his finger, he asked Notum out of curiosity.

“You look like you changed a lot too. Why’d you leave the forest and come all the way here? And what’s with the armor?”

To Professor’s question, Notum’s calm expression scrunched up.

“Notum didn’t want to.”

That’s obvious. This building looks way too small for a 3 meter to be living in. It’s even tight for me, so it would almost feel like a cage to Notum. There’s no one that wants to stay in a place feeling like that.

“Notum just wanted to get the promised 100 horses.”

Flinch!

I unconsciously flinched at Notum’s comment.

‘…_That reminds me, I have a debt to this guy too! A hundred horses! I told them I would bring it to her the next day and just ran away.’_

Looking at the chatroom, it seemed like the other people remembered as well because it started to fill up with comments about that time.

- Soygaybar : Is this side a debt too? LOL

- Noru_is_druig : Reminds me, it was about harvest season when the game started, and it is autumn right now. To think that the first event you gained came back all this way around. Can this be called thanks(?)giving too?

- takealook : professor, if you don’t give her 100 horses this instant, then you will taste the fury of a fierce armored troll!

He didn’t need to be told to start counting how much he needed for 100 horses. Let’s see, the money I had left after paying off my debts is…

Ding-!

[Available Funds: 367,210 Shilling]

….? Did I read that wrong?

Ding-!

[Available Funds: 367,210 Shilling]

Huh? W-w-w-wait what’s wrong with this?! 360 thousand Shilling? I thought I gained about 1.8 million Shillings and used about 1.1 for paying off the debts! Where did the 340 thousand go?

He didn’t really look at his stat page recently. There wasn’t any place to spend money, and the stat page itself was pretty useless. But I didn’t spend any money where it should add up to 360 thousand. The last time I used money was when I deposited money in the Marketplace…

‘_Oh! Deposit! Marketplace!’_

- professor : Heyheyheyehey!! What’s the current exchange fee for game->Marketplace?

- Jokass : It went over 30% recently. The Dome must have spent some money recently. I heard that they started operating the Underdome factory 24 hours. Thanks to that, the fee skyrocketed again.

‘_Damn it! It was that!’_

I remember that the exchange fee was in the 10s just a few years ago. Gedroits had made a system in preparation for inflation by increasing the exchange fee according to the amount of Shilling transferred from in-game to the Marketplace account in case they started to use macros, but when the world became this state, once an incredible amount of Shilling started to be exchanged all around, the exchange fee skyrocketed like so. Seeing that there was an exchange fee to go from the game to the Marketplace but no cost from going to the Marketplace to in-game, this was a system created to decrease the usage of Shilling used in the Marketplace. Since the more its used, the more Shilling disappears because of the fee.

The important thing was that because of such a big organization’s actions, a medium Gyosu Park was suffering the side effects.

‘_Even the cheapest horse is 25k shilling, how am I going to, how….!’_

Pat.

When Professor was being anxiously unable to know what to do, Notum placed her hand on top of Professor’s hand once more.

“It’s okay small big human. Notum learned a lot living with humans. Sometimes there are things that can’t be helped.”

‘_Argh!’_

Notum, you are so…!

“Small big human didn’t do anything wrong. The ‘bad guys’ are the problem.”

“Bad guys?”

“Yeah. Bad guys. Notum went to the stone nest when small big human didn’t come but met the bad guys the small big human talked about. The bad guys that steal horses.”

Hmph!

Notum seemed mad just thinking back to that time, as she huffed out loudly with an angry expression.

“Oh…r–really?”

Professor came down from the cloud of happy emotion he was floating on and turned back his memory to when he first met Notum.

‘_That’s weird. I did say that to Notum, but I just made that up. How did she even meet them? Did she really just happen to meet a horse thief?’_

Nah. That couldn’t be. Let’s see. After I split ways with Notum and entered Touran, I slept a night at the Silver Cheer Mercenary place, then was placed right into battle the next day around noo—

Slap!

‘_Holy f***ing eureka!’_

“Mute! You met the mutes!”

“Mute? Hm. I think I heard the metal humans make that cry sound before they died. Mute. Mute.”

Like Notum promised, she waited a day, then walked to Touran when she promised horses did not deliver. And on her way, she met a few mutes that were on their way to Touran!

‘_Excluding Edeorna, most of the mutes in the attack were only about tier 8 mutes! They don’t have any thought process, so it isn’t weird for them to get out of position and wander into the woods! So Notum was attacked by a couple of them on her way to Touran!’_

Professor unconsciously slapped his knee. It was unbelievable. The forest Notum was originally in was in the middle of the path toward Touran. If Notum had stayed there, then she would have definitely died by the main wave of the mutes. But because of those horses, Notum left the forest and was able to spare her life.

- Jokass : What a catch~ There’s another Hero Unit event here~

- takealook : wow, professor’s just finding new information left and right, and important ones too.

- Mukaba : The conditions themselves don’t look that difficult. Don’t kill Notum; trigger it in some way and escape to bring it out of the forest.

- Soygaybar : A decent number of people brought out Notum in the past, though.

- Mukaba : There’s a difference between cutting all of its tendons off to sell to a circus and having a tear-jerking farewell like Professor.

- Speedwagon : Everyone shut up. Notum’s still talking.

“So, so then what happened?”

After scratching her head for a moment, Notum continued to talk at a slow pace.

“The ones on four legs were weak, but there were many. Notum is smart. Even dire wolves are dangerous in packs. Running away is smart. And Notum was too hungry, so didn’t have strength.”

Notum stopped talking and licked her lips. Looking around, there was only a lot of bread and no meat. Trolls were omnivores, but the meat was probably better than bread.

“So I ran away… Then found humans fighting the bad guys.”

At some point, the mages and the bald priest, and the hybrid that were fighting were all listening into the conversation. In a world without any television or internet, a story was the only source of entertainment.

And the story of a troll that left the forest and lived with the humans was definitely an interesting story.