Wisdom said an unfamiliar word that he hadn’t said out loud for a long time.
“Cousin?”
“Yes. He’s the son of my dad’s older brother.”
“I wasn’t asking because I don’t know what the word means. It’s just…”
“I know,” the player Jang-Wan, Choi Seo-Yoon, said. “It’s quite ironic for a coincidence.”
Wisdom nodded.
“Then there might be something to that.”
“What do you mean there’s something?”
“At first I thought all the players were picked randomly. But then I thought it was strange because Nebula and Hegemonia were both here. Even though they’re the first and second ranking players, that doesn’t mean they have a higher chance of being picked out of all the players. And apparently, Nebula happened to think the other way around.”
“The other way around?”
Wisdom moved his finger in a clockwise direction, but only half way around the circle.
“Before he met us, he thought the players summoned here were those who ranked from 1st to 27th.”
Jang-Wan bluntly said, “I knew it. He only ever thinks about himself.”
“Do you wish for me to agree with that?”
“…No, whatever.”
Wisdom’s head began to rotate round and round.
“Anyway, if it’s not completely random, but also not according to a particular rule, there’s a high chance that there’s another reason we are here. And based on what you’ve just revealed, that seems to be the more likely explanation.”
“Another reason?”
Wisdom replied, “Someone selected those who would play this game.”
Jang-Wan looked puzzled.
Wisdom continued to say, “There’s no need to be so surprised now. Don’t we know that an unidentified being named Aldin had made us choose whether or not we were going to play the game at the start?”
“Are you saying there’s something going on behind the scenes?”
“Maybe, but I think a little differently.”
“Then?”
Wisdom’s head stopped spinning.
“I’m thinking there might be something else going on. But I’m also wondering if there’s another separate reason for it. There were actually 32 players at the start, and five of them didn’t participate. According to what Aldin said, they went back to Earth. Do you think they made the wrong choice?”
“…No.”
“Exactly. Those people actually made a normal choice. Who would choose to stay inside a game? The moment we chose to stay here, we were no longer normal. And 27 out of 32 could be seen as quite abnormal.”
Jang-Wan nodded in understanding.
“So you’re saying that they targeted people who would participate from the start?”
“I don’t think that’s the only reason we got picked, but I assume that was at least one of the conditions. Well, at least that applies to me, and likely…”
Wisdom pointed at Jang-Wan.
“The same goes for you.”
Jang-Wan turned away as if to deny the statement.
Eagles flew over the dead Kobold priests in the rocky desert. And the more courageous eagles had already begun to fill their stomachs.
“That’s right. I thought that if I got picked, that man must have come as well. And that man would surely do well, and he would win unless someone interfered. That was why I chose to play the game.”
After listening to Jan-Wan’s reason, Wisdom said, “Hm. It would be rude to pry further, right?”
“It’s my privacy… For now.”
Jang-Wan turned around.
At that moment, a strong wind blew, carrying the smell of fresh blood that hadn’t hardened yet and messing up Jang-Wan’s hair, making it fly toward the east. Jang-Wan brushed her hair back. And her sharp eyes snapped to Wisdom.
“Anyway, I’d like to go onto the next topic instead.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Can you not strategically use the fact that I am Nebula’s cousin?”
Wisdom crossed his arms as if that was an unexpected question, and then he rested his chin on his hands.
“Why wouldn’t we be able to?”
***
Redin BR Oser thought he had fallen into a trap.
Mangul invited King Delmardin of their own initiative. It was the day of a huge festival celebrated every ten years at Mangul, and according to custom, the king of Mangul invited the king of each country. However, a custom was just a custom, and there wasn’t a reason for the kings to participate.
Mangul was close to the edge of the continent. Unlike Golden Eye and Danyum, which shared borders with Mangul, Asbestos was so far away that the king would have to cross through large countries to get there, so it almost seemed rude to request such a trip.
But of course, Delmardin knew that the event was led by the priests rather than the king of Mangul. The sacred nature of the work that the priests did was recognized by all the kings on the continent. Therefore, it was necessary to at least show some sincerity. And so, each king sent a royal to celebrate the Empty Sky Festival in Mangul. Unlike the festival that was held every spring at Black Scale, this was a festival that was irregularly held every ten years or so, so no countries seeking diplomatic cooperation with Mangul could ignore it.
The reason Redin was heading to the festival was because he was at Golden Eye at the time. If he were at Asbestos, Delmardin wouldn’t have wanted to send his loyal son to the faraway Mangul. However, Redin was once again in the middle of dealing with Delmardin’s dirty work without the aristocrats or citizens knowing.
One of the aristocrats of Golden Eye was trying to reveal one of Delmardin’s many dirty linens, so the king needed someone who could deal with the matter quietly without causing any diplomatic problems, and it had to be someone he could trust; Redin was thus ordered to take on the task. After getting it done, Redin was told to attend the diplomatic event. He was quite lukewarm about it, but accepted it without complaint all the same.
Redin usually emphasized to his subordinates that the harder they devoted themselves to difficult work, the more they should rest. Unfortunately, Redin didn’t really care much about the cultures of other countries, so he didn’t know beforehand that the Empty Sky Festival at Mangul was a different kind of festival than he had expected.
The Kobolds believed in the god of Stone Cave, the Overflowing God, and they had a special way of praying. There was the god of Black Scale, who had their believers prove their faith by offering rotten meat before accepting their tribute, but recently, those types of events had become less common and were replaced by simpler rituals.
However, the Overflowing God followed older traditions. And that was digging a tunnel. It was believed that the tradition started in regions of Mangul where there wasn’t any body of water for drinking water, but now, the meaning wasn’t all that important. The Kobolds of Mangul simply dug tunnels to prove their faith to their god. And among them, there were some who challenged themselves to go through more daring tests. They were the priests of Overflowing God.
The Kobolds following Overflowing God had to go through a special ceremony that took place every ten years in order to become official priests. In the beginning, there would only be a few dozen candidates wishing to become Overflowing God’s priests, but over time, the number grew to several hundreds, and the candidates were sent by the priests to go to a remote part of Mangul with their eyes covered. Then they would take off the blindfold in the deep undergrounds that the other priests had dug. Other than drinking water and simple food, there were two things that were given to them. One was a pickaxe to dig the ground with, and the other was a Forget-Me-Bloom.
Forget-Me-Blooms were one of the rare herbs that grew in Mangul, and it had a unique property: it made a person lose their sense of direction.
Even though Kobolds were physically suitable for living underground, consuming the herb would make them lose their sense of left and right as well as up and down. Those who hadn’t had Forget-Me-Blooms would question how one could fail to discern up from down when they were standing, but once one consumed the herb and got put underground, any part of the body could be touching the ground that should be stand on, and a great dizziness would overwhelm them. Then the person would not only lose their sense of direction, but also their sense of time, and their consciousness could become weakened as well.
What the priest candidates had to do with their pickaxe after eating Forget-Me-Bloom was digging the ground in search of the sky. It seemed simple, but they wouldn’t be able to know in which direction the sky was, and they didn’t know how far they would have to dig either. Even if they were certain of the direction at first, it would be impossible to know if they were going straight in the dark tunnel with no light. And like that, if someone succeeded in finding the sky by digging themself back up to the ground, the event would end.
That was what the Empty Sky Festival entailed.
Even under the thorough supervision of senior priests, eliminations and deaths continued to occur, and it was a big event that would start and take a few years to end. It was crazy for even Kobolds to live in the dark underground while digging with no hope. However, the pleasant feeling of breaking through hard ground and reaching out into the air was enthralling to the priests of Overflowing God, so the tradition continued.
Of course, the Overflowing God, or the player Jang-Wan, considered it an efficient way to accumulate Faith points since it was a method that the other species and players with other Small Areas couldn’t easily replicate.
Anyway, the Kobolds of Mangul truly believed the praying ritual was good, and it was common for them to believe that others simply didn’t understand since they hadn’t done it and pushed them to give it a try.
And therefore, Redin should have predicted that the guests of each country would have to experience digging a tunnel at the Empty Sky Festival.
***
Redin realized something was wrong in the cold tunnel.
“Really, what a joke this is. It’s not even funny.”
Redin thought about how he had suddenly been brought here. Everything had seemed to be going well. The Kobolds had explained the procedure several times, and Redin had refused just as many times. However, he had no choice but to concede when the Kobold priest said it was their last request.
“It’s just a performative event anyway.”
“I am a prince. What if the tunnel collapses and I die?”
“It is a tunnel that all the priests have checked beforehand. There’s no way it will collapse.”
“Um.”
“There’s no way we would let guests like you dig in the same tunnel as the priest candidates. It will end in two to three hours. But if you really don’t like it, you may escape. You would just need to come back out the way you go in.”
“Then what’s the point of doing it in the first place…”
“Do you perhaps want to really do it?”
Redin pulled a long face and shook his head, which made the Kobold priest laugh.
“If it’s too much work to dig the tunnel, you may just sit still. Once the event ends, one of our priests will come find you.”
“Hm.”
“But you are a Troll and are way stronger than we are, so you will surely dig your way back up in no time. You might even come up the quickest among all our guests this time.”
“If I eat that herb, won’t I lose the ability to tell up from down?”
The priest replied, “That is only the case for those who lack wisdom.”
Redin didn’t know why the statement sounded so loaded, but without the time to even ask about it, the priest pushed him on the back.
“Go ahead and quickly follow those priests. Once you get back up, you will think everything is for the better. Please go.”
. .
Like that, Redin got blindfolded and went into the tunnel as an approximation of the ceremony that the priest candidates of Overflowing God would go through. And he received a pickaxe and Forget-Me-Bloom. Not only did the Forget-Me-Blooms make one lose their sense of direction, they also energized the body and contained lots of nutrients, so it could replace a full meal.
Redin had no intention of even participating in the event, so he planned to simply go to sleep and wake up later.
‘I got the permission to do that anyway. If I take a nap, the event will be over when I wake up. Then I can just dust myself off and relax in the famous hot spring in Stone Cave.’
With that plan in mind, Redin woke up to the realization that something was wrong. Although he was underground, he wasn’t too far down, so he had been listening to the noises of the festival. However, when he woke up, he couldn’t hear anything from above.
‘…Is the festival over?’
Redin eventually came to the conclusion that the priest had forgotten about him and stood up.
‘I should get out of here.’
He took the torch and walked to the hole behind him. But he came to a stop once he got there. He couldn’t tell which of the seven paths was the exit leading outside.
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