Jisoo stood quietly, as if she was organising her thoughts on what I said.
I took my gaze off her and looked around us. This was because I was thinking that it was around time for them to slowly appear.
‘It’s here.’
Pororong.
Small eyeballs were hovering around in the air, under the blue sky.
The problem was that there weren’t just one or two.
It looked extremely strange but this was a familiar sight for me.
'Observer.'
These are the names of the eyeballs. The eyes of the gods and the GM (game master). Through those eyes, the gods participating in the game carefully observe the actions of the players and decide whether to participate directly or to continue watching. All of the observers present here were GM controlled observers. Otherwise, individual observers can only be used by gods who have chosen an "avatar". Their appearance varies depending on their user or use, but an observer generally comes in the shape of an eye.
'Is the GM of Korea Acaters?'
Among GMs, he was in a position that was neither good nor bad.
'Observers have arrived, so they'll be coming to the server soon.'
Suddenly, a notification window appeared in the air. [The Korean server managed by GM Acaters has been opened.] [Currently 53 users are participating.] [You can access 'Community' from now on.] 53 people. It was the same number as I remember. For reference, a "user" means a "god" who is participating in the game. They watch the game through an observer, and when they find a player they like, they choose them as their "avatar". A player who becomes an avatar will be able to inherit the characteristics of the user, that is, the god, and receive points from the god. Points are spent on abilities and various items. And since they are an important resource for skill enhancement, the avatar that can receive points from the gods is very different from other players.
'Moreover, players who did not become avatars are treated as NPCs, so everyone was desperate to become the avatars of the gods.'
Of course I was one of them. Having not had a good start, I was desperately obsessed with getting stronger. And as a result, I became an avatar of a god, but I realized too late that it was the wrong choice.
'By the way...'
I cleared the notification floating in the air and carefully looked at the remaining notification at the bottom.
'What does it mean to be able to connect to the Community?'
In a message I heard just before the fight with the goblin, it mentioned that I had gained Community access.
'It's easy to use.'
When I checked the help in the corner of the notification window, I came up with an access method.
'Is it possible to say 'Community access' or do I click the icon in the status window?'
If you check the status window, you can see the icon 'Connect to the Community'.
“Sehan oppa.”
As I was reading the description of the community access skill in detail, Jisoo, who had already gathered up her thoughts, spoke to me.
"Hm?"
“It’s hard to understand...but I think I know a little bit. Those monsters wouldn't just suddenly appear in real life. In addition, this notification...”
Jisoo raised her finger and skimmed the air. Probably the action to clear the notification window.
“And the strange sound that rang in my head...This isn't the reality that I always knew.”
"That may be true. We don't see this kind of notification or hear a message like that in real life."
"Right."
Jisoo nodded her head. She didn't even ask me more questions. Perhaps she is trying to accept this situation on her own.
'She's pretty calm.'
Even in this kind of situation, I was proud of her for not falling into a panic like other people. Most people were busy running away from the goblins, just screaming like crazy. For reference, there were no goblins approaching us. Probably because I killed one goblin in a flash in the first place. I guess he's trying to focus on the fleeing prey rather than touching me when I'm still. Jisoo was also aware of that fact, so she got closer to me and opened her mouth carefully.
“But, you have to clear the main quest, what is the main quest?”
“Won’t they tell us soon?”
I was sure that the alert window would appear soon, even if no one wanted it, since the users had entered.
Sure enough, a large alert window appeared in the air as soon as I thought of it.
==
Main Quest 1: Escape the university campus!
From now on, countless goblins will come to attack you. You must either avoid or kill them and successfully escape the university.
Difficulty E
Time Limit 2 days
==
[The main quest has started. The rewards given will be different depending on each player’s achievement rank.]
Pororong.
At the same time as the alert windows’ appearance, a number of observers appeared and dispersed in different directions.
This was to film scenes that the gods would be interested in.
“Sehan oppa, th-those are?”
Jisoo seemed to have just noticed the observers then, pointing her finger at them.
“I’ll explain later. For now, let’s move.”
“Move? Where to?”
Jisoo asked in a flustered manner but her voice was completely buried under all the screams that were coming from everywhere.
“Kyaaaak! Save me!”
“What the fuck is this?!”
Att the same time as the quest start alarm, all the goblins that had been hiding in the bushes jumped out in crowds.
If there had been a few running around so far, that number had increased by multiple tens.
“Kieeek!”
All the goblins carry a ragged knife, and they swung it at people indiscriminately.
Slash!
“Arrrgh!”
Bright red blood wet the floor.
“Run!”
“O-Okay!”
As the numbers increased, a crowd of goblins also grouped together and ran at us.
Jisoo and I ran as fast as we could away from the goblins.
Other people had started to group up but we ran in a direction where there were the least amount of people possible.
“Those other people……”
Jisoo clenched my hand with an anxious expression.
I slowed my steps and turned towards her, who was unable to continue her sentence.
“It's alright.”
“Pardon?”
“There won’t be that many casualties yet. A goblin has similar strength to that of an adult male.”
Furthermore, they’re just attacking indiscriminately because people are spread out everywhere but they’ll come to a momentary lull when people start to group together.
‘Until the hobgoblin appears.’
The hobgoblin is the commander of these goblins.
You could call it the boss of the stage.
If the monster waves repeat a few times, the hobgoblin will appear and the goblins that it commands will sweep the people who are grouped together in one go.
‘So……’
I walked another step forward again.
[You have entered the safe zone.]
“Huh?”
Jisoo opened her eyes wide at the sudden message.
“Safe zone?”
“There must be a zone that monsters can’t enter if this is a game. It seems like this place is that safe zone.”
“Ah…… I see.”
To be honest, this was a place I coincidentally found while crying fat tears in my past life.
It didn’t feel that good, but we needed somewhere to take some time to rest for now.
“Kieek?”
“Kiek?”
The goblin crowd that had chased us yelled unpleasant sounds towards us who had entered the safe zone.
And after looking around for a little while, they ran in another direction.
“We lived……”
Jisoo, who had seemed to have been frozen in her place from all the goblins that had surrounded us, fell to the floor as if all the strength in her body had given out.
“For now, let’s spend some time here and then move.”
“Ah, okay.”
Jisoo let out a tired laugh and answered.
To be honest, I wasn’t tired at all unlike her but I was thinking of preparing ourselves properly before making a move.
It’s there.
‘Since there are still eyes that are observing us.’
I threw my gaze towards the forest.
A small eyeball was watching us from there.
It was an observer that had chased us since earlier when we were running.
It must’ve followed us since we were going in a different direction to the rest of the people.
‘Fuck off.’
The reason that the observer was watching us was simple.
It was for the gods who were watching us players through the observers.
Therefore, they don’t watch if it’s boring.
There would be no reason to watch if there was no movement with the game on.
Swish.
After staying still for 30 minutes without doing anything, the observer shook and then moved to a different location.
It was faster than I had expected.
‘No patience.’
That’s why Acaters couldn’t become a top tier GM.
He had absolutely no patience.
‘Though it’s good for me.’
After checking that the observer was gone for sure, I opened my status window.
‘Would it be better to check the DLC store for now? Or……’
Should I try to connect to the community?
After some consideration, I decided to use the community connection skill.
This was because I thought that it’d be better to completely understand what ‘community’ was exactly before moving onto other things.
“Connect.”
As soon as I mumbled the activation key, the air flashed.
Paaaa!
“Heok?!”
I breathed in sharply at the sudden event but seeing how Jisoo was sitting silently next to me, it seemed like I was the only one who had seen it.
‘Dammit, that surprised me.’
As I calmed my shaken heart, a large alert window appeared in front of my eyes.
No, rather than it being an alert window……
‘Web browser?’
It seemed as if it had the same system as an internet community site.
[‘Earth’ has been chosen as the new location for the role-playing game.]
This was the text that stood out the most.
The banner seemed as if it was advertising a new game opening.
‘Oh?’
I could understand the basic gist of what community was.
Clicking on the banner, it was connected to a website.
This site was the newly opened online game, ‘Earth’.
‘Bulletin board, target notice board… and even a chat room.’
It was set out to be like a standard online game community site.
If there was a difference, then it’d be the fact that the users weren’t humans but ‘gods’.
Going through the bulletin board, I could see a few posts that a few ‘gods’ had posted.
Well, it hadn’t been that long since the game had opened so all the posts were along the lines of ‘congratulations on the opening’ and such.
‘Then how is the chat room?’
My attention turned to the chat room since there hadn’t been anything much that had been uploaded on the target bulletin board or bulletin board yet.
I hesitated a little bit before clicking on the chat room.
[Guest ‘Anon48’ has entered.]
As soon as I entered the chat room, a familiar text appeared.
‘As expected, the usage of this is no different to normal internet chats.’
The rough UI and way to use it was the same too.
It was in the way that words were entered through the keyboard that appeared in the air.
Greek Commander: Who’s the anon who just joined? They’re not even saying hello.
My heart dropped at the sudden text directed at me.
By any chance, do I need to tell them of my identity after joining?
One-Eye Lost: Geez, that boomer is starting again. There aren’t that many crooks who create an ID for a newly opened game so quickly.
Greek Commander: Are you introducing yourself?
I swallowed the curse that was on the tip of my tongue with difficulty at the conversation they were having.
‘Dammit, are you going to surprise me?’
The chats that followed were merely useless talk.
I thought about sending a message because I felt wronged for being surprised like that but I decided to stay quiet.
There weren’t any gods that were paying attention to me anyway because there were a lot of anonymous users from the beginning.
Anon22: What server are you all participating in? I’m on the American server right now.
Faster than Lightning: Same.
Anon62: I’m on China.
Greek Commander: What, there’s no one on the Korean server?
I opened my eyes wide at the sudden mention of the Korean server.
But it seemed as if there was no one who was participating in the Korean server seeing as how there was barely any response.
One-Eye Lost: Isn’t the GM over there Acaters? He gives out bloody easy quests.
Greek Commander: But he gets pretty good players. There was also a cute girl here earlier.
One-Eye Lost: Do you choose your avatar based on their looks?
Greek Commander: I’ll never nurture a male character.
One-Eye Lost: Geez, you’re going to choose an avatar even before the first quest ends?
Greek Commander: I was considering it but some bloody bastard took her to a safe zone.
Games are about Items: A safe zone already? How did they find that?
Greek Commander: I think it was coincidental. But they weren’t doing anything so the observer left, fuck…… I felt a pull for the first time in a while too.
I read the chat up until there and then closed it.
I judged that there was no longer any information that I could gain from it.
‘...... That just then must be about us.’
The gods in the chat room mustn't be all the gods who are participating in the game but it felt like I could understand the general view of the public.
‘And it seems like observers have completely lost interest in us.’
If, by chance, there was an observer close by, then there’s no way that Greek Commander god wouldn’t have mentioned it.
‘That’s not bad.’
I’ll be able to gain a lot of information through this when the game has made some more progress.
Especially when they start choosing ‘avatars’.
‘I should check the chat periodically.
The more important point was the fact that I also could send messages.
This was an amazing merit.
Since this meant that I could manipulate the information that was passed around to the gods.
‘I should stop reading the messages around here, and now……’
I opened the DLC store that I hadn’t opened previously to check the community.
I observed the items on the sales list with a serious face.
Community was important too but the thing that was really important was this.
