A Legendary Korean Gamer Stuck in a Japanese Isekai – Chapter 34

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: bchen3
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“Should this noble body have to clean up after these garbage commoners? It’s natural for the incompetent to be weeded out.”

“Your words are too harsh, Bakugo-san. Please be a little more mindful of what you say.”

“Did I say anything wrong? Rather than doing this nonsense with those pieces of trash, I’d be better off alone.”

I could somewhat sympathize with that.

“Aren’t you already alone without a party because of that trash personality of yours?”

“You common lot must be jealous of me. You should just quietly support me from behind.”

“Getting a high rank in a game at your age makes you feel like you’re something special? How childish.”

“You’re being quite loose with your mouth. Do you really want to die?”

“Don’t you think you’re too old to be acting tough? How long do you plan to act like an angsty teenager?”

“N-now, now everyone, please calm down. We’re not here to fight, but to solve problems.”

“Yes, things seem to be getting too heated.”

A-rank Warrior Bakugo Shohei, a large-built man, sat down with a snort at the restraint from Saito and others around him.

For reference, this person was someone who hadn’t been called by other top parties, including mine.

When Bakugo sat down after being restrained by those around him, Ishiraki Ikki, the A-rank mage belonging to Saito’s [Tempest], also clicked his tongue.

However, verbal arguments don’t usually stop just because someone tries to stop them.

“I have only one thing to say. Even if we win, having those rewards go to trash is the height of waste. I propose that for this competition, we exclude the trash, give rewards only to top users, and have only the leaders face each other fairly.”

“While those trash-like members might have been a hindrance to you because of your trash leadership, our party is actually quite decent, you know? Besides, I’m a rear position mage, are you telling me to fight without frontliners?”

“Ha! Are you afraid? Fighting alone?”

“How can you call that reasoning? While individual abilities are important, party unit capabilities are what’s important in MMORPGs. Besides, there are priests here who don’t even have attack skills.”

At those words, attention turned to me.

Why bring me up suddenly in your fight?

Feeling the gazes directed at me, I just rolled my eyes and looked around.

I made eye contact with the pretty-boy thug who had been selected as a party leader due to being an A-rank Samurai, but he avoided my gaze.

It felt familiar somehow – this round table conference where the leaders of all 16 competition parties gathered around a large central table.

Not just the pretty-boy thug, but all the A-rank and above personnel who had become leaders were gathered here, including Luna and the school lunch kid sitting next to me, Saito and Shoenji, and Fujikake who had fought with me yesterday.

The reason why all these users who could be called all-stars at this point had gathered at this round table conference was simple.

It was because of yesterday’s scrim.

While there were decent and suitable parties like Fujikake whom I had faced, about half of the parties were as pathetic as mine had been.

Originally, they had been classified as the loser group and ignored as something no longer relevant to themselves, but problems arose when they were forcibly bound together as party members due to the competition.

Several of us, including myself, had really had our minds shattered because of this.

Bakugo who had caused the earlier commotion was one of them.

While his individual ability wasn’t bad, his party members’ levels didn’t seem that good compared to other parties, and given his obviously problematic personality, how could there not be issues?

It seemed he had punched one of the DPS who had been supporting from behind after it ended.

While other parties weren’t as extreme as Bakugo’s, they had their own accumulated complaints, and thanks to that, users who had all played separately in their own groups after the first time had gathered in one place to open a dialogue.

“Why force in unnecessary trouble by forcibly including trash when there are parties composed of proper personnel?”

“But you weren’t invited to any party, though.”

“You bastard.”

“Enough!”

As they kept finding opportunities to pick fights and growl at each other endlessly, Saito, who couldn’t stand it anymore, mediated between the two.

Next to the mediating Saito, a woman opened her mouth.

“First of all, these rules were set by the NPC side, not us. It’s either impossible or won’t be easy to change them unilaterally from our side.”

“I honestly don’t have any particular complaints. It’s just a temporary party for about 2 weeks anyway.”

“Yes, me too, honestly. Besides, seeing parties that don’t match well like that, it seems easier to get rewards, so why should we take the harder path?”

As people who had no particular negative thoughts about the current competition started adding their opinions, Bakugo clicked his tongue as if annoyed.

“Actually, while I think some people might be bewildered by the parties and rules for this competition, if we think about it with some composure, it might not be bad when looking at the users as a whole.”

“What do you mean?”

“In any case, we’re currently caught up in a disaster-like situation. Everyone was too shocked at first, and while some people adapted to the situation quickly, there are still those who haven’t. That’s probably why we’re having this meeting now. Although we’re currently guaranteed safety in this Nadium Kingdom’s palace, we don’t know what situation will unfold when we go outside after two weeks.”

The surroundings began to listen quietly to Saito’s words.

“Since this situation began, we’ve only been looking after ourselves in our confusion, but through this competition, we’ve learned that there are many people who haven’t properly adapted to the current situation yet, and those people might still not be well-adapted when this protection period ends. It’s a terrible thing to think about, but if we’re not careful, people might really die.”

“I’m not a babysitter. Why should I care if such trash can’t adapt to this situation and die?”

“Yes, you’re right. Originally, one should protect oneself. Bakugo-san, but unless it’s a situation where you need to urgently escape alone during a disaster, isn’t it human nature to have the wisdom and altruism to help evacuate together with those around who haven’t managed to escape yet?”

At those words, several people including Luna nodded with pleased expressions.

It was quite surprising that the school lunch kid was among them.

He had been acting like a lonely wolf with chunibyo, so it was unexpected.

Or maybe he wanted to be like Saito because he thought he was cool.

“While the current situation is a game, isn’t it a situation where we can’t treat it as just a game? It’s only about 10 days, not even 2 weeks anyway. It’s not that long a time. While the competition was the catalyst, if the top parties are to become the attack team and focus on progression, it might be a good idea to create conditions where the rest can take on their own roles and become self-reliant. Besides, I think there will definitely be people who grow and fulfill their roles later.”

Saito was certainly a good person.

In my case and Saito’s case too, even though we were S-rank and our party members’ quality wasn’t that good, he could somehow still say such things.

But could he still say such things after experiencing our Fatty?

“Originally, rescue should have proceeded from outside through logouts and such long ago. But given that there’s still no news even after 2 weeks, we can’t just think about rescue from outside. We need to consider the possibility that we might need to clear this ourselves by working together. I think it’s too harsh and hasty to discard people already just from seeing these clumsy early appearances.”

When Saito’s speech ended, the round table conference hall became quiet.

Since it was reasonable argument coming from someone like Saito, even though some made unpleasant expressions, they didn’t particularly refute.

While they basically seemed to have thug-like qualities, there didn’t seem to be anyone cruel enough to think it was fine if people really died.

Well, even if there were, they wouldn’t speak up here without reading the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, someone timidly raised their hand.

It was the college student who had been feeling burdened about becoming her party’s leader.

Her class was Mage. Her name was… probably Tsurushima Manaka.

Although Tsurushima flinched when everyone’s attention gathered on her, she eventually slowly opened her mouth to speak.

“…Will rescue really come?”

It was somewhat of a dazed voice.

“As Saito-san said, while we don’t know what’s happening, if it was rescue, shouldn’t it have happened already? And… can we really return home if we clear this game? … Is this really even a game?”

“What are you saying? Are you suggesting this isn’t a game?”

“W-well… If there were people who put us in this game, wouldn’t they have appeared before us to tell us their purpose? Besides, I’ve never heard of a game this realistic.”

Several people including Ishiraki openly scoffed at Tsurushima’s anxious words.

Actually, while there had been arguments between me and Fatty at the start, most people were coldly thinking this was a game.

But while it wasn’t a disaster like a volcanic eruption or earthquake, they had been suddenly kidnapped into an unknown game and lived here for 2 weeks.

It was too real to be a game, and moreover, they were being forced to do something like military training for about 8 hours every day.

The training was painful, and the sensation of killing monsters was horrific.

Added to that, there was no guarantee about the future, so when their mental state was shaken, people started having various thoughts.

The problem was that while there were people like Fatty in our party who would actually be happy if you said this was another world, there were also people like Tsurushima before us who would rather despair at the thought of never being able to return.

While others seemed to sense the depression that had been suppressed in Tsurushima’s voice, even Saito kept his mouth shut trying to choose his words.

“This world… Elysium is not a game. This is an existing world.”

Our school lunch kid said quite tactlessly.

And he said it while looking straight at me with hostility.

When I reached out to pat his head as punishment, he knocked away my hand in one motion and growled.

“How appropriate for a kid who looks like he’d like manga and games. There’s chaos everywhere from those who can’t distinguish between reality and fantasy.”

“Ikki.”

“Fine, fine.”

Although Ishiraki mocked the school lunch kid’s words, he backed down lamely at Saito’s restraint.

When Saito bowed his head to apologize to the school lunch kid, the guy’s face reddened slightly and he nodded small to accept the apology.

…Isn’t his attitude too different from how he treats me?

“…But there are many strange points.”

“Here we go again.”

“Ikki.”

After restraining Ishiraki, Saito smiled and asked the person who had raised the doubt.

“Yashiro-san. Could you tell us what strange points you’ve found? This is a good opportunity since we’ve gathered to talk. Let’s share information about what we think about the current situation and what we’ve discovered.”

“…While dimensional transfer sounds absurd and ridiculous, being trapped in this game isn’t really realistic either.”

Yashiro cleared his throat once and spoke while collecting himself.

“I’m in development so I know. I’ve never heard of technology that can prevent logging out. While it’s not recommended, basically if you just cut off the power supplied to the capsule or press the switch from outside, you’ll forcibly wake up from the sleep state. Plus there are several other issues. Games are fundamentally business. It’s a business that requires a lot of money. Even developing a AAA-grade game these days takes from billions to nearly 10 billion yen. But this game? Since it’s obviously not the new MO we were going to play, I’ll tentatively call it Elysium. While it’s not impossible to make a game of this level, just implementing what we’ve experienced so far would cost enough to make 10 AAA-grade games. Because they’ve implemented not just realism but even unnecessary biological functions that have no use in a game. Several billion? Depending on the case, it might take up to a historic 100 billion yen. It doesn’t make sense that there weren’t even any rumors in the industry until such a massive scale game was completed to this degree. Moreover, as I mentioned, games are business. It would be hard to reach the break-even point even if made normally, but making a game that can’t even pass inspection by setting the sensitivity to 100%…”

For about half of Yashiro’s fluent speech, people were making expressions like ‘What is he saying? Am I hearing Japanese correctly?’

“…So, I thought it didn’t make sense realistically.”

“But it actually happened.”

“…That’s the problem. If we deny this theory, the remaining theories are things that would only appear in manga or anime.”

“In the end, after all that long talk, you’re saying you don’t know.”

“…Yes, that’s right.”

“Ikki.”

“Ah, I got it, I got it.”

While other various near-delusional thoughts that each person had been thinking came out, naturally it wasn’t a very productive conversation.

“In a book I read before, there was a case where someone put people into a death game they created, participated as a user themselves, and then transformed into the final boss at the end.”

“Ah, there certainly was something like that.”

“But as I mentioned, to make a game of this scale would require at least tens of billions of yen, and moreover, someone who could carry it out secretly with just entertainment as a motive…”

As Yashiro was answering someone’s prompted words, suddenly everyone’s bodies and conversation except mine and the school lunch kid’s unnaturally stopped.

What’s going on?

And as the gazes of those who had stopped like that gathered at one point, I also followed their line of sight.

“My? Why is everyone looking at me with such scary eyes?”

At the end of those gazes was a lady-like woman who had been elegantly tilting her teacup alone, as if detached from the fighting and noise.

Shoenji, the leader of [Golden Apple] and S-rank Swordsman, answered with a leisurely smile at the surrounding gazes focused on her.

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