Chapter 34

"As time goes by, even if we forget, this heartaching feeling of longing, please don't forget~"

During my usual solo singing session,

a cup of coffee spawned with a clack, as if it was pleading for me to stop .

It's got to be an Americano when you're reading a newspaper in a cafe .

I took a sip of my Americano and began to read the newspaper .

The Monthly Normal Newspaper .

The sole Press company in the Korean Tutorial, founded by the Floor 30 NPCs in the Normal Difficulty .

Their naming sense was horrible .

Ever since its founding up till now, there had been many requests for a name change . However, it was ignored and they continued to use their name using a feeble excuse that the title contains the mind and soul of the founder .

You can subscribe to them by donating a certain amount of points every month through the Auction House .

For my case, I'm just a subscriber, but one of their greatest investor at this point .

The monthly newspaper was created with 3 sections .

First was the news regarding what was happening outside the Tutorial, the real world .

Truth be told, it contained the least amount of useful information to the Players, but the outside news has always had the greatest attention from them .

The same goes for me .

Ever since I got trapped on this 60th Floor, reading the newspaper and finding out what happened outside this place had become my greatest joy .

What were the headlines for this month?

[Competition between America and Russia for the Returned]

[Repeat of the Space Race? Endless race for the Hell Difficulty]

[Lack of Korean Government's involvement on Hell Difficulty]

[America encourages future Players to challenge Hell Difficulty further]

Those crazy bastards .

They should know better than to encourage people to come here .

There was no way I couldn't swear at them .

Back in the past when it came to Hell Difficulty, China was first, and Russia was second .

In those days the number of people in Hell was just a tally on how many greedy people joined in .

But ever since the Hard Difficulty Players cleared the Tutorial and returned, everything changed .

Each and every individual who cleared Hard Difficulty had, with exaggeration, the power of an entire nation .

National might was now directly related to how many Returned that nation had .

The World's Policy was first the Returned, and second the Returned as well .

The most valuable resource was the Returned .

A nation's public order and military strength was based on the Returned .

The stability of the economy relied on the Returned .

Population and its density was about the Returned .

All first world nations gained information about the Tutorial from the graduates, the Returned .

In order to prepare the population from the random nature of the Tutorial's selection, they made its education and preparation an obligation to every citizen .

Plus, they began attracting the Returned from Third World countries by sending better contracts and deals .

Soon after, many of the Returned chose not to help their own countries, but choose their nationalities based on the contracts they were given .

There's even a saying that the moment you enter the Tutorial, you lose your passport .

Even if one accepted a contract with their own nation, in order to improve their terms, they would treat themselves as nationless before negotiating the contract .

All of the world scoured through the lands to gather as much Hard difficulty Returned as possible .

And soon, their eyes turned to Hell .

The first to move was China .

They would promote the relatives of all who challenged Hell Difficulty as Heroes .

From the rumours, half of the newcomers entered Hell Difficulty at one point .

The result was catastrophic .

They lacked too much information .

All of the challengers in Hell were killed through multiple Rounds, and China was now behind in raising new Returned from the world .

Since the number of Challengers are not determined by the nation's population, the blow was even heavier for the large, heavily populated nation .

The fact that only 100 people were chosen every time was very favourable to a country with small population .

And one of those countries was Korea .

For some reason, the survival rate of Korea's Returned were high .

Plus, Korea also had the highest Ranker for Hell, me .

Korea suddenly became one of the strongest nation for the Returned .

America soon approached Korea .

They determined that the reason for Korea's success was due to the society within the Tutorial and the high ranking Players who lead that society .

America promised financial and military support and in return, received information about Tutorial including Hell Difficulty .

To be precise, from me and few others, through the Korean Government .

And soon, America made every challenger in Hell as America's Heroes .

They made their lives into a documentary, and encouraged them .

They made them into idols for children, and created toys based on them .

With that, America now has an astonishing number of 11 challengers, I mean survivors in Hell Difficulty .

What was the point of having so many?

What was the point of reaching the 30th Floor?

Their chance of leaving the Tutorial alive was ever so close to 0 .

Idiots .

The Korean Government listened to my warnings too well .

They made entering Hell difficulty illegal .

. . . But wasn't that too much?

Well it's good that there were no more casualties resulting from it . . .

Thanks to that law, people only enter Hell by accident like Lee Yeon Hee, or fools who wouldn't listen to the warnings from others .

Back then I didn't think I'd get stuck on the 60th Floor .

Although I'm sure noone would of made it upto 60th Floor even if Korea made it legal .

Hm . . . but it still put me on a spot .

Maybe I should of made the warning lighter .

I closed the first section of the newspaper, and opened the second .

News within the Tutorial .

[More Controversies regarding extreme punishment from the Militia . ]

[Park Jung Ah, Captain of the Militia, informs punishments will stay harsh as it is . ]

[Lee Jun Suk, Hard Difficulty Floor 90 . When will he final clear the Floor?]

In all honesty, I'm not so interested in the news within the Tutorial itself .

Since all these stories could be seen within the Tutorial or heard from others .

The main article for the 2nd section was the walkthrough for the Tutorial .

And I could speak with certainty .

This newspaper had nothing that could aid me .

But, I always looked through the newspaper in detail, hoping to find some information that would be able to help Lee Yeon Hee .

Of course, there was none .

Valuable information that I didn't know of and ones that could help me wouldn't be written on an article like this for free .

That was dead certain .

I clicked my tongue, and took a look at the last section, the Auction House catalogue .

I wondered if there was anything good that month .

Could I send something to help Lee Yeon Hee?

As soon as I opened it, there was a headline which caught my eye .

[Finally Released! The Dragon's Egg!]

It seems Kim Yeon Ooh from Hard Difficulty Floor 77 has failed to hatch the dragon egg .

Through the constant requests from the Auction House, Kim Yeon Ooh has decided to list it for an auction on the 83rd Round .

Dragon . . .

Dragon's egg . . .

Hey, wait a minute .

Normally dragons are at the pinnacle of magic,

and they liked to transform into humans through polymorph and, huh?

"Hallelujah!"

I finally saw an exit through the 61st Floor!

I hatch the egg!

I raise the hatchling!

I teach magic to the hatchling!

I teach polymorph!

I train it to a point where it can survive alone in 61st Floor!

61st Floor Cleared!

I calmed my pounding heart, and checked how many remaining points I had .

Alright, I am fully loaded .

But not satisfied, I made a statement in the Community .

[Lee Ho Jae, Floor 60: Anyone who bets on the dragon egg will get fucked over by me . ]

[Lee Jun Suk, Floor 90: Wow, you've finally lost it huh . Jung Ah nuna, member of the Militia is blackmailing here . Isn't that a problem?]

[Lee Ho Jae, Floor 60: Shut up . And don't you dare think about making a bet for the dragon egg either . ]

[Lee Jun Suk, Floor 90: Heh . That's up for me to decide . ]

[Park Jung Ah, Floor 90: . . . Sigh]

[Kim Min Hyuk, Floor 97: Man, he's changed a lot . Back in the days, you couldn't even talk properly with others, trying to set that mood with your chuuninbyou . What happened to you?]

[Lee Ho Jae, Floor 60: Pot calling the kettle black huh . You couldn't even look me in the eye back then because you were so scared . ]

[Kim Min Hyuk, Floor 97: Oi! Don't say that bullshit . I wasn't scared aight? I wasn't at all . ]

I ignored my friend's attempt at maintaining his reputation and closed the Community .

Unlike what I've said on the Tutorial, I won't be chasing down people who competed for the dragon egg .

I have my place as a member of the militia to worry about .

Besides, I would never lose to anyone in the auction when it comes to points .

First of all, I'm the highest ranking player in Hell Difficulty .

Secondly, I've been here ever since the very first round, and I've been taking all the special benefits including the first to clear the floors 1 to 60 and many more .

I've earned some hefty points through providing information and counseling walkthroughs and helping with raising the stats for others .

There was no one in the Tutorial throughout the world, who had more points than me .

I could probably buy not just an egg but a dragon itself, if it ever came up in the auction house .

And the reality was that I would never be able to beat someone without going back to reality .

Unless the Grand Conference occured again .

Infact, it's been a while since the last Grand Conference .

It had always been very irregular with its arrangement and the frequency dropped as time went by, but maybe it was time for another one to be arranged soon .

If it does happen, I'll be able to see my friends and most importantly, see Lee Yeon Hee for the first time .

I had been talking with her through the chat this whole time, I wanted to know who she was in real life by seeing her eye to eye .

Maybe it would help me with training plans for her .

I should definitely put a request amongst the Easy difficulty players to gather some information about the next Grand Conference .

Memories of the past Grand Conferences began to pop up .

There's . . . not many good memories about the first Grand Conference .

There were other memories from different conferences as well .

Some were good, and some weren't so good .

These conferences were arranged quite frequently before the rules within the Community were set in place .

According to Park Jung Ah, it felt like the gods were urging us to solve the situation at hand .

Geez .

They should have planned the system better when they made it .

Since none of them could engage directly to solve it, they had no other choice than to open these conferences until the problems were solved by the people themselves .

After I read the newspaper, I left it at the corner of the table and took out a piece of letter .

It was a letter to Lee Yeon Hee .

Truth was I've been having a 1:1 chat with her everyday, but I occasionally send these letters aswell .

The first letter I sent was through the Auction House which was how I sent her items, and have continued to do so up until now .

It was okay for me, since all I had was time .

For Lee Yeon Hee, well . . .

Maybe it felt like being pen pals for her?

Well, it wasn't so bad .

If this could ease her loneliness and boredom then I've got to go along with it as much as I could .

Lee Yeon Hee had been sending all the thoughts and feelings she's been having as if writing a diary .

I noticed most of her conversations have been centred on her current personal state and complaints rather than information and training .

The letters focused more on stories back in the real world or when she was young .

Since the letters were quite long, the replies had to become thorough aswell .

I proofread the letter, looking for mistakes or if I'm missing any points in my answers .

After the proofreading the letter, I pondered on my concerns that I've delayed until now .

It had been going on since the night before .

Should I really put this onto the letter?

I repeatedly wrote it, erased it, and changed it .

Even a teenage boy in love wouldn't worry as much over the last phrase of his letter .

Haah .

Send Kirikiri Turtle's,

I don't think it's the time yet .

Send Kirikiri my regards .

Yes . Let's just keep it this way .

I really do want to send my regards to Kirikiri aswell .

My mind felt refreshed after dealing with the concerns I've had on my mind for the last few days .