Chapter 325: Death Diary (3)

Skaya was quiet for a long time after Seo Jun-Ho told his story. Eventually, she finally spoke, “Okay, if this is some kind of prank or a hidden-camera thing, tell me right now. I’ll laugh.”

“...”

Seo Jun-Ho looked at her deadpan without saying anything. Sometimes, his face would get his point across better than any words.

“Hey, why are you staring at me like that? You’re starting to convince me!” Skaya scratched her head.

“So... We’ve already died once, and you’ve come back to the past, right?” she clarified.

“Exactly...”

“And this isn’t something you wrote.”

“Do you want to try it?”

He held out the pen to Skaya, and she wrote something down in the diary.

[If you confess now that this is a joke, I’ll only hit you once... No, I’ll only hit you three times and let you go.]

Seo Jun-Ho looked a little surprised when he saw what she wrote. “This is completely different from what you wrote last time.”

“What did I write?” Skaya asked

“You said Frost is super cute and that she only follows you around. Something like that,” he said.

“Seems like I must’ve been pretty relaxed. I’m jealous.” Skaya sighed. “...It’s probably because of the law of cause and effect.”

“What is that?”

“It refers to the relationship between a cause and an outcome. Have you ever watched a movie about time travel?”

“Yeah, some of the famous ones. Like The Butterfly Effect and Interstellar.”

“Then, it should be pretty easy to understand. The reason why I wrote down something different in this timeline is that you showed me the diary entry. That didn’t happen last time,” she explained.

Seo Jun-Ho nodded. He thought he understood it as he said, “So, in other words, every time I change something, the outcome becomes different?”

“Yup. That’s why you should try to follow the original events as closely as possible and just fix up the parts where you messed up,” Skaya advised.

“But what about the things that had already changed?” he asked.

For example, Skaya herself...

Skaya caught the look in her eyes and immediately came up with a solution. “Write it down.”

“Write what?”

“Write down everything I’m supposed to do and everywhere I’m supposed to go.”

“How am I supposed to know all that?” he protested.

“You can just write down the basics of what you remember. I can figure out the details,” Skaya said.

“I see...”

Skaya was smart. Just by looking at what she was supposed to do, Skaya would be able to infer the reasons behind her actions, as well as her line of thinking when she did those things.

“Mm, well, on the first day, you used the Magic Detector 4.0...” Seo Jun-Ho started. “And I heard you ran into the Sword Saint on the streets. After that, you started making the 5.0 in the hotel lobby and gave the 4.0 to Miss Si-Eun...”

Seo Jun-Ho told her all the important incidents he could remember.

“Good, good, this is more than enough,” Skaya said, writing everything down on a memo pad. “Now then, we need to learn more about this diary...”

“You failed last time. You said you were prohibited from entering.”

“Really?” Seo Jun-Ho’s words made Skaya’s face shine with curiosity, and she held out her hand again. A short moment later, she was repelled by a powerful force.

Skaya nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

Unlike last time, it appeared that her pride hadn’t been wounded.

“This diary inherently contains the power to manipulate time. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to do anything to it.”

Just by telling Skaya what the diary was, her actions and way of thinking completely changed.

‘I suppose I’ll have to pay attention to all these things from now on.’

Seo Jun-Ho was suddenly overtaken by a powerful wave of fatigue, and he rubbed his eyes.

“What do you think? What should I do from here?” he asked.

“Let me ask you something first. Was that Erebo guy that powerful?”

“...” Seo Jun-Ho closed his eyes and recalled their battle with the bastard. He played about ten simulations in his head before he opened his eyes. “Yes, he really is strong. But he’s not undefeatable.”

If the seven of them fought him while they were in good condition, they could even win.

“There’s just one problem. That guy’s smart. He’s very meticulous, and he always thinks before he acts,” Seo Jun-Ho added.

Erebo didn’t enter the battlefield while their stamina was being drained as they fought against the cockroaches throughout the week. All Erebo did was periodically appear and vanish as he watched the battle unfold from a distance.

“I don’t remember the exact number, but we killed at least a million cockroaches in a week,” Seo Jun-Ho said.

At the end of the fierce battle, their physical and mental energy had been exhausted, and that was when Erebo entered the battlefield.

“He’s intelligent and cautious for an insect... There’s only one solution, then,” Skaya decided.

“What is it?”

“Let’s clear the Quests here as soon as we can and go to the next city.”

“The next city...” Seo Jun-Ho nodded slowly. There were over 30,000 Players there. They were the most elite warriors in the world and could easily take care of hundreds of thousands of cockroaches.

“So, you’re telling me to keep the effects of the Exterminator Title completely under wraps,” he said.

“Since we don’t know what exactly is that ‘hivemind’ of his, we should avoid any flashy movements,” Skaya agreed.

“...That’s not as hard as I thought.”

Had Seo Jun-Ho been complicating it for himself? The solution Skaya proposed seemed a lot easier than to do than he had expected.

“And there’s something you need to make sure to remember. If you’re about to die again, gather as much information as possible. Especially about the hivemind,” Skaya requested.

“...Are you telling me to have a conversation with that bastard?”

“If you can, yeah. It’s fine if you only learn the little things, too. They’ll eventually add up and help us. And if you happen to get sent back to the past again, don’t tell me about the diary.”

Skaya’s second request was shocking.

“What? Why not? Honestly, you’ve helped me a ton already,” Seo Jun-Ho said.

“It’s best to minimize changes in the timeline. Even if you tell me about this, I won’t be able to give you a better solution.”

“Even if I find out something new?”

“Jun-Ho, you’re pretty smart yourself. With this much, you should be able to pretty well, even on your own,” Skaya said. Her voice was full of unwavering faith. But perhaps that still wasn’t enough, as she fell into deep thought once again. “Well, if you absolutely can’t do it by yourself, you can come to me.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to go through the process of convincing you again.”

“...That is pretty inefficient, isn’t it?” Skaya frowned slightly as she considered something. A moment later, she gestured him forward. “Come here.”

When he leaned in, she whispered something in his ear.

Seo Jun-Ho exclaimed in surprise. “What?! You—”

“Ugh, don’t say it!” Her face had gone red with anger. Skaya looked away. “Anyway, if you tell me that, I’ll believe you no matter what. I have never told that to anyone before.”

“...Haha.” Now that he knew a secret of hers, Seo Jun-Ho laughed weakly and nodded.

***freewe????nove????.????om

The next day, Wei Chun-Hak left the city again. And once more, the party split up to look for marbles.

- The chopstick container on the second table in the knife noodle restaurant to the left piques my interest.

Seo Jun-Ho followed Keen Intuition’s guidance and steadily gathered marbles. He got the feeling that if he got too absorbed in finding them, he might create another ripple.

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“214.” Of course, he collected the exact same number of marbles he had collected on the first day back then, as he had closely followed the same route as before.

But as soon as he returned to the hotel, Skaya quietly pulled him aside.

“...Something’s changed,” she said.

“What? But I haven’t done anything different yet,” he said.

“I don’t think the broken vending machine is broken anymore. Look at this.” She showed him an orb. “I put a hundred marbles in the machine in front of the school, but I got a reward instead.”

“So the broken vending machine is still working even though we’ve come back to the past.” Seo Jun-Ho frowned. If they could get another diary from the vending machine, things could have become easier.

“Hey, aren’t you guys gonna eat dinner?” Rahmadat called.

The little changes were starting to pile up. Rahmadat hadn’t done that last time, either.

“...Let’s go for now. There aren’t any big changes yet, after all,” Seo Jun-Ho said, forcing himself to look calm.

The next morning, Seo Jun-Ho finally gathered a thousand marbles. He went to the vending machine near the school once again.

[You have inserted 100 marbles.]

[Nothing happened.]

[Vending machine uses 0/10.]

“I knew it...”

Since he had the diary, the System didn’t let him use the vending machines again.

‘I knew this would happen, but I’m still disappointed.’

He had been hoping to use items to become stronger as a backup plan if he ever found himself in a pinch. If he could get stronger without any limits, he would be able to kill the army of cockroaches by himself.

‘There’s a lot I need to figure out.’

Skaya didn’t seem to know anything about the hivemind. However, if he could figure it out, their journey would become easier.

Seo Jun-Ho let out a long sigh and returned to the hotel.

***

Paaa- Paam!

“...” The Frost Queen stared at Seo Jun-Ho, looking a little surprised.

“Have you ever played a similar type of instrument in the past?” she asked.

“Oh...” Seo Jun-Ho internally realized his mistake and nodded awkwardly. “Just for a little bit, with a different teacher.”

“I see...”

The Frost Queen primly muttered something about wanting to reestablish her majesty and how her Contractor had played too well against her expectations.

‘I do not know what kind of teacher he had, but they taught him the basics quite well,’ she thought. However, she looked a little sulky at the thought of it.

“...Why did you say that you were not going to hunt?” she asked.

“It’s exactly as I said. I don’t feel very well, you see.”

“That is not true...”

“No, it is...”

If he hunted cockroaches with them, the other party members would inevitably end up discovering the effects of Exterminator. So, after brainstorming with Skaya, the two of them decided that he shouldn’t go hunting at all.

‘I can just take my time and clear the Quests during the day. It’ll be advantageous for us if we just clear this city quietly.’

While everyone had left that night to go hunting, Seo Jun-Ho practiced his instrument as he looked out the window.

And just like that, a month passed...

***

Other than Jun-Ho, the party members had grown stronger thanks to the vending machines. However, their nightly hunts always exhausted them. Whenever Seo Jun-Ho saw how quiet they were due to fatigue, he felt guilty.

‘Yeah, it really did take thirty thousand Players a whole month to clean this place up...’

Cha Si-Eun was skillfully supporting the party, but she didn’t kill many cockroaches herself. The true fighting force consisted of the rest of the 5 Heroes, as well as the Sword Saint Kim Woo-Joong.

“...The 12th Quest has to be carried out at night, but there are too many cockroaches for us to do that,” Rahmadat said, looking at Seo Jun-Ho.

“Jun-Ho, are you still not feeling well?”

“...Yeah, seems that way.”

“Hey, Saintess. Have you taken a look at him?”

“I even tried healing him a few times. We still haven’t found the cause.”

“Sigh...” Rahmadat clicked his tongue.

Everyone knew that Seo Jun-Ho was lying.

“...”

However, all Seo Jun-Ho could do was quietly endure their resentful looks. After all, this was the only way to save everyone.

When night fell, and the party members left the hotel to go hunting, the Frost Queen spoke, “Why are you going so far as to lie just to avoid hunting?”

“Really—it’s really because I don’t feel well.”

Seo Jun-Ho continued to practice his instrument in a gloomy mood. The only good thing was that he had become pretty good at producing a sound in the past month.

“I’m gonna stop here for today...”

He wrapped up his practice at around dawn and was about to step out of the lounge when the entire building started to shake. There was a loud, strange booming sound from the lower floor.

“What is it?!” He rushed down, but the lobby was already in chaos.

“Dammit! We pushed ourselves too hard because we thought we’d never be able to clear the Quest...”

“They surrounded us. We barely managed to escape!”

“We have no other choice but to hold out until morning!”

Skaya sealed the entrance with magic, and the rest of the party started to attack the cockroaches as they swarmed in.

Seo Jun-Ho started to tremble violently.

‘You’re going to try to hold out until morning?’

That would be impossible...

Sure enough, once the entrance was sealed, the cockroaches climbed up the outer walls and started to flood in from above.

‘Dammit!’

Just as they were about to reach Seo Jun-Ho, they froze like statues.

Once again, Exterminator’s effects were activated.

***

Inside a red, elegant building, Erebo shot up from his seat.

‘The new Players. I haven’t been paying much attention to them because their numbers are small...’

And he had even managed to skillfully surround them with thousands of cockroaches today. Erebo was greatly interested in humans, and he had been planning to watch their final moments through the hivemind.

“...This one is dangerous.”

Upon discovering his natural enemy; however, Erebo immediately spread his wings.

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