Level 4 Human in a Ruined World - Chapter 62

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 62 17. Troublesome First Sword (3)

“What… what?”

How many people could immediately connect this situation with the word ‘advertiser’?

Byeong-cheol, who couldn’t immediately understand Young-woo’s words, gripped his pistol tighter and asked back.

“What are you saying right now? Explain properly!”

“An advertiser. They came to find me to make an advertising contract.”

Young-woo slightly moved his chin to point at the strange creature over there.

Of course, that was an advertiser who came from outer space.

And that was something the other party would know well even without explanation.

“Advertising…?”

The moment Byeong-cheol finally clearly understood Young-woo’s words and made an even more complicated expression.

―O…!

Meanwhile, the ‘advertiser’ that had almost completely wrapped around the light pillar began making sounds.

―Oo…!

The first few times were sounds at the level of meaningless battle cries.

―Young-o…!

But as time passed, one couldn’t help but think that it was trying hard to pronounce something.

At least Young-woo felt that way.

‘…Don’t tell me this is.’

Goosebumps rose along his spine.

And around this time, the advertiser finally completed the problematic word.

―Young-woo…!

Young-woo!

It was such clear pronunciation that even someone who didn’t know the name Jung Young-woo could at least think of the characters ‘Young-woo’ in their head.

That monster had been practicing human speech all this time.

“…What?”

Byeong-cheol, who belatedly realized this fact, turned around as if entranced.

Then.

―Young-woo…!

The creature shouted the word ‘Young-woo’ once more.

As if asking for confirmation that it had pronounced it correctly.

“…Shit, shit.”

Finally, cold sweat began to form on Byeong-cheol’s forehead too.

It was because he felt an unpleasant fear at the fact that this monster with dozens of heads strung together like prayer beads had learned human speech.

However, the unpleasant experience didn’t end there.

―Jung… Young-woo!

The advertiser, having perfectly mastered the two characters ‘Young-woo’, pronounced the last character ‘Jung’ in one go.

―Jung Young-woo!

It had probably gotten the hang of how to make human sounds. A radio that had only made noise had finally found the proper frequency.

“Jung Young-woo…?”

Byeong-cheol instinctively realized that the sound the monster had been practicing was a person’s name and shifted his gaze back to the golden outsider.

“Didn’t you say earlier that thing came to meet you? Then you must be…”

Byeong-cheol’s gun barrel was shaking as much as his trembling voice.

Young-woo stared at the gun barrel and slowly moved his mouth.

“Yes. I am Jung Young-woo.”

The outsider’s name was finally revealed.

And at the same time, the advertiser let out a thunderous voice.

―Jung Young-woo…! Contract! For… We, have come!

Although the intonation was a complete mess, the sentence itself that it pronounced was quite intact.

It had learned the language of this place in less than a few minutes since coming to Earth.

‘Come to think of it, without even an intermediary…’

Young-woo realized that the other party was something of a different class from the alien beings he had met so far.

Even the beings who came to Earth as merchants could only communicate through intermediaries.

What they could convey directly without going through intermediaries was at most heat, noise, or breathing sounds.

On the other hand, this creature called an advertiser.

―Jung Young-woo! For contract… We have, come!

Not only had it made this meeting happen without an intermediary’s intervention, but it was even correcting its awkward intonation by itself.

“We… you said?”

Byeong-cheol, who had been listening to the sounds the monster was making, turned around with an ‘oh no’ expression.

Then he raised his gun and aimed at the strange creature wrapped around the light pillar.

He judged that the monster that came down from the sky would be more dangerous than Jung Young-woo, who was at least of the same species.

‘That’s right. It didn’t come alone.’

Young-woo also carefully examined the creature’s appearance at the word ‘we’ that the advertiser had pronounced.

Creak.

This giant organism tightly wrapped around the dark red light pillar was in the form of dozens of heads strung together in multicolored light.

Dozens of heads of such different shapes that one might wonder if they were not only from different species but even from different planets.

There was a rock with something like an oil film rippling on its surface, something that reminded one of fish but had three or four times more eyeballs, and conversely, heads that closely resembled Earth’s beasts but were eerily creepy because they had no eyes.

“What, what the hell is that…”

Byeong-cheol, who found one that looked exactly like a human among the various heads, made a sound as if he was about to cry.

The problematic head with solid-looking cheekbones, a large nose, and sharply protruding bandit whiskers was rolling its excessively protruding eyeballs and looking down below.

‘So there was another species similar to humans.’

Young-woo also soon discovered the bandit head but wasn’t as shocked as Byeong-cheol.

It was because he had previously met a merchant who resembled humans.

The Voltak’s Wandering Merchants who had played ‘breathing sounds’ during the trade bidding.

‘So are dozens of advertisers bundled together right now?’

When Young-woo stepped forward to get a closer look at the advertiser’s appearance, Byeong-cheol pointed his gun barrel toward the sky and screamed almost like a shriek.

“What, what are you doing right now?”

“First, I need to send that thing back quickly.”

To do that, he would have to proceed with the advertising contract first.

“…”

Young-woo glanced at the young police officer who was still struggling between life and death on the floor, then passed by Byeong-cheol and headed toward the Advertiser.

Clank, clank.

As Young-woo made metallic sounds while advancing straight toward the light pillar, dozens of heads that had been looking in different directions all turned their gazes toward him at once.

And then.

―Ah…!

They all let out exclamations of admiration at the same time.

As if he fit exactly the model image they had been looking for.

―Jung Young-woo!

The Advertisers called out Young-woo’s name once more.

It seemed like they were trying to confirm whether the person standing before them was indeed Jung Young-woo.

So Young-woo said.

“Yes. I am Jung Young-woo07, human of Earth, strongest of Gyeongbuk.”

He recited the exact line that Mediator Kubu had once used to refer to him.

Because there was a high probability that what Kubu had done back then was a ‘universal greeting method.’

Then, to additionally prove his identity, he tapped his left chest to display his title.

Flash!

『Gyeongbuk First Sword』

A title interface granted by some system that governed the reset.

Perhaps the alien Advertisers would also trust the reset system, wouldn’t they?

‘Now, what’s next?’

As Young-woo scanned the dozens of heads one by one while waiting for a reaction, soon the heads with eyes rolled their eyeballs around.

―Greetings. Human of Earth, strongest of Gyeongbuk, Jung Young-woo07!

Their intonation had become much more natural by now.

―We are 「Dogo」…! We heard the call of 「Morning Star」 first.

When Dogo and Morning Star were pronounced, he could feel intangible waves rippling through the air, and each time this happened, Young-woo could clearly understand the meaning of those words.

Just like on the first day of the reset, when approaching the Exchange Office, information about the Exchange Office had automatically seeped into his mind.

‘Dogo…’

Though it was a proper noun he was hearing for the first time, Young-woo could grasp its meaning as if recalling a fact he had known for a long time.

‘So Dogo wasn’t the name of just one person.’

Dogo.

A pan-universal war weapons brand and a corporation with shares divided among multiple shareholders.

In other words, Young-woo was currently standing before the shareholders of a war weapons company.

‘So, does this mean I’m going to be an advertising model for a military contractor?’

Young-woo’s jaw dropped at the unexpected identity of the Advertiser.

But why…?

Why would a pan-universal weapons company want to advertise on Earth, setting aside other planets?

Just as doubt was about to rise in Young-woo, ‘Dogo’ began reciting strange lines.

―Chaos! Earth where civil war has erupted!

―Will 「Dogo」 be destructive in this world as well?

“What…?”

―Let’s find out together with Earth’s frontier lord, Jung Young-woo07!

“Good grief.”

Young-woo unconsciously pressed his forehead.

Putting together the series of lines, this seemed to be…

“…An advertising concept.”

* * *

Promoting the pan-universal military contractor 「Dogo」 by supporting a frontier lord on a planet where civil war had erupted…

Having understood this much, Young-woo had another question.

Anyway, if it was an advertising contract, wouldn’t there be conditions?

For instance, having to use only weapons supported by Dogo, or having to expose the brand name at specific moments.

“Um… I understand that this is brand advertising. So what exactly will I be doing?”

When Young-woo asked this, Dogo’s shareholders suddenly brightened up.

Flash!

Then, simultaneously, system text appeared in Young-woo’s vision.

「Dogo requests data access permission for Jung Young-woo07. Do you approve?」

[Requested Data]

|Unique Code

|Language Used

|Quest Slot

“Ah.”

It was a similar situation to when he first made a deal with Mediator Kubu.

The difference was that while Kubu had only requested unique code and language data, Dogo additionally requested Quest Slot access.

“…”

Young-woo thought for a moment, then approved the data access.

Then Dogo’s contract proposal was conveyed through system text.

「Contract : Dogo-49523-IIIII_II-Tier 2」

(Required) [Grade 2 Advertising Space Utilization]

-Our company’s logo will be printed on weapon trajectories.

-Before major battles, you must audibly announce that you are fighting with Dogo’s support.

(Required) [Grade 3 Exclusive Quest]

-You will receive bonuses each time you complete exclusive Quests.

(Optional) [Grade 2 Exclusive Quest]

-Advertising fees will be paid in installments only through completing exclusive Quests.

-The total advertising budget executed will increase by approximately 40 times.

#Basic advertising fee: Estimated 10 million Karma per week.

#Basic contract period: 4 weeks.

“…Crazy.”

This was truly fitting for an advertising contract that came from space.

While the ‘advertising space utilization’ was somewhat reasonable by Earth standards, the most important parts—the advertising fee payment method and additional execution scale—were beyond expectations.

‘The basic advertising fee is 10 million Karma per week, but they’ll pay up to 40 times that amount…?’

Of course, in this case, he could only receive the advertising fee by completing Quests designed by Dogo, so it might be a poison clause.

But it was a full 40 times the amount.

Simply converted to Karma, that was 400 million.

And that was a weekly salary of 400 million.

‘Even if the Quests are so difficult that I can only complete one out of ten, the advertising fee would still be 4 times the base amount. This is worth trying.’

And from Dogo’s perspective, wouldn’t they want their model to survive as long as possible to promote for them?

Therefore, he didn’t think they would backstab him with impossible Quests.

‘Let’s do it. At worst, I’ll break even.’

In the worst-case scenario, he would just spend about a month promoting Dogo’s support for free.

Young-woo blinked his eyes a few times, then shouted loudly toward Dogo’s shareholders.

“I’ll sign the contract! Including the Level 2 Quests…!”

Grade 4 Human of the Ruined World (Serial)

Author │ Oetu

Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong

Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.

Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok

Address │ 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul, Room 204 (Guro-dong, Daeryung Post Tower 1)

Email │ [email protected]

Website │ www.jayplemedia.com

ⓒOetu2023

※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and no part of the content may be used in any form or by any means without permission from our company and the author.

Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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