Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 158

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Player of the Ruined World – Episode 158
Natsumi avoided my gaze, her voice uncertain as she continued.
“We’ve combined our strength through communication until now, and we’re still trying to do so.”
As Natsumi spoke with an aggrieved tone, Sato silently placed his hand on her knee.
A gesture saying there was no need to push herself, no need to strain.
Realizing her misstep a moment too late, Natsumi hunched her shoulders and lowered her head.
Sato swallowed dryly before speaking.
“Then speak with me.”
“Is what Natsumi said true?”
“The Elders here and Natsumi were originally Lords.”
“If you were Lords….”
“We combined our strength without shedding each other’s blood for survival.”
“….”
“I don’t know much about this game, but one thing I’m certain of. Our enemy isn’t humans—it’s the monsters up there.”
That’s the right answer.
Unlike the 1st and 2nd Ranked Factions, the 3rd Ranked Faction was considerably weak.
“Do you know anything about the 1st and 2nd Ranked Factions?”
“They… see this game as competition.”
“Competition?”
“The past is repeating itself. The current situation is… no different from the Ōnin War.”
The Ōnin War?
It sounds like Japanese history, but I don’t know about such things.
As I merely blinked, Sato gave a bitter smile and continued.
“Ah… I apologize. I’m not sure how to explain it to Koreans….”
“Simply put, you’re saying Japan’s Sengoku period is about to repeat itself?”
Then Park Sangha, who was beside me, spoke up.
Sato looked surprised, his expression startled as he asked.
“You know about Japan’s Sengoku period?”
“Isn’t it when each clan rose up and fought for power?”
“Ah… yes. That’s right. Exactly.”
“Since the faction rankings display people’s names, it must have been even more stimulating for Japanese people.”
“Precisely.”
Ah… Park Sangha indeed.
A man of broad knowledge.
As I scratched the bridge of my nose and looked at him, Park Sangha chuckled and spoke.
“I told you. I know things shallowly and widely.”
“Thanks to you, I understood right away.”
I laughed awkwardly and turned my attention back to Sato.
With such low faction numbers, Sato’s Faction would struggle to survive Stage 1.
Among Japan’s countless cities, the reason we were summoned to Osaka.
Perhaps… there’s a reason Gaia sent us to this place?
I straightened my posture and crossed my arms.
Then I spoke calmly.
“Regardless of the current situation or what intentions you all harbor, in your present state, survival will be difficult.”
Bewilderment flickered across Sato’s expression.
I explained the situation coldly.
“You’ve already fallen too far behind in faction power. You need at least 100 to survive Stage 1.”
“What do you mean…?”
“If the 3rd Ranked Faction is in this state, there’s no point even looking at the 4th and beyond. That’s what the current rankings show.”
Turbulence flickered in Sato’s eyes and those of the Elders beside him.
But they concealed it outwardly, instead betraying their unease through shifting in their seats and clearing their throats.
Sato moistened his lips and asked.
“How much… do you know about this game?”
“Can you move as I direct?”
At that, one of the Elders suddenly rose to his feet and shouted.
“Move as you direct? No matter that you saved Sato’s life, that’s going too far!”
“It’s to save all of you.”
“W-what?!”
“You asked why a Korean is in Japan.”
“…”
“We are not some divine and great being. We are merely players who cleared the game and moved on.”
“…!”
Sato, Natsumi, and the Elders froze in place, their eyes wide with shock.
“There’s already a country that cleared the game?”
A whisper that escaped among the Elders.
Regardless, I continued speaking.
“You asked how much I know about this game.”
“…”
“I won’t make grand promises about saving everyone. But I can promise you this: if you trust me and follow my lead, I will show you the ending of this game.”
The gazes of the Elders and Natsumi converged on Sato.
Sato swallowed dryly and remained silent for a moment.
Waiting with patience, Sato’s firmly closed lips slowly opened.
“You’ll… show us the end of this game?”
“Are you perhaps ambitious?”
“Pardon?”
“Seeing the end of this game means you could become the Shogun of this nation. I’m asking if you have ambitions for that position.”
I stared at Sato with an impassive expression and asked.
Sato took several slow, deep breaths, then straightened his posture and answered.
“Such positions hold no interest for me.”
“You can never be certain. Once you actually sit in that position, you might become someone different from the Sato you are now…”
“No, I mean it sincerely. There is only one thing I desire. I wish to return to the peaceful twenty-first century we once knew, rather than continue bleeding while we devour each other’s territories.”
“Can you assure me that your heart will not waver under any circumstances?”
As I raised my eyes sharply to pose the question, he withdrew a small blade from his breast.
A short sword, no more than thirty centimeters in length.
“…A tanto.”
At Park Sangha’s murmur beside me, I leaned close to his ear and whispered my question.
“What is that?”
“It’s a blade samurai and women used to carry. For ritual suicide.”
“Why are you drawing it now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s planning to write something in blood….”
Slice—!
In that instant, Sato Takuni used the tanto to carve a wound into his own thumb.
Simultaneously, he let a single drop of blood fall into the sake cup before him.
“I shall seal my oath with blood.”
“No, there’s no need to——”
“Please, drink.”
Sato Takuni extended the sake cup containing his blood droplet toward me.
What is this? I don’t want to drink it.
Why should I….
But his expression was so grave that I could not simply refuse.
I accepted the cup and pondered for a moment, then set it down firmly on the table with a sharp tap.
Then I drew my own hwando and made an identical cut on my thumb, letting a single drop of my blood fall into my own cup.
Sato Takuni naturally reached to accept my cup.
But what I offered him was not my cup—it was his own.
Seeing his confusion, I spoke to him with utmost gravity.
“Why do you swear your oath to me?”
“…Pardon?”
“If you are to realize your will, and if you are to remain steadfast regardless of what others say, then you must inscribe it upon your own heart.”
“…!”
“I, too, shall make a vow. If you remain true to your purpose and press forward, then I and my companions shall become your allies.”
“…Ahhh!”
Sato Takuni trembled as though struck by a profound revelation, as though swept away by a tsunami of overwhelming emotion, his lower lip quivering.
Soon he grasped the cup with both hands, raised it high, and cried out.
“I, Sato Takuni, swear that I shall realize my will until the day we return to Japan of the 2020s, when freedom was guaranteed for all!”
I lifted my own cup slightly in return and drank it down in one gulp.
Sato Takuni, Natsumi beside him, and the Elders all seemed deeply moved, applauding as they gazed upon us.
My companions also watched us with warm expressions of approval.
“Heh heh, Doyun’s way with words has improved considerably.”
Meanwhile, Park Sanghun burst into hearty laughter, muttering to himself as though even more proud.

* * *
After concluding my conversation with the Elders, I stepped outside to find the Plaza teeming with countless people.
“Everyone! Our steadfast reinforcements have arrived! The heavens have not abandoned us!”
Sato’s voice thundered across the square with such force it seemed to shake the very air.
He then relayed every word of our conversation to the assembled crowd.
As Sato’s speech concluded, the villagers erupted in cheers, their spirits ignited with renewed fervor.
“The heavens were moved by Sato’s character!”
“Our voices have reached the heavens!”
“What we believed to be right was never wrong!”
Some shouted with unbridled enthusiasm, while others clapped and danced with joy.
A few clasped their hands together in prayer, offering their gratitude to us as though we were divine beings.
Feeling somewhat embarrassed, I turned to Sato and asked him a question.
“Now we should assess the military capabilities of this place.”
“This way, please.”
Following Sato toward the Cliff at the village’s edge, a massive cavern entrance came into view.
The cave was engineered with such solidity that even earthquakes could not topple it.
Judging by the geological composition, this appeared to be granite bedrock.
Moreover, reinforcement work had been undertaken to prepare for any unforeseen impacts.
“Let’s proceed.”
We ventured deep into the cavern.
Elongated lighting fixtures ran along the ceiling, accompanied by various mechanical apparatus whose purpose remained unclear.
And at the far end lay….
“Wow….”
Kim Suhan stood with his mouth agape, staring at the vast underground chamber.
No, it wasn’t merely a chamber.
It was a Repair Shop where colossal weapons were undergoing extensive maintenance.
Ten massive weapons were being serviced simultaneously.
Among them was Sato’s own weapon, destroyed in the recent battle against the Grade 3 Monster.
“As you can see, we have a total of ten weapons.”
“Isn’t the number of players who chose the Shooter path rather small?”
Sato responded with a bitter smile.
“It’s true that few chose to become Shooters, but many have lost their lives.”
“Fighting monsters? Isn’t being a Fighter more dangerous?”
“As I mentioned, Battlesteam was never popular in Japan.”
“Ah….”
“Many Shooters perished from mana runaway. Others died before they could even begin, or fell early due to poor piloting skills.”
Ah, that’s right. Mana runaway.
I hadn’t considered that.
Not just anyone could pilot a weapon simply by becoming a Shooter.
To put it simply, it was similar to what martial arts novels often called “qi deviation”—a catastrophic loss of control.
Just as one can fall into demonic possession from external stimuli during breathing exercises, a Rider requires sufficient training before piloting a colossal weapon.
Without this knowledge, most Riders would have died the moment they boarded the weapon—unless they were naturally gifted in mana manipulation.
Their brains would have melted from mana runaway.
The colossal weapon draws in mana and channels it back through the body; those unable to control this flow experience runaway—a catastrophic surge of power.
That is mana runaway.
Therefore, piloting a colossal weapon means becoming one with the machine itself.
It was far more complex than it sounded.
As I surveyed the Repair Shop, I checked the monitors installed before each colossal weapon.
They displayed the current repair status in real time.
Most were between 50% and 70% repaired.
“Does the repair work take long?”
“It takes quite a while. How could we repair such enormous robots in an instant?”
“If a Grade 3 Monster has appeared, the frequency of monster appearances must be increasing.”
“You mean they’ll appear more often going forward?”
Sato’s expression betrayed a hint of dismay.
I seemed to have created unnecessary anxiety with my words.
So I spoke calmly.
“It will be fine. We’re here, after all.”
Sato bit his lower lip, then grasped my hand firmly and spoke.
“I cannot express how reassuring your presence is.”
“But… this is the first time a Grade 3 Monster has appeared, correct?”
“Yes, the first time.”
“Has the episode been completed?”
“No. The Grade 3 Monster on the surface apparently has no mana stone in its body.”
“What? That can’t be. Mana stones exist in all monsters’ bodies…”
As I spoke, the state of the last monster I’d seen flashed through my mind.
I had ruptured its organs.
The mana stone—a crystallized core of condensed mana within the body.
When strong impact is applied to a mana stone, the condensed mana detonates.
This is intuitively called mana stone explosion, and the Grade 3 Monster I’d just dealt with had suffered exactly that.
The episode’s failure was my fault.
So I averted my gaze and continued speaking.
“U-unlucky, I suppose. Sometimes monsters like that exist—ones without mana stones.”
“Ah? Monsters without mana stones do exist?”
“That’s right. Yes. Not all monsters have mana stones in their bodies.”
“I see.”
Sato listened intently to my explanation.
I felt sorry for deceiving him, but what could I do?
“Next time a Grade 3 Monster appears, we’ll secure the mana stone then and complete the episode.”
“Understood. Then… this way.”
Just as Sato was about to guide us to the next location, Park Sangha checked the monitor of the colossal weapon and asked.
“Hold on a moment, Doyun.”
“Yes, hyung.”
“Our abilities were transferred, right? You said they were client-compatible.”
“That’s correct. I could use the Shooter’s skills, and I could use my own skills too… wait, hold on.”
When I thought about it, the colossal weapon was just a machine, wasn’t it?
Even if I couldn’t do anything about the mana solution inside the weapon, couldn’t I repair the weapon itself using the Maker’s ability?
Park Sangha seemed to be thinking the same thing as me, striding purposefully toward the front of the colossal weapon.
Soon he placed his palm on the machine’s right foot and murmured.
“Instant Creation.”

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