Chapter 323

Chapter 323
## Chapter 323

“You truly developed a thousand different characters?”

“I didn’t progress them all to the end, but…”

“And you maintained a 99% survival rate with them? To my knowledge, no one has even cracked 50%. Honestly, forget half—you could count the number of people who even made it past 40% on a single hand, couldn’t you?”

The tutorial of Pangenia was notorious for its soul-crushing difficulty.

The scenarios were constantly shifting, and the environments were designed to make staying alive nearly impossible. In the world of Pangenia, a player was practically hailed as a ‘god’ just for maintaining a survival rate above 40%.

Yet, 99%!

It was a feat without precedent.

If anything, the legends surrounding Phantom had actually been modest.

During the initial period following the debut of Pangenia, there was a trend known as the ‘Survival Run’.

The objective, naturally, was to complete the primary Main Quest titled ‘Survival’.

‘The point of a Survival Run is to secure the high-tier rewards from that main quest. The more harrowing the survival conditions, the greater the prizes for succeeding. However, most players saw their survival rates hover around 20% at the very best.’

To counter this, Park Hyunmyeong had practiced ‘Survival Runs’ with deliberate intent.

He would then select only the characters who yielded high-value rewards and focus on developing them into powerful entities.

The primary obstacle, however, was that specific survival percentage.

‘If you churn out characters recklessly and let your survival rate tank, you get hit with a curse that drastically cuts your SP acquisition.’

This penalty was the reason most people who attempted ‘Survival Runs’ eventually gave up in frustration.

Collecting SP was arguably the most vital mechanic in all of Pangenia.

But in the logic of Pangenia, there existed a ‘survival rate’ stat; the lower it dropped, the less ‘SP’ a player would inherit when one of their characters perished.

The ‘Survival’ quest was already a nightmare.

As a player continued to play, their survival rate would inevitably trend downward, so most people didn’t even bother pushing the limits.

Yet he was claiming a rate of over 99%?

While a poor survival rate triggered a curse, a high rate provided a massive bonus multiplier.

This multiplier scaled upward the more a player challenged the system and the more consistently they succeeded in surviving.

Driven by curiosity, he asked.

“Um, if you don’t mind me asking, what was your actual SP bonus multiplier…?”

“It was roughly 250%?”

“*Cough!*”

It was a multiplier he had never even heard of, let alone seen.

Furthermore, even if it wasn’t explicitly displayed in the current status window, that SP bonus multiplier was still active in this current reality.

It meant that by performing the same actions as anyone else, he could accumulate SP much faster and in far greater quantities.

‘No wonder his rate of growth was so terrifyingly quick.’

It was likely just one of several factors, but the pieces of the puzzle were finally clicking into place.

Hudson probed further.

“Sir Hyunmyeong, did you also inherit SP when you transitioned into Randolph? In my case, I was granted all the accumulated SP from my prior survivals.”

“I did receive some.”

“If I may… how much was it exactly…?”

Hudson thought back to the SP he had been granted.

It happened immediately after his final character died and his consciousness was transferred.

When he checked his status interface, there was a pool of accumulated SP waiting for him.

It represented all the SP from the various characters he had cultivated, delivered in a single lump sum.

It totaled about 1,500—not a tiny amount, but certainly not an overwhelming fortune.

Still, it had been the key to his initial survival.

That realization made him even more desperate to know the truth.

If he had started with that much, how much had Hyun received when Wilhelm passed away?

Actually, it wasn’t just Wilhelm; if the man had created and successfully guided nearly a thousand characters to survival, the sheer volume of points must be beyond comprehension.

After a moment, Park Hyunmyeong spoke.

“It was approximately 1.6 million.”

“…”

‘I will bring back the Knights of the Round Table.’

For a heartbeat, Hudson wondered if his ears were playing tricks on him.

He was a man who dealt in massive quantities of data, spanning from the past to the present day.

To thrive as a merchant in this environment, he had to keep his perception sharp and his ears tuned to every whisper.

Thorough investigation was his lifeblood, and evaluating the worth and veracity of intel was his specialty.

In the realm of information brokerage, Hudson was among the elite.

He had dedicated his very soul to researching the “players,” so the figure he had just been given felt completely hallucinatory.

And he had every reason to feel that way.

‘Not sixteen thousand, not even a hundred and sixty thousand, but 1.6 million?’

…1.6 million!

With only a bit more than 1,000 SP, Hudson had managed to unlock the unique ‘Great Merchant’ class.

He had only achieved that by following an optimized strategy from a guide ‘Phantom’ had posted on the forums, but the vast majority of class acquisitions were finalized within that general price range.

Even the highest-ranked players usually started with an SP balance of less than 10,000.

No matter how many ‘Survival Runs’ one attempted, there was supposed to be a ceiling on the starting amount.

Based on Hudson’s own research, the individual with the highest recorded starting SP was Gracia.

‘Gracia was rumored to have started with 80,000.’

Even that legend only had 80,000.

Randolph had begun his journey with twenty times that amount.

The mere thought was enough to make Hudson’s mind stall.

‘What is even possible with 1.6 million SP?’

SP was fundamentally tied to an individual’s innate talents and abilities.

It was common knowledge that one could force the awakening of a class or even trigger a Hidden Trait using it.

A mere 10,000 SP was considered more than enough to ascend to the rank of a ‘Master’.

With 1.6 million, a person could quite literally rewrite their own destiny however they saw fit.

He was essentially the multi-billionaire of the SP economy.

‘And we haven’t even seen the full utility of SP yet.’

There were whispers moving through the shadows.

Rumors that SP was just as critical as the Golden Rule.

That the importance of SP would skyrocket during the final stages of the game’s progression.

Granted, at this stage, it was nothing more than speculation.

But even as a rumor, Hudson found it incredibly believable.

After all, there was no reliable method to farm SP.

The most one could hope for were tiny trickles from unique quests or hidden dungeons.

Either humanity simply hadn’t stumbled upon the main source yet, or the system hadn’t been updated to include it.

If a discovery was made or a patch occurred, the demand for SP would inevitably explode.

Therefore, in this current era, it should have been impossible for anyone to possess 160,000 SP, let-alone 1.6 million.

…It was supposed to be impossible.

‘The most terrifying thought is that 1.6 million might not even be the full story.’

He had run nearly a thousand characters through the gauntlet, raised them to their peak, and stood at the very top of the world.

1.6 million?

Given the miracles he had performed, that number might actually be on the low side.

SP didn’t stand for Skill Point; it stood for Soul Point.

As the terminology implied, it was a literal measurement of the value of a person’s soul.

If that were the case, it was highly probable that gathering 1.6 million Soul Points wasn’t the end of the rewards.

There was no way he had simply received twenty times more than Gracia.

On the contrary, one had to assume he had unlocked something far more profound.

What could it possibly be?

Hudson’s imagination couldn’t even grasp the scale of it.

“…Are you saying that Sir Park Hyunmyeong ‘rescued’ nearly a thousand people?”

It was at that moment.

The Saintess Sea, who had remained quiet until now, finally spoke up.

The locals understood less than half of the technical jargon being used, but the context of the conversation was starting to become clear to them.

Park Hyunmyeong had approached Pangenia as if it were a ‘game,’ but in doing so, he had intervened to save countless lives that were on the brink of extinction.

Judging by Hudson’s shocked state, a 99% success rate was a staggering, almost divine achievement.

To them, therefore, Park Hyunmyeong was essentially a messiah.

That is, provided the agreement with the Bluebird was a choice the victims had made for themselves.

Hudson nodded his head with intense conviction.

“…That is correct, Saintess. A thousand is a staggering number, an accomplishment other ‘players’ wouldn’t even dream of attempting. If it had been me, I doubt I could have saved even a hundred out of a thousand successfully.”

“So you are saying that everyone begins their journey in such a hopeless state…”

“Yes. The start is always a nightmare. There is no record of anyone ‘surviving’ an easy situation. It is always a scenario where death is the only logical outcome, where one is consumed by absolute terror. Sir Hyunmyeong untangled problems that defied all human logic as if he were simply playing a ‘game’. However…”

Hudson turned his focus back to Park Hyunmyeong.

There was still one major piece of the puzzle that didn’t make sense to him.

“What exactly is the ‘Bluebird’?”

The Bluebird.

He asked about the entity and the nature of the contract.

Even for someone like Hudson, who had spent his life analyzing the players, this was the first time he had ever heard of such a thing.

“…It is an entity that refers to itself as a ‘Game Master’. It is the one that triggers the ‘Divine Sickness’ in those who are about to die. Isabella, Isaac, and Balte have all encountered it personally.”

“And you’re telling me they entered into a ‘contract’ with it?”

When Hudson pressed for more details, Isabella was the one who spoke.

“I can explain that part.”

She was the only one present who possessed her full range of memories.

Perhaps out of everyone touched by the ‘Divine Sickness,’ she was the only one who had kept her mind intact.

This was because of what she had witnessed on the Isle of God and through the Gate of Truth.

Isabella took a long, steadying breath before continuing.

“…I am a clone created by the Dersian family of the Empire. I lived with the knowledge that I was disposable, liable to be replaced at any moment. While I was waiting for my inevitable death, a ‘Bluebird’ appeared at my window.”

“…!”

“It asked if I was willing to accept a challenge—if I wanted the chance to have a single wish granted, even if the price was the loss of all my memories and everything I owned.”

“And you agreed?”

“I did. I told it I would take the challenge. The issue is that I truly did lose my past. I forgot the meeting with the Bluebird, and I even lost the memories of the time I was being puppeted while suffering from the Divine Sickness.”

“Then how did you get those memories back?”

Isabella’s eyes drifted momentarily toward Park Hyunmyeong.

A soft, faint smile touched her lips.

“They returned to me when I was prepared to lay down my life.”

She had thrown herself into danger, ready to die to protect Park Hyunmyeong.

In that moment of self-sacrifice, her history had come rushing back.

She remembered everything, including her most cherished moments involving Sonora.

She was finally able to confront the memories she would never let go of, the ones she was duty-bound to remember.

Isabella concluded her narrative.

“The countless souls suffering from the ‘Divine Sickness’ across this world—all of them, myself included, made a conscious choice. We chose this to rewrite our fates. To find a way to keep living. Because of that, we cannot, and should not, condemn those who moved our bodies as ‘sinners’. Ultimately, it was our own decision.”

Her point was clear: one must own the consequences of their choices, no matter how they turn out.

The logic was sound, but it was a bitter pill to swallow.

Especially for someone like Isaac.

“…Are you telling me that my fury is aimed at the wrong person?”

“There is no valid reason for your anger, Isaac.”

“I… damn it, I need a moment to process this. I can’t just accept it all instantly.”

Isaac fought to keep his temper in check.

Isabella wasn’t the type to lie, and if this man truly was Randolph, then he was his savior.

Even if the face was different.

He couldn’t very well direct his rage at a benefactor to whom he owed his entire existence, could he?

Trapped in this mental deadlock, Isaac forced himself to breathe.

If his own memories would just return, he might be able to handle this.

But the most critical events were still a blank space in his mind, and the frustration was driving him to the edge.

“But doesn’t something seem off? Why did the Bluebird feel the need to wipe everyone’s memories in the first place?”

Hudson tilted his head in thought.

After organizing his ideas, he rubbed his chin and spoke.

“The ‘Bluebird’ constructs the vessels that can be inhabited, and the ‘Two Goddesses’ utilized the Golden Rule to facilitate our ‘possession’ of them. The ‘Bluebird’ acts as a designer of sorts… Furthermore, since all the ‘players’ have already taken over their hosts, the ‘Bluebird’ has no reason to make new contracts, right? So why is it still lurking in the shadows?”

“The fact that it scrubbed everyone’s minds suggests it doesn’t want its true nature exposed,” Isabella suggested, but Hudson still looked unconvinced.

“The problem is that by deleting those memories, the victims of the ‘Divine Sickness’ now view us players as ‘sinners’ and are consumed by hatred. If the goal was truly to save the world, wouldn’t the logical step be to encourage everyone to cooperate?”

“…That detail is definitely suspicious.”

“And the way these memory fragments only start to resurface after someone consumes a Star and transcends—that’s also bizarre. It’s almost as if the system is telling them to hunt us down and kill us now that they have the power to do so, isn’t it?”

“That seems like a bit of a stretch…”

“Isabella. Isaac. Didn’t both of you feel a deep resentment toward him?”

“…”

They couldn’t deny it.

Hudson’s observation hit the mark.

When they had undergone transcendence and learned the name and identity of ‘Park Hyunmyeong’.

They had been filled with a burning sense of betrayal and wrath.

Hudson reached his final thought.

“The ‘Two Goddesses’ are clearly aligned with humanity. But I suspect the ‘Bluebird’ has an agenda that isn’t purely humanitarian. I can sense some other motive at play.”

“What could possibly be gained by tricking everyone into killing each other?”

Every calculated move has an objective.

But no one could figure out the logic behind the Bluebird’s strategy.

What possible profit could it derive from this conflict?

As the group sat in contemplative silence, a resonant voice cut through the air.

“A perfect being.”

“Sir Hyunmyeong. A perfect being…?”

“It intends to usher in destruction, or something equivalent to it. That is the Bluebird’s goal.”

It was the only explanation that fit.

Just like the Ant King, Fermon.

A cycle of constant slaughter where only the strongest survives to reach completion.

To achieve perfection through a process of unending evolution.

If that wasn’t the goal, there would be no reason for such a complex, deceptive plan.

A plan so subtle that even the ‘Two Goddesses’ had failed to see through it.

“Everyone is moving toward a goal. We, too, must establish our ‘purpose’.”

In the heavy silence that followed.

…I spoke the word ‘purpose’.

Now that the truth was out in the open, it was time for us to take decisive action.

Immediately, every person in the room turned their gaze toward me.

I spoke with absolute conviction.

“I am going to restore the ‘Knights of the Round Table’.”

“I’m sorry… what?”

Hudson looked as if he’d been struck by lightning.

The entire group, Hudson included, stared at me with looks of pure shock.

But I wasn’t finished.

“Furthermore, I am appointing every one of you here today as the new ‘Knights of the Round Table’.”

“Excuuuuuse me…?!”

There was no point in dragging my feet.

It was time to move with purpose.

It was time to proclaim to the entire world that the Knights of the Round Table had returned to glory.

I offered a small smile and shifted my gaze.

“And Serengeti.”

“…I am listening.”

Serengeti watched me with a piercing intensity.

Despite being the one who likely found this story the most difficult to digest, she had adjusted her posture as if she accepted everything.

She had already come to view Randolph as Wilhelm, so in a way, this was the natural progression for her.

I nodded and continued.

“Do you not have something you need to share with me regarding the ‘Knights of the Round Table’?”

If she was the one who had earned such profound recognition through the World Tree’s trial, and if she was the one holding the legacy of the Knights together, it stood to reason she held a key piece of information.

Then.

“Yes. There is a secret history that I am bound to reveal.”

Serengeti answered without a moment’s hesitation.

A secret history.

A tale hidden from the world.

And it was just as world-shaking as the confession I had just made.

“They are still among the living. They are here, within the World Tree’s dungeon.”

…No, it was actually far more stunning than anything I had said.

—

At last, every requirement had been met.

I had finalized the roster for the party that would venture into the ‘Dungeon of Forgotten Honor’.

I looked over the group I had gathered.

I stepped forward slowly, appearing before the presence of the World Tree.

There were a few who recognized me, but the vast majority had no idea who I was.

They were the sovereigns of their respective races, the pinnacle of power who had fought for their standing.

They all watched me with looks of bewilderment or deep-seated mistrust.

Undeterred, I spoke to them with a calm, steady voice.

“Greetings to you all. I am ‘Hyun,’ the Druid of the Golden Rule.”