Chapter 381

Invasion (2)

After Michael Zetter left, once my plan had been fully sorted out, I left Korea and flew to the United States. My destination was a small warehouse Zetter had arranged as a temporary meeting point. The cold concrete floor, the neatly organized shelves, the lighting kept to a bare minimum, all of it seemed to reflect Michael Zetter's personality perfectly.

Rustle.

I spread the drawing paper I'd been filling out across the large table in the center and pushed it toward him. It was a mind map I'd spent the last week staying up every night to put together, predictions about the future and plans to counter them. The location of the first invasion, ten months from now. The types and scale of the monsters. The projected damage. And a step-by-step operational plan to stop it.

"The first step of this plan is getting your full cooperation, Zetter."

"..."

"Not simple cooperation. I need you to use every bit of your authority to support my plan. I make the decisions. You carry them out."

It wasn't a request for partnership. It was, in effect, establishing a hierarchy, practically asking Zetter to place himself under me.

"If that gives us the best odds of success, I agree."

Zetter nodded readily, his face blank. Yeah, I'd figured he would. If I knew Zetter at all.

I'd expected this outcome, but having it actually go the way I predicted still let some of the tension drain out of my body.

"However."

Zetter wasn't finished.

"However, there's a part we could improve slightly. You'll still make the final call, Jun-ho-nim, but would you like to hear it?"

Instead of pushing back, he offered a supplement to my plan. His suggestion was simple.

"I intended to introduce a player ranking system in the near future. Are you actually going to implement it?"

"Yes."

"Then wouldn't strengthening the Player Association's function make this plan considerably more solid?"

"...Hm."

Divide players into ranks from S down to D. Give the higher-ranked players wealth and prestige. Push the lower-ranked players to climb the Tower and grow stronger. Michael Zetter's "Player Association improvement plan" did line up neatly with the situation we were currently facing. Stopping the invasion would require more players, stronger players, and a system to give them a reason to fight.

"Higher-ranked players are more likely to cooperate in holding back the monsters, if only because they're being watched. Lower-ranked players will climb the Tower more aggressively and grow stronger, chasing rank promotions and rewards."

Separate from the fact that Zetter was a complete bastard, this system itself wasn't bad at all.

The problem was that the Michael Zetter of the past had tried something similar. In practice, most top-tier players were eccentrics who cared little for money or fame, and the Association itself hadn't had enough power or funding for the system to function properly.

"Couldn't you fill in that gap yourself, Jun-ho-nim?"

He had a point. Money? I could earn it using my knowledge of the future. Top-tier players refusing to cooperate? I could use Ji-won's reputation and my information about the future as leverage to persuade them. Loopholes in the system, unexpected variables? I could regress and fix them. My Regression was exactly the kind of perfect safety net and guarantee the old Zetter never had.

"I'll hand the initiative to you, Jun-ho-nim. Now that I've recognized I already failed once, I don't intend to be stubborn about it. What do you think?"

"..."

It did seem... decent, honestly. Pretty good, even.

"If it starts feeling off, I'm scrapping it."

"Understood."

And so my plan, which had felt a little thin on its own, was rounded out by Michael Zetter's suggestion.

And I started changing the world in earnest.

Changing the world wasn't nearly as easy as I'd assumed. Even if I was the strongest being on this planet, that only applied to raw combat power. Changing an order that billions of people had lived their whole lives inside wasn't something to take lightly.

"You get paid just for registering with the Player Association? And if your rank comes out high, you get a regular salary?"

"But don't you have to give up all your ability info for that? Wouldn't it be smarter to just rob a bank on the sly?"

At first, players were wary. If anything, the resistance was worse than it had been to Zetter's original proposal, precisely because the reward was too generous. Hand over your identity and your abilities in exchange for a lot of money? It smelled suspicious. Like there had to be some conspiracy lurking underneath.

"Mr. President. Let's be honest here. The United States just wants to crown itself king. Isn't that right?"

"...No. This is genuinely about forming an alliance to prepare for a crisis."

"But the clauses are awfully suspicious. 'In the event of a transnational disaster, all nations must actively cooperate.' What in the world counts as a transnational disaster? China slapping on tariffs? North Korea developing nukes? Or maybe just some player you don't like acting up?"

The governments weren't any easier to work with. Michael Zetter had managed to persuade the American President, but getting the American President to persuade other world leaders was another matter entirely. America's proposal, to form a transnational treaty for emergency response, came out of nowhere and reeked of ulterior motives.

Yeah, the plan looked like it had clearly failed. At first, anyway.

"Yes, today we'll be joined by 'the Shield Magician,' Mr. Turco! Mr. Turco?"

"Ah, yes. Nice to meet you."

"...Man, even a gorilla like that gets on TV shows now."

"He's a player. A-grade, wasn't it? I saw a clip of him using his shield, and honestly, it looked pretty cool."

"...I survived the Tutorial too, you know..."

The president of the world's most powerful nation had made up his mind. The most famous head of the Player Association had made up his mind. The strongest regressor in history had made up his mind. They couldn't change the entire structure of society, but they could, at the very least, change the culture.

They poured in money. Bought up TV stations. Ran viral campaigns nonstop. Players already loved showing off their flashy abilities, and with this much backing behind them, every set of eyes in the world eventually landed on "players."

"Nah, Lin Jinhao's still stronger. You seen that kick they pulled off?"

"You kidding me? You don't know Choi Ji-won? Choi Ji-won? Man, what do you even know?"

"You actually watched them fight or something? Who told you Choi Ji-won's stronger?"

"The Player Association did."

"Huh?"

Right in the middle of all this, Choi Ji-won became the first person in history to receive S-grade. There's something intuitively magical about the letter S. Anyone who saw it understood at a glance that she was the best. Even someone looking to pick a fight had to reckon with the track record that proved her strength.

"If anyone wants to claim they're stronger than me, it's simple. Take the Association's test. Score better than I did. That's all it takes, isn't it?"

Choi Ji-won's area-wide provocation, unleashed at a press conference. Thanks to that taunt, players who'd been hiding started registering with the Association.

Of course, players becoming mainstream culture didn't come with only upsides.

"Ple, please save me..."

"My daughter... my house... ah... aaaaaaargh!!!"

The more attention players got, the more attention their crimes got too. In particular, a rumor spread that "people without eyes or arms" were criminals, since so many had committed serious crimes during the Tutorial, and that naturally fed into a wave of hatred toward people with disabilities.

"Guh...!"

"Suppression complete. You can take him from here."

Thankfully, none of the criminals turned out to be overwhelmingly strong, and players who'd grown stronger climbing the Tower were able to subdue them before they could hide inside it.

Mostly it was subordinates dispatched by Choi Ji-won or Zetter, or otherwise players chasing honor for themselves, and every once in a while, a man wearing a mask with a mysterious air about him.

A whole range of powerful figures actively took up the work of catching criminals, and once subdued, the criminals were hauled off to the Player Association's prison. The media covered every step of it too, which had the side effect of turning players into heroes.

And that wasn't all. The approach to persuading other governments outside the US changed too.

"The United States won't be forming a transnational body. What we're asking is that every other nation build its own process and capability to respond to a crisis."

"The economy's in bad shape. And there'll be serious public backlash. We're already catching flak for wasting tax money as it is, and now you want us to build bomb shelters and expand the military? I'll get impeached."

"But consider this. Just look at a woman like Choi Ji-won right now. Plenty of people say the military couldn't subdue her. Word is you'd need to launch a missile just to bring her down."

"..."

"Can you say with confidence that no player stronger than her exists right now? What would you do if a player like that went on a rampage, slaughtering civilians? If they threatened to come for your heads this instant, could you stop them?"

"...We'll consider it favorably."

Politicians are a breed sensitive to the feeling of a blade at their own throats. They changed their tune and accepted America's proposal.

So the start had been a little rocky, but in the end, everything was falling into place exactly according to plan. And right in the middle of that.

"...What do I do now."

I ran into a problem I'd never once considered until now.