Past Life Returner

In early March of 2003, the Carrier Strike Group[1] shot thousands of missiles and turned Baghdad into a sea of fire. Because of them, the darkened night sky became as bright as daytime. The most powerful group in the past was Revolucion, but it was now the North American Carrier Strike Group. Iraq couldn’t even resist and was dying from the bombardment that started in the ocean.

Woo Yeon-Hee’s face was serious when she was watching the news, and it seemed like she needed an explanation.

I remarked casually, “What makes the Carrier Strike Group powerful is their radar fence. They identify all of the military supply arrangements and movements, then perform pinpoint strikes on the target. They block the opponents’ missiles and fighter jets in advance. Even if the opponent’s missile bases and fighter jets survive, they are intercepted in the air before they arrive at the aircraft carrier.”

“Wow, you know everything.” She gaped at me.

I was forced to learn about the military in the past when I was detained in the Korean armed forces. Woo Yeon-Hee focused on the news again as if she wanted to find a solution for the Day of Advent by watching the U.S. carrier group bombing Baghdad.

When I was making coffee, she got close to me. Her face was heavy as if she had come to a conclusion.

Of course…

Woo Yeon-Hee had been constantly observing and making conclusions during our dungeon runs. She realized that the boss monsters of the F and E-class dungeons were simply one of the elite subordinate monsters in the C-class dungeons. Therefore, the boss monsters of the C-class dungeon that we were struggling to defeat were just mere elite subordinate monsters of even higher-class dungeons. It was the reality that the boss monsters there were even more powerful beings. They would have extreme physiques, bizarre magic and unbreakable shields. Woo Yeon-Hee brought up an old memory.

“Nothing would work on that demon, right?”

She was referring to my memory that she saw when she was practicing the skill Mind Control. What she saw was Doom Caso, one of the Seven Demon Kings.

“The future is changing. We were not meant to be this strong,” I said.

“Do you still have precognitive dreams?” she asked.

“Sometimes, but they are becoming more positive. Our civilization will be maintained.”

“Yes, we…”

“Yes, we will.”

***

「There was no Adam Smith in the Oil Market.

The international oil market once increased the war premium[2] due to concerns about supply and demand instability when the war began. However, international oil prices are rising even more because of the prospect of a prolonged war. The oil market had been traditionally dominated by a minority, but the industry claims that the degree of seriousness has deepened since the dotcom bubble. Since a minority of speculative capitalists are purchasing a large portion of futures and increasing oil prices sharply, there’s a high possibility that the oil shocks will happen again like they did in the past.」

I was on the plane going back to Seoul, and Woo Yeon-Hee was asleep. I put the magazine back on the shelf and closed my eyes. I remembered all twenty-four D-class dungeons I had conquered with Woo Yeon-Hee. We had skipped E-class dungeons to reach S-class faster, so we targeted D-class dungeons. We had gained a total of 1.3 million points, but the total was actually higher when I converted three platinum boxes and two diamond boxes into points.

[Name: Na Seon-Hu

Health: B (0), Strength: B (2), Agility: C (3), Sense: C (71)

Total points: 11900

Accomplishment Reward: 386

Trait(8), Skill(4), Insignia(8), Item(5)]

[Trait - Man Who Overcomes Adversity: C (32), Strongman: B (0), Explorer: C (0), Interdiction: C (60), Forerunner: B (10), Gifted: B (0), Sensitive: B (1), Collector: C (23)]

[Skill - Odin’s Wrath: C (73), Devi’s Sword: C (2), Gaia’s Will: B (0), Night Eyes: C (5)]

The rewards were outstanding compared to the risks we had borne. If the people in my previous life noticed that I had only targeted D-class dungeons with this ability, they would have criticized me as a coward unless I belonged to a party. Also, the guild wouldn’t have let me do such a thing.

However, it was peaceful now. It was difficult to monopolize such an opportunity, so I was planning to enjoy this moment as long as I could. At this pace, I could easily break through the first difficult stage, which was upgrading my abilities from C to B-class. The second difficult stage was upgrading from B to A-class, and upgrading from A to S-class was called the transcendental stage.

Suddenly, a notification message popped up in front of my closed eyes through the darkness.

[The trait Interdiction has been activated.]

Wait… I haven’t even destroyed a dungeon, but why all of the sudden?

The System sometimes created contradictory quests but it never had a bug. Sure enough, it wasn’t about an accomplishment reward.

[Warning: 1 minute remaining before 100 Awakened receive quests about targeting you.]

[Would you like to defend? (Accomplishment reward expenditure: 250)]

The reason why Woo Yeon-Hee and I had been walking around the dungeon with our eyes wide open was to get a chance to spend Accomplishment Rewards. However, this wasn’t what I wanted, so I was bewildered for a moment.

I could understand the quest that told others to kill me as it was the damn System’s mind. However, warning me in advance to defend by using the reward points?

What the hell is this?

[55 seconds remaining until the quest occurs.]

[54 seconds remaining until the quest occurs.]

I was confident that I would stay alive even if one thousand novices were after me. I spoke in a low voice to check just in case.

“Could you show me the quest?”

I put my resentment toward the System aside for a bit.

[Assassination (Quest)

A threat to everyone is growing quickly.

Mission: Kill Na Seon-Hu.

Time limit: 1 year.

Class: S

* Quest item (Location Seeker) will be provided.]

Fucking Location Seeker.

I was upset because my real name was mentioned on the quest. If it used my fake names such as Ethan or Odin, I wouldn’t have minded this kind of prank. Intolerable anger surged up in me.

What the fuck!

I hurriedly took my hands off the seat armrests because I would have smashed them and the shock would be transmitted to the floor of the plane.

The first-class flight attendant asked, “Are you okay, sir?”

When I raised my head, I saw that she was standing there, frozen. She was breathing heavily through her slightly widened nostrils out of fear.

“I’m… sorry… I just remembered something terrible.”

I lowered my head and gestured for her to go back without looking at her.

[31 seconds remaining until the quest occurs.]

The System was ridiculing me by displaying a stopwatch. I had not only slowed down the spread of the Barba Corps’ plague, but also had thrown myself into the F-class dungeon although it was a suicidal act. Also, I had been busy accumulating wealth. All of this was for the survival of my family and the universal human race as a whole. However, the System was marking me as a ‘threat to everyone.’ This fucking System!

[Would you like to defend? (Accomplishment reward expenditure: 250)]

Shut the fuck up!

***

I had mentioned many times before that I would have been on the Eight Evils’ side if the Eight Evils and the Eight Virtues weren’t the culprits of the civil war of humanity. I would have served the most malicious First Evil as my master and received the items and runes he handed me with gratitude. In addition, I would have positioned myself at the forefront of the war against Revolucion and died heroically on the battlefield.

Huff. Huff.

I suddenly felt the raging heat in my breath. It wasn’t the right time to be consumed with anger. This shitty System had acted like a psychopath before, and I had forgotten about it since it had been a while since it last did something like this. It was time for me to make a realistic decision about whether to accept the System’s mischief or not. I quickly came up with a list of things that could happen after this shitty quest started.

1. If there was an Awakened among the top political or business groups in North America, that person would realize that I am the actual owner of Jonathan Investment Finance Group as soon as my name pops up. The possibility was very low, but it could happen.

2. My name would likely be revealed to the Awakened in Revolucion. Of course, Revolucion would order them to give up the quest, but my actual name and face would be disclosed during the process of tracking down the people who disobeyed them.

3. Joshua could come to a conclusion regarding the relationship between Na Seon-Hu and myself by giving up the quest. However, he was already aware that I’m the real owner of the Jonathan Group, so only my name would be revealed. With the Karjan family’s power, they might have already identified my real name through the White House. The only problem would be that the description of the quest could give them a negative image of me.

4. The Awakened would be more likely to use the Location Seeker out of curiosity instead of having an actual desire to attack me. The world was peaceful now, so it would be hard for people to commit a murder willy-nilly However, they would still likely approach me at unforeseen and inconvenient times.

5. If I agreed to pay the price to get rid of the quest, my remaining Accomplishment Rewards total would go down to 136. Restacking 250 points in a short period of time was impossible as each F-class dungeon was worth 1 point, E-classes were worth 3 points, and C-classes were worth 10 points. If the System decided to do this again, I would have to restart again from the beginning. Moreover, the System could ask for more points to defend against its next joke.

6. The assassination quest would probably be double-sided. There was a high possibility that I would soon receive a quest telling me to kill another Awakened. This could be used as an opportunity to find other pre-Awakened.

These were the important conditions to make a decision. I asked the System while suppressing my anger, “Is there a possibility that the same quest will occur again within one year?”

Of course, the System didn’t answer. I made a decision. Since the prank had already shown up, it was highly likely that this would happen again. This was the same during the Trial Tests in the past. Well, it was quite different from now, though…

[Warning: 100 Awakened have received quests about targeting you.]

Woo Yeon-Hee woke up with her eyes wide open. Her gaze in the air quickly turned toward me.

“Seon-Hu…”

Then, her gaze shifted to the Location Seeker that had formed in her hands. It was a little smaller than a person’s thumb, and it placed a search window that gave information about my current location.

“I know,” I replied.

I was waiting for something, and notification messages popped up frantically.

[The quest ‘Assassination(1)’ has occurred.]

…

[The quest ‘Assassination(100)’ has occurred.]

[The users have obtained the quest item ‘Location Seeker.’]

At that moment, I realized something huge. It had given me a quest to slow down the speed of Barba research to prevent disaster, but on the other hand, it had made me a public enemy despite my contribution. If that was the case… there could be two Systems, not one. The civil war of humanity that the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues caused might have taken place due to the collision between two Systems.

1. A naval force of the U.S. that operates in confined and open water 24/7. ☜

2. The gap between the market oil price and the steady state price with the OECD’s industry stock level during a war. ☜