Return To Player - Chapter 10

How to nurture my party members (1)

[You have cleared ‘Main Quest 1’!]

[Your quest achievement is ‘Platinum’ grade.]

[After a while, the reward will be paid.]

“Oh.”

As I left school, I heard a loud notification that I was waiting for.

“I expected it, but platinum grade….”

I led the escape team and became bait.

I defeated a Hobgoblin, the hidden boss, and even defeated a Minotaur, the sentinel, so it is natural in a way.

Rather, it is not strange to have received a grade higher than platinum.

It’s just that the highest grade was the platinum grade, so there was nothing more.

“What will the reward be?”

I don’t have a weapon to use right now, so I wish it would give me a decent weapon or a skill that I can use.

I don’t need any consumables or points to survive.

“Eh?”

With that thought in mind, I walked for a while and saw a familiar person sitting on the sidewalk.

“Han Ji-soo? Why are you here?”

I thought, of course, she would have followed the others.

Because if Jisoo followed the others, she can monitor Dong-Gwon’s behavior and put restrictions on his actions.

But she’s waiting here.

“Oh, were you…..worried?”

It wasn’t a bad feeling to be waited on like this.

I was a little sorry that I grabbed the Minotaur and came out to relax quite a bit.

“No, I knew you’d be fine.”

“Eh? Really?”

Did she see through my acting? I’m sure my acting was pretty good.

Seeing that the Observers just went away, I don’t think my acting was lacking.

“I noticed that after we became a party the other day, I could check the status of my other party members.”

Jisoo tapped the air and opened the notification window.

There, the current status of me and Jisoo was displayed.

“When you got hit by the Minotaur and got blasted away, I saw that you were completely fine, so I assumed that you were just acting. Since I know Sehan Oppa doesn’t want to stand out that much.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then did you defeat the minotaur? What grade did you get, Oppa?”

“Platinum.”

“Wow!”

Jisoo’s eyes brightened.

“How about you? What grade did you get?”

“I got gold.”

The gold rating is great enough. If you clear the original quest normally to the highest level, the rating you receive most of the time is gold.

Platinum is a grade that is just extremely hard to achieve.

So many times in my previous life I couldn’t get it.

[The rewards will now be distributed.]

[You have achieved a great accomplishment!]

Fireworks went off again, and my achievements were displayed.

‘First person to defeat a Sentinel.’
‘Sacrificed himself for the sake of so many people.”

Those were my achievements.

‘I didn’t really sacrifice myself….’

As you can see, I’m still alive.

[You have received x1 ‘Compressed Orihalcum’ as a reward.]

[You have acquired the skill ‘The Finality Of Time (Growth-Type)’ as a reward.]

[You have acquired the skill ‘Regeneration (Growth-Type)’ as a reward.]

[You have earned 1,000 points as a reward.]

“Huh.”

Three rewards came pouring in at once. This time around, I couldn’t help but be surprised.

I don’t know what Compressed Orihalcum is, but the other two skills are growth-type skills with the difficulty of acquiring similar to catching stars in the sky.

This isn’t just a reward for getting Platinum rank.

Perhaps it was the Hidden Boss, as well as the killing of the Sentinel, that was counted as a bonus.

It might be a reasonable reward in some ways, as I was the first person in the world to kill a sentinel in ‘Main Quest 1’.

‘Even if it’s a weakened sentinel.’

What you kill is what you get.

Still, it’s a bit disappointing that I didn’t get an S-class skill.

Growth-type has high potential in the second half, but S-class can’t grow, and it’s often a deceptive skill.

For example, like the [Thousand Deaths] Ji-Soo has.

[The rewards have been distributed, assigning ‘Main Quest 2’.]

==
Main Quest 2: Head to Rome World Tower!

Head to Rome World, and defeat the boss monster.
After graduating from university, you are now taking your first steps into a new world.
From now on, you must defeat the monster occupying Rome World Tower.

Difficulty: C
Time Limit: 14 days
==

As the rewards were distributed, the Quest’s notification rang.

It was the same quest as in my previous round.

Players who clear the same stage will share the same main quest for a certain period, so Ji-Soo’s quest should be the same as mine.

“Did everyone else in the escape team go to the Rome World Tower?”

“Yes.”

“But as I asked you earlier, why didn’t you go with them? If you were going to wait anyway, you could’ve waited for me there.”

As I posed the question again, Jisoo frowned.

There was something that had annoyed her, and her irritation seems to be directed toward something other than me.

“First of all, I don’t like places where there are a lot of people. More than anything, I didn’t like that man, Dong-Kwon Park.”

“Why?”

“He stinks.”

Does he? Park Dong-Kwon didn’t have a particularly strange smell. Does she mean that he stinks metaphorically?

Because Park Dong-Kwon was not at the level of acting as skillfully as in the previous round and deceiving others.

If it was the sharp Ji-Soo, she might have figured out the garbage-like part of him.

‘Has she already analyzed him? The more I see her, the more talented she seems.’

First of all, the fact that she has the Thousand Deaths as a starting skill is terrifying.

She seems to have a trait too, so if she hadn’t died early in the last round, she would’ve definitely become a famous player.

Though, I don’t know if it’d be as a hero or a villain.

“Are we going straight to Rome Tower?”

“No, let’s take our time. After all, the time limit is two weeks, right?”

“Oh, yeah.”

The duration of this quest is quite long.

Compared to the first main quest which took only 2 days, this quest took 14 days.

Of course, there are lots of traps everywhere.

‘By the way, there really aren’t any Observers here.’

Considering that Jisoo was waiting here, I thought there might be several.

Unlike me, Ji-Soo should’ve been quite eye-catching.

“Ji-Soo, I’m curious about something.”

“Yes?”

“Did you become a God’s avatar?”

“No.”

No?

So that’s why there are no observers.

After the first main quest is over, the requests from the gods should be pouring in.

Talented players scream with joy as multiple gods requested them to be their avatars.

‘Well, nobody asked me to be their avatar.’

When I opened the notification window just in case there was a request I didn’t know of, I saw no one had requested for me to be an avatar.

I did act like I died so I guess that’s to be expected.

Even in my previous round, I did not receive an avatar application at this time.

At that time, I didn’t show anything special, I just ran away, so I would be of no merit to the gods.

It was later that I became the avatar of a god.

“But why didn’t you become an avatar? The notification window must’ve informed you about the benefits of the avatar.”

Since no one requested me, the notification window itself did not appear, but if a person receives at least one application, they will hear an explanation about the benefits of being an avatar.

There are usually no players that don’t choose to be an avatar after hearing about all the benefits.

“I don’t want to serve someone I don’t even know the face of. Especially the word ‘Avatar’, just hearing it gives me a bad feeling.”

“…. Weren’t you originally a little more casual?”

As I thought about it before, Jisoo had a kinder personality to others.

I heard that she was popular in the department because she was kind and caring for others.

Come to think of it, it was strange that she started hanging out with me.

I didn’t have many friends, and I wasn’t a sociable person either.

Even so, Jisoo got along well with me.

But the current Jisoo was making infinitely cold judgments for others except me.

‘Is it the influence of the Thousand Deaths?’

It was too subtle a change for that.

If she had been really affected, she should have become a bloodthirsty madman.

Considering that even that ‘Cheon Ma’ couldn’t completely ignore the effects of Thousand Deaths, Jisoo’s current state can be said to be an exceptional case.

“Being extremely kind just seems…..meaningless now.”

At the words that Jisoo muttered, I nodded my head understandingly.

Well, it’s a personal matter, so I didn’t ask anymore.

She’s not going to hurt me anyway.

I turned around and brought up the topic of Gods again.

“Then how many avatar requests did you receive?”

“Um, was it twelve?”

Twelve.

It was quite a high level of recognition.

When I heard the names that Jisoo listed out, they were a few mind-blowing gods on the list.

Ji-Soo seemed so coveted.

‘And she is a member of my party now.’

A woman who refused to sign a contract with one of the gods some of which are extremely famous, unhesitatingly signed a contract with me.

I felt an unknown feeling rose inside of me.

‘I will raise you better than becoming the avatar of God.’

I was thinking of taking some time to do that.

“Follow me, first of all. We need to find a place to stay. We’re not going to keep staying here, are we?”

“Ah yes.”

Jisoo meekly nodded her head.

‘If Jisoo had signed a contract, a few observers would have followed her.’

It would’ve been a little annoying since our actions would be restricted.

But she refused a whopping number of twelve requests, and waited for me for hours without doing anything, so the observers left.

This is a really good thing for us.

I and Jisoo entered a suitable empty house and sat down.

Perhaps the owner of the house was attacked by monsters roaming the streets, since the house was very bloody.

Now that I finished tidying up, I sat down and was thinking about the future.

‘Is it better to exchange skills first?’

We have about a week or so amount of time to do the things we want to.

First of all, I had to check my new skills, and I was going to strengthen my Ji-Soo.

‘Even now, most players won’t be able to compete with her.’

Currently, some of the points I acquire are shared with Jisoo, and I have been acquiring a large number of points by wearing a VIP brooch.

With the game system we can use points to raise our stats, Ji-Soo will show a big difference from other people with her basic stats even if she doesn’t have Thousand Deaths.

‘Which one is better?’

I thought of giving things that would fit Jisoo as well as possible and giving her good skills.

But I couldn’t decide on which skill to share.

Because both were skills that would have fit Jisoo well.

==
The Finality Of Time (F) (Growth Type)
All of your actions are accelerated for a certain amount of time.
Duration: 5 seconds.
Cooldown: 1 hour.
==

First of all, the skill ‘the finality of time’.

Needless to say.

For Jisoo, who will focus on melee combat, the finality of time is a skill that can greatly increase both survivability and attack.

Its duration is very short for now, but it was clear that the duration would become quite long later on.

‘Since more than anything else, it’s a growth type.’

Growth-type skills showed a slightly better effect even with the same grade.

In other words, if we develop it into an S-class, it becomes a skill that is more effective than other S-class skills.

Of course, it is difficult to grow it up to that point, but considering the second half, the growth-type skill was the best.

‘Then, regeneration.’

==
Regeneration (F) (growth type)

Recovers damages taken by the body 50% faster.
==

Unlike ‘the finality of time’, it was very simple. But that one is an active skill, while this one is passive.

‘She showed that much resilience even with just the effects of Thousand Death and the VIP brooch, and if she learns this too….’

If she grows regeneration up to S-class, it will not be easy for Jisoo to die unless she gets her whole head blown away.

Most of all, it would be noticeable right now even if it’s F-class, her recovery speed would be increased by 50%, so we’ll get to see the effect.

‘What’s best for her….”

As long as she is registered as a party member, Jisoo will likely be my right arm in the future.

So I had to choose carefully.

And 10 minutes later.

I exchanged a skill with Jisoo.

Translator’s Notes:

I hate you, WordPress.

Can someone please be my proofreader? I can’t find any mistake in my translation. Maybe it’s because I was the one who translated it.