Ch.196Somewhere (3)

# 196. Somewhere (3)

How long has it been since I came to this strange place, or rather, since I woke up? It feels like at least half a day has passed, but still nothing has changed.

“Should we start moving?”

“How’s your recovery?”

“I think I’m good now.”

There had been a legitimate reason to rest and recover my condition, but now that I was recovered, this wasn’t a place where I could just keep waiting around doing nothing.

“Right, let’s move then.”

“Okay. Pack up!”

The tent was quickly dismantled and disappeared into my inventory. I also cleaned up all traces of the fire I had made, just in case. When you don’t know what hidden gimmicks might exist, restoring the map or objects to their original state is one of the most basic principles.

And so our exploration with no end in sight began. We were all used to long walks, so the walking itself wasn’t difficult. But this place itself was the problem.

“I think I’m going crazy…!”

“Try walking with your eyes half-closed. It might help.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“If you walk with your eyes half-closed, how will you stay alert to your surroundings!”

“Just… manage?”

“Argh!”

There were no uphill paths, nor was the terrain itself rough. It was just completely flat. And that was precisely the problem. With no change in scenery and no variation in the path, everyone’s minds were starting to unravel despite not much time having passed.

It wasn’t exactly a status ailment, but things were bad enough that we even asked Soyu noona for status ailment healing.

“We need to minimize non-combat losses, but if we’re already like this, we’re in trouble.”

Mapping was useless too. We couldn’t tell where we had started from or how far we had come, nor did we need to. We could only estimate how long we had been walking and the distance covered.

So after walking for about three hours, we decided to stop. Naturally, we had discovered absolutely nothing by this point.

“This isn’t going anywhere. Just walking doesn’t seem to be the answer.”

“Then what?”

I wanted to come up with alternatives right away. But this was an unprecedented situation.

“If the Tower glitched in the previous reward room, and this place is also glitched, then it means no hotfix is being applied right now. In that situation, what can we, mere users, do?”

“So you’re saying the Tower isn’t doing its job?”

“Then why did we move from the reward room to here?”

“The reward room was originally designed to automatically kick us out after a certain time anyway.”

“Maybe they’re pulling this crap on us because all their other tricks haven’t worked?”

Right. This is what Yehyun noona called “bullshit.”

“What if the Tower broke because we were the ones who used bug-like gameplay first?”

“Come on. If that was wrong, we would have been called out on it when the evaluation message appeared.”

“Then what the hell is it?!”

“I don’t know either.”

“Stop. Stop, stop.”

Poking around with the wrong key only damages the lock.

I calmed down the raid members who were getting increasingly irritated. Then I brought up the hypothesis I had mentioned earlier.

“At this point, let’s try it.”

“Try what?”

“Calling that bastard who’s messing with us.”

“Messing with us… You don’t mean Futri?”

“Correct.”

Whatever they might have thought inside, there was no opposition. They all seemed unwilling to stop my attempt to do something, knowing that if we continued like this, we would wither away in this maddening space.

“Even if it is a bug, I don’t think it would be left unattended for this long. Based on the circumstances, this Tower was created by Mensima. It doesn’t make sense that a demon of Mensima’s caliber couldn’t fix this—that’s what I want to believe. Plus, the timing matches up. Everything went to hell after Futri’s intrusion.”

So if this Season 2 of messing with us was indeed Futri’s doing, then the conclusion was that we should confront Futri directly right now.

“But that means we need to summon a demon, and none of us have a related class. What do we do?”

“We have no choice but to imitate it.”

“Imitate? How would we… Oh.”

At times like this, it was truly fortunate that I was a settings and strategy enthusiast and that Subin had an exceptional memory.

“Those demon cult bastards and demon worshippers who ran rampant in the later story. They were always trying to offer sacrifices and summon demons. We’ll copy that. So…”

Subin and I put our heads together to conceptualize and design a demon summoning altar. While I was restructuring the demon summoning procedure to fit our situation, the rest of the team quickly built a temporary altar using materials from our inventory. We would place offerings on the altar and summon the demon to draw out that bastard Futri.

“The plan is clear, right? Any opinions?”

“Sunghyun, I’m not trying to shoot down your plan, but I heard that even in the lore, when they summoned Iseratio in Magicant, the cost was enormous. It also took a long time.”

“I understand what you’re saying, noona. I’m not completely confident either. But I think it might work with Futri.”

“Because it’s Futri?”

“He’s the Demon of Play. A bastard who lives for fun, dies for fun, is crazy about fun. If this place is also his doing, he’s probably watching us from somewhere, snickering. Like watching ants wandering around in a terrarium. But imagine if those ants suddenly start building something strange and calling his name.”

With his personality, could he resist showing up?

“If he still doesn’t appear, we’ll think of something else then.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to dampen your enthusiasm.”

“I know. No need to apologize. My explanation was lacking too. Shall we begin?”

Subin and I worked hard to recall everything. I would describe the general shape and settings, and Subin would fill in the details.

“We don’t need to make it grand and elaborate like Magicant. Just the minimum necessary scale. We’re not actually worshipping demons anyway.”

“Understood.”

We eliminated all flashy decorations and inefficient elements.

The point was simply to show that we were attempting to call him before he appeared on his own.

Subin and I completed the design in less than an hour, and during that time, the rest of the team had already taken out all the materials from their inventories and organized them by type, ready to build the altar according to our design.

“I never imagined we’d be building something like this, so our materials aren’t abundant… What if we run short?”

“Let’s build the essential parts first.”

As Soyu noona said, I hadn’t imagined doing something like this even an hour ago. It was fortunate that we had stockpiled firewood and Arang’s specialized crossbow bolts.

We weren’t aiming for perfection, but we did our best to make it look convincing. After several hours, we somehow managed to build a mini altar.

Now the problem was the offering and the ritual.

We couldn’t sacrifice innocent people like those demon worshippers, and we needed at least a freshly killed animal, but we had nothing of the sort.

We had to improvise again.

“Infusing meat with magical power… I never thought I’d be doing something like this in my life.”

“Hang in there.”

The demon summoning altar had transformed into something resembling a memorial table, and besides that, the only thing we could offer was high-quality magical power.

So I asked Subin to provide magical power, while the rest of us shouted simultaneously:

“Demon of Play, Futri!”

Revealing his true name from the start.

“We are willing to participate!”

“In the entertainment you enjoy!”

We skipped all the unnecessary flowery language praising the demon and emphasizing our own unworthiness, and went straight to the point.

“But do not hide like a coward and resort to unfair tricks that aren’t fun at all! The name ‘Demon of Play’ weeps!”

“Under rules that apply equally to both sides!”

“Let’s enjoy ourselves!”

We finished by dissing him, saying his current antics weren’t even worthy of being called entertainment and were just cowardly acts, while urging him to come out and do something.

“Come forth! Demon of Play, Futri!”

Not coming out?

Even with this, not coming out?

**

– Come forth! Demon of Play, Futri!

“Ha-ha-. Hahaha. Hahahahaha!”

“How fun. So-very-fun. Not just fun, but sweet too. Courage overflowing!”

“My goodness, what human would summon a demon in such a manner!”

“Good! Good!! Good!!! Good!!!!”

“Very-very good!!!!!!”

The bizarre laughing white mask moved around excitedly. If anyone had been watching, they would have gotten dizzy from how violently the white mask vibrated and flew around. Suddenly, it stopped abruptly and muttered something incomprehensible.

Then the white mask began to melt, transforming into a humanoid shape, while simultaneously the empty space around it started to change.

“I had planned to spend more time on this stage, as it requires care.”

“But it seems my interesting guests lack patience.”

“Well, isn’t imperfection the most interesting aspect of humans?”

“So, I too shall welcome you with an imperfect stage.”

That too, would be quite fun.

Huhuhuhu.

*Click*

The observer and stage setter, now wearing a white mask on their face and speaking in a completely different manner, pulled back the curtain and entered the stage.