Overgeared

‘That’s right. Of course, it was just a dream.’

Youngwoo woke up from his bad dream. He was relieved. He was so high-level right now, no way a rabbit could fight him. He had fought against a God of the beginning and won...

“......?”

Youngwoo scowled as he touched his forehead, where the rabbit had bit him in the dream. He had been fighting Hanul just a moment ago. He could still see Hanul dying before his very eyes. Yes, he had been playing the game. He didn’t remember logging out...

‘...Then, what is this?’

Youngwoo looked around. No matter how many times he looked at it, he was inside his familiar capsule. It was the latest masterpiece of the Comet Group and a device customized exclusively for Grid.

This was reality. He had logged out without even realizing. He tried to get out of the capsule, only to get startled by something. He experienced pain as he tried to remove the EEG interlocking device, also known as the helmet, which wasn’t normal.

He looked down and laughed.

“Am I still dreaming...?”

Several thick wires connecting the helmet to the capsule had split in half, revealing the circuits inside. Hundreds of thin thread-like gold wires had stretched out from within and were embedded like stingers into Youngwoo’s body.

It was a bizarre sight. If Youngwoo was squeamish, he would’ve screamed at the very least. He really was squeamish, but he had witnessed so many gruesome scenes as he became a ranker, noble, legend, king, emperor, and finally, a god, that he didn’t have a strong reaction to the sight.

Youngwoo gulped and swung his arms to pull the wires from his body. He heard something crack in his head.

Youngwoo lost consciousness again.

***

At the S.A. Group’s headquarters.

“The nanomachines injected into The One failed to activate the evolution.”

The One—this was what the thirty-three scientists called Grid. They were anxious, and they looked as if they lost ten years of their lives.

“Morpheus has succeeded. What a relief. It would have been really bad if anything happened to The One’s character information.”

The nanomachines built by the thirty-three scientists, which combined science and magic, had all types of systems built into them. Their role was to transfer a player’s information from the game in real life. Sooner or later, the nanomachines would evolve all the players, but right now, it was still early for that to happen.

Only a small number of players could receive this blessing right now because they had passed certain tests planted for them within Satisfy. One of the lucky ones was Agnus. However, today Grid also became a blessed individual because he had killed a God of the beginning.

He had conquered the Eternal Kingdom, prevented the destruction of the Saharan Empire by stopping the clash between the insane dragon and the evil one, saved the East Continent by revealing the true myths, killed Baal to purify hell, and so on...

Killing a God of the beginning far surpassed Grid’s previous accomplishments. The system judged that doing something like that was impossible to achieve. It wasn’t just highly unlikely, but certainly impossible.

However, Grid had killed him. Because he did that, the system turned its attention to him. It decided that Grid was worth it, even though he hadn’t passed the test, and attempted to inject him with nanomachines.

The system they were talking about here wasn’t Morpheus. The system used for selecting pioneers had been created and managed by the thirty-three scientists, and it was a separate entity from Morpheus.

“Thank you for your help.”

thirty-three scientists smiled warmly and thanked Morpheus,

[-_-]

acted like this. It only liked chairman Lim Cheolho. The

excluded from the system you created? You ignored my advice and acted on your own, which made Grid aware that something is off. Will you take responsibility

has been properly fixed. The One had been excluded from the

that Grid would kill a God of the beginning? Grid dueled him and won. No one could have seen that coming. Chairman Lim Cheolho was finally

to worry

imprinted on the nanomachines. They could also

were bragging. Chairman

***

“He’s awake!”

are you screaming all of a sudden,

“Master, are you okay?”

soon as Grid came to his senses. Randy grinned and hugged Grid, Noe snuck a well-grilled fish in Grid’s hand, and the clone analyzed Grid’s

stroked Randy’s hair and handed Noe the fish back. “Why did

already eaten

fish isn’t even

to see

forget it.

looked around. It seemed

was out cold... For how

hour and forty-one minutes

“Um...”

player, fainting was just another negative status effect. They couldn’t move, but their consciousness would

hour

because I was supposed to die...? Then, shouldn’t I have

uncomfortable. But he soon felt better again. He opened his status window and saw that he had gained more than two hundred levels. He’d gained

he would’ve woken up

“...Wait, what?”

he hadn’t died because his level

handle the Annihilation energy. It was blown to pieces during the fight against Hanul. We tried to recover as many fragments as we could, but we thought King Sobyeol would show up any second. Thus, we left without picking up all

is no need to apologize. By the way, why are you so polite?

me, but I

but... Try your best to talk like I do. That way, other people can’t easily distinguish between

not very

speaking drastically changed. His facial expressions and gestures also matched Grid’s. Grid wasn’t controlling the clone, so it was now in auto mode. The clone was very much still Grid

more useful as

imbued with Grid’s consciousness. It was completely different from the clones created in the Behen Archipelago, which meant that he wouldn’t betray him. Grid was

died a little while ago,”

“What?”

had lost all the yangban that had been raised

would’ve easily calmed the waters and

the three masters

King Sobyeol in the back and defeated him. This had clearly weakened the king. Grid also knew that the three masters had regained their old powers for some reason. The Apostles had told him this during the

shook