I Became The Rankers’ Number One Pick [EN]: Chapter 233

233.

At that moment, Seoa’s body collapsed powerlessly, as if her power had been cut off. Yoo Ji-an safely caught her and gently placed her on the ground.

“I don’t know what will happen, so everyone stay here until we return.”

[Yoo Ji-an]

Thud.

Leaving only those words, Yoo Ji-an also collapsed.

“What, what is it?”

“I guess I’m next.”

While everyone was panicking, Jackson put his weapon in his inventory and sat down on the grass, leaning against a tree.

“How do you know?”

Milla asked, and Jackson smiled.

“If it’s in order of contribution, it’s obviously me.”

[Jackson Oscar]

“See?”

After that, Jackson’s body lost strength, and he closed his eyes as well.

“Wow, how unlucky.”

Even as Milla said that, she secretly hoped her name would be called.

The Final Battlefield—the name brought both fear and curiosity.

If you’re an S-class Hunter, everyone wants to go there at least once before they die. But the next name called was different from Milla’s expectations.

[Baek Eun-hee]

***

Beep, beep, beep-

Seoa shook her dizzy head and got up. She hadn’t expected to be called, since it seemed to be in order of contribution. But she was called first.

When she opened her eyes and focused, she found herself in a familiar space.

In a dark and large room, monitors reflecting something were endlessly arrayed from the walls to the ceiling.

It was the place she had seen in Camilla’s vision of Yoo Ji-an’s third life. Seoa’s expression hardened, and she looked closely at each monitor. Among them, one video was particularly noticeable: Earth.

Seoa couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

Perhaps, having come here, it was a place she might never be able to go back to or see again.

“This is the system management room.”

At that moment, a familiar voice spoke beside her. When she turned her head, Yoo Ji-an was there.

It was natural for him to be here. Still, she felt a little relieved that Yoo Ji-an was there.

“System management room… Each of those monitors must contain one world each.”

“That’s right.”

“Where is the administrator?”

As she looked around, she still couldn’t see him. Seoa remembered that sticky and unpleasant feeling of the entity.

“I guess it’s not based on pure attack power, seeing Hunter Park Seoa being called first.”

“Jackson.”

When Seoa turned around, Jackson waved and smiled.

“Well, I agree. If you consider the attack power that Hunter Park Seoa’s buffs raised as contribution, it’s definitely the highest.”

If they had fought this battle without Seoa, Jackson wouldn’t have been able to overwhelm Phoenix so much. Then, even if they barely won, they would have suffered great sacrifices.

There were countless such cases in this battle. Considering all of that, it was no exaggeration to say that Park Seoa’s contribution was the greatest.

“Ugh, where is this?”

At that time, Baek Eun-hee appeared and looked around the system management room with a disgusted expression.

“This is…? Ugh, it’s a creepy place.”

Even so, Baek Eun-hee looked around at the screens and the surroundings with sharp eyes.

“Then that bastard must be here too. The administrator.”

“I think so… How many people are coming in total?”

When Seoa asked Yoo Ji-an, he shook his head.

“In my third life, it was just me.”

“Oh, really…?”

Just then, there was a sound of chains dragging on the floor. When she looked at the source of the sound, Wang Cheon-yu was there.

“Why are you here?”

Baek Eun-hee asked annoyedly, and Wang Cheon-yu snapped back.

“Shut up. Do you even know how many monsters I’ve taken down?”

“That’s probably thanks to Seoa, too.”

“Even without…!”

Wang Cheon-yu was about to shout that it would have been possible even without her, but when he met Seoa’s eyes, he quietly lowered his voice.

“Well, I appreciate that.”

Seoa found Wang Cheon-yu, who was making a sulky expression, somewhat cute. She didn’t know his actual age, but Wang Cheon-yu had a very young-looking appearance.

“I wonder if there will be more.”

Right now, there were a total of five people: Park Seoa, Yoo Ji-an, Jackson, Baek Eun-hee, and Wang Cheon-yu.

After waiting for a while, no one else came.

“I guess this is it. It would have been nice to have a healer; it’s a bit of a shame.”

“Are you talking about me right now?”

Jackson looked at Wang Cheon-yu and said that, and Wang Cheon-yu reacted hysterically again. Jackson shook his hand.

“No, I just meant it that way, because I don’t know what kind of battle will take place.”

“There won’t be a battle, not anymore.”

Yoo Ji-an replied definitively. Jackson didn’t know about Yoo Ji-an’s regression [past life], but he could sense that his words were true.

“Then why did they call five people?”

While Baek Eun-hee was grumbling, Seoa looked down at her arms and legs and said,

“But coming here, it’s not our real bodies, right?”

“It’s a mental body. But if you get badly hurt or die, it will affect your physical body. If your mental body dies, you die as well.”

“Ugh, am I in an out-of-body state, then?”

Wang Cheon-yu looked at his limbs with disgust. Yoo Ji-an didn’t bother to answer that question.

The hunters maintained an ominous tension, each standing quietly and looking around. Seoa inadvertently saw a scene of a world collapsing on one of the monitors—a world torn and split by monsters pouring out of the Legend Gate [a portal to another dimension].

“…Ah.”

Just as Seoa sighed softly and tried to turn her head, the monitor turned black, and a number appeared:

[56483210812]

Baek Eun-hee, who was following Seoa’s gaze, also saw the number.

“That doesn’t mean that there are over 50 billion destroyed worlds, does it?”

“That’s right, and that’s also the number of the gate that will be created soon. Gates are created with data from destroyed worlds.”

Seoa squeezed her eyes shut at the horror that the number represented. If she had made a mistake, Earth would have been added to that number. And she was still not completely out of that danger.

“So how long do we have to stay like this!”

As if in response to Wang Cheon-yu’s neurotic shout, a system window popped up.

[Welcome to the ‘Final Battlefield’ waiting room.]

[This is the ‘System Management Room,’ where the laws of the world are governed.]

Wang Cheon-yu shut his mouth and rolled his eyes. On the other hand, Seoa was staring straight into the air.

Another system window appeared to her.

[Would you like to confirm the truth? YES/NO]

The truth. What truth are they talking about?

Perhaps sensing that Seoa’s reaction was strange, Yoo Ji-an called her.

“Seoa.”

Seoa slowly turned her head and looked at Yoo Ji-an.

“What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s just… another system window popped up.”

“System window?”

“It’s asking if I want to see the truth.”

It was a window that didn’t appear to Yoo Ji-an. She had a bad feeling.

At that time, she saw something sticky coming down the wall full of monitors. It gave off a foul odor from the moment it appeared—it felt like a mass of organic matter that had rotted and festered for a long time.

“Ew, what is that!”

Wang Cheon-yu was startled and moved away from it. The other hunters also frowned or covered their noses with their sleeves.

Thanks to seeing Yoo Ji-an’s third life, Seoa knew what it was.

“It’s the system administrator.”

It stopped a little away from Seoa’s front, and it wriggled and created a human-like shape. It looked like a human sculpture made of petroleum residue.

[Would you like to confirm the truth? The truth about the Earth you live on. YES/NO]

The system administrator urged. When Seoa hesitated, he even added ‘Earth’. What kind of truth could he be talking about?

“Seoa.”

As Yoo Ji-an called worriedly, Seoa gently grabbed his fingertip.

“It’s okay; I don’t think it’s going to hurt me.”

Thanks to [Empathy], the administrator’s emotions were faintly conveyed. For some reason, the administrator’s intimacy level was already at level 2.

[YES]

When Seoa answered, the slime that had been standing upright spread to the floor and quickly gathered under Seoa’s feet.

“Park Seoa!”

Yoo Ji-an and Baek Eun-hee hurriedly tried to pull her out, but the administrator was faster. It wrapped around Seoa’s ankles and stuck to her tenaciously.

Seoa was flustered, but she was able to maintain her composure thanks to [Silent Night]. She raised her hand, signaling that she was okay, and looked closely at the system window that appeared in succession.

[Skill usage order: ‘Maximum’ → ‘Empathy’]

‘Does that mean maximize Empathy?’

The system administrator seemed to be able to communicate only in this way.

“I have something to see for a moment. Please wait for me.”

Seoa sat cross-legged on the floor. The hunters stood around her as if guarding her, with their mouths shut.

Seoa first took out the magic stone in her inventory. It was a magic stone containing [Maximum]. She held it in her hand and closed her eyes.