Volume 9 / Chapter 253
TL: LightNovelCafe
Editor: Hungry Panda
Hundreds of tentacles are wrapped around Blood Lord"s blade thorns to ensure that he won"t sink in the sea, and Beholder is safely on his back with his body cooling.
His body had overheated under extreme tension, putting him in a cold sweat. As the threat disappeared, his tension and sweat evaporated.
"We - we made it."
They ran from Parasite King for several days.
It had been a close call.
Beholder and Blood Lord were at ease in terms of their body because they did not fight. But Red Eye and Inferno are practically on the brink of death.
As they ran away, they occasionally stopped Parasite King"s chase. If they had left Parasite King alone behind them, they wouldn"t have been able to get away.
Red Eye and Inferno are powerful mutants, but they fall short in front of Parasite King who has become a Disaster. They were almost infected multiple times.
They would have died if Beholder hadn"t tampered with mental disturbance in the middle. It was too much to do continuously, so they just blocked him by taking jabs.
Parasite King also doesn"t have a lot of experience in battle, so he hadn"t been able to act to the full of his ability.
He could be described as a strong child who is smart.
If he had as much experience in battle as Red Eye and Inferno did, they would have gone from a terrible situation to the worst.
Due to those efforts, the four of them got away from Parasite King, and Beholder is crossing the sea with Blood Lord as a boat.
A stingray that is smaller than Blood Lord but still dozens of meters large, crosses the water next to Blood Lord. It is Bergon, Red Eye"s pet.
Bergon stays in the ocean closest to wherever Red Eye is, even if he doesn"t call it. It doesn"t have a separate home.
When Red Eye came toward the sea, it felt his energy, waited, took him and Inferno on, and went off at the speed of sound.
The four of them aren"t enough to take on Parasite King. Under the a.s.sumption that the seaway hadn"t been there, they could run away on land though they would have gotten caught at some point.
"This is my territory, my world."
These are the last words that Parasite King left Red Eye"s group with.
He can be active in the ocean as well, but there are limits.
He can"t move as fast as Blood Lord and Bergon can, so he just left them and went back.
Hee hee!
When the coc.o.o.n exploded and Parasite King hatched, Beholder read what Parasite King"s ambitions were in pa.s.sing.
It has surpa.s.sed the limit of its species, but a gap showed from the beginning.
As time pa.s.sed after hatching, his mental state became more firm. Later, it was like looking at a st.u.r.dy wall. He had become complete both physically and mentally.
What he wanted was simple.
He wanted a place to call home. Parasites are helminths. They cannot live if not for parasitism. They are just fast as bugs in their parasitic states, they are incredibly weak.
If he doesn"t create a home as the king, the parasites won"t have a guaranteed survival. That ambition had been expressed.
Parasite King"s goal is clear. In Beholder"s mind, Parasite King won"t become a problem if they give him Africa and don"t bother him. Parasite King will be satisfied with what he has been given and live on.
"Let"s see what Her Highness says…"
White Queen is the one who ordered them to watch the coc.o.o.n in the first place. She had hoped that Parasite King would become an ally, but it"s already too late for that. It is discomforting that they left a honeycomb behind, but there is no need to kick it for no reason.
As long as it doesn"t challenge them first, it is better to leave this matter until the end.
First, they need to report on the coc.o.o.n.
White Queen is smart.
Beholder believes she will think the same way he does.
69 Mission Reorganization (1)
Borteth sits in his laboratory and thinks. His expression changes every hour. There is no specifying it.
He repeatedly thought of the suggestion Jigneon made a few days ago.
Jigneon had basically given him trouble and a solution.
Jigneon gave him one of each. But the solution was pretty superior for the trouble he had given.
"Tyrant"s death is a big loss… but how enticing."
He is a stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
Borteth had given him strength, but Tyrant had died without even being able to fully use it. When he first heard of this, he thought he was going to go crazy from anger.
Because Tyrant died?
There"s that too, but there was more disappointment in losing something he had put so much effort into. And from one of Jigneon"s tricks at that.
They are both supervisors, but it is too much to challenge the authority of the one in charge.
He used a mission with Cha Jun Sung as the axis to kill Tyrant. He has fully shown his intention to block interference with interference.
If this happens, the supervisors must fight amongst themselves. This isn"t something that Borteth wants either. It would be stupid to take on the two of them by himself.
If he faces off with Jigneon, he will have to go up against Gabenu as well. Until now, Jigneon had refrained from collision with warnings.
But with this, he basically declared that he would get involved. As the antagonism grew, Jigneon made a proposal.
"We"ll change the terms of upgrading."
The existing system is to complete advancement until level C. But beyond that, they applied the system in order to distinguish between good and bad.
Because of this, those who lacked in ability were unable to advance, and were left in the same place. So countless Lifers got stuck in levels B and C.
"We"ll change it so that a Lifer who completes an advancement mission of the same level 3 times, gets to advance. We"ll tune the details."
In order to resolve the stagnant Lifers, Jigneon discussed large measures to reorganize Lifer Mission with Borteth and Gaben.
It isn"t difficult to configure advancement missions until level C, but the number of missions decreases from level B.
This goes without saying for advancement missions in particular.
He expects this to be applied 100%, but they haven"t talked specifics yet.
All they have is a basic frame of what they are going to do.
But this much is for sure. Contribution points are being abolished.
Once this is put into practice, the stagnant Lifers will come swarming in. All they need to do is complete three missions.
"The only restrictions will be so that they can"t advance just by getting help from top level Lifers…"
Since they can"t do buses, they need to figure it out on their own, whether they live or die. Advancement level is high even if contribution points are abolished, so a lot of people will die, but much more Lifers will be able to advance going forward.
Currently, it is estimated that more than 95% of Lifers are level C. No matter how many die, they are always filled up and remain on the fringe of 10 million.
Excluding a certain fraction, they show no signs of advance even over time.
There is nothing to test with Lifers below level C now.
Level B is mostly completed as well. The data that supervisors need now are in level A and beyond.
Lifers gave up on advancement because it was uncertain even after risking their lives, and they were living in reality.
There are only about 30 level A Lifers and after discussing the only level S Lifer, Cha Jun Sung, they decided that he isn"t qualified to enter levels S and A missions.
This is a condition that applies to him even if he doesn"t use his mutant strength.
They will use powerful sanctions if he goes against them, taking away his Lifer qualifications. They have no other choice because levels S and A missions are extremely limited. The experiment is thrown away if Cha Jun Sung uses his mutant strength to complete them.
Even if Cha Jun Sung stayed trapped inside his battlesuit without awakening, his bodily specifications have already transcended the 10th stage of body modifications.
They could understand his level 8 strength to a certain point.
But he is level 9.
He became a being beyond the a.s.sumed range. He has developed too much to evaluate him based on a Lifer system.
"Was he meant to be this great? There"s a fuss on both sides. What an impressive b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
At this point, Borteth needs to admit to Cha Jun Sung"s worth as well. Because of his entry restrictions, level S Lifers were only in name.
It isn"t easy to get useful information from level A Lifers, made up mostly of Rankers. Whatever they do get will be in small amounts.
"The time for an influx is necessary since there are few challenges and numbers because of the difficulty."
When there are more level A Lifers, there will be that much more people attempting missions.
It is proportional.
There are just 30 people now, but when it becomes 300 and 3000, there will be that much more data on performance.
Of course the supervisors expect enormous sacrifices in the conditions for advancement, and will just result in saturation in level B from C.
They have minimal expectations for inflow into level A.
Excluding current level A Lifers, the average battlesuit configuration for ordinary Lifers is at 5 or 6 combinations.
With this, they can handle lower or mid level 6s.
Even those who were among the top in the virtual version have 7 combinations, and 8 are very rare. In this state, not even a full raid would matter in a level B advancement mission.
Dozens of top level 6 mutants can"t beat a weak level 7. There would have to be Lifers in the hundreds.
2 or 3 mutants come out in an advancement mission. Those are the missions that get chosen.
Three completions.
That means they need to risk their lives three times.
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Volume 9 / Chapter 254
TL: LightNovelCafe
Editor: Hungry Panda
After running simulations from the information they have gathered until now, if 1000 people try level B advancement, 2 or 3 people will get to level A.
"The goal is 10,000."
10,000 level A Lifers.
100,000 people can enter at the same time in level S missions.
10,000 cores, the other 90,000 need to be filled with level Bs.
There are at least 2 or 3 near level 9s, with as many as 6 or 7 level 8s. Those mutants under that can"t even be counted.
Even with Inferno"s group returning after keeping watch over the coc.o.o.n in White Queen"s case, she will have 5 right next to her.
Black Lord has just 2 but Korea, where he is, is a small country.
But there is very low mutant distribution relative to how small the land is, so if 100,000 Lifers enter, there will be battles everywhere they go.
They can"t just ignore everything and fight with the king.
That opportunity comes only after they have killed all of the underlings. Then, they need to have both quality and quant.i.ty.
It is naturally gold if level S Lifers are included in level S missions, but they probably won"t get rid of contribution until level A advancement.
Several troublesome matters form when looking at everything, but the biggest two are gear and mission configuration, and controllable mutants. Level A items are among the top in Life Mission"s technology.
If tens of thousands of level A Lifers form all at once, they need to be paid points but supply won"t be able to follow demand.
So testing is important, but it is also important to maintain an amount of members that they can handle.
In addition, supervisors can only control mutants genetically until level B, level 7. There is no progress with level 8s because they lack data.
Supervisors and helpers created Life Mission after thorough calculation and long preparation. They didn"t make it in a matter of days.
It had taken dozens of years.
After going through theory in the laboratory, they executed the virtual version, and executed the reality version with 10 years of going through the virtual.
The survival of the future hundreds of years later, depends on the world they live in in this Life Mission. The most important thing to the three supervisors.
The success of Life Mission.
They need to prove who is more useful between Lifers and mutants.
Levels A through E missions are just preparation exercises for level S.
Level S is the main point of Life Mission.
The two groups will face a turning point here.
A Lifer"s position is offense and a mutant"s position is defense. They separated the roles this way since they cannot control mutants like they do Lifers. If Lifers can"t complete level S missions with some standards in place, that would be because they are more finite than mutants.
Lifers may not know, but time isn"t infinite.
It is finite.
Even at this moment, time is running out until the end.
"We can"t fail."
Borteth interfered because he wanted to get more results than the others, but also because he wanted to hurry up and see the end of Life Mission.
It isn"t good to drag on time.
It is a question of life and death.
Everything will end if they fail this experiment, not just the three of them. They could consider starting over, but that is impossible.
They do not have the capacity.
They are coming to the last of their resources to maintain the infrastructure, whether that is manpower or material. The energy to open dimensions drained their strength as well.
Whenever Lifers discover resources inside missions that they can"t take back to reality, they sent someone to bring them here. They used these things like equipment for Life Mission. It is because it is impossible to maintain the current state with the resources that they have now.
"Barren land…"
Borteth waved his hand and a hologram came up.
A red planet is visible beyond the universe. There, is Earth, what was once called the blue star. Nothing is left now after a long acc.u.mulation of natural destruction and occurrences of outbreaks from some point.
Borteth has never lived on Earth. It had gotten to that state before he was even born. It was just a memory of his grandfather"s childhood.
They achieved technology that can control dimension and time, but they cannot purify Earth with a population of just millions and lacking resources. Borteth is on the last ship that was created on Earth. The ship has been floating around the universe for more than 50 years with a population of millions.
And they found it. It is because they have a problem. Life Mission is the key to resolving that problem.
"I"ll give the Africa case to you. In turn, don"t go against the rules anymore."
Jigneon"s proposal, Borteth moved Tyrant because of Parasite King"s coc.o.o.n. He was going to make him go through the related mission.
He lost, but he gained all of Africa on the condition that he no longer interferes. He cannot turn it down. He advanced to level 9.
It is an incredible merit to get more level S authority over others. If he bothers Jigneon even after this, he will need to be prepared to go all the way to the end.
He doesn"t intend to do that because he doesn"t want a fratricidal war.
Borteth felt more psychological impatience than the other supervisors. Their common situation is the same.
But just as individual personalities are different, the pressure they feel is also different. Time isn"t on their side.
Cha Jun Sung read the details of mission reorganization on his PDA hologram, and lost interest.
The context is similar to a release of restrictions. If releasing restrictions released restrictions on Lifer level entry, this reform plan is a trick to move stagnant advancement along.
"They"re just driving us to the edge."
Lifer levels don"t matter. As long as they risk their lives, they can enter any missions they want and a direct route to advance to level A opens up.
The details of reorganization aren"t complicated. It can be easily summarized if they just skim through it.
The existing contribution advancement system applies to the path to get to level S. Before that, they just need to complete the mission three times.
Top Lifers can"t give them rides on buses, but they can advance without doing anything if they are lucky enough.
Though the risk is still high, unless a Lifer hasn"t completely given up and they still have some lingering desire for advancement, it is obvious they will make an attempt. Humans have a tendency to self-indulge. The desire to divert others" envy to a sense of superiority is an instinct created by a compet.i.tive society.
There are over 10 million level C Lifers.
Even just 10% is 1 million.
How many will become level B? And how many of those will become level A?
There"s no way to know if there will be a lot or a little until the results come out. What they can be sure of is the supervisors" intent.
"If there aren"t enough Lifers to go through upper level missions, they have no choice but to drag them up from the bottom. Especially since I"ve become like this too."
Cha Jun Sung is the only level S Lifer. He is closest to level S missions and he has the power to complete level A missions whenever he wants to.
He is the best source of data for the supervisors, but he has lost his qualifications to enter missions.
That"s not it.
He even killed Tyrant. He had paid the legitimate price for Borteth"s interference, but Life Mission had lost two talented Lifers.
Level A Lifers made up of Rankers and Park Jin Hyuk"s group are left, but they are all being careful. Because of that, there isn"t progress with missions.
Lifer advancement stopped at level C and mission progress stopped at level A. This is why they can"t keep up under the existing advancement system. They need to bring up the enormous manpower of more than 95% remaining in level C to get through level A. The sacrifices that come from this?
They won"t care. If the supervisors cared about things like that, the lost souls of Life Mission would cry in despair.
"Sacrifices are a definite since this is a biological experiment."
Cha Jun Sung thinks that the supervisors are determined to sacrifice billions if not all of them before Life Mission is executed.
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