Chapter 424: A Problem From Above (7)

Silence then dominated the entire room.

It took a long time before I heard Benignore’s voice again. I thought she would respond to me by screaming, but it was rather the opposite.

The way she talked in such a small tone of voice, not even ants could’ve heard her. It felt oddly shamefully dirty.

[…]

“…”

[This is all because of…]

“What?”

[Do you think I wanted this to happen…?]

“What?”

[I-It’s nothing.]

“…”

I honestly had nothing to say to her broken replies, either.

The reason behind the incompetent goddess Benignore’s bankruptcy was that the divinity she had associated with me must’ve had some sort of effect on her.

‘No, no. Actually, it’s not even that. In my case, I was just rewarded for my actions… And that is a completely different situation from this.’

If I was generous, I could say I had greatly contributed to her bankruptcy…

‘It doesn’t make sense, right?’

Soon, the order of the continent would collapse.

What Benignore had said was probably just a small part of it. If that happened, the quests and dungeons would not function properly, and this in turn, would have countless side effects. It seemed like the ones who had been managing the continent the entire time had ended up abandoning it in the end.

With these thoughts in mind, I felt as if the room’s temperature was rapidly rising.

I didn’t know if she knew what I was currently feeling or not, but Benignore kept making more excuses as the seconds continued to tick by. I couldn’t give her a suitable answer, so I could only respond by sighing.

[…]

“…”

[I-I’m sorry…]

“…”

[I-I’m sorry, my proud Honorary Cardinal. You know how much I care for Honorary Cardinal Lee Kiyoung, right? T-This is not your fault, so you don’t have to worry too much. Forget what I just said. Can you do that?]

“Gosh… I know that much. Did I do anything wrong? This is your mess. You’re really funny, you know that? Even after giving you divinity from down here, are your capabilities so low? There are limits to being incompetent… Honestly, I’m not in charge of you, so I can’t say anything about this, but I still think you have to reflect on this. It would be bad for you to get insulted by me, a human, but this is my advice as a true believer who serves you.”

[Uuugghhhh.]

“Or did you get distracted somewhere else?”

[Uuugghhh.]

My desire to scold her was strong. However, this would’ve been an extremely unproductive behavior. What mattered at that moment was not the cause, but how I could solve the situation. If everything I heard from here on was true…

‘I can think of it as another threat.’

It wasn’t a problem that could simply be solved instantaneously or easily.

If it were simply a problem like defeating a raid boss, it would’ve needed a much simpler approach. This was a bit more complicated than that.

This was a social problem, and it was a

“Do you have any solutions in mind?”

[No. Such a thing… It happened so suddenly that we had no way of doing anything. In an instant, like a bubble that burst…]

‘Damn…’

[A-Anyway, that’s it. The basic system will still work. It may be a little unstable, but…]

“It’s unstable? How exactly is it unstable?”

[I-I don’t know for sure yet.]

‘What on earth is she talking about?’

“So… Why are you suddenly telling me this? Does this mean you want me to clean up your mess?”

[You’re right… it’s partly that. I-It’s not an area where you can do anything, but at least I was hoping you could control the chaos that will happen on the continent…]

“You’re asking me to manage the continent?”

[No. That’s not possible. I mean that. If so many things change suddenly, our sons and daughters living on the continent will get extremely confused. I think it would be nice… If you could fix it… Our Honorary Cardinal Lee Kiyoung is good at that.]

“So, you’re saying you do want me to clean up your mess. Just because we prevent people’s confusion doesn’t mean the problem will end there. Do you know how far the ripple will come the moment the system becomes paralyzed? There will be tremendous social chaos, and some countries will go bankrupt like you. The commoners will be driven to live on the streets. Of course, I’m sure you already know that without me telling you. It doesn’t end there either. It’s temporary, but losing our means to level up will also be something to worry about. Do you know how important that is? Just because you think you’ll be able to fix it, it doesn’t mean you can. We’ll just end up holding on.”

[…]

“Exactly when will you be able to fix everything?”

[At least three years… Actually, I don’t know the details. If I can pay off my debt quicker, I think I can fix it faster. Of course, heroic-grade dungeons and legendary-grade dungeons will open up faster than that.]

‘This is a real problem…’

Looking at her casually explaining, I couldn’t help swallowing hard.

It would take three years at the earliest.

I thought that Benignore backstabbing me was the worst case, but our problem was just as bad.

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

It was hard to determine the superiority and inferiority of the former or the latter.

I replied to her after a while.

“Do you have anything else to say? Anything at all. Perhaps there’s something I should know.”

[No… That’s all.]

“…”

[I’m embarrassed now…]

“It’s not me you should be embarrassed about. You should be embarrassed about yourself. Anyway, okay. I want to think about it separately.”

[Think what? What? What? Separately?]

“What did I just say? I’ll think about it separately.”

[Y-You don’t have any other thing in mind, right?]

“What another thing?”

[That… That… I’ve heard of something like a plan to backstab the fallen God Benignore…]

“It’s nothing like that. I won’t do that, of course. I’m thinking about something else. I’ll do it on my own to get things done, so don’t worry about it. I’m going to use your name a bit. You should know that.”

[Oh, really? Of course, you should. If that’s what Honorary Cardinal needs to do, then that’s what you should do! By the way… You really didn’t have any other plans, right, Honorary Cardinal? Y-you know how much I care about you, right? Y-you’re not going to do anything weird… We are a team, okay?]

“I said I wouldn’t. What are you nervous about? I’m not the kind of person who just stabs the back of others. I don’t want to be on bad terms with you. I just need some time to think about it. Wouldn’t you be disconcerted if you were in my place?”

[T-That’s fortunate then, but…]

“Anyway, I’m going. People outside have been waiting for far too long. As for the reason you are crying, I will look around a bit.”

[Okay.]

“And prepare a reward. A really good one. If I solve this properly, you better have it ready.”

[…]

The loud voice immediately disappeared when I lifted my hand away from the statue without waiting for her answer. As I looked up at the statue, I saw that the tears of blood were still flowing.

I touched it once again just in case, but I could no longer hear her voice. She, too, had finished her business there.

As I looked at the statue from a little farther away, I felt even more absurd. It was weird that we conversations, and one of them included unloading a huge problem of me.

‘It’s too unexpected…’

Of course, I thought there would have been a problem, but I didn’t expect it to be such a major accident.

I couldn’t help but laugh due to how ridiculous it was. I didn’t even know where to begin to fix it.

Of course, it wasn’t that I didn’t have anything in mind. When I thought about it in simple terms, there was indeed a primal solution to the problem.

‘The first step should be to increase the people’s faith.’

It was only proper to make sure that Benignore and the others could regain their place as soon as possible. Thanks to the impression that had been accumulating over the years, people’s faith in God had been firmly established in the continent.

The most important task was to gather divinity, give it to Benignore, and then return the unstable continent to its original state.

Within two years, no, a year, all the gods on the continent had to be revived. I had to become a life-rehabilitation consultant who could bring the gods into the people’s lives a little faster.

The second was…

‘To provide alternative resources for this problem.’

The first step might force to speed up the timing, but in fact, the second part was the hardest.

It was unreasonable to think that there were alternatives to quests and dungeons. In other words, there was no such thing as creating jobs. This was a place where anyone could grow, get rewards, and even collect gold. This was something that could give jobs to foreigners who wandered the streets.

If I couldn’t fix that, the problem would get worse.

High-level foreigners who’d have nothing to do would enter rare-grade dungeons and common-grade dungeons in order to survive, and beginners who needed to grow would naturally have their feet tied.

Fights could also happen frequently.

Assuming the worst-case… It would be something like the growth of humanity completely growing stagnant due to the three years wherein Benignore messed up.

There was a possibility of regression, let alone a standstill. Of course, I had the option to simply ignore it, thinking that had nothing to do with me, but…

‘How could I?’

There was no way I could do that.

In many ways, I had fallen into a dilemma. The problem was that, no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t really think of a solution. It was at that time that the words I spitted out were all stuck in my chest.

“I can’t even make a dungeon, fuck.”

‘…’

“I already have it.”

At the same time, something I hadn’t been able to care about because of my busy schedule had already started to come to mind.

When I hurriedly activated my Mind’s Eyes, I could see the title that remained in one corner.

[Crack Museum Level 4 Manager]

I thought it was worth thinking about.

‘Isn’t this also blocked?’

It still had to be checked, but the Crack Museum was still likely to work.

That was under my jurisdiction, not the jurisdiction of the gods. In the first place, the Crack Museum was a dungeon judged to be unrated and was actually nearly being opened.

Closed beta services were often implemented, but it didn’t reach open-beta due to lack of time.

The ink on the business plan had not yet dried up. If anyone asked if it could be used by legendary-grade and heroic-grade foreigners, it was indeed worth a nod.

There were quite a number of monsters still remaining in it, and there were many chimeras made by Max.

Now that entry to dungeons was completely impossible, the value of the Crack Museum was beyond words.

‘Because I can sell potions there. No, do I only have potions to sell?’

Potion business, dining business, accommodation business… If I could develop it a little further, I may be able to do something like a souvenir business or a casino business.

Gold was supposed to go around.

I didn’t know anything else, but I felt like I could certainly turn around the economy.

“Crack Land…”

It would be a magical place to revitalize the economy of a stagnant continent. At this, I couldn’t help but smile due to the plausible solution.