Chapter 3
That’s why, even though he knew he had possessed his favorite novel, he never once thought he wanted to see the protagonist. If he approached them, Ji-woo’s life would surely become varied and complicated.
He was satisfied with leaving the characters beyond the book as beings beyond the book, while he remained in the reader’s domain, quietly living while watching their exploits from afar.
Moreover, with his athletic ability at zero, there was no possibility he could grow enough to mix with the protagonist’s group while displaying combat abilities, and such bone-grinding effort was…
“Terrible.”
After all, life should fundamentally be about having a warm back and full stomach. If he just hid in a quiet village and kept his head down, the great protagonists would take care of conquering the Demon King on their own, so why should he?
For this reason, Ji-woo aimed for a specific profession that wouldn’t interfere with the protagonist’s journey. The reason he showed unreasonable meddling toward strangers was also to obtain this profession.
It was a profession where new opportunities to acquire it were created every year along with the summoning of Earth people. Since it was the profession the heroine had in the original work, if luck was bad, there might be the unfortunate incident of Ji-woo stealing the heroine’s opportunity to acquire it if their timing overlapped, but that level of risk was sufficiently manageable.
After wandering around similar places about three more times without even catching a glimpse of the Guardian’s Temple, Ji-woo was gradually getting exhausted.
‘It’s been about… four days now?’
Without a watch, he couldn’t know the exact time, but he tracked the passing days by comparing the colors of sunset and sunrise.
There were about three days left, and if he couldn’t find the temple within that time, Ji-woo’s plan would completely collapse.
What good was knowing information about the Natrene Empire if he couldn’t utilize it? Though he felt somewhat wronged, there was nowhere to complain, so he could only quietly continue on his path.
Already in an uncomfortable mood, he irritably waved at the status window frozen before his eyes.
Basically, Earth people summoned to the Natrene Empire could open and manage a status window. It was a simple interface that only required voice activation for first use, but after user registration, it could be opened with just consciousness.
On the first day of falling into the Empire, Ji-woo naturally summoned the status window as well.
[Activating status window. Welcome, Earth person Kim…#@!@ ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!]
The status window, consumed by a strange error, rang out so chaotically that it made the surroundings noisy.
[!User information cannot be confirmed!]
[!Re-searching user information!]
[!User information cannot be confirmed on Earth connected to the Natrene Empire!]
The series of translucent red warning windows noisily rang in Ji-woo’s head before freezing in mid-air. No matter how hard Ji-woo shouted commands or waved at the air, the status window remained motionless.
From that day until now, the status window has been left frozen while displaying red warning windows.
Having shaken off even the faint lingering attachment and now grown accustomed to the red warning windows, he spitefully blamed them since they never seemed to resolve.
“Wasn’t the name ‘perfection assistant’? What kind of perfect assistance is this? Getting stuck with errors and freezing up.”
As he muttered the system window’s name that the author had revealed outside the novel, as if that were some kind of signal, the system that had shown no movement until now began showing signs of activity by erasing the warning windows one by one.
[System readjustment.]
[Target cannot be confirmed on Earth connected to the Natrene Empire.]
[Confirming target’s identity.]
Ignoring the long pause it had maintained, the voice that appeared without warning had changed to a serious tone. The difference was significant enough to notice.
[Please state the name of the Natrene Empire’s goddess.]
After being completely unresponsive, suddenly asking questions?
“Arisenkeuriyaneue Nehellieoneseu.”
Though discontent arose at the seemingly shameless system, since it wasn’t a difficult question, he obediently threw out an answer.
The goddess’s name was a piece of cake for Ji-woo. Anes—the shortened name used for convenience that had somehow become fixed, making many people know the goddess’s name as ‘Anes’—but the goddess’s actual name was quite long.
Though he hadn’t welcomed the goddess’s appearance since he was desperate to return to his original world, the goddess was one of Ji-woo’s beloved characters.
Though his reasoning was shallow, focusing solely on appearance rather than narrative, if it was a character he loved, he could memorize their name even if it exceeded ten characters.
At Ji-woo’s unhesitating answer, the system maintained silence for a moment before producing the next voice.
[Please state the name of the Natrene Empire’s Demon King.]
“Tereonrissiil Dehapeutelteubi.”
The Demon King was the same. In fact, aside from affection levels, among the characters in “Majuk,” there were no characters Ji-woo couldn’t memorize except those who were essentially extras.
[Among the insects inhabiting the Natrene Empire, please name the insect with the shortest lifespan.]
“Yant.”
All Empire people recognized ‘Yant’ as a type of plant. The mysterious birth through flower buds and the way they died curled up in a ball immediately after birth looked to Empire people like just flower seeds or fruit.
However, Ji-woo had figured this out long ago thanks to the author’s detailed and trivial descriptions.
After faithfully answering even the trivial insect name, the question-and-answer session that had continued for over ten rounds finally seemed to finish, with no more questions coming. When he waited leisurely in the quiet surroundings, a new status window filled the air.
[Analyzing answers.]
[You possess information unknowable to humans. Confirming target as Administrator. Granting characteristics suitable for Administrator.]
Administrator, and Administrator characteristics.
This was content he had never heard of even after repeatedly reading the book multiple times. Was the Administrator mentioned here something like God’s representative? While he pondered with curious eyes about what the Administrator that the system spoke of could be.
As if filling the considerably long gap, the system delivered new information.
[Granting characteristic ‘Third Eye’.]
Setting aside the questions that had filled his head at the appeared notation, he examined the explanation of the folded characteristic.
[Characteristic: Third Eye (Epic)]
Stage 1
―Can analyze all targets.
: Can determine the target’s profession, stats, skills, disposition, and preferences.
―Can activate the map.
: Supports directions and can display the current location on the map.
Stage 2
―Requires unlocking.
Stage 3
―Requires unlocking.
Stage 4
―Requires unlocking.
“Jackpot.”
After confirming the characteristic’s abilities, Ji-woo soon completely erased his curiosity about the Administrator and was busy enjoying his newly acquired characteristic.
Even tracing through to the novel’s completion and thoroughly recalling everything, there wasn’t even anything remotely similar to an ability to read others’ stats, let alone such an ability itself.
Both the meaningful mention of Administrator characteristics and the effects of abilities he had never encountered before—no matter how he looked at it, this was a characteristic that couldn’t be possessed as a character from the original work.
A rare ability that fell as if to comfort Ji-woo, who had been suddenly absorbed into this world.
Though it wasn’t a combat-related skill, for Ji-woo who aimed for survival and peace, and for him who needed a map more desperately than anyone, it seemed like a gift had been bestowed upon him.
Thanks to displaying the map above the status window, Ji-woo quickly arrived at his destination. The embarrassingly fast process made the past four days of hardship feel futile.
Being sneered at and chased away by unknown groups, searching through similar forests day and night—the space Ji-woo had been trying to find was precisely the Guardian’s Temple where he could obtain the profession ‘Guardian of Light.’
The profession he was trying to obtain was close to a healer in game terms. Unlike other professions where once someone with great utility obtained them, the opportunity itself disappeared, this profession created new opportunities to be acquired every year.
However, as worried, due to the limitation that only one person per year could obtain, if he had fallen into the Forest of Trials at the same time as the heroine from the work, he would have ended up stealing the heroine’s ability.
Nevertheless, to understand why Ji-woo covets the profession while being nonchalant about the absence of someone like the heroine, one needs to know the author’s personal circumstances outside the novel.
The reason the heroine appeared in the original work was solely the author’s—that is, the creator of this story’s—real-life romance beginning.
The author, experiencing their first romance in life, was so excited that they were blinded and introduced a ‘heroine’ who had never appeared in the synopsis or initial settings. Moreover, they borrowed their girlfriend’s name and appearance.
The justification was that the girlfriend, who was in the same field, had made a sub-male lead’s name using the author’s own name.
Regardless of the purpose, people complained about the suddenly created heroine, and perhaps to prevent such public opinion, the author hastily explained that the added heroine had provided many ideas for leading the work forward. Of course, most people thought this was an excuse for packaging rather than believing the author’s words.
Perhaps because of this, the hastily created heroine didn’t have much influence on progressing the work despite her abilities.
Exchanging emotions with the bleak protagonist, even if only partially, or situations being smoothly resolved thanks to extras who fell for her honey trap—these were the extent of her displayed abilities. This was due to the author’s stubbornness in not creating situations where the protagonist might get hurt, despite creating a healing ability user.
Still, most readers understood and moved past this point. It was an interesting enough work to embrace even an unnecessary heroine.
The real bigger problem lay at the end of that terrible first romance.
