Chapter 6: One Month In: Oxian’s Life and the Market Boom

It had been a month since the unknown monstrous creatures appeared across the earth, and people had transformed into characters from the virtual reality game ‘Arising’.

The ever-changing rivers and mountains, which were said to remain unchanged for a thousand years, were melted by the wyverns’ breath in a single day, and the roles of soldiers and police were now taken over by various guilds, many things had changed, both naturally and socially.

However, there was only one thing, that never changed, that was SNS.

《Oxian Battle Clip (vs. Orcs)》
ㄴ[Amazing]
ㄴ[Space Collapse, What?]
ㄴ[So cute lol]

“…”

It had been two weeks since I repelled the Orc army that had attacked the villa I was staying in.

Looking at the photos and stories about Oxian that were constantly being uploaded after that, I covered my head as if I had a headache.

Is this called trauma?

Seeing the photos of me updated on SNS, the nightmare of that day, when I became a human photo zone and had my whole body photographed, began to crawl up again.

If the small guild, which was acting as a self-defense force, hadn’t been dispatched after the report and dispersed the people, I would probably have remained as a famous place in this villa forever.

“Ugh, sh*t…”

Shaking my head as if it were terrifying even to think about, I picked up the smartphone next to me.

The feeling of cold metal echoed in my palm.

“…”

With one hand, I touched the horn on my forehead, and with the other, I pressed the blue diamond-shaped icon displayed on the phone screen.

The name of the touched app was ‘Information Association’.

It was an application created by the World Guild Alliance, which was led by the large guilds of Europe, and it was structured in the form of a community to easily access the world situation, support requests, item trading, etc.

Currently, it was considered an essential app to install in this situation, even if you weren’t a Changer, with the number of subscribers reaching hundreds of millions.

In particular, it reported and analyzed the situation with more diverse and detailed news than internet articles, so this was the perfect place to get new news.

“Hmm…”

I scratched my head and scrolled down.

As always, every day, a new special report had come in today, and I frowned at an article with a high number of views, which was overwhelmingly higher than other articles.

“Abelia, suppression of Qualena in three weeks…”

Abelia was a super-large guild ranked 5th in the world, based in Romania, Europe. I only heard that a battle had taken place with the S-rank season boss Qualena few weeks ago, but they managed to suppress her after all.

It was truly amazing that they had sent support troops throughout Europe and dispersed guild members to defeat the season boss with a small number of people.

Even the ‘Aria Guild’, a large guild based in our country, hadn’t been able to defeat a single season boss for a month because they had dispersed their forces.

Since Aria Guild was ranked 7th in the world, and Abelia was ranked 5th, there was a big gap in their power despite the difference of only two ranks.

So, the numbers and ranks attached to the name aren’t attached in vain.

“Hmm…”

After briefly glancing at the article, I twisted my hair and fell into deep thought.

Originally, Qualena’s race was a vampire.

In other words, like me, she had intelligence and thoughts and retained the memories of when she was human.

So why did she form a hostile relationship with Abelia? Abelia-sized guilds knew that they could be easily targeted, so why did they foolishly launch an attack? Wouldn’t they have been able to save their lives if they had cooperated or just remained still?

“I don’t know!”

Well, it’s none of my business.

I’m just grateful for the Information Association, which hasn’t officially publicized the fact of ‘Oxian’s appearance’, compared to my stories going up and down on the community bulletin board.

The TV news, internet articles, and the Information Association’s official sources hadn’t yet revealed the truth about my existence.

Even though there were enough video evidence and photos, and I even met with a small guild the week before last, Oxian’s ‘O’ didn’t appear anywhere, if I wanted to reveal that I was Oxian.

Since it would be burdensome to be in the news because people’s attention and eyes would be focused on me, I was grateful, but I was also a little worried that there was no news.

“Is it just luck?”

Lying comfortably in bed, I mumbled in a blunt voice.

After all, I already had a mountain of worries, and if I appeared on the news, I would probably be stressed out and collapse, so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible until I returned to my daily life, just casually dealing with monsters that appeared in front of my house.

I suddenly thought that the current situation wasn’t particularly bad.

“Ugh…”

This time, I changed the page and went to the item trading page.

Items in Arising were a very, very important element that could make up for the severe level gap, and items of a corresponding grade were usually dropped when monsters were defeated.

There were a total of five grades of items, and they were classified by rarity, not by alphabet, unlike the season bosses.

In order, they were, Void-class, Rare, Decent, Ordinary, Common.

Among them, ‘Void-class’ items were said to exist in only seven in the whole world.

I hadn’t even seen one in real life, so I could feel how rare it was.

“I don’t see any selling or trading…”

I kept scrolling down while scratching my chin, but as expected, there were no posts saying that they were selling or trading Void-class items.

I want to have at least one because I’m the strongest season boss…

“Hmm…”

Most of the item trading was for magic stones, which were enhancement materials, or trading posts of ‘Ordinary’ grade and ‘Common’ grade.

If you want to get a high-grade item, you have to defeat a monster of a high grade, but at this point, where you really die if you die, there weren’t many people who would try to catch a monster with a high difficulty.

“How much do they cost?”

‘Decent’ grade was orcs or goblins, and ‘Common’ grade was really useless items that came out when you killed slimes or snails.

It was more for accessories than for effect, so it didn’t seem like the price would be very high…

“Crazy.”

I shook my head when I saw the number ‘₩3,000,000’. Only 3 million won for slime cream? It doesn’t make sense. This is fraud.

[350, I’ll buy it.]
[wslalser@12, send me a message.]
[I’ll buy it for 400. Sell it to me.]

They even raise the price amongst themselves?

Seeing the black-hearted people buying things that they wouldn’t even take inside the game for 3 million won, I couldn’t help but laugh.

[Orc’s horn flute. Selling for 1,000.]

From ‘Decent’ grade, the price jumped to a thousand.

I was even more shocked by the price and the fact that there was more demand than supply.

“Huh…”

3 million won for killing a slime…
Should I go hunting too?
If I put my mind to it, I could kill all the other season bosses.

The drop items that come out when you kill a season boss will be at least ‘Legendary’ items, so at this rate, I thought I could sell them for tens or hundreds of millions.

“Wait…”

After thinking for a moment, I quickly ran to the drawer and took out a palm-sized gem with a red light.

The ‘Rare’ grade A-class magic stone I obtained after dealing with Gigantopia the other day.

The magic stone was more of an enhancement material than an item, and it enhanced the effectiveness of the item.

Therefore, it was famous as the number one seller in the game.

In a world where even slime’s secretions are valued in the hundreds of thousands, how much would the Rare grade A-class magic stone be valued?

Filled with curiosity and wonder, I began to take several photos of the magic stone from a good angle.

“Alright…”

Seeing the photos of the product, which turned out quite luxurious, I nodded with satisfaction.

Thinking that I could make a fortune if I did well, I started to write an item trading post with a smile on my face.

“Rare grade… Selling A-class magic stone… Price is…”

…Price is?

The petite fingers that were typing diligently stopped.

What’s the market price of Rare grade items?

And since it’s a magic stone, the valuation would be different from ordinary items…

“Ugh…”

After thinking for a moment, I cautiously put in the number 500 million. I’ll try it first, and if it doesn’t sell, I’ll lower it little by little.

[Selling A-class magic stone for 500 million (photo)]

I completed the sales post, attaching the photos I had just taken. Then, I nodded with a proud smile.

“Alright.”

Since the price offered was a high price, it would take some time for a buyer to appear.

Thinking so, I moved the screen to the news tab to pass the time while checking the domestic situation.

…It was then.

[Beep!]

“Hmm?”

The phone’s notification sound suddenly rang.

Then, icons began to appear frantically on the push screen.

[A comment has been added]
[A comment has been added]
[A comment has been added]
.
.
.

[300+ comments]

“…”

About 10 seconds after posting the magic stone trading post.
Comments poured in frantically.