I Became a Genius Mage in the Cthulhu Game Chapter 257: Reward and Rest

"Ha ha ha, Mage, you got dragged out after all?"

Jang Hyundeok’s idle ddling.

"You’re not a grade-schooler—why are you picky about als?"

"It’s not being picky. I just missed alti because I was concentrating."

When my mask obsession was at its worst, I could hardly eat with others, but these days it isn’t that bad.

Thanks to the madness being much alleviated. I sat at the table wearing a mask that covered half my face.

"Huh... It was always impressive, but today is especially impressive."

Heo Sanghyun has remarkable cooking skills. He ended up a necromancer after getting seized by a mad skeleton, but had he beco a chef, wouldn’t he have grown quite famous?

"He said he once planned to convert this mansion into a guesthouse, didn’t he?"

It would have been nice if that had happened. If he served dishes to guests seeking a retreat, it might have beco a popular lodge.

In any case, once freed from Heo Joo’s hands, Heo Sanghyun’s cooking improved day by day until his dishes now felt like an extravagant luxury.

"Does he have so kind of cooking trait?"

At this point, it feels awkward to skip als as often as I do, but luckily, if Heo Sanghyun senses I won’t co up from the basent, he simply prepares enough for two and leaves it.

"On days like today when he goes out of his way to drag up from the basent..."

It ans he’s in a good mood.

"I’m honestly so happy we can eat like this every day."

That was Jang Hyundeok, who had begun sweeping up the food on the table even before I arrived. So plates were already empty. What had been on those?

Caprese salad where springy, mild mozzarella and fresh tomatoes ford a vivid harmony; tajarin pasta dressed with savory duck stock and enriched with creamy egg yolk; lamb chops that released sweet juices with every bite.

So good I could faint.

"Today we have dessert as well."

Tiramisu arrived, where sweet cocoa and deep coffee aroma blended in concert.

Dessert doesn’t appear all that often. Is today so kind of special day?

With two n on either side shoveling in food while spilling out exclamations of praise, Heo Sanghyun offered modest words, looking a bit embarrassed.

"It just turned out this way. We got a lot of ingredients yesterday, rember?"

"Ah, the tribute Hyeolhu sent? Was there lamb in that?"

"Yes. A trendous amount of liquor arrived too, but most of it was Chinese, so I didn’t open it."

A rollback executed to make the havoc wrought by [Predator in the Mountains] into "sothing that never happened."

And as compensation for that rollback, I received various benefits.

So were absurdly good; so would be crucial for future progress; and among them were ambiguous ones I didn’t particularly want.

"And the one nad Gyuseong Mawa says he wants to send an offering. How should we handle it?"

"Hm? Gyuseong Mawa? That frog-man contacted you, Mr. Sanghyun?"

"No. Lord Hyeolhu inford ."

So Hyeolhu must have given him Heo Sanghyun’s contact details. Shouldn’t have done that.

"What kind of offering?"

"I hear he wants to perform a human sacrifice."

"...Leave it. I think I’d better speak to him myself later."

Right.

This was the first of the rewards I received.

[Followers].

"But who exactly are those people? Why do they like you that much, Mage?"

Right after finishing dinner and tidying the dining room.

That was what Jang Hyundeok asked after following into the living room.

"You heard it too, didn’t you? They call the [Destroyer] who governs the world’s destruction and restoration."

They spouted a bizarre line—"Because there is destruction, there can be restoration"—and followed with fervor.

"Ah, so that [Destroyer] who restored the world ant you, Mage?"

"Who else did you think they ant?"

"Uh, the one who shattered the giant eyeball—uh? Was that you, Mage? Huh? What is this?"

Jang Hyundeok shook his head, slipping into confusion. Watching him, I let out a short sigh.

"If there’s going to be a rollback, do it properly..."

Or at least give proper compensation.

"Rollback?"

"Nothing. It’s a thing."

To be honest, I wondered if I’d been tossed into another, similar dinsion, but apparently not.

This is still the bug-ridden, shoddy ga, [Cthulhu World].

Moreover, although words like rollback and server backup were used, the restoration wasn’t a simple "restart from last save" affair.

I don’t fully understand it either, but it’s like overlaying so portion of past data upon the continuously flowing present.

Perhaps sothing went wrong in that process—there are people who can half-rember that day’s events.

"Not that those mories are accurate anyway."

Like recalling a horrifying nightmare from years ago—just a vague anxiety or fear, a hazy sense of ominous inspiration.

They recall only the blurred scars left by ruin or death’s passing claw.

anwhile, roughly two hundred cultists who’d been near Chentae-dong that day revived with nothing but an awareness that I had had a hand in restoring this world, and as [Unaffiliated Cultists] who had prayed for a god’s descent, they deified and ford a sect.

[Unaffiliated Cultists].

Absurd as it sounds, that’s the state in which they resurrected.

[Predator in the Mountains] was erased entirely from this world as if it had never existed, and even those who once served it could no longer rember it—hence the current state.

Or perhaps it was just an artificial adjustnt provided as compensation to .

"Good grief, [Mage King’s Ark] is botherso enough as it is."

"Ugh, are they still active?"

At the ntion of [Mage King’s Ark], Jang Hyundeok made a disgusted face. Fair—those are nightmare mories for him.

"Active? These days they’re probably the most active religious group south of Paju and in Goyang City."

[Mage King’s Ark] is a new religious group whose doctrine holds that to survive the coming doom you °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° must board the [Mage King]’s ark.

And the ticket required to board is [Filial Piety and Service].

Right—[Mage King’s Ark] is a sect that arose back when I fought the [Hwanglim Church].

"Ah, they won’t storm this place again later, will they?"

"They’ve changed so much since they first ford that even I don’t know. Honestly, I didn’t expect them to grow this large."

Their proselytizing was such a surprise success that now there are more believers unconnected to my brainwashing than those who are.

Leaving the appalled Jang Hyundeok behind, I went back down to the basent.

"Anyway, it’s comfortable having nothing urgent to worry about."

This is the second reward I received.

Right after the rollback completed, this ssage appeared before my eyes:

[For the next one week, no incidents will occur. During that period the activation of the trait ‘Shattered Mind’ will be suspended. Furthermore, most penalty traits afflicting your body and mind will cease to function.]

I was granted a short rest. He called it compensation, but maybe ti was needed to repair aftereffects of the rollback.

"At first I thought it was nothing much, but this is definitely the best reward."

Honestly, it had felt like riding a brakeless car plunging endlessly into the abyss. What I needed was rest.

Thanks to it, I tidied everything up, cleared the confusion in my head, and shed most of the fatigue weighing on my body.

"But now that life’s beco sowhat livable, I’m starting to get antsy."

It’s not like I can rest forever.

In three days, chaos will start flaring up again on all sides.

Putting those random [Followers] aside, I checked the other rewards I’d received.

Why do gars hate server rollbacks?

Because levels they finally pushed up drop, artifacts they barely pulled vanish, enhancents reset—in short, everything they worked for turns to foam.

Kim Sinhwa

Class: Mage Who Gazes into the Abyss

Level: 69

Magic Tier: 6th Rank

Madness: [Mask Obsession (Latent)], [ ]

Strength 5 4 (Residual Heat of the Bukrak Sect)

Constitution 8 3 (Death-Signing Sword (Nokjon))

Agility 8 2 (Wings of the Night Veil)

Intelligence 30

Mind 20 2 (Necklace of the Body Snatcher)

Charm 20

Here are many of the rewards I received.

First, the second madness slot is blank. In any case, it won’t be filled for three days.

Next, the level.

"It used to be 59, right? Up by ten in an instant."

Thanks to that, I shot through the notorious 50–60 bracket. I invested the two bonus stat points into Mind and Constitution.

Now I can use 6th-rank magic, and with a bit more activity I’ll hit level 70.

And there’s a heap of high-value artifacts and mana stones too nurous to count individually.

"But more than anything else, this is the most incredible item."

I took five prismatic gems from the shelf.

They were Incarnation Stones infused with a portion of [Predator in the Mountains]’s mana.

Vmmmm—

The Incarnation Stones thrumd with an ominous resonance. Ridiculously condensed power lay within.

"Honestly, I’m not confident I can fully control these."

But if I can control them sohow, couldn’t I reproduce even a fraction of that heaven-and-earth-shaking power I witnessed?

"Good. That about covers it, I think."

Followers, rest, experience, money, artifacts—plus several achievents I’ll skip listing—and the mana that belonged to [Predator in the Mountains].

"Even so, after seeing that, I can’t help feeling uneasy."

Now that I’ve seen with my own eyes what they can do when they choose to break the ga’s rules, levels and influence feel like trivial number gas.

"Still, it’s not like I’m completely without counterasures."

Thinking of what happened afterward, I know that breaking the ga’s rules imposes enormous risks on them as well. As long as they remain within the rules, they can be opposed.

"And besides—"

My goal isn’t to defeat those things. Such situations may be hard to avoid, but that isn’t my objective.

"I don’t know how far I can trust that bastard, though."

The last reward I wrung out to achieve my objective—

It was information on how to escape this world.

I recalled our conversation then.

"You have overco many trials and hardships. All of this was because, in a very special way, you pre-experienced the events and information that would occur in this world."

"Right. But in what I experienced, there was no way to escape this ga."

"In those repeated experiences, there is sothing that always appeared yet has not appeared this ti. What you want is contained within it."

"What kind of annoying Zen riddle—no, wait. Sothing that always appeared but hasn’t this ti? Is that perhaps..."

"It is now moving toward the [Great Source]."

Only those who have played [Cthulhu World] would grasp this exchange.

The [Great Source]—also called the [Source of Life] or [Source of All Pollution]—is an Abyssal entity.

If ranks must be drawn, it stands several tiers above [Predator in the Mountains], sitting just beneath [Crawling Chaos]—that is, Nyarlathotep.

In short, in the power scale presented by the ga [Cthulhu World], it’s one of the top five Abyssal beings.

The object I must find is moving to that monster’s side.

During this rest period I received as compensation, there probably won’t be issues—but soon I’ll have to head there.

"Of all things, it had to be that book?"

That book.

The book that always appeared in this ga yet, for so reason, hasn’t appeared this ti.

"It must be referring to the [Lacrex To], right?"

In the ga, it showed up with grand special effects yet did nothing, linked to no events—a ridiculous item.

But that book contains a thod for to escape this world.

"Good."

I’ve squeezed out as much compensation as possible and secured a solid lead I had long searched for.

Now all that remains is to move.

That said...

"...First, let rest as much as I can."

Ugh—there are only three days of rest left anyway.