Chương 50: Epilogue

I was sloshed after several hours of partying and having to drink health potions when I got a notification saying that I would be called up for the interview before the descent to the second floor. So I sobered up, drank a lot of water, pissed most of it, and I got a notification — a very polite one — asking me if I was ready to go to the studios. I was surprised by this sudden change compared to what Lotheriel had been doing, and I said, "Sure."

The System brought me to a waiting room where there were about a hundred other humans, of all races and nationalities. Langdon was with me. I sighed in relief, elbowing him and saying, "Yo, thank God you're here. Look how many people were called up."

"It's the final floor interview," Langdon said.

"They're probably… I guess they want us to familiarize with each other. If Lotheriel is not in charge of anything anymore, it means the tutorial has become more fair to us, and that the production is afraid of incurring the same fate as the elves. You only fuck around so much when you know that the System can kill you at any moment."

"True." Then Langdon slowly looked around and said, "Someone's coming over." It was a tall Chinese man wearing a long, flowing white robe. Behind him, there were four more Chinese, all men, all dressed like scholars. The tallest — the leader — stopped in front of me right after Langdon said, "That's Wei Jen. Strongest Chinese."

"Yeah." He said a few words in Chinese, and then I suddenly heard his voice turning to English.

"…to meet you, John."

"Um. Sorry, uh — the translation just happened." I frowned, and I extended a hand.

"Nice to meet you, I guess. I didn't really get what you said."

"I said it is an honor to meet a warrior such as you." Wei Jen gave me a tight grip and looked me straight in the eyes.

"Humanity has suffered because of these undead. They killed millions of my people. I slayed them, but I didn't know of their trickery. They came at us in hordes, trying to turn us. Not one Large Haven fell under my watch. And I have to thank you."

"Um. I mean, I'm sure that y-you did the work. I wasn't there," I replied, confused. Wei Jen shook his head.

"John, you attracted the ire of the undead and their god. I captured many of their priests and interrogated them. I tortured them with light magic, which they seem to fear."

"Oh." I nodded.

"Okay." I was very intimidated by the practicality of this man, and I saw on my side that Langdon was nodding approvingly, probably thinking he would have done just the same.

"You attracting their tricks and surviving them allowed so many to survive. You might not realize this, because they are too prideful to admit it." Now that Wei Jen was talking to me, I turned, and I saw that a lot of people were actually eyeing me.

"Oh, I am happy that I could help," I said awkwardly.

"You are a true warrior, I can tell. You have incredible power in you. And wonderful lion. King Pussycat. Very powerful."

"Um, he's called Regulus now. The name was ridiculous. I was allowed to actually legally change it, so—""Of course. Regulus. It is a mighty name."

"Yeah." I coughed and scratched my head.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, man. I wish I saw more of the shows. I missed out on a lot. I felt like I was always being targeted by something, and I don't know. I—""We came here, John, because I also have the ability to share recordings. And I would like to share all of it with you and your friend."

"We accept," Langdon said immediately.

"We'll share everything we have. We need to share information to survive." Wei Jen seemed amused by the eagerness of Langdon. And I shot an eyeful at the man.

"But I agree," I sighed.

"Let's figure this out." We fiddled around with our streaming tabs. And soon, I had shared videos on my own streaming tab — Wei Jen's first four days. It appeared he had gotten this function almost immediately.

"You will see what kind of monsters we've been facing. It is my understanding that different countries have been facing different variations of the undead. Ours were more Egyptian. They were like the movie The Mummy."

"Oh, yeah, we saw some of those, but the others were just, like, run-of-the-mill zombies."

"It is because it was the undead Death Knight coming after you. But they are now guided by Anubis."

"Anubis?" I frowned.

"Anubis the dog-headed Egyptian god?"

"Indeed."

"Well, that's one plot twist. So that god was real? I wonder what god Father Okonkwo meant, then. He's not been saying, yet."

"And where is he?" I turned around, and we couldn't find him.

"Your priest is extremely powerful. I hope we'll be able to meet on the second floor. But for now, we must part. I got a notification that it's time for me to go."

"All right." He cupped a fist at me and gave me a small bow. The warriors behind him did the same. Aside from one, who just looked at me weirdly. And then they disappeared. Into thin air. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"That's an intense guy," I commented to Langdon.

"Very intense." And also, Wei Jen had opened the floodgates. Several people came to greet me. In their own language, which was automatically translated to English just one beat later. They were from all countries. From France, Italy. From African countries. There were two guys with katanas straight from Japan. And a girl and a guy dressed like ninjas. Which I honestly found super cool. And so we familiarized with so many.

Until we found ourselves in the presence of a woman with a humanoid look to her, but many, many scales all over her body, in patches, and one long tail. She was accompanied by a fellow host with the same exact traits.

"Welcome," she said as Langdon and I were seated in front of the desk. The studio had changed. It was softer with the lights, and the audience was practically nonexistent. This was less like a late-night show and more like a podcast setting, almost. We were just on the other side of the table from the two, who both wore headphones.

"We are Cassandra and Milo."

"Milo?" I said.

"That is my name, man. You two did a hell of a job out there. And let me tell you, I'm glad that you two uncovered fraud. Our people hate fraudsters and those tampering with the System. You two rendered a service not only to the people of Earth, but to the entire multiverse."

"That was all John." Langdon smiled, putting on a pair of headphones that was in front of him, and I followed suit.

"John came up with all that you saw. I organized the defense of the fortress, and that was it. There wasn't much else that I took care of."

"Yeah, Langdon is being very humble. He has a big fucking brain. Oops, sorry. Can I swear on…?"

"You can swear however much you want. The System has decided to fragment the broadcast. It will be shot in sequence and broadcast in sequence, since it's the last floor interview, and some people binge the entire segment. But it will span half a day, and we have as much time as you guys want. There is a time dilation spell covering the dungeon while the interviews take place, so nobody will lose any time. And if they want, they can also watch. Our format is closer to what your people call a podcast.

It's more relaxed. We chat, you can ask us questions, and we will also reply — within the limits, of course, of what the System lets us do. But lots of rules have been loosened after what happened, so now humanity gets more access to external information. So take this as a chance to also, you know, get a little leg up in the upcoming war."

"Oh, wow," I said, surprised by how upfront they were being, and how nice.

"I know that this could sound like a trap." Milo smiled, elbowing Cassandra.

"You guys have been through a lot, and you shouldn't trust us completely, of course. But let me start by congratulating you, John. What you did was out of this world. I know I've been repeating myself, and I don't wanna look like a fangirl of yours, but I might have to admit I am binging The John's Chronicles as soon as I go back home."

"The what, sorry?"

"The System. The System cut all your adventure from the start and made it into a TV show. The first season covers everything that happened. It also has some commentary from expert guides and the System itself. You are generating the System a lot of views and money."

"Oh, I'm glad, my friend. I hope some of that money is coming to us." Langdon smiled.

"Oh, it will. We will discuss some of the sponsorship system, how that stuff works. I know that Divers after the first floor are usually very confused, so we'll cover that in the next few hours, or however long you guys feel like staying. If you feel uncomfortable after ten minutes, you can leave. But these things can usually run up to, yeah, like, three, sometimes four hours. And if today we get to ask all the questions we wanted to ask, maybe even five or six."

Seeing how upfront, transparent, and honest they were being, I really felt like staying here as long as possible to get as much info as I could on what was gonna come up on the next floor. And Cassandra seemed to read my mind.

"John, Langdon, I know you two might have a lot of questions. But the System wants us to first reveal to you the biggest change that's gonna make this the most watched season of the Tutorial Dungeon ever."

"Oh?" We both perked up.

"So," Cassandra continued, "the System has decided to abandon the floor mechanic, because of all the humans that managed to survive. And because of that, you guys will now face just one large floor. Which is actually not a floor. So — it's Earth. Earth has been transformed by the System into what your people — and tell me if I'm getting some terms wrong — call an open world RPG. A lot of races applied to participate.

So you will also have what you guys call non-playing characters staying around, giving you quests, letting you earn money. And instead of having one quick shock of facing the Sorvos Empire after the nine floors, what's going to happen is there will be small incursions at first, and then a ramped-up presence of them — with a lot, by the way, of original content that we have never seen before. We have heard incredible things so far from the System.

We have been told that there's even a tower where you guys can go earn rewards. There's going to be a lot of biome-specific dungeons — a lot of different biomes, too. Apparently, the System is putting most of humanity in the same cities. And from there, you guys can build up a new civilization, explore the world and, you know, get a feeling of what you need to fight the upcoming war."

"That does sound exciting," Langdon commented. I was reluctant to admit it — despite this being the literal apocalypse, and a lot of humans having died — but when I heard all of that, I said, "That does sound exciting. I almost feel guilty saying it. We lost a lot of good people, and—" I paused, but no one interrupted me.

"I hope that whatever we build is going to work, and that it's going to ensure everybody's survival." I felt some tears come to my eyes, and I rubbed my face. The hosts didn't say a word. And so I added, "Sorry if I'm getting a little worked up. It's hard not to think about all those we have left behind." Now the two hosts looked at each other.

"We try not to broadcast or create entertainment out of grief. It's not a practice we like. But on behalf of Milo and myself, John," Cassandra said, "we are sorry about your losses, and we hope that humanity can triumph in the end. We are cheering for you." I laughed a little at that.

"Can you guys cheer for us? Is that allowed? Isn't that biased?"

"Oh, of course. Everything is biased. But as I said, the System AI has loosened the rules. And so now we get to be a little more open with it, which I think is better. There are some people cheering for the Sorvos Empire, and there's us. We would like for you to win. So do your best, John."

"Gambatte," Milo suddenly said. And I looked at him weirdly.

"Was that Japanese?"

"He's been watching a lot of what you call animes. Earth surely is one of the top planets when it comes to creating entertainment. It is crazy how much you guys spend, in terms of time and resources, just to keep yourselves entertained. Most people across the universe are now binging all the content that you guys created. Of course, the tutorial dungeon is still creating the most viewership, but even just your content is doing… wow."

That was followed by a little talk on our favorite movies and whatnot, which I found refreshing. Even in the absurdity of what was happening, it was refreshing to talk about normal stuff with people interested in it. And I liked how they cared — or seemed to care. For now, I was satisfied with even just the appearance of this. It felt like they were giving Earth a lot of credit and that they believed in us.

I could see, however, that Langdon's gears were spinning the whole time, because after this talk, we launched into a deep technical dissection of everything that had gone on in previous instances of the tutorial, and they could even show us clips. It was horrifying what some people had to go through. The kind of desolate tutorial layers where the priority was finding clean water and food, which apparently was the least-liked format. People found it very boring.

And then, the type of insane monsters that appeared — some of them resembling our dinosaurs. And throughout the course of this podcast, I slowly shed the shame that I had felt since the very start of the tutorial — since I saw Gina losing her life. And despite quite a bit of guilt staying with me, I was now looking forward to what the System was gonna throw our way.