Chapter 313: Episode 313_Succubus Dream (3)
3.
“Step down, dictator Simin! Step down!”
“You have a duty to guarantee players’ basic rights and make Fantastic World a better place to live!”
“A filthy world where the top 1% hog everything! Let’s fix it!”
The cca of tourists.
Inside Rich Territory, crowds had gathered, tying headbands around their foreheads and shouting until their voices cracked.
The territory had always been so packed with tourists that brushing shoulders with strangers felt normal, but this was a different kind of crowd—an orderly, organized assembly.
A rally made up entirely of players.
Sohow, they had even gotten their hands on gaphones powered by magic, and they were proudly carrying out their protest.
“But... is it really okay to be doing this here?”
“I heard that Kenji and the others who protested like this ended up branded as cultists and completely ostracized. Now they’re just keeping a low profile, getting smashed by the Iron Hamr.”
“It’s fine. That was dangerous because the Emperor and the Great Temple were involved. This is just a personal protest against Simin, so they won’t get involved. He’s still the Emperor, after all. Even if Simin is his son-in-law, there’s no way he’d ddle in a petty squabble between players.”
“...The Emperor doesn’t have to get involved. Simin is still a lord. He’s a noble, too. If he unleashes the soldiers stationed in Rich Territory, we’ll be thrown out in a heartbeat.”
“Hey. If he was going to do that, he would’ve done it already.”
“True. Still, this has to be a real pain for his business.”
“That’s why we need to raise our voices even louder and make the custors’ position crystal clear. What’s he going to do about it? The guy is crazy about money. If all the custors go on strike and stage a sit-in, he’ll have no choice but to listen. No matter how much inco the NPCs bring in, losing the players is still a huge hit.”
Of course, they were only this bold because they thought they had leverage.
Rich Territory itself had imposed no sanctions.
In reality, Han Simin had just gone to catch up on sleep, and they were simply waiting while he rested. However, the users anxiously watching the situation were left to interpret things on their own.
And people’s self-serving interpretations tend to be optimistic.
“He’s flustered. He never imagined we’d pull sothing like this. He has to keep the business running, but it would be a waste to give up the profits he’s raking in. Even in the long run, it’s more profitable for Simin to keep Rich Territory and the casino operating than to lock everyone behind the Main Story wall. So he’ll stall for ti, crunch the numbers, and eventually give in to our demands.”
“Damn, that’s genius.”
“What’s the difference between reality and a ga? People never listen when you ask nicely. You only get through to them when you hit them where it hurts—the wallet.”
That mindset spread, and the number of users gradually increased.
Most of them were people who were getting ahead of themselves, thinking, ’Maybe I can get sothing out of this, too.’
“You think he’ll at least give us so Rich Territory discount coupons as an apology?”
“I was planning to visit Rich Territory soon anyway. Let’s complain and tell him to drop those ridiculous prices while we’re at it.”
As the crowd was getting ahead of themselves, the aide approached with a worried expression.
There were hardly any users who didn’t know that the aide was the one who actually ran Rich Territory.
Naturally, the protest quieted for a mont, and a representative stepped forward.
His face was lit up with a broad grin.
He was already counting his chickens, drunk on the thrill of an imagined victory. Now, the aide wasn’t just summoning them—he was personally walking over.
On top of that, the aide’s expression looked grave.
How to put it?
It was the kind of expression that seed to ask, ’Are you sure you should be doing this?’
What could that possibly an?
It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
’He’s here to listen to our demands.’
Officially, they had never directly expressed any demands to Rich Territory or to Simin himself.
All they had done was gather and protest.
But they believed they had exerted a great deal of influence and that their intentions had been fully conveyed.
As a result, their shoulders squared and their chins tilted upward.
They were ready to hear the answer they wanted.
The aide completely ignored their attitude and spoke.
“Are you the ones holding this protest, demanding that my lord advance the Main Quest—the Adventurers-Only Law—to the next stage?”
His voice was gloomy.
His mood seed utterly grim.
The user representative leading the protest gave a haughty nod.
“That is correct!”
He adopted a tone he would never dare use in real life, but here, he delivered it without a second thought.
It sohow made the protest feel dignified and noble.
It was the kind of condescending tone he’d seen powerful characters use in dramas—one that seed to elevate the other party while firmly centing his own superior position.
In any case, he felt like he was in a position to say whatever he wanted.
That is what he thought.
Right up until the aide nodded, glanced back, and flicked his hand.
“Clear them out.”
“Yes, sir!”
His tone was that of a man who couldn’t be bothered to touch a cockroach, delegating the dirty work to his subordinates.
The territory’s soldiers approached, weapons in hand, their eyes full of disgust.
Before the users could even process what was happening, they found themselves instinctively shuffling backward.
It was pure animal instinct.
’We’re screwed.’
Why?
The reason didn’t matter.
They could already sense from the soldiers’ movents that if they shouted, “What do you think you’re doing!” they wouldn’t get an answer.
The users who were dragged away couldn’t resist.
They had plenty to say, but most of the people gathered here were low-level.
The high-level users with any sense had already seen Han Simin defeat Kenji and would never have dread of doing sothing so stupid.
Furthermore, the few users who tried to resist were beaten down without rcy and hauled off.
People might say, “It’s just a ga, it’s fine if I die,” but being at the center of such graphic violence was a heavy psychological blow, even in a ga.
This was especially true for users who spent more ti hanging around town than hunting monsters.
Because they projected their real-world sensibilities onto the ga, they allowed themselves to be dragged away without much of a struggle.
As they were being taken, the aide’s quiet murmur reached their ears.
“Who is it? Which bastards sent this trash to try and ruin our territory...? I won’t let this slide.”
He was his lord’s aide, through and through.
The mont Han Simin’s order ca down, the aide, as if he had been waiting for it, kicked out every last person who had been running wild.
*
Rich Casino was no different.
Just as it had opened and was hitting its peak, packed with custors thanks to word of mouth, Han Simin drove out the troublemakers without a shred of rcy.
“It looks like the remnants of that cult are still active. Please send
so troops.”
He didn’t hesitate in the slightest to use public authority for such matters.
As they were being thrown out, people hurled threats like, “You think your business will survive after this?” but he didn’t even blink.
“Yeah, yeah. Do what you want. The people who want to co will co whether you’re here or not.”
The power of boundless positivity.
Normally, a business owner would cling to every single custor to earn one more coin, but when it ca to calculating his interests, Han Simin was always ticulous.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
He was a cold-blooded businessman.
’Those punks were never going to spend a single coin in Rich Territory or the casino anyway, but they strutted around acting like VVIPs. People who don’t spend money aren’t custors, they’re freeloading pests.’
Of course, he didn’t say that out loud.
But his actions made it perfectly clear.
People had started out protesting the Main Quest, but their complaints gradually shifted to his heavy-handed attitude.
However, those complaints didn’t last long.
“Wow. He really paid up. I honestly thought he’d screw us over and not give us anything.”
“You actually got all of that out of him? That’s insane. Show
what you got.”
“I’ll show you. Just stick with .”
“Whoa!”
Once the settlent was complete and the money had hit his account, there was nothing left for Han Simin to fear.
He received everything Kenji had promised him, from Korea and from all over the world.
The last lingering worry—that Kenji might swallow it all and refuse to pay out of revenge—vanished in an instant. After that, what problem could there be?
To be blunt, he could liquidate everything he had in Fantastic World right now, marry Kang Yeseul, who kept throwing herself at him, and spend the rest of his life traveling and goofing off.
The only reason he didn’t was simple.
“I think I finally get why rich people, who could live without working, still bother to work.”
He couldn’t quite put it into words.
There had been a ti when Han Simin thought the sa way as everyone else.
Everyone did.
In a world where you work like a dog and still struggle to make minimum wage, what else would you think about every day?
’If I hit the lottery and got enough money to live the rest of my life without working, I’d just play and do nothing.’
’If I had, like, ten million dollars in my account, I’d buy a house, buy a car, and just live off playing gas.’
He still had those thoughts when an amount far beyond ten million dollars hit his account.
And yet, he couldn’t follow through on his own promise.
He knew that, logically, he should quit everything right now and just live it up.
He knew that even if he kept earning more, as long as he didn’t blow it all on gambling or so reckless business venture, he had more money than he could spend in a lifeti.
But he couldn’t walk away.
“Why not?”
“It’s just... hard to explain, but it feels like throwing money on the ground.”
He couldn’t help it.
He didn’t care if people called him an idiot.
According to Han Simin’s math, that was how it worked.
If you can earn more and choose not to, that’s the sa as taking that money and tossing it on the ground.
And it was bad enough that the money would be gone, but the idea that it would roll over to soone else was sothing he simply couldn’t tolerate.
So he ran even harder, like a dog.
Even when the money was overflowing.
That was why he had made the decision to endure the criticism and crack down in order to make the casino and Rich Territory flourish.
And on so level, he felt it instinctively.
’This gravy train won’t last forever.’
Any user who had played the ga for even a little while would know.
The Heavenly King and the Demon King had appeared.
He had twisted the Main Quest away from its obvious pattern, but the end couldn’t be far off.
What would Fantastic World look like after the Main Quest ended?
The number of users would definitely drop.
However, this other world wouldn’t disappear just because the Main Quest was over.
The world would keep on turning.
Many things would happen, and the businesses Han Simin had established would keep running and steadily paying out.
He just had to get to that point.
“Are you really not going to push the Main Quest forward?”
“I will. The standard play is to milk it for all it’s worth, cash out, and move on to the next big score.”
“Then why...”
“But I can’t make it look like I’m doing it because those people want
to. I’m doing all of this for myself, to squeeze every last drop out, but if it looks like I’m doing it for them, they’ll start barking orders nonstop.”
Silence.
“And the Heavenly King still hasn’t made his decision.”
“I really feel bad for those people getting kicked out.”
“I do want to applaud their courage. If they’d spent that ti killing even one more monster, they’d have leveled up and made so money. Instead, they ca all the way here to personally donate their items for the sake of their poor, unfortunate neighbors. I can’t just treat such generous donors poorly, can I?”
Everything that happened in the process was, to him, just a little incident in a ga.
Han Simin was more than ready to treat it as nothing more than that.
*
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