Disaster-Level Player Is Too Good at Broadcasting-Chapter 78: « Star Ticket [1] »
The gold-tinged notifications of the system had barely fadeed.
While the S-Rankers collapsed against the jagged remains of pillars, the porters swarmed the battlefield.
"Don’t just shove the Essence into the standard crates! Use the lead-lined containers for the Arbiter’s fragments, you idiots!"
Park Woonhee’s voice was hoarse, her authority undisputed as she directed the flow of movement.
Kim Yechan sat nearby, his hands still trembling as he watched over the unconscious Kim Jin, but the focus of the manual labor fell to the other seven.
Two porters from the Iron Aegis guild were currently wrestling a massive, jagged rib bone from the tar.
One of them, a burly man named seungil, wiped black grease from his forehead and spat.
"Watch it, White Stars!"
He growled, shoving a smaller porter who was trying to navigate past him with a crate of mana-stones.
The smaller man, the replacement for Kang Min, didn’t back down.
He adjusted his reinforced glasses and sneered.
"The path is three meters wide, bastard.
Maybe if you weren’t built like a siege ram, you’d have some spatial awareness."
"What did you say, you little rat?"
Seungil dropped his end of the rib bone with a heavy thud, his face reddening.
"You White Stars think you’re hot shit because your precious ranker did the heavy lifting.
Without Iron Aegis holding the line, you’d be bird feed."
"Hold the line? You mean cowering behind a shield while the Russians actually bled?"
The replacement countered, his voice dripping with venom.
"Your guild master is called ’The Wall’ because he’s as stationary and useless as one."
"You son of a—"
Seungil stepped forward, his fist clenching, but Woonhee’s shadow fell over them.
"Shut it! Both of you!"
"If you have enough energy to cuss, you have enough energy to haul the loot.
We’re in a live zone.
Any more commotion and I’ll leave you here to explain your grievances to the second-floor boss."
The two men exchanged one last look of pure loathing.
It was a silent promise of a scuffle once they hit the surface but they returned to their work, muttering curses under their breaths.
In the background, near a pile of discarded General-wing feathers, the three porters from the Blue Dragon guild were taking a breather.
One of them, a man with a nervous habit of tapping his system window, looked at his coin balance.
"I’ve got enough."
He whispered, his eyes wide.
"I’ve been saving up so much for I don’t know how long...and now I have enough for a Roulette spin."
"Don’t do it."
The supportive porter beside him said, patting his shoulder.
"Save them for the shop.
Get a better vest."
"Nah, let him cook."
The third porter piped up, a lanky guy with a permanent smirk.
"Worst case, he gets a ’Used Bandage.’
Best case, we get to watch him cry when he loses it all.
It’s free entertainment."
He ignored them, his finger hovering over the glowing ’SPIN’ button in his private window.
With a deep breath, he tapped it.
The digital wheel spun at a blurring speed.
Colors flashed from gray, green, blue, purple... and then, with a sound like a heavenly choir being played through a distorted speaker, the wheel landed on a shimmering, blinding gold.
Ping!
A physical item materialized in the air, drifting down into his numb hands.
It was a slip of paper, although a bit heavy, glowing with a mesmerizing light.
"No way."
The funny porter gasped, his smirk vanishing.
"Is that... is that a Golden Ticket?"
The commotion caught the attention of the overseas players.
A few rankers from the Siberian Fist and the EU coalition wandered over, their brows furrowed.
"What is the noise?"
A Russian warrior asked, peeking over the man’s shoulder.
He stopped dead.
"Wait...
...Is that a ’Star Ticket’?"
"A what?"
They asked, their voice shaking.
"It is an EX-Rank item!"
The Russian whispered, his voice full of genuine awe.
"I have only seen one in a museum in Moscow.
It is a ’Star Ticket.’
It grants the user a ’Privilege.’"
The winner read the description aloud, his voice barely audible.
"『Star Ticket: Rip in half to summon a Fragment of the Star Record. Grants the user the right to ask one question regarding the Tower or related. One-time use.』"
"Damn, a single question only? How stingy."
The funny porter remarked, though his eyes were wide.
"Stingy?"
The Russian ranker scoffed.
"There is no limit to the extent of the question.
You could ask where the ’Holy Grail’ is hidden on the 90th floor.
You could ask for the true name of the Tower’s Creator."
The rankers crowded closer.
"What will you ask, Porter?
You could ask for the location of the ’Sovereign Blade.’
You could become the richest man in the world with that knowledge."
He looked at the ticket, then looked toward the far end of the terrace.
Sasha Kim was sitting on a jagged rock, her back to the group.
She was cleaning the soot from her silver Deagles with a focused, terrifying intensity.
---
"Seems you’ve got new fans..."
One of her Siberian Fist colleagues remarked, gesturing toward the huddle of porters.
Sasha didn’t even turn her head.
She glanced toward them with a sharp, bored flick of her eyes before returning to her weapon.
"They always find something to gossip about. If they aren’t fighting over rations, they’re fighting over luck.
I could only care less."
Back at the group, the winner stroked his chin.
"You going to ask for her hand in marriage?"
The lanky porter joked.
"Maybe ask the ticket if you’ve got a chance? Or ask about her past?"
"That’s not it."
Hesaid, his expression suddenly becoming serious.
He looked at the ticket, then at the massive, empty space of the sinkhole.
"I don’t care about dating a Ranker.
I wonder... I saw what she did.
That power.
It was like a piece of the world itself was helping her."
"So?"
"So, my main question is... I wonder how historical figures become Stars.
There are so many of them in our books.
Kings, generals, scientists.
Why do some become Constellations that can grant Stigmas, while others can’t?
Is there a certain level of power or ’Story’ that guarantees it?"
"Why give theories when we can just get to know?"
He said, his voice gaining a sudden, reckless confidence.
He raised the Golden Ticket into the air.
The light from the paper reflected in the sweat on hissmiled
With a sharp rip, he tore the ticket in two.
The light didn’t flashed and expanded.
A pillar of pure, white radiance erupted from the torn paper, forcing everyone from the rankers to the porters alike to shield their eyes.
The pressure was immense.
It wasn’t like the heavy, murderous pressure of the Arbiter...it was something else entirely.
It was the feeling of being a single grain of sand looking at an infinite desert.
As the light dimmed, a figure began to form in the air.
People cowered.
Some fell to their knees, their lungs seizing under the sheer presence of the being.
But as the form solidified, the visual didn’t match the pressure.
Floating in the air was a small, white bunny plushy.
It was stitched together with coarse black thread, and its eyes were two mismatched buttons.
One blue and the other red.
It had a tiny, red bow tied around its neck, and it drifted lazily in the air, its stubby paws tucked behind its back.
["Greetings, tiny ones."]
The bunny said.
The voice was high-pitched and cute, yet it echoed with a thousand overlapping whispers.
["The incarnation ’Han Jo-gi’ has been given the right to ask one question related to the Tower."]
The porters and rankers were paralyzed.
Despite the plushy’s appearance, the aura radiating from it was so vast it felt like the sky was pressing down on their skulls.
["You are lucky."]
The bunny said, its button eyes flickering.
["I have taken this form because the sight of my true form would cause your fragile little minds to shatter and your bodies to turn into salt.
You would instantly die.’
So! Be grateful!"]
Jo-gi gathered his courage, his knees knocking together.
He swallowed hard, looking up at the floating plushy.
"I... I want to know..."
Jo-gi tried his hardest to talk stammering.
"How does a human soul...a historical figure ascend to become a Constellation?
What is the threshold of the ’Story’ required to reach the stars?"
Silence fell over the terrace.
The wind seemed to stop.
The groans of the injured, the distant crackle of mana vanished.
They held their breath, sweat burrowing into their eyes as they waited for an answer that shouldn’t belong to mortals.
The bunny plushy hovered silently, its head tilting to the side.
Then, the stitched line of its mouth began to move.
It stretched, curving upward until it reached the buttons of its eyes, forming a wide, impossibly jagged smile that revealed rows of needle-thin, white teeth.
It smiled.
