Hall of Fame

CRASH!

Just a dozen meters away, a colossal chunk of ice plummeted. It struck the ground like a meteor, making the earth tremble.

I continuously chanted a magic spell under my breath, sprinting madly forward.

‘Damn it… damn it…!’

I was scrambling away like a terrified animal, desperate to put as much distance as possible between myself and the battle raging between the old man and the Witch.

The battle between Transcendents was a spectacle too grand, too terrifying, to even witness.

A fledgling Awakener like me would be instantly swept away and killed by its mere aftermath. So, I ran for my life, without so much as a glance behind me.

Even after fleeing for a considerable time, the roar of the battle still vibrated in my ears, deafeningly loud.

‘What kind of fight is this?!’

After several more tens of minutes, a blizzard began to rage. I couldn’t tell if this was a result of moving away from the Witch or simply another aftershock of the battle, but at least the sounds of combat had receded, becoming barely audible.

Perhaps thanks to my unique trait, the blizzard itself wasn’t cold, but the winds were so fierce and the snowflakes so thick that my vision was severely limited.

I pushed through the blizzard for several more minutes.

Suddenly, the blizzard ceased, and my vision expanded.

And simultaneously,

[You have achieved the achievement ‘One Who Faced the Bitter Cold’.]

[The achievement will be registered in the Hall of Fame.]

[Points will be awarded based on the video’s views.]

[Would you like to disclose your personal information?]

I rubbed my eyes and checked the message again.

‘…The Hall of Fame?’

What exactly was the Hall of Fame? It was an utterly bizarre website, one that could only be attributed to the gods.

One could only enter by earning an ‘achievement,’ and the scene of that achievement would be recorded as a video and uploaded to the Hall of Fame website.

Points were awarded based on the video’s views, and these points could be used to enhance one’s abilities. Thus, having a video uploaded to the Hall of Fame was the ultimate goal for every Awakener in this world.

However, achieving an accomplishment was incredibly difficult. It was no easy feat to upload a video to the Hall of Fame unless one was a top-ranked Awakener.

And my video was going to be uploaded to such a place?

“No, absolutely not!”

The amount of attention showered upon each video uploaded to the Hall of Fame was immense. As these were videos from top-ranked Awakeners, they contained a wealth of information.

Even purely for the sake of witnessing flashy skills and thrilling battles, view counts would easily reach millions, sometimes tens of millions.

And amidst such videos, my footage — of me fumbling with the Witch’s foot — was going to be uploaded?

I was bound to be inundated with insults and subjected to all sorts of humiliating nicknames.

“There’s no… ‘decline’ button.”

It seemed there was no way to prevent it from being uploaded to the Hall of Fame entirely. In that case, I had no choice but to conceal my face.

“…Set to private personal information.”

[Your personal information has been set to private.]

[It will be registered with the nickname you set during registration instead of your name.]

[Uploading begins.]

“Haa… I’m never going to watch it.”

With a weary sigh, I trudged through the snow.

****

“What in the world is this…?”

Cha Yeongho, the headquarters manager of the Baekje Guild, was utterly dumbfounded by the magnificent sight before his eyes.

About an hour ago,

They had been pushing forward, battling intermittently appearing monsters and struggling through a blizzard that made it difficult to even open their eyes. He had begun to fear that they might be wiped out before even reaching the source of the phenomenon.

Over a dozen guild members had already lost their lives, their bodies left unrecovered as they pressed on, but even that had reached its limit.

“Monsters ahead!”

“Roughly ten or so… We can’t identify the type due to the poor visibility yet!”

“Trolls! They’re Ice Trolls! But their size is…”

“Be careful! We are weakened, and they are much stronger! Don’t underestimate them!”

“Damn it! If only it weren’t for this cursed blizzard…!”

Even though Ice Trolls were classified as B-grade monsters, the elite members of the Baekje Guild gathered here should have been able to toy with them easily. However, this was not the case here.

This was the Witch of Bitter Cold’s domain. Their opponents were like fish in water—no, they were even more ferocious. The guild members, their bodies stiff with cold and unable to move freely, were tossed around by the trolls’ clubs.

It was an absurd situation: the elites of Baekje, the second-ranked guild in South Korea, struggled against merely eight Ice Trolls, suffering several casualties before finally defeating them.

“…This damned blizzard.”

If they struggled this much against mere trolls, what would they do when they encountered a Transcendent?

Even if the Guild Master and high-rankers arrived, could they truly overcome this situation? Doubt and regret began to creep into Cha Yeongho’s heart.

Yet, it was too late to turn back now. The path back would be longer than the path forward, so they had no choice but to press on.

As they steeled themselves to advance even amidst despair, a miracle occurred.

“The blizzard…”

“The blizzard has stopped!”

“Finally…!”

The hellish blizzard had finally ceased. The guild began to pick up speed, and before long, they reached the presumed epicenter of the incident.

And then, they were immediately struck speechless.

“What in the world is this…?”

Massive ice formations, like towering skyscrapers, shot up everywhere. The ground was riddled with craters, as if meteors had struck, and house-sized chunks of ice had pierced the earth around them.

Even more awe-inspiring was a single, deeply gouged crescent-shaped mark. To Cha Yeongho’s eyes, it felt even more terrifying than the building-high ice pillars.

‘This is… the mark of a sword.’

It was a mark almost impossible to believe was left by a sword swing, yet the cleanly severed surfaces left no room for doubt. It wasn’t the only sword mark.

Everywhere—the ground, walls, and ice pillars—bore the scars of a blade, everything cleanly sliced in two. The landscape had been completely transformed into a realm of snow and ice.

And the indelible marks of a sword that had cleaved through it all.

“What… what on earth happened here…?”

Had there been a battle of gods? The terrain here had been utterly remade, so much so that it could be called an ice forest.

“Manager… what could this be…?”

The guild members also stood dumbfounded, looking around. Seeing their expressions, Cha Yeongho barely managed to collect himself and shouted loudly.

“Search the perimeter! Find out what happened here! We need to know where the Transcendent went! Move!”

“Yes!”

The guild members scattered, beginning their search. Amidst the chaos, someone rushed urgently to Cha Yeongho’s side.

It was the branch manager overseeing the Changwon branch.

“Manager! You need to see this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s something that just came up in the guild chat…”

“What, the Hall of Fame? Do we have time to look at something like that now?!”

“No, please just take a look. It seems to be connected to this place.”

“What?”

Cha Yeongho’s eyes, as he stared at the screen the branch manager held out, slowly widened in astonishment.

“This is utterly preposterous…”

****

Kim Jinsu.

Age 28. A job seeker for three years. He had left home claiming he would become an Awakener, but instead spent his days idly browsing his computer in his studio apartment. He was also a somewhat well-known ‘named’ user in the Awakener community.

Today, Kim Jinsu logged into the Awakener community and scrolled through the posts. On the Awakener Issue Board, the largest community where dozens of posts appeared every second, a heated discussion was raging about a single topic.

– A Transcendent appeared in Korea!

– We’re screwed. I’m packing my bags. See you in America.

– Why Korea, of all places? What did we do to deserve this?

– Anyone know the location? Awakeners seem to be bustling.

– Location is said to be around Hadong, Gyeongnam. A friend of mine is in the Busan Guild, and he said all the rankers and those near their level rushed there.

– We’re truly screwed… When are the high-rankers going to step up?

– If a few high-rankers stepping up could solve it, would the System have even sent a warning message?

– Anyone know what happened in Gyeongnam? What happened to the Busan Guild?

Reading these posts, Kim Jinsu muttered,

“If only I had awakened.”

This entire community would have been plastered with his name. He would have simply captured whatever Transcendent appeared.

He indulged in such happy fantasies for a moment, browsing the community for a long time, but no useful information emerged. There were authentication posts of people packing their bags to immigrate, or screenshots of warning interviews from previous Awakeners, and a considerable number of posts filled with absurd nonsense.

“Sigh… Should I just check the Hall of Fame?”

The Hall of Fame. A website accessible anywhere, anytime, even without internet. Awakeners registered in the Hall of Fame could earn points based on the view count of their uploaded videos.

Kim Jinsu, deeply interested in Awakeners, made it a daily routine to check the Hall of Fame at least once a day.

“The Hall of Fame is too cliché these days.”

Videos of someone defeating a dungeon boss, or a named monster hunt. Of course, the flashy combat and skills were entertaining to watch, but there were no videos that gave him the same thrilling shiver he felt when he first encountered the Hall of Fame.

Most of them featured famous rankers or high-rankers, raiding monsters with the buffs of their guild members. Such videos often exceeded three hours, and despite the impressive action, they did tend to feel a bit tedious.

“I saw all these yesterday… Is there anything new?”

The moment Kim Jinsu refreshed the screen, a new video was uploaded. Unusually, for these days, it seemed the user had chosen to keep their personal information private, as a nickname was displayed instead of a name.

The nickname was ‘Coffee-Flavored Poop’.

“What kind of nickname is that?”

He searched for the nickname ‘Coffee-Flavored Poop’ to see if this person had uploaded any videos before, but nothing came up. This meant it was ‘Coffee-Flavored Poop’s’ first video.

“Hmm… a beginner…”

Kim Jinsu adjusted his posture. After only seeing the same old entrenched rankers, watching a beginner’s video would surely give him plenty to criticize. He thought, ‘I’ll watch it quickly and then write a post on the Awakener Issue Board.’

Feeling pleased with himself, Kim Jinsu clicked on the video. The title of the video was ‘One Who Faced the Bitter Cold’.

“…Bitter cold? If it’s the bitter cold…”

Wasn’t that what everyone was making such a fuss about right now? A Transcendent had appeared, and her name was ‘Witch of Bitter Cold,’ wasn’t it?

The video’s length was remarkably short compared to the average Hall of Fame video. It began in a frozen village.

“Whoa, damn… Is this seriously our country?”

A woman stood like a painting in the completely frozen, pristine white village, and the back of a man stood some distance away, facing her.

Her lips moved, saying something. The man shook his head firmly in response, saying something back. The woman spoke again.

She was quite far away, making it hard to see clearly, but he guessed she looked angry. The man shook his head once more.

And simultaneously,

“Whoa, holy crap, you scared me.”

Ice completely filled the entire screen, every inch of space. It appeared in an instant, so quickly that he couldn’t tell when or how it had formed, even though his eyes had been wide open.

The sharp tips of the ice all pointed at the man. Kim Jinsu, unaware that he had swallowed hard, focused intently on the screen.

Facing hundreds, thousands of ice blades, the man looked incredibly precarious and insignificant. Yet, his back showed no sign of fear whatsoever.

Instead, he seemed filled with rage, stepping forward and shouting loudly. Simultaneously, the world moved.

No, all the ice floating in the air rushed towards the man at once.

CRASH!

With a tremendous tremor, the video ended.

‘This is… insane!’

The video was remarkably short, but it was incomparable to other videos in the Hall of Fame. The man was incredibly small and insignificant compared to the colossal ice blades occupying all space, yet he faced them without flinching.

How thrilling! It was just like that first moment he encountered the Hall of Fame. A shiver ran through his entire body, just like the moment Kim Jinsu first began to dream of becoming an Awakener.

‘This isn’t the time for this!’

He had to spread the word. That someone was confronting the bitter cold. Kim Jinsu immediately accessed the community and posted a message.

– Go to the Hall of Fame right now. It’s absolutely insane, holy crap. All you guys who packed your bags to immigrate, unpack them quickly.