Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 94: Culture Difference

Two weeks ago

“Isaac, you said that you had a few things to tell us about Korean summoner culture?” Bailey asked. The meeting had been intended to be a standard ‘we spend seventy-five percent of our time working together, we all know what we’re doing, but the university is making us do these things’, but Isaac had told the professor that there were a few things he wanted to talk about, vis-a-vie the trip that would happen soon.

“Eh, it’s not often you get to claim reading webtoons is research and put it down as work time.” Isaac shrugged, chuckling “Point is, we’ve talked a lot about LitRPG and [Systems] descending to destroy the world, but that is a rather niche genre of literature in the west.

“In eastern Asia, on the other hand, things like that are rather more common, alongside Isekai stories and the like. As such, culturally, people have more of an understanding and preconceived ideas of what the [System] is and what can be done with it, which is reflected in how they did deal with it.”

Isaac clicked a button on the remote in his hand, and the power point presentation flipped over to the next slide, showing the cover of one of the aforementioned stories.

“This here is one of the more popular Manhwa with a ‘[System] arrives and plunges the world into chaos’ and fundamentally, it contains a lot of the elements that make up the summoning culture that has sprung up in South Korea.”

“So, is a Manhwa a Korean Manga then?” Patrick asked, sounding genuinely curious, then looking very confused as Bailey shot him a disapproving look, Amy facepalmed and Isaac shook his head.

“Manhwas are South Korean comics. Manga and Manhwa are both used to refer to comic books originating from Japan and South Korea, respectively, and are similar in that respect. But in case you end up coming, never, ever make that comparison again, because there is a lot of bad blood between those two nations.” Isaac said imploringly. The question had been innocent enough, but it could have gone very poorly if it had been asked in front of the wrong person.

The only response he got was a solemn nod. They both knew how it had been intended, and nothing more needed to be said.

Isaac flipped towards the next slide, which was covered in pictures of what appeared to be entrances that led straight to various circles of hell, burning pits, freezing planes, forests of trees that seemed to be humans and animals transformed into grotesque abominations, terrible storms that shouldn’t even have fit into the hillside the entrance was located in …

“These are Dungeons.” He declared “They’re vast places that look like something straight out of fantasy or Isekai novels, containing monsters, traps, magical loot … and we aren’t allowed to summon them because a punch of politicians crapped their pants at the thought of an autonomous summoning machine that cannot just be destroyed once you’re done with it because they need time to grow to be actually useful.

“However, they’re also a staple part of these stories, usually being the primary or only source of supernatural entities. Monsters spawn within to guard treasure or the core, but if they aren’t cleared regularly, the dungeon overflows and unleashes its beasts upon the world to destroy everything nearby. This phenomenon is known as a ‘Dungeon Break’ and unfortunately, it isn’t confined solely to the pages of these books. Seoul University has conducted several studies and confirmed that Dungeons can and will endanger their surroundings, though stronger ones take longer to become a threat.

“But despite the danger they pose, there are ways to arrange things to create a safe ecosystem, if people are willing to go Dungeon delving at a constant pace and problematic Dungeon Cores are destroyed in a timely fashion, and the Hunters have managed that thus far.”

“Hunters?” Patrick asked.

“That’s what they call the people who strive to gain Levels by killing monsters. Summoner isn’t really applicable, as they don’t summon because they have far more ready access to monsters in their Dungeons and thanks to that, individual summoning is far more regulated and limited.

“In addition to a general goal of exploration and power, there is the very real and present threat of North Korea deciding that the [System] represents a chance at ‘reunifying’ the nation and there is a lot of focus being put towards ensuring that anything they try can be countered.”

They then continued to discuss the various kinds of experiments they wanted to try out, ranging from simply observing a Dungeon Break, to tossing several things into a newly established Dungeon, just to see what happened.

Though at the end of the day, the goals of both research groups were the exact same. Working together to find new approaches to each other’s issues, with people who’d been tackling the problem of the [System] from an entirely different angle and lacked a lot of the preconceived notions someone who’d been dealing with a given issue for an extended period of time inevitably picked up.