Chapter 122

Back at Hailstorm's Strategic Planning Department…

General manager Kim Jeonsoo was already smiling from ear to ear.

"So, he's done it again?"

It was almost hard to believe that he had been harassing his subordinates only ten minutes ago.

Just hearing the name "Seojin" was enough to change his demeanor this drastically.

"Yes, sir. We've confirmed the quest he was carrying out in Shahav and received confirmation that we can upload it on the community from him since he's almost done."

"That's my girl! Who would think you're a new recruit? No, you're not new anymore! At this rate, you'll be making history for the world's fastest promotion! Hahaha!"

"Thank you, sir."

"We should… uh… head to my office. We'll continue this there… What are you all looking at? Get back to work!"

Dash!

The gazes that were creeping up the low desk partition quickly snapped back and the General manager's face became all smiles again.

"Well, let's go, Miss Jeong."

Rushing to his office, General manager Kim ordered someone to call Team Leader Baek Chahyun for him.

And when they finally sat down…

"So, why has our hero Seojin been in there for a month now?"

General manager Kim questioned her with excitement and Seyeon answered proudly as if handing over a well-wrapped gift.

"It was due to an unofficial World Quest."

"But he already cleared… Wait, unofficial?"

"Yes, sir."

The look on General manager Kim's face was exactly what Seyeon wanted to see.

And for some reason…

'I'm proud of him!'

Seyeon felt the rush of being friends with someone famous.

She used to feel this way whenever she was praised by her superiors, but now, she felt even more proud to be friends with Seojin.

However, General manager Kim was acting strange.

"An unofficial World Quest?"

"Yes, that's…"

"Gosh, I can't believe that already happened."

'Is something wrong?'

Seyeon had half-expected him to jump up and dance out of joy, but the General manager had his reasons.

"Miss Jeong, can you stop him? No, you said he was almost done, right?"

"That's correct, sir."

"Can you though? How far along is he? Did you check?"

"I did, sir."

Seyeon handed General manager Kim the report she had prepared, and he let out a heavy sigh as he read through it.

"It's as good as done. Stopping him here will only do more damage."

"Forgive me, sir, but can you tell me what the problem is?"

"I can. I should. You did bring me this, after all. Where should I start…? Hm, one of the developers mentioned this to me around ten months ago."

Not long after the Strategic Planning Department was given a new role, the developer mentioned that any "unofficial" quests in the game would result in some form of huge impact, whether it was good or bad.

"We should hope that it's good. That'll at least bring Seojin some more fame."

"You said it was almost done…"

"It is. I hope. But that diabolical genius said it'd be quite difficult. How difficult does it have to be for such a genius to say that?"

"… Maybe he meant it'd be difficult for regular players."

"I don't think it's about how good you are at controls. He said that solving it would only be possible by piecing together a giant puzzle made of countless, intricate, clues. All with a smile on his face."

The developer had excitedly explained that everything began with a coincidence.

Things would start by becoming friends with a certain NPC or picking up a random item on the road.

But that was where the luck would stop.

"Players can only reach the true ending by endlessly combining the given clues, and then follow the results without making a single mistake. Do you know what the scariest part of all this is?"

Seyeon wasn't that curious, but General manager Kim continued regardless.

"There's no real penalty if you fail at the beginning. We wouldn't have had to worry about this if it weren't for Seojin. But once you're past the point of no return…"

"…Yes, sir?"

"The quest penalty could shake the entire continent."

The entire continent… which meant that the whole world's servers would be influenced, and the failure would drag Seojin's name through the mud.

Ironblood already knew about this to sweep it under the rugs, and the community would be flooded with posts about how "Vision" had ruined the continent.

"Perhaps we bet on the wrong horse, Miss Jeong. If so…"

"Should I get back to work?

"Yes, at least until we find your replacement."

General manager Kim was in enough despair to make others around him feel uneasy as well, but for some reason, Seyeon wasn't shaken at all.

'He'll succeed no matter what.'

She already trusted Seojin too much.

'I'll have to talk about the contract he offered later… but seriously, I'm not nervous at all.'

Seyeon, out of politeness, continued to sit with General manager Kim as if she were equally concerned.

* * *

Aisha walked on, her footsteps echoing through the long, dark cave.

Unable to feel any presence, sound, or light, she felt so out of place that it was almost as if she had set foot into another world.

Legia was there.

'Legia…'

Aisha could feel her emotions.

In the distant past, they had always been able to feel each other's emotions, even before they both fell asleep.

It had created problems in the past, but it had also made it easier to solve most of their issues.

'Nothing's changed. It never has. I knew how you felt and you knew how I felt. That's always how we resolved things.'

Aisha muttered words no one would hear inside her mind. Perhaps the words were solely for herself.

Legia was still in pain.

She was trapped by her own twisted emotions and was about to crumble from her endless hunger.

"…Legia! N-no…"

And once she reached the end of the cave, Aisha saw that the once proud elf had already lost her form.

The kind, wise Legia was no more.

What used to be an elf had crawled up into a dark space, shivering, and emitting a dark, cloudy aura of death.

No matter what it looked like, what it was thinking about, or whether it recognized Aisha…

That thing was Legia.

"Legia…"

Aisha approached with slow steps, not backing away.

Her wavering mind settled down as she faced Legia.

Creeeak. Creak.

"Legia."

The black thing raised its head, or rather, that was what Aisha assumed it was doing.

Its eyes swept over Aisha and sized her up, deeming her to be delicious prey.

The aura of death rushed toward Aisha greedily.

And Aisha…

"Legia, I'm here. I'm so sorry it took me this long. I'm really sorry."

… made no attempt to avoid it.

* * *

Legia and Aisha met one-on-one

Hidden event has been triggered

Legia absorbs Aisha's life

Resistance failed

Lifeforce will decrease rapidly while exposed to <Siphon>

Aisha's Remaining Life: 81.7%

Seojin couldn't believe his eyes.

Kiri, Bigfoot, and even Merhen all looked at him with surprise.

They were ready to run straight inside upon his single command.

However, all he did was give a wave of his right hand to calm them down.

"No, not yet. This is right. We're on the right path."

The system message said that it was a hidden event.

He had the choice to stop it or let it keep going.

Seojin had already made his decision.

"Our role is to wait. We've done all we can do."

"But Seojin…"

"Stay here."

"… Fine."

Merhen was the last to back down, Bigfoot and Kiri were already silent.

They were being carried by Seojin in the first place.

'He would've beat this quest without me.'

'I don't care what happens anymore. I wouldn't have gotten this far on my own anyway/'

The two of them already realized what was going on and decided to stay in their place.

Flappy was the only one who seemed anxious.

"This feels familiuh. This iz bad. Very bad."

"…What now?"

"Aah felt this befowah. So, befowah, when mah memory is hazy, maybe from more than three hundred years ago… when aah was just startin' to remember things…"

"…Flappy?"

… Had the little girl-like spirit ever spoken like this before?

She had gone pale and even broke out into a cold sweat.

'Three hundred years…'

Three hundred years.

Flappy had told Seojin that as soon as her class rose upon consuming the Fruit of Life.

That she had three hundred years' worth of memories.

She'd gone through each and every memory personally, and though she didn't realize it at the time, she processed them like any other human now.

'It was the same with the elves.'

Flappy had called them leaves.

And what had Jin said? That he hadn't heard that phrase in three hundred years.

Was it all a big coincidence? Seojin shook his head at that thought.

'It can't be a coincidence.'

This wasn't real. Seojin was in a game.

All events in a game must have a cause-and-effect relationship.

Without that, players would rise up and start bashing the faulty storyline.

On top of that, the clues regarding that cause-and-effect relationship must be given at the appropriate time.

That kind of process could only happen in a game and the better it was, the more people would praise it for being well-made.

… And Midgard was one heck of a masterpiece.

"Flappy, calm down…"

"Aah'm calm. Aah was just caught off guard. This feeyuls horrible."

That was true.

She still flinched every time she faced the cave, but at the very least, she wasn't blabbering anymore.

"Three hundred years, was it?"

"Yes, aah felt this befowah then."

"I thought you only remembered things up until three hundred years ago."

"Lemme explain."

The spirit gulped, slowly flapped her tiny wings, and frowned as if she were digging up an old memory.

"Hoomans don't remember everythin' from their past, rayt? They only remember what happened after they barely acquired cognition, 'n they only remembuh extremely small bits of it."

Three hundred years ago, the spirit simply existed.

She couldn't recognize anything, and the bare minimum of her cognition was only achieved three hundred years ago.

Her memory was good, but it had to be in a state where it could at least 'remember' back then.

"So you sensed it before then."

"Maybe. But… what is it? It's horrible. I'd melt just by touchin' it. Also, fowah your information, aah'm not exaggeratin."

Flappy looked horrified.

This meant the power was so strong that even the great high-class spirit Flappy couldn't handle it.

'That's how strong it is… I'm glad we didn't jump into battle.'

Anyone who came into contact with it lost their life.

The stolen life was, in turn, converted to Legia's power before taking more lives.

Aisha's Remaining Life: 74. 7%

However, Aisha was the only one fighting Legia right now.

And when the first system message had popped up earlier…

'Aisha had 83% life remaining, not 100%, when she faced Legia.'

This meant that Aisha's life was separate from the players.