Chapter 85 085

AM Has Been Kidnapped!

At first, players didn't respond to the sudden post uploaded on the community page, assuming that it was just a troll. However, their stance soon changed when AM himself showed up.

Anti-Mainstream here. I need your help.

There was no better clickbait than a call for help from the man of the hour, and the content of his post was quite the shocker.

I've been kidnapped on the Churai Islands.

AM had been kidnapped in-game! Even worse, there were people trying to restrain his gameplay, not simply killing him!

Most players were rather taken aback. They didn't even know that there was such space or item that made it so they could such a thing, which was natural as they would have never encountered such a thing, if they enjoyed ordinary gameplay.

At most, they would experience a system-based lock in a dungeon or something.

That brought the authenticity of the post into question, but for it to be false, this was none other than the Anti-Mainstream.

-AM's in a whole different league than us!

-Was there ever such a system? Does any oldbie know about it?

-I'm in a PK guild, Level 170. There are items like that. Very useful for backstabbing dudes during a raid.

Even people from PK guilds showed up to verify it. Normally, chaotic players like PKers would receive instant bashing whenever they showed up in the in-game community like this, but today was different.

-Is there really something like that?

-Yeah, it's true. While it's too expensive for individuals to use, guilds use it to screw up other competitive guilds or during large-scale battles to cut off backup. Raids too.

-That's crazy!

-We're on our way, AM!

Hundreds of the players on Churai Islands started heading toward the location Seojin mentioned.

However, that wasn't the only fuss being kicked up.

-The Lord of the Churai Islands is making a statement! He's apologizing to the King and saying something about Ironblood.

"Ironblood? What?"

"Those bastards only apologized a week ago and they're already messing around again?"

"Are they the ones who kidnapped AM too?"

The users were shocked. In the year since Midgard had begun service, Ironblood's dominance had never been questioned. That wasn't just as a guild either. The brand name of Ironblood itself had been like an unbreakable fortress.

"Those assholes. I'm gonna write about this on the community page! Upvote please!"

Their brand name, however, had started growing cracks for the very first time since the game opened service.

* * *

"You know that we're not in the Lord's mansion?"

"I said I did. We're in the underground of the red-roofed house in district 8, aren't we?"

Robert's eyelids twitched as Seojin answered. He was no fool, and while Henrite was not up to Robert's standards, he wasn't someone who would let his guard down twice in a row.

That's why they had prepared all the more thoroughly, from the valuable items and the team specialized in neutralizing players to the space where they could have a comfortable conversation. They had even recreated the room in the basement of the Lord's castle just in case Seojin saw through all of that.

'This guy saw through all of that?'

"I'm guessing that players will start to arrive in around five minutes. Sucks to be you, you won't be able to deny it if people find out that you're here."

"Henrite."

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you leave any gaps… no, that's why you called me out this far, aha."

Robert finally grasped the situation. Seojin had been in the perfect trap before Robert came in and created a gap in security, which he had clearly exploited rather well.

"Did you intend on all of this?"

"Sure did. Wow, you certainly have a poker face that suits your position. The last guildmaster I met turned white as a ghost."

"What if I hadn't come? That must have been a big risk."

"I would've waited until you did, because you would have shown up eventually."

"You're right."

Robert agreed reluctantly. Seojin was that valuable of an asset, and it was important to have people like him involved in their future plans. Robert checked the time.

"I admit it. I lost this time."

"That's cool of you to admit."

"However, that's only because I underestimated you. This will be your only chance."

"There's a next chance?"

Robert chuckled in response.

"You're not a fool. Tell me what you want."

He had only three minutes left, or even less now, but Robert remained calm and composed. Seojin knew the basis of his confidence.

"I'll rob three of your estates, so have your men turn a blind eye."

"I have no choice… and?"

"One hundred thousand gold. For settlement."

"I still don't have a choice, but it'd be impossible to come up with such cash. That's ten billion won you're talking about."

"When did I say that I'd only accept cash? Ninety percent of it will go to the royal palace anyway, so don't worry. They'll cash it in by themselves."

"I'd rather take the penalty than pay that."

"Fifty thousand."

Seojin grinned and didn't even hesitate.

"I won't allow any more bargaining after halving it. I don't take the head of Ironblood to be that petty, or should I?"

"…I accept."

"One more thing."

"No, we can't start with a clean slate. Now that we're enemies, I must ensure that you quit the game."

"We're talking about you here, not me. Either way, I'm not talking about that. I saw the contract earlier, the one that says the guild members must absolutely obey the guildmaster's will."

"That's correct."

"He signed that too, right? I'm talking about Henrite."

Robert nodded.

"Give him to me, I'll use him as my scapegoat. You were going to cut him off anyway, right?"

"What? Guildmaster!"

Henrite's face turned white as he knew exactly what that meant. He still had much gold, along with many items, left. However, Robert grinned without even looking at him.

"Of course."

* * *

The situation finally drew to a close. Ironblood released Seojin and were able to break away from the situation by blaming everything on Henrite.'The Ironblood's tyranny' that Count Drake mentioned was assumed to be some crooks selling the Ironblood name, and Henrite was framed for kidnapping Seojin of his own accord to get vengeance.

-AM was right again. I don't get it though, wasn't all of this too big to be pulled off by one player? Did you see the item he used?

-Maybe he was just a scapegoat. I mean, that money!

On the community pages, only a damaged name, along with suspicion, remained for Ironblood.

-We saved AM! We did it!

-Even we are something when we work together!

…There was also a sense of pride that they had saved that Seojin.

'That emotion will simply grow on its own.'

It was the same case with celebrities, especially comedians with a friendly image. People felt friendly toward them even though it was a one-sided relationship. If one met that kind of celebrity face-to-face and even helped them at that, they were bound to feel like they were close friends with the celeb.

'The greater I am, the greater the work they'll do for me. People are very simple.'

However, Seojin couldn't make it feel as if he owed them, or else they'd want something in return.

-Thank you, everyone, you saved me. I'll quickly make some more guidelines to help you guys.

Seojin made it seem like the players had protected the greater good rather than him, filling them with pride.

"BunnyRabbit."

Seojin contacted Bunny as soon as he closed the community page.

-Yes, I was waiting to hear from you!

"The timing was perfect, thank you for your efforts. There's no one other than my companions that I can trust in times like that."

-Oh, no! I just did what you told me. Are you okay? I hope those Ironbloods didn't cast any debuffs on you…"

"Not at all. Thanks for your concern though. What did your supervisor say?"

-Supervisor?

She laughed from behind her screen.

-The general manager didn't like just sitting there and waiting until you fed us something.

"Huh, he didn't like it?"

-Ah, no, don't take it the wrong way! He just feels like he's indebted to you and wants to do something in return. Oh, of course, you can tell me yourself if there's anything you want!

Seojin laughed silently.

"What have you guys actually benefitted from working with me until now? I'm taking all of the information fees."

-Our department's output! I'm only saying this because it's you… do you know how big the dev of Midgard is in Hailstorm?

"I don't know, I'm guessing he's pretty big though."

-Probably even more than you guessed. All of the shareholders listen to the dev. In fact, the entire U. S. headquarters revolves around that one developer.

"Oh…"

-That's why the departments have evaluation standards. Of course, teams like CS have nothing to do with it, but it's quite a large factor in the Strategic Planning Department.

She was talking about departmental evaluation criteria, and according to her, whether one met them or not had a huge impact on salary negotiations or promotions.

And the standard was…

-It's about how accurately one knows the flow of the game. You know, predicting large-scale events or shifts of power, relationships, trends with major NPCs, things like that.

Seojin burst out into laughter upon hearing how ridiculous it sounded.

"Yet they blocked monitoring?"

-He wanted us to go through the world he created, saying that Midgard isn't just a game. This is an existential world, and it's growing beyond his reach… blah blah…

"So, he wants you guys to make characters even while working?

-Yeah.

"But your general manager doesn't."

-That's because just making one doesn't help at all… except for when there's someone like you. I think everyone has a character, but they just gave up.

"Oh."

That was also true. It would never be possible to meet the crazy dev's standards by just playing the game normally. On top of that, the employees of the Strategic Planning Department were poor wage slaves barely holding together, they didn't have time for that kind of thing.

"I want ten percent of the information fees to go to the Strategic Planning Department."

-You don't have to do that…

"It's fine, it'll mean that I can ask for the things I need more freely. Tell them to promote you too."

-Oh, he already told me that he's put in a suggestion to the higher-ups. He also said that I could expect good news."

"That's nice."

-By the way, Seojin…

Bunny spoke with a cautious tone.

-Can I ask why you didn't just end Robert?

"There's no great reason for it. I just let him go because I wouldn't be able to end him in the first place. Instead, I got what I could out of him."

It had already been a year since the game had launched, and it would be impossible to bring down those that had been ahead for so long using such a small incident. So, with that knowledge, he didn't go any deeper than delivering two punches to the gut.

-Oh, I understand.

"Great, I'll call you a little later. Let me clean things up here first."

"Okay."

Seojin hung up and moved to see the end to the story. It was time to wrap up on the Churai Islands.