𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟔𝟕
[Disconnecting.]
[Once again, on the street illuminated by Twilight……]
After logging out of Twilight and returning to reality, I felt a sense of satisfaction I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
It was only natural, considering the results I had been waiting for had finally appeared.
“How is it?”
“It’s alright. I don’t feel much of a headache.”
“So you’re saying you do feel it.”
“Still, it’s much better than before.”
I answered Illia honestly, who was asking how I felt.
I did feel a slight headache, but compared to the first time, it was manageable enough to enjoy playing without issues. And since I had been logged in for over an hour without any warning messages, I figured it was safe to consider it a success.
However, Illia continued writing something on a piece of paper with a worried expression.
“Even though it’s better than before, it’s too early to be relieved. The readings are still unstable.”
“Unstable?”
“Yes, if Rudin-nim uses your ability, there’s a high chance it will revert back to its original state.”
Conversely, it seemed she meant that if I didn’t use Intuition, I could play like before.
‘Well, it’s a shame that I can’t use Intuition.’
But I wasn’t particularly dissatisfied.
Being able to log in was what mattered, one way or another.
“You thought it would be fine if you didn’t use your ability now, right?”
“How did you know?”
“It’s obvious what Rudin-nim is thinking. Anyway, you’re not wrong, but I think it might be a bit difficult.”
“……?”
Since I had just logged out after playing normally, Illia’s answer that it would be difficult was hard to understand.
“Right now, Rudin-nim is unconsciously using your ability. So, if you focus on anything even slightly, your ability will activate.”
“You’re saying I’m activating my ability?”
“Yes, think about it. If your ability wasn’t active, there would be no reason for you to feel a headache.”
“That’s true, but……”
Come to think of it, before the problem arose, I only felt a headache when using Intuition.
But now, I felt a headache just by logging in, so maybe Illia was right in interpreting that I was using Intuition constantly.
“In the end, it’s the same as having solved nothing. Of course, if Rudin-nim logs in and does nothing, there would be no problem.”
“There’s no point in logging in if I’m not going to do anything.”
“That’s true.”
‘Sigh, I thought it was finally resolved.’
Because of this, my good mood seemed to sink again.
Of course, since the prerequisite was focus, it wasn’t like there was no way around it.
For hunting, I could go to a place where I could grind with my eyes closed, and for crafting, I could just hammer things out roughly.
If I did it that way, I figured both hunting and crafting would be possible.
“But it’s a shame. It would have been much easier if we could have modified the existing program.”
“If we modify it, it will be recognized as a bug and I won’t be able to log in.”
“That’s what’s a shame.”
The moment I touched even a single internal component of the capsule I brought, it would be recognized as a bug, preventing me from logging in.
So, Illia’s idea was to modify the helmet. Somehow, no matter how much she messed with the helmet, it wasn’t recognized as a bug, so Illia focused on that aspect.
Thanks to that, we were able to achieve the current results, but on the other hand, there was a drawback.
It took at least a minute to log in.
Of course, if I could log in, such a problem was trivial.
‘Come to think of it, it’s already been three months.’
It had already been three months since I told Aizen that I was having trouble logging in and had been coming here two to three times a week to help with various experiments.
‘Three months……’
Well, considering the money spent on modifying the helmet and the transportation costs to and from here, I had spent more money than I expected, but it wasn’t too regrettable.
I had sold all the items I had through the real-time auction house, so I currently had close to 10 billion won in my bank account.
More than half of the money I had saved was from the Beluin’s Staff that I had enhanced to +13. I was surprised by the price I received for it.
A whopping 6.5 billion won.
It was the first legendary item in Twilight, and I had enhanced it to +13, so I expected at least 20-30 billion won, but it exceeded even my expectations.
‘Who on earth bought it?’
Thinking back now, the enhancement options were also quite impressive, so I thought the person using that weapon would become known soon, but strangely, there was no news.
Tap━
“……?”
“Don’t be too disappointed. We’ve made progress, so if we just work a little harder, it will work out.”
It seemed my brief moment of contemplation was interpreted differently by Illia.
Anyway, I shook my head in response to Illia, who tapped my arm and told me not to be disappointed.
“Disappointed? The one who’s really going through hardship is someone else.”
As my answer implied, the one who was struggling the most was Illia.
I only came here two to three times a week and did what I was told, so it wasn’t much of a hardship for me. However, Illia had been completely focused on my issue, so I felt like I should at least get her some health tonic.
‘Should I really get her some health tonic?’
She looked quite old too.
While I was having such thoughts, Illia thanked me and took out the helmet from inside the capsule, connected it somewhere, and started manipulating it again.
It seemed like we were done for the day.
“Then I’ll be going.”
“Yes, please be careful on your way back.”
After exchanging farewells, I left her house and let out a small sigh.
Suddenly, a thought I had been having for a while resurfaced.
‘Is there really a reason to go this far for Twilight?’
I had already saved close to 10 billion won.
It was enough money to last a lifetime if I didn’t do anything foolish.
Moreover, I had taken a three-month break.
Considering the nature of players getting stronger day by day, I doubted if I could catch up to them even if I returned now.
Well, if I had Intuition, catching up wouldn’t be a problem……
‘Sigh, that damn Intuition……’
Anyway, three months had passed, so there had been quite a few changes in Twilight.
Various patches aside, the number of famous people within Twilight had increased considerably, and there had been a major revamp of the third main scenario and broadcast videos, but it didn’t have much to do with me now.
‘I heard Rine became quite famous too.’
When I first heard that and checked, it seemed she became famous not because of her outstanding gameplay but because of Yua and Sina, who she was playing with.
Furthermore, Rine made good use of her connections, using her acquaintance with me to frequent dungeons owned by the Emperor Guild, and now she boasted a higher level than me.
‘My current level was 147, wasn’t it?’
Originally it was 149, but it decreased by 5 levels after using Sanctuary of Light.
After that, I leveled up 3 times by defeating Beluin, eventually reaching level 147, but at the current player level, it was only about average.
In addition, the current highest level was probably around 230.
Catching up to their level from here would be difficult……
♪~
“Huh?”
Before I could finish my thoughts, my phone rang.
Who’s calling?
Naturally, I thought of Yua and looked at my phone, but it was Jaehoon who was calling.
‘He wouldn’t usually contact me.’
For the record, I had told Jaehoon that I was resting because I wasn’t feeling well.
He also knew that I was Rudin, so he seemed to think I was playing the game like a hermit. Perhaps because of that, when I said I wasn’t feeling well, it worked surprisingly well.
━Hey, hey, Giwon! We’re in big trouble!
Anyway, I answered his call and heard him suddenly shouting that we were in big trouble.
“What big trouble?”
━Some strange guys declared a Guild War and are attacking our territory! At this rate, we’re going to lose!
“Guild War?”
Are they insane?
Rather, I couldn’t understand why he was making such a fuss.
First of all, the Emperor Guild owned a Guild Castle and, furthermore, a territory.
The Guild Castle had building effects that could provide various benefits to guild members, and owning a territory meant that the territory was also recognized as part of the Guild Castle.
In other words, you could receive the auxiliary effects of the Guild Castle just by being in the territory.
Moreover, the Emperor Guild hadn’t been idle for the past three months, so they had already completed an A-rank Guild Quest and increased their guild members by trading various dungeons, currently having around 8,000 members.
We should be the ones worrying about the guys who attacked us.
“I’m curious who they are. But the Emperor Guild will be able to defend it without any problems, so don’t worry.”
━Defending it isn’t the problem! It looks like we’re going to lose it!?
“Lose it?”
━Yeah, so I was wondering if you could come and help us……
I stopped walking and thought about what was going on, ignoring his rambling.
Logically, there was no reason for them to lose.
‘Besides, it’s Saturday today, isn’t it?’
It was a weekend with high login rates in the morning, so there would be many guild members logged in, meaning it wouldn’t be a situation where they were being pushed back due to lack of manpower.
Moreover, it was hard to understand that the Emperor Guild members fighting in the territory were losing, so I decided to check it out first.
“Alright. I’ll check it out and try logging in.”
━Anyway, log in quickly.
After hanging up, I turned around and headed back to Illia’s house.
I thought it would be faster to go back to Illia’s house, which was nearby, than to find a capsule room, so I went straight back to her house, knocked on the door, and entered.
“Huh? Did you leave something behind?”
“No, but can I log in?”
“You can log in, but…… what’s going on?”
“I heard the guild is under attack.”
I tried to explain as briefly as possible, just in case it was urgent.
I roughly explained that the Emperor Guild was under attack and, absurdly, being pushed back. Upon hearing this, Illia made an expression of disbelief, just like I had earlier.
“Under attack? Who would do that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“But I’m against you logging in. What are you going to do if you log in, in your current state?”
“……Help them, of course.”
As if she expected this answer, Illia nodded at my words and then spoke firmly.
“I’m against it. It’s dangerous just logging in, and you want to participate in the battle too?”
“Well, I can stay connected for about an hour even without the helmet.”
“Still…… If the Emperor Guild is being pushed back while fighting in their territory, it seems unlikely that even with Rudin-nim joining, the situation will change.”
“We won’t know until we try.”
As Illia said, even if I logged in, it might be difficult to turn the tide.
However, thinking about Aizen, who had waited for me for months after giving me the position of Vice Master, I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
“Why don’t you sit down for a moment? They probably wouldn’t have attacked the guild without any preparation.”
Of course, they wouldn’t have attacked the guild without preparation, but Illia’s words telling me to sit down were hard to understand.
Still, since we had seen each other consistently for several months, I quietly sat down. Illia immediately went to the Twilight homepage and turned on one of the broadcasts currently only allowed for a few.
“As expected, it’s there. But……”
Was she trying to understand the situation through the broadcast?
However, even the broadcast wasn’t freely accessible.
You needed a ticket to enter, and looking at the price, I didn’t know which crazy b*stard set it, but it was set at 500,000 won.
‘Should I call this shrewd?’
Since it was an attack on the Emperor Guild, known as the best guild in Twilight, if they turned on the broadcast, surely many people would watch.
And if they were confident of winning, they could also broadcast the Emperor Guild’s downfall.
Therefore, Illia’s action of trying to understand the situation through the broadcast wasn’t wrong, but it seemed she didn’t expect it to be set at 500,000 won.
“I’ll pay for it.”
Anyway, since it was a broadcast turned on because of me, it was right for me to pay.
So after purchasing the ticket and entering the broadcast, it didn’t take long before I saw the Emperor Territory owned by the Emperor Guild and the thousands of players fighting there.
‘The rumors about them being pushed back were true.’
For some reason, the players fighting with their backs to the territory were dying relentlessly.
Judging by the direction of the fight, they seemed to be members of the Emperor Guild, but the opponent who showed overwhelming force against the Emperor Guild…… surprisingly, wasn’t a player.
“Skeleton Knights?”
At first glance, they could be mistaken for players because they were wearing full body armor, including helmets, but looking closely at the helmet visors, I saw a skull inside, not a human.
Moreover, there were hundreds of such skeletons, and the number was still increasing.
“How is that possible?”
Of course, the advantage of Death Summoning was quantity.
The advantage of Death Summoning was the ability to summon as many as you wanted as long as there were corpses. However, that didn’t mean you could summon indefinitely.
There were limitations of Magic Power and Stamina, and since summoned creatures that died once couldn’t be resurrected, the number of summoned creatures should gradually decrease as the battle continued.
But watching the broadcast, it seemed like they were summoning without any regard for those limitations.
“……I think we need to see the player who’s summoning them.”
I couldn’t just sit and watch, not knowing when the summoning player would appear.
So, just as I was about to get up and enter the capsule, the broadcast screen changed, and a player standing in the center of the Skeleton Knights appeared on the screen.
‘Huh? That’s……’
The player was wearing a robe with a black background and purple lines stylishly drawn on it.
However, since the face was covered with a white mask, I couldn’t tell who it was, but rather than the identity of the player, I couldn’t take my eyes off the weapon they were holding.
‘Is that the Beluin’s Staff I sold?’
The exact name was Daylis, Origin of Darkness.
That Legendary Staff was in the hands of the person attacking the Emperor Guild.
Leave a Reply