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chapter 34
Dawn’s Dew, a tavern in Edlen’s commercial district.
In the crowded interior, all kinds of conversations were being exchanged.
“What the hell is a city development fund, a city development fund!”
“What do you think it is? The nobles lining their pockets. Haven’t you noticed it’s gotten worse since Mayor Brook took over?”
“There were rumors he was just a puppet too. Things were better when Mayor William was around…….”
“Can’t we just run to the Holy Nation? You can live large in a superpower like that.”
Words spoken freely over clinking mugs.
Topics that were extremely dangerous for commoners to discuss.
“I don’t remember this place very well. Feels vague.”
“That’s because it’s not particularly meaningful. I’m here for the first time in two years too.”
Sitting in a corner, Yeonwoo and Kim Jaeha shared brief impressions.
After pouring out compensation and apologies to Artsvel, the three of them had moved here to talk.
Since it was the tavern closest to the shop, they’d arrived quickly.
“By the way, what should I call you? Kim Jaeha isn’t your real name, right?”
“I’m used to using it because of work. You don’t need to worry about it.”
-ㅠㅠ
-A company employee’s name really is public property.
-At least the face is different, thank god.
-Who even uses their real face in-game? LOL
-Ranger: ?
-Avant-Garde: ??
-There are more lunatics than you think.
“…….”
Having suddenly become a lunatic, Hanbit closed his mouth.
If anything, it was fortunate that there were streamers who used their real appearances.
“Then, Mr. Kim Jaeha, let’s continue the hidden skill story.”
“Ah, yes!”
At the mention of Dwarven Metallurgy, Kim Jaeha’s body stiffened.
It was fortunate that Black Dragon showed interest, but the information he had was scant.
“You said the first discovery was an achievement. Could you explain in more detail?”
“Strictly speaking, it wasn’t an achievement—it was a small iron plate that looked like a dog tag. It had the same words written on it as the achievement description.”
“A dog tag? Do you still have it?”
“Of course.”
Nodding, Kim Jaeha took something out of his inventory.
A thin iron plate about the size of two fingers, placed on the table.
It was strung with a thin cord, much like a dog tag.
Grasping it, Hanbit curled his lips into a grin.
[I heard iron crying in the snow.]
The familiar texture and the sentence etched clearly into his memory.
There was no need for doubt.
This plate was undoubtedly the key to learning Dwarven Metallurgy.
“Where did you find it?”
“On the mid-slope of the snowy mountains north of Ifrit.”
“That mountain range was rich in ore veins, right? Lots of mine entrances.”
“…How did you know that?”
At the natural question, Kim Jaeha’s eyes widened.
Yeonwoo answered instead.
“Hyung knows this world inside out. He’s basically memorized an entire web novel.”
“I’ve seen it on the broadcast, but…… is that really possible?”
“I find it amazing too.”
-LOL, for real.
-Basic otaku qualifications.
-The bar’s gotten higher;
-Aren’t otaku actually normies?
-Hey normies, don’t touch this.
The misconceptions piling up were already familiar.
What mattered was the fact that Kim Jaeha was the first discoverer.
“Dwarven Metallurgy. You said you ultimately failed to find it, right? Wasn’t there something you missed?”
“…I believe we did our best. Not just me and my coworkers, but countless competitors were投入 as well.”
“At the company level, you must’ve divided the search into zones. Did everyone get the same achievement?”
“Yes. Everyone got the same achievement… but there were no results. This item never appeared for anyone else, though.”
Kim Jaeha stroked the iron plate on the table, looking gloomy.
It seemed a lot had happened back then.
‘No wonder you couldn’t find it.’
Obtaining Dwarven Metallurgy was no easy task.
But the reason past players—including Kim Jaeha—failed was simple.
Only the original discoverer could proceed along the correct path.
“How about we move together for a while?”
“Excuse me?”
“You came to us because you wanted something, right? There has to be something in it for me too, so let’s take some time to judge.”
“Ah…….”
-Sudden scouting, damn.
-Taeyul Trading, 1 win.
-Upvote if Avant-Garde is crying right now.
-He’ll kick him out mercilessly if he’s useless.
-LOL for real.
At the sudden proposal, Kim Jaeha froze.
Then his face lit up, and he raised his voice.
“That sounds great! As a launch-day player, I should be able to help at least a little!”
“Alright, nice to have you. Roper, are you okay with this?”
“I’m fine. I can just judge what kind of person he is with my own eyes.”
Yeonwoo nodded in agreement.
Moving his finger, Hanbit invited Kim Jaeha to the party.
“Ah, you’ve already cleared the Edlen episode, right?”
“Unfortunately, I’ve only completed the Edlen main quest. Still, I can at least observe, and if there’s anything useful, I’ll contact you through party chat or messages.”
Kim Jaeha added the explanation cleanly.
With the situation mostly settled, Hanbit stood up and said,
“Then let’s meet tomorrow. I’ll contact you before logging in.”
***
The next morning.
Leaving home, Hanbit boarded a bus heading near his workplace.
The meeting place was his senior Lee Minho’s house.
‘Feels like I’m going to work on the weekend.’
The scenery passing by the window was the same as yesterday.
It was amazing how just a few days of internship had already made him dislike the company this much.
Once again, office workers felt impressive.
“Hey, did you see this?”
While he was lost in thought, the conversation of the people sitting next to him drifted over.
Two men who looked like college students were talking while looking at their smartphones.
“Challenge dungeon? I watched it live.”
“I took over an hour even following the guide. It really hit me hard.”
“You need realism to feel that kind of despair. This guy’s just insane.”
The words caught his attention.
From the continuing conversation, it was clearly about RP.
“But it’s crazy that an S-rank nickname like that was still available. Did nobody think of Black Dragon?”
“There were rumors it’s a developer super account. They probably locked those nicknames.”
“If it were a super account, it would’ve caused an uproar already. Do you think the vanguards would’ve stayed quiet?”
“Then how do you explain this? There’s no way someone more talented than Odin exists.”
Hearing RP—and even the nickname Black Dragon—in real life again was surreal.
Curious about the reactions, Hanbit turned on his smartphone and accessed the RPG community.
The front page was filled with trending posts about the challenge dungeon.
Black Dragon, who found the hidden route, broke through on his first try and took 1st place.
What’s truly insane is that he broke the record while also doing the Plona quest.
Compiled with Black Dragon’s channel video link.
-LOL holy shit
-Black Dragon, is it you again…….
-Kim Hanseop sobbing.
-The legendary talent Odin looks average now. LOL
-Reporting this guy as a bug.
└I filed a ticket too, but the GM said it’s not a bug or hack?
└Okay, then we’ll win through propaganda and misinformation.
-I tried copying it and got stuck at the traps for over 20 minutes.
-One-try maze clear, is he an AI?
-If you donate on his stream, will he answer?
└If he’s in a good mood, yeah.
└When challenge missions and donations stack up, he does something big each time.
The flood of reactions from players was intense.
Near the end, one comment caught Hanbit’s eye.
-Over 20,000 challengers right now. LOL
└Might hit 40,000 over the weekend?
└Feels like it’ll pass 50,000.
└Entry fee is 500 gold, so everyone and their dog is retrying.
└So jealous of Black Dragon;
└Kim Hanseop is really crying.
‘…Fifty thousand?’
His eyes widened at the estimated number.
The entry fees accumulated over a week for the first-place holder.
If more than 50,000 people really challenged it, the minimum would be 25 million gold.
If the record held, it would be an endlessly generating vault of gold.
“Is there no reaction from Kim Hanseop? He must be shocked after losing first place.”
“His honey pot broke, so he’s falling into the abyss. He spent insane amounts of gold trying to become the vanguard, and now he can’t even do that.”
The people beside him were still talking about the challenge dungeon.
Kim Hanseop had monopolized the rewards for a full year.
It wouldn’t be strange for him to harbor hostility toward the one who took his place.
Since he seemed desperate to become a vanguard, they might cross paths someday.
Beep—
Getting off at his stop, Hanbit climbed the uphill road in front of him.
A neighborhood lined with studio apartments.
After walking a bit more, an old building came into view.
Passing through the open entrance, Hanbit went up to the fourth floor.
Rrrr—
Pressing the doorbell of unit 402 produced a strange vibration.
It seemed to be broken.
Click—
Creeeak—
The door opened, and Lee Minho appeared.
His face looked clearly exhausted.
“Hello. You’re here early.”
“Hello. Didn’t you get much sleep?”
“I found something troublesome. Come in first.”
Leaving behind those ominous words, he led Hanbit inside.
Passing through the narrow entryway, a space of about seven pyeong came into view.
Despite being packed with blueprints, tools, and mechanical parts, everything was neatly organized.
“Sorry the place is small. It’s hard to take the equipment outside…….”
“It’s fine. You said you found something troublesome—what was it?”
“You should see it yourself. Just a moment.”
Lee Minho picked up a component that looked like a semiconductor chip along with a blueprint.
Pointing to them one by one, he continued.
“This is one of the parts that came out of dismantling a level 1 gear, and this is the blueprint. As you’d expect from technology ahead of its time, it’s extremely hard to fully understand.”
Mixing in technical terms, he explained how remarkable the device’s structure was.
Judging by his slightly excited tone, he seemed genuinely curious despite it being forced work.
Of course, Hanbit’s technical knowledge was nowhere near enough to discuss it in depth.
“I can’t really tell just by looking. Was there something unusual?”
“That’s the troublesome part. More precisely, it’s what’s inside this chip.”
Lee Minho held up the small chip.
Then he brought over a household microscope.
“Take a look. There’s a core inside with a strange pattern engraved on it.”
“A strange pattern?”
“It’s already known, but it oddly looks like some kind of lock. Even with equipment, we couldn’t physically separate it.”
“Hmm, let me see.”
Hanbit brought his eye to the microscope’s eyepiece.
The inner structure of the chip immediately came into view.
As he examined the complex circuitry, he saw a tiny sphere at the center.
It looked like a fruit encased in a shell.
‘Is this it?’
As he examined the surface, Hanbit found the pattern Lee Minho had mentioned.
Lines partially obscured by the outer structure.
They felt like ancient characters.
‘Don’t tell me…….’
A passing thought triggered a memory.
Hanbit asked Lee Minho, who was gathering documents nearby,
“Did you find anything else?”
“Not exactly find, but there was something odd. You remember the program R&D gave us, right?”
“Yes. Wasn’t that the one I collected data for?”
“That’s right. But I found out the framework of that program was provided by the RP game company. Almost like they wanted us to dig into company secrets.”
“That’s… interesting.”
The RP game company’s baffling actions were nothing new.
To Hanbit, they felt like the shadow of the goddess.
And once again, that feeling turned into certainty with Lee Minho’s next words.
“The important thing is this. Using the data you collected, we found strange patterns in the code. They didn’t appear in data from other departments.”
“Patterns?”
“Take a look at this.”
Lee Minho spread out documents filled with complex programming language on the floor.
Pointing at one section, he said,
“The rest of the code isn’t beyond understanding. But patterns like this keep appearing, and it’s hard to grasp their meaning. They’re unnecessary code, too.”
“…Just a moment.”
Hanbit focused on the spot he indicated.
Code too complex to distinguish with mere undergraduate knowledge.
As he frowned, Lee Minho handed him another sheet.
“Look at this one too. It’s a compilation of patterns found throughout the code.”
Turning his gaze, Hanbit examined the new material.
At that moment, something flashed through his mind.
‘…Could it be?’
Sensing something, Hanbit slowly pulled his focus back.
As he did, the complex code began to look different.
Rustle—
He moved his gaze busily, viewing the patterns with a broader perspective.
Up close, it was complex programming language, but to his eyes, a different outline began to form.
It felt like solving a puzzle by connecting hidden lines and symbols scattered throughout.
‘…They really went all out.’
Reaching a conclusion, Hanbit let out a sigh.
The strange patterns Lee Minho found were written in the other world’s language.
Within this vast and complex pattern, a single word had been hidden.
Pulling his gaze away from the documents, Hanbit looked at Lee Minho and said,
“There’s a word hidden in this pattern.”
“A word?”
“Yes. It’s written in the language used in the game world. It was in the appendix of the original web novel I read… though it’s no longer available online.”
“…?”
Lee Minho looked incredulous, but then turned his gaze back to the patterns.
After frowning in concentration for a moment, he looked up.
“If it was in an appendix, it’d be hard to remember…… Do you know what the word is?”
There was a hint of hope in his question.
It was a reasonable concern—but Hanbit had spent far more time using the other world’s language than Korean.
“Fortunately, I remember.”
Recalling old memories, he nodded.
Then, after checking the pattern once more, he continued.
“The word written there is Edlen. A city of the Raven Kingdom.”
