Episode 262
“You’re selling information?”
The completely unexpected proposal immediately raised suspicion.
It seemed odd that the player standing before him knew the Seongche-pa’s plans.
After all, if he was someone who had been stripped of the number one spot in the Challenge Dungeon, couldn’t he harbor some animosity toward him?
Such thoughts lingered in his mind.
“Viewers, just a moment.”
Hanbit briefly closed his microphone and surveyed his surroundings.
There was no sign of anyone watching this conversation.
Kim Han-seop stood before him with an expression that showed not the slightest wavering.
“I’ve turned off the sound, so I’m going to ask you a few things.” “Go ahead
and ask. I have no intention of hiding anything after coming all the way here.”
Kim Han-seop immediately nodded in agreement. While
there is no way to clearly see through someone’s lies, they are bound to show through in their voice, facial expression, and actions.
Hanbit focused on those changes and continued speaking.
“First. How did you obtain the information regarding the Seongche-pa?”
“I used this. It was almost by chance, though.”
Kim Han-seop took a strangely shaped horn out of his inventory.
Its shape was comically bent in all directions.
It was an object Hanbit recognized.
“The Trembling Horn? You got this?”
“I found it on a cliff near the Forest of Death. It was thanks to accidentally discovering a crow’s nest.”
“…You’re lucky.”
The Trembling Horn wasn’t very useful, but obtaining it was frustratingly difficult.
It was to the point where one wondered if the phenomenon commonly known as the butterfly effect happened only to this object.
There was even a time when, when they tried to find it at exactly the same time, it was discovered at the polar opposite end of the continent.
“What’s even luckier is that I collected sounds regarding the Council of the Adult Faction. I was skeptical, but the names of the top 100 rankers just kept coming up.”
The Trembling Horn, capable of randomly collecting sounds from the world.
The problem was that the collected sounds would play out and vanish without warning.
“That’s not just luck. How long did you hold onto it?”
“Six months.”
“…Six months?”
“Yeah, I’ve held onto this horn for six months. At first, I thought I might hear a clue to go up with the advance party, and later, I tried to catch any information you, Black Dragon, might leak.”
A glimmer of light flickered in his eyes as he spoke so nonchalantly.
Six months of holding onto a horn, never knowing when or what sound might come.
It was an insane obsession in many ways.
The anxiety born from the immense expectations he had received upon rising to the number one spot in the Challenge Dungeon records.
And with the Black Dragon appearing to snatch that top spot away from him, it wouldn’t have been surprising if something inside him had shattered.
“Then, secondly, why are you trying to sell me that information? You don’t have any good feelings for me, do you?”
“Of course I hate it. Think how much I was ridiculed after being pushed down to second place. But watching what you do on this island, I realized something. If you’re going to join a faction, you’d better join this one.”
“Faction?”
“It’s going to become a power dynamic anyway, isn’t it? Then it will be a battle between the hardliners and moderates centered around you, and the Adult Faction centered around the No. 1 ranker. I think you will have the upper hand.”
Kim Han-seop, who had been watching the events unfold on Feria Island, seemed to have undergone a change of heart.
I had no intention of denying his judgment, but a question remained.
“There are other rankers, too. The moderate LLLL or the hardliner Nightmare wouldn’t have defected to the Adult Faction, would they?”
“Simply having a strong character is meaningless. What is this game? We’re looking for Erfort. If it were a matter of high rankings, the Adult Faction would have found him by now.”
“…….”
It was somewhat surprising to feel that his mind was working better than expected. It
was enough to make me wonder why he hadn’t been able to join the advance party for such a long time.
“And there is one more reason.”
“What is it?”
“The record points you earned, amounting to 10,000. That’s going to be incredibly important later on. I have a feeling.”
“Well, that’s true.”
As Kim Han-seop said, the element known as Record Points was significant in many ways.
It was an indicator of how much influence one had had on the flow of the world.
Although its purpose had not yet been revealed, Hanbit also instinctively sensed that something major was about to happen.
“Then, lastly, what do you want?”
“Check the information first. I have it organized, so I’ll send it to you via message.”
“Just wait.”
Hanbit immediately added Kim Han-seop as a friend.
The message arrived in no time.
“…It’s quite long.”
It was a text transcribing the sounds collected through the pulsating trumpet exactly as they were.
Who was saying what was revealed through the names that appeared intermittently.
Among them were the names of Rank 5 Everett and Rank 9 Xiaohui.
“An invasion of occupied territory.”
The Seongche Faction’s plan was simple.
It was the obvious plan to reclaim occupied territories through invasion events that activate at specific intervals.
The problem lay elsewhere.
'So this is how it turned out.'
The locations of the territories Hanbit had ordered to attack during the meeting.
For some reason, those exact locations were being mentioned in the conversation.
“As I listened, I had a feeling there might be a traitor around you. Or perhaps they weren't on our side to begin with.”
Kim Han-seop also sensed something strange about the atmosphere.
In other words, the flow of the conversation was odd enough for even an outsider to notice.
“What are you going to do? If you discussed this among a group, it will be hard to root them out.”
“It’s fine. I roughly expected this.”
“…What?”
Kim Han-seop looked puzzled at the words spoken so nonchalantly.
However, it was indeed one of the foreseen situations.
“You expected this, yet you still shared the territories? Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m perfectly sane. I’m used to traitors and spies.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The doubt deepened in Kim Han-seop’s expression, but this was the truth.
Just how severe was the experience of being blindsided in round 55?
There was no need to explain it in words.
The keen eye for observing others, and the ability to scrutinize and analyze their voices, faces, and demeanor in detail, were all products of that experience.
'He was from the hardliners.'
The location of the occupied territory Hanbit publicly conveyed for the meeting was close to a united front.
However, the documents sent to each individual listed different locations for additional assaults.
This was possible thanks to the countless unconquered forbidden zones.
In other words, the person who leaked the information was the one assigned the additional location mentioned in the Seongche faction's conversation.
Was it definitely the hardliners ranked 322nd?
"Surely you don't know who it is?"
Kim Han-seop, who had been observing his expression, asked with wide eyes.
Hanbit replied while composing a message,
"It was good information. I didn't know it would be this helpful."
"What are you going to do with that person?"
"I'm not going to do anything."
“You say you’re not doing anything? Why? For what reason? Don’t you know you’re going to get beaten up hard if you act so complacently?”
Kim Han-seop, who had become immersed in the situation before I knew it, poured out his words. His
expression, mixed with bewilderment, looked quite transparent.
“If we root out and suppress the traitor, we’re actually giving information to the enemy. For now, we should leave things as they are and use them effectively.”
The Seongche faction had formulated a plan based on information obtained through spies.
If used properly, it was possible to deliver a strong counterattack.
“…Certainly. We have to leave things as they are to know the Seongche faction’s movements. We could even pass on the information selected by the spy and use it in reverse.” Only
then did Kim Han-seop understand the meaning and slowly nodded.
The more I watched, the more his ability to read the flow seemed quite good.
“So, tell me what you want now. I’ll pay you a fair price.”
“What I want is…”
Kim Han-seop’s expression turned grim as he continued speaking.
And after a little more time had passed, he spoke his true feelings.
“I want to prove it.”
“Proof?”
“It’s been a straight downhill since I hit number one in the Challenge Dungeon. I just holed up like a loser, reading the mockery on the community and searching online. As if I had failed in life.”
Kim Han-seop added that it was a time of agony.
While some might dismiss it as just a game, it seemed to hold great significance for him.
Hanbit, who considered this place the 56th iteration, could understand to some extent.
'Proof… …'
Whether it’s proof to the public or proof to oneself, there are many ways to do it.
There might be a reason why he hadn't been able to join the vanguard for so long, but that wasn't particularly important.
“What’s your level?”
“211. I hunted every single day without fail. Though I just kept circling the same hunting grounds.”
“The same hunting grounds?”
“…To be honest, I lack combat sense. It doesn’t follow the way I think it will. Even the Challenge Dungeon was the result of memorizing it frame by frame. I have thousands of recorded videos.”
“Really?”
Hearing those words, I could roughly figure out what kind of person he was.
The game of RP tended to rely heavily on intuition.
Naturally, for someone without talent, it must have felt like being blocked by a wall with no end in sight.
For instance, like some players who haven't been able to defeat Baldur for months.
"He's getting more and more different from my first impression."
Kim Han-seop's Challenge Dungeon records were the culmination of pure effort.
With the right guidance, someone like him could be turned into a powerful weapon of his own.
It was more like setting the direction for their efforts.
“Come over to our side.”
“…Over our side?”
“The hardliners and moderates have formed an alliance. They want you to prove yourself in a place hostile to the powerful Seongche faction.”
“Me there? What kind of nonsense is that… Joining the line meant I wanted to maintain a friendly relationship, nothing more.”
Kim Han-seop hesitated, looking bewildered.
Presumably, the reward he desired was advice on future strategies or battles.
It was clear that he had drawn a line of proof he had set for himself.
However, Hanbit, who had passed through countless talented individuals, saw something else.
“Do you think anything will change with a half-baked proof? Even if you make it into the top 10,000 rankings now, no one will be interested. They will just mock you, saying, ‘You got in so fast.’”
“…….”
Kim Han-seop fell silent at this prediction that seemed so obvious.
Seeing this, Hanbit immediately invited him to a party.
“Trust me. I’ll let you prove yourself.”
“…Understood for now.”
After hesitating, Kim Han-seop finally raised his hand to accept the party.
Even if there is a fear of failure, overcoming it is also a part of the proof.
“I’m going to the North where the Lore Alliance is located. I need to verify the occupied territories.”
Hanbit took out the Warp Crystal and selected the registered Lore Alliance.
And just as a pure white landscape unfolded along with the sensation of teleportation, a message popped up with an alarm.
Ding-
[As the number of occupied territories exceeds the threshold, the invasion event will activate in 24 hours.]
