Chapter 99
Chapter 99
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 99
Chapter Title: Self-Portrait (4)
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“......There’s nothing drawn on it?”
The three headed toward the end of the room.
In front of them stood a massive frame, unlike any of the ones they’d seen so far.
“For starters, it’s not even a portrait, right? Is this supposed to be a finished piece?”
Greg eyed the frame warily.
Its size aside, it matched the exact specifications of the four portraits over there, but the image inside was completely different.
No, it wasn’t even clear if you could call it an image at all.
“It’s just painted pitch black, isn’t it.”
A jet-black painting filled the enormous frame.
Hanging before Regin was an image containing nothing but black.
“......And if this has anything to do with the missing people, we should probably steer clear.”
Seria spoke in a voice thick with caution.
Her hands were already gripping her daggers, ready for whatever might happen.
“I’ve been piecing it together from the rumors and the books.”
“......”
“In most cases, people can just leave without issue, so why do these disappearances happen one by one.”
“......”
“And I’ve been mulling over how the ones who made it out managed to avoid vanishing.”
He’d played through countless games.
He couldn’t say that outright, so he framed it as deduction, but Regin was certain.
‘I have to choose this frame.’
The two beside him asked about Flexys’s portrait.
Of course, that one wasn’t a bad option either.
If he got lucky, he might score another Flexys item.
‘Excluding the pendant, there aren’t many useful items at this stage. This cloak is one of them.’
But he already had two Flexys items.
The odds of duplicates were low, but...... it was still possible to draw the same one again.
Picking a different portrait might not yield anything immediately useful either.
‘This reward is what I need most anyway.’
Truth be told, he’d reached that conclusion back when he was repeating the raid to some extent.
No matter what item came from the other portraits, it wouldn’t top this black painting.
That was why he hadn’t memorized the full reward list.
Since the black painting’s reward was what he needed most, there was no reason to pick anything else.
“There’s a high chance that......”
Regin continued, gazing at the black painting.
“This one doesn’t spit out an item. I have to retrieve it myself.”
“......Yourself?”
“It means going inside the painting.”
“......!!”
Their eyes widened in shock.
“No way. Regin.”
It was the most resolute expression she’d shown yet.
“More people have gone missing than returned.”
“......Yeah. Seria’s right. We can’t go in with you either.”
This black painting, like the portraits, could only activate for one person at a time.
And once you’d claimed a reward, you couldn’t trigger another portrait.
How could they send Regin in alone when they couldn’t follow?
“We can’t just wait here without a leader.”
Seria stared intently at Regin.
She’d been right there when Elsilva died.
It was a short time, but she’d seen how he led the team and fought alongside him.
And after that man threw himself away for the team?
“The rest lost their way.”
The faces of Apellion and the other gladiators flashed through Seria’s mind.
She knew what those leaderless fighters looked like.
They hadn’t spilled everything, but she’d seen those unspeakable emotions bottled up inside them.
She wasn’t great at casual chit-chat with others, but she wasn’t blind to feelings like that.
Assassins moved by intuition and keen senses, after all.
“From the fight with Kaluan to everything after, I owe you my life.”
“......”
“I swore an explorer’s oath to repay you. And it wasn’t just empty words.”
“......”
“If there’s a way we can go together, tell us.”
Regin looked at her for a moment before speaking.
“Thank you for worrying.”
Regin had deliberately saved her during the Kaluan fight.
There’d been some calculation involved. He was certain she was the assassin from the future.
So he’d deemed her worth saving.
“But...... what do we do about this......”
Her determination to honor that oath so fiercely was reassuring and grateful.
Taking that risk back then to eliminate the disaster named Kaluan ahead of time.
He was already reaping the value of it.
“......It’s already activated.”
Wooong—
It hadn’t been intentional.
The problem was that the black painting had already begun to ripple.
A strange energy emanated from within, pulling Regin’s body inside.
‘......This painting is called the Black Self-Portrait. I have to go in no matter what.’
With things as they were, Regin had to make his choice.
Flick.
Just before vanishing completely, Regin tossed the pendant to Seria.
It had just occurred to him—this Flexys pendant held a small but significant meaning.
“It was something Manannan and I shared, meaning we’d meet again.”
That was why the pendant had come to mind.
“It carries the same meaning this time.”
The pulling force intensified.
With that, Regin fully entered and uttered his final words.
“I’ll be out soon.”
Once he grabbed the item he had to get from inside the black painting, he fully intended to come back alive.
* * *
“Oh no......”
Seria swung her hand belatedly, but Regin had already been sucked into the painting.
The two stared at the black painting’s frame.
Nothing had changed from before.
They couldn’t even sense Regin’s mana inside it.
“......”
Seria kept her gaze fixed on it for a long while, her expression complicated.
“More headstrong than I thought.”
“That’s his style.”
“......Was he always like this?”
“Hmm.”
Greg pondered for a moment, then let out an involuntary chuckle.
“Since I met that guy, I’ve never once moved in the direction I wanted.”
“......Dragged along, huh.”
“Heh heh. He leads pretty well, though.”
Greg let out a deep breath and plopped down onto the floor.
“After catching all ten, ghosts won’t appear unless we summon them ourselves, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s just sit here and rest. No point moving around and accidentally summoning any.”
“......”
Unlike Seria, Greg adapted to the situation quickly.
When they’d gone hunting for the rabbit hole, and even when they’d ended up fighting Kaluan after.
They’d followed Regin’s lead without a second thought.
“He’s not the type to dive into things blindly. Sometimes he seems like he’s got the whole world figured out.”
“......”
“There are times I wonder if the kid’s got a dad vibe. Telling us to do this, not to do that...... but whenever we follow, it all works out.”
Plop.
Seria, who’d been mulling it over, finally sat down as well.
Afterward, she pulled out her pendalia and set out materials for gathering poison beside it.
She took out a small mortar-like bowl and ground up bits of pendalia inside it.
“Making poison?”
“Yeah. Might as well prep while we wait.”
“......So we can knock Regin out the second he comes back?”
“That works too.”
He’d felt it many times before, but her jokes were always brutally morbid.
Greg cleared his throat awkwardly and stared ahead.
“By the way, he said not to touch those portraits, right?”
At the end of his gaze were the other paintings hanging beside the massive portrait.
Regin had sprinkled bone dust below them as a marker, just in case.
“There’s gotta be a reason he said not to.”
“What, you wanna go poke one and summon a ghost now?”
“No, not that.”
“Well......”
Seria continued extracting poison from the pendalia.
“If you’re that curious, just ask Regin when he gets back.”
“Fair point.”
She was in the middle of brewing the paralyzing poison when she bottled the remainder.
“......”
Seria’s eyes drifted to empty space.
“Greg.”
“Yeah?”
She scanned the surroundings and spoke bluntly.
“Didn’t you hear something just now?”
* * *
The portrait room on the 8th Floor.
The hidden stage inside it was something he’d discovered himself.
[8th Floor Hidden Stage: ‘Black Self-Portrait’攻略]
The conditions were simple.
Visit the portrait room on the 8th Floor, defeat the ghosts, then...... don’t choose a reward.
[Then a new painting appears on the wall that wasn’t there before. I thought it was always there and I’d just missed it, so I checked playthrough videos, and yep, it spawns that way.]
It was the same even in parties.
At least one person had to hold off on picking a reward for a while.
[Once you go in, you get hit with something like a hallucination. You see the past of whatever character you’ve raised.]
This part was key.
The flashback scenes varied by class.
The characters moved and lived as if it were real.
The player, as an observer, had to help their character break free from the illusion.
[Do that right, and it’s not hard.]
From the player’s perspective, it was just an event you could clear by catching the flowing hints.
[Think of it as story progression. Like hidden lore.]
“This should do it.”
Tap tap tap.
In a one-room apartment in Seoul.
The relentless keyboard clatter stopped, and the man stared at his screen for a while.
On it was the post he’d written.
After a final proofread, the man confidently clicked his mouse.
Click—
As the post went live, his face flushed a bit.
‘Looks like I’m the first to find this one too.’
The thrill of uncovering game elements others didn’t know.
And the joy of posting a guide with proof and his own analysis.
Those feelings were one of the driving forces in the man’s life.
Click, click—
At first, he’d waited patiently for views.
But as users started trickling in, he kept hitting refresh.
Finally, recommendations rolled in, and comments appeared.
ㄴ This guy’s consistent. Keeps dropping wild stuff since last time ㄷㄷ.
ㄴ Whoa...... I’ve tried the reward thing a few times, but that’s new to me.
ㄴ Wasn’t too hard this time, but everyone rushes the reward and leaves, so they miss it.
ㄴ True, hanging around risks accidentally waking a ghost, which is a pain. But he waited it out. What’s this guy’s deal?
The man’s lips curved up with the rising comments.
He was a hardcore DAT player, hooked for two years now.
User numbers were dropping, but the diehards were still enjoying it.
By unearthing hidden content like this, one by one.
“Guess no one else knew.”
He chuckled and skimmed his post again.
A year ago, when hidden stages started getting attention...... he’d been writing guides ever since.
It was one way 26-year-old Park Jin-seong unwound after his part-time shift.
“One more check.”
Park Jin-seong smirked and reviewed his post again.
He always did this with popular threads—double-check for errors.
As he scrolled up and down, his own words came into view.
[You see the past of whatever character you’ve raised.]
Clean and to the point, he thought.
* * *
“Good work today.”
“......Um, boss.”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“......”
His part-time boss had a surprisingly sharp eye too.
On a chilly January night at 10 PM.
Under the convenience store sign’s glow, Park Jin-seong hesitantly spoke up.
“I...... think I have to quit.”
“What......?”
“Not right away, but probably in two weeks. Just wanted to give you a heads-up......”
“What’s going on?”
Park Jin-seong scratched his head and continued.
“I...... got into that company I applied to. Starting as an intern next month.”
“......You rascal, Park Jin-seong.”
“Yes?”
“You should’ve said something sooner......! Congrats! Man, you earned it.”
The boss was more excited than he was, slapping his shoulder.
“I’ve been cheering you on for two years while you crammed studying here between shifts.”
“Th-thank you.”
“Good thing I’m just a convenience store owner. All I can offer is ramen or kimbap.”
The boss scratched his head, pondered, then ducked into the storage room and came back with something.
“This is from a buddy yesterday—beef, good beef. No pressure.”
“......Boss......”
“Forget it. If it doesn’t sit right, anything else you need?”
“The beef’s more than enough. I couldn’t ask for......”
“What do you mean, kid? You lived independently, nailed the job......! That’s badass.”
“......”
“No one worked as steadily as you these two years. Take it. Sorry I can’t do more.”
Park Jin-seong smiled and accepted the beef.
“Thanks so much, boss.”
It felt weird.
He’d been super nervous breaking the news, but hadn’t expected this much care.
Creak—
As he stepped out and looked up at the sky.
“......”
It was a strangely happy night.
“......Not that I’m thinking about work after starting.”
He even wished tomorrow wouldn’t come.