Chapter 42
Chapter 42
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 42
Chapter Title: A Guild Master Needs More Than Just the Game
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One day, a gate opened right in the middle of the city.
Since it was the first time anything like this had happened, no one knew what it was and just left it alone.
Then, monsters suddenly started pouring out of the neglected gate, turning the city into a living hell.
This phenomenon would later be named Dungeon Break (D.B.), but at the time, it didn't even have a name yet.
The authorities were immediately deployed to resolve the situation, but ordinary human strength couldn't subdue the mysterious monsters.
With the entire nation on high alert in this unprecedented crisis, countless casualties were mounting helplessly.
["Whoa. This is actually happening. Camera!"]
A group of ordinary citizens appeared out of nowhere and rushed into the scene.
["Hasn't there been a ton of crazy warnings popping up lately? What the hell is going on here?"]
The ones with cameras skillfully filmed the chaos.
["Let's start broadcasting first. My status window calls that thing a 'gate.' Monsters that look familiar from somewhere are spilling out of it."]
["They resemble the monster types we often saw in the northern regions of Lowguard. Pretty familiar to us."]
["Hilariously, their levels have all reset to 1, but there's no beating a mob, so the players are teaming up for a monster raid."]
The raid was a success.
After the video went up, the game streaming channel run by the Goldbunker guild immediately surpassed 2 million subscribers and even made the news.
Superpowered individuals who suddenly appeared, using bizarre abilities to smash the monsters.
They knew an astonishing amount of detail about the monsters from the gate and exactly how to attack them.
A group that appeared out of the blue, wielding superpowers to save the city from the disaster called a gate.
These were the first hunters in Korea, later known as the "1st Generation."
The 1st Generation hunters, who had started seeing their status windows just before the gates erupted, were surprisingly all users of a virtual reality war game called VFA.
Once their game abilities began manifesting in reality, they banded together around three guilds.
Spaceking.
Goldbunker.
Fullminak.
The guild masters of Spaceking and Goldbunker, Dart and Gilgamesh, quickly stepped up and took the lead.
The problem arose with Fullminak.
Numerous users whose powers had awakened in reality waited eagerly for Fullminak to mobilize quickly, but no matter how long they waited, Fullminak's guild master, Kaisha, never showed.
Soon, the internet buzzed with all sorts of speculation and rumors about Kaisha.
* * *
Gilgamesh, Kwon Hoseong, let out a sigh.
"Man, we can't miss this moment. It's killing me just thinking about it."
Opportunities like this don't come every day.
With a tidal wave ready to upend the era crashing in, if the one who seized the throne from the depths of the sea doesn't emerge...
Hoseong had gotten a rough update from Kali, Fullminak's vice guild master.
Kaisha was out of contact.
It had been odd from the start that she vanished during the climax.
Considering how much Kaisha loved those moments, it couldn't have been a voluntary logout.
"Did she really dimension-hop to Midgard or something?"
Bzzz—
Seeing the caller ID, Hoseong picked up with a bored expression.
"Yeah, asshole."
["You asshole, where'd you sell your manners? Picking up like—"]
"I'm waiting for Kaisha's call right now, so spit it out and hang up."
["...You hear from her?"]
"Not yet."
Dart paused, then unleashed a torrent of curses over the phone.
But his voice sounded off.
"You sick or something? Eat some bad meds?"
In fact, Gilgamesh had initially thought the real-world glitch was a mental illness and gotten meds prescribed right away from a psychiatrist.
["...No headaches for you?"]
When Dart asked, a huge question mark popped up over Hoseong's head.
"Why would my head hurt? Is my brainpower loading hard or something?"
["Dunno. Feels like my head's splitting."]
"Should've taken it easy instead of grinding so hard. Heard some Midgard isekai stories going around lately. Maybe karma's biting back."
Just messing with him.
Dart responded to Gilgamesh's words with a barrage of dog and bird curses.
Then he abruptly hung up.
"Now that I think about it, my head hurt like hell at first too."
He'd thought it was mental illness, popped some pills, and it went away quick.
Yeah, Dart would be fine soon enough.
* * *
Je-hyeon's doctor said.
["Should've eased up on stressing him out all this time."]
"Hyung, I'm serious!"
Ga-hyun wasn't swinging her scythe around.
Kim Je-hyeon started genuinely worrying if Ga-hyun had caught some weird illness.
["Acting like someone who's never had a cold. Colds don't have cures anyway. Just rest till it passes."]
"Th-that..."
Kim Je-hyeon hesitated for a moment.
He wasn't sure if he should say it, and he couldn't confirm the symptoms himself.
"She might be seeing th—"
["What?"]
"N-no! Anyway, got it!"
Startled by his own words, Kim Je-hyeon hurriedly ended the call.
It wasn't certain, after all.
Pacing anxiously around the spacious living room, Kim Je-hyeon plopped down on the sofa in front of the TV.
Then he ruffled his hair wildly.
"Argh!"
His head throbbed.
Lately, Kim Je-hyeon couldn't tear himself away from the TV. Probably the same for the whole nation.
The screen showed the devastation around Dangsan Station clear as day.
"Whew. Of all places, Dangsan Station."
Je-hyeon cleared his complicated thoughts and turned his attention to the news.
Same stuff from yesterday, but maybe new info.
As a transfer hub with heavy foot traffic, a huge number of citizens had been caught up and victimized.
A disaster through and through.
With Dangsan Station shut down, foot traffic dispersed quickly around the area.
["Around 2 p.m. yesterday, a group of young men appeared at the scene and began fighting the monsters."]
"Tch. The ones who dumped cash into nearby real estate the second they saw that are screwed."
Je-hyeon muttered and clicked his tongue.
He knew a guy in the group chat like that—scum who thought first of profiting off others' misery.
It had seemed like an endless hell.
But the incident resolved abruptly.
Just as the anchor described, a group of young men appeared in the footage and started smashing the monsters.
All wearing masks, they looked like some kind of protestors.
In the footage, a reporter dashed around asking questions.
["Excuse me, where are you all from?! Do you know what's really happening here?!"]
["Argh! Don't film my face!"]
["Gate. It's a gate."]
["Pardon? A gate?"]
Then someone shoved into frame, waving cheerfully.
["Hello, everyone! This is GodGold from the Goldbunker channel! For more details on this situation, please tune into our stream!"]
["Subscribe, like."]
Promo streaming in the middle of that.
"...What the hell are these guys?"
The internet was already exploding over it.
Everyone glued to that.
Even the news replaying it showed no one could explain monsters popping out underground.
When these guys spoke like they knew something, everyone paid attention.
["What kind of channel is GodGold?"]
Even the news started deep-diving into the GodGold channel.
"Ha, seriously. Ga-hyun's sick, world's gone mad. Might as well go to work."
["Yes. To explain that, we first need to talk about the globally famous VR game, VFA."]
Kim Je-hyeon, slumped on the sofa, snapped his head up.
"?"
A name he'd heard before.
The English original title was so adult-oriented, once heard, impossible to forget.
A game on broadcast news.
The intro to VFA highlighted Kaisha's play footage, but Je-hyeon had no clue it was Ga-hyun.
Green eyes glowing, black hair whipping around on screen.
Then,
Users attacking a castle.
Flashy action skills and epic visuals outdid any movie.
["Whoa. And this is a game, not a film?"]
["Incredible quality. It's a world-famous consciousness-link VR game."]
["A war game?"]
["Yes. VFA is a siege warfare game where users conquer and manage territories. Recently, there was the 99th official siege in VFA."]
"That's it! The game Ga-hyun's obsessed with!"
After her rampage got him ordering a pricey new console recently, no way he'd forget.
["For quite a while, posts have appeared on the game's community claiming users were having hallucinations."]
"!"
Je-hyeon's eyes widened.
He shot up.
Several community posts were underlined and emphasized on screen.
Status windows, skill windows visible, even auditory hallucinations.
Roughly that.
["Like seeing the game in reality? Seems like symptoms from gaming addicts."]
["Usually, yes. But according to users, the monsters at the scene resembled ones from the game."]
A brief silence.
The experts on news looked gravely serious.
["The game... became reality?"]
["Hard to believe, but that's the only way to describe it right now."]
Crack.
Kim Je-hyeon's jaw dropped, twitched like it might unhinge, then snapped shut.
"Crazy, crazy!"
This was it. Definitely this.
No idea how it connected, but if Ga-hyun was sick because of this, seeing stuff because of this, it all made perfect sense.
I'm not going nuts?!
Yelling Eureka inwardly, Kim Je-hyeon bolted to her room in excitement.
"Hey! Ga-hyun!!"
Bang.
Warm sunlight streamed through the window, carrying the vivid presence of the room's owner.
Kim Je-hyeon's eyes grew wider.
"!"
In those eyes, everything in the room floated slowly.
Bed and blankets.
Even the small items on the desk.
Dizzying yet so slow it felt strangely serene.
Ga-hyun floated in the center like a god conducting it all. Her tightly shut eyes looked faintly moist—not an illusion.
Even if she pretended otherwise, the stress from her aunt must've piled up.
To Ga-hyun, her aunt was like an Achilles' heel—too painful, yet inseparable as part of her body, like her own mother.
"...."
For a moment, a young Ga-hyun flashed in Kim Je-hyeon's mind.
'Someday, all of it... I'll make them all look up to me in awe. Not looking down from above, but make even my mom acknowledge me, no choice.'
You, who vowed to earn recognition someday.
You really went, to some unknowable realm far above the lofty clouds.