We're Closed

News outlets and every press agency in the country tripped over each other to run the story. Special documentaries were slotted in day after day, scraping up the guild members' entire life histories and dumping them on air. It got so farcical that Shin Eun-woo's old school records made the evening news.

A familiar flavor. The same circus they'd all watched a hundred times before. The public was going wild, and nothing stirred up patriotism quite like this. At last, Korea had punched through the curse of the 50th Floor and landed among the top ranks of the world, and the whole country was swept up in a festival atmosphere.

But the temperature on the ground and the temperature outside were always two different things.

Over on the Hunter Gallery, the 50th Floor clear barely registered.

The bait surrounding Nebula Guild's 50th Floor clear started rolling in a bizarre direction. Every topic, every thread, every argument — all of it led back to Goat-jjang. The Tteokbap had only made her presence loom larger. And at last, a few people started questioning what she actually was.

Hunters showing withdrawal symptoms started popping up in the gallery one after another. Hunters going feral because the honey pot had vanished. And then another piece of bait rolled right into their laps.

The Tteokbap ballooned beyond anyone's control. The gallery's mood hardened into a consensus: this was all Baek Shin-hoo and Blitz Guild's fault.

And then the riot started.

The hunters began invading other galleries in sequence. The first sacrificial lamb was the World of Tanks Blitz Gallery.

They spent a while after the spam bombardment writing garbage posts, but the rage wouldn't die down. The hunters found their next target: the LoL Gallery. There was a tin-can robot character by the same name, after all.

The satisfaction was lacking. Too much traffic — the spam wouldn't stick. They went looking for an easier mark.

This time, the Rainbow Six Gallery.

No traffic, no reactions. After that they just wandered wherever and raised mindless hell. They hit the Chess Gallery because blitz was a time control. They hit the Helldivers 2 Gallery because there was a mission type called Blitz. They hit the Speaker Gallery because some speaker manufacturer had a similar name. And when even that wasn't enough, they stormed the Germany Gallery, the German Language Gallery, and the German Culture Gallery — then capped the whole thing off in the Hitler Gallery.

And so the hunters' Blitzkrieg was immortalized on a wiki for posterity.

"Achoo~ Achoo~"

Hm. Wind-cold? Did that mean a regular cold?

This didn't feel like a cold, though. More like someone was talking about me.

More importantly….

"Um.... Taebaek Geomgun, sir."

"About this robe you gave me. Didn't you say it was the Robe of Myriad Wardings? That it would block most attacks?"

"Artifact craftsman?"

"Ah~ But when I got hit during the fight, it hurt like crazy? Is this actually a good robe?"

Taebaek Geomgun's chat message stretched suddenly long.

"Sorry? Heaven-rending did what now? That's... a little hard to follow…."

He used such difficult words. My head hurt just listening.

"Huh?"

"Ah!!!"

That made sense. So it just kept you from dying.

Grandpa Taebaek Geomgun was all worked up. I already got that it was good, though.

"Is there something else to it?"

A moment later.

"Ah— you mean the superhero? Hul—...."

"Uh.... Yeah."

"Sorry?"

Now that he mentioned it, that tracked. Did the underwear tear too?

"Swagger?"

"Ah.... Okay."

"So they fight naked?"

"I understand perfectly!"

That was kind of amazing. In other words, you didn't even need to do laundry. And here I'd been worried about it getting dirty.

That was when Cheongi Gakju's chat appeared.

"Now that you mention it, the moment I picked up the sword, it felt like the world slowed down."

"Sorry?"

"Uh...."

"Ah!"

"Ah!"

"Got it."

He was saying it because he was worried. I should take it to heart.

Still, hitting that bastard had felt so good. The only shame was that I wished I'd had more power behind it.

"Are you sure this time? The last spot looked fine too?"

Hadn't they said the Tower was already full of spiritual power? Did we really need to go hunting for a spot? Why were they being so picky?

The place we were standing was already the peak of a sharply rising rock mountain. A place hunters would never come. I only made it up here because I had something to ride — without that, I never would have come.

Well. They probably had their reasons.

I approached as Okhan Binghu directed, and a great cave came into view, along with what looked like a flower field — or maybe just a meadow. Off to the side, a cliff sheared away so steep that one wrong step would send you plunging dozens of meters down.

"There aren't even any monsters here."

"Okay."

That was when Ocheong Yowang's chat popped up.