The Frontier (2)
The chaos on the new continent only settled once an emergency maintenance kicked in.
The developers had clearly tried to shake things up in their own way, but when has the world ever gone according to plan? In the end they tucked their tails and fell back on the same systems used on the old continents.
Even so, chaos always means opportunity for someone. Having swept the area clean, I walked away with a fairly handsome haul.
That sweet gold rush didn't last long.
You can strip a player of whatever gold they're carrying through PK, but you can't touch the coins they've already stashed in town. Once people realized the new continent's fields were far more dangerous than expected, they stopped walking around with gold on them at all. Killing gamers near a village just wasn't worth the calories anymore.
You could argue that defeated the whole point of the new continent—but the problem would sort itself out naturally soon enough. The top-tier hunting grounds had always been nowhere near the towns.
Hunting in Infinity Black burned through consumables at a brutal rate. Running back to town for resupply every time would tank your efficiency into the dirt. If you wanted to restock from nearby merchants on the fly, you had to carry enough gold with you. The message was clear enough: stop picking on the weak and go fight people who can actually hit back.
Store 80,000,000 Gold? Y/N
Storage complete.
For the moment, the payoff on hunting other players had genuinely dropped. That meant it was time to start exploring the new continent in earnest.
Not much information about it had come to light yet. The developers had dripped out a few teases to stoke anticipation, but the important discoveries were always going to be made by the players themselves.
Relying solely on community sites at a time like this was amateur hour. Monopoly on profitable intel—the so-called honey pots—only turned up if you went looking yourself.
And of course, that kind of work was more efficient with a group than alone.
"You're not streaming right now, are you? If you are, turn it off. You'll blow every honey pot we find."
"You think I don't know that? I'm recording, though. Gonna edit it later and upload—that okay?"
"As long as I review it before it goes up."
"Obviously. What do you take me for, some kind of thug?"
A warrior with a massive greatsword strapped across his back. Sulbbang shrugged his shoulders.
…He was the only person I could call on short notice. Not like I had a choice. My network was tiny—what was I supposed to do about that?
There weren't many people in this scene I'd trust enough to bring along as allies. Especially not with the siege meta shifting as hard as it was right now. Finding a high-tier player without a guild affiliation was no easy feat.
Surprisingly, Sulbbang checked that box. He'd only ever operated as a mercenary so far, and he had the gear and the skill to back it up. He could even tank the front line for me, which made a two-person party surprisingly viable.
Traveler's name had crossed my mind, honestly. But he had the league to prepare for now. Even if I'd asked, he would've shut me down on the spot.
The pro league was set to launch right alongside the new continent patch. With the opening match against Luce, the whole scene would be razor-edged. Luce would come prepared, and I was looking forward to it—the Luce I'd seen in the Arena was stronger than before.
God, I wanted to watch that match already.
"Se— ahem. Unnie isn't coming?"
"Doubt it. Elderin's always been a cosmetics specialist. She'll join once she's finished reviewing everything new. Dolkwol hyung said tomorrow."
"Sansae unnie said she can't log in until tomorrow either. Nothing we can do. Just the two of us today."
This was getting dangerous, though. The word unnie was starting to stick to my tongue. I knew fretting over it was pointless—and still, a word that had never wanted to leave my mouth was gradually working its way out.
Were people just animals that adapted to their environment after all?
I'd even gotten more generous with physical contact. Being pressed up against someone else had a strangely calming effect. At karaoke I'd just sat on Sansae's lap the entire time. No ulterior motive—it was genuinely comfortable. I was starting to understand why women walked around holding hands.
She's warm, and soft, and— no. That's not it.
Either way, it was a massive shift from the old days, when any physical contact with another person had triggered pure revulsion first. I still hadn't tried it with a guy, and it wasn't exactly something I could casually test.
Had I always been this easy? A slow sense of crisis was starting to set in.
While I was lost in thought, Sulbbang opened the map. The unexplored regions still sat under a fog of war, but you could make out the rough silhouettes. He pointed straight at the heart of the fog.
"Looks like most people are trying to punch through the center first. Especially here."
"The siege guilds will head that way. They probably figure the best rewards are concentrated in the middle."
"So are you going center too?"
"God, no. Don't even joke about that. What do you think happens if I show up there?"
Treasure you can't hold onto was never yours to begin with. One wrong move and you'd get tangled up with a siege guild, and then the whole situation turned ugly. There was a reason people called the siege scene dirty. Those people banded together for profit first and foremost. Logic and reason meant about as much in front of a starving beast as they did in front of them.
Powerful, greedy carnivores. Jackals whose instincts still told them to go for the weakest prey first. That was the essence of a siege guild, as far as I was concerned.
So heading somewhere else was the rational call. I already had a spot in mind—a canyon tucked into a corner of the map. By my estimate, it was going to be the hardest, most convoluted route on the entire continent.
"We're going here."
"…For real?"
"What, scared?"
A laugh rose up on its own. Sulbbang clenched his jaw.
"I'm just too excited! Let's go right now!"
The blood in my mouth was thick and metallic. Hot, sticky, dense with iron—the reek of it flooded my palate. Even after spitting it onto the ground, the film of it lingered, and I had to rinse with water.
Irritation got the better of me and I kicked the downed monster in the head. That only hurt me more. Grabbing my foot on top of everything else would've looked pathetic, so I pretended nothing was wrong.
Apparently every monster in this stretch was a minotaur—beastmen with human bodies and bull heads. Their vitality was stubbornly high, which already put them low on my list of favorites. Biological-type monsters also got your gear filthy with blood in no time.
"Ugh, my mouth still tastes like iron."
"Want more water?"
"Yeah."
The monster specs in this sector were clearly elevated. The minotaur we'd just killed would have outclassed even the top hunting grounds on the main continent. A few other players had been visible when we first entered the approach; by now, not a single one remained. Most of them had either died or fled.
Even at my gear level, they were a hassle to deal with. For the average player, hunting here was simply impossible. And the canyon terrain made it hard for large groups to move as a unit, which only reinforced my conviction.
This was the right call.
"Keep going and there's got to be something, right?"
"Yeah. I've got a good feeling."
I'd picked this place out of countless regions for two reasons. First: a massive siege guild would have a hard time pushing in. Narrow terrain and strong monsters were synonyms for vulnerability to ambush. It wasn't a zone the big packs would casually choose.
The second reason was essentially the same logic. This canyon was most efficiently cleared by a small elite party. But any player with gear on my level was almost always already tied to a guild—and with most of the major guilds pouring their full strength into the central push, this was easily the quietest corner of the new continent.
The fact that each individual monster was a pain to kill was actually a green light. At least it wasn't impossible. If this weren't a legitimate clear route, the monsters stationed here would have been beyond even my specs to handle.
So we pushed forward. Infinity Black was a game, and games were faithful to their rules. In a game, hardship always came with a reward.
Unlike reality.
"Ah—what do we do with the loot?"
"Just hold onto all of it for now. We'll settle up later in one go."
"Huh. Feels like you actually trust me. That's kinda nice."
"…Yeah, something like that."
I was genuinely grateful to Sulbbang, if I was being honest. I'd killed him more times than I could count—he had every right to hold a grudge—and he'd never once shown it. On top of that, he'd offered me a hand without hesitation. Even I didn't repay kindness with spite.
Whether that meant the petty jealousy had vanished somewhere… well, no. It just meant that the next time something ugly filled up my chest, this guy had enough sense to stay out of the blast radius.
"Let's go. We've rested long enough. Keep moving and find something."
"Gotcha."
"Gotcha?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"That's better. Pfft…"
Gathering up a heart that had grown complicated in more ways than one, I set out on the road again. A path that wasn't walked alone didn't feel half bad.