The Threads of Affinity
I checked the condition of the soldier collapsed before me.
The entry wound in his chest was small, but the exit wound in his back was massive, his internal organs and muscles scorched and hardened into a dull gray, as if cooked.
"A railgun wound..."
When the multi-legged tank first debuted, its overwhelming defensive capabilities were shocking, but what truly terrified everyone was its miniaturized railgun.
It punched through concrete and tank armor alike without a second thought. Human technology had absolutely no way to stop it.
To make matters worse, the machine fired it like a machine gun.
An impenetrable defense coupled with an offensive power that made human science look like a joke.
It was said that during the multi-legged tank's first deployment, an entire armored battalion was vaporized in an instant.
Suddenly, a distant explosion rumbled.
With a sound like rolling thunder, an apartment building at the edge of my vision collapsed.
It seemed the machine had already swept through this area and moved onward. I took a step forward, desperate to catch even a glimpse of it.
But...
"What?"
No matter how many steps I took, I found myself right back where I started.
The soldier's corpse, pierced by the railgun, still lay before me, and the same apartment building in the distance collapsed all over again.
"It's still incomplete. We haven't gathered enough affinity information yet," Lee Jun said, stepping up beside me.
"Affinity information?"
"Yes. The affinity information that makes up this Event Zone has to be collected before the zone can be fully rendered. Right now, it's at about seventy percent... We can watch, but we can't interact with it."
I looked toward the collapsing apartment building.
Shhh-shuaaaaa!
High above, somewhere beyond the clouds, something tore through the sky directly over our heads.
It was a sound I had heard countless times on the battlefield—the shriek of an orbital ballistic missile ripping through the atmosphere as it descended.
"Let's go back. There's nothing we can do here right now."
I followed Lee Jun back inside the department store.
In an instant, the desolate battlefield vanished, replaced by the bustling, glittering entrance of the department store.
Yet, the sharp, ozone tang of plasma generated by the railgun still lingered in my nose.
Lee Jun gestured for me to follow as he walked ahead. I caught up and asked, "Do Event Zones have nothing to do with time?"
The virtual world of the Internet perfectly recreated the peaceful era before the war.
Yet, the scene I had just witnessed took place three years after the war began. In other words, a piece of the Internet's "future" had just unfolded before my eyes.
"Yes. For Event Zones, conditions are far more important than the flow of time. As long as the conditions are met, any point in time—past or future—can become an Event Zone."
"Conditions?"
"Whether that event actually occurred in reality, and whether the AI—namely, F—recognizes that event."
Lee Jun led me to a PC cafe near Uijeongbu Station. Remembering how close I had come to being detected by F in the past, I followed him cautiously.
"Here, take a seat."
Lee Jun guided me to a secluded corner. It was a pair of adjacent seats set apart from the rest of the room.
"If you want to talk in private, these seats are the best."
"You go in first. I'll take the aisle seat."
Sitting on the outside would make it easier to react if anything went sideways.
"Wow, such a gentleman..."
Lee Jun murmured in admiration for some reason as he slid into the inner seat.
Just as I was about to sit down, a female employee approached with a tray of snacks and paper cups filled with instant mix coffee, stopping between Lee Jun and me.
"Excuse me. This is on the house."
Even after setting down the coffee and snacks, she didn't leave. Instead, she lingered, fidgeting nervously. After a moment, she looked at Lee Jun and asked, "Um, by any chance, are you two..."
"We're friends."
"Oh... friends. I see. Well, if you need anything, just send a message through the system."
Looks like you finally made a friend, Mister! ~(￣▽￣)~
Shut up.
The employee walked away.
"That's the first time an inhabitant of the Internet has approached me to strike up a conversation."
"Really? Doesn't it happen often?"
The only inhabitants who ever approached me were security guards telling me I was trespassing.
As I sat down next to him, he turned on the computer monitor.
"Like I said earlier, whether an Event Zone exists in the virtual world depends entirely on whether the AI—F—recognizes the event. For example, the Battle of Uijeongbu we just saw was the very first battle where the multi-legged tank appeared. Naturally, F, which oversees the Machine Species, would know about that battle. Therefore, an Event Zone can be generated."
Lee Jun pulled a USB drive from his pocket and slotted it into the computer.
"But things happening in the real world of Maetan right now—like you visiting my place, for instance—F has no way of knowing about them. That's why no Event Zone is created for those events in the virtual world."
So basically, real-world events recognized by F are recreated on the Internet.
CC summarized it briefly.
"Wait. What about the military leak at the Royal Canin? How would F know the details of that event?"
"It's simple."
Lee Jun grabbed the mouse and opened a file on the USB drive.
How Do Event Zones Occur?
Brightly colored text and shapes filled the screen. When Lee Jun clicked the mouse, a new page appeared like a slide transition.
⊙o⊙ Whoa, PowerPoint...!
CC sent a message expressing her bizarre awe. A newspaper clipping was displayed on the screen.
WORST MILITARY LEAK IN HISTORY
Military civilian employee leaks Class-1 confidential data to China at a Gangnam Station bar...
"The incident at the Royal Canin was reported in the news and published in the papers. That's how F knows about it. However, none of the articles specify exactly what military secrets were leaked. That's why the contents of the USB drive you get from the Royal Canin keep changing."
"So because F doesn't know, it just fills in the blanks with whatever it wants?"
"Exactly."
Lee Jun clicked a few more times, and photos of elderly men appeared on the screen. It was the mission where I had seized the artifacts alongside Dae-nyang.
"The artifact auction Event Zone is the same. There was only a single article written by an investigative journalist, which the higher-ups probably tried to suppress. It didn't specify which artifacts were sold or what happened to them. That's why the loot changes every time you raid it. However, word is that players in Intra-Ansan figured out a way to bypass this using an RNG lock to consistently pull specific artifacts."
My mind raced. If it was possible to reconstruct the past within the Internet... if I could only find out what truly happened on that fateful day...
"Juhyeok?"
Lee Jun whispered in my ear. I heard a few women sitting nearby let out quiet squeals, while others gasped in shock.
"Are you listening?"
"Apologies. I was lost in thought for a moment."
"It's fine. Anyway, what I'm saying is, I want to fully render the Event Zone we just saw. If we succeed, we'll gain a training ground where we can fight the multi-legged tank as many times as we want."
What's more, it would be the tank's very first battle, where it deployed alone without support from other Machine Species. We could face the multi-legged tank in isolation, completely undisturbed. It would be a perfect testing ground to study the core of the machine army.
"...It seems I misjudged you. I apologize."
"Huh... Pardon?"
Defeating the multi-legged tank was the ultimate dream of the United Human Forces. An enemy impervious to any portable weaponry, requiring heavy artillery or naval bombardment just to scratch its armor. How many of my comrades and fellow soldiers had fallen to its railgun?
"...What do we need to do to complete the Event Zone?"
Lee Jun flashed a dazzling, flower-like smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few women sitting behind us practically swoon.
"Like I said, we need to gather affinity information. Affinity information is a metric representing how many connections we've established with people related to the Event Zone. The reason we're constantly moving from place to place is to locate individuals tied to the zone and gather affinity data by interacting with them."
On the monitor, several circles containing people's faces appeared. The circles drifted closer, their overlapping sections growing darker. Eventually, the words Event Zone flashed within the intersection.
"Let's take the Royal Canin as an example. If you take the train from Chungmuro Station toward Dongdaemun, the older brother of one of the Royal Canin employees is standing on Platform 6 at Dongdaemun Station."
"How do you know that?"
"It's just programmed that way. You could call it a rule of the virtual world. If you cross paths with the brother even for a second and then move to Car 3, the daughter of one of the Royal Canin's regular patrons is riding inside. By weaving together these minor threads of connection with people related to the Royal Canin, you eventually unlock access to the 'Royal Canin' Event Zone."
"Connections? You're just occupying the same space."
"Well, they say even a brush of sleeves is karma, right?"
Honestly, I didn't quite get it. But what mattered to me right now was how I could help.
"So, what do you need me to do?"
We left the PC cafe and headed into a nearby establishment. It wasn't a noisy, bustling pub, but a quiet, dimly lit bar with a heavy atmosphere.
"The Narrow Bar? Strange name."
Since it was still early, the place was relatively empty. As we sat across from each other in a corner booth, a waitress quickly scurried over to take our order.
"I'll have a martini. And you, Juhyeok?"
"...Just a beer, please."
"Understood. One martini and one beer."
The waitress glanced back and forth between Lee Jun and me. But her gaze was somewhat different from the usual looks Lee Jun received. Had the way people looked at me somehow rubbed off on him?
Once the waitress left and the surroundings quieted down, Lee Jun leaned forward and whispered, "Do you see that woman over there?"
He pointed toward a woman sitting at the counter wearing a red dress. She was a young woman whose tightly curled hair contrasted sharply with her exhausted expression.
"What about her?"
"I need to seduce her."
"Huh?"
"And I need your help with that."
"I'm sorry, but I can't help you with that."
Lee Jun looked flustered. "What? Why? You said you'd help."
"Look at my face, kid... I'm not bragging, but I've literally made children cry just by walking past them."
"Ah... Don't worry about that. I'll do the actual seducing. I'm pretty confident in my skills, after all. The problem is..."
Lee Jun pointed toward a man sitting in a corner wearing an aloha shirt. He looked like an ordinary middle-aged man, but I could sense the solid, compact muscle hidden beneath his loose clothing.
"He's her bodyguard. And he's incredibly strong. I tried to pick a fight with him before and barely escaped with my life."
"A bodyguard? Is she someone important?"
"...If I told you the blueprints for the ballistic missiles that will be built in the future are locked inside her head, would that give you an idea?"
I recalled the ballistic missiles flying through the sky in that incomplete Event Zone.
"So we're filling the affinity information through her."
"Yes. According to the records, they had to rain down multiple ballistic missiles just to finally halt the multi-legged tank. She must be a key figure in that Event Zone."
"Fine. What do you want me to do?"
"I'll go strike up a conversation with her. The bodyguard will definitely step in and try to drag me away. Your job is to stop him from interfering."
"...Understood."
Lee Jun stood up and made his way toward the woman.
"What, you again?"
From where I sat, I couldn't see Lee Jun's face, but the woman's expression and voice were perfectly clear.
She doesn't look very thrilled to see him, does she?
A moment later, almost the exact instant the woman let out a small chuckle, the bodyguard stood up.
Mister.
"I know."
I moved swiftly toward the bodyguard. In my hand was the Goblin's Dagger. Without a sound, I drove the blade upward at an angle, straight into his flank.