A Stage Full of Hostile Eyes
It didn’t end with the other players glaring at him.
The Governor of Abalab is extremely displeased that you threw your wineglass.
The Governor of Abalab's hostility has increased.
Ugh...
Seeing the immediate reaction, Kane groaned inwardly.
Isn’t this going to come back and screw us over later?
While Kane was worrying, Tae-hyun quickly cleared away the alcohol. Yang Sung-gyu, who had seen it, walked over and asked, “You’re Tae-hyun, aren’t you?”
There weren’t many people here who could pass for Kim Tae-hyun. The appearance was different, but Yang Sung-gyu had guessed his identity from the way he acted.
“Ah, ajusshi. Impressive that you made it this far.”
“Yeah. But how’d you change your face?”
“An item.”
Of all people, that kind of item had to end up in the hands of a bastard like him...
That was what Yang Sung-gyu thought to himself. If a guy like Tae-hyun had an item that could change his appearance, there was no telling what kind of mess he could cause with it.
“But why’d you put the alcohol away?”
“I don’t like drinking.”
“You don’t even get drunk in Fantasy Online!”
“Haha. What can I do if it doesn’t agree with me?”
“...”
Yang Sung-gyu cast Tae-hyun a suspicious look.
This punk’s not drinking alone? I’ve got a bad feeling about this...
“Anyway, ajusshi, you still remember what we talked about before, right?”
“Ah, the alliance? Of course. The way I see it, that guy and that guy are in the same guild.”
“Right? And those two over there are probably in the same guild too.”
Both Yang Sung-gyu and Tae-hyun had extraordinary eyes for this kind of thing.
Even when people pretended otherwise, the two of them read information out of that pretense. Players who were avoiding even making eye contact with each other were more likely to be close.
“Are you two friends?”
“...?”
The one who butted into their conversation was Lee Da-bi.
Recognizing who she was, Yang Sung-gyu made a face like he’d tasted something rotten. Tae-hyun reacted much the same way.
“Get lost, Power Warrior.”
“Go play with your nicely crafted longswords by yourselves.”
“...”
Such instantly sharp responses!
But Lee Da-bi didn’t waver in the slightest. Just as Tae-hyun had sensed, the skin on her face was about as thick as his.
“Can’t I promote the guild a little?”
“That’s promotion? Ajusshi isn’t usually the type to get angry, but you people are too much! Even after I marked it all as spam, how the hell were you still sending emails?”
“Forget such trivial things from the past! There’s something more important right now!”
“Like beating the bastard who spammed Power Warrior replies all over my stream?”
At Tae-hyun’s words, Lee Da-bi tilted her head.
“You left so many that I can’t really remember which stream...”
Click.
“Wait, wait. This isn’t a bad conversation to overhear!”
“I don’t think attacking you right now would count as a bad conversation either.”
“See that player over there? That guild master is a guild master too, right?”
No one except guild members actually said guild master in full. Everybody shortened it.
“And the player acting like they don’t know him over there in the corner? That one’s a guild member too.”
“I already know that much.”
“Who wouldn’t know that?”
Yang Sung-gyu and Tae-hyun snapped at everything Lee Da-bi said.
But Lee Da-bi stubbornly pressed on.
“The other groups definitely got guild members in too and pushed them all the way into the finals like this. If we just sit around, we’re the only ones who’ll get screwed. We need to stick together.”
“Since when did we become we?”
“Seriously, ajusshi. Power Warrior and us have never once become a we.”
Cold responses!
When it became clear neither of them was likely to simply come over to her side, Lee Da-bi started to look flustered.
“...Let’s just forget the past!”
“Sure. If I PK you, maybe I’ll forget the past a little. And there’s one more problem bigger than the fact that we hate you. You’re a guild master. Don’t sneak around pretending you came up here alone. How are we supposed to know whether your guild members are somewhere around here?”
“All our guild members got eliminated.”
Yang Sung-gyu snorted.
“And you expect us to believe that?”
“Think about it. Our guild members are all people who joined because of the ads, you know? How good do you think they are?”
Weirdly persuasive!
And it was true. If someone had joined Power Warrior, they didn’t exactly sound like they’d be especially strong.
“So you want an alliance?”
“Yes! At least while we deal with those dirty guilds!”
“Isn’t it shameless, considering you tried to do the same thing?”
“It failed, so it doesn’t count! So are we doing this or not?”
Yang Sung-gyu sent Tae-hyun a look. What do you want to do? was what it meant.
“No harm in it. But one more thing.”
“...What?”
“Quit spamming ad replies on my stream after today. If I see it one more time, I’ll come PK you.”
“What stream is yours?”
“I’ll tell you after this is over.”
“Hold on. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player who looks like you.”
“Fantasy Online is huge. You think you know everyone?”
“If they’re good enough to make it up here and good enough to be streaming, I know them all.”
“?!”
“I keep a separate player list, you know. A list of people to send messages to.”
“...”
Yang Sung-gyu and Tae-hyun stared at Lee Da-bi as if she were absurd.
What kind of lunatic even does that?
“Why would you do something like that?”
“I figured if I poked a hundred people, maybe one of them would join?”
“...”
“Honestly, I don’t even expect much from that. It’s more like noise marketing.”
“Noise marketing?”
“Why do you think our guild is this famous? Because we promoted ourselves this aggressively. If we’d done it some other way, people probably wouldn’t even know the guild name.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Whatever anyone thought of its actual strength, Power Warrior was a fairly famous guild now. When Lee Da-bi had shown up earlier, there had even been players who weren’t guild members copying the advertisements.
“Our guild is about quantity over quality. The people who join know that too. All this advertising is calculated.”
Lee Da-bi looked proud of herself.
Tae-hyun nodded with a strange expression.
“Yeah, that’s impressive.”
“Why would you even do something like that?”
Yang Sung-gyu asked because he genuinely couldn’t understand.
Lee Da-bi made a circle with her fingers.
“For this.”
“Money?”
“Exactly. Money! Fantasy Online makes real money. Do you know how much I make in a month?”
“A hundred million won?”
“...Is a hundred million your neighborhood dog’s name or something? There’s no way I could make that much!”
“Hmm... sorry. Ten million?”
“Not a hundred million, so you jump straight to ten million?! I make a little under ten. But that’s still a ton.”
“With all that advertising, and it’s not even ten?”
“Running ads and managing a guild costs money too, you know? If you want to make even more, you have to invest too.”
“That seems kind of low, doesn’t it?”
Yang Sung-gyu answered Tae-hyun’s question.
“Well, not everyone in the world makes a killing. Cut her some slack.”
At that, Lee Da-bi felt a little offended.
How much do you people make that you can say that so casually?!
“Maybe it’s like this now, but once the guild gets bigger and stabilizes, money’s going to start pouring in. Several times more...”
“Well, sure. Good luck.”
When Tae-hyun showed no real reaction at all, Lee Da-bi got annoyed.
It was a completely different side from the unwavering attitude she’d shown before.
She really changes when money comes up.
Thinking that, Tae-hyun looked at her.
“High-level players like you are always welcome, so if you’re interested, let me know. I can give you a good spot. I can split the income too—”
“No thanks.”
“Don’t need it.”
“...You really have no idea what money’s worth. Fine. Just keep your promise.”
After Lee Da-bi left, Tae-hyun shrugged.
Yang Sung-gyu watched him and said, “All kinds of people exist in this world.”
“Seriously. More importantly, wouldn’t it make more money to just become a ranker and sign a contract with a broadcasting station instead of running a huge guild like that?”
“...”
What kind of if there’s no bread, eat cake nonsense was that?
Yang Sung-gyu almost smacked Tae-hyun in the back of the head, then stopped himself.
Gulp.
Kane rolled his eyes around as he felt the stares aimed at him.
Unlike the preliminaries, this match could be watched by all the other eliminated players too.
The rumors grew more and more exaggerated.
Somehow, before the match had even started, Kane had become the center of the most attention.
The Governor of Abalab pointed to the blue box beside his seat. It shone in a way that looked absurdly expensive.
“Fight! Defeat the other garba— no, the other adventurers and prove your strength!”
“Didn’t you just call us garbage?”
“Surely not...”
“The victor shall receive this box and privileges within the city!”
BWOOOOOO!
With the blare of the horn, the fight began.
Eyes darted back and forth.
Everyone looked tense as they sized one another up.
Who should they attack first?
“We should hit that guy first. Didn’t he say he could beat all of us even if we came at him together?”
One of the players pointed at Kane as he spoke.
Kane squeezed his eyes shut.
So it comes to this after all!
But not everyone was thinking the same thing.
“I don’t think so. Su Ning. Shouldn’t we hit you first?”
“...”
“You worked with a guild and spread poison cooking, didn’t you? Isn’t that way too dirty?”
The one baring his teeth at Su Ning, the guild master of Suning Guild, was the guild master of Crying Hammer Guild.
Apparently thinking Su Ning was the biggest threat, he tried to stir everyone up and make them attack Su Ning first. Thanks to what the Restaurant Guild had done, it was the perfect excuse to pressure him with.
“I have nothing to do with the Restaurant Guild.”
“Nothing to do with them? Their guild master’s Chinese, and you’re Chinese too. No way there’s no connection.”
“Just because we’re from the same country doesn’t make us allies.”
“It makes it a hell of a lot more likely!”
Damn it...
Su Ning could feel the atmosphere turning against him.
There was no proof that the Restaurant Guild and Suning Guild had joined hands, but being from the same country was enough.
This arena was the kind of place where once people had even one decent excuse, they stomped you flat.
Then, all of a sudden, everything went quiet.
It felt like the calm before a storm.
“Get him!”
And then it exploded.
The guild master of Crying Hammer Guild and another player from elsewhere charged straight at Su Ning.
The people in the arena weren’t even particularly surprised.
Honestly, if there weren’t hidden guild members among the finalists, that would’ve been stranger.
“Let’s crush Suning Guild first!”
The guild master of Crying Hammer shouted, hoping the others would join in.
Given what Suning Guild had done, there was every chance they might.
But the people here weren’t ordinary players.
Nod.
Tae-hyun, Kane, Yang Sung-gyu, even Lee Da-bi.
All of them nodded—and then charged the guild master!
“?!”
“Take out the guild master first! Gotta even the numbers!”
No telling how many guild members he’d brought in with him, so the first move was to smash the guild master!
Suning Guild and Crying Hammer Guild were already fighting each other, so they could be left alone for now.
“Y-you...! Come out! Come out and stop them!”
Suddenly forced into a four-against-one, the guild master hurriedly called for his guild members.
The guild member who’d been pretending not to know him in the back quickly cast a buff and started charging forward.
“Kane. Stop him.”
“I know!”
Kane threw himself at the charging Holy Knight.
He didn’t need to beat him. He just had to buy time until they killed that guild master.
“You little shits... do you really want to die?”
The guild master tried threatening them, but there wasn’t a single person here who was going to be intimidated by that.