Crisis is Just Opportunity in Disguise
First, the number of players in the capital of the Erangs Kingdom had plummeted. The only players remaining in the city were those who had already caught the curse and given up on going outside.
"But didn't we rarely go outside anyway?"
"Right? This is why crafting classes are the best."
Crafter players suffered relatively little damage. They could complete most of their quests just by crafting inside the city.
On the other hand, combat classes took the hardest hit!
"Seriously, our HP is locked at 1! How are we supposed to clear anything?!"
"I hope everyone else catches this too! Let's all die together! Damn it!"
As time passed and the exact effects of the curse became widely known, players began to split into several factions:
• The Resigned:"Someone will cure it eventually." Players who gave up and focused on safe quests inside the city.
• The Spreading Spite:"This is so unfair! Everyone else needs to suffer too!" Players determined not to die alone, traveling to other cities to spread the plague.
• The Opportunists:"Selling curse-cure potions here! Only 1 gold!" Scammers trying to make a quick fortune off the crisis.
• The Assassins:"Wait, if everyone's HP is at 1, doesn't that mean they'll die in one hit?" Players hunting down people they had personal grudges against!
High-level players with a lot to lose avoided the cities altogether. The Central Continent was vast, offering plenty of places to hide. Panon was boiling with chaos.
But crisis is just opportunity in disguise. As the scale of the incident grew, ambitious players began to emerge.
"If we can solve this, won't we hit the jackpot?"
"We failed the Sadik's Flame quest last time, but we'll definitely solve this one!"
Experienced ranker explorer parties also threw themselves into solving the quest. Among them was the very party that had tried to solve the Sadik's Flame quest before, only to have it snatched away by Kim Tae-hyun.
"Selling potions! Cure the curse in one shot! Unbeatable price of only 3 gold!"
"This guy is a scammer! Don't believe him!"
"It's a real curse-cure potion! Crafted by a priest over level 100! This jerk is just trying to ruin my business because he couldn't afford it, so don't listen to him! Come and buy! Once they're gone, they're gone!"
Tae-hyun and his companions were still on the street in front of the Erance Royal Palace. The atmosphere had completely transformed because of the curse bomb! Places like the royal palace had been completely locked down, barring any player entry.
Those who were preparing for quests must be crying tears of blood right now.
While other players made a massive fuss—fleeing the cities or hiding in remote areas—Tae-hyun remained completely unfazed. It didn't matter to him anyway! Cain and Lee Da-bi had caught it, but Tae-hyun could continuously dodge the curse using his evasion skills. Tae-hyun was easily the most relaxed person in the entire city!
"Hey, I told you to get lost and stop ruining my business!"
"Give me back my gold!"
"Do you want to die? Huh? Get lost!"
"Hit me! Go ahead, hit me! Hit me if you want to take the penalty!"
A scammer and his victim were grabbing each other by the collar, brawling. Watching them, Tae-hyun spoke with a tinge of regret.
"If I knew this was going to happen, I would've prepared in advance to pull off a massive scam..."
"..."
Cain doubted his own ears. What did he just say?
"What?"
"I said, if I'd known this would happen, I would've crafted potions beforehand and run a massive scam. It's too late to start now. It'd only bring in pocket change."
"Is that seriously the only thing you think of when you see that?!"
"You have to learn how to utilize the situation."
"Exactly! I was thinking the exact same thing."
Lee Da-bi raised her hand in agreement.
Cain stared at them, utterly dumbfounded. He found it mind-boggling that they could think like that when their HP was currently sitting at 1.
These people are seriously...!
"Let's focus on fixing our HP being stuck at 1 first!"
"I'm fine, though? I didn't get cursed."
"I'm a merchant, so I don't really need to go outside either."
"..."
Cain gnashed his teeth so hard it made a grinding sound.
"Should we stop teasing him?"
"Yes. If we tease him any more, he might cry..."
"Who's crying?!"
"Alright, let's stop teasing Cain and start drawing up a plan. I'm fine, but if you two go outside and get unlucky, you could get wiped out in a single hit..."
"I can still fight if I have to. If I chug potions and use skills, I can recover some of my HP."
"We can't do that every single time. Should we avoid combat as much as possible? Let's see what information has been made public..."
Tae-hyun opened the community board to check. The Boiling Ultimate Plague curse. Since so many players had fallen victim to it, information was being uploaded at a frantic pace. Everyone desperately wanted this curse resolved as soon as possible! Although there was some fake news mixed in due to the sheer volume of posts, filtering those out still left a decent amount of highly useful information.
• The one who detonated the curse bomb is a mechanical engineering blacksmith player named Gabriel.
• The detonation site was in front of the Erance Royal Palace plaza. Cursed players moving from there are spreading the plague everywhere.
• Once cursed, HP continuously drains down to 1. Even if you heal or die, it keeps dropping back to 1.
• There is a rumor that Gabriel learned mechanical engineering from Kim Tae-hyun.
"Hey, what kind of bastard is spreading this absolute nonsense?"
Tae-hyun shouted righteously, completely forgetting that he was the one who had taught him. Beside him, Lee Da-bi nodded and chimed in.
"I know, right! I mean, sure, you might have disguised yourself as an NPC to ruin other people's quests, and you might have led an army of Orcs to occupy a castle, but this is way too much of a false accusation!"
"...Do you have some kind of grudge against me?"
"Huh? No, not at all."
Looking at Lee Da-bi's expression, she seemed completely sincere. Tae-hyun suddenly found himself reflecting on his past actions. With a track record like his, it wasn't surprising that he was a prime suspect!
"Oh?!"
Lee Da-bi gasped as she scrolled through the community board. Tae-hyun tilted his head.
"What? Is there some important information?"
"A guy named Gil Babe living in America is offering a massive bounty to whoever solves this..."
"...Can we stick to finding useful information?"
"This is useful information!"
Panon was a game enjoyed by people all over the globe. A large-scale disaster had just erupted within it. As a result, a few eccentric wealthy individuals had actually put up real-money bounties for whoever could cure this disease.
"Wait, they're putting up real money for something like this? Why?"
Cain asked, unable to comprehend. Tae-hyun replied nonchalantly.
"To people that rich, it's pocket change. Plus, it's great publicity."
"Publicity?"
"Wealthy people like that don't just exist in a vacuum. If they're a corporate CEO, their company's name gets spread far and wide alongside this massive event. It's all marketing."
Regardless of their conversation, Lee Da-bi's eyes sparkled.
"We must solve this!"
"I love how consistent you are. Fine. I get it, so keep looking through the board. Gather more info."
The three put their heads together and began reviewing the information.
• Before the quest triggered, the runaway Gabriel and his blacksmiths were spotted in the southern region of the Espa Kingdom.
• Several explorer parties have deciphered ancient documents and are currently heading to the southern Espa Kingdom.
• Players belonging to religious factions have received quests directing them to the southern Espa Kingdom.
"Hmm..."
Filtering out the truth from the lies among the mountain of information was no easy task. But this was where experience shone brightest! Having gone through all kinds of trials and tribulations in Pan-On 1, Tae-hyun's intuition kicked in.
"It's the southern Espa Kingdom."
Filtering out the untrustworthy rumors and predicting based solely on solid facts, that was the most likely location. Gabriel had been spotted there, and ranker explorer parties were heading that way, making it the highest probability spot!
"The southern Espa Kingdom... Oh? Isn't it super crowded over there right now?"
If you traveled all the way down to the south of the Espa Kingdom, you would reach a port. And if you took a ship from that port...
You would arrive directly at the Prica Continent!
And right now, players were flocking to the Prica Continent to prepare for the Arena League.
"Wow, that's going to be quite a spectacle."
"Aren't you acting a bit too detached here?"
"Well, I'm not the one who's cursed."
Ugh, I seriously want to punch him.
If his HP were at 1, Tae-hyun would also die in a single hit, but since he wasn't cursed, there was nothing Cain could do. Cain had no choice but to control his rising anger.
"Let's head over there first. We can watch what other players are doing and then swoop in."
"That's our Tae-hyun!"
Instead of trying to solve the quest himself, Tae-hyun's first instinct was to hijack other players' progress!
"What kind of curse is this?! Everything is going wrong!"
Bae Jang-wook grumbled, ruffling his hair in frustration. Some might dismiss it as 'just an in-game event,' but with so many people and massive financial interests tied to it, Panon was no longer just a simple game.
A tense atmosphere hung heavily over MBS. It was all because of this sudden outbreak. Originally, they had planned to heavily promote Tae-hyun's return from the Demon Realm to score a massive hit. And it was highly feasible; the public response to just the teaser trailers had been explosive.
But then, the plague curse incident suddenly hijacked the spotlight! Because of it, the public's attention had been completely divided. Currently, almost every broadcast special was focused on this plague curse. Rival networks were seizing the opportunity, scrambling to schedule special programs. While Tae-hyun's Demon Realm special was holding its ground reasonably well, it fell far short of expectations considering his usual explosive popularity.
Only the personal streamers are having a field day.
Traditional broadcasting stations that relied on scheduled programming were inherently vulnerable to these fast-paced live quests. Viewers who wanted real-time updates naturally flocked to the personal streams of explorer players attempting the quest.
"Have we contacted the Panon developers?"
"Of course we did. They said no. They're famous for being completely inflexible. Damn it, they have a monopoly on virtual reality games, so they have nothing to lose."
To make matters worse, the qualifiers for the Frika Continent Arena League were about to begin. A massive crowd of players had been heading to the arena on the Prica Continent, promising a highly successful event, but now the curse had thrown a wrench into everything. If things continued like this, there was no telling how many participants would drop out.
Please, someone just solve this quickly...!
Bae Jang-wook muttered anxiously. All he could do now was wait.
"By the way, I heard a rumor that the player who caused this, Gabriel, is Kim Tae-hyun's disciple..."
"Kim Tae-hyun's disciple? Since when did Kim Tae-hyun have a disciple?"
"Right? I've never heard of such a thing either."
Everyone in the room looked puzzled. They were the ones who received and edited Tae-hyun's raw footage in its entirety. There had never been anyone who could be called his disciple.
"PD-nim, a direct message just arrived on the account I manage."
"...?"
One of the staff members spoke up. This employee managed the broadcasting station's official social media accounts. Because of that, an overwhelming flood of reactions from viewers and players poured into this account daily. It was not the kind of account where they would normally pay attention to a single direct message!
"What kind of message?"
"The sender claims to be Gabriel, and says he wants to talk..."
"?!"
Bae Jang-wook gasped. Had Gabriel really sent them a message? For what possible reason?
Completely unaware that the broadcasting station was tearing its hair out over programming issues, Tae-hyun was leisurely preparing to leave the royal palace. Unlike other players who lived and died by their viewer counts, to Tae-hyun, ratings and viewership were things that simply followed him naturally!
"It's so peaceful without all the crowds. Honestly, wouldn't it be better if this curse never got cured?"
"Kim Tae-hyun!!"
"...?"