The God of Controls' One-Coin Clear: Bounty (1)
Taeyang invited Messiah into the room.
Just Messiah alone.
The rest of the players looked disappointed, but Taeyang was firm. He had planned to refuse from the start.
When Messiah heard Taeyang’s decision, he twisted his lips into a crooked smirk.
“I really don’t get why you hate moving with us so much.”
“What?”
“We’re all players. In a world like this, if players can’t trust other players, who the hell can they trust?”
“Beats me. From what I’ve heard, there are just as many cases of players stabbing each other in the back as there are NPCs betraying players.”
And there really were a ridiculous number of them. Some streamers even built their entire brand around bad manners and malicious betrayals, racking up views that way.
Messiah shot back.
“That was before the situation turned into this. Right now, killing someone inside the game is literally murder. You know that, right?”
……That’s right. And if it’s you doing the killing, it’ll be broadcast live in front of tens of thousands of people.
Taeyang frowned.
“Let’s set that aside for now. How many achievements did you collect while climbing to the twelfth floor?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just answer. You were streaming the whole time anyway, right? I got eighty-four.”
“Eighty-four? Wow!”
Messiah’s eyes widened in genuine admiration.
“I got fifty-five.”
At that pace, they could break KK’s record by the time they reached the fifteenth floor. It was a far better result than Hyeonhye had projected.
“Yeah, you at least seem useful. What about the rest of the guys who climbed with you?”
“……Probably around thirty? Some are way below that, others are close to forty.”
Taeyang shook his head.
There were many reasons he didn’t want to travel with Messiah. This achievement gap was just one of them.
“As you already know, I’ve stacked up an insane amount of specs. Playing off that foundation lets me rack up way more achievements. If I have to match your pace……”
“Our levels don’t match if we move together?”
Smart kid.
Taeyang shrugged.
Messiah turned to Ran and asked, “How many did you get?”
“Me?”
Ran looked momentarily flustered by the sudden attention.
“What’s with that face? Like it’s obvious you have to tell me.”
“It’s not like I have to say anything. Whether it’s achievements or not, you and I already sync up perfectly.”
In truth, most players were reluctant to reveal their exact achievement counts. Since it was a direct numerical display of their ability, it was only natural.
On the contrary, the casual way Taeyang and Messiah openly shared theirs would look abnormal to regular NPC players.
Ran crossed her arms and glared at Messiah.
“I don’t want to say the exact number, but I’ll tell you one thing—I have more than you.”
“So we’re roughly similar?”
Ran didn’t answer. Her silence was agreement.
She did have more than Messiah, but the difference wasn’t that big.
Seeing the hostile atmosphere between the two, Messiah let out a small chuckle and clapped his hands together.
“Then how about this?”
Taeyang crossed his arms.
“Go on.”
“Instead of the rest of those players, why don’t you just take me?”
“What?”
“You said Ran is useful so you’re keeping her around. Don’t you think I’d be useful too?”
An unexpected answer.
Taeyang asked again, “……Are you really allowed to decide that on your own without asking the others?”
“They’ll probably be happy about it. Isn’t waiting in a warm, safe shelter drinking coffee a better deal than risking their lives climbing?”
“Hah.”
Taeyang let out a dry laugh.
The way he was talking so freely meant Messiah had turned off his stream the moment Taeyang stopped broadcasting. Otherwise he wouldn’t have casually suggested abandoning his own team like that.
“You’re willing to break up the team you climbed with this whole time just to join me?”
This guy, Messiah.
His tongue is pretty slick.
A warm shelter instead of risking their lives? What?
People who thought like that had made it all the way to the twelfth floor?
What a joke. If they were the kind of people who wanted that, they never would have come this far.
There had been three rest areas—at the third, sixth, and ninth floors. These were the people who had given up every single one of those opportunities to reach the twelfth floor.
Messiah furrowed his brow.
“Hey, friend. Let’s look at the big picture here.”
“Big picture?”
“It doesn’t matter how those guys are treated! What matters is clearing the game and saving the humans trapped inside it! Am I wrong?”
Yeah, you’re wrong.
Taeyang countered immediately.
“What matters more than that is trust. You’re trying to throw away the trust you built with your teammates without batting an eye just to hold hands with me.”
“That’s a very righteous thing to say.”
Ran nodded in agreement.
Taeyang continued.
“Why should I trust you and climb together? If we reach a situation where you can abandon me and climb alone, you’ll definitely do it. Am I wrong? You’ll just spout more nonsense about the big picture again.”
“……It seems there’s been a misunderstanding. The reason I can leave my teammates behind and go with you is because this is a rest area. That’s the only reason I can make this decision.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Taeyang shook his head, arms still crossed.
He hadn’t planned to go with them from the beginning, but after this conversation, his decision had become rock solid.
“Forget it. I’m sure now. There’s no way I’m climbing with you.”
“Hey!”
“Hey? Hey, Messiah. If you want your own wishes respected, shouldn’t you learn to respect other people’s wishes first?”
Messiah glared at Taeyang.
Of course, Taeyang didn’t budge an inch.
“I’ll ask again next time.”
“Want me to answer in advance?”
BANG!
Messiah stormed out of the room in a fit of irritation.
His waiting comrades immediately swarmed him.
“Boss?”
“What did they say? Are we moving together from the next stage?”
“They said he has over seventy achievements! That’s basically named NPC-level combat power!”
Faced with his teammates’ expectant eyes, Messiah shook his head.
“Looks like they don’t really want to move with us.”
“T-Then……”
“So we’re continuing with just our current members?”
Messiah clenched his fist.
“No. I’m not going to back down that easily.”
“Huh?”
“That friend seems like he has zero experience working with other players.”
Messiah smirked.
“Let’s show him. The kind of synergy that only ‘players’ can create.”
* * *
After Messiah left, Hyeonhye spoke up cautiously.
“What do you mean?”
“……Did you suddenly change your mind? You think it’d be better if we traveled together?”
Messiah was a player.
Just that one fact alone made Hyeonhye believe he could be of help to Taeyang. Knowing he wasn’t the only human who had fallen into Dantalion’s world would probably provide massive mental relief.
Of course, the biggest reason was that Messiah was genuinely a skilled player.
But Taeyang shook his head firmly.
“No.”
“That guy…… is streaming.”
Streaming.
The decisive reason he hadn’t told Messiah.
Taeyang’s eyes darkened.
It was something that must never happen.
But.
What if.
What if a player interfered with Taeyang’s labyrinth climb?
What if they interfered with saving Byeolim?
It was entirely possible.
Blackmail from other NPCs, stage clear conditions, and so on.
There were more than enough possible scenarios.
And if that moment ever came, Taeyang was even prepared to ‘turn off the broadcast’ to solve the problem.
Some people might call it inhumane.
It was an unforgivable act.
But to Taeyang, Byeolim’s life held far greater value than anyone else’s.
In other words, it was his final bastion.
To keep that bastion as a bastion, he had to keep his distance from Messiah.
“Huu……”
When Taeyang let out a heavy sigh, Ran raised an eyebrow as if asking what he was even worrying about.
Taeyang was obviously competent, and many players wanted to ride on his coattails.
And yet Taeyang had never once worried about those players.
“If they follow us, just kill them. Like you’ve been doing until now.”
Taeyang scratched the back of his head.
“It’s not that simple.”
Players.
If the act of killing them was broadcast, the situation would definitely turn ugly.
In the worst case, they might even cut his connection under the pretext of stopping his murderous behavior.
Intervention by public authority was a variable neither Taeyang nor Hyeonhye could control, so Taeyang had to consider it.
When Taeyang stayed silent, Ran asked again.
“Is there a reason you can’t kill those guys?”
“Yeah. I can’t kill them with my own hands.”
“Then I’ll kill them. Problem solved, right?”
“No, that’s still……”
It might not be murder, but instigating murder or aiding and abetting it was still a serious crime in reality.
Taeyang let out another sigh.
“Let’s wait for now. If they leave first, we’ll follow much later.”
“Just do what you’ve been doing. Why……”
“Let’s rest. We should recover our stamina while we have the chance. We’ve been running nonstop until now.”
Ran pouted at Taeyang’s unusually half-hearted response.
* * *
Murphy’s Law.
It was a principle asserted by Edward Murphy, a former captain in the U.S. Air Force.
To put Murphy’s Law simply:
Anything that can go wrong will eventually go wrong.
The same applied to Messiah’s situation.
Three days passed like that.
Taeyang let out a sigh.
“This isn’t working.”
His fatigue was completely gone, and now every passing second felt like a waste.
“Shall we go?”
“We have to.”
Even at this very moment, Byeolim was still trapped inside the game.
As Taeyang and Ran headed toward the door connected to the next stage, the waiting players swarmed them like a pack of dogs.
Seeing the crowd of users rushing in like a horde, Ran muttered quietly.
“What are these, a bunch of beggars?”
Messiah greeted Taeyang with a smile.
“Let’s go together.”
“I won’t take responsibility for any of you. I’m making this clear. Once we enter the stage, I won’t help you, and I won’t protect you either.”
“That’s a bit cold. Of course, we don’t really need your help anyway.”
Yeah, right.
Taeyang snorted.
It seemed the others had already heard enough about this topic; none of the other players’ expressions changed much.
“Let’s go.”
BOOM.
Taeyang stepped through the door.
Ran followed, and Messiah’s group came in right after.
A few NPC players who had been observing them from the rest area also followed, apparently thinking there was something to gain from the situation.
BOOM.
The moment the door closed, the space changed.
“Where is this?”
“Whoa.”
The first thing that caught their eyes were buildings that seemed to pierce the sky.
And the sharp, pointed skyline.
Correct. It’s the stage to avoid the oracle.
Nope. It’s the bounty stage. Dal-nim and I streamed it together before.
Hyeonhye looked at the donation window and let out a small laugh.
Bana was a veteran Dantalion streamer and one of Hyeonhye’s colleagues. She had once cleared the bounty collection stage with him.
On the other hand, Taeyang awkwardly scratched his head.
“Bounty? I don’t really remember. What was it again?”
Before he could get an answer, a system window appeared.
5-1 Bounty: Hunt the criminals. 0/20,000,000
At the same time, a massive iron pillar slammed down between the players.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!