No Lies Before the Star
Those bastards.
At this rate, I'll have to hand the casino over to the council.
Hudson.
A man who possessed the talents of a Great Merchant, he had planted his roots here in Arcana with rough, burning ambitions. Yet contrary to everything the world saw, he was drowning in a severe financial crisis.
Raising taxes under the pretext of the Great Expedition? While still pocketing the same backroom bribes as always!
Damn Arcana. Damn City Council!
The council had hiked every tax related to entertainment and slapped him with back taxes on every unreported sum. Hudson could not accept it. Every unreported coin had gone toward lobbying the council itself. They had known and looked the other way for years. To suddenly brand it “tax evasion” and clean him out was pure shamelessness. Even in a city where money supposedly solved everything, the council had crossed the line.
No matter how he looked at it, Hudson had become the council’s periodic prey—the hunting dog they slaughtered once the hunt was over.
There was only one way out.
I’m so disgusted I’ll become a councilman myself!
Exactly that: win a seat on the City Council. Hudson’s hunger to reach Level 10 burned far hotter than anyone imagined.
“……What do you mean by ‘speak only the truth’? Are you saying I’m not truthful?”
Had the gods finally answered that desperate wish? A miracle had arrived at the most perfect moment. Yet when he heard the Star’s Successor’s proposal, Hudson could only tilt his head.
“The Star does not listen to those whose words are steeped in falsehood. If you truly wish to earn the right, you must cast every lie aside.”
“I am truthful.”
“A lie.”
“What exactly is the lie? Is my name Hudson a lie as well?”
“A lie.”
“…….”
Even the name of the casino standing right there was Hudson, yet the Star’s Successor called that a lie too. He could not argue. Because in truth, Hudson’s real name was not Hudson at all.
Does he know I’m a Player? Could this be a hunter pretending to be the Star’s Successor?
There were NPCs who specialized in hunting Players. They called Players “sinners” and executed them the moment they were exposed. Countless Players had died at their hands. Their methods of approach and interrogation varied wildly; the only defense was constant vigilance.
Only moments ago he had sworn he would accept any proposal, yet a faint unease still lingered. If the man before him was a hunter wearing the mask of the Star’s Successor……
“Serengeti.”
“……Wait. Wait just a moment.”
The instant that name left the man’s lips, Hudson’s face drained of color. He scanned the surroundings in a flash and pressed a series of hidden buttons one after another, cutting power to every live wiretap and surveillance device. As if no one must ever see or hear what came next.
Still deathly pale, he asked, “H-how do you know that name?”
“The only daughter of Marquis Weiser of the Balan Kingdom. The Pure White Knight, Serengeti. You held a secret engagement ceremony with her.”
“……?!”
He even knew the secret no one else in the world possessed. That engagement had been known only to the two of them. Hudson had never spoken of it. She would never have let it slip either. How could the Star’s Successor possibly know a secret that belonged to no one else under heaven?
That alone was enough to overturn heaven and earth, yet the Star’s Successor was not finished.
“The casino is only the surface reason. What you truly want is to rise as a City Councilman with your head held high and formally propose to the marquis’s house, is it not?”
“…….”
“Convenient timing, really. Serengeti lost both legs in the Great Expedition and became a cripple. A City Councilman of the Golden City of Arcana is someone even the marquis’s house could not refuse. They would welcome you with open arms, wouldn’t they?”
“…….”
“But…… what a pity. A Hudson who is neither Level 10 nor a councilman has no value whatsoever to the marquis’s house.”
Hudson’s eyes tangled into a complex knot.
And the reason I knew all of this was simple. I was the last gamer, and at the same time I had been Wilhelm—the strongest character in the game. Naturally, no one understood the Great Expedition that assaulted the Demon Realm better than I did.
Wilhelm. Most noble and honorable Knight King. If the expedition succeeds, please protect Hudson for me. And deliver this and my words to him. I’m sorry for going first…… I truly loved him.
Serengeti.
She had been a vital talent among those who joined the Great Expedition. Called the Pure White Knight, she had led five hundred knights into battle. When I fell into the Demon King’s trap, she was the one with the courage to leap in my place. Back then I had thought it was just some special event……
I had fought desperately to save her, but both her legs were already gone. A powerful curse left me little room to act. Just before she lost consciousness she entrusted me with a necklace. Inside it I found a photograph of her engagement ceremony with Hudson.
That was impossible. It should never have existed.
As far as I knew, Serengeti had no man to whom she had promised a future. No such setting existed. Hudson was merely the owner of a single casino in the great city of Arcana. How could he possibly have promised a future to the only daughter of a distant foreign marquis? They shared no connection, not even the same region.
The only way it became possible was if Hudson was a Player.
Love between a Player and an NPC, is it?
To Hudson this place was not a game. It was reality. How could something he yearned for with such desperate intensity ever be “just a game”?
Hudson, half-dazed and half-resigned, asked, “What truth…… do you want from me?”
“Everything.”
“Everything……?”
Where should he begin? A man like Hudson would know many of the stories I needed—about this world, about Players, about the 8 Heroes. But if I asked only for those things, suspicion would only grow. I had to maintain the attitude of one who already knew everything about him. That air of mystery would make Hudson continue to mistake me for the Star’s Successor.
“Start from the beginning. Where you were born, how you have lived.”
So let us listen. To Hudson’s story. To the true history of his life.
Scritch-scritch-scritch.
The sound of a knife moving was loud. Plenty of conversation filled the air around us, yet only the cutting of meat drilled into my ears.
……Is she sulking?
Listening to Hudson’s story had made me late for our appointment. Who could have guessed he would speak in such exhaustive detail? And I could hardly tell him to stop halfway. Thanks to that I had learned the names of the so-called 8 Heroes who had erased Wilhelm and were now playing at being heroes……
Those bastards would almost certainly become the greatest traitors standing in my way—enemies with whom I could never share the same sky.
“Is the meat to your taste?”
“Yes. But isn’t this place expensive?”
After a long silence, conversation finally began. The problem was the location. A steakhouse in Cheongdam-dong. I had promised to treat her to a steak that cost 160,000 won per person, and of course I had been late. For a moment the thought flickered—should I be the one paying……?
“You got rid of that stalker for me. Honestly, this still isn’t enough.”
Kim Hana smiled. The stalker. That man had definitely not been right in the head.
“It was only what anyone should have done.”
“No. Only someone truly brave could have done that.”
Stepping forward when someone else is threatened is never easy. That threat can turn on you in an instant. Honestly, I had been a little surprised myself. If I had not been synchronized with Randolph, would I have stepped in? Probably not. Even if I wanted to, my body would not have obeyed.
Kim Hana leaned forward and spoke carefully. “By the way…… that woman at the table behind us—isn’t she the one who was with you back then? She keeps glancing over here.”
……So Kim Hana had noticed as well. That the woman seated at the table behind us was Kim Seoyeon.
What a coincidence this is.
Kim Seoyeon was sitting with the boyfriend whose profile she had briefly taken down. A wealthy businessman. The very man she had transferred to after dumping me. One look was enough to see he reeked of money—wrapped head to toe in luxury brands, Rolex on his wrist. Unlike me.
I had been trying hard to ignore them, yet somehow Kim Seoyeon kept glancing this way too.
“You don’t need to worry about it. We really have nothing to do with each other.”
“Mm, okay.”
Kim Hana had sensed something odd, but she did not dig deeper. She knew too well that sticking your nose into someone else’s romantic mess only brought headaches.
“Park Hyunmyung?”
……If that bastard had not walked over and spoken, I would have completely tuned them out.
“Don’t tell me you followed our Seoyeon all the way here?”
“……?”
What fresh nonsense was this?
“Stop clinging already, you little shit. You’re embarrassing me.”
“O-oppa, just drop it.”
“Seoyeon. You’re too nice—that’s the problem. You have to spell things out clearly for trash like this to get it. Because you won’t say anything, he gets the wrong idea and keeps hanging around like a stalker. A nobody.”
What the hell kind of garbage were these two spouting right now?