Seven Minutes Against Myrves
The Constellations were losing their minds.
Even by my standards — after all the eccentricities(?) I'd put on display so far — they seemed to sense that this time, things would not be so easy.
To be fair, their reaction was entirely reasonable. Where it properly belonged — out in the fields of the Demonic Realm — Myrves was an Epic monster that exceeded even Level 100.
Digging through my memories of the beta server… Myrves was the monster so ferocious and so maddeningly tricky that only somewhere around my two-hundredth loop did I finally manage to kill one.
So even appearing here at Level 20, it was a beast on an entirely different dimension from the Epic mobs like the Moon Shadow Wolf I'd put down that morning.
A dirty, rotten bastard in every possible way.
My eyes met the demonic beast's grotesque form, and a sigh escaped me before I could stop it.
"Phew."
Wasn't this something I'd anticipated? Honestly? No. The Earth server has been live for over ten years now — how was I supposed to imagine this thing would still be here?
Besides, the hidden dungeon I was about to enter had one more route in. That one required an artifact called the Mirror of Truth, sure — but the simple fact that the entry routes were multiple meant this dungeon was easy to stumble across.
So naturally I'd assumed some player must have already discovered the hidden dungeon. That this gatekeeper had already been put down, and the rift already opened. If I'd known this thing would still be standing here, I'd have ground safely up to Level 15 before coming.
Things had gotten tangled, to put it mildly. And in my current state, even I couldn't claim to feel certain.
Then this time, I truly can't afford to make even a single mistake.
Was holding out for seven minutes really such a big deal? As a matter of fact — despite all the Constellations' hand-wringing — surviving wasn't particularly hard. What made this thing nasty was its hellish regeneration. The problem was that surviving alone wouldn't get us into the hidden dungeon.
Every single time it failed a mechanic, the creature's health came roaring back like crazy. That was why I'd said we had to kill it within seven minutes without making a single mistake.
Ssssssssh—
With a skin-crawling hiss, Myrves's body began to writhe. A colossal tangle of vines woven into something that conjured the image of a tentacled horror — from the center of its mass, countless vines burst outward, coiling and snapping, and I reflexively drew my sword.
Shing—!
And then, from between the vines, from a darkness like the abyss itself—
Its pallid, venomous green eyes fixed on me.
"Dave."
Leo had stepped up beside me at some point, his voice low. "We can handle this monster too… right?"
There was no mistaking the tension lingering in Leo's eyes as he squared his stance — and yet it no longer carried that helpless dread from when the Dryads had first appeared. The experience of moving in sync with me and cutting down dozens of those creatures had evidently planted a seed of confidence in him.
"Of course we can."
In that case, I'd have to move more aggressively myself. Leo wasn't anywhere near ready to face this thing, of course… but if I showed him how I dismantled it, maybe he could imitate enough of it to matter.
The effect of Unity of Body and Blade is now active.
Demonic energy is stirring awake in Myrves's heart.
So just focus on holding the line, Leo. I won't even ask you to deal damage.
But the very next moment, I found myself genuinely flustered.
Woooong—!
Honestly, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me… because from the blade Leo had leveled at Myrves, a faint haze of blue light was quietly blooming.
"Whoa, incredible…! So that's how you do it."
What the…? Don't tell me he just copied Unity of Body and Blade?
The world inside the Gates was vast. According to the experts' research, every field charted within the Gates so far, taken all together, was said to cover at least half the surface area of the Earth itself.
And within that world, there still existed wholly unconquered wastelands — places like the Demonic Realm, first discovered only a year ago.
"So what you're saying is… you found a new trace of the Tower of Calamity inside the Ashen Citadel."
"That's what I said."
The Demonic Realm remained barren for the simplest of reasons: it was overwhelmingly dangerous. In the current era, the level at which one could officially bear the title of Ranker was 100 — and in the Demonic Realm, even the trash mobs started at Level 100.
Meaning that even parties made up entirely of rankers could find themselves grinding through the ordinary fields. That was the Demonic Realm. It was only natural, then, that most of its territory remained untouched wasteland.
"And there's apparently a clue to the 3rd Job Advancement in there as well."
"Don't make me repeat myself. I'm tired."
Even by the standards of top-tier rankers like the Sword Princess, raiding the Demonic Realm was always a wager with one's own life. And yet the rewards justified that risk — which was why the challenges never stopped.
"The Ashen Citadel, huh… Last time I went, I genuinely nearly died."
"Then go ahead and die scared, for all I care."
Though the public didn't know it, the Sword Princess was in the middle of her 3rd Job Advancement quest — and as part of it, she had no choice but to set foot in the Ashen Citadel. Only seventeen people in the entire world had achieved the 3rd advancement. If the Sword Princess, currently ranked 28th on the world player rankings, succeeded, breaking into the top ten was well within reach.
A reward of that magnitude — surely worth staking her life on. It was precisely why she, who normally preferred to move alone, had taken it upon herself to assemble an expedition.
"Oh please — scared? What nonsense are you spouting."
"Am I wrong?"
"Why must you act like such an amateur."
The man seated across the round table from her, a ranker in his own right — Thunder Spear Ryu Kang-min — broke into a wide grin and carried on.
"I need to get something out of this too, don't I?"
"I assume you're not about to tell me you need LP."
Ryu Kang-min, ranked 47th — below the Sword Princess, but still a top-tier ranker. The two belonged to the same Varga Guild and had long enjoyed a close friendship. Even so, there was no way he'd lend his strength to a quest this dangerous for nothing.
"Help me with the Cavalry Raid."
"I helped you last time, didn't I?"
"Until I get the Dragon Spear."
"…And when exactly is that supposed to drop?"
"And I'll help you through your 3rd advancement, no complaints, until it's done. That's a fair trade, isn't it?"
"Damn it."
Ryu Kang-min chuckled. Whatever her displeased expression suggested, she had no choice but to agree — and not simply because he was such a powerful high-ranker. The Ashen Citadel she meant to raid was one of the highest-difficulty fields in existence, and rankers with actual raid experience there were rare.
Counting every player in Korea, there were probably fewer than five — and Ryu Kang-min was one of them. He had entered the Ashen Citadel no fewer than five times. For the Sword Princess, whose experience there amounted to a single expedition, he was a party member she desperately needed.
"I'll pull my weight, so wipe that look off your face."
"Sly as ever."
Their eyes met, and Ryu Kang-min straightened in his seat. The deal was all but settled — now was the time to hammer out the specifics.
"By the way, you said there were 'required items.' That without them, even getting into the Ashen Citadel would be meaningless."
"That's right."
"Did you secure them all already?"
"Everything I could get on my own."
A flicker of something unusual passed through Ryu Kang-min's eyes.
"Which means…"
"One left."
"What is it?"
Having tipped the last of her coffee into her mouth, the Sword Princess answered in a low voice.
"Zerathus's Flag. It's in a place I cannot reach."
Ask the players of the Awakened community a question like this—
Almost every one of them would give the same answer.
That was exactly how notorious Dream Peak was. Even on the Island of Beginnings, where fatal accidents among players were all but unheard of, this was the field where casualties cropped up year after year without fail.
And so Baek Haram, a self-confessed Island of Beginnings lifer, always sharpened his focus to a razor's edge whenever he came here. Today was no exception.
Besides — right now, he was alone.
It's… been quite a while since I was last here.
Haram had come here alone not because he'd come to hunt. The task before him was to comb this field from top to bottom. Having to sweep every last unexplored corner of a field, he'd judged that extra bodies would only get in the way.
Shaaaah—!
From the fissured ground all around, a sinister hiss rose as violet mist bloomed upward. Avoiding the clouds, Haram stepped into a safe zone and drew a short breath, surveying his surroundings.
Had he advanced into a stealth-capable assassin-type class, the search would have been far easier. But players on the Island of Beginnings simply couldn't take an advancement — which meant the search would have to be done the dumb, laborious way.
Let's not overextend. Slow and steady.
Haram resolved to give himself some breathing room. No matter how fast he moved, finishing the sweep in a single day was pure fantasy — Dream Peak was hardly a cramped little field, and what he had to do was a full survey, every inch of the map.
He had, admittedly, marked the North Peak — a stretch the players' footsteps rarely reached — as his first target. Even so, he held no expectation of finding the objective within a day.
With that in mind, Haram lifted the Mirror of Truth and began scanning the field.
The rare artifact known as the Mirror of Truth was used above all to locate "distorted spaces." The hidden field said to conceal Zerathus's Flag was most likely tucked away inside just such a twisted, warped space — otherwise, its remaining undiscovered to this day would have made no sense.
Come to think of it, there'd be no reason for anyone to haul this thing around the Island of Beginnings… so if a hidden field like that really existed, no wonder nobody ever found it.
Once this mission was safely wrapped up, Haram decided, he'd give the rest of the island just as thorough a going-over. If something as special as Zerathus's Flag truly had been hidden on the Island of Beginnings, then it stood to reason that other hidden pieces might be waiting elsewhere too.
This might turn out to be an even bigger gold mine than I expected.
But two or three hours into the search, every stray thought had been scoured from Haram's mind.
"Hoo…"
Combat was an unavoidable part of the search, and the fighting had proven far more grueling than he'd anticipated.
They're all aggro-first mobs… dodging around them is harder than I figured.
Emerging from yet another fight, Haram wiped the sweat streaming down his forehead and caught his breath. Once he finished wrapping up this stretch of the field, he'd do well to head back to town and resupply.
This mission might run longer than expected…
Trudge… trudge…
On leaden feet, Haram found another safe zone and settled onto a rock, uncapping his canteen.
Pop—
But his fingers had gone weak, and the cap slipped free.
"Ah—!"
He'd been sitting on high ground, and so the canteen cap went bounding away down the slope, gathering speed with every bounce. And then, the very next moment—
"…!"
Haram spotted something and shot to his feet before he knew it.
Over there — there's something there!
The cap, which had been rolling faster and faster down the incline, had abruptly traced an unnatural trajectory — as though it had struck something in midair — and bounced away.
The mirror! I need to check the mirror!
Acting on instinct, Haram hurriedly rummaged through his inventory and pulled out the Mirror of Truth.
Using the Mirror of Truth.
Wooong—
And when he confirmed what the mirror reflected, he couldn't help but shout for joy.
"It's here! It's really here!"
The mirror hadn't shown him Zerathus's Flag itself, not directly — but what it had confirmed was the existence of a hidden barrier.
Stay calm. Record the coordinates first, and then…!
What the Mirror of Truth revealed was a space steeped in a dreamlike, eerie aura, unmistakably different from the scenery of an ordinary mountainside. Precisely how to proceed was something he'd have to work out from here — but one way or another, if he could unseal that barrier, he would be able to step inside that space.
Results like this, barely a single day into the mission. Even his supremely unflappable superior, Team Leader Yoon Se-jin, would be genuinely taken aback when this report came in.
But at that very next moment—
"Huh?"
Rotating the Mirror of Truth to examine the hidden space piece by piece, Haram found himself swallowing air.
What? Did I just see that wrong?
The mirror couldn't project every last detail of the concealed space — but he was certain. Just now, from somewhere inside, he had glimpsed a person.
Don't tell me somebody got here first—!
His heart hammering, Haram hurriedly opened the guild messenger. A powerful unease had bloomed in his chest: if he didn't report immediately and get manpower deployed, they might lose the objective altogether.
But at that very next moment—
Ring—!
The sight that unfolded before his eyes froze Baek Haram where he stood.