The Named Investigator's Careless Post
Whoever it was, she felt a little sorry for them. Having seized first place at the tournament and returned to her quarters, Baek Cheong felt an unquenched thirst that left her restless and fidgety. The moment she stepped inside, she flung herself onto the bed. After spending days roaming the New Year Exchange Tournament, her entire body was limp with exhaustion.
Today was pretty damn fruitful. With a fat reward and the top spot to boot, her heart was completely satisfied. Thinking back on how she had swept the main stage with a handful of Ice Dragon Shatter spells and stood at the peak of the stone platform, the corners of her mouth curled up on their own.
The only regret the tournament left behind was one thing. The flashy exchange of spells had been entertaining to watch, and showing off her skills had been genuinely fun. The problem was that the stone platform had far too many eyes on it, making any gallery activity nothing more than a distant dream. It was a place where she couldn’t stir up even the slightest bit of chaos.
No matter how entertaining the tournament had been, it couldn’t satisfy the trolling urge that had been steadily building inside her.
My body’s tired, though.
Baek Cheong lay sprawled on the bed, blinking slowly. She felt like she could fall asleep the instant she closed her eyes. Yet a small corner of her chest kept itching. The trolling urge she had been suppressing wriggled its way through her exhaustion and slowly raised its head.
Ah, whatever. Let’s just pop in for a second.
In the end, she pushed back the crashing drowsiness and moved her divine sense. To be honest, she simply couldn’t overcome the urge to cause trouble.
She closed her eyes and accessed Mumeongbang with practiced ease. Because she hadn’t checked in for days while watching the New Year Exchange Tournament, the forum was packed with unread posts. Baek Cheong moved her divine sense and began scrolling through the chatter board.
But as she flicked through the posts like tapping a finger, she soon tilted her head in confusion.
Every post she scrolled through was boiling with the same story—a rumor that someone from the upper realm had slipped into the lower world.
The upper realm?
If it had been an ordinary rumor, Mumeongbang wouldn’t be this worked up. What had set the forum on fire was the fact that the person who had sneaked into the lower world was a named investigator from the upper realm—one who possessed a solid name.
Baek Cheong paused her scrolling for a moment. She knew all about solid names. It was the authority that let someone display an actual name instead of the usual anonymous handle and interface number. In the lower world’s Mumeongbang, the only one who openly used a solid name was the Mumeonggak of the marketplace. She had heard it was a privilege reserved for upper-realm investigators, far beyond what a mere lower-world user could dream of.
She had once been slightly tempted herself, but she had given up on the idea long ago since even ascending was still a distant goal. Besides, crossing interfaces was supposed to be extremely difficult in the first place. So the fact that an upper-realm named investigator had burdened themselves with all those restrictions just to sneak into the lower world naturally had the users in an uproar.
Interesting things have been happening.
It had all occurred while she had been away from the forum for several days. Having arrived late to the drama, Baek Cheong couldn’t suppress her curiosity and immediately wrote a post.
But how did you guys even find out?
Replies flooded in almost instantly.
The fact that an upper-realm investigator had personally left a post made her already itchy fingers twitch even more. She kicked her divine sense into high gear and frantically dug through the mountain of accumulated posts. It didn’t take long to find the one everyone was talking about.
Only I don’t have a sword, huh…?
Where an ordinary user handle and interface number should have been, a strange solid name was proudly displayed instead. It was different from the Mumeonggak’s name that had appeared in the marketplace—somehow uniquely mysterious.
This is an upper-realm investigator…?
Since they were an upper-realm investigator, they were most likely a great investigator at the Soul Formation realm or above, yet the whole thing was absurd. The post was already covered in replies from other users.
Baek Cheong kept scrolling through the frantic replies and quickly grasped the situation.
Ah, this.
It was the kind of mistake that happened all the time when people frequented multiple boards. The slip-up where someone accidentally used the same tone and habits from their usual spot in the wrong place. The upper-realm named investigator had apparently posted on the lower world’s Mumeongbang out of habit, then forgotten about their solid name and ended up exposing their identity.
Having seen the same thing countless times on community forums in her past life, Baek Cheong could picture the whole scene perfectly. But what truly caught her attention was something else.
The fact that a named investigator from the upper realm had descended to the lower world. And something she had never seen in any post before.
Gongdeok and Upbo. She wasn’t unfamiliar with them. In her past life, they were essentially the same as upvotes and downvotes. They had been features of Mumeongbang from the very beginning. When she had first joined, Baek Cheong had pressed them out of curiosity. But no matter how many times she tapped, nothing happened. After that, she had treated them as useless features and never paid them any attention.
That was only natural. In all her time on Mumeongbang, she had never once seen a post where the Gongdeok or Upbo count had actually changed. Yet on this upper-realm investigator’s post, an Upbo was clearly displayed.
So they actually work?
Unable to suppress her curiosity, Baek Cheong asked the question that bothered her most.
A kind user immediately replied.
It was a kind answer, but to her it was completely incomprehensible. She had heard of self-forms and interface numbers, but this was the first time she had encountered the term Doheun.
What the hell is Doheun?
Baek Cheong tilted her head, then suddenly grew curious whether she herself had any Doheun. The only way to find out was to try pressing it herself. Pressing it on her own post felt a bit awkward, so she returned to the upper-realm investigator’s post from earlier. Then she firmly pressed Upbo.
Huh?
The number next to Upbo had clearly risen from one to two. Before she could even doubt her eyes, a new post exploded onto the forum.
The upper-realm named investigator had revealed their presence with a frantic new post. All the users who had been holding their breath let out a collective scream at the sight of two Upbos.
The users swarmed toward the suddenly exposed named investigator.
The users left a string of replies as if they pitied the named investigator. At the mention of some great power taking offense, the corner of her mouth twitched. After all, the “great power” they feared was none other than herself, the one currently sprawled in her quarters pressing Upbos.
“Pffft, you idiots.”
A laugh slipped out of Baek Cheong as she watched the users’ panic. But as she observed how viciously they were all behaving, a strange thought rose in her mind. She wondered whether Upbo had any effect outside of Mumeongbang. After all, the upper-realm investigator had completely freaked out over just two of them.
Driven by curiosity, she pressed Upbo on the newly posted message as well. But no matter how many times she pressed this time, the Upbo count refused to increase.
Huh? Why isn’t it working?
If it had been like the upvotes and downvotes from her past life, she would have been able to press it on any post she wanted. It seemed that once you used an Upbo on Mumeongbang, you couldn’t use it again.
Having figured that much out, questions began piling up one after another. What exactly was Doheun? Why did she seem to have it? What kind of power did Gongdeok and Upbo hold outside of Mumeongbang?
But in the end she kept her mouth shut. The atmosphere had grown too menacing; it wouldn’t do her any good to step forward now. There was no reason to announce that she was the one who had pressed the Upbos.
I’ll just stay quiet and watch how this plays out.
Baek Cheong quietly withdrew and decided to observe the situation from the sidelines. The users were still swarming around the named investigator, chattering noisily. Wariness and mockery toward the investigator who had come down from the upper realm mixed together, and Mumeongbang showed no signs of calming down.
Taking in the hostile atmosphere of the forum, she mulled over the two characters for Upbo. A feature that had been completely useless until now had suddenly begun to change because of her. She didn’t know what Doheun was, but it seemed she possessed it. And even an upper-realm named investigator had screamed at the sight of two Upbos.
Gongdeok and Upbo clearly weren’t ordinary upvotes and downvotes.
I should be careful, just in case.
Normally she would have been thrilled at the appearance of fresh drama. But this time, she couldn’t quite relax. The warnings to be careful, that they weren’t going far—the words the users kept repeating lingered in her mind. Even the talk of some great power didn’t sound like complete nonsense.
Did I just create trouble for myself?
There was no way to know what would happen to the named investigator. Forgetting all about trolling, Baek Cheong simply continued to watch the chaotic Mumeongbang with careful eyes.