The Orb of Pure White

Hwang Min-soo didn't so much as twitch at any of the items that had come before.

The piece he was hunting hadn't appeared yet.

"This next one's the real thing, right?"

"Yes. That's correct."

He had even held himself back from an item he'd genuinely wanted, all for the sake of this one.

The Troll Roast.

Hwang Min-soo's gear was already complete. Add a buff-type food on top of that, and clearing dungeons would become trivial — expanding his territory, even more so.

All right. Come on out.

Dozens of lots came and went after that. The auction was winding toward its end.

"And now! Our next item — this one ought to catch the eye of any guild with a Pure White Alignment!"

Hwang Min-soo's eyebrow jumped.

There it was. The thing he'd been waiting for.

"An item that unlocks a guild skill for Pure White Alignment guilds — the Orb of Pure White! Essential for anyone running a guild, I should think. Starting bid is three thousand Coins! Let's begin!"

Hwang Min-soo's paddle was in the air before the words had finished.

"Yes! Bidder 03, plus five hundred Coins!"

Nobody else in the room so much as shifted. The rest of them clearly had no interest in the item at all.

Fair enough. If you didn't have a guild, you had no use for it — and even among those who did, only a Pure White guild needed this particular orb.

There were four types of crystal, after all: Pure White, Dark, Order, and Frenzy. Whichever crystal a guild used first locked in its alignment for good.

Hwang Min-soo smiled as he watched the room ignore it. He'd expected at least a little competition. Nobody was even bidding.

That was when it happened.

"Yes! Bidder 20, plus one thousand Coins!"

Hwang Min-soo's brow tightened, just a fraction. Someone else was after the orb he'd thought he could snatch up for nothing.

Still. He'd accounted for this much.

He raised his paddle again.

"Yes, Bidder 03! Plus five hundred Coins!"

"Bidder 20! Plus one thousand Coins!"

A vein jumped in his temple.

The bastard was doubling every raise he made. The price had already climbed to six thousand Coins.

Who the hell is bidding on this?

He turned his head and looked the man numbered 20 up and down.

What is that?

The man's face was hidden. He was wearing a cheap mask that looked like something he'd picked up off a supermarket shelf.

I'll break him in one shot.

Keep dribbling out small raises and Bidder 20 would just keep clinging on. Hwang Min-soo lifted his paddle.

"Bidder 03! Plus four thousand Coins! The standing bid is now ten thousand Coins!"

A murmur rolled through the hall.

Ten thousand Coins. That was nearly a match for the highest bid of the entire day.

Certain he'd snapped the other man's pride in half, Hwang Min-soo leaned back in his chair and slid a leisurely glance toward Bidder 20.

"Well! Bidder 20, what will you do?!"

No answer. Of course there wasn't. Ten thousand Coins was a fortune. The man looked thoroughly rattled.

What are you going to do about it?

Hwang Min-soo wore the face of a man who had already won. He settled his back against the chair and waited for the gavel.

Then the hall erupted.

"B-Bidder 20! Plus ten thousand Coins! That's plus ten thousand Coins!"

"What?!"

Hwang Min-soo slammed up out of his seat. The number was insane. And he wasn't the only one reeling — the rest of the room was staring as if they couldn't believe what they'd just heard.

"Hey! How much do you have?"

"I-I've got a little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over five thousand Coins."

"Damn it!"

Even pooling Kim Ha-jin's funds, they only had fifteen thousand. Twenty thousand was nowhere close.

"Well! Bidder 03! Do you concede?! Five. Four. Three…"

The count ran down. Hwang Min-soo had no move left to make. All he could do was sit there and watch.

The money simply wasn't in his hands.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

And with that, the last lot of the auction was done.

After the auction ended, I went back to the shelter and turned the orb I'd won over in my hands, studying it from every angle.

"What the hell is this thing, that he wanted it that badly?"

I'd paid twenty thousand Coins to take the Orb of Pure White — a staggering price — but in practical terms, it hadn't hurt me at all. The Troll Roast had put that kind of money in my pocket in the first place.

"Teach, what's that?"

"Got it at the Auction House."

Jin-hwan had just come back from hunting with the others, and the orb in my hand had clearly caught his eye.

"That'd be perfect for a game of marbles. How about a round?"

"Hey. This thing cost twenty thousand Coins."

"What?!"

Jin-hwan's face went slack with shock — and fair enough. He'd hunted himself half to death today and come back with a measly five hundred Coins. Buying a single one of these orbs would mean twenty straight days of grinding himself into the dirt.

"What even is it, that it costs that much?"

"I'm pretty sure it's tied to a guild skill."

A guild skill had appeared the moment I'd founded the guild. I just hadn't been able to use it. A message had told me it would stay locked until I opened it.

Does that mean it's that powerful?

I couldn't afford not to try it. Hwang Min-soo had been planning to use this skill to come plunder our shelter all over again. I needed to be ready for that.

All right, then.

Obviously.

Twenty thousand Coins' worth of orb vanished in a burst of light.

A skill window unfolded in front of me at the same time.

Knights?

I figured I might as well summon them and see.

A pair of sharp whooshes cut the air.

Five figures appeared in front of me. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠People — if that was even the right word. Or was I supposed to call them the System? I couldn't quite get my head around it.

"Greetings, Master. Please give us your orders."

They were dressed like knights out of the Middle Ages, and every one of them dropped to a knee in front of me.

"Teach, where the hell did these people come from?!"

Jin-hwan stared at the knights in open panic. People appearing out of thin air would do that to anyone.

I waved him down, told him to take a breath, and pointed at the labels floating over their heads.

After that, I walked him through everything that had happened in the dungeon and at the Auction House, in detail. The talking fox. The attendant at the Auction House. And now these guild knights. Something that was neither truly human nor animal was living on this Earth.

"So they're not people. Basically NPCs, then?"

"I'm not sure I'd call them NPCs — but looking at those guys, yeah. Earth's changed a hell of a lot."

At first I'd thought it was just monsters showing up. Then came classes, hunting monsters, looting items — and now NPCs on top of it all.

Who was the Planet Manager? What was the hidden truth behind all of this? I was dying to tear those secrets open. But right now, the Cheonha Tongil Guild had to come first.

I ordered the summoned guild knights to protect the shelter. Then, just as I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about to start digging into the Cheonha Tongil Guild, Kang Hyuk came over.

"Min-seong. That guy from before is back."

"That guy from before?"

"Yeah."

I followed him out to the shelter entrance. Someone was standing there.

Kim Ha-jin.

It was definitely the same man I'd seen at the Auction House a little while ago.

Why the hell is he looking for me? I hid who I was.

There was no way he'd recognized me at the auction.

"What do you want?"

"Could we talk for a moment?"

"I've got nothing to say to your guild."

The Cheonha Tongil Guild had tried to plunder us. Were they here to recruit me again?

"Our Guild Master would like to see you."

"Your Guild Master — you mean Hwang Min-soo?"

"No. Someone else."

Kim Ha-jin shook his head.

Someone else?

Until this moment, I'd taken it as given that Hwang Min-soo was their Guild Master. Kim Ha-jin's answer was the last thing I'd expected.

"Then who?"

"You may already know the name. She's currently ranked fourth — Geum Bit-na-ra."

Ranked fourth. I'd seen that name on the rankings. The one with the Enchantress class.

And she was the Guild Master of Cheonha Tongil?

"Could we talk for a moment?"

Kim Ha-jin offered a conversation. He didn't seem to have come looking for a fight, so I had him sit down inside the shelter for a bit.

"Why does your Guild Master want to see me?"

Even if their Guild Master wasn't Hwang Min-soo, I had no intention of going to meet whoever it was. This was still the Cheonha Tongil Guild. They were obviously trying to do something to me.

"The Guild Master has a request to make of you."

"A request?"

"She wants you to get rid of Hwang Min-soo."

I couldn't make sense of what I was hearing. She wanted me to eliminate her own Vice Guild Master?

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said."

"And the reason?"

"Because even the Guild Master's ability isn't enough to keep Hwang Min-soo in check."

That didn't clear anything up.

"Her ability?"

"The truth is, our Guild Master possesses a trait called Temptation."

Kim Ha-jin was telling me his Guild Master's trait. Wasn't that the kind of thing you kept secret from an enemy?

"Temptation?"

"Yes. It allows her to make other people work for her."

"Then why can't she handle him?"

"Because Hwang Min-soo's own desire is far too strong."

Kim Ha-jin's account went like this.

After forming a shelter, his Guild Master, Geum Bit-na-ra, had gathered Awakened to protect the people under her. In the process, she had used her Temptation trait on a handful of them who looked capable. Building a shelter meant to keep people safe couldn't survive internal revolt — so it had been a choice she'd had no way around.

They had hunted the monsters in the area, slowly expanding their territory, and eventually founded a guild. That was when Hwang Min-soo had slipped out of her control.

Using his own trait, he bound his subordinates and guild members into contracts they couldn't refuse, then began expanding the guild at a monstrous pace through plunder and murder. Geum Bit-na-ra had tried to stop him. It hadn't worked.

Temptation, by its nature, didn't compel absolute obedience — it made people follow. And Hwang Min-soo had decided that everything he was doing benefited Geum Bit-na-ra. That was enough to put him beyond her reach.

"So you're telling me Hwang Min-soo is running wild, with or without your Guild Master's consent."

"Yes. That's correct."

"Then why come to me with this?"

"Most of us are already under contract with Hwang Min-soo."

He had bound nearly everyone inside the guild. Signing those contracts in the beginning, without understanding what they were, had been the mistake. They could want him gone all they liked — they couldn't do a thing about it themselves.

On top of that, if Geum Bit-na-ra released her Temptation to cut Hwang Min-soo loose, there was a real risk the entire guild would fall into his hands. She couldn't take that chance.

"And why should I take this job?"

"You're already aware that Hwang Min-soo has his sights on you, aren't you? On top of that, Lady Geum Bit-na-ra has promised more than adequate compensation."

I sat with that for a moment.

Leaving Hwang Min-soo to run free wasn't going to be good for us either. That much was honest.

"All right. I'll meet with her."