A few minutes ago, when Seodol went outside Jiho’s boundary…
Unlike what it looked like from the outside, Seodol felt a bit of hesitation as he ran outside.
In the midst of the still raging torrent of energy wave, the location of the main building of the Chengdu Players’ Training Center has its back gate leading to a forked road.
Seodol was lost in thought.
‘The source of this disturbance is obviously the main building of the training center. That’s where the energy pressure feels the most powerful. But the back gate also bothers me a lot. What should I do?’
Although Seodol is the well-respected head of the Rat Clan and a chief designer of a luxury brand, in the end, his root was nothing bat a meekly ‘mouse’.
But he’s not ‘just a mouse’.
All the legends about him say that he is wise.
And like a wise mouse, he was moving at the moment while hiding his traces.
‘Why is there such a thing as a rat that creeps out of this area?’
It’s only natural to evacuate in the midst of such a powerful torrent of energy waves.
However, something was strange about the man who was detected by Seodol’s senses.
Evacuating and sitting in silence didn’t cross Seodol’s mind.
Swiiish! Boom, boom!
In order to avoid the oncoming shockwave, Seodol used a new technique.
While Seodol was deep in thought, the surroundings gradually turned into a wasteland.
He jumped and flew towards the back gate.
‘This could be Mireuk-nim guiding my senses, so let’s follow it!’
With such a thought, Seodol began to move again using his skills.
Unlike his opponent who desperately tries to mask his trail, Seodol didn’t bother to do so.
He quickly caught up with the opponent.
Seodol landed directly in front of the man hidden by an item.
“Hey?”
As Seodol greeted the man like so, he threw his gray beads up into the air.
Swiiish…
The energy wave from the gray beads disabled the hidden item being used by the opponent.
“….!”
Fwaaaa!
An unidentified person hurriedly threw out his items that turned gray and began to rot.
He had no choice but to step back.
The unknown person was wearing a mask, making it difficult to see his face.
However, the man’s gold-colored hair was seen being blown back by the air.’
“What were you doing? Why are you trying to run away with that hidden item? Why are you bothering people with the strong winds? And most importantly, why are you messing with my vacation?”
Seodol asked rapid-fire questions with his head high up.
The blond man didn’t speak a word and tried to fly away.
However…
Fwaaa!
Seodol also flew with the blond man and stopped him once again.
“I was talking to you, why are you suddenly running away? Ah, perhaps you don’t speak Korean? I can speak either Chinese or English but I don’t want to be particularly so considerate of you so I’ll just talk like this.”
The blond man opened his eyes and soon took a stance inviting a battle.
Seeing that, Seodol took a deep sigh.
“Looks like you have no intention of having a conversation? You may seem and act like a rat, just like myself, but you’re not as wise as I am.”
Even before Seodol finished talking, a strange wave of fire flowed out of the gray beads that Seodol floated in the air.
* * *
In order to encourage professional player teams to continue being competitive, The Player Association yearly discloses the ranking of teams based on their achievements in the field.
Fluctuations occurred frequently in the rankings, but the list of professional teams in the top 10 was almost fixed.
One of the top 10 teams was called The King of the Red Flame, led by none other than the ‘Red Lion’, Yeom Bangyeol.
Another was called the Lake of Eternity, led by the Blue Violinist Kwon Jein.
And yet another team called The Oath of the Three Knights.
The pattern of that team was engraved on the item that Seodol handed over.
“Where in the world did you get this?”
Hwang Jiho asked Seodol as he looked at the team pattern.
It seems like Hwang Jiho recognized the pattern of The Oath of the Three Knights.
“Hmmm…”
However, Seodol didn’t answer Hwang Jiho’s question right away.
Seodol hesitated as he glanced back at the pattern.
“Why aren’t you answering? What the heck happened?”
When Hwang Jiho asked with a growingly serious tone, Seodol replied with a more serious look.
“Just wait a minute. I’m thinking about how I can convey my wonderful performance without making Jo Euishin feel burdened. I’m contemplating on how I should say this, so will you be quiet for a second?”
“You’re crazy. Did you get hit in the head while you were out there? Ah no, it seems like you’re constantly growing crazier and crazier as time goes by.
This time, I have the same opinion as Hwang Jiho.
Seodol shut his mouth and contemplated for a full minute before starting to speak.
He explained that he searched for the source of the disturbance.
In the process, he found a mysterious person acting in secrecy. Seodol decided to confront him.
As a result of Seodol’s confrontation with the blonde player, it seems that he succeeded in extorting what he had in his arms before the man was able to erase his traces.
“So? What happened to the blonde player?”
“He knew that it was impossible to run from me, but he also realized that it’s even more difficult to fight me one on one. That’s why he killed himself.”
Seodol smiled, moving his eyes and mouth gently.
Somehow, that smile gave me the creeps.
“He was carrying around quite unique items. As soon as the effect of the item was activated, not only the blonde’s body but also everything he was wearing began to melt. Before everything turned to ash, I was able to salvage this.”
As if expecting a compliment, Seodol side-glanced at me.
He seems to want me to praise him and agree with receiving his order in the end.
“You fool. You must bring him back to life.”
“That won’t be such a difficult thing to do if it were a normal situation. But back where we were, shock waves grew more and more frequently than here. And I don’t want to be nagged by the Yellow Tiger who barely did anything.”
“Huh? I was protecting Jo Euishin and the others. You, on the other hand, couldn’t control your anger and left without a word. You’ve made a foolish choice when you’ve been begging Jo Euishin to receive your order all this time.”
“You took care of that part on your own just fine, didn’t you? I know the person that Tot cherishes is not an ordinary person either.”
The two clan heads began to fight with words after Jiho learned that a player committed suicide.
When Hwang Jiho almost forcefully took the team mark of the team Oath of the Three Knights from Seodol…
“Someone contacted us. I think we should head to the hotel for now.”
Jegal announced to us.
Looking at the hologram, we saw the conversation he had with someone.
While the two clan heads were still busy fighting, Jegal suddenly spoke to me.
“Euishin, are you in trouble?”
“Eh?”
“You know… did he ask to give you an unwanted order, or did he suggest that he’d scout you for a new company or a new team…”
Jegal must’ve been worried about me even in this chaotic situation.
“He offered to give me his order, but I refused. I’m okay.”
“Alright… He always says that he has no intention of harming those who he wants to give his protection to. Even so, if he gets too persistent, tell me right away.”
He’s already too persistent. But I don’t want to burden my playable character so I just decided to gloss it over.
Jegal also showed worry for Hwang Jiho.
“I’m also worried about Hwang Jiho, but I’m sure Seodol won’t mess with a direct relative of Hwangmyeong’s Chairman. I don’t think he’ll do anything bad.”
Well, Seodol’s dealing with the Chairman himself.
After that, our team decided to go back to the hotel.
Moon Saeron took a lot of pictures at the scene but still looked disappointed.
“Looks like we won’t be able to write an article about this one…”
“Shall we write one?”
“I want to do that too, but we haven’t covered anything. We were just struck by an unidentified player at the Player Training Center. That’s it.”
“…. Yeah, I guess we can’t use that one. It’s our loss if we don’t get another interview after all this.”
“True. Maybe we could see the interior of this place later.
The newspaper department members continued to talk about the incident even after we arrived at the hotel.
Jegal was already busy with contacting the Chengdu City Player Training Center.
The Year 2 seniors didn’t dare to bother Jegal anymore after hearing the news from the head of the newspaper department.
Hwang Jiho and Seodol seemed to have stopped fighting. However, they sat at different tables as they sipped their tea.
I headed to Jiho’s table and talked to him.
“Hey.”
“What’s the matter? You seemed to have been lost in thought.”
Just as Jiho said, I have been preoccupied with thinking about the consecutive energy wave explosions and incidents in China.
To put it bluntly, it’s no question that several incidents broke out in just a short period of time on this huge continent ever since the collision of the two worlds.
However, there are many things that tells me that these events were mere coincidences.
‘It’d be nice if we check it out.’
After Jiho took another sip of his Byeokrachun tea, I added another word.
I don’t think it’s the tea provided by the hotel. I wonder when and where Jiho got such tea leaves.
“I want to see Mok Wooram. Where is he?”
“He’s being protected by my men in a hotel near here. I moved him there for easy contact with Hong Gyubin.”
Hwang Jiho floated a hologram of the city map and pointed to a location.
Seeing the location, we’d have no trouble going there by foot.
“Is he not awake yet?”
“Yes. But I think he’ll wake up soon. Let’s visit after I finish drinking my tea.”
Jiho offered to go together.
Another voice offered to come.
Seodol, who was sitting at another table and sipping his tea, smiled and spoke at us.
“I want to come too.”
* * *
When I told the newspaper department that I’ll take the two crazy guys to go shopping, they let us go right away.
Everyone seems to think that those two have some problem with each other.
Hong Gyubin also thought to come with us, but he was too busy helping Jegal.
In the end, I was the only one responsible for the two crazy guys.
“This isn’t too bad. Did you buy a membership card here?”
“It’s just easy to make a reservation.”
When Hwang Jiho handed out his card at the hotel’s entrance, three hoteliers with gold badges came to greet him.
When Hwang Jiho greeted them in return, the three took a silent step back while still maintaining their deep bow.
He doesn’t have to say anything for us to realize that he was being treated as the highest-level VIP.
Hwang Jiho immediately led us to the elevator where a guard was standing.
When he put in his card key, the elevator door opened.
Except for the emergency buttons, the only input device in the elevator was a card recognition hardware.
It recognized the card and took us to the designated floor instead of having the standard elevator buttons.
“Tell me if you need anything.”
“I don’t need anything in particular.”
“I’m not talking to you, bastard.”
The two clan heads continued to quarrel even as we arrived at the top floor.
A man in a suit was guarding the bedroom of the suite.
When I went into the bedroom, I saw Mok Wooram sleeping on the bed.
“He hasn’t woken up yet?”
“Not even once.”
Mok Wooram’s clothes were all straight and clean. A sign that he wasn’t even tossing or turning in his sleep.
‘Will he wake up if we wake him up? I’ll try tapping his shoulder.’
I reached my hand out toward Mok Wooram.
And then…
*Grab*
An open-eyed Mok Wooram grabbed my wrist.
