Residential area, near the Cheonik Mountain and Jiikhoe Hall where an otherworld spawned.
Sung Siwan’s attack team cleared the otherworld, making the gap disappear.
Still, the defense team kept their guard up.
Soon after, the defense team was relieved to see the attack team appearing through the gap in the otherworld.
“The attack team is back!”
“The otherworld gap completely disappeared!”
The attack team returned, the former chairman of Jiikhoe leading the line.
I was amazed to see Sung Siwan and the team return without any injuries.
‘Their armors are a little dirty, but no one’s visibly injured. It’s not easy organizing an attack team for an SR-rank otherworld with only students though.’
Sung Siwan takes influence over his cousin, Congressman Sung Gukeon, who targets otherworlds almost every week after his election.
He had the most experience among the students too.
Considering his strength, talent, and skills, Sung Siwan is the top player in terms of experience in attacking otherworlds.
Though Sung Siwan himself was humble.
“Siwan hyung!”
“Sung Siwan sunbaenim!”
Sung Siwan had no injuries at all.
Jiikhoe’s members rushed to him, his hoobaes caring for him well.
One of them was the shameless Gye Bastard who called Sung Siwan his “hyung.”
The moment he saw Sung Siwan, Gye Idam carded his hammer weapon and ran to the former.
The bastard arrived in front of him first, and Sung Siwan spoke to him.
“Are you hurt anywhere, Idam-ah? Are all the kids okay?”
“Yes.”
“How’s your second time using that hammer? What do you think? Are you used to it now?”
“I made fewer mistakes than last time when we cleared an otherworld together.”
“Good job.”
Somehow, Sung Siwan’s naggy-ness seems to have increased more, and Gye Idam has become more obedient.
The atmosphere is similar to before and it didn’t feel weird, but the changes were observable.
Looking around the defense line, Sung Siwan found me and came to me.
“Hi, Euishin-ah. You weren’t in the residential area before this started, were you?”
“I was in the freshmen area.”
“I see…”
Sung Siwan welcomed me warmly, but his face became somewhat dark.
One of the reasons why I came to the residential area is because of the Jiikhoe crisis, and Sung Siwan was well aware of it.
The other Jiikhoe students seemed to be wondering why I was here too, considering that the freshmen area is far from here.
However, the facade of being part of Class Zero seemed to cover up the strangeness of my actions as none of them questioned me.
“I’ll tell you about the situation in the central area first. Have you heard Do Wonwoo sunbaenim’s broadcast?”
“Yeah, but if another one came up, we wouldn’t have heard it since we’re inside the otherworld.”
I summarized what happened while Sung Siwan and his team were attacking the otherworld.
The members of JIikhoe stirred as I reported that a demon priest had appeared.
They knew that Eungwang High was in a crisis, but they didn’t seem to have imagined that a Demon Race would appear inside the school.
Some students were terrified, thinking that another powerful royal lineage might appear somewhere inside the school.
“But outside support will come. Communication signal was off, but there were people waiting in line outside. Someone must’ve reported it! If we have to, we can use the emergency exit to…”
Park Seunghyun’s words were common sense.
In PMH, all the people in Eungwang High also held out to the end with such false hopes.
However, the time flow is different inside and outside the school, and it’s difficult to expect external help at this point.
Before Jiikhoe made another futile attempt, I spoke up.
“It’s hard to escape. There’s an otherworld that spawned near the emergency exit just now. Perhaps the same will happen to the others because of the disruption in energy waves.”
“That makes sense but…”
“The boundary’s status is strange too, and the people who are attacking Eungwang High are trying to isolate the school. We have to be prepared on the assumption that there’s no help coming from outside, or it will come very late.”
Silence fell among the Jiikhoe students at my cold words.
I know they must be feeling that something’s wrong since the communication signal hasn’t been restored for hours and there’s no sign of outside support.
My words seem to have affirmed that anxiety.
‘Considering the time difference, less than thirty minutes passed outside.’
I regretted making the Jiikhoe students more nervous, but it was much better than facing a crisis of annihilation without preparation.
Gye Bastard kept his mouth shut while I was talking, but his expression didn’t change much.
But I saw his eyes go darker, as if he’s understanding the situation only now.
Did he really not know what was going on outside the school?
Or did he think that everything was already settled and safe?
Either way, I don’t think he’s of any help now.
Sung Siwan, who had his ears glued to me the entire time, replied first.
“You came here instead of staying at the central area where the demon priest may appear again, Euishin-ah. I don’t think you would’ve run away from that situation even if to save a friend, and I don’t think you came here to check the emergency exit.”
Sung Siwan knew that something would happen at Christmas.
He knew that Jiikhoe was in danger.
The risk isn’t properly grasped, so a specific warning couldn’t be issued.
Although one would be quite nervous in the face of a lack of information and preparation, Sung Siwan was rather calm.
Led by Sung Siwan’s attitude, the other Jiikhoe members seemed to regain their composure.
“You’re here to fight with us because it’s more dangerous here than the central area, right? I want to fight alongside you.”
Sung Siwan correctly grasped my intentions.
He was indeed a veteran, the esteemed former chairman of the Jiikhoe.
If only the current chairman of Jiikhoe was half as good as the former.
For reference, that Gye Bastard didn’t say anything helpful during this conversation, his face only turning dark stupidly.
‘I’m here, but even with rough guesses, we still aren’t sure about most things.’
I kept thinking about the crisis of Jiikhoe while we were preparing for the Christmas event.
The only thing I knew was that they’d be wiped out.
No matter how much I looked back on my PMH memories, I couldn’t know the details of how they were wiped out.
‘First thought was that the enemies wanted to kill someone who belonged to Jiikhoe.’
However, no matter how much I thought about it, there was no one in Jiikhoe for them to aim for.
Jiikhoe had no main playable characters and no prominent NPCs.
At best was Sung Siwan, the grandson of the former head of the association.
Sung Siwan was an excellent player, but he didn’t have the ability or knowledge to interfere with the Black Screen.
‘It’s strange to think that they’d kill Sung Siwan just for being the former head’s grandson.’
Sung Siwan has been actively targeting otherworlds.
A lone wolf, a solo player.
Just as Sung Siwan did when he first attacked the otherworld simulator of the association’s former head, he targets otherworlds alone.
He usually goes alone, and if I were the Black Screen, I would’ve killed him on one of his missions.
If he dies while attacking an otherworld alone, there would be no trails, no witnesses, and their traces would be nowhere to be found.
In other words, there’s no need to take the trouble of exterminating the whole Jiikhoe.
‘Then is it to get rid of Jiikhoe itself? But I’m not settled about that either.’
It’s true that Jiikhoe can do something to disrupt the Black Screen’s plans.
They managed to delay the cutting off of earth power by eradicating the wild boars that the Pig Clan let loose.
But it was strange since Jiikhoe’s adviser on PMH was Choi Pyeondeuk.
‘Is there a need to blow up Jiikhoe further than they already have?’
In any case, just as Choi Pyeondeuk’s followers did against the editorial department of the school paper, there must be a way to grasp and use the weaknesses of Jiikhoe’s students.
At best, Kim Shinrok was dealt with and they secured the advisor of Jiikhoe.
Therefore it’s still strange that the Black Screen wiped out the organization.
‘Though the aftermath was noticeable in PMH.’
The reward of the boar eradication quest was very bad, but considering the wealth of Eungwang High and the budget of Jiikhoe, it was too small.
Perhaps because Choi Pyeondeuk corrupted it.
Few PMH users did the quest thoroughly.
Considering that Cheonik Mountain died later on, the Pig Clan’s quest of cutting off earth power was still successful.
So why did they have to annihilate Jiikhoe?
If they wanted to get rid of the autonomous bodies, they could’ve aimed for the Student Association or the Student Council.
Jiikhoe was quite small then too, so why?
From my very lengthy thoughts, I managed to reach a conclusion.
‘The Black Screen’s target isn’t Jiikhoe. They were going after something else, but maybe Jiikhoe got wiped out while trying to stop them?’
Considering Sung Siwan’s personality, he’d have fought and gambled his life in the event of a crisis in the school.
So, I estimated the expected route that Jiikhoe would’ve taken in PMH.
Perhaps they were trying to head to the emergency exit and attacked the otherworld.
In PMH, the situation got worse without support, so they must’ve been searching for another escape route.
They were likely to have wandered around… Cheonik Mountain.
Rip. Crackle…
It was as if the air was frozen, the sound of ice penetrating ringing aloud.
The people of Jiikhoe were surprised to see the source.
It was Eungwang High’s boundary.
Frost was rising out of the school’s boundary.
“The boundary is freezing…!”
As soon as the words ended, I suddenly felt the cool air.
No, actually, the temperature was dropping.
Students with low physical abilities trembled.
“The whole school will be covered in frost at this rate!”
“What in the…”
Before the students panicked, Sung Siwan looked around and spoke, still in a comfortable tone.
“Something at this scale should be from an energy skill. We need to find the source of the frost and get rid of it before we can’t move! Judging from the extent, the source is likely to be in the residential area.”
Sung Siwan pointed to the freezing boundary.
As Sung Siwan said, there was much more frost that covered the boundary above the residential area than others.
Students began to search for the source, activating their respective insight skills.
And I was the first to find the source.
I pointed to the other side of Cheonik Mountain.
“It’s Cheonik Mountain. From the bamboo forest to be exact.”
Using my Glare skill, I saw the other side of Cheonik Mountain; the bamboo forest was frozen cold.
