Chapter 71: 71

Chapter 71: Hill of Blowing Wind

I couldn’t stop what was bound to happen.

‘Even if it didn’t happen today…’

It would definitely happen eventually. A Players Convention would be scheduled one day, and during it, an ‘event’ would certainly occur. Since that was the case, I decided it was best for me to use the knowledge I had and the factors I was capable of controlling to do my best.

‘I’m going in.’

The field was a large hill. I looked around, seeing a crowd of Players that hadn’t yet figured out what was happening.

‘Even without knowledge of the future… if you step back a little and think, it’s natural for something like this to happen.’

This was a place full of Players in their beginning days, and most of the ones chosen in one way or another were here. With Streamers and Guardians alike watching, of course it would be a big event. It was the first gathering of Players independent of the ‘System’. It would be fun if ‘something’ happened during it, no?

‘Like what the Giant of the Sunset did.’

The Giant of the Sunset made the ‘Shot Table Dungeon’ for Choi Sung-gu. The Guardian likely had to invest a massive amount of Coins to make it happen, all for his own amusement and pleasure. In other words, a Guardian’s extravagance. There were many Guardians who could afford such extravagance.

‘They can easily make one flash gate.’

Actually, there was no way to check if it was a gate artificially made by a Guardian. I simply estimated that there was a high chance it was.

‘Broken pillars.’

There were marble pillars broken at various heights. In the past, Jo Sunghyun once revealed the following:

–There were eighteen broken pillars there.

As I was looking at the pillars, people discovered that Yoohyun had entered. Yoohyun had made several appearances on TV, so he was already famous.

“Huh? Isn’t that the Tutorial Ender?”

“It-It’s So Yoohyun!”

Yoohyun instantly became the focus of the attention of the disoriented Players who were running around in confusion.

‘Still, it’s much more disappointing than I thought.’

It might be the early days of Playing, and only the 4th month since the Cataclysm, but this was too severe.

‘It’s already been three minutes since they came in.’

They were still running pell-mell. I didn’t really see any Players who were trying to ascertain the terrain. Of course, the few Players I’d nurtured were already calmly inspecting the surroundings and moving towards clearing the flash gate, but—

‘I don’t see any Players with leadership.’

In most cases, and especially for a gate or dungeon where large numbers of Players could join at the same time, it was nearly impossible to achieve a solo clear, even if you knew the strategy.

‘I guess I can’t expect too much from the early period, but still…’

I would have still liked to see a few people come forward and round up the Players, dividing people into various roles based on each person’s traits and class. There was a stark absence of a leader, aka a sovereign. That was the biggest problem these guys were facing right now.

“Yoohyun. You take the public leader role.”

“Wh-What?”

“Why? Never did it before?”

During the three months while I was in the ‘Forest of Unknowns’, Yoohyun must have grown in his own way. As was befitting for the ‘Tutorial Ender’, he must have experienced being a leader several times, too. At a time like this, his Tutorial Ender fame would be very compelling.

“Th-That’s not the case, but… How could I dare to when…”

Basically, he was trying to say he couldn’t dare take such a role when his mighty hyungnim was here.

“I’m not famous. Do you think those guys will listen to me?”

The look in Yoohyun’s hesitant eyes changed a little. Like the phrase ‘clothes make the man’, the position you found yourself in changed how you behaved. When Yoohyun considered commanding those people, his aura changed under the weight of the responsibility.

“There’s something off about this wind.”

“Huh?”

“It’s weak, but the wind has mana in it. It feels different from a natural wind. If, by any chance, the wind starts blowing hard… tell everyone to get flat onto the ground. Multiple times. You can warn them multiple times. Because the wind uphill seems off, too.”

This was all I could do right now.

“…Understood, hyungnim.”

I didn’t think I could save everyone here. Even if I said that ‘this and this is going to happen, so everyone listen to me,’ it’d already be a blessing if I weren’t treated like a total lunatic.

‘I can’t save everyone.’

Someone, or some people, would definitely die. I would just do everything within my power.

A bleak wind blew in along with the notice. Many hero stories or promotional videos had been filmed based on what Jo Sunghyun said, and I remembered them all very clearly.

–A weak wind began to blow. Following that, specter monsters appeared all over the place. As you know, they were neutral monsters—Wraiths.

A slightly somber wind.

‘Specter monsters, Wraiths.’

Their average level was around 20. The specter monsters floating around looked like large seagulls. Other than the fact that physical attacks had no effect on them, they weren’t very strong monsters.

“It-It’s monsters.”

A few people even attempted to attack them.

“The attacks aren’t doing anything!”

“We can’t attack them!”

One of the large seagull-shaped monsters went from flying slowly to opening its wings wide and wrapping a Player within them. It then pecked the Player’s head with its beak.

“A-AAAGHH!” screamed the Player.

‘Does it hurt that bad?’

No, it shouldn’t hurt that much. It was painful, yes, but the Wraith’s attack shouldn’t be that terrible—it wasn’t that strong of a monster. 

‘This is pathetic.’

I might… have messed up a bit. I had cleared the ‘Seoul Station Dungeon’, which was supposed to break a few times, too quickly. The Players might have lost one of the ways in which they could become stronger.

I heard a loud shout.

“ORYAAA!!!”

It reminded me of a record someone had written.

–There was the sound of someone shouting “Orya”. It was Kim Taechun, who is now called the ‘Brown Bear’. He had just won an overwhelming victory in a PVP match against Jo Sunghyun and was full of confidence. It only took him eighty seconds to destroy one of the pillars with his huge axe.

There were eighteen broken pillars here. Every time one of the pillars was destroyed, there would be a slight change.

A notice with large arrows appeared over the entire field.

I quietly prepared myself. A strong wind would soon blow over the field, so strong you could hardly stay upright.

–Wind began to blow. The Players had a hard time staying upright. We realized then that the arrows were showing the direction of the wind.

Before long, the wind picked up, starting to blow hard. I had to take care of my party members.

“Everyone, get flat onto the floor.”

The wind was buffeting us so hard it was hard to remain standing.

‘This isn’t enough to send anyone flying.’

It was true that it was a very strong wind, but everyone gathered here were Players. They could resist a breeze of this level. However, it was good to respond with extra care, since there was no knowing when a ‘whirlwind’ would strike. Every time a pillar was broken, a strong wind with a different trajectory would blow.

‘When some pillars are destroyed, the Central Pillar will appear.’

When Jo Sunghyun was reminiscing about this time, he said—

–When we had destroyed seven  pillars, a huge pillar appeared. Its name was the ‘Central Pillar’, and on top of it, there was a clue for the clear.

In any case, we had to destroy at least seven pillars.

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–Thinking back on it now, I think the ideal clear method might have been to destroy just twelve or thirteen pillars.

The more pillars were destroyed, the stronger the wind would become, and the more ferocious the Wraiths would become. New monsters would also appear, and countless people might lose their lives.

‘Though the Central Pillar gets lower the more pillars are destroyed…’

Only one pillar had been destroyed so far. A strong wind was blowing, but the Wraiths were still weak.

‘And they’re still neutral monsters.’

Kim Taechun shrugged, looking completely confident. Raising his voice, he shouted, “Seeing as the broken pillars are attackable, I think we need to do something about them!”

As if to show off his courage, he swung his axe and started hacking away at another pillar.

The pillars could be attacked. After hearing that, the other Players began to destroy the pillars using their own individual ways.

I turned to Sung-gu. “You hunt as many of the Wraiths as you can with magic.”

“M-Me?” Sung-gu trembled. “Ah, fuck. I’m scared of ghosts.”

But apparently, he must have known it wasn’t the time to joke around, because after one full-body shudder, Sung-gu headed towards the area where the Wraiths were gathered.

“Sunhwa, go support him.”

“Got it.”

Sunhwa followed Sung-gu. Yeonseo asked, “What about me? What should I do?”

“Destroy pillars along with Yoohyun. Don’t overdo it.” I gave a little more advice. “Go at it gently, while keeping an eye on your stamina. Other monsters might show up, after all. You’ve got the most agility, so if something unexpected happens, stick to me.”

“Okidoki, gotcha.” Yeonseo smiled brightly. “It really is nice to Play with you. It’s reassuring.”

“…”

“It kinda feels like you concretely draw out what I have to do. As expected of our boss!”

After giving me a big thumbs up, Yeonseo used Heavenly Demonic Flying Step to move to the pillars. Here and there, pillars were being destroyed. In the meantime, the ‘Tutorial Ender’ So Yoohyun took the temporary ‘party leader’ role under the recommendation of the other Players.

Yoohyun said some pretty smart stuff. “Let’s not destroy all of them at once,” he said to the listening crowd. “We need to see what changes occur whenever we destroy a pillar.”

* * *

* * *

Jo Sunghyun, who had been silent up until now, finally came up to me and spoke.

“…What…” He hesitated a little. “What… should I do?”

That’s right. I knew he would be like this. Sunghyun couldn’t be forced to do something or be pulled along at someone else’s pace. You had to make him move of his own will. That was my evaluation of him, and he was acting exactly as I expected.

“Mm.” I did have him hooked, but I couldn’t be too hasty. “For now, how about you join our party? The others just now are party members who’ve been with me from the start.”

“Sounds good.”

Sunghyun entered our party.

‘You are the core key of this raid.’

The Central Pillar couldn’t be cleared without Sunghyun’s ability. According to what I knew, we needed his innate ability ‘Standstill’. And if he was willing to help me, we could clear this gate a little more safely and quickly.

“Please hunt Wraiths with Sung-gu, keeping an eye on your stamina. I’d like you not to overdo it and just approach it like stretching your muscles. Take all the items that drop.”

For now, it was important that he learned how to cooperate with Sung-gu. That would be the key to the clear. I believed that they would do well without me laying out every detail. Both of them were geniuses, and it wasn’t something I could influence with my words.

“Can I…” Once again, Sunghyun hesitated for a long time. “Can I call you hyung?”

His voice was trembling a little, and I couldn’t figure out why he was so nervous about something like this. I almost snorted at the sight of the future Typhoon acting like this.

“You can do so if you want. I don’t think our ages are that different, anyway.”

“Hyung, please feel free to speak casually.”

Jo Sunghyun was famous for not opening his heart easily to others, but apparently, the teenage Sunghyun was still pretty amenable. It seemed like he had accepted me.

“If monsters other than Wraiths happen to appear, bring everyone back to me. Sung-gu and Sunhwa should understand if you tell them that.”

“I understand.”

Sunghyun joined up with Sung-gu and Sunhwa.

‘Alright then… Guess I should go to Yoohyun’s side, too.’

Just then, another pillar was broken. Yoohyun bellowed, “Halt!”

It was too much to expect perfect order or anything like that. Only after several others repeated the command did all the Players stop moving. By future standards, it was truly nothing short of deplorable.

With the arrows, began another bout of wind.

‘The wind has definitely gotten stronger.’

Hearing shouts of ‘Get down!’ from a few quick-witted people and Yoohyun, the Players got flat onto the ground. As they did so, the Wraiths—unaffected by the wind—attacked the Players.

‘Sunhwa… should be fine.’

Most of the aggro was being drawn by Sung-gu, Sunghyun, and Sunhwa. They were also not taking much damage from the Wraiths. It was thanks to them that the Players on this side could focus on destroying the pillars without paying much attention to the Wraiths.

The third pillar was destroyed. Yoohyun shouted, “Everyone, get flat on the ground!”

Most Players were now used to the routine and went straight down. But a few people didn’t follow his instructions.

“It’s not that bad. It was okay even standing up.”

“Why does he keep telling us to get down and all?”

“It seems a little excessive to me…”

In terms of percentages, 90% of the Players followed Yoohyun’s instruction, and the remaining 10% didn’t. For the next pillar—the fourth—the number of Players who stayed standing increased a little, perhaps because they had realized that they wouldn’t get hurt even if they stayed standing.

“See? It’s fine even if you don’t get down.”

“Ah, jeez. That was a waste of strength earlier.”

There were even people who blatantly complained. That much was enough to make Yoohyun feel bad, but he faithfully carried out my words to keep getting down, since the wind was getting stronger. He kept repeating the same things, saying that by getting down, we could markedly reduce the effect of the wind.

“Something’s off about this wind. I would be grateful if you were to please listen to me!”

He kept saying that, but Yoohyun had no power, nor did he have the ability to force them. Several Players refused to listen to him. Kim Taechun, who had lost the initiative due to Yoohyun, even overtly ridiculed him.

“What’s got you so scared that you’re trembling like a little bitch? Come now, let’s just destroy all the pillars. Are you men, or are you boys?”

Several people agreed with him. I simply watched. I was no Superman and I had no power to forcefully command them. More than anything, I was not a saint. They were choosing to be reckless. I’d done what I could through Yoohyun.

The fifth pillar, then the sixth, were destroyed. The number of arrows increased from 7 to 10.

This time, a powerful gust blew in, almost like a tornado. It was a ‘whirlwind’.

“Uwaaaaaaaaahh!”

Someone lifted into the air, sent flying high by the wind. I squeezed my eyes shut, already aware of what would happen. The three Players in the air were cut into pieces.

Drip, splat, splatter.

Chunks of human flesh fell to the ground, along with blood rain. If you were lifted into the air, that was what would happen to you. I felt my head becoming ice cold. Perhaps it was the effect of the ‘Calm Observer’s Eye’ bundled into my ‘Eye of Perception’, but I was much calmer than when the Tutorial happened.

‘From here on out… the real clearing begins.’

With the three deaths, a distortion appeared in the field. Although I knew it would happen, I was also able to feel it instinctively.

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‘And now, that monster will appear.’

I knew that it wasn’t the time for me to be taking the position of an ‘observer’.

‘I’m going.’

Right now, I absolutely had to move.

____

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