Translator: Wan ED/PR: Solarin
41. Outside the borders (11)
A few minutes before, when Seodol destroyed Hwang-ho’s barrier and ran out.
Unlike how he appeared when he happily ran out, Seodol was hesitant.
Amidst the still raging superpower wave’s currents, the road ahead of him was splitting, one leading to the Chengdu City Player Training Center’s main building and gym no. 1, while the other to the backdoor.
Seodol fell into thoughts.
‘The superpower pressure that caused a commotion felt the strongest in gym no. 1, but… the backdoor bothers me. What is that?’
Under the name of Seodol, he was the Seo tribe’s head and the chief designer of the famous brand, but at the core, he was a ‘rat’.
And he wasn’t just any rat, Seodol was the wise rat who gave Maitreya clues about the origins of water and fire, and gathered the words of night since the old days.
Worthy of the rat who gathered numerous words of night, Seodol caught a movement of someone, who was moving secretly, hiding their presence like a dead rat, even in this commotion.
‘Why is this fucker stealthy escaping from the area like a rat?’
The superpower wave’s currents were so powerful, that it was natural to flee.
But there was something strange about the person caught by Seodol’s senses.
The movement when taking shelter was extremely secretive.
Swwish! Clang-clang! Clang!
To avoid the shock wave, Seodol threw himself to another direction.
While Seodol was thinking, his surroundings gradually changed into wasteland.
Opportunely, the direction he threw his body was at the side of the backdoor.
‘Well, let’s think about it as Maitreya-nim guiding the way!’
Seodol justified it like this as he used his skill again and started moving.
Unlike the opponent, who was moving stealthily, Cunning didn’t hide his presence and displayed his power, so he soon caught up to them.
Seodol landed in front of the person, whose appearance was covered by the usage of a hiding item, and asked:
“Hi?”
Seodol threw such greeting and raised the rat-colored bead into the air.
Ssssssh…
The rat-color superpower wave flowed out from the bead and pounced on the hiding item.
“….!”
Paat!
The unidentified person, who hurriedly threw away the hiding item that changed into rat-color and started to rot, kicked the ground and bounced back.
The person with a plain build was wearing a mask, so their face wasn’t visible, but because the hiding item was used together with the hood, the golden hair was openly exposed.
“What are you doing? Why are you using the hiding items to flee? Are you hiding to get on my nerves? Why are you interrupting my vacation?”
Seodol expressed his increasingly very unreasonable doubts, but he was acting very confidently.
The blond person shut their mouth and threw their body
But.
Paat!
At the same time, Seodol also threw his body to block the blond person’s way forward again.
“Why are you running away when I’m talking to you? Ah, perhaps you don’t know Korea’s language? I can also speak Chinese and English, but I don’t feel particularly considerate of you, so I’ll talk like this.”
The blond person glared, but promptly took a combat pose.
Seeing that, Seodol sighed.
“I guess you’re not planning on having a conversation? Unlike us, it’s unwise of you to act like a rat, eh?”
Before those words ended, the superpower wave with ominous energy from the rat-colored bead that Seodol floated in the air, crawled out.
***
To encourage the Pro-Player team’s active otherworld conquest, every year the Player’s Association published a team ranking based on the otherworld conquest results.
The ranking often changed, but the list of Pro-Player teams that took the top 10 was almost fixed, and the public called them the world’s 10 best otherworld conquest teams.
The well-known representative of that top 10 otherworld conquest team was the ‘Red Lion’ led by the Ruler of Red Flames[1], Yeom Bangyeol
‘Eternal Lake’, which gathered people, who followed the Blue Violinist, Kwon Jane.
And then there was the ‘Pledge of Three Knights’, which had three team masters with the knight title.
And the scrap of clothing Cunning handed us out had the symbol of that Pledge of Three Knights.
“Where the hell did that came from?”
While looking at the team mark, which had the family emblems of the first team masters of the Pledge of Three Knights intertwined, Hwang Jiho asked.
It seemed that Hwang Jiho also recognized the Pledge of Three Knight’s symbol.
“Uumm…..”
However, Seodol didn’t reply to Hwang Jiho’s question straight away.
Seodol looked at the symbol, hesitating.
“Why aren’t you answering? What happened during the acquiring process?”
After Hwang Jiho asked with a serious face, Seodol replied with an expression even more serious than Hwang Jiho.
“Please wait a moment. I’m thinking about how to retell my cool performance without burdening Jo Uisin. I’m choosing my words, so can You please stay quiet?”
“You went nuts, eh? Had your condition deteriorated in the meantime? No, you always looked insane, so that’s not it.”
This time I had the same opinion as Hwang Jiho.
Seodol shut his mouth for a minute to organize his thoughts, and then opened it again.
Seodol said that he moved to the source of the commotion and then discovered a secretly suspicious acting person and confronted them.
As a result of Seodol’s confrontation with the blond Player, it seemed that he succeeded in extorting the symbol that person had before they erased all their traces.
“So what happened to that blond Player?”
“Escape was impossible, so when they realized that it would be much more difficult to subdue me, they committed suicide.”
Seodol’s eyes and mouth slightly moved, as he smiled.
That smile somehow gave me the creeps.
“They had a pretty unique item. The moment the item effect was activated, the blond’s body and all the items on them started to melt. I saved it before that.”
Seodol glanced at me with a look, as if he was hoping for a praise.
It seemed that he hoped to receive a praise from me and then exchange it for a blessing.
“Such foolishness. You should keep them alive and bring them with you.”
“Wouldn’t it be a difficult situation in general? But the shock waves were more frequent where I was than here. And I don’t want to hear it from Hwang-ho, who didn’t do anything.”
“Ha? I was protecting Jo Uisin’s companions. You couldn’t control your anger and left, didn’t you? It’s a stupid choice on the subject of begging Jo Uisin to accept a blessing, eh?”
“I left protecting to You[2]. And You know that the kotodama user cherished by Thoth isn’t an ordinary person, right?”
Even though a moment ago we listened to a story about someone’s suicide, the two heads started a nonsensical argument.
When Hwang Jiho took the mark of the Pledge of Three Knights team from Seodol, which looked as if he almost snatched it from him.
“I got a call. It seems that we’ll have go back to the hotel today.”
Jegal Jaegeol spoke up.
Seeing that he had a hologram opened, I guess he was on the call a moment ago.
Jegal Jaegeol looked at the two heads, who built a barrier and were arguing about what’s what and said:
“Uisin-ah, does the newly joined Person causing you to have a hard time, perhaps?”
“Yes?”
“Like… Requesting to accept a blessing you don’t want, or suggesting scouting for the company or team first hearing, or…”
Even though we’re in a chaotic situation, I guess Jegal Jaegeol was concerned about me.
“He offered a blessing, but I refused. It’s okay.”
“Okay… I heard that He doesn’t hurt the targets He declared He’ll give a blessing to. Even so, if He is too persistent, contact me straight away.”
He already seemed too persistent, but I hated to bother my Playable Character, so I adequately avoided it.
Jegal Jaegeol was also worried about freaking Hwang Jiho.
“I’m also worried about Hwang Jiho, but He won’t touch chairman Hwang Myeongho-nim’s relative. Looking at how He is speaking, it doesn’t seem like there will be any harm, huh?”
Seodol may not touch the chairman’s relative, but it seems that he would touch the chairman’s main-ego.
After that, our group decided to return to the hotel.
Mun Saeron, who took the pictures of the entire scene, made a regretful face, but she didn’t oppose Jegal Jaegeol’s words.
“Not even one article about it came out…”
“Should we write an article?”
“Even if we wanted to write an article, we don’t have news to cover, you know? We’re just certain that an unidentified and sudden incident exploded in the Player Training Center. The end.”
“… With just that, we can’t do anything but make an aggro article without content. It will just harm us if we work our mouths in vain when others can’t even cover it.”
“That’s right. We may be able to go on a trip inside there later.”
Even after arriving at the hotel, the Newspaper Club members talked about the incident.
Jegal Jaegeol was busy calling the Chengdu City Player Training Center’s side like before, and Jegal Jaegeol’s fanatics didn’t bother him after hearing the story from the Newspaper Club’s president.
As if Hwang Jiho and Seodol wrapped up their argument, they were each drinking tea at different tables.
I went to Hwang Jiho’s table to ask about something.
“Hey.”
“What is it? It seemed that you kept falling in thoughts.”
As Hwang Jiho said, while moving, I kept thinking about the incidents that continue to explode in China.
Thinking about it calmly, it wasn’t strange for a few incidents to explode in a short amount of time on this enormous continent in the time of the Clash of Different Worlds.
However, there were many bothering things about coincidences.
‘It’s better to check, right?’
I took a sip of the Biluochun[3] tea given to me by Hwang Jiho.
It didn’t seem to be tea offered in the hotel, but I have no idea when and where he got the extraordinary tea leaves of such fragrance and color.
“I want to meet Mok Uram. Where is he?”
“In the hotel close to here, under the protection of my subordinate. I moved him once to secretly meet with Hong Gyubin.”
Hwang Jiho opened a map of the surrounding area on the hologram and pointed to a spot.
If it was this close, it wouldn’t be a problem even if I went on foot.
“He still didn’t wake up?”
“Yeah. However, it seems that it will be soon. Let’s drink all the tea and go.”
It seemed that Hwang Jiho thought of naturally going with me.
At that moment, Seodol, who at some point sat down at our table and drank tea as he pleased, smiled widely and said:
“I shall go too, sir.”
***
After saying I was taking two lunatics with me and going out shopping for a moment, I got permission to go out straight away.
It seemed that they thought that the two were pestering me.
I thought about calling Hong Gyubin to go together, but it seemed that he was busy helping Jegal Jaegeol investigate the recent runaway incident.
In the end, I was in charge of two lunatics all alone.
“Not bad. I guess You bought a membership here?”
“Because it makes it easier to make a reservation.”
After Hwang Jiho took out a card at the hotel entrance, three hoteliers wearing golden badges came out to greet him.
When Hwang Jiho waved his hand, they bowed and moved aside without making a sound, so even without asking I knew that it was the highest level of VIP treatment.
Hwang Jiho walked up to the guarded exclusive elevator straight away and when the card-key touched the door, it opened.
In the elevator, there weren’t any input device besides the card reader if we excluded the emergency button, so it ended up just reading the card instead of inputting the floor.
“Say if you need anything.”
“There is nothing in particular, sir.”
“I wasn’t saying it to you bastard.”
Even after we arrived at the highest floor, the two heads were bickering like before.
As I entered the bedroom of the suite under the guidance of the subordinate in the suite, who was waiting, I saw Mok Uram sleeping on the bed.
“He didn’t wake up even a bit?”
“Not even once.”
Forget waking up, Mok Uram’s cotton clothes didn’t have even one wrinkle, as if he didn’t even toss around.
‘Shouldn’t he wake up? I should shake his shoulder at least once.’
I raised my hand towards Mok Uram.
At that moment.
Clench.
Mok Uram opened his eyes and grabbed my wrist.
*~*~*
[1] Red Flames — the red used in his alias is ‘hong’ not ‘jeok’.
[2] I left protecting to You. — Seodol uses the polite You for Hwang-ho.
[3] Biluochun — 碧螺春 — Green Snail Spring
Translator’s note: Hmmm? Did Seodol and Hwang-ho just had a secret exchange? Was Biluochun tea Seodol’s gift?
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