Closed Beta That Only I Played

Chapter 67: Half (1)

Soktae Kang also confirmed it because party No. 2 of the three parties composed of 300 guild members posted a series of messages on the guild chat room that the crazy intruder had finally appeared.

Given the frenzied response and commotion in the guild chat room, he could guess easily that they had suffered the intruder’s surprise attack rather than finding the intruder first.

But he dispatched a large group of 300 members, so he felt that there was still a possibility they could hunt that guy.

So, he promised them that he would give 5 million won in cash to whoever killed the intruder.

In fact, he wanted to give even 100 million won, but he reduced it to 5 million won because there was no guarantee that the crazy intruder would be gone forever.

He knew that even with cash reward, his guild members would desperately search for and kill that intruder.

But less than 10 minutes, or even 5 minutes passed before silence fell in the chat room.

[BOSS Kang (Guild Leader): Party No. 2? Is anybody there? Can you hear me? Answer me if anybody is there!]

[....]

[....] action

[....]

It was really noisy until a moment ago.

Somebody said the 5 million won cash reward was his, and other guild members even felt jealous about it. However, no other comments had been posted since then.

At that moment, guild officer Maxcal said to Soktae, “Boss, I just got a call from the emergency line. All 300 members were killed.”

“...”

Soktae could not respond at all to Maxcal’s shocking message because Maxcal’s words confirmed his worst fears. Of course, Soktae earned his current position the hard way after going through numerous trials and ordeals, so he tried to remain calm.

He shouted urgently, “Tell the other two parties to return to the Safety Zone immediately!”

It was now clear that he could not get rid of the crazy intruder with a force of 300 guild members.

So, he had to minimise further damage.

Honestly, it didn’t matter to him even if his guild members were killed, but if they tried to flee from him thinking that the tide turned, it would pose a grave threat to him. So, he had to take some preventive measure now.

“Got it!”

After issuing the order, Soktae thought hard on how to solve this difficult issue.

‘Should I contact Japan?’

Actually, Soktae used to be an ordinary user who enjoyed common games. Of course, he was too famous to be dismissed as an ordinary gamer.

In the past, he controlled an entire game’s server as the guild leader of a giant guild. In other games, he became famous by using niche game mechanics to rise up and dominate them. Of course, as a guild leader, he had the misfortune of being expelled from the guild he established by himself when it was revealed that he had embezzled some of the guild funds for his own purposes.

Anyway, a group of people approached him who was casually enjoying the game “Revival Legend” with a light heart. They were Japanese, and they actually came to visit him in person, not virtually.

They suggested that he occupy the Pioneers’ City and collect the ‘undigested mineral masses of stone squirrels’ from the Rocky Area.

At first, he looked at them suspiciously, thinking that they were crazy, because he found out after some research that Pioneers’ City itself was not very valuable, let alone the stone squirrels.

However, when they sent him 5 billion won as a down payment, he could not help but pay attention to their proposal.

So, he moved quickly, but soon ran into difficulties.

He initially thought the stone squirrels were easy to catch, but they were difficult to hunt.

Not only did the squirrels move quickly, but they also had very high defense.

Of course, it would not matter if he hired high-level users, but he would have to pay a lot for the job, so he approached elementary users and cajoled them to take part in the search for stone squirrels.

In other words, he wanted to catch the squirrels with the help of these inexperienced users to minimize his costs.

As a result, he succeeded in hiring 1500 beginner users for a cheap price, and he even purchased a spacious apartment in the rich Kangnam district in Seoul under his name.

Moreover, he also purchased two top-of-the-line sports cars.

Since he didn’t have any intention of giving up this precious source of funds, he finally decided to contact his Japanese counterparts who made the initial proposal to him.

But at this moment, Soktae received more bad news.

“Guild leader! Party No. 3 ran into that crazy intruder while returning to the Safety Zone.”

“Where!”

He could not allow another 300 members to be killed by the intruder when he had already lost 300 people.

So, he immediately asked for their location.

“It’s only 20 minutes from here.”

“Damn!”

He had no choice but to hurl abuse when he heard the intruder was 20 minutes’ away because he witnessed 300 guild members perish in less than five, not ten, minutes. Moreover, all the three parties were of a similar level.

Since Party No. 3 was no stronger than Party No. 2 who had already been annihilated, there was a very high probability that the fight was already over by now.

Suddenly he felt that if he dispatched Party No. 1 who were rapidly retreating to the Safety Zone, they would be annihilated as well.

“I will be back soon! Everyone, stay here! Log out.”

He ordered Party No. 1 to return as soon as possible, then logged out helplessly since neither he nor his Japanese partners could contact each other in game since they were on different servers.

***

I ran into them by chance once again.

They were another group of Gahwa Guild members numbering 300 who were moving quickly towards the Rocky Area’s Safety Zone.

So, I attacked right away because I had no problem with getting rid of the same number of guild members as before.

“Damn it! What the heck is this monster?”

“Isn’t it too hard for us since we are too low level compared to him?”

Some of the guild members died, expressing deep frustration and anger.

Of course, most of them began to run away in all directions as soon as they discovered me, so it was impossible for me to kill all of them like I did before.

Nonetheless, only about 20 of them survived and managed to retreat.

I was satisfied with this outcome. Then, I moved to the Rocky Area’s Safety Zone because I expected to find the enemy’s main force there.

I guessed that there might be more than 300 people there, but I wasn’t worried at all.

Soktae’s house in the posh district of Kangnam in Seoul.

“You told me that no one knows about it. What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“The mineral masses! A really strong guy has appeared to seize them!”

“I can’t believe it. Did you leak information about it by mistake?”

“Not at all! To stop any outsiders coming to this place on purpose, I charged exorbitant toll fees, and when a strong guy came, I even bribed him to help us take over this hunting ground! And I clearly warned our men picking up the mineral masses that they should always keep silent about this place, else we would lose this good hunting ground and source of easy money if someone else came to know about it,” Soktae responded loudly over the phone to the man expressing suspicions about him

Besides, Soktae also felt very unhappy about this incident beyond his control in this hunting ground because he really liked this means of making money. So much so that he wished to pursue this job for the rest of his life if he could.