Chapter 172

"Mom..."

Yoon Seah's eyes widened in surprise.

"But... mom has already passed away...didn't she?"

Seong Jihan nodded beside her as well.

The death of his sister.

Hadn't the whole nation witnessed it through live broadcast?

"Yeah, while trying to block the dungeon break in the north, she eventually used the self-sacrifice command..."

North Korea was the first country in the world to be destroyed by a dungeon.

They refrained from fostering players who might threaten their regime.

In the already turbulent Northeast Asia League, they ended up at the bottom with an overwhelming score.

There were a few other authoritarian regimes that also avoided nurturing players.

However, those countries didn't rank last in league points because their regional leagues were not as tight as North Korea's.

Thus, since 2011, when dungeons began to appear, North Korea, which had become a dungeon-infested area, was soon engulfed by the abyss.

'The Abyss emerged.'

Upper dungeons formed by several dungeon portals merging.

The 'Abyss' engulfed North Korea.

Unlike dungeon portals, from the crimson rifts that engulfed the land, extremely powerful monsters emerged.

Especially the ghost-type monsters from the North Abyss couldn't be harmed by modern weapons.

Even with the entire army mobilized, North Korea couldn't stop the enemy.

So, North Korea collapsed, and about five years later, near the 38th parallel, a group of survivors, thought to have died, began to move south.

Around the same time, the argument arose, mainly led by human rights organizations, that North Korean compatriots needed to be rescued.

'Unlike the early days of BattleNet, players have grown a lot, and the government showed a positive response to this, but...'

The result was a gruesome failure.

The monsters summoned to North Korea continued to pour out of the dungeon portals even if killed.

Especially as you went further north, most of them were ghost monsters, so the military couldn't exert much force.

When calls to retreat began to emerge,

A player accidentally stepped into the Abyss area, and a new message appeared in the system.

[The owner '??' of the Abyss is enraged by the invasion of its territory.]

[Dungeon Break is activated. Monsters belonging to dungeon portals will move beyond their territory.]

[Defend against the enemy's invasion!]

Along with that message, North Korean monsters came south on a large scale.

Initially, it started under the pretext of rescuing North Korean citizens, but the outcome was a terrible disaster.

The massive ghost legions moving south.

Gold-ranked and above players of South Korea were mobilized to block the 38th parallel.

The first invasion was somehow repelled with almost no casualties.

But as the second and third invasions began, casualties started to occur.

And with the fourth invasion, when a massive darkness came down from the north,

Korean society fell into panic.

No matter how many players were gathered, the scale was far too massive to block.

Just as it seemed the defense line would crumble,

-I'll... use my Gift.

Seong Jiah used her Gift, 'Sacrifice', to its limit.

Upon doing so, her body lost its vitality and turned into hard stone.

As the light burst out in all directions, the darkness that surged like a tidal wave hesitated and then stopped moving.

[If she's a saint... she's suitable as a sacrifice.]

With those final words, the darkness devoured Seong Jiah then retreated.

The sacrifice scene of Seong jiah, witnessed by the entire nation through live broadcast.

People praised her as a true saint, promising not to forget her sacrifice, but for the remaining family members, this incident was nothing short of a thunderbolt.

After that day, Sword King Yoon Sejin, who had been dispatched to prevent the invasion in other regions, began seeking solace in alcohol, saying that he should have been with Jiah that day.

Seong Jihan, confined to his home, became more immersed in gambling.

Trying to consider the gloomy home atmosphere, Yoon Seah made an effort to act as brightly as before, but the forced smiles were obvious.

Seong Jiah's death completely overturned the Yoon Sejin household like so.

However,

"How do you plan to find deceased noona with this ring?"

When Seong Jihan asked, looking at the Aegis ring, the Sword King slowly opened his mouth.

"I remember what she said before modifying the ring. She looked at the ring's options and said it had an owner."

"Isn't it because my noona was the owner of the ring?"

"No, no. It's an item that chooses a new owner when the owner dies, which is interesting. She said your wife was alive, and she dared me to ask if she could still live with me."

"I see..."

Seong jihan's eyes sparkled.

There was no reason for Shizuru, who had already fascinated the Sword King, to lie.

Does that mean my noona is alive?

Even though she turned into stone and was swallowed by darkness...

"Do you have a method in mind? To find noona?"

"I was thinking of searching the dungeons in the north."

"...Is that all?"

"Well... if we trace Jiah's relics and the ring, won't we eventually find her?"

He had asked for the ring thinking there was some groundbreaking method, but

This was way too half-assed, wasn't it?

"Just blindly? What if you trigger another Dungeon Break situation by stepping into an Abyss again like last time?"

"I'd have to... somehow evade it well."

"...Seeing this thoughtless side, you really are dad."

Yoon Seah looked at Yoon Sejin, who was about to leave without any plan, and instead of being worried, she seemed rather pleased.

He maintained a dignified appearance outside as a top Warrior player, but

At home, he was scolded daily by mom for having no thoughts at all, still the same as before.

"Please wait a moment. Ariel."

However, sending him off like this might lead to a big catastrophe.

Seong Jihan summoned Ariel from his arm.

"Why?"

"How do you deal with the Abyss in your world?"

"If it's the Abyss... are you talking about the merging of dungeon portals?"

"Yeah."

"Geez, your world really knows nothing. No wonder you didn't even know how to remove dungeon portals..."

Ariel spread the shadow aura into the air and drew a circle.

A large circle with a center.

Around it, black dots were scattered here and there. Among them, Ariel pointed to one of the black dots.

"The Abyss absorbs the magic power of nearby dungeon portals and strengthens itself. To get rid of this, it's urgent to eliminate the nearby dungeon portals first."

"Hmm, the solution was simple."

"Right. In the first place, Abysses don't form on other planets except during the end times. Since dungeon portals are swiftly removed during exploration."

"So the Abyss only forms under the extreme situation of not even being able to remove dungeon portals."

"Right. That's why planets where Abyss appears are destined to see the end soon. Only Destruction."

So, that's why the darkness in the north was so powerful. In other worlds, Abyss appears when the game is almost over, but here it happened during the tutorial.

Having heard a brief strategy for dealing with Abyss from Ariel, Yoon Sejin opened his mouth with an interesting tone.

"I see, this being is... your summon? Then, if we eliminate all the dungeons around North Korea and move forward..."

"To get rid of dungeon portals, you need a player with the exploration gift."

"We can somehow obtain them if we just pay enough GP, right? GP is..."

As the Sword King spoke confidently, his voice gradually faded.

"...Oh right, I gave it all to Shizuru..."

"You have none left?"

"I only received a modest allowance for maintaining dignity when I urgently needed money. I think I left only a million GP..."

While ten billion may seem like a huge amount to ordinary people, from the perspective of the Sword King, who possessed wealth exceeding tens of trillions, it was a situation where almost everything he had was taken away.

"Sorry, brother-in-law, to ask this right after you helped me... Could you lend me some GP?"

Seeing the pitiful reality of the world's top Warrior, Seong Jihan sighed.

"I can lend you as much money as you want, but to remove the dungeon portals in the north, we need to prepare properly. It's not something we can do with just a player with exploration abilities."

"Umm..."

Investigating the dungeon portal in North Korea. If Seong jiah really is alive, it is a task that must be pursued.

However, relying solely on the Sword King seemed somewhat uneasy. Seong jihan thought about contacting the association to form an investigation team but then realized, 'Ah, right... I can use them.'

Seong jihan's eyes flashed as if he had come up with a good idea.

* * *

At the World BattleNet Alliance headquarters located in New York.

Debates regarding the Sword King's situation were currently taking place there.

"How should we handle the Sword King issue?"

"He notified us of his absence from the Space League. It's truly outrageous... but he is essential for the Space League."

"Yes, you're right. Without him and Seong Jihan, it would be hugely disadvantageous. And there are no replacements for them."

The representatives of many nations, while denouncing the Sword King's demands, agreed that he had to participate in the Space League somehow.

"But if the association yields to the player's threats, it won't look good at all."

"That's right. Rather than accepting their demands, wouldn't it be better to go without them this time?"

Representatives of nations in the Northeast Asia League maintained a hardline stance to keep the Sword King in check.

'Even if we can't permanently revoke his player qualification... we need to impose some level of penalty. Otherwise, Korea will always be in first place.'

Other country representatives didn't have to face Korea except during the Champions League, but for countries in the same regional league, playing against the fictitious day match became inevitable.

The psychological pressure against the Seong Jihan and Sword King duo was intense.

"Go without those two? Is the Space League a joke for you?"

"What if more dungeons appear? We don't know what penalties there might be!"

As debates over the Sword King grew intense.

"The Sword King has proposed a new plan."

The Korean representative brought the Sword King's proposal.

"Although he did not kill Ito Shizuru, the live broadcast of the murder on BattleTube was an inappropriate act... He proposes to support dungeon exploration for six months as a penalty."

"What, dungeon exploration..."

"The Sword King is going to do that?"

Dungeon portal exploration.

After Seong Jihan revealed Exploration Gifts could remove dungeon portals,

The World BattleNet Alliance formed an exploration corps to test this out.

And through them, it was proven players with Exploration abilities could completely remove dungeons, but

A serious issue occurred during the removal process.

"When destroying the dungeon core, random boss monsters would appear, right?"

"Yes, that's right. And so, many died in Somalia's dungeon portal investigation team. After that, the player volunteers completely dried up."

Due to the boss monsters appearing randomly when removing the dungeon core, the criteria for players demanded by the investigation team were significantly raised to level 150 or higher.

Finding players of this caliber from the association was extremely difficult.

From the perspective of the players, being called when they reached that level was a great honor. There was no need to willingly face death and join the investigation team.

"Hmm... it's an acceptable proposal."

"With the Sword King participating in the investigation team, there would be no worries about combat."

"No matter what boss monster comes out, accidents like last time won't happen."

As a positive atmosphere flowed through the audience.

The Korean representative said, "Instead, he has stated that he will only explore North Korea's dungeons."

"North Korea... wasn't that where the first dungeon break occurred?"

"With the Abyss present, isn't it dangerous?"

"He plans to sequentially remove the outermost dungeons and assess the situation."

"If Korea agrees, then it's fine for us. It's more convenient for the investigation team to go there than to set up a base camp in a country with dungeons occurring in only 10% of the area."

Dungeons that only appear in the bottom 10% of countries.

Countries belonging to this category originally had poor public order, and the emergence of dungeons accelerated social collapse, making the situation very unfavorable.

Rather than setting up an investigation base camp in such dangerous places, having them investigate North Korea from the stable nation of Korea was far better for the alliance.

"Six months seems too short...!"

"Hoho, please refrain from making any more unreasonable demands on the Japanese side."

"That's right. Isn't dungeon portal investigation the most important for humanity?"

"That's true. And is it true that Shizuru really died? The evidence from the Japanese side is weak as well."

"Umm..."

Representatives from Northeast Asian countries, who were aligning against the Sword King, looked at each other.

'This is as far as we can go.'

'We might face a backlash from public opinion.'

It was a tough situation to demand further punishment for someone like the Sword King joining the investigation team, essentially volunteering for the punishment.

They were now powerless to demand any further punishment.

"...Understood."

And so, with even the Japanese representative accepting the Sword King's proposal,

The World BattleNet Alliance swiftly processed matters.

The alliance's dungeon portal investigation corps departed for Korea.

And they mobilized multiple satellites to identify areas tinged purple by the Abyss.

With the alliance fully supporting him like this,

Yoon Sejin clicked his tongue.

"Brother-in-law, impressive... I didn't expect you to manipulate the alliance like this!"

"Well, it's a simple matter. They also needed a dungeon portal investigation."

Seong Jihan casually replied and cautioned Yoon Sejin.

"If you discover any traces of noona, contact me immediately. I will join you right away."

"Sure, I'll definitely find her."

"Dad, don't overdo it. Come home often when you have time. You can just ride your sword and come quickly, right?"

"...Yes, Seah. I'm always grateful and sorry."

After hugging Yoon Seah once, the Sword King joined up with the investigation team.

Seong Jihan looked at the calendar.

Starting from the Shizuru incident, with the whole series of events ending, 20 days had already passed.

With this much time passed, there was no need to postpone leveling up any further.

'I guess I can start playing the game again.'

With that thought, Seong Jihan decided to turn on BattleNet for the first time in a while.