Sung-Woon asked in wonder, “What do you mean by a new force?”
“Exactly as I said. A new force,” replied Lunda.
“Are you talking about an Abomination?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Then a fiend?”
“No.”
“Then is it an event of a magical plague? But isn’t it too early for a wizard to emerge in our continent? And dragons aren’t even worth mentioning. Is it related to a mythical creature?”
Lunda shook her head.
“No.”
“Then there’s only one thing that comes to mind.”
Lunda nodded and said, “I think it’s another player.” .
Sung-Woon furrowed his eyebrows under his mask.
“…A player?”
Thinking that couldn’t be the case, Sung-Woon added, “If they’re a player, they are. What do you mean that you think they are a player?”
“Just as I said. When you meet a new tribe you get the Clash of Civilization message, right?”
“Yes.”
“And if the opponent is a player, a warning window also appears saying the opponent species has Faith.”
“So? Are you saying that the message didn’t show up with this player?”
“No. It did.”
“Then it is a player.”
“…But you also know that’s not possible, don’t you?”
Sung-Woon nodded.
‘It’s impossible for a new player to suddenly appear in the middle of the continent right now. It’s been about 22 years since the game started. A player didn’t make any moves until now and suddenly appeared?’
Sung-Woon said, “But if there was a warning message along with a notification for a Clash of Civilization, there’s also a chance they might be a fiend, right?”
“They’re definitely not a fiend since a Whisper Conversation can be requested. And they appear in the local players tab.”
“Are they not answering a request for Whisper Conversation?”
“It’s blocked.”
Sung-Woon pondered for a moment and replied, “Where is the information from? Did you hear this from someone reliable? Or are you trying to fool me?”
Lunda signed and sent Sung-Woon the information she had about the new player.
“You got the information? It’s from AR”
“By AR, you mean…”
“The player’s ID is AR1026. They rule over the Nix country called Golden Eye. They currently have a loose alliance with Jang-Wan.”
“Are you the only one who received this information?”
“No. They didn’t only send it to me, but also to Wisdom and Crampus. And it’s very likely that they had also sent it to their ally, Jang-Wan. As you can see, it’s true a new player has come out of nowhere. They asked me what I thought about it.”
“This is really…”
“It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
Sung-Woon nodded.
Sung-Woon hadn’t expected much when Lunda mentioned that a new force had appeared. If abominations grew very big, they would become actual monsters and attack villages, and fiends would rally together vagrant tribes and act as gods. Additionally, other events such as magical plagues or appearances of dragons could occur at more advanced stages of civilization and be considered new forces.
‘But it’s a new player.’
Staying off the grid for 22 years and suddenly starting to make moves was a play like no other in The Lost World.
‘In The Lost World, there could be cases where the internet was cut off so players would participate later on in the game, but is that kind of situation even possible here?’
And the player’s existence wasn’t the only unusual thing. Sung-Woon checked the player’s name in the information he received.
[癤Woo bbit瑜swem ssik]
‘…Are the letters scrambled?’
There was no way a player would intentionally choose that kind of username. Even Sung-Woon, who had spent most of his time playing the game since its release, had never seen an ID like this.
“How do you pronounce it?”
“What?” replied Lunda.
“The player’s name.”
“Oh, it seems that the first Chinese character is pronounced as ‘jeol’. ‘Jeol’ means furuncle, and the two words after that are combined to make the name Jeol Woo-Bi.”
“Jeol Woo-Bi.”
‘Jeol Woo-Bi. It’s unusual, but whatever.’
Sung-Woon just thought it could be a player who seeks unusual usernames, or there might simply be a system error. But the next part was what was strange.
‘There shouldn’t be a species like this.’
What Sung-Woon saw was a video taken from a distance by the player named AR. AR’s main species was the Nix, a species that looked similar to Elves due to their pointy ears, but with a smaller build and black skin. If Elves had a noble side to them, Nixes were a little more jolly.
In the video, two groups of Nixes were fighting each other, so Sung-Woon initially thought it was a civil war. However, AR1026, the one filming the video, moved their fingers around to show the status windows of each group. The first group was displayed as [Nix], but that wasn’t the case for the second group.
[Species: Nix(Vampire)]
***
“Vampires?”
“You’ve never seen the species before either, right?”
“…Yes. It’s my first time seeing them.”
Sung-Woon had no choice but to admit it. There had been no Vampires in The Lost World until now. Zombies would be the most similar to them, but Zombies weren’t necessarily considered species, but simply animated corpses. Apart from them, individuals could be controlled by certain magic or Divinity, but they would be considered having been inflicted with abnormal conditions.
Sung-Woon then said, “So what did you all think of them?”
“We haven’t all gathered to talk about it yet, but Crampus said that he thinks it is an extremely rare event that has a low chance of occurring, so that’s why he doesn’t know of it.”
“I’ve never seen them before either, so there’s a high probability that it isn’t the case. Rather than assuming that in the first place…”
“…What then?”
Sung-Woon had to make an assumption he didn’t like.
“…Wouldn’t it be something like a DLC?”
“DLC? You’re saying that we’re playing the extension pack?”
“I’m just saying that could be the case. Strictly speaking, The Lost World we played in the past isn’t the exact same as the game we’re playing now, right?”
“Well, isn’t that obvious?”
“No, besides this being a real world. For example…”
Sung-Woon opened the system window and went to Options. It was only used for managing add-ons and adjusting the sizes of the windows opened, but there were no options related to graphics.
“…The Options window is empty because there’s nothing to configure. Other than that, it’s missing one crucial thing.”
“What is it?”
“You can’t log out.”
Lunda nodded.
As Sung-Woon said, in addition to graphic controls, there was no log out button on the Options window.
Then Sung-Woon continued, “Anyways, the fact that the system window is different means that what was here had disappeared, but at the same time that means things that didn’t exist could appear.”
“I get what you’re saying.”
Sung-Woon continued to say while looking at the information shared by AR1026, “They certainly are dangerous. They should have finished preparing by now, right?”
“They’re dangerous?”
“Huh? Didn’t you tell me about them because they are dangerous?”
Lunda shook her head.
“You told me to give you information that I found, so I told you. And I was curious about your opinion since something that didn’t exist suddenly appeared.”
“No. They do seem very dangerous.”
“AR and Jang-Wan are just going to leave them be for now since they don’t know what’s going on.”
“What about the rest?”
Lunda shrugged.
“Isn’t it irrelevant anyways? It’s not happening in our lands. Wisdom is doing nothing about it, and Crampus and I have also decided to just see what happens.”
“…Hm.”
“Invading them with an excuse would be a low-hanging fruit, no?” Lunda crossed her arms. “In my opinion, I don’t think they’re a dangerous force. And Jeol Woo-Bi’s Divinity level would at most be 2 or 3.”
Sung-Woon asked, “Does AR know nothing about Vampires either?”
“You saw the shared information, didn’t you? Vampires can infect others like Zombies and turn them into their own species. However, the transformation would at least take a day on the fast side, and a few days for the slower cases. It may lead to an increase in abilities, but I think it’s a random thing.”
“Hm.”
Sung-Woon knew that the other players were comparing the Vampires to Zombie epidemics.
‘A Zombie epidemic is definitely scary since you would turn into a Zombie within a few hours at the most, or within a few minutes. Compared to that, Vampires can seem like a much weaker version of a Zombie epidemic.’
However, in Sung-Woon’s opinion, there was a decisive difference between the two.
‘Zombies are just stupid dead bodies moving, but Vampires aren’t, are they?’
Since Vampires maintained their intelligence, they could hide things that other players hadn’t found out about.
“Did AR find the priest of the Vampires?”
“I don’t know. AR didn’t share that much with me.”
Sung-Woon nodded.
‘So they didn’t find the priest.’
Sung-Woon opened another window without Lunda knowing. It was a Memo that contained equations Sung-Woon frequently checked, and among the equations was one to calculate the speed of outbreak and level of risk of a Zombie epidemic. Sung-Woon put different variables into the equation and came to a conclusion of sorts.
Sung-Woon said, “So you’re just gonna wait and see what happens for now, right?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I think you should tell the player named AR to at least find the Vampire priest. This might just be a special event, but the priest should be identified in order to immediately deal with a problem that may arise. And if the opponent really is a player, they wouldn’t be able to make a comeback if they lose their priest at a low level.”
Lunda looked at Sung-Woon with eyes full of suspicion.
“It seems like you’re hiding something.”
“No way.”
“And I don’t want to say such things to AR.”
“Because they’re an enemy?”
“Yes. You seem to keep forgetting that, but at least to others, Crampus and I are a team, Wisdom is in a team by himself, and AR and Jang-Wan are on the same side. Our three factions are at war with one another.” replied Lunda.
“And one has taken a great hit recently.”
Lunda’s right eyebrow twitched, but she managed to contain her anger.
“You know…well. So for that reason, there’s a need to create a balance,” Lunda said.
“Well, I don’t intend to force you to tell them. I simply felt a moral obligation to give you the advice.”
“I didn’t know you had the ability to feel such a thing.”
Sung-Woon chuckled. His laughter rang inside his mask and sounded dreary.
“Well, I’ll see you soon,” replied Sung-Woon.
Lunda found the response strange. She had shared with Sung-Woon all the information from the Renards’ country, Red Fruit. There was no need for Lunda to see Sung-Woon again for a while.
***
On top of a tall mountain at an unknown location. 𝘪𝘦.𝘤𝑜
Four additional video chat windows were opened up, and each showed one player. The five video chat windows were all in a circle so they could see each other.
The only man who had a lion mask over his head said, “Do we really need to receive his help?”
Then a woman wearing a rococo dress and bridal veil replied, “Well, we can’t receive help from Hegemonia, can we?”
“That’s true. Hegemonia would send an army with the excuse of helping.”
The devil next to the woman, Crampus, interrupted the conversation.
“But I think they’re the same kind of people. What do you think, Lunda?”
Lunda, who wasn’t in a video chat window, sat cross-legged and shook her legs carelessly.
“Well I do think that as well…but I do also think it’s better to reach out to Nebula than Hegemonia.”
“As long as Lunda thinks so, I agree with her.”
Crampus scratched his chin.
In the fourth video chat window, a person with a grotesque star-shaped head said, “He accepted the call. It’s Nebula.”
A fifth video chat window appeared in front of Lunda. It was Sung-Woon.
“I can’t believe you guys were looking for me,” said Sung-Woon. “I didn’t know I was so popular.”
All the other players looked annoyed at that. They were the ones who had suffered severe damage due to the swarms of locusts, and in particular, Crampus and Lunda were direct victims of war who had suffered losses at Sung-Woon’s hands.
Wisdom, the one with no facial expression to begin with due to his star-shaped head, said, “Nebula, you should already know why we called you.”
“Is that so? Well, there’s no guarantee that my assumptions are correct.”
Lunda clenched her fists. Before this meeting, she had told Nebula all the information she had, so he was putting on a shameless act.
‘Even apart from that, everyone here knows that your reconnaissance agents are all over the central part of the continent!’
When Lunda was considering breaking her usual image and cursing at Sung-Woon, Wisdom spoke up first. He was a very patient man.
“You should know that something unusual is happening in the center of the continent.”
“I know a little.”
“Then do you also know that a player we call Jeol Woo-Bi has appeared with a Vampire species?”
“Yes.”
“And the Vampires, who were seen in only Golden Eye, have spread to all five of our lands, thus becoming a great force…?”
“Yes, I know of that too.”
“Then I guess you know everything that you need to know.”
Wisdom then added, “Nebula, would you help us?”
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