At the Southern Archipelago.
There was a cliffed coast on the side of the southern island furthest from Black Scale. It was steep and reached tens of meters in height, and as a result, the ebb and flow of the tides carved a deep, horizontal sea cave into the rock. This sea cave was not only connected to the sea, but also to the land, so it had once been home to an Astacidea tribe.
However, as the Astacidea tribe grew, they found out that the various ironware and craftwork made to develop civilization were vulnerable to sea water, so they all left, leaving the cave unoccupied. And above all, the main reason they left was because the Astacideas had begun to build houses.
While the tide receded, a man was sitting deep inside the cave. It was Sung-Woon. After a few clicks on the interface, six video chat windows popped up, showing Crampus, Lunda, Jang-Wan, AR1026, Wisdom, and Eldar respectively.
The one with the star head, Wisdom, first said, “Nebula, I think it’s the first time you requested for a conversation first. And it’s even an emergency call.”
In The Lost World, concepts such as emergency calls were generally meaningless. This was because the system and the supported interface were generally enough for a player to interact or conspire with their allies, which was how Sung-Woon could maintain first place while barely talking with other players. Such conversations were mainly for finding out about the opponent’s strategy, for building friendship, for a more complicated form of diplomacy to figure out the opponent’s build, or to inquire about the opponent’s parents.
It was Sung-Woon who had proposed the concept of an emergency call in this world. They could no longer claim to be playing a normal game as they were living as gods, and things progressed in real time rather than hours or even centuries being compressed into much shorter periods.
However, above everything else, Sung-Woon was most wary of the existence of evil gods. 癤Woo bbit瑜swem ssik, who the players of the third continent called Jeol Woo-Bi, had been a great threat in many ways. If it hadn’t been for Lakrak’s performance, they would have caused more damage to the continent, which would in turn greatly delay technological development for the players.
‘Black Scale suffered almost no direct damage, but if technological development is delayed in the other countries on the same continent, that’s the same as Black Scale suffering damage as well.’
Overall, the appearance and death of Jeol Woo-Bi on the third continent had left an impression on the players of the third continent that some degree of information sharing was deemed necessary. Sung-Woon had already contacted Hegemonia, who had moved on to a different continent, to ask if something similar happened there as well. He found out that on the first continent, Werewolves, a species that hadn’t existed, had appeared along with a player with scrambled letters as their ID.
Similar to the Vampires, Werewolves existed as a disease. Unlike the Vampires, though, this disease could only spread to Humans and species similar to Humans like Elves, Dwarves, and Nixes. But excluding their weakness to silver, they were better than Vampires, who normally had to hide their true nature and could be damaged by sunlight.
Luckily enough, there was word that the Werewolves had been defeated before the continent suffered major damage since the main species there weren’t Humans and Human-like species. Nevertheless, the players of the first continent couldn’t help but be suspicious of the player with a scrambled name, who never communicated with others. In addition to that, Werewolves, just like Vampires, were discovered in Ancient Ruins and appeared to be associated with Ancient Evil, which had been part of each species’ history.
Players from the second continent also showed interest in what had happened on the other continents. And as a result, all players ended up sharing minimal information while hiding their level of development. The information they shared was the number of players on each continent.
‘Excluding those who had given up before the game started, there were 27 players for sure.’
Ten players on the first continent.
Eight players on the second continent.
And on the third continent, there were:
Nebula
Hegemonia
Eldar
Solongos
Lim Chun-Sik
Lunda
Crampus
Wisdom
Jang-Wan
AR1026
癤Woo bbit瑜swem ssik
A total of 11 players.
That meant there were 29 players in this world.
‘The number of players doesn’t match.’
The only possibility was that the two additional players were the one controlling the Werewolves on the first continent and the player controlling the Vampires on the third continent. More players had been added. However, the regular players couldn’t just join forces and stop competing in the game because something like that had happened. The players of the second continent suffered no damage from these incidents, and the players of the first continent only suffered minor damage.
There was talk among some players of the first and second continent that they should find out what had happened even in a competition like this, but the argument didn’t gain momentum. And above all, the players of the third continent opposed the idea as well.
Whatever the unknown variable was, it wasn’t impossible to handle. The five players in the central region of the third continent had a backup plan even if Sung-Woon hadn’t helped them. If they accepted the help of other players this time, it would only lead to them getting further away from victory, which the game demanded. And additionally, the level of civilization was still too low for them to help each other across the vast ocean. There was no guarantee that there weren’t any players with extreme scientific and technological development builds, but none of the players said they did. Eventually, the idea of all the players coming together to uncover the truth about those incidents fizzled out.
‘…But it’s a different story within the same continent.”
In Sung-Woon’s perspective, the first continent had gotten lucky with the Werewolves. The Werewolves had appeared and disappeared before the Vampires, and it seemed that the spread of Werewolves was slower because of the lower level of civilization at the time. In that sense, the third continent had also gotten lucky with the Vampires.
‘What if Jeol Woo-Bi had stayed quiet and emerged in the current civilization?’
In the current civilization, it would seem that the players could deal with any threat, but they were vulnerable to diseases due to much denser population and many means of transportation. If something like the Vampires emerged at this point, the disease would spread not only across the third continent, but also across the whole planet. And Sung-Woon was most wary about the part that the enemy’s identity was unknown.
‘There’s no guarantee that the next enemy will be at the same level as the Werewolves and the Vampires. What if a stronger enemy appears with no apparent reason?’
Players of the third continent did differ somewhat in their opinions, but they all agreed that Sung-Woon had the right idea. The emergency call he suggested was a meeting open to all players of the third continent to discuss any information related to the evil god. For more than the past hundred years, this emergency call hadn’t been used other than the time Lunda had accidently pressed the button.
Sung-Woon nodded and said, “I want to start when Hegemonia joins as well.”
Jang-Wan, the player with the lion mask, said, “Hegemonia will probably be late or won’t come. It seemed that they’re in a battle with another player from the second continent.”
“Has gunpowder appeared on the second continent?”
“I don’t think so?”
“But they’re fighting again? Gunpowder would appear if they just waited a little longer.”
“Would Hegemonia care about that?”
Even in Sung-Woon’s opinion, he didn’t think Hegemonia would. Hegemonia was confident in battles, so they sometimes started fights with the belief that they would win if they won. It was fortunate that they didn’t also start a fight with Jang-Wan, who was at the border of the third continent, or it would become a battle of two fronts.
Sung-Woon concisely conveyed the news, “A fourth continent has been discovered.”
The other players responded differently. Lunda made a sound like she was surprised, and Wisdom leaned back into the chair he was sitting on. AR spread open a fan in front of her bridal veil, and Jang-Wan blinked with the eyes of the lion mask. Crampus was the only one stroking his beard without a hint of surprise.
“You must have been somewhat aware, Crampus.”
“Yeah. A group of pirates called Yaboon’s Pirates have been coming up from the south. Among the group, apparently the pirate leader named Yaboon is known to not be from the east or south, but from the southern continent.”
Sung-Woon would have thought Yaboon’s Pirates came from the first continent if they were said to come from the east. However, Godan, the Astacidea, said that Yaboon’s Pirates came from the south.
“But I wasn’t certain if it was another continent. Do you have reasonable grounds to come to the conclusion?”
“I’m not certain either,” Sung-Woon said. “I went to the Southern Archipelago when I first heard the news. It’s a place where crawfish live, but because I hadn’t paid much attention to them, they had recently gotten captured by the group of pirates.”
“What about the damage done?”
“The damage itself wasn’t much because the crawfish didn’t really fight. I think they got scared because there were a lot of pirates. And the pirates said that they would spare the crawfish as long as they regularly delivered tributes.”
Wisdom said, “Nebula, Astacideas have a tendency to exaggerate what they say. From what I know, there are a few big islands in the southern hemisphere, but they aren’t well-known since they aren’t important. Don’t you think they may have simply mistaken one of those islands as a continent?”
“I do think that’s a possibility. But…” Sung-Woon reorganized what he wanted to say in his head. “First of all, the Southern Archipelago is by no means small. I only left it unattended because it’s not yet suitable for development, and also because the other players didn’t really pay attention to it either. The crawfish believed in me. Thus I didn’t feel the need to integrate them into Black Scale’s system by force. However, it would take a big fleet to overpower the Southern Archipelago.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You get what I mean, right? There are limitations to the population and technological development for species that naturally arise from the islands. There is a possibility for brilliant individuals to emerge to lead development, but I think the chances are very low.”
AR asked, “Then Nebula, do you think the head of Yaboon’s Pirates is like the player we encountered before?”
“That’s right.”
“But Crampus mentioned Yaboon’s Pirates like he’d met them many times. Why didn’t he say anything until now…”
“Oh, well, that’s…”
Crampus then said, “It’s about me, so I’ll talk. I did cross paths with Yaboon’s Pirates, but not the actual group, but pirates associated with them as subordinates. Seeing that most of the leaders were Astacideas, I assumed that they were from the Southern Archipelago. I didn’t really know if Yaboon’s Pirates had anything to do with the evil god since pirate attacks do happen every now and then.”
“Oh, so that’s why you didn’t make an emergency call…”
After a slow nod, AR folded her fan and said, “Then perhaps Nebula has more evidence.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It is our speculation that Yaboon’s Pirates are being controlled by the evil god, and they appear to have obtained the Southern Archipelago. Still, it’s Nebula’s territory because Astacideas still live there.”
“That’s right.”
“And in my opinion, Nebula wouldn’t be wasting other peoples’ time if he wasn’t certain.”
“I’m glad you see me that way.”
Crampus then asked with a questioning look, “So is there any evidence?”
“Yes.” Sung-Woon nodded. “I met another species, and a Clash of Civilizations message popped up. Another player has already shown up in the local player list.”
“Who is it?”
Sung-Woon furrowed his eyebrows and said, “This player’s name is… How do you even read this? I’ll just share the information.”
The name appeared to all six players.
[?щ????]
Then Wisdom said, “The character after the question mark seems to be cyrillic. If I remember correctly, I think it’s pronounced as sha.”
“Then we’ll refer to them as Sha-Cha.”
No one seemed to disagree.
Then Jang-Wan said, “Sha-Cha. It definitely looks like an evil god’s name. What species did this guy bring?”
“I’ll show you right now.”
Sung-Woon slightly turned around and called out a name. And as he did, Lunda pointed at Sung-Woon with her index finger.
“Oh, Nebula! B…behind you! Hurry and turn around!”
“Lunda, if what you’re seeing behind me is a large white spider, you can stop freaking out.”
“…Oh, it’s yours?”
Sung-Woon looked at Lunda like she was pathetic before glancing over his shoulder.
A huge softly glowing white spider the size of a house crawled towards him.
The white spider was Sung-Woon’s creation. It was made to protect the Southern Archipelago, but the Astacideas hadn’t shown any resistance against the pirates, and Sung-Woon in turn missed the chance to use his creation. The spider was dragging a dead body with a thread of spider web from its mouth.
“Good work, Hillove.”
-It is my pleasure. I am simply honored that I can help you.
Sung-Woon leaned toward the dead body, allowing the other players to get a closer look through the video chat. The dead body definitely had the head of a fish.
“Not a mermaid, but a fishman…?”
In The Lost World, there were species that lived underwater apart from Frogmen and Astacideas. And the most iconic of them were the Sirens. Sirens had a similar image to how people usually picture mermaids—the upper body of a Human and the lower body of a fish. That was why players usually called them mermaids.
However, the individual in front of their eyes was definitely different from a mermaid. The body was roughly similar to a Human with arms and legs, but their head was one of a fish, and there was something like a tentacle attached to the top of their head.
Lunda asked, “So, what’s the name of the species?”
Sung-Woon replied, “It’s displayed as Deep One.”
.𝒎