Return of the Final Boss
Chapter 155
The secret meeting between Jeil Group and Xiongmao Group at the Shanghai Tower Sky Lounge did not leak to the outside thanks to Xiongmao Group's strict information control.
This was partly because Shin Ha-yeon had made a secret meeting a prerequisite for arranging the talks in the first place, but also because both sides had smoothly reached an agreement on the terms of a secret alliance.
Of course, the contest of wills that occurred between them in the process was nothing more than a trivial episode now that an agreement had been reached.
Thanks to that, after the secretly held meeting was successfully concluded, Drakan was able to carry out the ostensible reason for coming to Shanghai: "sightseeing."
"I had no idea this thing actually spun."
Dongfang Mingzhu, the landmark skyscraper of Shanghai.
At the revolving restaurant on top of it, the so-called Revolving Restaurant, Drakan muttered as he looked out at the cityscape of Shanghai, densely packed with high-rise buildings.
"Lord Drakan, is this perhaps your first time visiting a place like this?"
Shin Ha-yeon looked at him with a smile in her eyes.
Inside the famous Revolving Restaurant of Dongfang Mingzhu, there were only two people: Drakan and Shin Ha-yeon.
It was because Shin Ha-yeon, overflowing with wealth as always, had rented out the entire restaurant.
Of course, her renting out the entire Revolving Restaurant was not simply to show off her wealth like some nouveau riche.
It was a kind of ploy to leak information to the outside that the purpose of stopping in Shanghai was "sightseeing," in order to avoid Vice Chairman Shin Jeong-hyeok's suspicion.
Vice Chairman Shin Jeong-hyeok.
Though he sometimes let his emotions get the better of him and caused problems, Shin Ha-yeon never underestimated him.
The probability of arousing Shin Jeong-hyeok's suspicion merely by stopping in Shanghai was high enough to be impossible to ignore, and in order to leave no room for doubt in him, there had been a need to openly spend money and advertise that they had come for sightseeing.
That was the reason she had rented out the entire Revolving Restaurant.
Of course, there was also the fact that Shin Ha-yeon preferred a quiet atmosphere.
Anyway, Shin Ha-yeon smiled as she looked at Drakan, who was looking around his surroundings as if fascinated.
When it came to matters related to the game—or more precisely, Arde Saga—Drakan was acknowledged by himself and others as the only rival to Eugene in this world, someone who would charge through without hesitation regardless of whether it was reality or the game; but when it came to matters completely unrelated to gaming, he showed a sloppy side, just like now.
And Shin Ha-yeon secretly thought that such unexpected sides of Drakan were human.
"It's just that I've never really had occasion to travel abroad."
Drakan scratched his cheek.
Of course, there had been many famous foreign rankers back in the days of the previous game, but Drakan had no reason to go all the way to a foreign country to meet them.
In the days of the previous game, unlike now, the game world and the real world had been virtually separate, and there had been almost no cases of pulling real-world power into the game.
Therefore, it had been natural back then for connections made in the game to end within the game.
Of course, now that they had entered the era of Second, there were many users who longed for this so-called "romantic" style of play from the previous game.
Roughly speaking, in the previous game, there had been romance and memories within the game.
Even if the system had been inconvenient, it had a human touch; but after Arde Live was introduced, Second's Arde World was overly buried in competition, a desolate world that could not tolerate failure—that was their main argument.
In response, the new-generation users who had started gaming from Second onward were relatively mild in merely mocking those old-generation users as "fossils" and "old-timers"; in severe cases, differences in opinion over each other's playstyles led to keyboard battles breaking out online.
And if one had to classify him, Drakan held a perspective closer to the new-generation users, while Eugene held the perspective of the old-generation users represented by "romance" and "classic."
Even in such trivial matters, Eugene and Drakan maintained diametrically opposed positions.
Anyway, although Drakan had held considerable money while running the Ironblood Alliance—not as much as in Second—he had no particular interest in things like overseas travel, so apart from sending his parents on trips, he had never traveled himself.
For such a Drakan, this trip to Shanghai was his first experience of an overseas "trip" in his life.
"If it's just going overseas, I've had more than enough of that riding deep-sea fishing vessels..."
Of course, if one removed the word "travel," he had gone overseas so many times he was sick of it.
Having thought that far, Drakan felt his hand tremble slightly without realizing it.
Deep-sea fishing vessel.
The terrible memories of that time engaging in grueling, repetitive labor without end on the boundless sea, the waves that covered the deck, the stench of the deep-sea fishing vessel that seemed enough to make one vomit, and the sight of flopping tuna—all of it gave him a dizzy feeling, as if it might surge back at any moment.
"...I'd rather not talk about that."
Drakan said so and took a deep breath.
The one thing that Drakan feared, he who sought to pull down even Eugene himself.
It was none other than the nightmare of the deep-sea fishing vessel spent on the deck over the years.
Just as military veterans who had been discharged long ago still had nightmares about going back to the army, Drakan often had nightmares about boarding a deep-sea fishing vessel again.
Shin Ha-yeon quietly took his trembling left hand.
As her warm body temperature reached him, Drakan's heart rate, which had been pumping like mad, gradually began to slow.
"Don't worry, Lord Drakan."
Shin Ha-yeon looked at him and spoke in a sweet voice.
"Because something like that will never happen again. I guarantee it."
Drakan smiled at her words.
Right.
He would never board that damned deep-sea fishing vessel again.
And to do that, he had to successfully complete the grand scheme of rebellion and pull that damned Eugene down from the divine throne.
Of course, doing so wouldn't make the fact that he had wasted his youth futilely on a deep-sea fishing vessel disappear, but at least he would no longer have nightmares about boarding one.
Thinking so, Drakan felt himself gradually stabilizing.
Still holding his hand tightly, Shin Ha-yeon spoke.
"Are you feeling a little better now?"
At her voice filled with worry, Drakan nodded.
"Now that we've finished our meal, how about a tour of the Huangpu River? This time, I've chartered an entire cruise ship; is that alright?"
Huangpu River.
Drakan smiled at Shin Ha-yeon's words mentioning the representative tourist attractions of Shanghai—Dongfang Mingzhu, Hongkou Park, and Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street.
It seemed that following the Revolving Restaurant, she had gone and chartered an entire cruise ship as well.
"Sure."
"Then allow me to escort you, Lord Drakan."
Shin Ha-yeon smiled playfully, took Drakan's hand, and rose from her seat.
Behind the two of them, the vast view of the Huangpu River and the nightscape of Waitan spread out like a panorama.
* * *
Drakan and Shin Ha-yeon spent two nights and three days in Shanghai, dedicating almost all of that time to sightseeing, and this information reached Vice Chairman Shin's ears as well.
"Sightseeing in Shanghai together? They must be living it up."
Simsung Town, Seocho-dong.
The face of Vice Chairman Shin, who was sitting in the top-floor office overlooking downtown Seoul, contorted.
The fact that Drakan and Shin Ha-yeon were lovers was, without even needing to gather intelligence, already openly known in social circles; they simply hadn't announced it publicly.
It was the same how people had been aghast at the news that Shin Ha-yeon, who had now pushed the Chairman of Jeil Group into the back room as a figurehead, was dating a "gamer."
Of course, it was common for chaebol heirs to date people from different classes, like celebrities, but since Shin Ha-yeon was the first to date a gamer rather than a celebrity, social circles had gossiped about it; but Shin Ha-yeon herself didn't care at all.
After all, social circles had gossiped about her simply for being a woman ever since she had seized control of Jeil Group; having the matter of Drakan added on top of that wasn't going to change anything.
Rather, Shin Ha-yeon openly laughed at the fools in high society who failed to recognize Drakan's value and considered him merely a dangerous fling or a deviation.
Anyway, apart from such cases, the movements of Drakan, Shin Ha-yeon, and the key figures of Jeil E&M including Ignis were already reaching Vice Chairman Shin's ears in real time.
It was a basic strategy carried out based on the very elementary common sense that one must know the enemy to defeat the enemy.
Of course, given who the opponent was, even with the power of the crown prince of the illustrious Simsung Group, he couldn't uncover all of Jeil E&M's information; but at least he could easily find out whether Shin Ha-yeon went abroad.
"And of all places, it had to be Shanghai!"
The vice chairman muttered, crumpling documents in his hand.
Shanghai.
It was the city where Xiongmao Esports of China and its headquarters, Xiongmao Group, were located—the very ones he currently had an alliance with.
Vice Chairman Shin had felt a premonition of ill omen at the words "Shanghai sightseeing," but the movements of Shin Ha-yeon and Drakan in Shanghai, once reported, were truly typical tourism.
Sightseeing coupled with the kind of reckless money-squandering only a chaebol could manage.
It was truly a typical upper-class consumption pattern, a sightseeing course so faithfully devoted to the purpose of tourism itself that he unthinkingly wondered if it wouldn't be fine to sightsee like this even if he went to Shanghai.
"Are they making fun of me right now?"
The vice chairman muttered in a trembling voice as he threw the crumpled documents into the trash can.
Photos of Shin Ha-yeon and Drakan in Shanghai, posted on social media as if to boast, flashed through Shin Jeong-hyeok's mind.
While Drakan might not know that the headquarters of Xiongmao Esports and Xiongmao Group were in Shanghai, there was no way Shin Ha-yeon didn't know.
It was because Xiongmao Group was a Chinese chaebol group in the neighboring country and had many connections with Korean chaebol families.
Yet the fact that they deliberately went to Shanghai and acted like typical tourists, so faithfully adhering to a two-night, three-day itinerary that it was beyond compare, was practically no different from mocking the alliance he had formed with Xiongmao Esports.
'If it's that woman, she definitely went to Shanghai with that intention.'
Shin Jeong-hyeok thought so, clenching his teeth.
Shin Ha-yeon.
There was no way that woman didn't know that Shin Jeong-hyeok himself was targeting her.
Shin Jeong-hyeok hated Shin Ha-yeon, but he never underestimated her.
And Shin Ha-yeon was the kind of person who would go to Shanghai and do such things just to mock Shin Jeong-hyeok, her "enemy."
"This really leaves a foul taste!"
Shin Jeong-hyeok felt rage welling up.
It truly felt filthy.
Shin Ha-yeon.
How long did he have to live being mocked by that woman, how long did he have to harbor feelings of inferiority!
Now he wanted to cut off this sickening karmic tie once and for all.
Unable to overcome his anger, Shin Jeong-hyeok let out a shriek; but fortunately, the office was thoroughly soundproofed, so his shriek could not escape it.
And so, Shin Jeong-hyeok was being toyed with in the palm of Shin Ha-yeon's hand yet again today; but unfortunately, he himself still failed to realize that fact.