The crystal orb’s screen shook.
It was because of the undead’s gait. A stone wall passed by, then a torch, then another stone wall
passed by.
Jaewon looked into the screen with his back against a boulder.
Then he stopped.
‘……What is that?’
The undead had entered the inner part of the mining area.
The wall came into view.
There was something on the wall.
A lot of it.
It was gold thread. Crafted ornaments made by twisting fine gold threads were piled up all over the floor and walls
of the mining area. Structures stretching like twigs, structures coiled in spirals, structures woven
in multiple layers. Every single design was different.
He had no idea why finished gold-thread crafts were inside a mine.
Jaewon’s eyes narrowed.
‘……How much is all this?’
The screen continued along the direction the crystal orb moved. The farther it went, the more there was.
They were packed into the cracks in the wall, inside the mining marks, and in the corners of the floor.
The lights scattered wildly, making it look almost like a cave party hall.
The undead’s movements became unstable.
They had already been staggering because they were rotten things, but now...
‘...Is the physics engine under load?’
Jaewon thought slowly.
Arcana Online was a virtual game world realized through divine power.
Sand was optimized for the physics engine. Soil was the same. Terrain materials had been designed from the start
to keep their data light.
They were particulates with individual objects, but algorithmically they were processed like a mass similar to water, so no matter how much piled up, it did not create much load.
But crafts were different.
Each craft had its own unique design. The direction each gold thread was twisted, the crossing points, the finishing. All of it existed as individual data.
‘That’s why there’s a system prepared for displaying spoils.’
If that was all being randomly mixed and piled together under the judgment of “small-scale transport in progress” like this.
‘Then it’s creating load in this area.’
Deliberately.
---
Just then, the undead moved.
They lifted their pickaxes.
‘This much is as expected.’
If an undead held a pickaxe as a weapon instead of a mining tool, the system would not recognize it as a mining action.
Weapon attack judgments and mining judgments were separated. Even if they attacked, the ground would not be destroyed.
But the undead did not strike the wall right away.
All fifteen of them stood in front of the wall at once.
‘......?’
And rubbed their bodies against the wall.
Jaewon blinked.
They rubbed against it as if they were performing some courtship ritual.
They pressed their shoulders to the wall, pushed twice, then pulled away; this time, they turned around, pushed three times, then pulled away.
They were all doing something strange together.
‘...This makes them get through? Why?’
Jaewon focused more closely on the screen.
He could see the undead’s feet.
Their feet had slipped slightly into the wall.
The tips were buried inside the terrain. Little by little. Each time the undead pushed their bodies, a little
deeper.
‘…….’
Jaewon said nothing.
In an area under load, judgments slowed down. Terrain collision calculations were delayed.
In that gap, the undead crossed the wall boundary little by little. They were not fully entering it, but overlapping with it. The terrain and the undead were in a state of overlap.
In that state, one undead raised its pickaxe.
It was an attack motion. A motion of swinging while holding a weapon.
The pickaxe overlapped with the wall.
Ore fell.
Mining complete judgment.
‘Um....’
Jaewon slowly pulled his back away from the boulder.
On the crystal orb’s screen, the undead continued their work. They pushed their bodies into the wall,
swung their weapons, and ore came out. Quietly and monotonously. As if it had been
a fixed process from the beginning.
Jaewon rolled the crystal orb in his hand.
It was not hacking.
They had not broken through the code.
They had not touched the mining restriction clause either.
‘This is...’
So that was why there had been nothing abnormal in the patch notes.
The rules were still alive.
They created load to delay the judgments, overlapped their bodies with the terrain in the gap where the terrain boundary grew vague, and extracted ore with attack motions
instead of mining. They had not touched a single line of code. There was no trace left of
invading the laws of the world.
‘A glitch.’
Jaewon muttered.
‘...Even if I searched through the Constellation and player communities, no one shared a tip like this.’
Someone had independently researched glitches. This mine’s toxic gas, the structure that prevented dwarves from entering,
the boundary between mining judgments and attack judgments, the timing at which terrain collision calculations slowed under load.
Perhaps even the toxic gas was a condition for this glitch.
It had been designed by someone who understood all of it.
Jaewon looked toward the mine entrance.
‘……There is a way to stop it.’
Since it was a glitch, it could be stopped. Raise the priority of terrain collision calculations, set an upper limit on data density related to craft transport, or block the undead from overlapping with terrain itself.
But before that.
‘Who designed this?’
This was not a glitch found by chance.
At this level, it meant someone knew Arcana Online’s internal structure quite deeply.
Jaewon tightened his grip on the crystal orb.
On the screen, the undead silently dug into the wall.
He turned off the crystal orb.
He typed a message to Log.
```
[Director → Log]
— I have something to discuss. Can you talk now?
```
A reply came.
```
[Log → Director]
— Please wait a moment.
```
A short while later.
```
[Log → Director]
— I can.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— How are things over there? Still having a tea party with the wyvern?
```
```
[Log → Director]
— I have good news. The Constellation of Pure White First Snow has put me on a wyvern.
```
Jaewon lifted his head.
```
[Director → Log]
— Oh, you got released?
```
```
[Log → Director]
— Not yet.
```
```
[Log → Director]
— She is sending me to Antarctica.
```
Jaewon stared at the screen for a moment.
```
[Director → Log]
— ……How did that happen? I thought that would absolutely never work.
```
```
[Log → Director]
— She says she is taking me back to my homeland.
The Constellation is feeling very proud of herself.
I think I will be released soon.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— When?
```
```
[Log → Director]
— She says she plans to release me into the wild as soon as we arrive in Antarctica.
After that, I believe I can return on my own.
```
Jaewon did not type anything for a while.
He could almost see the Constellation of Pure White First Snow looking dazedly proud beside him.
```
[Director → Log]
— Got it. That’s enough about that.
```
Jaewon steadied his breathing once and began typing.
---
```
[Director → Log]
— I saw the mine. To start with the conclusion, it’s not hacking.
```
```
[Log → Director]
— …Please explain.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— It was a glitch.
The code is fine. The mining restriction clause is still in effect too.
But they stuffed the mine full of a certain toxic gas and crafts with high data density,
creating load on the terrain collision calculations.
In that gap, they pushed the undead into the wall so they overlapped with it, then used attack motions to draw out
mining completion judgments.
They didn’t touch the rules at all.
```
It took some time for the reply to come.
```
[Log → Director]
— The glitch itself can be patched, but that means there are no traces of direct external intervention.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— Yeah. That’s why it’s more of a problem.
```
Jaewon looked toward the mine entrance and continued typing.
He explained the current situation to Log in simple terms.
```
[Director → Log]
— If it were hacking, there’d be someone behind it, and once we caught them, it’d be over.
But this is someone independently finding out glitch information and leaking it.
To a newbie Constellation who wants to quickly establish a foothold in Arcana.
The newbie probably planned to use the glitch to operate undead and grow their faction.
Even if we catch and ban them, it’ll be hard to identify the side that leaked it.
```
```
[Log → Director]
— They must have arranged the method of obtaining the information to seem accidental.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— Since they’re not the ones who used the glitch. It’d be a bit troublesome if they exploited a loophole themselves and then blamed the operators...
```
A brief silence passed.
```
[Log → Director]
— We must patch it first. If we leave the glitch open, they will continue using it.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— That’s true.
```
Jaewon pulled out the patch notes, set them on his lap, and looked at the screen again.
```
[Director → Log]
— But that alone isn’t enough.
I have a feeling that if we block this glitch, the next one will come bigger and more covert.
The other side is someone who knows Arcana’s structure quite deeply.
It means they understand even what lies outside the code.
```
```
[Log → Director]
— That is correct.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— Then we need to find the root.
Whether they’re a Constellation or another game operator, there must be people in this field who specialize in
finding glitches.
If someone capable of analyzing Arcana’s internal structure to this degree didn’t just appear out of nowhere,
there will be traces somewhere.
```
```
[Log → Director]
— What will you do once you find them?
```
Jaewon stared at the screen for a moment.
What would he do?
‘Wasn’t it said that a superstar is someone who drives both fans and haters crazy?’
So if it was just a simple check against him, that was fine.
```
[Director → Log]
— Revenge, obviously.
```
```
[Log → Director]
— ……Understood.
```
Jaewon folded the crystal orb away and opened the patch notes.
There were two things to do.
One. Stop the glitch.
Two. Find the side that designed this.
The order started with one.
```
[Director → Log]
— And then I’ll make the guy who found the glitch my slave and put him to work as QA.
```