The horse ran along the dirt road.
Jaewon held the reins loosely. The effect of the stealth potion was still lingering.
The sight of only his upper body seeming to float in midair still wasn’t something he could get used to.
The patch notes were tucked inside his clothes.
He had not applied the glitch patch yet. He intended to sort out the structure of where and how to block it first, then handle it all at once.
There was no reason to rush and create another side effect.
The wind blew.
Then something descended from the sky.
It was a colorful thing he was familiar with.
Red, yellow, blue, green. It dropped at high speed and landed precisely on Jaewon’s outstretched arm.
Sharp talons gripped his sleeve tightly.
“I have arrived.”
It was Log.
Jaewon lifted his arm slightly. Log ruffled his feathers once. The scent of southern wind and ice
seemed to cling to him. He had flown in from far away.
Jaewon said, looking ahead.
“You’re late.”
“It was Antarctica.”
“I know.”
---
The horse kept running.
Jaewon straightened his shoulders while holding the reins. The wind blew from the front. Now, with a parrot perched on his arm.
“Don’t I look kind of cool right now?”
Log turned his head and looked at Jaewon.
“In what sense?”
“You know, like a triumphant general. Returning after sweeping across the battlefield. Riding a horse with a brave bird of prey perched on his arm.”
“A parrot belongs to the order Psittaciformes, not birds of prey.”
“It’s a metaphor, a poetic metaphor. Sigh, a cold heart like yours just can’t understand a literary boy~”
Log said nothing.
A moment later.
“You look like a beggar who stole a lord’s horse, with a parrot.”
Jaewon’s shoulders sagged.
“……I can’t refute it because it’s a fact.”
“That is correct.”
Jaewon pressed down on Log’s head with his finger. It was less petting and more just pressing. Once, twice.
At first, Log stayed still.
Then.
“……Please do that more.”
Jaewon stopped his hand.
“Huh?”
“While I was with the Constellation, tension accumulated. It is now being released.”
Log added briefly.
“It was a fish soup tea party. Later, I will catch fish and prepare it for you.”
Jaewon said nothing for a moment.
A fish soup tea party. Jaewon was the one who had put a penguin skin on him and sent him off.
Jaewon pressed down on Log’s head again. This time, several more times.
Log said nothing.
Jaewon knew well enough that this was Log’s own form of resentment.
---
“But how did you escape? That woman didn’t observe whether the penguin she released in Antarctica was doing well?”
Log adjusted his posture and said,
“Indeed. The Constellation released me into the wild. With the meaning that I should return to nature.”
“Yeah.”
“It was in front of an Antarctic glacier. There were other groups of penguins and seals.”
As he listened to Log’s adventure, Jaewon suddenly grew curious and asked,
“Can you beat a seal?”
Log scrunched up his parrot face as much as possible, making a disgusted expression.
“…I hope that was a joke. I can even beat an orca.”
Then, after clearing his throat for a moment, he continued explaining.
“I dived in order to give the impression that I was freely going off to catch fish.”
Jaewon nodded.
“After that, I swam quite far. Far enough to get out of the Constellation’s sight.”
“Oh-ho. That woman probably didn’t want to swim just to check whether you were hunting properly.”
The First Snow Constellation likely did not want to enter the frigid Antarctic waters. Manifestation meant experiencing the senses concretely.
“Yes. After avoiding pursuit by seals and orcas to some extent, I removed the skin and immediately flew.”
Jaewon raised the corners of his mouth.
“You’re a genius.”
Log ruffled his feathers once.
“That is enough.”
“No, really—”
“That is enough. Let us talk strategy.”
Jaewon closed his mouth.
Log straightened his posture on Jaewon’s arm and looked ahead. The horse ran over the dirt road.
The wind blew.
Jaewon also looked ahead.
“Fine. Now it’s time to boast about my genius.”
He had something to say.
“About that glitch. Is it truly all right not to block it?”
Log brought it up first.
Jaewon answered while holding the reins loosely.
“It’s fine for now.”
“Please explain the reason.”
“They’re mining precious metals automatically, but in the end, it’s a precious-metals-for-cannons transaction. It’s a route where they supply undead and receive cannons from the dwarves.”
They were piling delicate, high-value gold thread craftworks in one corner of the mine.
Of course, that was for the purpose of causing the glitch, but it also meant that it would still be a while before precious metals were released as currency and caused inflation.
“It’s not a trade that ends in a day or two. Negotiations, matching quantities, transporting them—it all takes time. We still have some leeway.”
“By leeway… you mean you will set a trap in the meantime.”
“Yeah.”
Log was silent for a moment.
Then.
“I will ask one thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“The other side is already an entity that has delved deeply into the code structure of our Arcana Online. They must have made countless varied attempts to find glitches until now.”
“Right.”
Jaewon readily nodded.
“But if you are to set a trap, Director, you must touch the code. If they learn that the same input as before now produces a different output, they will realize it is a trap you set and will not fall for it.”
Log continued.
“How do you plan to set a trap naturally without being discovered?”
It was an obvious question.
If you modify code, traces are left behind. If a trap looks like a trap, it is not a trap. It would be nothing but a useless waste of divine power.
With that concern, Log looked at Jaewon.
‘…?’
Jaewon was smiling.
The corners of his mouth had risen. More precisely, one side had risen more, making it a slightly twisted kind of smile.
Log knew that expression.
It was the expression he wore when he had an unreliable idea.
---
“I’m not going to touch the existing code.”
Jaewon said.
“I’m going to add code for new content.”
“……New code.”
“New content.”
Jaewon continued, gathering the reins into one hand.
“If it’s a new update rather than a code modification, it doesn’t look like traces of tampering; it just becomes a patch. It can’t be distinguished from normal operations. Even if the other side sees it, it’ll just look like new content.”
“That is true, but.”
Log groomed his feathers and said,
“What kind of new content? New content worth adding at this point is—”
Log stopped speaking.
As if he had been waiting for that, Jaewon said nothing.
Log slowly turned his head.
“……Fairies?”
Jaewon maintained his smile.
“Thaaat’s right~.”
Log said nothing for a while.
While flying back from Antarctica, he had checked Jaewon’s activities.
The castles of numerous human lords. The Demon King’s Castle banquet hall. The report from the Demon God Constellation. The contents of Jaewon’s reply.
— Fairy race under trial implementation. Temporarily applied at human size due to incomplete modeling.
That had been the excuse. Words he had made up on the spot to smooth over the report.
“We already announced that we were updating it anyway. I had to spend divine power either way.”
Jaewon said.
“I can’t take it back and not do it. So I’m going to actually add it this time.”
---
“And.”
Jaewon added.
“Think from the other side’s perspective.”
Log was listening.
“The information that fairies on our side are currently being rendered with the default model has already been made known. I practically spread it myself. I left eyewitness accounts all over the place, from several lords’ castles to the Demon King’s Castle.”
“That is correct.”
“Then what will the other side think?”
Jaewon continued.
“There’s originally a bug in the new content. It was uploaded while still in development, before the model was completed. Then there’s a high chance the code is also unfinished. It’s content where glitches will be easy to find.”
Log remained quiet.
“If they’re people who specialize in digging for glitches, they’ll rush toward it. It’s a common perception that early versions have lots of holes.”
Jaewon looked ahead.
“If they charge in while seeing me as nothing but a total scrub, they’ll get caught.”
The sound of horse hooves continued to ring over the dirt road.
Log looked at Jaewon’s face.
“While intentionally leaving holes inside it that look like glitches.”
“Yeah.”
“And in reality, designing it so that the moment they step into that hole, a record is left behind?”
“Now you get it.”
Log looked at Jaewon.
Jaewon was still looking ahead.
Log slowly opened his beak.
“…Was making the fairy excuse a calculation for this?”
Compared to the previous director, he was certainly outstanding, but Log had simply thought of him as an unreliable director full of holes.
But the thought that his act of raiding food to satisfy a primal appetite had been calculated and intended with this situation in mind sent a chill through Log.
‘Was I truly nothing but a mere parrot before him?’
At Log’s question, Jaewon looked at him expressionlessly.
And then,
“…It’s not like I calculated it.”
“?”
“I drank a stealth potion and was just shoveling food into my mouth, but then the Constellation caught me, so I wondered what excuse to make and said they were fairies.”
Log thought for a moment.
“……What the.”
“To be honest, I had no idea how to add the fairy race, but I figured it’d be fine to release it full of holes. I can attach something to let me track the guys who poke around in the holes…”
Jaewon’s prattling simply passed straight through Log’s avian auditory organs.
All the bird could manage was a slight question in response.
“Then this is…”
“As you thought, my genius strategy.”
At Jaewon’s reply, Log said,
“You are fortunate.”
“Thanks.”
“That was not praise.”
“I know. But luck is also skill.”
Jaewon said.
“Still, thanks.”
To summarize, there were two things.
Jaewon said while holding the reins.
“First. The glitch distributor.”
“Second. The newbie-slaughtering force.”
Log listened while grooming his feathers on Jaewon’s arm.
“We have to catch both. There’s no set order. It’ll be faster if we move simultaneously.”
“A division of labor?”
“Yeah.”
Jaewon looked at Log.
“You’ll take charge of eliminating the newbie-slaughtering force.”
Log tilted his head.
“Finding them should not be difficult.”
“I know. That’s why I’m leaving it to you. You can move over a wide area, enter anywhere, and report quickly.”
It was a force targeting newbie Constellations. An organized structure that singled out those who had just stepped into the game, pressured them, and induced them to leave. There was no way it had no traces. If the damage repeated, that meant there was a pattern, and if there was a pattern, Log would find it.
“Report as soon as you catch a clue. We’ll decide how to handle it together then.”
“Understood.”
Log answered briefly and looked ahead.
Jaewon also looked ahead.
“I’m going to find the glitch hunters.”
“Glitch hunters.”
“A person who has dug into Arcana’s internal structure to this extent didn’t discover it alone. There are people who specialize in researching glitches. People who treat finding loopholes in the system from outside the code like a profession.”
Jaewon continued.
“Among them, someone either sold this mine glitch, or received information that had been sold. One way or another, there’s a connection. If we find that, we can trace it back to the glitch distributor.”
“With the fairy content as bait.”
“Yeah. If they bite the bait, records will remain. Once the records pile up, the lines will become visible.”
Log thought for a moment.
“If a glitch hunter is among the Arcana Constellations, would they not be difficult to find? They might turn up if we search the community.”
“Probably. But that might not be all.”
Jaewon looked ahead.
“If they’re at the level of knowing Arcana’s internal structure inside and out, they might be someone who has entered even deeper than a Constellation. If they’re moving from the side that isn’t a Constellation, there won’t be traces in the community.”
The horse slowed. It was a point where the road split.
Jaewon pulled the reins and stopped.
Log looked at Jaewon from his arm.
Jaewon looked at Log.
“We did pretty well getting this far. If we’d just burned down the hut and held out while reports poured in, we wouldn’t have known anything.”
“That is correct.”
“But now, though we don’t know their face, we know they exist. And we know what they’re doing.”
Jaewon looked at one side of the forked road.
“Next is finding out their name.”
Log folded his feathers once.
“Understood. Where are you going?”
“To the place where I’ll create the fairy race.”
Log nodded at Jaewon’s answer,
and took flight.
His colorful feathers cut through the wind and grew distant. Jaewon followed him with his eyes for a moment,
then turned his gaze forward again.
Designing the fairy content.
Tracking the glitch hunters.
Both at the same time.
Jaewon adjusted his grip on the reins.
Log soared into the sky, and the horse began to run again.