◈ Episode 432. Listen to the Arrangements (1)
VBC Broadcasting Station.
Today Arcana was off the air.
Star producer Hyeon Yongseok watched the transmission monitor.
The captions scrolled by.
-Disaster Alert: Residents in the affected area are advised to evacuate swiftly……
It was a rare break, but there was no way he could welcome it.
Hyeon Yongseok’s gaze turned toward the office building’s window.
Between the forest of buildings, armed soldiers were patrolling the streets.
A familiar yet unfamiliar sight.
“Sunbae, have some of this.”
“What is it?”
“Green tea.”
“……
Green tea, not coffee?”
“I don’t know why, but green tea’s all the rage these days.”
“Is that so? Anyway, thanks.”
The green tea bag bobbed unsteadily.
Hyeon Yongseok accepted the paper cup and sank back into thought.
“Ugh, what is with this green tea? Why is it so bitter……?”
Yun Jongjin, frowning, opened his mouth.
“So, what are you thinking about so hard? A scoop?”
“No, I’m just spacing out.”
“Really? That’s rare. The Hyeon Yongseok?”
Put simply, he was a madman.
To elaborate, he was a madman obsessed with broadcasting.
No one knew better than Yun Jongjin, the chief camera director who suffered under him more than anyone, just how passionate Hyeon Yongseok was about Arcana. Yet that very Hyeon Yongseok said something completely unlike himself.
“It’s serious.”
Thanks to that, the gravity of the situation finally sank in.
“This isn’t some ordinary breaking news. It’s a disaster alert.”
To schedule Today Arcana in pursuit of something as trivial as ratings—
The damage that had already occurred.
The damage expected to come.
Both were far too immense.
Of course, Hyeon Yongseok was a madman with neither blood nor tears when it came to broadcasting. If there had been material that caught his eye, he might have arranged an emergency broadcast of Today Arcana despite any criticism.
However.
“There’s no news we can deliver right now.”
Myriad Demons Bow in Submission.
It was likely an incident even the great Raymon Sean had not anticipated. After the incident broke and the players who escaped the rifts delivered the tragic news, only then had the emergency update details belatedly come to mind.
Yun Jongjin spoke cautiously.
“I’ve been thinking. Were we really allowed to just be happy that the portal to the Arcana Continent opened? Put another way, the scope we have to worry about doubled, from Earth to the Arcana Continent.”
Wasn’t the aftermath now showing itself clearly?
“Still, the fortunate thing is that the Explorers’ League moved from the Yusra Kingdom! They said they were heading out to deliver the news to the Arcana Continent, so……”
“Jongjin, do you think the continent has any room to spare?”
“Ah.”
The emperor of the Empire was dead.
Lee Hoyeol.
From the moment he gave up ascending the throne, the forces aiming for the Empire must have been watching for an opportunity like hawks. World Quests related to it had reportedly been pouring out as well……
Yun Jongjin rubbed his rough chin.
“This means there probably won’t be many players who can come over from the Arcana Continent, right? Knowing players’ temperaments, they’re definitely all just watching each other’s moves……”
“That’s right. If they vacate their positions for no reason, there’s no telling which way the quests might progress. Especially considering the time difference between reality and the Arcana Continent.”
“If things go wrong, they’ll fall behind by as much as four times.”
That was why Hyeon Yongseok had not moved.
“Even if the news is delivered, it may be hard to expect much help. Literally, we here in reality may have to resolve this situation among ourselves.”
“W-Will that be possible?”
The Magic Tower, the Goddess Church, the Yusra Kingdom.
There were certainly prominent Arcana forces.
But when it came to conquering rifts, the top-ranking players would be more proficient than them.
Bang—!
“Whoa!”
At that moment, gunshots began to ring out.
“Looks like the rift near Euljiro finally collapsed.”
“An empire, demons—why is everything happening all at once……!”
“What can we do? We can only watch.”
It was the moment Hyeon Yongseok was trying hard to maintain his composure.
Suddenly.
A thought came to him.
“……
By the way, what about China?”
“China? Wait, I hadn’t even thought about them!”
“They’re the bigger problem than any other country.”
China was a country whose entire state had been swayed by the guild, Unification Under Heaven.
Now that Unification Under Heaven had disbanded.
They should not have the capacity to respond to simultaneous rift collapses.
“They haven’t requested help. Don’t tell me the internet’s been cut off too.”
Tap-tap-tap.
Hyeon Yongseok accessed the internet to search for information.
And he found it.
The reason China had been so quiet.
“……
The Holy War Alliance?”
Posts were flooding in, saying that players calling themselves the Holy War Alliance were making great contributions all over China. When Hyeon Yongseok played a video, Yun Jongjin thrust his face close as well.
From Russia to the Yusra Kingdom.
His sharp eye, honed from chasing every kind of rift, shone.
“Huh? That’s a level 400 monster, isn’t it?”
“You recognize it? That’s right. It’s a harpy-type monster.”
“There are players left in reality who can hunt that?”
As stated before.
Most veteran players should have been on the Arcana Continent or in the Zero Mountains. And yet the self-proclaimed Holy War Alliance, the Chinese players, showed no signs of being pushed back even before monsters in the 400-level range.
“Growth like that is impossible from conquering rifts alone……”
Hyeon Yongseok continued, half in disbelief.
“Could they be remnants of Unification Under Heaven?”
“What?!”
“It makes sense because this is China, of all places.”
Hoyeol’s expulsion order against Unification Under Heaven.
Because of it, Unification Under Heaven had been unable to use the Magic Tower’s portal. In fact, not only when heading to the Arcana Continent, but even during the Zero Mountains update, they had entered the mountains aboard an aircraft carrier.
But separate from that, Unification Under Heaven’s strength had been real.
They had not maintained the number one guild ranking for nothing.
Yun Jongjin was aghast.
“So what you’re saying, sunbae, is…… those remnants of Unification Under Heaven are calling themselves the Holy War Alliance? Those bastards who were no different from a gang of pseudo-religious fanatics are stepping forward for civilians and charging into collapsed rifts?!”
At the center of that Holy War Alliance was an elf.
Not just any elf.
Elsidore, the elf who had guarded Hoyeol’s garden.
At that point, Hyeon Yongseok had an intuition.
“Did he not overlook even China?”
That this, too, had been one of Hoyeol’s arrangements.
But it was still too early to be impressed. The disaster breaking news that kept appearing was ringing out noisily not only in Korea, but across the entire world.
That was right.
The fact that unresolved disasters kept breaking out meant—
There were still arrangements that had yet to be revealed.
Those arrangements began to raise their heads one by one.
The first to make its presence known was—
A master and disciple.
“……”
Two men stared blankly at the monitor.
Hyeon Yongseok and Yun Jongjin.
Without anyone needing to prompt them, they opened their mouths.
“A-A-A-Archmage!!”
*A pure-blooded magical clan.
Descendant of Twilight.
Mary.
“Phew—”
Mary held a heated tobacco electronic cigarette in her hand.
“I appreciate it, but it’s really not for me.”
It was a gift her one and only disciple had given her out of concern for her health. She couldn’t simply ignore it, so she had put it to her lips, but as expected, the taste and aroma were something she could not get used to.
“Still, I should try.”
The damned withdrawal symptoms showed no sign of subsiding, but it didn’t matter.
Gooooo—
France.
A certain city center.
Mary trampled the monsters overflowing from the rift.
“!!!”
No further description was necessary—or rather, possible.
A Transcendent capable of entering the Salon of Space-Time.
And beyond that, Mary could even access the upper floors.
“They’re gone! The monsters vanished without even a trace!!”
“……
What in the world?”
“Is this the magic we’ve only heard rumors about?”
It was enough to make the army surrounding the collapsed rift seem irrelevant.
With a single ripple of purple twilight mana.
France’s great disaster was brought to an end for the time being.
“Is this side finished?”
Mary mounted the culprit behind her being called a witch—
Her broom—at a crooked angle.
Then she looked at the people cheering toward her.
She murmured softly.
“I’d rather they cheer for my disciple than for me.”
At last, her disciple’s lesson had ended.
The meaning of those words was simple.
Her disciple, Jesse Heinness.
She had completed the Archmage class quest.
Mary smiled faintly.
“It’s a modest stage to call a debut.”
But if it’s Jesse, she’ll carry it out diligently.
“Especially now that Claudi is absent.”
*Boom—!
America.
Near Central Park.
Monsters poured down from towering buildings.
The head of the AAU’s Western U.S. Branch.
Joshua directed the situation from a helicopter.
Those damn businessmen, always.
Joshua ground his teeth.
“It makes the fact that the Yusra General Manager hunted the Seven Deadly Sin of Greed seem meaningless. There were bastards here who could give a great evil a run for its money. Of all the things to hide, they falsified the rift collapse rate in their reports?”
Even if it was a rift that could not be approached by anyone other than a player.
A rift on the verge of collapse was a different story.
“No matter how much you love money, it takes talent to twist something this badly when hiring just a few players would have solved it. Which corporation’s affiliate was it again? If I could, I’d love to shake them down to the last cent with a tax audit……!”
It was not as if the situation in America could be good.
Shining, of course.
The core forces of all the major guilds in America had entered the Arcana Continent. As a result, the players dispatched to the scene inevitably lacked experience with collapsed rifts.
He was not trying to blame anyone, but.
‘What’s left is the generation steeped in peace.’
After Lee Hoyeol appeared.
Players had enjoyed a peace unprecedented since the Cataclysm.
Threatening new rifts, responsibility, unnecessary attention.
All of it had been shouldered by the Yusra General Manager, Lee Hoyeol.
The radio dug into his ears.
-Joshua. So what exactly are we supposed to do?!
-This isn’t inside a rift, it’s reality!
-……
Are we really supposed to just hunt them? There are players possessed by demons mixed in too, aren’t there? No, this is our first time dealing with a collapsed rift and possessed players!
At the whining, Hoyeol’s words came to mind.
“Level is nothing but a number.”
He had not said that for no reason.
Only now did Joshua understand the meaning behind the General Manager’s emphasis on experience.
But at this moment, not only could they not hope for the General Manager’s salvation.
They could not expect support from Shining or the other rankers either.
“We’d have to have some shame, everyone.”
Myriad Demons Bow in Submission.
Possessed players running rampant, causing rifts to collapse—this was undoubtedly a major incident. Even so, it could not compare to the hardships the General Manager had overcome.
“We need to handle at least this much on our own if we’re to show our faces.”
Of course, it was not as easy as he thought.
No matter how determined they were, experience in real combat would not appear out of nowhere.
The accident happened immediately.
-Branch Head Joshua, we’ve lost contact with the advance party……!
His fist clenched on its own.
“I told them there was no need to enter the interior, didn’t I?”
Entering the interior of a rift that had already collapsed carried enormous risk.
The moment a rift backflowed.
Named monsters that would normally be placed deep inside.
Or even traps were often swept out together.
Furthermore.
“Eight pupils. Have you located the Demon Eye?”
The eight eyes that could be called the cause of the current situation.
They could not overlook the possibility that those eyes had overflowed into reality as well.
Joshua grasped the core of the matter.
“Do you understand? For now, focus on keeping them tied down inside the rift.”
He had emphasized that the best course was to surround the rift and wait for support from the Magic Tower.
The players’ inexperience held them back.
Soon, an answer came back to Joshua’s roar.
-For now, we’ll try searching by ourselves.
“No, I said fall back immediately.”
-But still……!
“Think rationally. The sun has completely set.”
Night was deepening.
The surroundings were growing darker.
Joshua judged coldly.
“Right now, minimizing casualties comes first.”
It was the moment he murmured as if admonishing them.
Once again, simultaneous radio transmissions stabbed into his eardrums.
Joshua frowned.
The pilot shouted.
“Branch Head Joshua……? C-Can you see it?”
“Pilot? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“I-In the sky……!!”
The place his finger pointed to.
Blink.
A gigantic Demon Eye floated in the night sky.
Eight pupils moving independently.
The ancient beings of the Demon World had begun to illuminate reality.
“The Demon Eye……!”
He had heard that the Demon Eye had appeared over the Arcana Continent.
Even when he saw the photos players had taken, he had not been horrified.
No matter how unrealistic the sight was.
If it was the Arcana Continent, he could accept it.
Because it was a world completely different from reality.
But the Demon Eye floating in reality was on another level. Beyond grotesque, merely looking at it caused terror to surge up. The pilot was no different from Joshua.
Whiiiiing.
Trembling hands.
The helicopter began to shake violently.
In the midst of that unrealistic scene, Joshua muttered with difficulty.
“……
Am I dreaming?”
It was only natural.
The Demon Eye alone was already a situation impossible to believe.
But perhaps an even more unexpected being than the Demon Eye had appeared in midair.
“It’s big.”
Blond hair fluttered beneath the Demon Eye.
“But I’ll have to try!”
That distinctive accent.
“N-No way?”
Humanity’s secret weapon, whose potential had fully blossomed.
The hidden class, Archmage.
Jesse Heinness.
Kugugung……—!
“Come down.”
Jesse’s grand magic began to drag the Demon Eye down.
“The sky above the sky—that’s Chief Lee’s seat.”