◈ Episode 68. Akshan’s Legacy (2)
Back when Arcana was still a game.
Traps were a familiar presence to players.
“Finally, treasure……!”
“Hey, wait. Don’t touch that chest—!!”
“Uaaagh! Wh-what the hell?! The chest is moving?!”
“That idiot!! It’s a mimic!!”
From mimics, monsters disguised as treasure chests,
to deadly traps lurking all throughout dungeons.
There were explorer classes with skills to disarm such traps, of course, and even NetTubers who made trap攻略 their content.
“Huh? That’s it? Something like that is way too easy for me~”
And so.
When traps sprang out in the Quernberg Machine Tower,
NetTubers who specialized in trap攻略 raced to turn on their streams.
“If I could, I’d love to run over there right now. What a shame. Seriously.”
They sounded regretful on the outside,
but this was a perfect opportunity to draw in viewers.
Even just broadcasting commentary through the relay was already enough to break even, and then some.
However.
Separate from that, the level of the traps in the Quernberg Machine Tower was no ordinary thing.
Above all, those patterns.
The complexity of the patterns was on an entirely different level from the traps they had seen so far.
“If you jump here, you can easily……?!”
“No, arrows are flying in from all directions at this timing?”
“……
Brothers. Sorry, but even I can’t clear something like that.”
Had the technological prowess of the machine tower seeped into the traps as well?
They were so endlessly precise that they felt downright vicious.
Thanks to that, players falling to their knees before the traps appeared one after another.
“Ah, if you hesitate here!”
“That’s right. You immediately end up looking like a hedgehog.”
“That record is gone now.”
“Still, it’s a relief. It doesn’t look like there was any serious damage.”
If there was one fortunate thing,
it was that regardless of the攻略 difficulty, the traps did not seem to have much lethality.
That was because all of the traps were made of silver.
“This makes it certain now. It really is competitive content.”
The Quernberg Machine Tower had not been made to take players’ lives.
Just as the quest objective that had appeared stated,
it was clearly competitive content that made players compete and paid out rewards accordingly.
“Well, they’ve basically laid out the arena for us.”
“They’re telling the players to prove their abilities!”
“Now then, let’s see who records first place!”
The moment that conviction settled in,
interest in the Quernberg Machine Tower could only grow even greater.
Yes, amid that tremendous attention.
Hoyeol finally began to move.
And then came the astonishment—“Wh-what in the world?”
“What is this? What am I looking at right now?”
“Th-the traps couldn’t have broken, could they?”
Hadn’t they just said it?
That the traps of the machine tower were so precise they had never seen anything like them before.
They knew there was no way those traps would suddenly break down……
And yet an incomprehensible sight was unfolding before their eyes.
Swish—!
The trap missed.
Swoosh—!
It wasn’t that Hoyeol had dodged it.
Slide—!
Because Hoyeol was merely walking calmly.
That’s right.
The traps were avoiding Hoyeol!
As if a barrier had formed around Hoyeol,
every trap that flew toward him veered away.
Such an astonishing sight naturally required an explanation.
The chat window went wild.
But in the end, weren’t they NetTubers specializing in traps?
Explaining a sight they had never heard of or seen before was impossible.
“I-I’ve never seen a攻略 method like this either!”
“……
To think he would break through the traps just by walking.”
“What have I been doing all this time, brothers?”
“……
I suddenly feel like retiring.”
Was that also a skill?
If it was a skill, where in the world did such a skill exist?
What kind of class used a skill like that?
In the end, as always, only questions trailed after Hoyeol.
Amid that astonishment,
Hoyeol reached the portal on the opposite side.
The time taken was barely a minute.
And even that was a record achieved not by running, but by walking with dignity.
The chat window exploded once more.
Simply, Homen……!
*
Search, interference, manifestation.
Of those three stages,
the most difficult stage was undoubtedly search.
Search was truly the first button of magic.
If you fastened it wrong, you could not even move on to the next stage.
And even if you did move on, the efficiency of the magic would plummet to an extreme degree.
‘It’s only natural.’
After all, even the chief mage of the Magic Tower,
even Marcelo, could not filter out the unnecessary elements during the search process.
But for me.
No, for Grandfell, that did not apply.
『His innate magical talent was such that he could imitate most magic merely by looking at it.』
Whoever came up with that setting.
Truly, it was an embarrassingly incredible talent.
Thanks to it, I had been able to break through the traps by walking.
‘Of course, it was only possible because they were all silver.’
Because I could skip the most important search process,
it had been possible.
Even with Grandfell’s talent, you see.
Searching for unfamiliar targets, and doing so simultaneously, was impossible. If the traps had been made of some material other than silver……
‘I wouldn’t have been able to walk. I would’ve had to run through.’
Letting one flow past,
and dodging another like the other players.
Well, at any rate, the result wasn’t bad.
—Current Rankings
● 1st Place: 1 minute 01 seconds
● 2nd Place: 4 minutes 41 seconds
● 3rd Place: 4 minutes 50 seconds
First place, when I hadn’t expected it.
The gap between my record and second place was also considerable.
It was probably because the traps were high-level.
“Wow. These traps are no joke, Hoyeol-ssi.”
Nam Taemin arrived, breathing heavily.
Since the record had not been updated,
it seemed he had failed to make it into the top three.
Nam Taemin wiped away his sweat and said,
“Hah, I was short by exactly ten seconds.”
A difficulty high enough to make even Nam Taemin click his tongue.
As expected, that technology was far from ordinary.
That made it all the harder to believe.
‘……
This is really Akshan’s decisive weapon?’
Even when I checked the quest window again in disbelief, I still couldn’t believe it.
The Akshan base I knew, you see,
really had nothing to its name besides giving us rye bread three meals a day, didn’t it?
That Akshan had built decisive weapons of this caliber all across the continent……
‘Even if only because I can’t believe it, I’m going to find out. I will.’
To find out, I had to proceed with the quest.
In that sense, I looked at the portal.
A portal manifested through a mechanical item.
This, too, was an astounding piece of technology that could never have been seen in Akshan.
One step.
As I drew closer, a message appeared before my eyes.
[Quernberg Machine Tower
—Central Area]
[Appropriate Level: Lv.450]
[Collapse Progress: 0.1%]
The first thing that caught my eye was the appropriate level.
A whopping level 450.
However, unlike before, worry did not come first.
‘Because the appropriate level probably isn’t based on players.’
Yes, the Quernberg Machine Tower was, at all times, a decisive weapon for demon hunters.
In other words, it was a machine tower made to deal with demons.
The traps just now were proof enough.
“Sometimes, a break-like rift like this isn’t bad either.”
It was only natural for Nam Taemin to think that way.
The damage from the traps had been minor.
Even players who had failed to avoid the traps had not suffered major injuries.
So everyone must be thinking of it as a brief resting rift, a simple competitive quest.
But I knew.
This was serious.
I couldn’t yield.
I couldn’t give way……!
‘What fool would hand over his own inheritance?’
I hadn’t particularly expected anything from it,
but I still didn’t want someone else to snatch it away.
Of course, that included the quest reward.
So I quietly headed toward the portal.
“I’ll go first.”
“Pardon? Ah, I’ll go with you!”
Nam Taemin hurriedly followed behind me.
As I passed through the portal, messages appeared before my eyes.
[You have met the conditions.]
[Rewards will be distributed.]
[Teams will be assigned according to your recorded ranking.]
……
Wait, after traps, it’s a team battle?
The moment I flinched,
more letters appeared in succession.
[You recorded ‘1st Place.’]
[You have set an overwhelming record.]
[Your number of teammates according to your ranking and record is ‘1.’]
[Currently searching for an appropriate opposing team……]
“!”
No, wait a second.
The moment I checked the messages, a surge of injustice rose within me.
Alone in a team battle……?!
It was definitely because I had set a record far ahead of everyone else.
No, but still.
‘What kind of ridiculous rule is this?!’
To be honest, when I heard it was a team battle, I had felt inwardly relieved.
Because Nam Taemin had been beside me.
But the moment we passed through the portal,
our positions must have diverged.
Nam Taemin was nowhere to be seen.
Clank—
Before long, the mechanical device began to operate.
Spewing steam, the foothold trembled.
Separate from my sense of injustice,
the body that would die without formality and procedure accepted the situation.
“If that is the procedure, I have no choice but to follow it.”
……
Don’t accept such an evil law, Grandfell.
Yes, what could I do?
It wasn’t as if I could take back the message that had appeared.
I checked the quest window.
[Quest: Tournament]
Footholds that move according to victory or defeat.
Seize 30 victory points and be the first to reach the upper floor.
—Current Victory Points (Win: +3p / Loss: -2p)
● 1st Place: None
● 2nd Place: None
● 3rd Place: None
Clank—
So there had been a reason the foothold was moving with such a ruckus.
If this foothold won, it would move upward.
If it lost, it would move downward.
That aside.
‘I have to earn 30 victory points?’
Since one win was 3 points……
that meant I had to win a full ten times.
If I recorded a loss along the way, I would even lose the points I had painstakingly accumulated.
Above all, the key point was that I was alone in such a team battle.
……
How lonely.
All I could hear was the sound of machinery meshing together.
I found myself missing the talkative Nam Taemin……
‘If I’d known this would happen, quest reward or not, I would’ve taken it easy……’
……
That’s right!
The quest reward!
My thoughts suddenly reached the reward.
Perhaps the reward might help in the match.
I opened my inventory and checked the reward.
‘……
What’s this?’
*
Those broadcasting station bastards really knew how to pull in ratings.
In the studio, recording was already in full swing.
“A tournament, you say. I don’t know who designed this machine tower, but I want to praise them. Where else would we have been able to watch something like this? Players competing against one another to determine who is superior!”
“That’s right. Back when Arcana was a game, this was the kind of spectacle you could only see in the Colosseum, and now we get to watch it thanks to the Quernberg Machine Tower rift.”
“As I speak……. Now, it seems the opposing team has revealed itself!”
Clank—
The mechanical device moved with a loud noise.
The players riding on top of it faced one another.
The host spoke in an excited voice.
“It seems all the players who passed through the portals have been moved to a single location. As you can see, players who entered through different rifts have become members of the same team, haven’t they?”
“This is another interesting system!”
“Now, first of all, the numbers on both sides are three versus three. And the event is……!”
The mechanical devices that both teams stood upon.
A large cogwheel floating right in the center between them.
Anyone with a bit of perception could figure it out.
“……
Are they perhaps fighting over that cogwheel?”
“It appears that the victory condition is to secure that cogwheel before the opposing team and insert it into their own mechanical device!”
“So the mechanical device only rises to the upper floor once the cogwheel is inserted. That’s quite a convincing bit of staging.”
“As I speak, it seems a war of nerves has already begun between the two teams!”
Just as the cast had predicted,
a strange tension flowed between the two mechanical devices.
It was inevitable.
“……
The players’ average levels seem similar.”
Weren’t they two teams that had met after the system searched for appropriate opponents?
Their average levels were exactly the same.
So it was only natural that neither side could move recklessly.
“……
Hey, wait a second.”
Beep—
A sudden mute.
The cast members’ mouths opened and closed silently.
What was this, at such an important moment?
“Why did you lower the TV volume! You crazy bastard!”
“No, listen. This is seriously important.”
“What is it now? This bastard’s making a fuss again.”
“No! I’m not making a fuss—Lee Hoyeol!!”
“Lee Hoyeol? Why Lee Hoyeol all of a sudden?”
The tournament quest.
Both teams would encounter opponents of a level similar to their own.
Then, if they calculated the average level of the players on the opposing side who would meet Lee Hoyeol……
“If this goes well, we might be able to figure out Lee Hoyeol’s level!”
……
Lee Hoyeol’s level?
That was a topic capable of drawing the attention of players—no, the entire world.
The viewers who grasped that fact had no choice but to swallow dryly and wait for Hoyeol to appear.
-Lmao, so when is Lee Hoyeol showing up? lololol-For real lol. More than anything else, I’m waiting to see when Lee Hoyeol comes out.
-No word on who Lee Hoyeol teamed up with???
-I searched all over NetTube, but it was nothing but clickbait, yeah;;Of course, the players inside the Mechanical Tower were the same.
Clank—the machine rose as the gear slotted into place.
The guild master of Shining.
Rox checked the quest window.─Current Score (Win: +3p / Loss: -2p)●1st Place: 15p●1st Place: 15p●3rd Place: 13pFive consecutive wins.
The points they had earned amounted to 15.
Thanks to that, their ranking had risen to tied for first place.
As could be seen, there was a team that had reached 15 points before them.
Rox could guess who it was.‘Lee Hoyeol.’Hoyeol, who had set an overwhelming record in breaking through the traps.
It was only natural that he would be leading in this quest as well.
However, Rox was confident.‘This isn’t an individual battle, but a team battle, Lee Hoyeol.’And a team battle with a balance system in place, at that.
The higher Hoyeol’s level was,
the lower his teammate’s level would have to be.
Rox intended to target that weakness called a teammate.‘We’re bound to meet.’There were only two teams that had earned 15 points.
Which meant a head-on confrontation could not be avoided.
Clank—!
The machine slowly stopped operating.‘Come.’The opponents atop the machine revealed themselves.
Soon, Rox’s face was colored with shock.
“……!”
Unfortunately,
Rox’s prediction had been exactly half right.Five consecutive wins.The peak of 15 points.
Hoyeol was indeed there.
But Hoyeol was alone.
In other words, Rox’s overflowing confidence.‘……
He recorded five consecutive wins alone?’Had no choice but to turn into anxiety.‘Impossible! How on earth did he do that alone?!’Because that truly made no sense!*It really was absurd luck.
Clank—the machine drew closer.
A message appeared.[Currently searching for an appropriate opposing team…….]
I thought to myself.‘So this is as far as I get to freeload on byes.’My level was only 295.
As if that weren’t enough, I was alone.
There was no way they could find a suitable opponent for someone at my level.
To put that another way,
it meant I was not a suitable opponent for teams with the same score.
Thanks to that, I had been excluded from competition with the other teams
and had won five times in a row by bye alone.[There is ‘1’ opposing team with the same score.]
But now, I could no longer avoid it.Only one team other than me had earned 15 points.
In other words, from now on, I would have to.‘Face three people.’And players whose levels were far higher than mine, at that.
However, it was worth trying.
The other side was exhausted from repeated battles.
On top of that, I had my “quest reward.”
But this was ultimately just a match.
It wasn’t some duel to the death.
So, in order to observe the proper formality,
I offered a light greeting.
“I have been waiting for you.”
“……!!!”……
But did I say something I shouldn’t have?
Why do they look like that?