Chapter 292
The Judgement Sword falls.
Sarah’s jaw dropped.
“Th-that’s….”
There’s no way he should die that easily!
The fight looked far more one-sided than the battles she’d witnessed in Atura.
‘Then what was all that display the ambusher showed when he clashed with Baek Do-yul and Taesan!’
Had Baek Do-yul and Taesan simply lost their composure and calm due to the ambush, making the ambusher seem like their equal?
That didn’t make sense.
Professionals are fundamentally composed.
Unless their lives were about to end like in a history book, they were cold-blooded people who barely even flinched.
Yet even if Seo-jun was truly outstanding, his fight with the ambusher looked far easier than other rookie pro battles in Atura. There was no way to interpret this.
Unless the ambusher really was just a pawn!
An expendable one!
Yes, rather than a pawn, an advance scout!
A mere taste, sent to show what the outside world was like and just how terrifying an existence lurked among the participants!
That would mean he wasn’t a top-tier pro after all. When he fought Baek Do-yul before, other factors must have been at play.
They didn’t have any solid intel on that ambusher anyway.
They must have been mistaken.
Seeing him die so easily confirmed it.
Countless thoughts like these flashed through Sarah’s mind in an instant.
But.
Even if she firmly believed he was a grunt, having it confirmed by the man’s own mouth—
“Aaaah! So he really was the final hidden mastermind! Who is it! Who on earth is that participant!”
—and having the caster hammer it home again.
No matter how rational a scenario she pieced together in her head, she had no choice but to know.
‘That insane Kael! What the hell did he pull off!’
And just how well can he fight?
***
-Host! Host! Host!
-Lmaooooo he’s playing with him
-Ah, did you witness that faithful display of prayer? This is the Church of Light. All of you, believe in Asias.
-The fact they thought he was a pawn is hilarious lmao
-He just finished it in classic Host fashion lol
The host’s viewers cheered.
The host cheered too.
“This is the Host! This is the Host!”
Seo-jun still wore an ambiguous, unreadable expression.
But wait, why does he look so grim when he personally detected and blocked the ambush, turned the tables on a situation where everyone said he’d die, and killed the guy instead?
The host, reaching that thought, grew just as serious as Seo-jun.
‘Oh no.’
The history book had ended.
Too futilely and anticlimactically.
This wasn’t something to be purely happy about.
Seo-jun wouldn’t have known that the ambusher had foretold he’d attack Seo-jun, nor that others had said Seo-jun would die. So he must have immediately grasped the severity of the situation.
‘What do we do?’
It had become impossible to know how things would unfold.
Honestly, it was impossible to know before, too. But once they got confirmation that the ambusher was the final hidden mastermind, the flow had been laid out.
If that ambusher was the final hidden mastermind, he would have kept hunting and growing stronger every day, one person at a time, and then done something.
While participants would gradually begin to uncover and realize what that something was, the Train’s quest would also conclude, fully revealing the outline.
But.
The final hidden mastermind died.
After being discovered while disguised as an NPC.
It was over.
The history book.
-lmaoooo history book over! gg
-But doesn’t this make it too anticlimactic lol
-What now
-Overseas viewers are gonna go nuts
-Wait, isn’t this a serious situation? Why’s everyone laughing?
-Because it’s the Host’s crew. If overseas viewers complain, the Host will solve it all lol
-Real talk lol
-History book cut! History book cut! History book cut! History book cut! History book cut!
Hahaha.
The host didn’t lose his mind while reading the chat.
On the contrary, he found hope.
“That’s right!”
There was no need to worry.
“Seo-jun will take care of something anyway! And if anyone’s going to get roasted, shouldn’t it be that hidden mastermind who got exposed and died so easily!”
-Real talk lol
-Host, do it lol
-Do it
-Quick, let’s go catch the guy behind the ambusher!
-Yeah. We can just switch it to a conquest of another world.
-The Sword God: Conquest of Another World kya lol
***
It’s ruined.
Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s really ruined.
Seo-jun hadn’t done anything wrong; he’d only tried his best.
A clean finish.
A perfect narrative.
‘There’s no way.’
People won’t accept this.
They probably cast the final hidden mastermind as someone extremely skilled to prevent this kind of situation.
They probably brought in an outstanding genius who would never lose under the specific conditions of an ambush.
But.
‘There’s going to be a lot of noise.’
Seo-jun won.
Just as Seo-jun suspected, the real-time war room where team leaders had gathered was a madhouse.
‘Who suggested we cast Climax!’
‘Everyone agreed it was good!’
‘China! It’s the China team leader!’
‘No, what do we do!’
‘Just trust the AI!’
Of course, they were simply the people in charge, unable to properly intervene inside the virtual reality, so there was nothing they could really do.
Seo-jun knew this well too.
The only thing that could intervene in real time—
‘was the AI.’
How would it handle this?
If it ended here, how on earth would they wrap it up neatly?
If it didn’t end properly, the dead opponent would likely take the brunt of the fallout.
But.
‘Some people might say something to me too.’
At least a little.
And that “a little” was a little from the entire world.
This is why they say you should play in the big leagues, but in a case like this, the big leagues were poison.
On top of that, he’d been just a tiny bit showy, so the ones with sore eyes would probably seize on it right about now.
‘Hmm.’
I’ll trust you, AI!
Seo-jun left the spot.
Quite some time had passed since the fight in the alley, so the beings that maintain public order would be coming soon.
Of course, if they came, he could just catch them all and vanish again.
The mask made him invincible.
Still, since it was a hassle, Seo-jun ducked into an alley on his way to the plaza, removed his mask, and came back out.
Then he sat leisurely at an outdoor table and waited.
His feelings were a little complicated, and he was also curious about the ruckus outside.
He wanted to communicate (what his viewers call the Host unilaterally saying whatever he wants to provoke an unspecified mass of people).
‘I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.’
He wanted to say that.
However, this time, Seo-jun really did lie low with a bit of caution.
It was absolutely not his fault, but he knew he’d caused an incident.
Of course, that didn’t make him anxious.
That wasn’t his personality. He simply stayed calm and careful.
After resting leisurely at a café for about ten minutes, Yon approached.
“Hyung-nim, let’s go return the materials. Rachel went ahead.”
“You haven’t logged out?”
“Huh? Hyung-nim, what logout?”
“So it’s proceeding like this after all.”
“What do you mean, hyung-nim?”
“Something like that.”
Seo-jun didn’t tell Yon that he’d captured the hidden mastermind.
There was no reason to share information. Discussions wouldn’t work anyway, and nothing would change even if Yon knew.
There was no need to warn him either.
“Hmm, maybe it’s time to go back now.”
“No, hyung-nim.”
“It’s noisy. Follow me.”
Seo-jun stood and moved to the location where the earlier battle had taken place.
To check what had become of the lingering energy, and the destroyed streets.
And what he discovered upon arriving and checking was quite interesting.
“Oh.”
“What’s ‘oh’? What are you looking at? It’s just an utterly ordinary street.”
Indeed. Just an utterly ordinary street. Since it was on slightly high ground, the view of the city was visible.
Everything was the same as before the fight.
‘So the patrolling NPCs didn’t even come? What is this.’
There’s no way the AI is suddenly trying to pretend it never happened.
Just then, something glittered beneath a stone on the road. With a bang and an explosion, the city was instantly enveloped in a green-tinged fog.
As if it had become another world.
“Hey, Yon?”
His voice didn’t carry.
Seo-jun wandered through the fog-covered street.
No one was there.
Had he fallen into an illusion?
[Greetings.]
A voice rang out.
From beside him, no, above him, no—the entire space resonated.
‘Seems they intend to clean this up. Were they prepared?’
Or are they preparing in real time?
“Who are you?”
[I am a fragment of the world you call Chaos.]
“A fragment of the world?”
[Yes. The world itself would be my main body. So calling it that would be fitting.]
“What do you want?”
[I can see a part of you that feels weak and lacking. I will give you power. Without anything in return.]
“What?”
Why power all of a sudden?
Why on earth?
In the midst of this inexplicable situation, all the fog in the city suddenly surged into Seo-jun’s body, and at some point, he came to his senses.
The place he was standing was the exact spot where he’d first looked down at the road.
“What is it, hyung-nim.”
“Something happened, didn’t it?”
Seo-jun probed Yon. The situation was abnormal. Giving him power meant…
“The street up ahead just suddenly exploded, and because of that flash, we got hit with a Blindness CC. That’s all. I was worried that ambusher had planted a bomb or something. Did you take care of it, hyung-nim?”
“Yeah. I took care of it.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Thought so. But what happened?”
“I don’t know. Just that the outside world isn’t safe either, probably.”
“I think I saw a green flash… So it really is related to that ambusher.”
“Who knows.”
Seo-jun glanced at the interface window beside him, noticed a new alert had popped up on the quest icon, smiled, and said to Yon.
“Let’s hurry and go return the materials.”
***
After receiving the materials from Yon and completing the handover to Cresit, Yon went off with Rachel again to scrounge for a few more materials in the remaining time. Seo-jun returned to his spot in the plaza.
It was a spot that suited him.
And sitting there, Seo-jun calmly sorted out the situation.
‘So. My achievement points weren’t confiscated or anything. The Train’s quest is still in progress.’
There was one reason he was worried.
There had been a change.
First, his stats had increased.
The numbers went up by about what you’d get from a level up. That’s definitely significant.
On top of that, a quest had been added.
[Avarice for Power 1]
==
A seed of power has been planted. The method to make it bloom is simple.
Objective: Defeat one Hero without revealing your true identity.
Reward: Stat increase.
==
I can become even stronger?
Are they trying to corrupt me?
“So the more I thirst for power, the more the situation gets twisted, I get brainwashed, and become an irreversible enemy of the world? Is that the scenario?”
It was obvious.
Seo-jun scoffed.
“What do you mean, without anything in return? The more power I gain, the more I’ll clearly have to pay a price for it. In the next quest, are they planning to slap on a death penalty for failure?”
It was an attempt to turn him into the hidden mastermind.
It was painfully transparent.
There wasn’t even a button to cancel the quest.
Wasn’t this coercion?
Could the AI really do this?
But.
“So, who should I kill first, AI?”
It didn’t matter.
This was something he couldn’t let slide.
Come to think of it, the AI seemed to be handling the work quite adeptly.
This was the birth of the most horrific hidden mastermind in the history of the history books.