Chapter 335
There are countless official servers in Last.
Official servers refer to those managed by the game company in a pure state, with no mods added.
They are servers with fair operation and no foul play.
There are many options among official servers.
Servers started yesterday. Servers started a week ago. Servers just opened.
Servers open only for certain hours a day. Servers open all day.
Among these many official servers, an anomaly occurred on a specific server in the Korean channel.
A user on that server, realizing his house had been raided while he was unable to log in for a day, geared up fully the moment he entered.
Since their bedrooms were prepared for immediate armament.
At the destroyed turrets and storage room, the user shouted.
“Who did this!”
By now, this server had been running for more than 25 days, and the teams that joined early had mostly achieved significant development.
He was no exception.
So, to catch the culprit, he fully armed himself and identified the offender through a device that checked the nickname of whoever opened the door.
“Aha! Jin Slave No. 3!”
With the nickname known, it’s just a matter of quickly sweeping through houses on a mount.
After all, advanced items were crafted to check who built it, who the teammates were, and so on.
Even with a special telescope, you could view the list from afar.
Of course, these are mostly luxuries you craft towards the end of the server, once resources become somewhat abundant and survival is secured.
In other words, they’re indulgences.
Luxuries devour resources inefficiently and massively.
And their functions were often unnecessary.
That’s by design, to be crafted only when the game is about to end.
Even in RPGs, these are items you can make only after you’ve finished growing and are jumping around town, hence.
“Hahaha.”
The fully geared teammates who logged in after receiving the call laugh.
No, they cheer.
“The server is about to end, and we get an event like this! Who brought us this gift!”
That’s right.
Last is a game without a grand objective.
To be precise, private servers might have separate goals, but official servers don’t require you to do anything in particular.
There’s no winning the game.
It’s simply surviving freely for 30 days.
Perhaps the goal, if there is one, is to fight brilliantly within those 30 days, defeat other teams, and achieve a mental victory.
In that sense, the remaining players on this soon-to-end server had nothing to do.
With only a few days left, would they grind out the same fights they’ve been sick of?
Or maybe gather resources?
When it’s all ending in a few days?
For them, someone picking a fight was...
“Alright, let’s go!”
No different from someone rekindling a dying ember.
It will blaze fiercely and soon die out, but for that moment, it burns intensely.
The four-man gang sets out, not even repairing their wrecked hideout.
And they begin to sweep through the nearly empty server.
Soon, they found the structure of Jin Slave No. 3.
“What’s this? A building I’ve never seen before.”
“Right. And wow. Hahahaha. Did they build this with materials taken from our base? No, they must have raided tons of other places too.”
The structure was a tower. A very thick tower.
There are those like this. People who chase romance.
The most efficient house? Why build that? What do you win by making it?
I’ll just build what I want to build!
Such structures inevitably emerge towards the end of a server.
Because if it were early to mid-server, they’d be swept away and disappear during construction.
Even so, this structure was exceptionally large and tall.
How did no one interfere with building this?
No matter how empty the server.
“Now, since it was made with our resources, it should be destroyed, right?”
Someone who had gotten a bit closer stopped a comrade who was about to pull out a rocket launcher.
“Wait!”
“Why?”
“Look at this sign.”
The sign had exactly two lines written.
==
If you try to destroy it, you will die.
If you fail to climb to the top of the tower, you will die.
==
“Ha! What a joke! Let’s use all the bombs we have! No matter how disgustingly huge they made it, if we use everything, it’ll come down...”
Bang!
It seemed like a very faint sound had come.
Thwack!
The comrade holding the RPG died.
A headshot, one that bypassed the helmet.
“Where from? And no more attacks?”
Dying isn’t a big deal. After all, dying is a daily occurrence in Last.
That’s why you set up a base.
“Whew, did they shoot from up there? Quite a distance, and very accurate. And no further attacks.”
“If we pull out another RPG? This time too, in one shot...?”
Bang!
Again, it seemed like that sound had come.
Thwack!
One more died.
The remaining two looked at each other.
And they shouted at the same time.
“What’s this! This looks totally fun!”
“Agreed!”
“What have these guys been up to, showing up only now!”
And they left their comrades’ bodies and entered the tower.
They’ll come back to loot on their own.
And one hour later.
[Absolutely do not climb that tower. You must not go up. Do not even go near it. Absolutely do not...]
A post appeared on the Last community.
It was just a common ghost story.
* * *
“Is this really presumed to be his doing?”
There were only two posts.
Posts that could easily be dismissed as trash, just some ghost story.
But Bear and Lion did not miss them.
They were watching Seo-jun like birds of prey eyeing prey crawling on the ground from the sky, even seeing in real time when he turned off his broadcast to enter Last with his team.
If so, there should have been eyewitness accounts, but there were none.
And honestly, that makes sense.
Last is a game where the community doesn’t have much reason to get highly active.
Also, there are so many servers. It might not have been a Korean server.
Despite that, they scoured the Korean community and found two posts presumed to be his doing.
Two days before the game starts.
They were making every preparation.
[Yeah, that’s right.]
Their team has ten members.
All were comrades who had lived and died together, and they showed enthusiasm for the new event that appeared in their dull daily lives.
For soldiers, virtual reality and games were such familiar tools that they had no fear of losing.
[It’s certainly creepy.]
[He seems to be an excellent shot. It must be Seo-jun’s skill, right?]
[The post says as much.]
The content of the post was simple.
==
When climbing the tower, if you don’t do what each floor demands, you will die.
If you act out, you will die.
If you try any tricks when you meet a certain person, you will die.
And if you die, you must return to the tower.
There is someone playing the piano.
If you don’t return?
You will die.
==
[It looks like a post with nothing special, but when you recall what’s behind it...]
[I can’t imagine how much struggle and resistance the writer went through. And still, they died again and again. I don’t know what the piano in the middle means.]
[Bear. Still, it seems we can’t get much information from this. Now, isn’t it all about the real battle?]
Over the past days, having been fully briefed on the game and the enemy, the former special forces members were brimming with confidence.
In their eyes visible through the video chat, there was composure.
Among the ten, five had experienced Last, and three were enthusiasts.
Moreover, during the time Bear and Lion were on the deserted island, the other eight had practiced in advance, knowing they might have to go out here.
They are former soldiers who know that the more prepared side seizes victory.
How could they afford to be careless when the opponent is only now forming a team and playing the game?
[Still, don’t get careless. Lion and I will go practice more.]
[Alright.]
[I think I’ll head out too.]
[Zebra, you too?]
[Yeah. Let’s end it here then.]
Among them, the man who had taken the codename Zebra to match Bear and Lion for this operation was one of the three who enjoyed Last.
Like a veteran player, he headed to a server on the Korean channel to practice.
The origin of the ghost story.
Starting with nothing, he hunted already farmed players with his exceptional skills and quickly obtained items.
Then he headed to the problematic giant tower.
‘Might as well try it once in advance.’
Ignoring the ghost story.
* * *
Baek Do-yul headed to a campsite the evening before the start to meet his teammates for the first time.
Not just any camping.
Virtual reality camping, no less.
So, just enter the capsule as usual and accept the invitation, and it’s done.
“Have a good trip. Hahahaha.”
A colleague laughed as he saw Baek Do-yul off.
He must find it funny, thinking of the people Baek Do-yul was going to meet.
He wasn’t mocking him. But it’s just impossible not to laugh.
Someone once said they’d gathered the worst-ever Twitch viewers?
Streamer viewer, rich viewer, split-personality viewer, fanatic viewer, concept-obsessed viewer, chatterbox viewer.
“Haha...”
Why did I hand over all team member authority to that person?
Regretting it now changes nothing.
Whenever I asked, they always said there was a way, that it was fine, so I believed it.
‘Honestly, if it’s not fine, what can I even do?’
Baek Do-yul was mentally and physically weakened.
No matter how meticulously he tried, he hadn’t found the flag for days.
But Seo-jun casually wandered around and found it quickly.
Baek Do-yul found that out by watching the broadcast.
He originally thought Seo-jun had luckily found it in advance and was toying with him. Seo-jun also only said he was lucky.
But reality is sometimes crueler.
When a simple click from the opponent proves more effective than all his effort.
People despair.
‘No! I won’t despair!’
Baek Do-yul entered the capsule and sent a message to Seo-jun.
[Baek Do-yul: Please invite me!]
[Jin Seo-jun: Got it, pro Baek Do-yul ㅎㅎ]
After much contemplation, Baek Do-yul reached one conclusion.
What if, just within this game, he could take some of Seo-jun’s influence?
That is, what if the teammates follow him more than Seo-jun?
In Last, you inevitably have to split into farming parties and raid parties within the team each time and move around.
At times like that, if they prefer joining his party over Seo-jun’s, wouldn’t that be the first step toward his victory?
“Hello. I’m Baek Do-yul.”
He bowed to the teammates sitting on the camping map.
“Hello!”
“Wow, thanks to the host, I get to meet Baek Do-yul too.”
“It’s truly an honor!”
There were two women and four men, and currently, their nicknames on the map were set so you couldn’t tell who was who.
There were Jin Slave No. 1 through No. 5.
Why isn’t the last person a slave?
As Baek Do-yul found it strange, Seo-jun greeted him last.
“Welcome. Everyone? Your captain has arrived.”
“Waaaaah!”
“Captain!”
“Our leader!”
‘Captain, huh.’
He’s not the captain slave, right?
Anyway, they hyped up Baek Do-yul, and thanks to that, he quickly blended into the team atmosphere.
And in a situation where they were relying on Seo-jun, he was pleased that his plan to make them lean on him seemed quite feasible.
Soon, it was time to establish a strategy.
On official servers, the game’s goal isn’t set, but private servers are different.
There, various objectives exist to end the game and become the winner, and the broadcasting station said they’d inform them at the start.
So, each team had to consider every possibility before beginning.
‘Is it right to discuss this now? But what can you do.’
Baek Do-yul sighed inwardly and spoke.
“Then, shall we devise a strategy?”
“Huh?”
Joseon’s Assassin tilted his head.
“Why?”
“Ah, the strategy is already set.”
“What is it? Since I wasn’t there...”
“Ah! I’ll tell you.”
“Okay.”
Did they find a good approach while playing together?
Baek Do-yul wondered if he should have joined in earlier.
“Seven people gather resources! One person fights! Then we can win!”
“That’s right! We can win.”
“I agree.”
- lol for real
“We need to build a tower...”
“Shut up and build.”
Only then did Baek Do-yul realize.
It was impossible from the start to win these people over.
The dark campsite.
This place, where only the campfire lit the faces of those gathered around it, was already a den of fanatics.
Standing a step apart, Seo-jun smiled contentedly and stepped in.
“Haha, you all joke well. Let’s devise a proper strategy.”
“...Okay.”