By Zephyria 
“I know, right? We’ll probably hit L4 by tomorrow.”
It was sheer, dogged tenacity. To level up this crazily in about ten days, not to mention collecting so many skills, could only be seen as an act of desperation. This was evident when looking at the progress of other Alliance Members who had joined around the same time as Mo Yeon-hu.
(Alliance) ASi: What are you guys, machines??
(Alliance) jungsuuuuuk: Wowww the speedㄷ
(Alliance) NamdaemunCrossroad: Whoa, Hyungs, how are you there already;; what the hell
(Alliance) WhatShouldINameMyNick: I’m still only 7..ㅠㅠ
(Alliance) x0x0: I’m still 6;
A few Alliance Members he had become acquainted with typed in shock to Kwon Mi-eon and Mo Yeon-hu, who had achieved L5. And it wasn’t just the other beginners.
(Alliance) nnppcc: Wow, that’s amazing! It’s very rare for people to raise their grade this much in such a short time like you two!
Even nnppcc was impressed. While it felt rewarding to see this, it wasn’t as if Mo Yeon-hu and Kwon Mi-eon had relied solely on manual labor.
‘We spent a bit of money here and there, too.’
Aside from the skip tickets given as rewards, they had used paid items to breeze through all the tedious, time-consuming quests. Of course, since things like skills couldn’t be bought with money, the results were indeed the product of pure playtime.
Cart Movement Speed MAX
Ladder Repair Speed MAX
Dug Ground Restoration Speed MAX
Watchtower Construction Speed MAX
Rocket Installation Speed MAX
Watchtower Repair Speed MAX
Rocket Repair Speed MAX
.
.
Mo Yeon-hu smiled proudly as he looked at his skill window, which seemed to go on forever. It had been hard pretending to be a beginner who had never played a game while honing skills within the Alliance Territory, and he felt like he was going crazy from boredom when doing the repetitive quests later on.
‘Is this why people obsess over certifications?’
But now that he saw the completed skill list, he couldn’t feel more proud. And along with the brilliant skill window, one other thing had changed.
“Hyung, are you heading out soon?”
“Yeah, I should go now.”
“I ordered food, though.”
“…Then I’ll eat that before I go.”
“Great.”
It was the distance between the two of them. At first, it was naturally uncomfortable. The fact that they were playing the game while deceiving each other played a large part. It was very difficult to play the game at the unfamiliar house of Kwon Mi-eon, and even harder to defend and react to the way he constantly teased him.
But how was it now that time had passed?
“Delivery’s here.”
“Whoa! Thanks.”
Perhaps it was because he had been coming and going as if it were his own home. The sequence of actions—sitting in front of the computer, eating together, and playing the game—flowed as naturally as water. Not only that, but he even started thinking that they were like roommates who got along quite well, which caused Mo Yeon-hu to suddenly pause while chewing food in his mouth.
‘…Am I adapting too well?’
It was then.
“You have something on your face.”
Kwon Mi-eon’s hand suddenly entered his field of vision. Before he could properly react, a soft touch tapped the corner of his mouth with a tissue. Mo Yeon-hu’s body stiffened at the unexpected contact.
Right. Come to think of it, he hadn’t perfectly adapted. Whenever Kwon Mi-eon initiated skinship so abruptly, he would freeze up so much that the words he was about to say would stop.
“Hyung?”
“…….”
“Yeon-hu Hyung? Is something uncomfortable?”
“……Uh, no.”
Kwon Mi-eon didn’t seem to be conscious of it at all, and Mo Yeon-hu didn’t know why he was the only one reacting this way. Answering and quickly turning his head, Mo Yeon-hu checked the current time as if nothing had happened.
“It’s 1 o’clock.”
The clock was already pointing to 1 AM. Since he usually returned home around this time, he was about to stand up when—
“But Hyung, don’t you think it’s a bit of a waste?”
Kwon Mi-eon spoke up.
“I think if we do just a little more today, we can hit L4.”
At the mention that L4—the grade that granted entry to the ‘inner sector’ they so desperately desired—was right in front of them, Mo Yeon-hu looked at the screen. It seemed that if he leveled up a bit more and completed a few more Alliance Quests, the conditions for the grade review would be met.
“True. But… it’s too late.”
“Still, if we hit it today, won’t things be so much easier starting tomorrow?”
Mo Yeon-hu, who had been about to refuse, pricked up his ears at the continuing persuasion.
“Once we hit L4, we can go straight to the interior, and we can see the chat windows of the higher-grade people.”
That was true. The System Error Alliance was even more closed-off than he had thought. High-grade users like oTudyTudyo, whom he had seen on the first day, didn’t show their faces in the outer beginner zone, and the Alliance Master or executives were out of the question.
‘There’s probably a separate chat window used only by the Alliance Members in the interior….’
As Mo Yeon-hu wore a thoughtful expression, Kwon Mi-eon gently fanned the flames.
“Once we get in, the Resource Warehouse opens up, and above all, we won’t have to do this kind of grinding anymore….”
Pulling carts, fixing ladders, digging the ground…. The days of suffering through labor, splitting every second to raise his grade, flashed through his mind like a kaleidoscope. Mo Yeon-hu’s pupils trembled violently.
“If we don’t do it today, we’ll have to do this again tomorrow.”
Those words were the finishing blow. Kwon Mi-eon was right. It was a matter of shifting the burden, but if it was a mountain they had to climb anyway, it was better to finish it today.
‘Right, it’s better to get anything done quickly!’
Above all, wasn’t their original goal to find out which alliance System Error was spreading spies into, what their objective was, and why they were detonating the cores?
To achieve this, it was clearly better to raise their grade even a few hours sooner.
“Alright! Then I’ll just do this and go.”
In the end, Mo Yeon-hu gripped the mouse again. Having come this far, there was no reason to back out now. His only thought was to finish quickly and go home.
“Let’s finish this quickly!”
“Yes, sounds good.”
A faint smile played on Kwon Mi-eon’s lips, but Mo Yeon-hu didn’t have the leisure to notice whether it was the smile of a winner or simply the joy of being on the verge of a grade up.
The final hurdle of L5 was the ‘hideout installation and trace erasure’ skill. The task of cleverly creating a hideout in a tree and restoring the surrounding terrain required quite precise control. The problem was the boredom.
Click, tick, thud… click, tick, thud… click, tick, thud….
His stomach was full, the room was warm, and the dawn air was languid. The fatigue from clinging to the game from morning till night lately rushed over him all at once.
“Haaam….”
A yawn burst out for the nth time. Mo Yeon-hu, now in a posture as if he were sliding off the chair, blinked and glanced to the side.
‘He hasn’t moved an inch….’
Unlike himself, who felt like he was dying of sleepiness, Kwon Mi-eon was staring at the screen with a straight posture, not even leaning against the backrest. That perfect concentration was almost wondrous.
Mo Yeon-hu shook his head vigorously and tried to perform the repetitive labor again, but the sleep demon was persistent. It felt as if weights were hanging from his eyelids, and his head kept tilting to the side uncontrollably.
‘No, I can’t be like this….’
He tried to snap himself awake, but it was only for a moment.
Through his blurring vision, he saw a hallucination of the character in the game nodding off in the tree. And when he finally closed his eyes….
—Swoooosh—.
At the sound of water heard from afar, Mo Yeon-hu’s eyelids fluttered. Whether it was a dream or reality, his brow furrowed at the sound tickling his ears.
‘……What is that sound?’
His body felt refreshed as if he had slept deeply, but his mind was foggy. As the sound of water became clearer, Mo Yeon-hu slowly lifted his head. In the darkness, before his vision was fully secured, he saw something strange.
‘A glowing door?’
What is that now? Why is the door glowing? With a half-asleep face, Mo Yeon-hu rolled his eyes.
‘This isn’t my house, so where am I? Where on earth am I right now….’
Click.
Then, he heard the sound of the glowing door—no, just a door—opening. Turning his head toward the sound, he saw a silhouette standing in the center of the pouring light.
A white towel precariously hanging around his waist and a large frame that seemed to fill the doorway were the first things that caught his eye. A well-built body, as if a sculptor had intentionally crafted it, glistened with water that hadn’t been wiped away.
As Mo Yeon-hu stared blankly, his gaze eventually settled on the fingertips of the man who was shaking his wet hair while tilting his head slightly.
‘Kwon Mi-eon?’
He felt wide awake, as if he had been jolted.
“…Hyung?”
Then, a low voice asked inquisitively. Kwon Mi-eon immediately strode toward Mo Yeon-hu. Feeling an overwhelming sense of pressure from the magnificent and heavy body that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from, Mo Yeon-hu instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. Step, step. The footsteps grew closer and then stopped in front of him.
“Hyung.”
Drip, drop. It seemed Kwon Mi-eon had leaned his head down.
“Are you sleeping?”
As a water droplet fell beside his tightly closed eyes, Mo Yeon-hu felt as if his heart were going to explode.