By Zephyria Go Jae-won, faced with immense resentment, broke out in a cold sweat and stumbled backward. Because they were people he knew so well, the strangeness was indescribably chilling. And then he suddenly realized. Why was Lee Chan-ha so quiet? He looked at the former vice-captain of the Sunrise Team. And flinched.
Lee Chan-ha, who hadn’t blinked an eye since earlier, was shedding tears of blood. It was a gaze filled with a terrible hatred that Go Jae-won could not even begin to fathom. She hated Go Jae-won so much that her blood felt like it was boiling, and the pressure from suppressing that rage had burst the blood vessels in her eyes.
Among them, Lee Hyun-muk, who was sitting quietly with a gentle smile, looked down at his wristwatch and spoke.
“10 seconds.”
The shadow cast beneath Lee Hyun-muk was excessively deep and dark. No, it was an emptiness that couldn’t be explained by simply saying it was dark. His eyes were black. Koreans naturally have black eyes, but his were terrifyingly, profoundly black. To the frozen him, Lee Hyun-muk began the countdown.
“One.”
Simultaneously, the shadow stretched out towards Go Jae-won in an instant.
“Two, three….”
Even repeating to himself that it was an illusion was useless, so Go Jae-won, plunged into extreme fear, ran away without looking back, terrified of touching the shadow. He fell clumsily once, then scrambled to his feet and fled the building in a panic.
Yohan, who had been watching them from nearby, sighed in exasperation. He had been disguised as Lee Chan-ha’s illusion to avoid drawing Go Jae-won’s attention. To perfectly conceal his presence as well, Lee Hyun-muk had sat with his back to Yohan’s direction. Yohan approached his companions and began to get angry.
“He’s such a terrible bastard. Doesn’t he even remember what he did? He just gets angry and leaves, accusing others.”
From Yohan’s perspective, Go Jae-won seemed to have felt guilty on his own, made excuses, ranted, and then given up on the conversation and fled. Not just Yohan, but everyone around them saw the same illusion. Go Jae-won thought he was seeing an illusion alone, but in reality, he was the only one who wasn’t seeing one.
“Ah, right? He’s still a very nasty bastard.”
Yoon Seung-ryong, who had been grumbling with anger, put an arm around Seo Yakrin and pressed down slightly. He glared fiercely in the direction the traitor had fled, then answered nonchalantly. Joo Ho-young took out his game console without blinking, and Lee Chan-ha smiled serenely, concealing the traces of blood from her tears with an illusion. Only Lee Hyun-muk remained nonchalant, as if nothing had happened.
Taking advantage of the commotion caused by Go Jae-won’s visit, they had an early lunch. The menu was food from the cafeteria, provided free of charge to guild members. When Yoon Seung-ryong piled his plate high with food, the people eating nearby glanced up in surprise. Yohan took a few bites and exclaimed.
“Wow! It’s really delicious!”
“It tastes just like it did at the Sunrise Guild.”
Lee Hyun-muk said with a smile as he sipped the hot galbitang broth. Among the employees who transferred to the Sun Guild were chefs and nutritionists from the Sunrise Guild. Yoon Seung-ryong, in particular, had personally sought them out and made efforts to persuade them with much better conditions. He was truly passionate about food.
After finishing their meal, there was a guild introduction. They bought drinks at the first-floor cafeteria and sipped them as they went up to the second floor. There were fitness facilities, a sleep room, and a music listening room, but the arcade space was the most eye-catching. This part, naturally, had Joo Ho-young’s strong opinion reflected in it. The training rooms on the third and fourth floors also had excellent facilities, uniquely featuring several sturdy bobblehead dolls that could be beaten endlessly to relieve stress.
“Even though they look like that, they can take about ten hits.”
Seo Yakrin, who had already beaten them up, said with a smile to Yohan. Everything else was ordinary. However, it was spotlessly clean everywhere, and disinfectant was visible in various places. Lee Chan-ha said with a gentle smile.
“Disinfection is important for hygiene.”
While they had prepared things for their team members everywhere, there was nothing for Lee Hyun-muk. He simply watched his people rejoice with a gentle gaze. The last place they visited was the support room. It was a place that provided survival kits, food, and various other useful tools and weapons for employees dispatched to Rifts. Yohan, entering the equipment storage room exclusively for Team Sun, jumped for joy.
“My weapon!”
Weapons with black and white Eternal Stones, which he hadn’t seen for a long time, were neatly arranged. Yohan held the weapon in his hand, stroked the Eternal Stone, and enjoyed its smooth, cool texture. However, the joy of reunion was short-lived. Currently, Yohan’s official position was not part of Team Sun but a regular guild member, so naturally, he couldn’t carry precious items like Eternal Stone weapons. Moreover, the feel of it was somehow strange, and Yohan tilted his head.
“Is this my weapon?”
“No, that’s a fake. The real one is here. Our company’s security is still lax.”
Yoon Seung-ryong said “Ta-da!” and pulled out Yohan’s spear from his spatial dimension. Holding it, he could feel its power, confirming it was indeed his weapon. Yohan caressed it with regretful hands and let go.
“See you again later….”
Yohan dejectedly handed the weapon back to Yoon Seung-ryong. After this simple tour of the company was completed, they returned to the conference room. Lee Chan-ha resumed the meeting that had been interrupted by Go Jae-won’s visit.
“Once the guild is fully organized, we will begin full-scale activities such as exploring Rifts or hunting monsters. Until then, Yohan will be temporarily assigned to another team.”
“Another team? Which one…?”
Yohan, who was looking forward to working with Team Sun but also felt a bit burdened, asked curiously.
“Team Little Sheep. It’s a team composed mostly of new recruits.”
“What?”
Yohan couldn’t believe his ears. Team Little Sheep? Did I hear that right? Lee Chan-ha smiled at Yohan’s reaction.
“We told them they could name their teams freely, so they came up with names like this. It doesn’t have to be related to sheep, though.”
Currently, the Sun Guild had a total of five Rift exploration teams. The first was Team Sun, composed of Lee Hyun-muk, Lee Chan-ha, Seo Yakrin, Yoon Seung-ryong, and Joo Ho-young. The other four teams were composed of Awakened individuals who transferred from the Sunrise Guild or newly joined recruits, and their names were as follows:
Golden Mary Team, Sun Ascent Team, Any-Yang Team, Little Sheep Team.
Among these, the Golden Mary and Sun Ascent teams were composed of Awakened individuals who transferred from the Sunrise Guild, and their names were changed from their original team names, Golden Bug and Haeoreum. The Any-Yang Team and Little Sheep Team were newly recruited members, relatively young and having awakened not long ago. Yohan pointed to one name and asked.
“Any-Yang…?”
“It’s not Any-Yang, it’s Ani-Yang,” Joo Ho-young corrected his pronunciation. It seemed to be a pun-based team name. As Yohan was reading the information about the members of Team Little Sheep with interest, his phone notification rang. Seo Yakrin looked at it and said, “Oh.”
“Our Yohan’s article is out!”
“A Strength Enhancement Type Low-rank Awakened…”
Go Jae-won’s face contorted as he looked at the article that had just been published. It was about the unidentified person who had escaped with Lee Hyun-muk and the former Sunrise Team members. Although the name wasn’t revealed, only referred to as Mr. A, it detailed the abilities of the person. It concluded by stating that this person had joined the Sun Guild.
People’s reactions to this article varied. It started with comments of envy, then remarks about how one might grow fond of someone after enduring the Abyss together, accusations of being a nepotism hire, and absurd comments like being willing to fall into the Abyss if it meant joining the Sun Guild, which received a significant number of dislikes.
However, these reactions were not important to Go Jae-won. He glared at the voice recorder on the table.
Go Jae-won had turned on the recorder to confirm that what he had experienced that day was an illusion, but he quickly turned it off again. To his surprise, those terrifying, seemingly insane words were not an illusion. A frightened Go Jae-won muttered.
“…Has everyone gone mad in the Abyss?”
He then thought of a High-level Awakened with illusion-type abilities. This Awakener was a foreigner who, just yesterday, was diligently hunting monsters and saving people in a distant land. There was no reason for them to come to Korea to cooperate in such a prank, nor was it physically possible.
Then, was it an intermediate awakened? But could an intermediate awakened truly possess the ability to show the same illusion to so many people in such a vast space simultaneously…?