By Zephyria 
With a loud crashing sound, the building shuddered, and two Alliance Members who had been stationed at the right watchtower became corpses amidst the collapsed debris. While the surviving users quickly carried out repairs, two heavily armed figures caught the eye, maintaining their composure atop the half-destroyed watchtower.
“Are there two L3s over there as well?”
“Same on the left.”
At Kwon Mi-eon’s words, Mo Yeon-hu checked the left watchtower and discovered two L3-grade Alliance Members installing a cannon.
‘Two on our side, two on the left, two on the right…’
It seemed they had dispatched two high-grade Alliance Members to every single watchtower. However, as he scanned the other watchtowers through his binoculars, he noticed something strange.
“The L3s all seem to be moving differently.”
Some teams held sniper rifles, some were placing cannons, and others were installing rockets. But that wasn’t all.
“The positions of the watchtowers aren’t consistent, either.”
Usually, installing watchtowers at regular intervals is more advantageous for defense, but the coordinates provided by system error had irregular distances between each point.
‘It doesn’t seem to be because of the terrain.’
In fact, they had even used pickaxes to break down a massive boulder to erect the watchtower here. Therefore, the terrain wasn’t an issue.
‘Some are close, some are far? Wait a second.’
Mo Yeon-hu paused as a scene suddenly flashed through his mind.
‘Why are they pacing back and forth like that? Repeating the same action over and over, like some kind of ritual…’
In the current situation, this was a somewhat random recollection.
However, the moment the image of Opening—walking incessantly from the outside of the Alliance Territory to the interior in the dead of night when no one else was around—suddenly surfaced, Mo Yeon-hu froze as if he had intuited something.
‘Could it be…’
—Whish!
Just then, as if the cannon installation at the left watchtower had finished, a cannonball flew in an arc toward the walls of the 1st Alliance Territory.
—Boom!
—Bang!!
—Boom!!
Simultaneously, as if providing supporting fire from other directions, several cannonballs and rockets flew together, tearing down the wall.
As the thick dust and smoke from the bombardment slowly cleared, revealing the interior of 1st like an exposed inner flesh, Kwon Mi-eon asked with a smile.
“Hyung, isn’t this amazing?”
Despite the phrasing of the question, his calm tone suggested he had expected this to some extent. Though it was nearly drowned out by the explosions of rockets and cannonballs and the subsequent frantic barrage of gunfire, it sounded clearer than anything to Mo Yeon-hu.
“The Resource Warehouse, the training ground, the weapon storage…”
Every single place hit by the bombardment, seen through the binoculars.
“I don’t know how they manage to pick out only the areas where the most important buildings are located.”
They were the core buildings of the Alliance Territory.
“To anyone watching, it looks like they’re doing this on purpose.”
Unless they had already known everything before moving, it was an unbelievable sight.
—Bang! Bang bang!
While they were momentarily stunned, the people Mo Yeon-hu and Kwon Mi-eon were facing weren’t staying still either. As Neun-sseop and ASAV lay prone and began sniping, return fire rained down. In an instant, Mo Yeon-hu’s watchtower also became a bullet magnet, and the situation escalated rapidly.
(Alliance) Neun-sseop: Please repair this~
“Let’s repair ours first.”
“Yes.”
To avoid suspicion, Mo Yeon-hu and Kwon Mi-eon began fixing the watchtower along with their teammates. Meanwhile, high-grade members of the alliance continued to join in, providing rapid reinforcements, and as a result…
(Alliance) nnppcc: Great job everyone!
Total time elapsed: 8 hours and 45 minutes.
(Alliance) nnppcc: We won!
system error had defeated 1st.
(Alliance) TteokbokkiTycoonRank1: Good work, good work
(Alliance) PAGODANUAL: gg
(Alliance) Dwaepa: You all worked hard!!
(Alliance) No2Rang: Good job
(Alliance) Wicheon: Thank you for your hard work
(Alliance) 0Binoculars0: Everyone worked so hard for such a long time!
(Alliance) ItIsJustMyAfterimage: gg
(Alliance) IAmADamagerDoingMyBest: Thank you~ you worked hard~~
As the greetings scrolled up quickly, the expressions on Mo Yeon-hu and Kwon Mi-eon’s faces were peculiar. And for good reason. Even though Mo Yeon-hu didn’t have much experience with Siege Warfare, he knew this situation was hard to believe.
‘How is this possible? They suppressed them this quickly?’
The ranking difference between the two alliances was significant.
‘Quite a few allies came to help, but they couldn’t even provide support.’
Yet 1st, despite having abundant resources, numerous Alliance Members, and even allies, had lost to system error.
‘There was no gap to enter.’
Since the surroundings were packed with watchtowers from the start, the allies couldn’t penetrate, and the speed at which system error moved was unnatural. When someone in the alliance requested help saying a tower was about to fall, high-grade members—who appeared out of nowhere—would immediately rush to that specific watchtower…
‘They seem to be quite good at the game.’
system error was not an opponent to be taken lightly. It felt as if they possessed everything: reaction speed, cohesion, and even predictive data on how the opponent would react.
‘Just who is HHH to be this good?’
He thought he would finally see them this time, but HHH, the leader of system error who likely commanded this entire operation, gave no orders and said nothing to the lower grades.
‘I didn’t even have time to properly observe the executives.’
The high-grade members and executives seemed to receive separate instructions; whenever he tried to observe them, they kept changing locations, making it impossible to follow.
“They’re doing the final cleanup. Should we put on our gear and use stealth items to get closer?”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
Currently, in the burning Alliance Territory of 1st, L2s were performing the final cleanup. In reality, “cleanup” was just a fancy word for looting. He had originally intended to stick close to them and observe while pretending to help, but since that was only possible from L2 and above, he couldn’t even get near.
‘Maybe it’s because they’re about to loot the core.’
It was the same with the Animal Lovers Alliance. After the crowds cleared out, a few people went to the core to take something.
“When should we sneak in?”
“It’s chaotic right now, so I think it’ll take some time to finish the cleanup. Let’s just put on our hidden gear and watch the situation while we rest.”
“Alright.”
“I think it would be good to secure a spot in advance…”
The two quickly equipped their gear and took a position on a cliff some distance away.
“Oh, I think we can see from around here.”
“Looks good.”
It was a decent spot. Since both the outer wall and inner wall of 1st’s Alliance Territory were already damaged, the interior was clearly visible.
“Right. Put this on too, Hyung.”
While they were peeking at the Alliance Members busily farming inside the territory, Kwon Mi-eon suddenly sent something via mail.
[Wraith’s Cloak]
Effect: Upon equipping, customization is hidden and the nickname is displayed as <???>.
Caution: If chat is used, anonymity is disabled.
If hit, the item is immediately destroyed and the identity is revealed.
(Single-use consumable; cannot be used again once identity is exposed.)
‘A cloak?’
Looking at the item image, it was a mysterious cloak that seemed to shimmer with black smoke.
Thinking it looked familiar, he put it on as Kwon Mi-eon suggested. The nickname floating above the character disappeared, replaced by three question marks.
“Huh? This is…”
“What is it, Hyung? Is it an item you know?”
Of course he knew. There was no way he wouldn’t.
‘This is the item the VITA kids were using back then!’
It was the cloak they had all been wearing side-by-side when he first encountered VITA. However, Mo Yeon-hu couldn’t let on that he knew.
“No? First time seeing it.”
“Ah, really?”
“Yeah.”
The moment he admitted to knowing this, all the effort he’d put into pretending not to be 0momo0 would go down the drain!
‘Of course, at this point, we’re both just pretending…’
Regardless, Mo Yeon-hu gritted his teeth and played dumb, and Kwon Mi-eon’s lips twitched silently as he watched him. Meanwhile, Mo Yeon-hu looked around at the cloak he was wearing as if it were fascinating.
“This is really strange. I’m taller, but now you and I have the exact same height and build.”
Because the item hid the entire appearance, the two people wearing it looked like clones.
“Want to take a picture?”
“Let’s use the in-game camera.”
“Oh, there’s such a thing? Great.”
Finding it amusing that two identical characters were peering around, Mo Yeon-hu circled around Kwon Mi-eon in curiosity before agreeing to take a photo.
“Hyung, could you enable interaction then? I want to strike a pose.”
“Okay.”
Mo Yeon-hu, who had taken screenshots before but had never used the in-game camera to take a photo, waited with an excited face as the two characters moved close together.
‘Is it taking it now? A pretty pose like this…’
But he soon froze. It was because the two characters standing side-by-side on the screen suddenly overlapped.
‘What is this?’
And then, after fumbling with each other and turning their chins…
(Notification) User ‘NotMi-yeong’ has used the ‘Passionate Kiss’ interaction on user ‘Na Oh-jik’!
…?
‘What the hell is this?!’