Late at night, while the other team members were asleep.
Jun and Aiden had separated from the others to conduct an independent exploration.
This was the right Jun had obtained from Colton in exchange for relinquishing his claim to a greater share of the profits.
Of course, Colton had imposed several conditions.
They were allowed only one hour per day.
They could not explore independently during the team’s scheduled activities.
And if they drew monster Aggro even once and endangered the team, the right would be revoked.
Jun had been forced to listen to all manner of warnings, but conditions like those were more than acceptable.
“Oh, Senior! There’s a book here!”
“It isn’t a Skill Book…… Phew. Just an old book.”
Aiden discovered a book tangled among the tree roots and brushed the dust from it with evident curiosity.
“This really does feel like an adventure.”
“Well, it is an adventure.”
Unfortunately, despite already spending two days conducting these explorations, the only thing they had found was the book Aiden had just discovered.
“It’s written in the Ancient Language…… Wait.”
Jun tilted his head as he examined the book.
The characters were unmistakably unfamiliar, resembling a mass of tangled worms, yet somehow he understood the meaning contained within them.
“……An Expedition Log? What? Why can I read this?”
“What is it, Senior?”
“Uh…… Nothing. It’s nothing.”
After muttering briefly to himself, Jun put the book away.
In truth, Jun already knew what the book contained.
It was one of the books players could obtain while playing <Blackout>.
Once a player learned the Ancient Language, the book would automatically become readable. Jun remembered finding it in the past, mistaking it for a Skill Book, and asking about it on the community forums, only to be greatly disappointed when he learned that it was merely an ancient text.
‘But I should need the [Ancient Language] skill to read this.’
Jun possessed no such skill.
‘Is this related to how I understood the Goblin Lord’s sorcery?’
The inexplicable phenomenon left him uneasy for a moment.
‘Well, being able to read the Ancient Language isn’t exactly a bad thing.’
Perhaps this book might even help him discover something about the strange change occurring within him.
Jun forced down his unease with that thought and continued exploring.
“Is [Luck] actually useless?”
However, they failed to discover any other Hidden Pieces besides the old book.
“This damn game really does depend entirely on luck.”
“Ugh, I seriously thought I was going to die. Today was really dangerous.”
“Doesn’t the dungeon seem harder than it was before?”
“That too, but what’s that strange noise we’ve been hearing since earlier?”
“Oh, that? Don’t you mean this? It makes that sound when you step on this flower.”
SQUEEEEEAK……
The fifth day of the dungeon exploration.
Still, no one had noticed the abnormality.
“I’m starting to think [Luck] really is useless…….”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Not long after beginning their exploration—
Jun followed the routes he remembered as before, but they found no Hidden Pieces along the way.
‘Hidden Pieces were never exactly common to begin with, but nothing at all after this much searching?’
The process depended heavily on luck, so there was little he could do about it.
Even so, that did not make him feel any less cheated.
He had gone through all the trouble of joining the Raid, only to walk away with a single ancient book.
Anyone would feel disappointed.
“Haa…….”
“P-please don’t be too discouraged, Senior. We still have the Raid target ahead of us, don’t we? With your ability, I’m sure you’ll be able to earn a good reward.”
Aiden did his best to cheer him up with a bright expression.
Jun relaxed his own expression in response.
“Yeah. It isn’t as though this is our only opportunity. Besides, there’s still one Hidden Piece left.”
“Really? I hope we can obtain this one. Haha.”
“But only you can get it.”
“What?”
Aiden tilted his head at the unexpected statement.
“The condition for entering is that you have to be a Mana user who has trained with a sword.”
There was, however, one problem with this Hidden Piece.
A very serious problem.
“But if you fail, you might die.”
“What?”
“It’s a kind of trial. If you fail to satisfy the conditions presented inside, the mental backlash will hit you directly.”
Unlike a game, reality had no Save and Load system.
They therefore had to make the choice carefully.
“You have to decide for yourself.”
“Do you…… think I can do it?”
“If I thought you couldn’t, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. But you don’t have to go. There are plenty of other ways to become stronger. They’ll just take a little longer.”
“I——”
Aiden was about to answer when the change began without warning.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH——!!
“Urgh?!”
A horrifying, piercing scream rang out from somewhere.
But the sound did not strike their eardrums.
It echoed directly inside their minds.
At the sudden scream, Aiden instinctively drew his sword and searched their surroundings.
“Senior!”
“……So it finally started.”
“What?”
“Put the sword away for now. Nothing is happening to us immediately.”
“W-what was that just now……?”
The air had grown heavier.
It was not merely an impression.
Their bodies had genuinely become strangely heavy.
“It’s a Hidden Stage.”
“A Hidden…… Stage?”
Within the <Blackout> community, the phenomenon was commonly called Hard Mode.
“Yeah. The Black Forest Conquest Operation has several hidden secrets.”
“Is this related to why you’ve looked troubled for the past few days?”
Since Aiden had to protect Jun as a Mage, he often paid close attention to him.
And throughout this dungeon exploration, Jun had occasionally worn either a grave or deeply contemplative expression.
The first time Aiden had noticed it was when they discovered flowers that emitted strange screams whenever someone stepped on them.
More precisely, Jun’s expression had worsened every time one of those flowers screamed.
“That scream just now…… means the sleeping Fairy Queen has awakened.”
“A Fairy Queen? Was there a monster like that in the Conquest Operation?”
“Normally, there isn’t. But if several conditions are met, the Fairy Queen wakes up. And one of those conditions…… is this.”
A flower swayed with dark violet energy.
Until moments ago, it had looked like an ordinary flower, but ever since the scream rang out, an ominous aura had begun flowing from it.
“This is a ‘Corruption-Draining Flower.’ Dark Mages and Witches mainly use it when creating Cursed Artifacts.”
“A Corruption-Draining Flower…… I’ve never heard of it.”
“Well, they aren’t exactly common. They only grow naturally here in Blackout.”
Aiden listened carefully to Jun’s calm explanation.
Blackout had long been a subject of intense debate among scholars of the Imperial Family.
It was a bizarre place where damaged terrain and slain monsters naturally restored themselves after enough time passed.
Countless historians had therefore devoted themselves to uncovering its secrets, and apparently Jun knew information related to those mysteries as well.
Of course, in Jun’s case, it was merely something Lee Jeong-jun had stumbled across while searching for strategy guides in the past.
“The Fairy Queen, as the queen of the forest, is connected to the entire forest. These Corruption-Draining Flowers suppress her corruption. Just like the name suggests, they’ve been absorbing the power of corruption.”
“Then the reason you looked so troubled every time someone stepped on one of those flowers…….”
“If a certain number of these flowers inside the Conquest Operation are trampled and killed, the corrupted Fairy Queen awakens.”
“……Is she that dangerous?”
“She’s definitely not something people at our level can handle.”
Perhaps there would have been the slightest chance if everyone exploring the other dungeons, excluding the Raid Leader, had been Level 3……
‘But it’s impossible right now. To do this safely, you’d need a full force of at least Level 4 players.’
There was a simple reason Jun had not warned the Raid group.
“This was probably something Azure Cloud triggered deliberately. I don’t know their exact objective, but I’m guessing they needed an accomplishment.”
The Raid Leader’s side had already made its plans.
And considering the overwhelming authority held by a Raid Leader, there would have been little point in a mere Low-Rank Mage like Jun objecting.
“Then…… what are we supposed to do?”
“……Survive. In the face of a disaster brought about by human greed.”
For now, there was no other answer.
“So, let’s go back to what we were discussing. What will you do?”
“Ah…… About the Hidden Piece?”
“Right.”
“If I attempt it, will it help us survive?”
“Well, yes.”
In truth, it would do far more than merely help.
It might become an important trump card for resolving this entire crisis.
But obtaining it would require Aiden to risk his life.
Jun had no intention of pressuring him into making that choice.
“I was planning to try it anyway. If there’s an opportunity to become stronger, I think I should seize it while I can.”
Back when Aiden lived within the Imperial Family, he had not even been allowed opportunities like this.
His life had been one in which the storms of the world simply pushed him wherever they pleased.
Aiden no longer wanted to experience a life where choices were forced upon him and he could not even resist them.
“Phew…… All right. I’ll explain the Hidden Piece on the way, so listen carefully.”
Following the passage eventually brought them to a dead end.
But after arriving there, Jun looked down at the ground with satisfaction.
“We found the right place.”
There was a circular flower bed with a radius of roughly one meter.
Jun sprinkled translucent powder over the bare center where nothing grew.
It was loot obtained from hunting Fairies—
‘Fairy Powder.’
When Jun turned around, he saw Aiden staring with obvious curiosity and chuckled before explaining.
“They say flowers growing in a circle like this once marked passages used by Fairies. Fairy Powder acts as a kind of Trigger that opens the passage.”
“This really does feel like an adventure.”
“Though the situation isn’t quite as romantic as that.”
The flowers absorbed the Fairy Powder and soon began glowing violet, creating a passage where none had existed before.
“Let’s go.”
They entered through the softly glowing passage.
And sure enough—
A hidden chamber revealed itself.
“Is that it?”
“Yeah.”
At the far end of the chamber—
A massive greatsword had been driven into the ground.
Aiden approached it.
“Like I told you earlier, coat the sword in Mana and concentrate.”
“……Yes. I’ll be back, Senior.”
Aiden placed his hand on the enormous greatsword with a solemn expression, closed his eyes, and focused.
Waves of Mana began spreading around him.
The ripples gradually formed a rounded membrane until they completely enclosed both Aiden and the massive greatsword.
It was a kind of Barrier.
“Phew…….”
Jun let out a heavy sigh after confirming that the Barrier had completely swallowed Aiden.
At that exact moment—
“Huh? What’s this? Looks like someone got here before us.”
A voice came from the passage Jun and Aiden had used.
Aiden opened his eyes amid a weightless sensation that felt like a dream and looked around.
The dark tunnels he had been seeing until moments ago had vanished.
Instead, a lush green forest greeted him.
“……Senior was right. This really does feel completely real.”
The haziness quickly faded.
Aiden looked down at his hand and realized that this was a world created by an illusion.
“It seems I have a guest.”
A voice rang out.
Low and resonant, it somehow reminded him of an animal’s growl.
Aiden looked toward the source and saw a being unlike anything he had ever encountered before.
If a lion stood upon two legs and walked like a man, perhaps it would look something like this.
“Are you the master of this place?”
“You guessed correctly. I am Pride, Knight Commander of Herlinte.”
The man who introduced himself as Pride was a Beastman with a magnificent lion’s mane.
True to his title of Knight Commander, his entire body was protected by thick armor.
“……To think I’d find an intelligent being in Blackout.”
At least in the world Aiden knew, no race possessed such an appearance.
While Aiden struggled to conceal his shock, the Beastman spoke.
“Ah, I cannot understand what you mean by that. Your world and this world were originally meant to be completely severed from one another.”
“……?”
“There is no need for you to understand. Our world has already ended, while yours has merely entered a new trial. That is all you need to know. And in this trial, you must defeat me.”
As though declaring the conversation over, he gripped the greatsword.
It was the same greatsword Aiden had touched before entering the illusion.
“Come, outsider. I will test whether you are worthy of inheriting my swordsmanship. But heed one warning. My trial is exceptionally cruel.”
This might only be an illusion, but if Aiden died here, there was a possibility that he would die in reality as well.
Knowing that, Aiden drew his sword with a grave expression.
‘First of all, I’m at a disadvantage.’
Pride towered well over two meters tall.
Naturally, Aiden, with his shorter reach, was at a severe disadvantage.
As Aiden slowly circulated Mana through his body, Pride moved first.
He lowered his stance and came in with an upward slash from below.
It was terrifyingly fast—so fast that Aiden could scarcely believe a body that enormous could move at such speed.
Aiden barely avoided the strike and attempted to counterattack, but Pride’s kick was faster.
WHOOSH!
Even his foot was nearly as large as Aiden’s head.
“Hup!”
Aiden threw himself into a roll to evade the kick, cold sweat running down his back.
“What kind of strength is that……?”
Even though he had dodged from a considerable distance, the sheer wind pressure slammed into his face.
What would happen if the attack struck him directly?
He had no time to imagine it.
Pride’s sword came down upon him like a storm.
“Urgh……!”
Aiden evaded the relentless barrage before he could even regain his stance.
At times, there was no opportunity to dodge, forcing him to deflect the attacks instead, but every impact carried enough destructive force to make his bones tremble.
All Aiden could do was protect his body with Mana.
The battle was unmistakably unfavorable to him.
Whenever he tried to close the distance, Pride’s vicious kicks blocked his path.
Even the Beastman’s swordsmanship was extraordinary.
His movements flowed together so naturally that it seemed as though his sword and body were one, bewildering Aiden’s eyes.
“Phew……!”
CLANG!
Sparks burst from Aiden’s blade as he blocked another of Pride’s strikes.
-Remember. Your opponent will be superior to you in every respect. But don’t let that overwhelm you and make you give up. Your goal in there isn’t to kill him. It’s a trial. Focus on his swordsmanship.
Jun’s advice from before he entered—
The words flashed through Aiden’s mind like lightning.
‘What was Senior trying to tell me?’
Aiden focused on the swordsmanship of Pride, the Beast Knight.
‘I can still block him.’
In terms of sheer physical strength, Pride’s attacks were lighter than the punches of the Golem he had encountered in the Black Forest.
But had Aiden’s body felt this heavy back then?
‘No.’
Jun’s advice once again surfaced in his mind.
Jun was a Mage.
He was always examining and exploring the world around him.
Aiden had always envied that way of looking at things.
Then could he not imitate him?
Jun had always insisted that what he did was something anyone could do.
Most people simply never consciously tried.
Following that principle, Aiden began observing what was happening to himself.
And through that, he realized why he had been pushed back so relentlessly.
‘Killing intent.’
The murderous intent radiating from an overwhelmingly powerful opponent was slowly wearing away at his mind.
The fear that had been creeping up without his permission began to subside.
Calm returned to his eyes.
‘He told me to focus on the swordsmanship…….’
As he struggled to block Pride’s sword once again, Aiden began thinking about swordsmanship itself.
The training grounds of the Knight Order that he had secretly watched in the past.
What had the Knight responsible for training there said?
-The closer swordsmanship remains to the ground, the stronger its fundamentals become.
A single step could reveal the opponent’s movement.
The direction of the waist could reveal where the force of the entire body was flowing.
The shoulders traced the path the sword would follow.
The words he had once overheard in passing flashed through his mind like scenes before death.
And at that instant, something astonishing happened to Aiden.
“Ah……!”
It was a kind of realization.
And the manifestation of talent.
Fragments of memories he had forgotten because he never had a reason to use them rose back to the surface, accompanied by a sudden flash of inspiration.
For one fleeting instant, the opponent’s lower, middle, and upper lines all entered his vision at once.
Pride’s next movement became predictable, as though Aiden had glimpsed the future.
WHOOSH—!
The Beast Knight’s greatsword tore through empty air with a vicious sound.
Aiden evaded it by a margin no thicker than a sheet of paper.
The physical force carried by the wind pressure still caused pain, but he ignored even that.
Aiden’s body shot forward like a flash of light.
Unlike before, when he had done nothing but defend, he gathered Mana at the tips of his feet and detonated it.
CLANG—!
The attack was stopped by Pride’s knee guard.
But that did not matter.
For the first time, Aiden’s sword had touched his opponent’s body.
“Oh?”
Interest appeared in Pride’s beastlike eyes.