“You are, we are, strong now! But we are so severely strong that we cannot control it! That is why this is dangerous instead!”
-[Smiting Light]
A beam of light shot from the tip of Han Woo-hyun’s sword and struck down into the assassin.
It was not an attack skill, but a skill that left a mark by designating a target.
“Look at this bastard! He is a high-level player around your level! But with a single skill, all of us nearly died!”
It was true.
Because World of Yggdrasill had been designed with a stat structure focused more on a character’s attack power than defense.
“This is reality! It isn’t like a game where you have HP!”
Therefore, most player skills, if one failed to react properly.
Could make even a high-level player die instantly and hollowly.
“One mistake, and you die! Unlike the game!”
Every player there had seen it.
They had seen Han Woo-hyun suppress the assassin with overwhelming skill and transcendent speed.
At the moment when no one there had reacted or defended.
“...Wh-what are you trying to say?!”
“...He’s right, but...”
“...We really almost died...”
“...How...”
Therefore, for now, they had no choice but to accept his words.
Han Woo-hyun, who had commanded countless people before his regression, understood human fear, anger, madness, joy···
Crowd psychology, better than anyone.
Threat and release. The basics of addressing a crowd.
“Therefore, we must gather.”
With that, he bestowed authority upon himself, the center of this gathering.
"[Crimson Ring]."
"[Amazing Equipment Transcendence Scroll]."
"[Totem of Frenzy]."
"[Aisin-Gioro Ring IV]."
"[Extreme Level Advancement Elixir]."
Then he hammered them with evidence.
He took out items whose very existence symbolized balance collapse.
“Wh-what is that?”
“Discontinued items from the global server and Southeast Asian server?”
“There’s one from China too, isn’t there?”
“No, how does he have all of those by himself...?!”
Since every player knew of their existence, they were objects that displayed his symbolism as the representative of other servers more strongly than anything else.
“I am the representative of every server.”
The countless players gathered together looked up at Han Woo-hyun as though entranced.
But even this could still be insufficient.
If he were persuading them one on one, this would be enough, but with a crowd, things were different.
An overwhelming.
An even more overwhelming performance was necessary.
“And as someone who has played this game longer than anyone, and knows it better than anyone.”
This, too, could be proven.
He took out items that would support those words.
Truly precious items he had saved for this very moment.
“[2005 First Anniversary Fireworks].”
“[2006 Second Anniversary Monster Carnival].”
“[Baby Mushroom’s Attack Power Blessing].”
“[Cute Strength of the Slime Legion].”
“[Sparkling Sunlight Potion].”
“[Lustrous Moonlight Potion].”
“[Amazing Rainbow]···”
“[Nutrients for a Sprouting World Tree]...”
“Wh-what are those?”
“Discontinued buffs?”
"How does he have all of them?"
Old-era buff items, each of which had been released more than ten years ago.
Han Woo-hyun drank them down as if deliberately showing them.
One by one, all of them.
“...Insane.”
"I will stake my representativeness on this."
Silent shock spread out.
“However, you cannot believe everything merely because I say so.”
He drove in the final wedge.
Using the bugged status window, he would pull off the decisive bluff.
“The level 200 common skill, [Sharp Eyes]. If you are users here, you should all have mastered it. Look at me with that.”
A brief silence.
Everyone knew that skill’s active effect.
An effect that had almost never been used in the game.
Then, voices spread in unison in front of the PC café.
“...[Sharp Eyes].”
“...[Sharp Eyes]. I-insane?”
“...[Sharp Eyes]. Fuck?”
“...[Sharp Eyes]. His Combat Power is··· 2 billion?”
“...[Sharp Eyes]. Primary stat 180,000? Does this make sense?”
“Cha Jung-hoon and Kim Jae-seung have around 100,000 primary stat, right?”
“Even though his Force is so low, if his stats are that high...”
Right now, with even every old discontinued buff that could be stacked added together.
Even if the erroneous values of the status window were excluded, with his actual numerical strength alone.
Han Woo-hyun had stats that could let him crush all of Seoul by himself.
Feeling the transcendent and incomprehensible scale of power flowing through his brain and muscles, he shouted again.
“I will say it again. I am Han Woo-hyun, guild leader of Lucid, the unified guild of every server in the world!”
“Right now, trolls are running wild all over the world!”
“For the safety of players and everyone else, Cha Jung-hoon and Kim Jae-seung have been appointed as Korean branch leaders!”
Once again, Han Woo-hyun looked down at Cha Jung-hoon and Kim Jae-seung.
“Join the guild. That is the path for all of us!”
Then, toward the two of them and everyone else, he quietly recited.
He had already understood their expressions and emotions when he blocked the assassin, but it was not 100% certain.
“...Everyone, please listen to us!”
“We are in danger right now! Not because we are too weak, but because we are too strong!”
“We need to guarantee one another’s safety and order!”
“It is not a big deal! It is just joining a guild!”
Fortunately, the two men who had been saved from danger.
Understood Han Woo-hyun’s appeal that there would be many things like this in the future.
They understood it very well.
They accepted that in order to guarantee their own safety, an organization had to be formed.
“[Guild Window]!”
“[Guild Window]!”
The first guild members in Korea, and the Korean branch leaders.
The two strongest DPS players in the world publicly declared that they were joining.
“F-fuck. Really?”
“A guild? A worldwide unified one?”
“No, it’s only been one day since we became our characters?”
"This is a bit strange. In the first place..."
“Cha Jung-hoon and Kim Jae-seung are Korea’s bosses? I don’t know. I’m joining.”
“Wait, wait. At least the guild information···”
“[Guild Window]. I’m joining too! I’m just following Cha Jung-hoon!”
Fortunately, the full guarantee of the two YouTubers.
And the fact that most of the gathered subscribers were their truest of true fans.
Helped greatly.
Even those who hesitated at first began joining little by little once Cha Jung-hoon and Kim Jae-seung actively encouraged them.
“Everyone! Did you not just see it? That lunatic···”
“You have all watched me for a long time, haven’t you? Trust me and come!”
As though it was already the prevailing trend, as though they had somehow joined in the confusion themselves, so the rest of them might as well come too.
“Uh... well, a guild isn’t that big of a deal anyway. [Guild Window].”
“Just joining should be fine. [Guild Window]. I’m joining!”
When about half of them had declared their intent to join, opposition burst out.
“No, fuck! Cha Jung-hoon, Kim Jae-seung! Both of you always said guilds were annoying and only did solo play!”
“Ah, that···.”
“Is this really your guild? Didn’t that bastard threaten you?”
One person publicly rebelled. Judging by him, he was quite a high-level ranker.
Seeing the armor engraved with a splendid dragon-shaped symbol, he was a Dragon Knight.
··Han Woo-hyun knew him. Lord of Seoul Kwon Seung-hwan.
Before his regression, he had been one of the few survivors of the Gangnam District Civil War.
At his words, Kim Jae-seung and Cha Jung-hoon glanced at Han Woo-hyun with troubled expressions.
Because in truth, he was half right.
“You are saying you cannot trust me?”
Han Woo-hyun decided to answer him directly.
“That is not the issue! A unified guild in one day? Does that make sense?”
It was an entirely reasonable point.
"Ha."
Han Woo-hyun tensed slightly.
In reality, before his regression, player organizations had only begun forming after two months had passed.
Because they were all too strong and had bloated egos; when they met, far from uniting, they merely fought one another.
In the case of rankers, that was even worse.
Even when sane players tried somehow to form organizations and stabilize the situation.
The overwhelmingly powerful ranker-class lunatic trolls interfered.
While spouting insane nonsense like social cliques must be punished.
Therefore, without Han Woo-hyun, naturally, something like a worldwide unified guild could not have appeared.
Even if players were sane people, an organization encompassing all the superhumans in the world forming in one day?
And one with branch leaders and subordinate executives systematically established in each region?
Did that make sense?
“What do you want me to do? This is a matter every ranker of the Chinese and Southeast Asian servers has already agreed to.”
Naturally, Han Woo-hyun also knew the logical flaw.
So he decided to crush that difficult-to-refute point by force.
“Fuck, there’s no proof!”
“Proof? Proof, is it···.”
Moreover, Han Woo-hyun was not merely a strong ranker player. He was the world’s final raid leader, who had commanded and controlled countless players for twenty years.
At the present point in time, no one understood the emotions and psychology of game-addicted shut-in players better than he did.
Therefore, he could twist that rational point in reverse instead.
“This is perfect timing. Shall we all see it together?”
“What?”
When Han Woo-hyun instead chuckled, the Dragon Knight who had raised the point became flustered.
“The proof, I mean. You said you wished to see it.”
At this moment, because Han Woo-hyun’s past appearance did not immediately come to mind, the users were not recalling it right away.
But there was a problem even greater than the lack of proof.
The problem that Han Woo-hyun’s character, Arthur, had been fairly famously doxxed in-game.
“Friends who just joined! Is there anyone with a mage-line class?”
Until only yesterday, he had been a shut-in who did nothing but play games in his room.
A man with no job, whose last experience of social life had been as a high school dropout.
Moreover, someone who had been burdened with all kinds of mental illness after long-term school violence.
A typical game-addicted shut-in life whose every detail was known among the users of World of Yggdrasill.
“Yes, I am a mage! To be exact, I’m a [Stargazer]!”
“[Dimensional Gate]. A level 200 common skill. You have learned it, correct?”
How could such a person.
Become someone who founded and led an organization uniting players around the world in a single day?
Before plausibility, was this even common sense?
Such very rational suspicion.
Before the players’ suspicions could stretch that far, he would harden the situation completely.
“Yes! I opened the way here too! It wasn’t that hard!”
“Excellent.”
There was anticipation in that expression.
The guild leader’s first designation and order. Naturally, there was no way it was because he respected Han Woo-hyun, whom he had met for the first time here. It seemed he was simply excited by the situation.
“[Dimensional Gate]. Can you open one from here to Yeouido?”
“Huh? Yeouido? Uh··· I don’t think I can do it in one go.”
“Me! I can use it too!”
“Good. We will connect them.”
“Then we go to Express Bus Terminal Station, and after that···”
“But why Yeouido?”
Han Woo-hyun stated the plan.
“Because we are going to the headquarters of Korean Public Broadcasting. The live evening news begins soon, does it not?”
“···Eh?”
The players murmured.
“Kim Jae-seung, Cha Jung-hoon. You have done many broadcasts, yes? I will leave the announcement to you.”
“Y-yes?”
“···Understood, Guild Leader.”
When Kim Jae-seung reacted as though slightly stunned, Cha Jung-hoon answered in his stead.
It seemed he had now fully accepted the situation.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes! To the northeast... [Dimensional Gate]!”
The Dimensional Gate opened.
“There are less than thirty minutes left before eight, so we must hurry.”
“···What proof can you show at a broadcasting station?”
About half the players, who had not yet joined and were murmuring among themselves.
As if some implicit agreement had formed that he was their representative, the Dragon Knight stepped forward and muttered.
“If China, Southeast Asia, and the Korean server are combined, can that not sufficiently be said to represent the world?”
“That is true, but.”
“If we exclude the global server, which barely has any users, that can essentially be called 99% of all players in the world.”
“So why would you go to a broadcasting station for that.... Ah.”
Only then did the Dragon Knight’s expression twist in bewilderment.
“D-don’t tell me. Are you trying to hijack a broadcast right now?”
“A promise must be kept. Should we not synchronize the timing with our friends in China, Southeast Asia, and North Korea?”
“What? North Korea?”
At those words, murmurs spread again among the players who had not yet joined.
The fact that North Korea’s leadership had all been slaughtered by a single Priest player had already been widely reported in the news since that morning.
And that dozens of players who saw him followed him across the armistice line, wreaking havoc.
It was the news that had firmly imprinted the existence of players among ordinary people in only a single day.
“Now, come in. Why don’t you come and see for yourselves before deciding?”
“···Damn it. Everyone, let’s at least go see what nonsense he’s talking about.”
As though exhausted by the information Han Woo-hyun fired off like a bombardment, the Dragon Knight eventually nodded.
The other players watched one another, then began stepping forward one by one.
Yeouido.
To the Korean public broadcaster.
In order to announce the emergence of a superhuman armed organization whose individual members each rivaled a legion.