“D-d··· I’ll do it···”
“Speak clearly.”
Han Woo-hyeon pressed the faltering voice with a cold tone.
“I’ll join··· Guild Master.”
“Louder.”
“[Guild Window]··· Join. I said I’ll join···!”
Of course, it was not merely a prank. There was a reason for it.
“Good. Welcome to the Guild.”
It was a performance meant to establish authority.
An overwhelming, absolute sovereign whom no one could resist.
A deliberate act of disregard meant to show that Han Woo-hyeon was such an existence.
“Don’t worry. I said it earlier, didn’t I?”
-GRAB
-SQUEEZE
“Urgh!”
-SWISH
Roughly grabbing Na Yu-na’s hand, he pulled her to her feet and continued.
“I won’t make unfair demands.”
Then he looked at the Players lined up behind him.
His eyes met those of Cha Jeong-hun and Kim Jae-seung, who stood at their forefront.
“We are an alliance of Players.”
“We are not just any alliance. We are the one and only Guild.”
“We represent the interests of Players, the order of Players, and the society of Players.”
Han Woo-hyeon raised his sword high.
-SHIIING
Light gathered around it.
-FWOOOOSH!
It shone brilliantly enough to drive away all the darkness of the night around them.
“I don’t care what you were in the past, or what brought you into the Guild now.”
Na Yu-na, Kim Jae-seung, Cha Jeong-hun, Kwon Seung-hwan, and every other Player.
“···.”
They all stared up at him blankly.
“There is only one thing that matters. We are all beneath the Guild.”
It would ease, even if only a little, the sense of estrangement that might arise between the two groups.
“In the name of Guild Master Han Woo-hyeon, I welcome you all.”
-SWISH
As he finished speaking, he slipped a hand into his coat. When he withdrew it again, it was full of bundles of checks.
“You all worked hard today, so it would be a shame to simply leave. Take them. They’re compensation for your trouble.”
He handed them to Kim Jae-seung and Cha Jeong-hun.
“They are gifts for the founding members who joined today. Hand them out one by one.”
There were roughly three hundred people gathered here in total. Fortunately, there was enough.
“Th-this is··· checks worth several hundred million won? Did you prepare these in advance?”
Kim Jae-seung accepted them with a dazed expression.
“So what if I did?”
“No··· Yes, understood. Everyone, take one! They’re signing bonuses!”
“A membership fee?”
“Shouldn’t we be the ones paying a membership fee?”
“Seriously, why are we getting paid a membership fee when we join···?”
“I don’t know. Today was fucking amazing, and the ending’s good too···”
“Whoa, a hundred, one-fifty... two hundred? How much is this?!”
“They said two hundred would do it, and it’s really two hundred...”
“How many water jugs would we have to sell to make this much?”
“Fuck, enough with the water-jug talk···.”
It was not an enormous sum, but it was certainly no small fortune.
Han Woo-hyeon was not handing out two million won per person without any reason merely to show off or throw money around.
Players were far too powerful—powerful enough to easily collapse social order through destruction and plunder.
He wanted to give them their rightful value while making them feel that, rather than running wild, remaining under the Guild was the more comfortable and easier path.
In other words, this was the foundation for instilling a minimum degree of pride and belonging in the Guild’s founding members.
“Things will get busy starting tomorrow. Before you go, write down your real names, Character Names, addresses, and contact information. Cha Jeong-hun!”
“Yes?”
“I’m counting on you. You can manage this much, can’t you?”
“···Yes.”
“I’ll help too. What else should I do?”
Cha Jeong-hun’s eyes had become resigned, while Kim Jae-seung stood beside him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Dismiss everyone properly, then we’ll meet again tomorrow. We need to establish a company.”
“A company? Ah···”
“Don’t worry. There’s no way you would know how to turn the Guild into a company. Look for a place around Jamsil to use as an office, along with people who can work.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll send the details in writing later.”
This was where the real beginning started.
Han Woo-hyeon barely clung to his gradually fading consciousness as he looked over the Players once more.
Kim Jae-seung and Cha Jeong-hun, the strongest Players in Korea, along with their fan club.
Na Yu-na and her members, Korea’s first Villain organization.
And countless future Villains and Heroes who were no less capable than them.
There were still some remaining causes for concern, but...
At this point, he had successfully drawn in nearly everyone he possibly could.
“···All right, everyone. See you tomorrow!”
“Get plenty of rest at home!”
“Tomorrow, about the recruitment information again···”
“Don’t cause any trouble! This isn’t just a warning!”
“Try not to use your Skills outside···”
Of course, this was not true obedience.
At most, their cohesion was no stronger than that of people who had been brought into a hobby club.
There was probably still a fair amount of resentment as well.
But there was no doubt that he had accomplished the most difficult task far more successfully than expected.
There had not been a single loss, nor a single deviation from his expectations.
-WHIIINE
“···Ah.”
So··· now, perhaps he could rest a little.
“I’ll be going too. I’ll come back to the PC café tomorrow with the officers, so wait for us.”
“Ah, yes, Guild Master···”
“Take care!”
-NOD
Han Woo-hyeon nodded solemnly, then kicked off the ground.
-BOOM!
With all his strength.
Without bothering with any delicate control of his power, he simply leaped with force and launched himself into the air.
-WHOOOOSH
He had flown roughly north without much thought, so his landing point was not precise either.
-CRASH!
“Kh, ugh, urgh···.”
Having crashed into the Mount Bugak area, Han Woo-hyeon took out an item with trembling hands.
A Player’s physical durability was transcendent.
The impact of simply falling and crashing into the ground did not even tickle.
“Huff, huff···.”
The problem was his brain.
“I’m f-f··· fine···”
He was not fine. Not at all.
Even if his intent had been to display overwhelming might.
He had used an Original Skill that was far too powerful.
Even before his return, [Reality Readjustment Interpretation] was a Skill he had used only in short bursts while concentrating as intensely as possible.
Yet he had operated it for a full ten minutes.
Of course, it had been necessary.
If he had failed to subdue even one person and a fight had broken out, the Blue House and all of Jongno might have been destroyed.
Still, the side effects were too severe.
He had reached the limit of what he could endure through mental strength alone.
His senses were slowing, collapsing, and even thinking hurt.
A cerebral hemorrhage spreading from the pineal gland. Cerebral infarction. Increased intracranial pressure. Neural necrosis. Ventricular rupture···.
He could feel all of it vividly.
“In···ven···”
He had to hurry.
This was damage that required direct treatment.
“[Inventory]... [Brain Normalizer No. 3]...”
With a soft pop, a strangely shaped syringe appeared.
An injury that could not naturally heal through [Elixir], the game’s basic recovery potion.
An injury related to the pineal gland, the source of a Player’s abilities.
It was a special medical device developed by the United States Department of Defense to heal such injuries.
It had been made by combining and refining game items, so it too was classified as an item.
“Qui···ckly···”
Han Woo-hyeon felt his tongue twist.
The hemorrhage and infarction that had begun in his pineal gland were spreading through the surrounding cerebrum and cerebellum.
-WHIIIR
Fed with Force, the device glowed sharply and began to spin.
He aimed it at the back of his head, the surface nearest to the pineal gland, and drove it in hard.
-CRUNCH
“Ghhk···!”
A hole opened in his skull, crushing parts of his cerebrum and cerebellum.
The device’s fivefold invasive-structure needle protruded, pierced his cerebrum, and reached the diencephalon.
Needles wreathed in Force carefully worked their way between the thalamus and hypothalamus.
“Ha··· haa···”
The shock was so immense that it felt as if his consciousness would shatter into pieces.
-GURGLE
-GURGLE
But he endured it and continued pouring Force into the syringe to the very end.
Without Force, the device could not pierce a Player’s body and inject the medicine.
The active ingredients of highly extracted and condensed [Elixir], antihypertensives, and intracranial-pressure stabilizers flowed into his pineal gland.
None of them were ordinary drugs. They were substances concentrated and reprocessed specifically for Players.
“Huff··· Huff···”
With each pulse, he felt the blood pressure and intracranial pressure that had surged as though they were boiling gradually fall.
The overlapping afterimages merged into one.
His trembling hands and arms stopped moving.
The dizziness and headache subsided as well.
Only the discomfort of something feeling lodged in his head remained.
“Hup!”
That, too, would soon be resolved.
At last, Han Woo-hyeon poured in Force and pulled out the device.
-GURGLE
-GUSH
Blackened clots and fragments of dead brain tissue poured out.
There was not much of it.
The pineal gland and surrounding brain tissue were regenerating, and the remaining residue was flowing out.
“Haah···”
After confirming that every foreign substance had been removed, he withdrew the device.
-CRACK
No sooner had the Brain Normalizer come out than the wound healed.
A Player’s transcendent natural recovery.
It was a paradoxical body: because of that healing, if the pineal gland was damaged, they could do nothing but die unless they operated a dedicated device themselves.
Of course, it would not be a major problem if a Priest used [Resurrection] after they died.
But wasting [Resurrection], with its long cooldown, on something like that was fucking stupid.
“Huff··· It’s fortunate I didn’t need to use even these.”
With a sigh, he put the other two devices in his hands back into his Inventory.
No. 3 was specialized for treating cerebral hemorrhages and infarctions caused when Force ran wild.
No. 1 was for direct trauma to the pineal gland and was specialized in regenerating brain tissue itself.
No. 7 was a dedicated neural-receptor blocker for when the Force in the pineal gland itself ran wild, leaving neural-bundle control and sensation completely out of control.
He had taken them out because he might have needed to use those two if his condition worsened.
“There aren’t many left··· I need to conserve them.”
After the United States fell, they could no longer be made.
He knew only the basic principles, not the exact mechanism by which they worked.
“[Force Resonance X-Ray Vision].”
Lastly, Han Woo-hyeon performed an imaging diagnosis on himself.
It was an Original Skill developed to examine a Player’s body, which even deflected the magnetic field of an MRI.
“Looks fine.”
More precisely, it was not as though there was no problem at all.
The remaining injuries were healing slowly.
Still, he was in no condition to fight.
“The time··· Ha. I suppose Pangyo can’t be helped.”
Everything would already be over by now, so there was no point in going.
Even if he went to the game company now, nothing but ruined wreckage would remain. The Villain Players who had gathered there would already have scattered.
It was right to give up on that side. Clinging to what he had already failed to prevent was not a good attitude.
He had many things to do from now on, so it would be better to focus on those instead.
“···Whew.”
With a sigh, Han Woo-hyeon turned toward home.
Most of his injuries would heal on the way, and the wound to his pineal gland would likely be completely healed by tomorrow morning.
It was time to rest.
-WHOOM
-BOOM
-WHOOM
-BOOM
After jumping up with all his strength, he created a platform of physical force in the air and stepped onto it.
The Paladin’s movement Skill [Steps of Light] combined with the Original Skill [Force Combat Arts], producing transcendent speed.
-WHOOOOSH
-TAP
He was able to reach his rented room in less than ten minutes.
“Haaah···”
He let out a long sigh.
“[Elixir].”
-GULP
He drank another potion he did not even need.
He hoped that, if he slept and woke up, he might feel even a little better.
It was fine to waste this.
It was an item so abundant that every Player possessed tens of thousands of them.
Its supply did not suit the grand name Elixir at all.
“Did Woo-jun leave this?”
A sheet of paper folded into the shape of a note caught his eye in front of the computer, as though flaunting itself.
-To my brother
“Let’s see···”
-Texting or calling would probably be more convenient, but after seeing the news, I didn’t want to do it that way.
-I wanted to leave something more serious, something that would truly reach you.
-I honestly don’t know what to say. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe that you’re really my brother, Han Woo-hyeon.
-But you must be. I didn’t tell Mom and Dad about that matter, so I don’t think you would have told anyone about the loan either.
-I’ll explain things to Mom and Dad. But I want you to explain exactly why you changed so much. Other than your appearance, your personality and that··· Well, everything. The Guild and this CEO business included. I hope you’ll explain it all in detail.
-And regardless··· I’m glad you’re doing well. I’m worried in an entirely different way now, but still.
-Yeah, I hope things go well. Truly. Even if I don’t know what will happen to the world.
“...Woo-jun.”
Han Woo-hyeon’s voice grew thick after he finished reading the letter.
“···Mother. Father.”
Han Woo-hyeon had been an unfilial son.
A son so shameful it was unbearable.
A gaming addict who, even at the fucking age of thirty, had not found a job and lived only by bleeding his family dry.
Until the very moment his parents died, he had not stepped out of that room.
In fact, it was only after his younger brother—who had forcibly dragged him out of the house—died after his parents that Han Woo-hyeon awakened the will to live.
Only then had he realized that he could not go on like this.
“···This time.”
He would not let the family that had only ever given to him meet such a miserable end.
-Let’s have dinner in Wangsimni tomorrow evening. I’ll explain then.
After quickly sending the text.
-THUMP
He lay down on the bed to truly rest.
There would be plenty to do tomorrow as well.