‘I wonder if this is real.’
Running with an expressionless face, I stared straight ahead with cold, lifeless eyes as I pondered this.
“Ugh, ugh, hek! Oof, this is so hard! Please save me just this once, Kangwon-ah!”
“…….”
One panelist was running for his life with gasping breaths, while Woo Kangwon, without making a sound, chased after him with the frightening intensity of a hunting dog.
I never wanted to believe that this scene was real, but what else could I do?
It was being screened right in front of my eyes.
Here’s the full story of what happened.
In the second part of the “
Agent War
” game, there was no time limit because it wouldn’t be easy to determine the winner if both teams failed to uncover the “
top secret
” or capture all of the opposing team.
There was a sense of tension for the broadcast in the fact that we had to uncover the “
top secret
” before the opposing team and before all of our team members were captured. However, the production team must have felt that wasn’t enough, so they came up with some additional system.
It was the “
Hall of Fame
“.
The production team created a system called the “
Hall of Fam
e”, where they kept track of the time it took for each team to achieve victory and ranked them accordingly. If a team made it into the top 5, they were rewarded with a plaque engraved with their team’s name displayed at the center of the studio, as well as a premium Hanwoo
1
beef set as a prize.
Celebrities, who make their living off of fame, found the idea of having their name displayed quite attractive and became increasingly competitive. But that wasn’t the problem for us.
There was someone in our group who was obsessed with food. This was our problem.
“Hanwoo! I love Hanwoo! I want to eat it! Let’s work hard!”
Do Yuda found out that the prize included a Hanwoo beef set, and he started wagging his tail, saying he wanted to eat it. Woo Kangwon nodded in response, and the rest was history.
“Is there really a need to look for clues? I think I can catch them all.”
I shouldn’t have taken Woo Kangwon’s casual remark before the game started lightly. I never expected that the guy who had been so docile in the first part would suddenly go on this kind of rampage.
When I came to my senses, I realized that Woo Kangwon had already caught 2 people out of the total of 7 members of the panel team. And this was during the first attack phase. I should mention, this game alternated between offense and defense every 10 minutes. So, Woo Kangwon had managed to catch two people in less than 10 minutes. If he catches the one he’s chasing now, it would be a total of three.
‘Yeah, right, if the body is strong, the mind doesn’t have to suffer.’
The turn of events, completely disregarding the production team’s original intent, left me feeling dizzy.
They must have carefully crafted a story and prepared various missions to challenge our deduction skills, so it’s a shame that this happened.
‘Forget about deduction or anything else, this just turned into a game of tag. And to make matters worse, our group only has two physical type members.’
Since simply opening the door to the room where the hostages were confined was enough to free them, the system of catching the opposing team seemed to be designed to prevent a team from obtaining clues. And there was also a realistic pressure to increase the amount of broadcast content.
This was likely the first time a guest, especially without any specific concept like Woo Kangwon’s, genuinely tried to capture the opposing team simply because they were convinced that
it was faster.
That guy was just a kind teddy bear giving out cakes just a moment ago, so why did he suddenly turn around and start bullying the panelists?
“This is a deduction game! There are clues!”
A junior staff member’s tearful cry, seemingly unable to watch it any longer, hit the back of my head. But there was nothing I could do for the production team, so I just pretended I didn’t hear them and kept running in silence.
‘I’m having a hard time
too
, trying to keep up with that guy.’
Although my stamina had improved, my physical abilities were still lacking compared to my original body, so there was no way I could match Woo Kangwon’s speed. He had been chasing the panel, which was now in front of him, ever since he was about the size of his finger. By now, he had long surpassed the average man’s running speed.
As I felt my breath becoming heavier and noticed myself falling behind, I slowly began to reduce the speed of my steps. Sensing it almost instantly, Woo Kangwon turned to me and said, “Take a break, Seungbeom-ah”, before rounding the corner and chasing right after the panel.
“….Huu.”
As I stopped running and caught my breath, a sudden sense of existential crisis hit me.
I had zero motivation for this game.
My life was already so stressful and full of thrills. I was a person who couldn’t feel any excitement from this kind of fictional game.
‘I didn’t even run this hard when I was here in my original body, what is this?’
After running like crazy, I remembered the time I appeared on this show with Prism.
“How hard should we work?”
“I have an appointment soon, so I want to finish within 20 minutes.”
“Okay, then. Let’s finish it reasonably, in about 15 minutes.”
The current number one spot in the Hall of Fame was Prism.
When I appeared with Prism, the game ended before the second round of attacks even began because Seo Yuseong completed the mission, Lee Chise brought back the clues, and Jay did the deductions. As a result, I was able to finish the filming without any trouble. However, it seemed that the karma of slacking off back then were now catching up with me, as I was currently acting as a energetic rookie.
‘Going with Woo Kangwon, of all people, was a mistake.’
I couldn’t just abandon Woo Kangwon, who was rushing to catch the panel alone, by shouting ‘
Just go ask them!
‘ while the camera was rolling. At the very least, I had to show some sincerety and run with him.
“Aaaaah! Ah, seriously! How many times have I told you to change Woo Kangwon’s shoes to flippers?!”
At some point, the sound of running footsteps stopped around the corner, followed by a loud scream. Then, the panel we had been chasing was dragged out by Woo Kangwon, pouring out all sorts of complaints.
‘Is this for real?’
It was unbelievable that he had caught another person in such a short time. Without even catching his breath, Woo Kangwon smiled brightly at me. I shrugged my shoulders and gave him a high five.
“Offense and defense switch, offense and defense switch. Agent War team, 4 members remaining.”
Then, with uncanny timing, the production team’s announcement boomed from the ceiling.
The captured panel was escorted by a suspicious-looking staff in sunglasses, and we were moved back to the center.
.
.
.
“Okay, with my IQ of 20,000 and Nagi Zen’s IQ of minus 100, a total of 19,000 IQ, I’ll perfectly secure the victory.”
“Don’t cross the line.”
“Hyung, your calculation is wrong.”
“OMG.”
As the team prepared for the defense round, I listened to my teammates chatter and pondered for a moment before sighing and making up my mind.
‘Fine, he wants to eat meat, so I’ll have to feed him. Let’s finish this quickly.’
I figured that since we’d already gotten plenty of footage in the first part, we might as well finish this one early.
Now I had to go back and practice, I had to grill some meat for Do Yuda, and I had to put Baek Kiryang and Lee Danbi to bed. These little troublemakers, I didn’t know when they would grow up and stop bothering me. Goodness gracious.
Then, after gathering the members’ attention with a quick gesture, I immediately started explaining the plan.
“Unfortunately, there won’t be a need for your genius brains just yet. We’re going to win this game by capturing all the panel team members.”
I made this decision based on the judgment that it would be better to go for an image of not following the panel team or production staff’s wishes in this broadcast, and the fact that we already had enough footage from the first part. It was also partly influenced by the thought that, since it’s rare for other teams to win this way, our group could leave a strong impression on the viewers.
‘Given what I did in the first part, we might not need to make any more of an impression.’
“Uuh, didn’t the production team say that was a bit difficult?”
I responded with a nonchalant expression to the question asked by Do Yuda, who tilted his head curiously.
“What’s difficult? Can’t you see the person next to you has already caught half of them in just 10 minutes?”
“Ah…..”
As soon as they heard that, my members seemed to understand right away and nodded their heads dejectedly. Seeing Woo Kangwon, the cause of this situation, smiling innocently made my head spin a bit, but anyway.
“First of all, during our defense turn, there’s no need to look for clues or go around completing missions. We’re going to catch them and finish it anyway, so don’t waste your stamina running around outside and just hide well. Don’t forget we need to practice when we go back today.”
“Argh.”
“Leada, please have mercy. Today was a very tough day.”
When I told them that they shouldn’t waste their stamina because we’re going to go practice when we get back, Pat and Mat grabbed their heads and screamed. I quietly silenced them with a glare before continuing.
“We have already captured quite a few members of their team, so they’re probably getting anxious. The only time they can free the hostages is during the defense, so when it’s our turn to attack, they’ll likely try to free them. We’ll intentionally place fewer members in front of the room where the hostages are kept, to lure them into attempting hostages rescue. They’ll probably come at it in a group, because that’s their best chance. We just need to catch them all at once.”
“Okay.”
“Just follow behind, no matter what. There’s a rule where the offense team can’t move for 3 minutes after the hostages are freed, so the panel team will still try to run for it even if we’re trailing them. Kangwon-hyung, you stay at the room where the hostages are kept. When we give you the signal over the walkie-talkie, quickly open the door and catch anyone running forward. We’ll catch the rest of them that you don’t manage to catch. They’ll slow down when they change direction, so it’ll be easier to catch them.”
“I know there’s a rule that the hostages can’t make any noise, but is it really okay to stay in their room like that, hyung?”
I casually answered Lee Danbi’s question, who looked a little uneasy.
“There was no rule that said the offense team couldn’t be inside the hostage room.”
“…….”
“Everyone understood the plan, right?”
When I asked the members who had become serious, they quickly nodded. It was a simple plan based on the thought that no grand strategy was needed for this kind of game, so it was no surprise they got it right away.
Since we had two idiots on our team, having a grand strategy was likely to lead to a grand failure. It was better to keep things organized with simple, uncomplicated instructions that gave them a clear direction of action.
“Oh, Leada is smart.”
“Wow. We’re like real agents!”
While the rest of the members were all nodding their heads with calm expressions, I heard exclamations of awe from Nagi Zen and Do Yuda, looking at me as if I were the genius of the century.
…Seriously, what am I supposed to do with those idiots?
***
After smoothly breezing through the defense turn as planned and saving up my stamina, I recalled the names of the still-alive panels to use the ability as soon as our offense turn began again. I was hoping that if I could hear them talking amongst themselves, I might be able to pinpoint their location.
‘….What is this?’
However, something went wrong.
I had followed all the conditions, but I couldn’t hear anything.
Under normal circumstances, using the ability at this distance should have picked up even the sound of their breathing. Yet, for unknown reason, I couldn’t hear a single thing. Surprised by this sudden and unexpected situation, I tried to use the ability again.
But what appeared right in front of my eyes was a sight I had never seen before, something that made me hold my breath.
[Insufficient COST]
A rectangular translucent window.
It appeared.
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Translator’s Corner:
Hannwoo (한우)
is a breed of small cattle indigenous to Korea. This breed is raised mainly for meat and is the source of Hanwoo beef, one of the most rare and expensive meats in the world. It’s rarely exported to another country because the demand in-country is so high. ↩︎
They’re so relateable, me too won’t care about plaque at all, but will give my 100% when there’s a food in line ….. everytime people asked me to attend an university event, my first question is will there be snacks …. (they always have) (omg i just realized that i used to save a lot of food money because i always got lured with food to attend all those kind of university activities) (food is always the answer everything) (honestly i think i will be content if i just can eat properly for the rest of my life ???? i really have no big dream in life) (but now that i think about it, i dont even eat much so my dream is very very little??????).
The fantasy genre is finally fantasy-ing …. other system window at least help the MC obtain SSS skills, but why did this one really unhelpful asdfghjkl