Chapter 1

A sandstorm blew over the vast and desolate expanse. To the side was a memorial garden decked in flashy decorations, which seemed out of place for the setting. The elegant, sculptural buildings dotting the high-end estate were so high quality that even the shabbiness from aging seemed charming. A sense of disharmony arose from the fact that there were no human traces around nor any context for its existence. Only the dry, twisted trees planted all over this area provided evidence that this place might be a memorial garden.

‘Well, what should it matter if it doesn’t suit it? I’m sure the system operators have their reasons.’

<Celestial Wind> was a virtual reality MMORPG that had consistently dominated popularity charts with its vast world-building and meticulous storyline. Although it did not update as often as other games due to the enormous volume of players on the server, the users’ loyalty was retained through various existing game mechanics, story immersion, high player count, and periodic large-scale expansions

The main story chapter–the long-awaited update–that <Celestial Wind> added this time was named <Tracking>.

‘Was this the first update since the Necromancer revamp?’

These updates did not appear often, but, considering the usual release cycle, it was quite late this time. The ambitions of the management must have burned strong, requiring a significant amount of effort to be put into this update. No one knew what exactly took so much time, as the game was famous for its many Easter eggs and hidden stories. The greedy excitement caused by clashing desires to either clear new content quickly (reigning victorious) or to play cautiously (losing) rose within him.

‘Let’s calm down. It’s useless to be impatient now.’

Though there were numerous things to do in <Celestial Wind> that respected the player’s freedom of play, the game adhered to the importance of one thing: ‘the story, itself.’ Users who did not watch the story, often called loyal-skippers, could not reach higher rankings; especially, if they did not advance the main quests with the right timing, they could not dream of maintaining their positions in the top ranks.

The reason was simple. The ranking criteria also contained a main story contribution section. Furthermore, there were hidden stories concealed in the main stories that could only be revealed when certain conditions were met.

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Hidden stories effectively referred to hidden quests that diverged from the main storyline. Unlike conventional quests, hidden quests did not display the quest-giving NPCs or map markers. In other words, it was necessary to deduce the direction through the quest’s text. Of course, they were difficult and laborious.

Nevertheless, there was a simple reason why people risked their necks for these hidden stories: hidden rewards were always sure to follow.

Some of the hidden rewards were of no help, but a lot of them had ridiculous balance-breaking effects. The fact that there were special conditions necessary to trigger these hidden stories meant that very few users had the means to acquire them. Since few people could use them, balance patches were also rare. 1 It goes without saying that many rankers had achieved their position through the benefits gained from hidden stories.

<Nam Woo-kyung>, who became famous for being a <Celestial Wind> streamer, gossips with his fans during broadcasts. The video clip where a ranker snatched away a hidden story right before his eyes had reached 8 million views. Of course, as a streamer, gaining that many views would pay for losing such an opportunity. If that had happened before his eyes instead of <Nam Woo-kyung>, he would have been willing to destroy that son of a bitch even if he were to be banned from entering every city.

That was why Rhee Mujin immediately logged onto <Celestial Wind> in broad daylight as soon as the notification for the update’s finish was posted. A notification popped up in the corner of his view.

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<Guild elder ‘Americano’-nim has logged on.>

[Guild] Americano: Wao, you’re already online?

[Guild] Americano: Mujin-ah, go outside and get some exercise T-T 2

[Guild] Rhee Mujin: And you should play the game.

[Guild] Americano: lolol, fucker, why are you getting pissed? 3

╚ ——————————————————— ╝

Rhee Mujin gave his courtesies to the guild member who was only a minute later than him–though that member pretended to be lazily enjoying the game–and looked around at his surroundings. Although the update had just finished, there were still comparatively fewer people around than expected.

When creating a character in <Celestial Wind>, alongside choosing a class and following the main story, the character could be further developed through their religious sect, military alignment, and hidden story progression. Therefore, even if they were in the same section of the story, different users may have different starting points. Even in the last chapter Rhee Mujin’s quests rarely had any overlap with Americano’s; it was natural to see neither hide nor hair of each other. 4

Rhee Mujin checked his quest.

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<A Feeble Trace>

There’s a report that a spider lily has bloomed on a grave in an unnamed memorial garden.

Go there to find a clue.

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The description offered nothing special other than to search for a clue; he was meant to diligently overturn all the stones in a huge map that could not be fully observed at a glance. The sun would set before he could finish walking around the area. Rhee Mujin released a deep sigh and began to move.

The quest in the previous chapter had been abruptly completed in the middle of conducting an investigation, finding suspicious matters and chasing traces of confrontation between the Jungpa and Sapa factions. 5 At the time, the quest’s abrupt end had made him doubtful that it was truly the end, but the current quest seemed to continue from where the previous one stopped. Perhaps the progress that Rhee Mujin had made in the story so far was not so important overall in the previous chapter; the evaluation of his story contribution points was low and he had a hard time improving his rank.

Though the last update was 9 months ago, many parts of the main story and the hidden quests required the cooperation of various users to progress. Thus, the main story was finally completed just 3 months ago. ‘If this chapter ends up being the same…I’m going to destroy everything.’ Rhee Mujin steeled his resolve, pledging a vague goal to some indeterminate audience.

There were quite a lot of seal engravings sparsely scattered throughout the location. Rhee Mujin walked to the nearest engraving, a horse carved into a fragmented pillar, which stood out to him. Was this object related to the story? Rhee Mujin thoughtlessly let his hand graze against the horse engraving. It was then…

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< You’ve discovered the hidden location, [The Seventh Trial]! Would you like to enter?>

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Rhee Mujin quirked one of his eyebrows. If this was the seventh, then the first was bound to be somewhere. What would be the first? Exiting the status window and raising his head, he began to look at the other engravings. Inspecting the next closest pillar, he found a snake.

‘The tenth.’ 6

<Celestial Wind> was one of the rare games that used an Eastern setting. There weren’t very many clear uses of the snake and horse symbol except for folklore 7 ; there were probably 12 of these around, then. After all, the horse was pretty early in the set. With these barely formulated suspicions in his head, Rhee Mujin found the rat engraving on a pillar and placed his hands on it.

‘Omo?’ 8

Unlike before, no system window appeared. ‘Was this not it?’ He tried touching all the other pillars in the area, but only the expected system windows popped up. The moment he realized that it wasn’t a bug, Rhee Mujin’s forehead crumpled. Someone else had already entered.

If this were a normal game, he could have waited for the person to exit–perhaps only one person at a time could enter. But this was <Celestial Wind>. Even if the other exited, there was a high chance that others would be barred from accessing a place another had already entered. Otherwise, it might give a different reward; of course the first-time-clear would get something better.

‘The other engravings seemed to accept entry, so the order they’re entered doesn’t seem to matter. It would have been nice to enter the first, but the second isn’t so bad…Ah, I hate being left with the second; who was the other bastard?’ Rhee Mujin, mood soured, headed to the ox engraving he saw earlier.

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<You’ve discovered the hidden location, [The Second Trial]! Would you like to enter?>

╚════════════════ ≪≫°✺°≪ ≫ ════════════════╝

As soon as he accepted without hesitation, the scenery changed within the blink of an eye. Seeing as his weapon automatically appeared in his hands, this must be a dungeon. Before he could even observe his surroundings, something flew at his head. Instinctively bending at the waist, Rhee Mujin tightened his grip on his staff.

<Celestial Wind>’s battle system was peculiar. The biggest difference was the deviation from normal MMORPG’s clear cut boundaries among the tank, dps, and healer roles. 9 Every class in this game had skill trees for aggro-ing 10 monsters; every class had its own recovery and defense skills. Classes suited to be tanks did not have very many or wide-reaching healing skills, but, as long as one did well, they would be able to both soak damage and self-sustain. 11 Many people were particularly obsessed with <Celestial Wind>’s system; and that held true for those who were serious about this game.

It was to the point, Rhee Mujin might say, that people were betting their lives on this game.

“Meditation.”

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<You have gained focus through meditation. Maximum constitution, attack, and defense has increased by 10%>

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As soon as the combat buff was applied, he crouched down and jabbed his staff into the air. He felt it stab deeply into something, though he couldn’t see his attack’s path.

[Arrgh!]

When he raised his head, he saw a burly man, twice his size, screaming at him. Seeing his unrefined size, he must not be a User. 12 . NPC’s were unable to attack, and inflicted damage wouldn’t even register on them, so it must definitely be a monster. ‘Should I attack it first or should I wait for it to move?’ Rhee Mujin, crouching in a crooked posture, observed it carefully.

[W-what? You’re not the person General Ja told me about!]

“General Ja? What’s that?”

[How could the first challenger in a thousand years be some random guy!]

Rhee Mujin felt his temper rise, listening to the young man’s blunt words, as he rubbed his hands on his thighs. At a closer glance, he noticed a bull embroidery pattern–analogous to the ox engravings–sewn onto the hem of the young man’s pants.

[Originally, the challenger who defeated General Ja should have come to me, but how did this uninvited guest appear?]

Apparently, he was waiting for the son of a bitch who had entered the first hidden location–it was standard to enter these in order. After confirming all of his suspicions, Rhee mujin wore a crooked smile. After all, it wasn’t as if only good things should go that son of a bitch’s way.

“Why? I’m not allowed to enter? How can you live with this sort of discrimination?”

Seeing how the damage went through, it was not a monster that couldn’t be soloed, even if it did take some time to kill. Should he just defeat him and leave? As if the opponent had noticed Rhee Mujin’s urgent temper, he continued to talk in a timely manner.

[I mean…of course it’s ideal for the challenger to arrive, but I can’t chase out someone who has already entered. After overcoming this trial, you will gain something.]

What a stroke of luck–the gears in Rhee Mujin’s head started turning. ‘Was it another diverging story? Another hidden story within a hidden story?’

[It’s not bad to walk as two on a path that’s difficult for one.]

“Enough. What’s the challenge?”

[Since it’s only the second trial, it’s still quite easy.]

The strong, young man grinned. Rhee Mujin noticed that the man’s stamina bar had fully recovered. The name “General Chook” appeared above his head.

[Try to snatch away the crystal fragment from above the crown of my head.]

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Translator’s note:

Lil: Back again with another game-esque novel, this time with Kame (as co-tl) and Kora (as editor). These novels are definitely my guilty pleasure, and I’m hoping you’ll enjoy following us in this journey! So sorry for all the footnotes, but there’s a lot of slang and game terms in this novel!

Kame: Hello humans, I have now decided to go and translate this novel with Lil~ It’s my first Korean co-translation and I wouldn’t be able to do this without Lil’s help ㅠㅠ It’s going to be a long…long…journey…But I’m sure we will be able to survive this. Much appreciation to our lovely editor, Koraaa~

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Footnotes

Balance patches are fixes to the game that tone down overpowered items and power up underpowered items. The suffix -ah, denotes some familiarity or affection. It’s often used between friends or used towards those who are younger. To give you an idea of what translating the chats are like, people use a lot of abbreviations. ᄏᄏ = laughing sound. ᄉᄇ = the first letters of the word ‘fuck’ or ‘fucker’. The original korean idiom is “not see the tip of his nose.” I felt that “neither hide nor hair” was an analogous english idiom. Jungpa and Sapa are named for factions/feudal territories during the Silla dynasty. FYI, I think the author messed up the zodiac order a bit, here Of course, referencing the zodiac–the author is nonspecific with folklore, but this is what they’re referring to. The sound of mild surprise. These are the classic MMORPG roles. Tanks draw the monster’s attention and soak up attacks. DPS (also short for damage per second) are damage dealers, and healers keep everyone alive and healthy. Aggro = getting the monster’s attention Self-sustain is the ability to stay on the field for a long time while alone, usually through healing yourself through skills. User = another way of saying player