HSF 10

[Party] Ittorang: Is this really going to cause rumors?

[Party] Seohee1: lol If it doesn’t, I’ll spread them myself^^

Cheong-hyeon reluctantly agreed to Seo Hee-won’s statement. He couldn’t understand for the life of him why he was threatening someone on his own team.

After stretching his stiff body and having dinner, Cheong-hyeon put on his wireless earphones and joined the voice chat app. It was Jimni’s suggestion to chat while hunting to make it less boring.

“So why are you two leaving the guild?”

Cheong-hyeon asked what he had been wondering about while mechanically going through the motions of hunting. For him, the unpleasant incidents in the guild, the issue with Akhaeng, and even the guild master subtly provoking him made his desire to leave obvious—but he wondered what reason these two had. Despite all the issues with the guild, the benefits of belonging to the server’s top guild were not insignificant.

“Watching how that guild runs just makes me sigh.”

Seo Hee-won’s slightly drawling voice was filled with irritation at the moment. Cheong-hyeon wanted to nod vigorously in agreement.

Cheong-hyeon had played without a guild since starting the game until three months ago when he first applied to join Seven. Finding public parties for weekly boss raids had been quite stressful. It was difficult to coordinate with strangers, and when people lied about their specs or played terribly, repeating attempts multiple times drove him nearly insane.

Eventually, he decided to join a guild for stable, fixed parties, and chose Seven because it was the server’s top guild and didn’t seem particularly selective about classes. He only learned about the guild’s many issues after joining.

How this problematic guild maintained its server-first position was similar to the chicken-or-egg question. Because it was the top guild, players with solid specs gathered there, and because such players gathered there, it maintained its top position. Of course, it also helped that sub-guild master StrongestSpirit did some actual management while guild master Lucky just socialized.

“There are too many weirdos in this guild. The guild master is kind of a pushover and terrible at management…”

“And Lucky, that bastard isn’t normal either.”

“Yes, exactly! The guild master is truly strange.”

Excited to finally meet someone who agreed that Guild Master Lucky was odd, Cheong-hyeon spoke in a voice louder than normal.

“Huh, really? He just seemed like a pushover to me. Other than that, he was always nice to me.”

“You’re so clueless.”

“He subtly discriminates against people.”

As Jimni looked puzzled, Seo Hee-won clicked his tongue dismissively. Jimni completely ignored Seo Hee-won’s comment and asked Cheong-hyeon, “So are you leaving because of the guild master?”

“Yes, well…I never really felt attached, and something unpleasant happened yesterday too.”

“Ah, because of Akhaeng?”

Jimni laughed out loud, saying she knew he was a female-chaser but didn’t realize he chased males too. She seemed to already know about the incident with Akhaeng’s preserved post, as well as his obsessive behavior toward Cheong-hyeon and the rumors he deliberately spread.

“You know that you were the only guy in that pathetic memo, right?”

“I know…I still don’t understand why.”

Jimni teased that hate and love were just a hair’s breadth apart, citing rumors that claimed Cheong-hyeon was Akhaeng’s true love, and asking how he managed to seduce a female-chaser. Even Seo Hee-won joined in, joking that if Cheong-hyeon had joined the guild targeting him, he wouldn’t be able to accept him.

Finally, when Cheong-hyeon resignedly answered “his voice was kind of my type,” Jimni laughed so hard she nearly choked while Seo Hee-won turned his microphone off completely.

“By the way, Heekkom is also changing guilds with us, you probably don’t know that yet?”

Heekkom was the person who posted the callout thread about Akhaeng on the community forum. Other than Akhaeng’s groundless delusions, Heekkom and Cheong-hyeon didn’t have any significant connections.

“Oh, I didn’t know. Were you already close with Heekkom?”

“Yes! We run some bosses together. We got closer while I helped with posting the callout about Akhaeng and with the lawsuit.”

Cheong-hyeon clicked his tongue inwardly and earnestly wished that Akhaeng would taste the bitterness of life.

“We originally wanted to bring everyone who left because of Akhaeng, but they all either quit or went on to play without a guild, so we could only bring two people. I’ll arrange an introduction later!”

“One is Heekkom. Who’s the other one?”

“A high school kid named Marachip. He’s really cute.”

Time passed steadily as they chatted about the new guild while hunting. As midnight passed and it became 2 a.m., Cheong-hyeon, gradually losing energy, was completely exhausted.

Though he enjoyed gaming, labor-intensive hunting for over 12 hours straight was definitely not to his taste. His heavy eyelids kept blinking, and his fingertips ached from pressing keyboard keys. He was reaching his limit. With a voice much weaker than before, Cheong-hyeon repeated what he had already said several times.

“Let’s stop now and go to sleep…”

“Just one more hour.”

“No, people need sleep to have energy for hunting tomorrow.”

“Just one more hour, then sleep.”

“Haaa…”

Cheong-hyeon regretted all his decisions—following Seo Hee-won to a new guild, agreeing to farm for the legendary special ring. It really looked like especially at this moment that he had seriously gotten involved with people, who seemed to be obsessed with the game.

* * *

Title: Why is Seohee1 acting like this?

Author: BlackArrow

Content: I used the megaphone saying I’m buying dark special mobs, then got called over and PK’d wtf my experience points;

They said to wait a few days if I want to buy because they need them lol

Why does a light attribute user even need dark special mobs; Isn’t this obviously market manipulation?

All Comments:

What’s the deal with dark special mobs?

└Seriously, there’s probably nothing special about them

Getting beaten by a healer and whining lol Win the PK if you’re upset

I got targeted too ㅠㅠ I just said okay and used the megaphone again, but then got beaten by the knight who hangs out with Seohee1 fuck

└lol lol lol lol lol lol pathetic

└Birds of a feather flock together I guess lol

└└Say that and Jimni will hunt you down and PK you all day

Just trash behavior

Seohee1’s been hanging around with a Doom Slayer lately. Isn’t he helping him farm a legendary special ring?

└What would a Doom Slayer even do with a legendary special ring?

└Remove Jackson’s ring for a DPS build?

└└Then they’d have to change all other accessories to defense-boosting ones, not efficient for DPS

What’s he doing with a Doom Slayer? Someone from Luci server, find out.

I asked a Seven guild member, and they said Seohee1 and the Doom Slayer have been running fixed Mystic Mine parties lately.

└fuck Mystic Mine Don’t tell me they’re farming a legendary special ring just for a bit more gold? Do they have nothing better to do?

└lol They probably couldn’t make back even half the money spent on buying special mobs if they ran Mystic Mine forever. Seohee1’s lost his mind.

* * *

Seo Hee-won seemed possessed by the ghost of a gamer who died from playing too much. For the past two days, he had been relentlessly driving everyone—asking when they’d come online, complaining when they left, demanding just one more hour…Cheong-hyeon could even imitate his voice by now.

Yesterday, when Cheong-hyeon asked if he had actually slept, he replied, “How could I sleep when our DPS’s gear is in that state?” This made him grit his teeth harder and hunt until dawn.

Midway through, Jimni gave up and left, leaving the two of them to continue their pride-fueled battle until past 6 a.m. Ultimately, Cheong-hyeon was the first to collapse due to exhaustion. He was astounded when the sleep-deprived Seo Hee-won asked when he would be back “tomorrow”—or rather, later that same day.

After waking up late due to the previous night’s ordeal, exercising lightly, and having a meal, Cheong-hyeon received no contact from Seo Hee-won. Unlike yesterday, when he had constantly sent Discord messages from morning asking when he would log in, he seemed to be knocked out asleep.

Cheong-hyeon immediately grabbed his phone and opened the Discord app. He needed to tease Seo Hee-won whenever possible to relieve his feelings of injustice about being worked to death in dungeons and hunting.

Ittorang: No way! Still! Sleeping?

Ittorang: Aren’t you the one who said they couldn’t sleep because of someone’s gear?

Seohee1: I wasn’t sleeping.

Seohee1: Wait 30 minutes.

The reply came in less than a minute—so quickly that he wondered if he really hadn’t been sleeping. Deflated, Cheong-hyeon put down his phone. After finishing his meal, clearing the table, and brewing coffee, Seo Hee-won’s promised 30 minutes were almost up.

Cheong-hyeon logged into the game and accepted Jimni’s now-familiar party invitation. Seo Hee-won, who logged in around the same time as Cheong-hyeon, also joined the party. Another session of labor had begun.

[Party] Ittorang: Let’s try to stay motivated today…

[Party] Jimni: lol lol lol lol lol

[Party] Jimni: Before that

[Party] Jimni: Shall we try to recruit Capybara today?

During the past two days of hunting with these two, Cheong-hyeon had heard various stories, including how they recruited guild members to move with them in the game. They had been secretly preparing to change guilds, individually approaching people to build relationships with them before proposing the guild change.