"…The Watchguards? Are you talking about the Watchguard of Darkness?” asked Seo Jun-Ho.
"No, I’m not. I must be out of it. There’s no way you would’ve heard of it," Shim Deok-Gu shook his head and slapped his cheeks hard enough that a crisp sound rang.
Shim Deok-Gu didn"t show it, but he looked very disoriented.
‘This side of him doesn"t change with age.’
Rather than urging him, Seo Jun-Ho took some tea leaves out of his inventory without saying a word. He walked in front of the coffee pot and poured two cups of tea using the hot water from the pot.
"Drink it. It’ll help you calm down."
Shim Deok-Gu drank the agarit tea and calmed down a little before he started speaking.
“Thanks, and sorry. I shouldn"t have shown you this side of me."
"It’s fine, we"re friends… Don"t rush and explain it to me one at a time."
"We’ll talk about the Watchguards first."
"Yeah. What the heck is that?"
"Watchguards. That’s the official name of an organization."
"An organization?"
"Yeah, you probably know from hearing the name, but it"s a name inspired by your skill, the Watchguard of Darkness."
"Hmm."
Seo Jun-Ho folded his arms and made a sullen face. How dare they set up such an organization without his permission.
"What"s the organization’s purpose?"
"Keeping the fiends in check, continuing on Specter’s will."
"What, it"s a good organization, isn"t it?” However, Seo Jun-Ho felt that something was strange and frowned. "Wait, but something"s not right. If there are people like that, it wouldn’t have gotten this bad, right?”
"…Because it has only been a few years since it was made." Shim Deok-Gu raised his fingers to make the number 10. "It has been exactly 10 years this year."
It was too short to say that they had a history, and it was too old to say that the organization had been just founded.
"Who"s the founder?"
"Arthur Green."
Seo Jun-Ho"s eyes deepened.
"That kid..."
Seo Jun-Ho questioned his friend, “Why didn"t you tell me earlier?"
"Arthur requested it because he didn’t want to be a burden to you."
"You should have still told me!"
Seo Jun-Ho got angry. No uncle would think his nephew was a burden. In particular, Gilberto trusted Seo Jun-Ho to the point of calling him Arthur"s uncle.[1] It meant Gilberto thought of Seo Jun-Ho as a brother.
‘If there’s something wrong with Arthur when he opens his eyes....’
Seo Jun-Ho closed his eyes tightly. He would be too ashamed to look at Gilberto by then.
"I"m sorry. I made the decision when I heard that your level was reset. I decided that… that it would be poison, not medicine to you, and that it would put more pressure on you since you always had the tendency to push yourself too much."
"…d.a.m.n it."
In the end, it was all because he wasn’t strong enough. Seo Jun-Ho bit his lips slightly and said, "Keep going."
"Ten years ago, at the age of 19, Arthur became the first Watchguard himself and began to track down the fiends."
The baby, who had only been three years old and was toddling around when Seo Jun-Ho was still active as Specter, was now a grown-up.
“During that time, the Watchguards" performance wasn’t bad. In fact, they even caught a lot of fiends," explained Shim Deok-Gu.
"The fiends must have noticed them too.”
"Of course. The public doesn"t know of the Watchguards’ existence, but there’s no way the ones being attacked wouldn’t know."
"But if they lasted 10 years, that’s quite a long time. That"s great."
"I helped him directly and indirectly, but for the most part, Arthur did it himself, he led people at a young age."
"…What a commendable kid." Seo Jun-Ho felt proud for a while then spoke once again, "But considering that the fiends are still active seemingly without a scratch even after 10 years of their offensive…”
Seo Jun-Ho could make a rough estimate about the Watchguards’ ability. Shim Deok-Gu caught on to exactly what Seo Jun-Ho wanted to ask and brought it up first.
"First, Arthur is on the skilled side."
"...On the skilled side, you say."
It was a very vague description for a Player. It meant he wasn’t without talent, but was infinitely too shabby to compare with geniuses.
"The last time we contacted each other was six months ago... At that time, he was level 113.”
"He got to level 113 in 10 years?"
Shim Deok-Gu was definitely right. At that speed, it wasn’t bad among ordinary Players.
"But it’s also not that fast..."
This meant that Arthur wasn’t good enough to overtake a talented Player.
“Instead, I heard that his foundations are solid. He’s not a kid who’ll make silly mistakes."
"You heard that? You didn"t raise him yourself?"
"…I was only able to meet him a few times, I was afraid I’d bring him harm."
Shim Deok-Gu hadn’t kept Arthur by his side. He had even reduced his frequency of contacting Arthur in case the fiends became suspicious.
"Gilberto was extremely reluctant to let his son"s ident.i.ty be exposed," reasoned Shim Deok-Gu.
"Yeah, you must have hidden him very well in case the fiends stalked him since he’s a very precious child."
"…I could have done better if I were as strong as you.” Shim Deok-Gu smiled self-deprecatingly.
If Shim Deok-Gu had overwhelming power, he could have kept Arthur by his side and protected him. But he couldn’t do that because the a.s.sociation was weak.
"From what you’ve said, you have done a great job as an uncle. Why are you blaming yourself?” Seo Jun-Ho cheered him up.
"So what do you mean by Arthur being in danger?"
"I told you last time that Arthur was staying in Dustang, right?"
"Yeah, I heard from Team Leader Gong Ju-Ha that it"s a very dangerous place."
"It"s a city of all kinds of criminals and fiends from Earth and the Ruben Empire.”
"…A dumpster."
Seo Jun-Ho remembered that Gong Ju-Ha referred to it as a dumpster of some sort.
"Arthur was in Dustang and was chasing a fiend a.s.sociated with the management of the Fiend a.s.sociation."
"...Fiend a.s.sociated with the management? It"s a big fish, then.”
"Yeah, it was the biggest thing in the history of the Watchguards. Arthur has been after just that one guy for the last three years.”
He had displayed a frightening tenacity in the chase.
"As you know, the Fiend a.s.sociation very much exists in small groups."
"Yup. It"s meaningless if you don"t catch the guy at the top. They can always cut the tail and disappear.”
That was the biggest reason why the Fiend a.s.sociation was still around. They kept on only sending out fiends who they deemed similar to consumables. Without a skill similar to Confession of the Dead, it would definitely feel as if you were dealing with an enemy who didn’t have a real form.
"But today, Arthur sent me a report, which he has never done before."
"A report? To you?"
It was a very dangerous and hasty move. It would be different if he made contact using a secret code, but to send a whole report…
"Read it first.”
Shim Deok-Gu put the hologram file in front of Seo Jun-Ho. As soon as Seo Jun-Ho read the t.i.tle of the file, his eyes became serious.
"…Gluttony?"
At the same time, the silent Frost Queen listed seven words. "Pride, despair, wrath, silence, envy, sloth... gluttony."
"Frost Queen, what does that mean?" asked Shim Deok-Gu.
"It is the information I read from the memory of a fiend that Contractor dealt with the other day."
It was the Seven Squadrons in the Fiend a.s.sociation. Since the word here was Gluttony, it could be a.s.sumed that the Gluttony Squadron existed.
"Wait, then the one Arthur was after…” Shim Deok-Gu"s complexion turned white.
The a.s.sociation vaguely knew about the Squadrons. But as for how many Squadrons, the names of their members, or if they were even real in the first place—these details were unclear to them.
He was definitely in a dangerous situation. Arthur had touched one of the reverse scales that the fiends wanted to hide the most.
"Even worse…"
Seo Jun-Ho read a sentence of the report with narrowed eyes. The written sentence was:
- I have confirmed that the goal is to communicate with someone called "Chef" on a regular basis.
Chef was the fiend who managed "Paradise" on Earth and was also called a skill maker.
"I told you before, didn"t I? After the Paradise incident."
"...The unique guy who eats skills?”
"Yeah, the guy Arthur is after is someone who"s connected to Chef."
This wasn’t just a big fish—it was at least a whale. At the same time, alarm bells rang.
"…This is not at a level that Arthur should touch."
Arthur"s level had been 113 half a year ago. Even if he had managed to hit level 120 in half a year, one’s abilities wouldn’t increase greatly in such a short period of time. And that kind of guy was going to mess with an executive of the Fiend a.s.sociation?
"That kid doesn’t know fear!"
At this point, Seo Jun-Ho suddenly became scared. Because Shim Deok-Gu had said Arthur was in danger, Seo Jun-Ho had thought that Arthur might have some kind of illness, but it seemed that it was more dangerous than that.
"Tell me the point first. What kind of danger is Arthur exposed to? Is Arthur being chased by that guy?"
"There"s nothing certain," Shim Deok-Gu said, skimming the hologram file. "Arthur is a thoughtful and careful guy. That’s why he has been doing well for 10 years without getting caught."
But for such a person to suddenly act in a dangerous manner by delivering a report instead of a secret code... This meant that he was in a situation where the information had to be handed over. Arthur probably thought he was in danger and handed over the information to someone he could trust.
“Contact was lost after the information was delivered. That was an hour and twenty minutes ago."
"An hour and twenty minutes…”
"This was the only thing we found after utilizing Frontier"s Korean Player a.s.sociation branch’s manpower to the maximum."
Shim Deok-Gu handed out several pictures. It was of a fairly shabby house. A wall had been torn down, and traces of battle could be seen.
"This is Arthur"s house in Dustang. A battle occurred and no one knows anything after that."
Seo Jun-Ho peeked out of the window. Even though spring was coming to an end, 8 PM in Seoul was still as dark as ever.
Seo Jun-Ho rose from his seat and said, "Tell the a.s.sociation members on the 2nd floor to call Skaya right now. Tell her to grab what she’s making with her and come down to the 1st floor."
"...Skaya? Why Skaya?"
Shim Deok-Gu thought that Seo Jun-Ho would fly straight to Dustang, but he was astonished when he heard Seo Jun-Ho’s words. As such, he couldn’t help but ask with his eyes wide open.
Seo Jun-Ho replied while straightening out his clothes, "I left something in her lair."
In her lair, there were three ice statues.
***
"What the h.e.l.l is going on? Didn’t I tell you it would take a month? I’ve only done the basics...” Skaya was about to complain but trailed off when she saw Seo Jun-Ho and Shim Deok-Gu’s expressions. "Okay, I understand that it’s a situation where I shouldn"t complain. So what is it?"
"Arthur is in danger."
Her reaction was quite different from Seo Jun-Ho’s, however, as she rolled up her sleeves and spoke with her eyes wide open, "Which punk is it? Just which punk is trying to mess with our cutie?"
"Fiends."
"Ha, those c.o.c.kroaches! We should have made sure to wipe them all out 26 years ago!"
"Let"s go," Seo Jun-Ho said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
Skaya nodded even though Seo Jun-Ho didn"t even say where he was going and for what.
"Deok-Gu." Just before she left, she spoke to Shim Deok-Gu who had a gloomy face. "Don’t be so down. He won"t even have a scratch."
"…Yeah."
Shim Deok-Gu’s face became less gloomy.
Seo Jun-Ho nodded. "I"ll be back."
The s.p.a.ce was twisted, and a panoramic view of a place that he had been to a few times appeared in sight.
"It"s not something I should be saying, but you should clean up," commented Seo Jun-Ho.
"I don’t want to. I"ve called the cleaning company a few times, but they said they can"t come here."
“...”
If there was a cleaning company that could visit this place on their own, Seo Jun-Ho was willing to take over that company even if he had to use all his a.s.sets since they would be the best group of Players in the world.
"But it"s a little cleaner here, isn"t it?"
"… Yeah."
There was just one clean s.p.a.ce without a speck of dust among all kinds of luxury goods, treasures, magic books, and parchment scattered around in Skaya’s dirty lair. It was the place where three ice statues were standing.
1. Similar to giving someone the t.i.tle of G.o.dfather. ☜