“Huff, huff.”
Only a few old streetlights stood at sparse intervals.
It was a narrow, one-way path shrouded in darkness.
He was sprinting through it, gasping for breath.
“Huff, haaaah!”
His throat stung as if pricked by needles every time he swallowed a breath due to the reckless sprint, and his heart throbbed as if it would burst at any moment.
Still, he did not stop running.
No, he could not stop.
He did not know where he was, why he was running, or even who he was.
The only thing he knew was that he had to run.
*Thump!*
“Gwah!”
Perhaps it was because of his haste.
While running and squeezing out every bit of breath, he tripped over a small piece of metal and tumbled across the ground.
He had fallen so hard that his forehead was covered in blood, and one of his ankles dangled helplessly as if the bone had snapped.
However, he did not writhe in pain.
He merely struggled, crawling along the ground to get just a little further away.
*Creak.*
But immediately after, he had no choice but to stop his crawling hands.
The sound of metal grinding against metal coming from behind him made his entire body freeze stiff.
‘I shouldn’t look back.’
He certainly thought so, but his head turned regardless of his will.
As he looked back, creaking like a rusted tin doll, what met his eyes was a single piece of metal.
It was a trivial, unsightly lump of metal that should have been lying in a junkyard—the very thing that had tripped him while he was running at full speed.
Nevertheless, the reason his eyes widened was simple.
The piece of metal was changing.
As if rewinding time, the rust covering its surface peeled away, and the piece of metal slowly rose from the ground where it had been buried.
Looking at the object, which was as beautiful and antique as a work of art yet emitted a chilling radiance even in this darkness, he muttered instinctively.
“A sword…?”
What was this sword?
Why was it abandoned in a place like this?
Why had he tripped over such a thing?
The questions that momentarily popped into his head vanished even faster.
*Schwing.*
As if it were a living creature, the sword unsheathed itself and floated into the air.
His eyes bulged as it slowly approached him, pointing its blood-stained tip toward him.
‘My body…!’
He tried to crawl away in instinctive terror.
But it was a futile hope.
His limbs, which would not move an inch as if he were suffering from sleep paralysis, further fueled his despair.
‘Impossible.’
He could not move.
He could not run away.
He could not turn his head.
He could not even close his eyes.
The only thing he could do was watch the blade slowly approach him.
‘This can’t be reality.’
He had worked harder than anyone else.
He had lived his life sparing even the time to eat and sleep.
He had run while shaking off the hands that grabbed his ankles and jumping over the obstacles that blocked his path.
That was why, even if he could not be at the very front, he could reach the place where that halo touched.
His end could not be like this.
At the very least, if there were a god in the world, it absolutely should not be.
‘This is a dream.’
The sword approached.
The blade slowly enlarged in his vision.
The tip pointed toward his eye without a single tremor.
Staring at the blue blade with wide eyes, he reminded himself.
‘This is a dream!’
It wasn’t reality.
It couldn’t hurt.
He couldn’t die.
He wouldn’t be cut.
Everything was just temporary.
If only he could wake up from the dream, if only he could wake up…!
‘This is a dream…!’
*Squelch.*
At that moment, a sound like a spoon being thrust into pudding echoed.
“Aaaaaagh!”
***
Park Hyun-gun sat up with a scream.
For a long while, he gasped for breath, his entire body drenched in cold sweat.
He reflexively fumbled at his eyes.
Only after confirming that both of his eyes were intact did he finally regain a sliver of composure and look around.
A chair that had toppled over as he stood up.
A desk with several documents on it.
Even the paintings on the wall and the familiar decorations.
After confirming through all of those things that this was the secretary’s office of the Infinity Guild, Park Hyun-gun wiped away his cold sweat.
“I must have dozed off…”
No matter how tired he was, for a high-level Player to doze off while sitting in a chair… if anyone had seen him, he would have been too ashamed to lift his head.
But Park Hyun-gun did not feel shame.
An overwhelming sense of relief, the likes of which he had never felt before, was pushing all other emotions out of his heart.
‘What a horrible nightmare.’
Whether it was because of an uncomfortable posture or the fatigue accumulated from heavy work, it was a dream he never wanted to have again in his life.
If it were due to fatigue, he felt like he should seriously consider increasing his sleep time from now on.
‘No, more importantly, what is the situation?’
After a brief moment of relief in reality, Park Hyun-gun’s consciousness soon left the trivial matter of the dream and returned to reality.
‘Is there still no news from the Blue House? What about the Sovereign?’
He bit his lip, recalling what he had been worrying about before falling asleep—the reason he had no choice but to stay at the guild and work until this late hour.
It had already been one day since Lee Chun-gi set out to handle Limon, who was conducting a hostage situation at the Blue House.
Back then, he had believed it.
He believed that everything would be over soon.
There was no way a problem would remain unresolved when the Sovereign of Infinity himself had stepped forth.
Even when he received reports that tremendous thunders and flashes, enough to tear the sky and shake the earth, were being observed at the Blue House.
Even when he heard that those tremors had stopped abruptly at a certain point.
Park Hyun-gun’s faith had not wavered.
However, now that a full day had passed since then, he could not suppress his rising anxiety.
‘Just where is the Sovereign and what is he doing?’
Calculating from the point when the commotion ceased, Limon should have already been dealt with by Lee Chun-gi’s hand yesterday.
The problem was why Lee Chun-gi had not returned.
Knowing Lee Chun-gi’s personality, which placed great importance on reporting procedures, he could not understand this sudden loss of contact even more.
He had even gone as far as dispatching Tracers to find out information about the Blue House, but the results were unsatisfactory.
It was impossible to spy on the interior of the Blue House using any skill, from 『Clairvoyance』 to 『Interrogating the Stars』.
It was as if even the great Constellations were afraid of peeking into that place.
“…I really must be exhausted.”
A Constellation being afraid of something?
While muttering to himself and scoffing at the ridiculous idea he had come up with, Park Hyun-gun calmly formulated a plan.
‘I have to investigate after all.’
The conclusion he reached was simple.
If there was still no contact by morning, he would scout the Blue House himself, even if it meant deploying the Infinity Guild’s raid team.
Of course, as he was not the Vice Guild Master, he did not have the authority to move the guild directly.
However, there was a way to move the Vice Guild Master.
‘The Vice Guild Master is a gear fanatic… If I give him the Grand Duke-grade item in the guild’s vault, he’ll gladly do me this favor.’
It was a clear overstepping of authority—an act that went beyond a secretary’s power.
But as he had always done, Park Hyun-gun did not care about such minor issues.
He simply took out his smartphone, contemplating which item to hand over.
“I’ll ask just to make sure.”
“…!”
But before he could even place the call, Park Hyun-gun froze.
It wasn’t just because of the unfamiliar voice heard in the secretary’s office, where he had been alone until just a moment ago.
“Is your name Park Hyun-gun?”
A window was now wide open.
The sight of a white-haired man sitting on the windowsill, looking at him with golden eyes, left him in shock.
“Li—Limon Asphelther?”
“Who said I was your friend, you punk? Calling me by my name when we haven’t even been introduced?”
“How are you here…!?”
Why was Limon, who should have been killed by Lee Chun-gi long ago, appearing alive before him?
Even while swept up in shock and confusion, Park Hyun-gun reflexively reached under the desk.
Limon did not bother to stop his actions.
He simply spoke in a lethargic voice.
“You’d better give up any hope of someone coming to help.”
Park Hyun-gun flinched at those words.
It wasn’t just because his intention to press the emergency button had been discovered.
It was because he only realized after hearing Limon’s words that, even though it was the middle of the night, the surroundings were unnaturally silent.
It was as if everyone except himself had disappeared.
“What did you do?”
“That’s none of your business.”
How had he managed to get in here?
What had happened to the guild members who should have been there?
Limon smoothly ignored Park Hyun-gun’s question, which contained numerous inquiries.
Then, resting his chin on one hand, he spoke.
“You only need to answer one question.”
“What do you mean by…”
As if Park Hyun-gun had no right to question him, or as if it were only natural for him to answer when asked, Limon’s attitude of unilaterally demanding an answer made Park Hyun-gun flare up in anger.
But then…
“Taking the kids from Hanbit Orphanage hostage and making Na-kyung commit a suicide bombing… was that your scheme?”
The moment he heard that question, Park Hyun-gun felt his blood run cold.
It wasn’t just because it was a completely unexpected question.
Limon was looking at him intently, as if anticipating his answer.
The moment he saw those golden eyes, which were sunk in an unusually eerie stillness, he knew—his fate would be decided by the answer he gave now.
It was a simple hunch.
It was nothing more than an instinctive feeling that Park Hyun-gun would normally have scoffed at.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
However, when he actually spoke, what he spat out was a firm denial.
Even judging by reason rather than intuition, there was nothing to be gained by admitting to an unfavorable fact right now.
“You don’t know?”
Limon tilted his head slightly as if surprised.
Park Hyun-gun spoke to him confidently.
“The Sovereign took care of those related matters personally, so there were instructions that were carried out without going through me.”
“In short, you’re saying it was the Sovereign of Infinity who ordered me killed, and you know nothing about Hanbit Orphanage or Na-kyung?”
“That is correct.”
“Hmm, I see. So you don’t know.”
As if he had heard something important, Limon nodded to himself, but Park Hyun-gun did not even bat an eyelid.
Others might not know, but his 『False Divinity』 was a powerful unique skill comparable to an Absolute Skill.
It was absolutely impossible for Limon, who didn’t even have a skill, to see through his lie which no Tracer had ever noticed.
While gazing at Park Hyun-gun, Limon smiled.
“Chuckle… Heh, heh heh.”
A laugh leaked out along with his trembling shoulders.
At first, the sound was small, as if escaping his lungs, but as time passed, it grew louder and louder until it finally turned into a boisterous laugh toward the heavens.
“Puhahaha! Hahahaha!”
As if he couldn’t hold it in because it was so funny, he let out a loud laugh for a long while.
Then, Limon suddenly stopped laughing.
He slowly raised his head.
And while looking at Park Hyun-gun with eyes like a predator that had found its prey, he growled.
“— It was you.”
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