The Mysterious Expert
"Is he not there?"
There was no way to tell.
The traces of the enemy entering were crystal clear, but there were no signs of them coming back out.
Still, Seoun didn't have the guts to go in first.
If the enemy was camping inside, it would be a disadvantageous situation for Seoun.
"Tch. I thought throwing a few Wind Balls in would make him come running out."
He had been mistaken.
Seoun began to consider a few possibilities.
"First, the enemy isn't there. Second, the enemy is there."
He quickly ruled out the possibility that there was no enemy.
"If he is there, why hasn't he come out? First, he's camping inside trying to lure me in. Second… he's injured?"
The only evidence of a fight was a large amount of blood loss. That likely meant the enemy wasn't a mage. Although not certain, if a mage had killed the opponent, there probably wouldn't have been such heavy bleeding.
In that case, it was highly likely the opponent was either a martial artist or a knight wearing armor.
"Which means he doesn't have a healing scroll."
Having finished his theorizing, Seoun chose to wait.
Even if it ruined his planned route for the day, he didn't want to risk having a known enemy behind him.
"Damn it. The map's still huge, but I've already run into enemies twice in these godforsaken remote places. What rotten luck."
The stalemate continued — the player hiding inside, refusing to come out, and Seoun camping outside, refusing to go in.
Eventually, the sun began to set and darkness quickly descended over the area.
"There we go."
This was what Seoun had been waiting for — darkness.
To Seoun, cloaked in an invisibility mantle, the night was a powerful ally that vastly increased his range of movement and strength.
As twilight deepened, Seoun began to move — his figure growing so faint it was barely visible to the naked eye.
Silently, he crept to the window of the hut and peeked inside, catching the faint movement of a shadow in the gloom.
He couldn't see clearly, but it was definitely a player.
"The real waiting game starts now."
From here on, it was a battle of endurance.
The storm circle was closing in nearby, so the enemy couldn't stay holed up there all night.
The same applied to Seoun — but there was one crucial difference.
Seoun knew the enemy was there. The enemy, on the other hand, couldn't be certain that Seoun was still outside.
The enemy remained cautious, not stepping out — but eventually, he would have to.
Seoun settled into position, pulled out some jerky, and began to chew as he waited. And waited.
How much time passed?
With a creaking sound, the hut's hole-ridden wooden door slowly opened.
No one came out for a long while, but soon enough, Seoun saw the careful silhouette of someone emerging.
"Definitely not a martial artist."
He could faintly make out the figure of a man cautiously stepping outside with a large shield held in front of him.
Moonlight filtering through the forest glinted off the shield, and just behind it, the man's tense face came into Seoun's view.
He raised his crossbow and aimed.
"Just a little longer. Stay calm. Stay calm, Jin Seoun!"
He repeated it to himself, trying hard to stay composed. That intense vigilance on the enemy's part would surely start to ease soon.
Sure enough, the man stepped fully out of the hut, nervously scanning his surroundings. Then he slung the large shield onto his back and sheathed his long sword.
His thick armor was dented and battered, likely from a hard-fought encounter with another enemy, and the dried blood on his hardened face and short hair filled Seoun's vision.
A bolt flew with a thwack! sound, striking the man in the head just as he pulled out a canteen tied to his waist and took a refreshing drink.
At the same time the crossbow released the bolt, the man's body turned toward the sound, but the bolt Seoun had fired tore through his leather canteen and lodged itself in his hand.
"Ugh!"
As the short and stocky man let out a brief scream, blood spattered, glistening in the moonlight as it hit the ground—followed immediately by a throwing star embedding itself right in the center of the man's forehead.
Thud!
Seoun briefly wondered what kind of absurdly heavy armor the man was wearing to make such a dull, heavy sound when he fell.
Even after the man collapsed, Seoun did not move. He kept his crossbow aimed at the body, ready to fire another bolt.
Not long after, the man's body disappeared and was replaced by a wooden box. Only then did Seoun step out from the darkness.
He flipped back the hood of his cloak, which had covered his head, and let out a long sigh.
"Whew. If he had been wearing a helmet too, I wouldn't have taken him down so easily."
Seoun had been lucky. The man was wounded on the head and, perhaps because of that, wasn't wearing a helmet—making it much easier for Seoun to kill him.
Whether the man had chosen not to wear one or if it had been destroyed was unclear. But what mattered was that thanks to that, Seoun had managed to take him down without much trouble.
However, Seoun's expression soured as he opened the wooden box.
After removing all the heavy armor filling the box, there wasn't much else of value.
A thick longsword that looked too unwieldy to use one-handed and some jerky—those were the only items the man had.
"What the hell was this guy doing to be so poorly looted?"
Still curious, Seoun opened the wooden box that seemed to belong to a player the man had killed.
Inside, there was only another set of similar armor and a lone mace.
"These dumb knights. Why the hell were they fighting to the death here when neither had anything worth taking? Damn it, I just wasted my time because of them."
After venting, Seoun quickly turned on his lantern and checked the inside of the nearby cabin, but—as expected—it was just as dusty and empty of useful items.
"Sigh."
With a sigh, Seoun looked up at the crescent moon in the sky, then resumed moving.
"Damn bastards. I couldn't even loot properly today, let alone do any divination."
After walking a short distance, Seoun pulled up his map. Sure enough, the safe zone had started to shrink for the day.
It also revealed the current safe zone and the next one.
"This is…"
Whether it was luck or misfortune, the new safe zone aligned almost perfectly with Seoun's planned route.
Because the center of the safe zone had shifted significantly, the big city and large towns to the south would be outside the play area by tomorrow—but Seoun didn't mind that at all.
"Those guys who've been looting and camping down there might move north and start tearing each other apart. Of course, I might also run into someone trying to secure the new center early… but I can just circle around the edges."
Fortunately, there were a few cabins along that route.
Seoun had to give up on four cabins today because he skipped looting, but he didn't let it bother him.
Clinging to what had already passed wouldn't help him, so instead, he hoped to find better items in the next place.
"Please… just one good elixir."
Having planned his route, Seoun was about to set off again when his body suddenly froze.
"You look quite seasoned."
A voice from behind. The moment Seoun heard it, every hair on his body stood on end.
He realized that when a person is truly terrified, they can't even flinch. He was frozen in place.
"No need to be so scared. I just wanted to ask a few questions, that's all."
"W-Who are you?"
Seoun squeezed the words out as best he could.
And with that, it felt like the spell that had paralyzed him was slowly breaking.
He cautiously turned around—and saw an old man with white hair standing there, faintly illuminated by the moonlight.
"Even if I told you who I am, would you understand? We're people from entirely different worlds."
The old man had a point. Seoun hadn't asked out of genuine curiosity—he'd just needed to say something, anything.
Sweat running down his back, Seoun's mind raced, but then the old man turned his gaze from the crescent moon to look him straight in the eyes.
"The moon here is much larger than the one in my world. Is it also different from the one in yours?"
It was something Seoun had never really thought about.
Only when the old man asked did he look up—and realize that the crescent moon was indeed far larger than the one he knew.
It was bigger even than the full moon on Earth.
He nodded.
"Yes. It's much larger than the moon from my world."
"I see. Then you're not from this world either."
"No."
"I've been watching you for a while. Your adaptability is remarkable. Tell me… do you have experience with this kind of 'game'?"
Seoun stopped overthinking and let out a sigh.
This was a completely different type of opponent than any he had faced so far.
So calm. So composed. Just looking at him, Seoun could sense that no matter what he did, he couldn't defeat this man.
"I've never been summoned to a place like this before. But… in my world, there's a game that's quite similar to this."
"A game like this, you say?"
Bewilderment filled the old man's face.
"Yes. It's a game where many people participate through puppets modeled after humans and controlled by human hands, to select the final survivor."
"Ha! Puppets controlled by human hands?"
"Yes. It may be hard to understand, but they don't actually exist in reality—they're puppets that exist in a virtual world."
"A virtual world… The world you live in sounds like one of goblins and spirits."
"It might be easier to think of it as a world where civilization has developed far beyond the one you live in."
"A developed civilization, huh. Well, if you say so. That must be why you've adapted to this game so quickly. To see you grow like this after starting with nothing…"
'Damn it. Just how long has he been watching me?'
Perhaps reading Seoun's thoughts from his face, the old man replied.
"Since you first dropped in. I landed in the same place as you. I was planning to just spend a hundred days breathing the fresh air up in these high mountains, but you were moving about so desperately, I got curious."
"I-Is that so?"
"Don't be so on guard. I'm just curious about why we've been dragged into this game and what the goal of this incomprehensible game is."
"I don't really know either."
"Didn't you say there was a similar kind of game in your world?"
"That's just a game for fun. No one actually dies, and it's all for entertainment. I'm just a human—how could I possibly understand the goals or identities of transcendent beings who bring people from different dimensions and force them into such games?"
"That's a fair point."
Seoun stared at the old man's face for a moment before speaking again.
"But one thing's for sure—this game will be a huge opportunity for someone."
"An opportunity?"
"As you've probably heard, dying in this game doesn't mean actual death."
"I've heard something like that."
"And they say there are rewards."
"I've heard that too."
"Those rewards are most likely the items we gain in this world."
"You mean like the ones you're wearing?"
"Not just these—also martial arts you're familiar with, or the magic used by the so-called wizards from other places."
"Hm… Magic is definitely fascinating. But how does that become an opportunity?"
"Some people, like you, may find those things useless, but for someone with a hard life, it could be a chance to completely change their fate."
At Seoun's words, a smile appeared on the old man's face for the first time.
"What makes you think my life is so comfortable?"
"Just by looking, I can tell you're a martial arts master. Probably one of the best, with few equals. Highly respected by many, with numerous skilled disciples or followers. Why would someone like that have a hard life? People struggling to survive day by day are the ones who suffer."
The old man nodded at Seoun's words.
"You're quite observant."