Chapter 96: The Cryptic Axiom and the Digital Witch Hunt

Contrary to my expectations, Na Eun-hyeok didn’t immediately let go of my wrist. Instead, he locked eyes with me and asked with total composure,

“Do you hate it?”

As if I ever could.

I bit my lip and shook my head instead of answering. It would be a disaster if I opened my mouth and this reckless tongue of mine blurted out something stupid like, ‘Yeah, I hate it.’ On the flip side, saying ‘I like it’ felt way too weird. Only after fiercely racking my brain did I finally manage to come up with a safe, neutral response.

“It’s fine.”

“Let’s go then.”

Na Eun-hyeok seemed completely at ease with this kind of physical casualness. Striding forward while keeping his grip on my wrist, he didn’t seem to feel even a single ounce of the intense friction I was experiencing. I hurriedly scrambled to keep up before the gap between us widened. The arm he was holding hung there awkwardly, completely stiff like a wooden plank instead of bending naturally.

Compared to the upper engineering campus situated near the mountain peak, the lower engineering campus was at a much more walkable distance and saw a lot of foot traffic. The campus cafe was located just past the hill, at the very top of the lower engineering building. It used to be the engineering cafeteria, but they had reportedly put in a cafe during a recent building remodel. Inside the cozy space, dim, warm yellow lights flickered subtly, and the smooth aroma of coffee drifted to the tip of my nose. Students were gathered in small groups around roughly ten dark brown tables, completely absorbed in their own conversations. The only vacant spots left were at the window counter overlooking the parking lot.

“There are no seats. Let’s come back next—”

Before I could even finish my sentence, a couple sitting near the back packed up their bags and stood to leave. Na Eun-hyeok flashed a bright smile.

“Look, a spot opened up.”

As Na Eun-hyeok walked over, a predictable flurry of glances trailed after him. The interior of the cafe briefly buzzed with quiet murmurs before settling back down. I wasn’t even the one everyone was staring at, yet I couldn’t help but feel terribly self-conscious. Thankful that it was a corner seat, I set my things down.

Na Eun-hyeok ordered some kind of specialty coffee made from ground Ethiopian beans, while I—having absolutely no knowledge about coffee—ordered a strawberry smoothie. While the sound of the barista grinding the beans vibrated through the narrow cafe, I blankly stared at the silent buzzer in my hand. Drip coffee and a strawberry smoothie. It was a thoroughly mismatched combination.

Soon enough, Na Eun-hyeok returned with the drinks and took his seat. A few lingering gazes pinned themselves to our table before drifting away.

“It’s usually pretty tough to catch a seat here, so we got lucky. Honestly, I was a little worried we’d make the trip out here for nothing.”

“What were you planning to do if we didn’t find a seat?”

“I would’ve apologized, gotten it to go, and suggested drinking it on a nearby bench. The weather’s nice, after all.”

Are we really close enough for that?

I thought blankly as I listened to his clear, refreshing voice. What on earth was the reason behind this sudden friendliness? Until very recently, our only point of connection was being in the same department. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was the only one who found this unannounced, sudden leap in proximity completely bizarre. Even while Na Eun-hyeok talked about the piano recital we were attending this Saturday, my mind was entirely adrift, spacing out over Na Eun-hyeok, and the reality of whatever was happening between us.

“……And that’s why.”

“Na Eun-hyeok.”

“Yeah?”

I only realized I had rudely cut him off after the words had already left my mouth. I hurriedly clamped my lips shut, but seeing the beautiful, knowing curve of his eyes, I knew there was no way he was going to let it slide.

“Is there something you want to ask me, Un-ha-ya?”

Why could I never just sit back and enjoy the moment? Why couldn’t I just be happy with the simple fact that the person I liked was actively talking to me? But the questions ballooning inside my chest were far too massive to ignore, and if I forced myself to stay quiet now, I was guaranteed to carry the exact same heavy doubts into our next encounter.

“Why are you suddenly being so nice to me?”

……Wow, Chae Un-ha. You really couldn’t have filtered your words a little better?

Why did my speech always turn so devastatingly clumsy in front of the person I liked? Just as I felt like crying over my incredibly rigid tone, Na Eun-hyeok offered his answer.

“Because I thought it would be fun to get close to you.”

“Out of nowhere?”

“Well…… I do have my reasons.”

He has reasons?

I was entirely bewildered. Na Eun-hyeok had a specific reason for deciding to get close to me? I frantically retraced our very first conversation from this school year, but the only thing that stood out with massive, glaring prominence was the memory of me awkwardly and stiffly rejecting his offer to do a team project together.

There was no way that was the reason he wanted to be friends.

“Is it because we ended up doing the team project together?”

“Hmm…… I’d say that was just part of the process.”

“Then what’s the reason?”

“I wonder.”

A playful, mischievous glint completely filled Na Eun-hyeok’s face as he sat there smiling brightly. His demeanor made it incredibly clear that he wouldn’t give up the answer easily. I spun my gears trying to think of something, but absolutely nothing plausible came to mind. A tiny spike of sudden competitiveness flared up inside me.

“If I guess it right, will you tell me?”

“Yeah.”

“No hints?”

“Hmm……”

Na Eun-hyeok fell silent for a brief moment as if pondering, then looked at me with crinkling eyes and replied,

“It’s darkest right under the lamp?”

“……?”

What on earth did that mean?

The tiny pebble Na Eun-hyeok had thrown tossed my thoughts into an absolute state of chaos. Even out of sheer habit as I walked into the capsule room and logged into Zelphia, my brain remained entirely preoccupied with deciphering his cryptic hint. It’s darkest right under the lamp. Under the lamp. So where the hell is the lamp?

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?”

I finally snapped out of my daze when Sephiroth gave my shoulder a light swat. Turning my head to look at him, the familiar set of black armor completely filled my field of vision.

“Got something on your mind?”

“Uh? Yeah…… I guess you could call it a dilemma.”

“What kind of dilemma?”

Amusingly enough, the moment I looked at Sephiroth, my complicated thoughts instantly cleared up. Because he was such a fundamentally simple guy, it felt like his simplicity was rubbing off on me. Just looking at him made me feel like I should just drop all my worries and focus on running dungeons.

Yeah. What did it matter why Na Eun-hyeok wanted to become close to me? The bottom line was that he did want to, and that should be more than enough.

I knew the moment I logged out of this game, I would immediately sink right back into my overthinking, but standing right in front of Sephiroth right now made all my heavy real-world problems feel utterly trivial.

“Never mind. Today is the final day for the Battlegrounds event, want to go run it?”

“Not a bad idea.”

Since the Ignas Battlegrounds event was scheduled to end after tomorrow’s patch, Sephiroth and I decided to grind out Battlegrounds for Guild Points instead of clearing our usual story quests. It wasn’t just about the Guild Points either; the items you could exchange using Ignas’s Rage were actually pretty high-tier, meaning the more we ran it, the more profitable it was. Of course, the two of us had already cleared out those valuable items from the exchange shop a long time ago.

“At this point, there’s nothing left to exchange except gold.”

“You should buy some herb seedlings too.”

“Buy herb seedlings just to grow them like you do?”

“You have no idea how therapeutic tending a backyard garden is.”

They say human beings are multi-faceted, but this guy was truly a complete enigma. I briefly visualized the image of Sephiroth dearly doting on his tiny garden plot before violently shaking the thought out of my head.

“Let’s go. Battlegrounds.”

Right as the words left my mouth—

[ Guild ] NaGoReng: Omg

[ Guild ] NaGoReng: Have you guys seen the official homepage right now??

[ Guild ] NaGoReng: ;; Sephi-nim and Blueberry-nim, I think you really need to go check this out right now ;;

A frantic message from NaGoReng flashed across the screen. Sephiroth and I faced each other, tilting our heads in confusion before simultaneously opening the official website.

It didn’t take us long to locate exactly what NaGoReng was talking about. The post was proudly sitting at the absolute number one spot on the Free Board’s Best Posts list.

< Exposing Sephiroth and BlueberryWhiskey for using speed hacks >

Author: SoldierAmerica

A speed hack? What absolute nonsense was this?

The poster was a member of the Endless guild, a group we had a thoroughly exhausting history with. I turned back to Sephiroth with a hardened expression, but his face remained completely unreadable, hidden beneath his dark helmet. Flustered, I quickly skimmed through the text of the post:

< Exposing Sephiroth and BlueberryWhiskey for using speed hacks >

Author: SoldierAmerica

[Video_Clip_1.mp4]

[Video_Clip_2.mp4]

The video clip above shows the very first time I encountered Sephiroth and BlueberryWhiskey in the Battlegrounds. You can clearly see their movement speed.

The video clip below shows when I ran into them again about a week later. You can easily tell that their speed has noticeably increased.

In a game that literally doesn’t even have movement speed buffs, a change in speed like this is impossible to explain by anything other than a speed hack. Or am I missing something here ^ ^?

I’ll be waiting for a swift explanation from the both of you. That is, if you even have a way to explain this.

[ Comments ]

JiYuGoddess – Omg….;;;

Lawrencia – Wow, isn’t this a massive issue? Sigh – Where did all those idiots who claimed virtual reality games can’t have hacks go lol hex

Loverler – Sighed, I knew that hacker Sephiroth would get caught eventually.

└ OstApproved – Wait, you knew Sephiroth was a hacker?

└└ Loverler – Isn’t it obvious to anyone who isn’t blind? lol Anyone could tell he was hacking.

Looking closely at the attachments, the first video had been captured back when Sephiroth and I were still afflicted by the movement speed debuff, while the second clip was filmed after the debuff had finally been lifted. Because it was a hidden debuff that had introduced itself through a hidden quest, other players had absolutely no way of knowing it existed—making it a scenario that was entirely easy to misinterpret.

The comment section was already a complete warzone. Even our guild chat began flooding with anxious inquiries.

[ Guild ] Eiron: ;;;;;

[ Guild ] Eiron: Hyung-nim.. that’s not true, right..?

I belatedly opened up my status window hoping to grab a quick screenshot as evidence, but the movement speed debuff had long since vanished. If things kept going south like this, were we going to get branded as dirty hackers? I could handle whatever came my way, but for someone like Sephiroth, a scandal like this could be a massive, devastating blow to his reputation. A heavy knot of worry began to tighten in my chest.

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