Chapter 79: A Splash of Silver on Black

“Hmm. Just how handsome is he?”

“I don’t know, like a celebrity.”

“Which celebrity?”

“Why are you so curious? Are you trying to set him up or something?”

“Of course I’m curious. He’s a guy hanging out with our Blee.”

Seriously, why does this jerk keep saying things so ambiguously?

“You keep talking like you’re a boyfriend keeping tabs on his girl, but he’s a guy and I’m a guy too, alright?”

“So what? They say true love transcends gender.”

“No, wait…”

I was utterly left speechless. What is he even talking about? I don’t like him that way! I knew that was the correct response, but it wasn’t the absolute truth either. I could feel my face burning. I wondered if the game’s full-dive sync was acting up again. I really hoped it wasn’t showing on my avatar. Cooling down my chaotic thoughts, I desperately changed the subject.

“Anyway, he’s the handsomest person I’ve ever seen, celebrities included. Satisfied?”

“Mmhmm.”

I braced myself for more prying questions, but thankfully, Sephiroth seemed content to drop it there. He even started humming a little tune—a sound so completely out of character that I couldn’t help but snap at him out of sheer absurdity.

“Why do you look so happy?”

“Ah. Just because I think I’m going to win the bet.”

“The bet?”

“There is such a thing.”

What is he planning? A cold shiver ran down my spine, but it didn’t look like he was going to explain further. After glancing around suspiciously, I forced another pivot.

“Are we doing the Battlegrounds today too?”

“Yeah. We’ll hit the Battlegrounds, but I’ve got a few things to take care of in between.”

“What? Are we visiting Delwing again?”

“No.”

Sephiroth raised his head. For a split second, I could swear a menacing red glare flashed from the empty eye-slits of his pitch-black helmet.

“Pest control.”

“Huh?”

“It’s about time those Endless bastards started acting up again. Those pieces of trash have zero learning capability. No matter how many times you kill them, they pop right back up like those rooly-pooly dolls.”

Ah, right. Come to think of it, we were still at war with Endless.

It wasn’t that the Endless guild had stopped targeting us. It was just that after Sephiroth annihilated SoldierAfrica and Vergwalo97 following that massive keyboard battle, things had been quiet for a few days, so it had slipped my mind.

What a bunch of posers. If you’re going to sit quietly just because two of your members got slaughtered, you shouldn’t have issued a ‘Kill-on-Sight’ order in the first place…

“Anyway, it’s about time those goldfish-brained idiots forgot the taste of death. They were the ones who declared a KoS on us first, so who’s going to complain if I throw the first punch?”

“Uh, right…”

“And the timing is perfect right now. Not many of our guild members are logged on. If we go hunting when the guild is packed, those Endless trash will start roaming around trying to get some pathetic revenge. If we wipe them out when nobody’s around, it’ll completely break their morale and keep them quiet for a while.”

It wasn’t just mindless violence; it was a thoroughly calculated pest control operation. Still, considering I hadn’t been in the guild for long, seeing him look out for our members made me think… maybe this jerk isn’t a completely evil bastard after all.

If I’m being generous, maybe just a moderately evil bastard…

“So, you’re going to hunt Endless? How do you even know where they are?”

“Please, Blee. The world has a wonderful feature called the World Shout.”

With a smirk in his voice, Sephiroth fumbled through his inventory and pulled out a megaphone-like item. It was a premium World Shout megaphone.

[World Shout] Sephiroth: Anyone who spots an Endless guild member, report it. Reward is 5,000,000 Gold per head. Double for guild officers. That is all.

After blasting the message, Sephiroth grinned. Soon, his shout materialized into floating text rolling across the top of my vision. Right on cue, a furious response from Endless popped up.

[World Shout] SoldierAfrica: Report any members of the ProudDaughtersOfKorea guild. 10,000,000 Gold per head ㅎㅎ

Sephiroth countered instantly, as if he’d been waiting for it.

[World Shout] Sephiroth: I will pay exactly double whatever Endless offers.

Do I really have to sit through this childish bidding war…?

Ignas’s curse broke one by one for every twenty matches we completed in Ignas’s Battleground. Seeing how the same afflictions lifted for both Sephiroth and me, it seemed the order of purification was pre-determined.

Ever since meeting Delwing, our ultimate goal had become reaching the Diamond League. Even when our guild members weren’t online to form a full party, Sephiroth and I actively queued as a duo. Thanks to our relentless grinding, a significant portion of Ignas’s curse had already been lifted.

“It’s kind of crazy to think we’ve already run this battleground over a hundred times.”

I muttered to myself as our fifth curse dissolved into particles of light. Then again, considering we did nothing but eat, breathe, and grind the Battlegrounds, it made perfect sense—but it was still surreal. When I first logged into Zelpia, I never expected to become this intensely dedicated to a game.

“Our league standing has shot up quite a bit too. We just broke into the Platinum League.”

“It’s been a brutal grind. But this nightmare is almost over.”

Above the Platinum League lay only the Diamond League. In other words, if we dragged ourselves through the hellscape of Platinum, we would finally hit Diamond.

Unlike running with a coordinated guild party, queuing into random matchmaking with strangers always brought an avalanche of headaches. Fortunately, as long as I held the [Core Castle], we never lost a match due to our base being destroyed. However, there were rare, infuriating instances where our random teammates fed so many kills that the system handed the victory to the opposing team based on the kill score.

Whenever that happened, Sephiroth would explode with fury. Since he was a mechanical god who literally could not comprehend poor control, he frequently let loose a barrage of toxic swear words. Normally, he wouldn’t go completely off the rails, but if a terrible player stubbornly ignored his callouts and threw the match, his inner “foul-mouthed grandmother” would make a grand appearance. I honestly wondered where a kid his age learned such colorful profanity. Thanks to him, I always found myself acting as the damage-control manager, cleaning up his messes.

[Party] BlueberryWhiskey: I’m so sorry ㅠㅠ Please don’t take it to heart, you guys are doing great ㅠㅠ

Sephiroth would throw a tantrum at me for apologizing, but I just ignored him. What was he going to do about it anyway? Disband the party? Leave me? Yeah, right.

Of course, the only exception was when the players were blatant trolls or completely toxic. While I believed innocent, casual players deserved to be protected regardless of their skill level, I had zero sympathy for toxic users. They deserved to be chewed out by an even more toxic psycho like Sephiroth.

As a side effect of my constant damage control, I ended up accumulating a massive amount of Commendation Points after our matches. At the end of a game, players could hit a “Commend” button for teammates, and it seemed the classic Good Cop/Bad Cop dynamic worked heavily in my favor; standing next to a rabid dog like Sephiroth made me look like an absolute saint.

Commendation Points didn’t really have any practical uses. You could exchange them for cosmetic accessories at the special shop, but the items didn’t grant any stats or special functions. They were decorations—nothing more, nothing less.

But still.

“Hey.”

“What?”

I tapped Sephiroth on his armor. He turned his body around with a thoroughly annoyed slump. Ugh, giving this to a jerk like him feels like a total waste. The petty thought flashed through my mind, but I forced it down, telling myself to be the bigger person. I extended my hand, fist clenched, right in front of him. Sephiroth stared blankly at my knuckles.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s that?”

“Just take it.”

With a deeply reluctant sigh, Sephiroth extended his palm. His massive gauntlet unfurled smoothly. I dropped the item I was holding onto his metal palm. Chime. A crisp, metallic ring echoed between us.

“What is this?”

“A waist chain accessory. I bought it with my Commendation Points.”

“Huh?”

A genuinely bewildered voice leaked through his helmet—a tone completely unlike his usual arrogant self. Ah, so this is why people enjoy giving gifts. Watching his rare, flustered reaction with deep satisfaction, I added an explanation.

“You probably haven’t received a single Commendation Point anyway.”

“I don’t give a crap about those.”

“Exactly. That’s why I used mine at the shop to buy you a present. Just take it.”

Did a gift really need a grand reason? You just give it.

Buying this waist chain had completely wiped out all the Commendation Points I’d saved up since starting the game, but I had no regrets. I could always farm more points whenever I wanted, but saving a lost soul who would never experience the warmth of a teammate’s praise felt far more urgent. I felt a swell of internal pride.

Sephiroth stared at the silver accessory in his hand for a long time. The piece was crafted from a fine, delicate chain, terminating in a long, spear-like pendant. The design featured five sharp thorns protruding from a stylized diamond shape, tapering down into a sleek, icicle-like point. I had picked it out thinking it would contrast beautifully against his dark aesthetic, and seeing it in his hand, it matched his black armor even better than I’d imagined.

The real question was: did he actually like it, or did he hate it?

While I was trying to read the emotions behind his expressionless visor, Sephiroth finally began fumbling with his armor to clip the chain to his waist. Clink, clink. The distinct sound of shifting metal echoed clearly in my ears. After letting the silver chain dangle gracefully from his right hip, he flicked the pendant lightly with his fingertip.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s great. The next time someone tries to talk trash, I’m going to point at this chain and tell them, ‘See this? I’m only toxic to you.’”

“…What?”

“If someone gets flamed by a guy who has enough Commendation Points to buy a luxury vanity item, it means they’re officially a hopeless cause, right?”

“Hey! Don’t use my wholesome Commendation Points for your toxic logic!”

“Once I receive a gift, how I use it is my business.”

Ugh, maybe I shouldn’t have given it to him…

Yet, despite his ridiculous words, the silver chain accessory looked incredibly sharp against his heavy black plate armor. While I secretly rejoiced that my aesthetic eye hadn’t failed me, a wave of profound existential dread washed over me regarding my life choices—specifically, my judgment in choosing to continuously hang out with this absolute lunatic.

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