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Join the Server[All] SnowBloodPerfume: ^-^ I didn’t know Zelpia had speed hacks ^-^
[Party] BlueberryWhiskey: Speed hack? As in making your character move faster?
[Party] BuffNinjaPls: Yep, exactly.
[Party] ParkJinSol: ㅋㅋㅋ As if anyone could actually bypass Zelpia’s anti-cheat security mechanics.
[Party] SnowBloodPerfume: ㅋㅋ I had no idea the Number 1 Ranked player, Sephiroth-nim, was a dirty cheater ㅇㅅㅇ! And you even taught your little girlfriend how to use them too ㅇㅅㅇ!
What?
“Un-ha, did you actually activate a cheat client?”
[Party] BlueberryWhiskey: No way, absolutely not.
“Right? But what the hell are they even rambling about?”
Won-jae hyung’s bewildered question was precisely what I wanted to ask.
SnowBloodPerfume was directly targeting Sephiroth and me. It was profoundly baffling. She was claiming that we were utilizing an illegal third-party program to forcefully boost our movement parameters? Not a chance. If such a convenient software actually existed, I would have been cruising through this game with total peace of mind back when Ignas’s curse was dragging down my agility. The vivid, exhausting trauma of grinding through the Battlegrounds while agonizing over my broken speed stats was still fresh in my memory. What absolute nonsense……
[Party] NasiGoreng: ㅋㅋㅋ No, but seriously, when did Sephiroth-nim and Blueberry-nim ever use a speed hack for them to act like that??
[Party] ParkJinSol: Exactly. If we were using hacks and moving at this speed, there’d either be an issue with the software or a severe cognitive issue with the user.
[Party] ParkJinSol: And I highly doubt the issue lies with our mechanical skill.
Naturally, our party members quickly shook off their brief confusion. Having ran coordinated drills together for days, they understood better than anyone how entirely fabricated the accusation was.
The person who brought a definitive, sudden end to this absurd typing war was none other than BuffNinjaPls.
[System] BuffNinjaPls has defeated SnowBloodPerfume.
Fully exploiting the absolute complacency of SnowBloodPerfume—who mistakenly believed we would never dare strike her down while she was typing—he executed a straight-line dash and unleashed Black Cloud. The skill derived its name from the way the black shuriken scattered across the air like a localized fog. Completely caught off guard, she couldn’t even formulate an evasion vector, absorbing the projectiles directly and collapsing into a cold, gray corpse.
[All] BuffNinjaPls: You seemed to be hallucinating out of sheer exhaustion, so I sent you back to rest.
[All] BuffNinjaPls: Embracing the path of the Ninja strengthens the mental fortitude, preventing future delusional outbursts.
[All] BuffNinjaPls: GG.
With the expiration of SnowBloodPerfume—the lowest combat-rated player who was acting as Endless’s human Core Castle—our second competitive clash against the Endless guild concluded in a total victory for our alliance.
[All] Hyangi’sBerion: Wow, the sheer shamelessness is real ㅋ
[All] 99Pigeon99: For real.
[All] SnowBloodPerfume: I guess you guys just don’t possess a conscience ㅇㅅㅇ
[All] Hyangi’sBerion: Hyang-ah, there’s no reason to waste your words on trash like them.
[All] SoldierAfrica: Enjoy your fake win while it lasts~ ㅎㅎ
Even within the post-match results interface, the members of Endless were desperately trying to instigate a flame war to soothe their bruised egos. However, absolutely no one in our party possessed the slightest interest in their tears, and everyone smoothly clicked the “Exit Results” button. As the final remaining member in the room, I didn’t want to subject my eyes to further toxicity either and promptly exited the screen.
The moment I returned to the staging area, a cascade of spectacular system notifications was waiting for me.
[System] You have successfully completed Ignas’s Battleground 200 times.
[System] You have achieved a state of complete comprehension regarding Ignas.
[System] Ignas’s Curse: ‘Attack Power decreased by 20%’ has been completely purified.
[System] You have acquired the unique item: [Ignas’s Heart].
I had completely lost track of our match count days ago, but it appeared our final skirmish against Endless happened to be the exact 200th completion required to satisfy the overarching quest parameters. To think we had aggressively pushed through two hundred matches in such a staggeringly short timeframe. If it were the old me, I would have found the sheer repetition repulsive, but right now, an overwhelming swell of pride washed over me. The fact that the final completion had been carved out through a crushing victory over Endless only sweetened the achievement.
I carefully re-read the specific phrasing of the alert: ‘You have achieved a state of complete comprehension regarding Ignas.’ From a mechanical standpoint, the system now recognized me as an enlightened understander of Ignas. Though, ironically, I still didn’t have the vaguest clue what specific aspect of her lore I was actually supposed to comprehend……
But regardless, an accomplishment was an accomplishment. And the system update that followed immediately after was the real crown jewel.
“Wow, the final debuff is finally gone.”
The sheer emotional relief caused me to mutter the words out loud. Of course, a $20\%$ modulation to my attack power wasn’t a massive game-changer for my specific build. Since the opponents I regularly faced were scaled roughly 200 levels higher than me, the stat variance ultimately translated to whether my basic strikes dealt an extra 10 points of flat damage or not.
However, even if the numerical value itself was trivial, the symbolic liberation of lifting that final curse was immensely satisfying. Navigating high-tier content while shackled by a mosaic of overlapping penalties had felt exactly like trying to execute a track routine with heavy sandbags strapped to my entire body. No matter how light the final weight might have been, the sheer sense of physical liberation the exact moment the final strap snapped away was intoxicating.
“Your final curse is lifted too, right?”
“Yeah.”
I glanced up at Sephiroth, who had smoothly materialized right beside me. He offered a concise nod. His tone was characteristically flat, but beneath the stoic cadence, I could detect a distinct undercurrent of immense satisfaction. Then again, the player who would experience the most massive, palpable spike from a $20\%$ raw damage restoration was undoubtedly Sephiroth. He was, after all, a pure Berserker whose entire optimal playstyle relied on crushing opponents through overwhelming, raw scaling damage output.
“Does this mean we can finally go turn in the quest parameters to Dolwing?”
“Looks like it. Did you receive the item too?”
“The item? Ah.”
Come to think of it, I recalled seeing a loot notification at the very bottom of the text crawl. I had been so thoroughly ecstatic over the curse purification that I hadn’t paid it any mind, but following Sephiroth’s prompt, I quickly pulled open my inventory interface.
[Ignas’s Heart]
It was a peculiar name for a piece of loot. Visually, the object resembled a polished, tear-shaped gemstone rather than an actual anatomical organ. The anterior face curved outward into a smooth, domed polish, while the posterior side was entirely flat. Being a complete layman whose knowledge of red gemstones began and ended with basic rubies, the artifact looked to me like an exceptionally dense, high-clarity ruby. A palm-sized fragment of deep, crimson bloodstone.
“You’re talking about this, right?”
I thrust [Ignas’s Heart] directly into Sephiroth’s field of vision. He nodded smoothly, displaying an identical crimson artifact nestled within his heavy iron gauntlet. Exactly like mine, his piece featured a smooth, convex face and a perfectly sheared, flat back.
“Here.”
“Huh?”
Without warning, Sephiroth extended his hand and pressed his gemstone into my palm. Before I could process the movement, my hands were cupping both fragments of [Ignas’s Heart]. I was profoundly grateful the developers hadn’t opted for a realistic organ aesthetic; if I were holding two throbbing, anatomical heart models right now, it would have been deeply unsettling.
“Try fusing them.”
“Fuse them?”
“Yeah. Combine them, and if the system script doesn’t trigger, just hand it back. I’m only giving it to you because the structural alignment looks like a perfect match.”
Following his instruction, I brought the two identical gemstones close to analyze their geometry. They were flawless mirror images; the flat backs seemed designed to lock together seamlessly. Dispensing with further skepticism, I gently pressed the two flat surfaces against one another.
FLASH—
A violent, concentrated crimson radiance erupted right from my fingertips. Startled by the sudden sensory spike, I instinctively tried to pull the fragments apart, but the two stones fused instantly, bonding so perfectly that it looked as if they had never been separated.
In that exact microsecond, my entire visual field warped violently. It wasn’t that my physical equilibrium was actually compromised, but the sudden sensory shift caused me to reflexively reach out and grab Sephiroth’s forearm to steady myself. The armored berserker flinched subtly at the sudden contact, cutting his gaze toward me for a split second, but he quickly averted his eyes and resumed his rigid, indifferent posture as if nothing had occurred.
“Ah.”
The sudden realization of what I was doing snapped me out of it. I frantically yanked my hands away from his armor. Sephiroth’s helmet slowly turned back toward me, and a characteristically mocking, deadpan voice drifted through the visor.
“Did you really want to touch your Hyung’s arm that badly?”
“No!”
“Do you want to try the thighs next? A real man is defined by his quad development.”
“I will literally murder you.”
Honestly, that death threat was directed more at myself than at him. Chae Un-ha, you absolute, brainless idiot. Why on earth would you grab Sephiroth’s arm of all things? Even though I had been logging serious hours into Zelpia, the sheer high-fidelity responsiveness of the full-dive virtual reality engine still managed to catch my real-world instincts off guard during sudden visual transitions. Even so, initiating physical contact with Sephiroth was a massive tactical error. I delivered a light, annoyed swat to his arm as he continued to babble absolute nonsense about his quad density.
“Ouch. So you’re into this kind of play?”
“Watch your mouth when we’re in public. If someone overheard you saying things like that out of context, I wouldn’t even be able to defend you if they submitted a harassment report.”
“Why would I ever say this to anyone else? Obviously, I only drop these lines for our cute little Blee. Do I look like the kind of cheap, easy guy who just flirts with anyone?”
“F*ck, I need to just stop talking to you altogether……”
Ultimately, a heavy swear word slipped past my filter. Watching me furiously try to swallow my mounting exasperation, Sephiroth found the sight so thoroughly entertaining that he actually burst into an audible chuckle. It brought back my very rational, recurring suspicion: Is this absolute jerk only keeping me around purely because I’m an incredibly amusing source of entertainment to tease?
“Blee. Snap out of it and look at the environment.”
That ridiculous nickname again.
What made it exponentially more aggravating was the fact that his vocal timbre was just as smooth and pleasant as Na Eun-hyeok’s. I opened my mouth to snap at him but quickly shut it. At this point, expending energy to contest the nickname felt entirely futile. He had zero capacity for listening to feedback, making any verbal resistance a complete waste of oxygen. Forcing down the sudden warmth that had rushed into my face, I shifted my focus away from him and surveyed our surroundings as instructed.
Only then did my tunnel vision expand past Sephiroth’s black plate armor. We were still standing in the center of the vast, open plain, but positioned right at the epicenter was Ignas.
To be completely honest, the only reason I was able to identify her identity was due to the floating green nameplate hovering directly above her head. The projection of Ignas I had encountered within the pearl artifact had been an elegant, majestic entity—clad in traditional, high-society hanbok with her hair swept up in an ornate, aristocratic style.
The entity standing before us now was a stark, jarring departure. Her long, dark tresses were completely disheveled and tangled, cascading wildly over a frayed, grimy dress that had aged into an ambiguous shade between ash gray and faded white—resembling a tattered funeral gown. Yet, contrasting sharply against her soiled, dirt-streaked face were a pair of piercing, intensely luminous black eyes. Those eyes were the singular, unmistakable bridge connecting the elegant mermaid from my memories to the weathered spirit standing before us.
The pieces of the puzzle are finally snapping together! Now that you hold the fully unified [Ignas’s Heart] and stand before her true form, do you initiate the dialogue tree to uncover the hidden lore, or do you let Sephiroth take the lead to ensure the quest parameters advance safely?
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