Chapter 97: Redefining the Meta and Counter-Intel Trajectories

“Hey, what are we supposed to do about this? We didn’t use any hacks.”

“You worry about the most random things.”

“No, seriously—if you just leave this alone, isn’t your reputation going to completely tank?”

In stark contrast to my anxious fretting, Sephiroth remained entirely unbothered.

“My reputation was already at the bottom, Beulli-ya.”

Ah. Right. I forgot about that.

But still, there was a vast difference between being labeled a gaming psycho versus being branded a dirty hacker. You could format the former as just having an intense, eccentric personality and somehow make it work, but the latter was an unforgivable existence that didn’t belong in the game at all, no matter how much you tried to explain it away.

As I opened my mouth to protest further, Sephiroth lightly tapped my shoulder.

“Besides, don’t worry. I’m about to post a counter-statement.”

“Huh?”

“Just wait a second.”

His tone was incredibly confident. Before I could say another word, Sephiroth immediately logged out of the game. Left behind all by myself, I paced around nervously on the grass.

[ Whisper ] PoongPoongieLove: Un-ha-ya, you ok?

[ Whisper ] BlueberryWhiskey: yeah;;;

[ Whisper ] BlueberryWhiskey: ugh.. i don’t even know

[ Whisper ] BlueberryWhiskey: sephiroth said he’s posting a counter-statement right now

[ Whisper ] PoongPoongieLove: a counter-statement? ok ok cool

Seong-jin had sent a message out of worry. After giving him a brief reply, I sat blankly on the grass. A rabbit hopped leisurely past me, looking endlessly peaceful, utterly oblivious to the storm brewing around us.

I must have been spacing out like that for a while when—

[ Guild ] JujiyukLim: The official statement is up.

Won-jae hyung dropped a message in the guild chat. It hadn’t even been that long since Sephiroth logged out.

“Wait, already?”

Baffled by his sheer speed, I quickly hit refresh on the forum page. True to his word, a brand-new post had been uploaded under Sephiroth’s name. Even though it had just been posted, the view count was already showing signs of skyrocketing, completely leaving the surrounding threads in the dust. The contents of Sephiroth’s post were as follows:

< You wanted an explanation, so here’s your explanation >

Author: Sephiroth

[Video_Clip.mp4]

This is a video from a previous event. The movement speed is exactly the same.

[Screenshot.png]

Zelphia had a movement speed debuff active. Standard stuff. Later.

Also, I received the Endless guild’s heartfelt declaration of self-destruction loud and clear. Cielo, it looks like your memory is starting to fail you, so I’ll be contacting you shortly.

[ Comments ]

ZelZelZelZelPhia – First ReduceLoadingTimesPlease – A movement speed debuff in Zelphia?? That’s a total stretch.

└ 394Production – I’ve never seen anything like that before.

└ aNyaNyang – Isn’t this photoshopped?

└└ Lucastar – Why would Sephiroth bother photoshopping this?

└└└ OrangeWaterGlow – How can you trust that Sephiroth wouldn’t photoshop it… especially when he might have actually been using speed hacks in the first place…

└└└└ Lucastar – No, just watch the video;; If you look at his speed during the old event, it’s the exact same speed they’re accusing him of hacking with;;

SummerNight – Couldn’t he just have been using speed hacks the entire time?

OnJe – lol It’s obviously photoshopped and a speed-adjusted video.

└ TheBirdThatCriesWhenItSeesAnIdiot – Chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp

HiBye – Well, if he actually hacked, he’ll just get banned. Why is everyone making such a massive fuss on the free board over this;;

└ OnAWednesdayNight – Sephiroth doesn’t get banned though, even when he slaughters the NPC guards.

CoolGuy – If you guys actually have eyes, look closely. Sephiroth didn’t use a speed hack… He was ‘slow’ in the previous video. His speed didn’t increase; he was just dealing with a slowdown before. I think everyone’s sense of speed is just completely warped.

└ djhksg – Your username is cool but your comment is incredibly pathetic.

└└ HurryUp – lmfaooooooo

YoungJae123 – ‘Declaration of self-destruction’ lmaooo isn’t that basically him declaring he’s going to destroy the Endless guild? xDDDD

└ BoxingWarrior – But honestly, if it’s a whole guild vs Sephiroth, no matter how good he is at the game, there’s no way he wins, right?

└└ Positive1 – Sephiroth is a complete beast at guerrilla warfare.

└└ AnkleAndJenkins – Sephiroth has a guild now too.

└└└ LuRuPangLuRuPangPang – Oh right lol Guild war arc incoming?

The evidence Sephiroth had provided in his post consisted of exactly two things: a recording of his gameplay from a past event, and a screenshot of the system text showing the movement speed debuff in his status window.

It was flawless, undeniable proof. The trolls who had been itching for a fight seemed to instantly lose their momentum, as no further accusations could hold weight. While a few stubborn comments occasionally popped up questioning the authenticity of the video or the screenshot, other users immediately shut them down.

“When did you even have time to prepare all of this?” I asked as Sephiroth logged back in.

“I knew some idiot would eventually try to pick a fight over it, so I prepared it in advance,” Sephiroth said proudly, letting out a sharp chuckle. “I did good, right?”

“……Uh, yeah.”

“Praise me.”

I really wanted to skip past it, but a vivid image of a terrifyingly cutesy emoticon flashed through my mind. I hurriedly nodded.

“Yeah, you did great.”

Sephiroth let out a soft, huffing laugh. It sounded a bit like a scoff, but I brushed it off, assuming I was just imagining things. Standing right next to me, he made a motion as if rolling up his sleeves—though, naturally, his iron plate armor didn’t budge an inch.

“More importantly, since things turned out like this, you’re going to have to help me out, Beulli-ya.”

“Help you? with what?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve played Robin Hood.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going to go smash the exclusive hunting grounds that Endless has been monopolizing.”

An exclusive hunting ground?

Come to think of it, I had heard about this before. Large guilds would essentially lock down specific maps with exceptionally high reward efficiency, turning them into their own private farming zones. With an exclusive hunting ground, guild members could gather top-tier loot at a rapid pace without having to compete with outsiders for monster spawns. On the flip side, any solo players who accidentally wandered near these locked-down zones to hunt would face a miserable death at the hands of the guild members guarding the perimeter. It was an incredibly toxic practice, but apparently, Zelphia hadn’t implemented any system penalties against it yet.

“Won’t the Endless guild members be guarding it?”

“Most likely. Unless they’re idiots who don’t know the definition of a monopoly.”

“Then how are just the two of us supposed to go smash it?”

“Their guard perimeter is usually pretty loose. We just kill them on sight. We sweep the area and bounce before their reinforcements can show up.”

“……If only it were as easy as it sounds.”

“Beulli-ya. Do you not trust me? I’m your hyung.”

Who in their right mind would trust you? is what I wanted to say, but honestly, when it came to Zelphia, Sephiroth was about as reliable as it got.

“……Well, monopolizing hunting grounds is a trash move anyway.”

Ultimately, I gave a quiet nod of agreement. I caught the faint sound of Sephiroth chuckling under his breath, but I actively ignored it. Besides, I had a score of my own to settle with Endless. How dare they accuse me of hacking? I gritted my teeth in pure frustration.

Still, there was a priority to maintain.

“Let’s finish running Battlegrounds first.”

“Yeah.”

I absolutely couldn’t pass up the Guild Points. Sephiroth, who muttered something about needing to gather more herb seedlings and seeds anyway, readily agreed with my stance.

As we spent the rest of the day grinding through the Battlegrounds, we naturally ran into a handful of players trying to stir up trouble. Most of them were toxic trolls sliding into our match chat with comments like, ‘Hey, aren’t you guys the speed hackers?’ Every single time that happened, Sephiroth and I would hyper-focus on that specific player as if we had coordinated it beforehand. After camping their spawn point and hunting them down about ten times straight the moment they stepped out of their base, the target would usually either surrender and apologize, or break down into a stream of pure vitriol.

Serves them right. That’s what you get for looking for trouble.

Had my personality grown completely toxic from spending so much time around Sephiroth? Maybe. But even if I hadn’t been running with him, anyone would feel completely disgusted being subjected to that kind of false accusation. I had climbed to my current position fair and square using my own actual skills, and they wanted to call it a speed hack? While I had noticed people on the community forums pointing out that Sephiroth’s speed had seemed subtly slower before, I never imagined they would go as far as throwing a disgusting hacking label at us.

“Hey. Why exactly does Endless hunt you down like a pack of rabid dogs anyway?”

My racing thoughts finally drifted toward the root of the issue. What was Endless’s deal? Thinking back to the very first time I encountered them in the Battlegrounds, they had been utterly desperate to start a fight with Sephiroth, acting as if their lives depended on it. Originally, I figured it was his own personal business and that I should leave it alone unless he brought it up himself, but now that the situation had escalated to the point where I was getting dragged into the mud and branded a hacker alongside him, I was incredibly curious about what had caused all this bad blood.

“I used to be in their guild, but I left after getting into a fight with the guild master.”

“What did you fight about?”

“The idiot was incredibly stubborn but had zero brains. He couldn’t seem to comprehend human speech, so I told him I don’t play video games with animals and walked out.”

“You actually said that to him?”

“Yeah. Watching a bunch of guys lose their minds and grovel over a literal netkama was giving me a massive headache.”

“A netkama?”

“There was this user who was a glaringly obvious guy playing a female character, but everyone was completely whipped, tossing their organs and gold at him just to stay in his good graces. If they wanted to throw away their own stuff, I wouldn’t have cared, but that absolute clown of a guild master tried to rope me into playing along and sucking up to him too, so I flipped the table and wrecked the place.”

Sephiroth let out a dry, hollow laugh.

“Come to think of it, that guild has a long, illustrious history of letting netkamas run their internal politics.”

“An illustrious history? Who are you talking about? SeolHyeolHyang?”

“Yeah. SeolHyeolHyang is a netkama too.”

“How do you even know that?”

“If you do a bit of basic googling, it’s blindingly obvious. The photos are completely stolen. I have no idea what those dumbasses are banking on to believe it.”

Sephiroth shook his head in pure disbelief. I couldn’t fully grasp the details, but basically, SeolHyeolHyang was actually a guy. I had seen her—or rather, him—a few times during Battlegrounds, and there seemed to be a massive, fiercely loyal faction built entirely around SeolHyeolHyang. If that was the case, what was going to happen to all the fish caught in that net?

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