The 31st Piece Turns the Tables
chapter-28

The ‘Missing Summoner’ Adventure popped up.

[Adventure. ‘Missing Summoner’

‘Prophets of the Dark’ is a place in Kongory that trains those with Black Magic classes. It is filled with many skilled teachers. However, unfortunately for you, the Shadow Summoner who could become your teacher has gone missing after going to Nobira.

At this rate, you might lose your chance at the most important time of your beginner journey. You have decided to go find traces of the teacher yourself in Nobira instead of sitting here and doing nothing.

Objective: Find traces of Chao, the Shadow Summoner, in Nobira.

Remaining Time: [N/A]]

‘It won’t be bad to clear this ahead of time as a side quest.’

Since Seol hadn’t decided on his next Adventure yet, heading to Nobira and doing this as a side quest while he was there wasn’t a bad option either.

Seol then finished by saying that he wanted to enhance his skills.

“I understand, follow me.”

The same thing happened as last time and Seol was once again left in a dark room by himself.

Glow…

The skill tree popped up.

‘I currently have 4 skill points. Then it’s obvious what I should upgrade.’

Obviously, he had to enhance Shadow Summon, his main skill.

[You enhance Shadow Summon.]

[You use 4 skill points.]

[Upon a successful Shadow Summon, the summon will now pass on skills more smoothly than before.]

[You are now able to summon two Shadow Summons at the same time. However, there are circumstances where you will be unable to summon both at the same time.]

[Upon a successful Shadow Summon, the summon will now retain at least 50% of their stats.]

[Shadow Summon has reached a certain level. All owned summons will have 10% of their original stats additionally passed on.]

A bunch of messages popped up just because he enhanced it once. There were two messages that were especially of note to Seol.

The first was simultaneous summoning.

‘Now I can summon both Karuna and Jamad at the same time.’

The second part was that his summons had their passed on stats increased by 10%.

This meant that his summons were now 50% as powerful as when they were alive. And with their titles, equipment, and other abilities, they were at least 60%... no, 70% as strong.

Seol didn’t know how powerful the other transferees were but this much was more than enough to call him a one-man army.

In the first place, Karuna wasn’t a boss that was supposed to be defeated through combat and Jamad was a boss that required a 5 man party to defeat after using special gimmicks to weaken him.

And because of that, they were boss monsters much, much stronger than most bosses and their stats were probably much higher than most transferees.

Suddenly, Seol thought of Yeo-myeong’s words that he said while crying.

- Why?! Why?! Why won’t you when you’re that strong… I heard that Adventurer Points don’t show the difference in strength properly! You have double the Rank 2’s points, then that means… you’re ten times… no, tens of times stronger than him…

Seol grimaced after realizing he had been continuously thinking about Yeo-myeong.

* * *

Translator - goguma

Proofreader - Karane

* * *

Seol visited a couple more places before returning to his lodging.

He had gathered quite a bit of money but didn’t use it yet since he planned on using it for a specific purpose later.

He organized what he planned to do in the coming Adventures.

‘This is when it starts to get really important. I need to plan out my moves carefully.”

Adventures in The World of Eternity were heavily influenced by the adventurer’s location.

For example, if you’re in a quiet hillside where nothing happens, nothing special will ever happen.

You could definitely live a long life there but you won’t ever get stronger.

This is what made The World of Eternity different from normal RPGs that gave out appropriate quests based on the time that had passed.

You had to periodically move your base to become stronger. You also had to go to cities that were at the eye of the storm, where there were a lot of things happening.

‘Is it about time to leave Kongory now?’

Seol had already gained most of the noteworthy things here. The only Adventures left in Kongory were inefficient and gave out poor rewards.

He had to leave here soon if he wanted to get stronger.

The problem was that leaving the starting point would be the start of rolling the dice.

‘Rolling the dice’ was referring to a mechanic in The World of Eternity where you would roll the dice when you’re leaving an area. This was always the case whenever a player would leave one location.

Just like how you could be in a tough situation if you leave for vacation without checking the weather there beforehand, rolling the dice worked a similar way.

If Seol rolled low right after he arrived in Nobira, he would face a penalty. However, If he was able to roll high, he would have unexpected luck.

‘Still, it’s way too risky.’

If he rolled low he could be forced to take on an Adventure and that never had a set difficulty either.

That’s why most players took that into consideration before they made their move. They always prepared for the worst.

‘I’ve finished preparing though. I’m more than strong enough.’

Seol had already become incomparably strong compared to the other transferees in Kongory.

The only thing that bothered him right now was the existence of the Predator Guild.

The information that he received about the Predator Guild was quite worrisome. They weren’t making any moves on him right now, but if they got stronger… they could definitely even aim for Seol.

Because regardless of the circumstances of the situation, it was clear that he was being suspected of killing four of their guild members.

And Seol wasn’t the type of person who would leave loose ends behind.

‘I’ll leave after I take care of the Predator Guild.’

Seol, in the end, decided to take the steps to leave.

* * *

As Seol was resting in Kongory for a few days, more transferees had finished their Adventures and returned to Kongory.

“Burp…”

It was on the 2nd floor of a bar.

Men were seated around a table wearing extravagant clothes. They were smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.

You would assume that their faces would match their clothes but their coarse faces told another story.

“So, they’re all dead?”

“Jincheol and Sang-gyu… and the rest of them?”

“None of them came back. The verdict is that they’re dead.”

“Ha! All of the useful bastards died young. Still, those bastards had guts…”

They wouldn’t have been able to talk like this if they knew how Jincheol and Sang-gyu died but still, they remembered them as people who were evil.

The Predator Guild was filled with people who looked tough.

And these people were the ones who were able to quickly adapt to this world. Obviously, they adapted in different ways but still.

All of the Predator Guild’s members looked at one person.

He was seated on an elevated seat.

“What should we do?” asked one of the guild members to the man on the elevated seat.

“They were doing a job, right?”

“Yes, that’s why they took two people, no?”

“That’s annoying. At such an important time too… What was his name again?”

“His name was… Snowman. When I checked it turned out he had already returned from his Adventure.”

“Hmm… I wonder how they died.”

“Who? Are you talking about Sang-gyu and Jincheol?”

“Yeah, they weren’t the type to get beaten up by other people.”

“If anyone did any killing, it would have been them. Those sons of bitches were sharks.”

The Guildmaster of the Predator Guild’s nickname was ‘Great White Shark’.

It was a nickname that fit his frightening appearance and status as the guildmaster of the Predator Guild.

“Right? And what do you think are the odds they sacrificed their lives for the person they were trying to kill? Do you think those bastards would ever do something like that?”

“Never.”

“Then he probably killed them, right?”

“Yes, we believe Snowman killed them once he realized they were trying to kill him. We just don’t know how he did it.”

“I heard that he looked like a dweeb… what power does he have to kill four of our members?”

“Wouldn’t it have been a trap with information that only he knew?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Logically speaking, it’s difficult to kill four people alone. Even more so if he didn’t know that they were after him.”

Great White Shark’s lips were ripped.

He had a massive scar going across his lips.

And his voice… slithered out of that gap like a snake.

“For now, just be careful of him. Time’s on our side anyway. All we have to do is prevent him from leaving Kongory.”

“Can’t we just get a couple guys and kill him?”

“You fucking idiot. There’s an order to everything. We’re going to kill him regardless, what’s important is how we kill him. We’re allied with the Justice Guild now, we can't be killing him in a way that’s too eye-catching.”

“Ah, that’s true. But was allying ourselves with the Justice Guild really a good thing? Their actions make it hard to trust them.”

“And you think they’d trust us?”

“I don’t, but…”

“We’re both just taking advantage of each other and pretending to not know.”

Inhale…

Fuuu…

Great White Shark’s cigarette burned black.

He seemed to have remembered something funny and gave a sinister laugh.

“Want me to tell you something funny?”

“What is it?”

“If it wasn’t for that bastard Snowman or whatever his name was, all of our guild members would’ve come back from their Adventures alive.”

“Isn’t that something obvious?”

“No it isn’t, you idiot. Did you see the other guilds? A ton of people died this time. There were even some guilds who lost half of their members.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, this is the world now. But still, why were we the only ones who didn't lose that many people? Because we’re strong? Then why are we the only ones who are strong?”

“I… don’t know.”

Great White Shark bared his teeth as he left out another puff of smoke.

His gold teeth showed his devilish nature.

“Because we’re strong. We’re strong people. We can beat, kill, and betray other people like it’s nothing right? Other people think that doing that is wrong and find it despicable.”

“Is that a good thing though?”

“Bwahaha… it is good, definitely. See, look. We started doing our ‘jobs’ from the moment we came to Kongory. And you know how terrible that bastard Jung Woncheol who runs the Justice Guild with his smooth talk is, right?”

“I do.”

“Since he doesn’t have any strength to manage his organization, he’s reaching out to us for help. Because we’re strong.”

“That’s probably because of the guy that’s ranked 2nd on the Points Leaderboard.”

“Regardless, this wolf brought in a tiger to manage the sheep. Even though he’s just a sly little wolf…”

“So what’s your plan?”

“First, we’re going to take over the Justice Guild while pretending to help Woncheol. Then, we’re going to slowly, slowly take over a different guild before finally transitioning into selling people.”

It was the first time he ever spoke about his plan in detail so all of the guild members listened carefully.

“Do you know why we were always the bottom feeders?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because there were laws. There were laws…”

“Huh?”

“Look at this beautiful world. Even if you stab someone on the streets, you won’t get punished for it. Between transferees at least.”

“Ah!”

“Laws disappeared and violence took its spot. And in the end, those that know violence the best stand at the highest positions.”

“And that’s you, right, hyungnim?”

“Exactly.”

Great White Shark seemed to have been reminded of something unpleasant from his guild member’s last question. He thought for a second before talking again.

“No, there is one more person.”

“Th-that other ‘Private’ guy?”

“Yeah, that bastard with the monstrous point total. I’m pretty sure a person like that has to have a weakness too… We have to find them.”

“Find them? Then what?”

“If they’re the type that listens, I’ll give them rewards as long as they follow me. If they aren't, I’ll kill them.”

“I’ll give out an order to our members and do our best to find him.”

“I want you to take action, not just say it in words, got it? What we’re about to start right now is business. We’ll increase our members through different avenues, group them all up, and sell them all to the highest bidder.”

“This plan came from the Justice Guild first, didn’t it?”

“They proposed it to us. Woncheol is academically stupid but he is clever. Let’s do our best to not kill him if we can.”

And at that moment…

A man entered the bar by kicking the door in.

“Hyungnim! Hyungnim! Where are you?”

“I’m here, you bastard.”

“Ah, you were there. Woncheol… I mean, that bastard’s looking for you.”

“Me? Why?”

“He said that there’s something he needed your strength for? Some crazy guy barged into the Justice Guild alone to find their younger sister.”

“Alone?”

It was strange.

Even if Woncheol was weak, it was still only one person.

“Apparently, he’s stronger than expected? They tried to restrain him but got injured instead and now they’re at standstill.”

“So he wants me to cut an arm off or kill him as an example. How annoying… Wait, that guy was fighting them on his own? Is he ‘Private’?”

“It could be.”

“We should prepare for the worst-case scenario before we leave. And if we think we’ll lose, we need to take his side instead.”

At the exact same moment, similar information was delivered to Seol who was preparing for his journey.