Chapter 48




Chapter 48

Before returning to the lab, the agents converged on the embassy of the Kingdom of Vunes. The four teams combined their information and found six dog tags.

“That means all but four teams found it.”

The elite Pathfinder who commanded Team Two. Despite the stares from all sides, Kim remained confident.

“I don’t know, I guess I had no choice.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame you.”

A soft voice. The Pathfinder was a man with a blunt appearance and a personality to match.

“I’m sure you didn’t mean to be mean.

She’s often misunderstood because of her bluntness. Once again, she sounds offensive to the agents, but Leila covers for her.

“But it took four teams working together to get us through the operation.”

“It doesn’t mean much when we’ve already found six. We just didn’t get to see it, but it was probably in the body of the dangerous guy Team 4 took out.”

Ghost was right. In the game, you can get it from all eight of them. Even if you don’t remember the identification number.

“I guess we’ll just have to run our own analysis in the lab, hopefully we can find something.”

“Do you think Vince’s ambassador knows anything?”

“No, he didn’t know anything.”

Kim’s eyes widened at Ghost’s words.

“In what gap did you ask that?”

“It’s about two hours before you get here. I don’t want to cause too much of a fuss.”

Kim nodded with satisfaction.

“That’s not really necessary.

As Ghost believes, there is no information to be gained from the Kingdom of Buness. You’re nothing more than a victim.

What pleased Kim was that Ghost was able to move autonomously. It was definitely an all-around talent.

A formal thank you was received from the Kingdom of Wünes. Material remuneration will be sent to the lab at a later date.

After resting, the team returned to the lab. Before freshening up, the team leaders, including Kim, briefed the lab director on the results of the operation.

“That’s it. Good job, everyone.”

Kushan dropped the Ziploc bag of recognition tags on his desk. He made eye contact with his team leaders and congratulated them on a job well done.

“You can post the detailed report later in the week. I know you’re exhausted, so just submit the recordings today and get some rest.”

Out of respect for their hard work, he kept his report brief. After dismissing them, Kushan burrowed deeper into the back of his chair.

“Thankfully, no casualties.

It happened so suddenly that we had to scramble to send out a dispatch, which turned out to be fine, but it was definitely a concern.

‘There’s no end to the fuss this year.

The Professor’s Rescue. A clash with the Legion. The coincidence of a dangerous number with a shady past. Each one was a big event.

“And what to think about it.

Kushan’s gaze dropped to his desk. Next to the Ziploc bag lay a paper: Kim’s personnel file, which he’d filled out a few days ago.

Kim Yi Hyun is deeply involved in the events of the last half-decade. I don’t think he’s the culprit, but… it’s too coincidental.

“Whoa.”

I sighed heavily. I felt like I had a foreign object stuck in my throat. On the other hand, I was also feeling grateful.

“Somehow you always get help.”

Why Leila’s people trust Kim over the cover-up. I understood it a little bit.

* * *

Dustborn’s performance was the talk of the Chapter. Team One’s personnel, mostly Leila, had been singing his praises.

“It’s a little embarrassing… but not bad.

It was a desirable situation. Before heading into Operation Ashbelt, Kim had set some personal goals for himself.

One of them is Dustborn’s increased valuation. “If I had just done my job and called it a day, I would have been viewed as a ‘good enough’ player.

However, by working with the first team, it reinforced the idea that they are active collaborators. This made me feel more comfortable in the future.

‘I’m not going to be told to stay out of it.’

Asterique and the [Vibranium Composite Sword] have been field-tested, and the monetary rewards will be coming soon, so the effort has been well worth it.

“The old guys are working hard.

He seemed encouraged. I wasn’t sure how much it would change, but I wasn’t without hope.

This is real life. Unlike games, there is no systematic ‘peak’. Who knows, maybe the Ganodab trio will get stronger.

It will be fun to watch the changes. Kim walked down the hallway with a sense of accomplishment.

“Ah, here we go.

I arrived at the video room and unlocked it with my key card. Ziying, the door opened. The sound inside was frightening to hear.

-Kaaaah!

A binge as loud as thunder. It was a recording, of course. A familiar scene was playing on the screen at one end of the room.

Kim watched the video with his arms crossed. The sight of the bridge collapsing was almost painful to watch again.

“That was fun.”

“……!”

The head of the first person to speak snapped around. His distinctive silver-gray eyes were shaking like an earthquake.

Professor.

“Why are you so surprised? Like I’m guilty of something.”

“…strings, I didn’t realize you were in.”

“The video is noisy.”

-That son of a bitch!

When I checked, the screams of the Turkam were distracting, but not so much so that I didn’t notice people coming and going.

I just figured he’d have a lot on his mind, enough to stay up all night poring over other people’s logs.

“But Hyun, why are you here?”

“Same here.”

Kim waved a small disk in his hand.

A data storage method that’s dead in the modern era. I haven’t seen a CD in a long time, but in the lab, it’s a given. There are no cloud servers, and duplication is prohibited for security reasons.

They are stored in the archives and retrieved through a process. It’s inefficient, but it’s part of the civilization imbalance that exists on Polaris.

“Well, where is this?

If we had fallen back to pre-modern times, we would have had a lot more trouble than we do now, especially in terms of hygiene. There would have been a mental illness or two.

Kim sat a good distance away from the professor. The video ended as the camera panned across the river where the dangerous water had fallen.

“…….”

“…….”

“What are you doing, don’t you want to play the next one?”

The professor winced at Kim’s words.

“……Didn’t you have something else to do?”

“Originally, I was going to watch my team’s videos and review them, but that didn’t happen.”

Curious about Dustborn’s modus operandi, the agents kept taking out disks. Like some old video store favorite. And now it was in the hands of a professor.

Kim urged with her eyes, and the professor reluctantly played the following video.

The battle with Nepenthes. I start to study Asterike’s performance again, but then stop, distracted by the Professor’s constant glances at me.

“That’s so weird.”

“What?”

“No, you’re right, why have you been so bossy in the past, telling me where to start and where to go on missions?”

Kim clucked her tongue.

“Am I very uncomfortable?”

There was silence.

The harsh, incessant gunfire from the screen was the only sound in the room. The professor, who had been pondering for some time, slowly opened his mouth.

“It’s not that I’m uncomfortable, I’m actually grateful to Hyun, I think he’s amazing. Like Leila or Ghost or Pablo.”

He shakes his head.

“No, out of the four of us there, I might be the most prone to it. Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“When we first met. I thought… that you and I were in a similar place.”

His tone was terribly frantic. His quiet words were tinged with anguish.

“I didn’t know anything, but I vaguely got the feeling that she was as confused as I was… and I had nowhere else to turn, so I was drawn to the first person I saw.”

She smiled awkwardly, as if embarrassed.

“Was it too much?”

“That’s okay. Keep going.”

It was an accurate description. As the saying goes, he had nothing.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere in a Polaris. It was a time when I was afraid to take a single step. Except for my gaming knowledge, I was like a professor who had lost his memory.

“The benefits are too great to exclude.

In reality, Kim has gotten to this point by actively utilizing his gaming knowledge, but how would it look to a professor who doesn’t know the story?

“I’ve said this and that, but that’s just the way it is.”

A beat apart. The professor confessed his true feelings.

“I envy you, Hyun.”

The professor had a kind of admiration for Kim. A man who fights his own battles, earns the trust of his comrades, and pulls off operations.

While he was focusing on his rehabilitation and adjusting to the lab, Kim had grown so much. As a professor, I couldn’t help but compare.

“I can’t do what you can do. I can’t pick up a gun and fight a battle, and give instructions as if they matter, and…….”

The professor bit his lip.

“I’ll make you die, for my mistake.”

There was another pause. While the room was still, Kim thought back to what she had heard earlier. It was information she’d heard from Ghost in Kilikia.

“You mean what happened in Floria?”

“Did you know?”

“Ghost told me you two were killed in action.”

The professor remained silent. His complexion visibly darkened, and for the first time, Kim fully understood what the professor was feeling.

‘Maybe my head is still a flower garden.

The ghosts didn’t die in the tutorial, so I didn’t adjust to reality early on. A common sense person would feel self-conscious about the deaths that occurred under his command.

Kim was no different.

Mary and the rest of Whitefang’s crew. The six who died during the all-out war, anyway, were killed by Snowfield at that time. He still feels responsible for their deaths.

‘Similar predicament.

The professor was right. In more ways than one.

I could have offered some banal consolation. You did not do wrong, and as a result, you protected your colleagues, and the dead agents may rest in peace…….

It was useless.

“Let me ask you something.”

Kim said.

“You’re trying to lighten the load on your agents. You go to the mines.”

“……because it’s important.”

“Yeah, it’s important. If we don’t mine it, the lab stops functioning, which is why the agents are suffering.”

The intent is good. But.

“Before you do that, have you done everything you’re supposed to do?”

“Huh?”

“Have you checked the personnel files of the agents you’ve been working with? Can you tell me everything about each and every one of them, what they’ve done in the past, how they’ve used their skills, what hobbies they enjoy?”

Confusion flashed across the professor’s face. When she couldn’t answer, he asked her the next question.

“The geospatial information. There were hundreds or thousands of strategies that could be employed without confrontation.”

The three teams Ghost commanded were a good example. They dug a trap, just like Team 4 did with their bombs. Head-on confrontation was even stupider.

“The lab runs well enough without you.”

Kim snorted.

“In other words, everyone else can do it. If you feel indebted to the agents, it’s because you’re not doing your job. You’ve got a bunch of data, you put it in your head, and the rest-”

Yeah,” he added.

“Take more initiative. When I joined your team, I wanted to do something about it. You were in charge of the battlefield, but Leila was in charge of the team, like she was some kind of enabler.”

“Well, because everyone follows Leila….”

“And that nice Leila is dragging you into the danger zone, because why not?”

They have expectations. Without the professor’s direction, the lab would collapse before the episode was halfway through.

The boulder of responsibility already sits on the professor’s shoulders. So why not exercise your rights?

“You’re in charge. Make the mission work, keep the agent alive.”

“What if… someone dies because of my command?”

“Then he was always going to die.”

Deaths are inevitable. It’s not something to be taken lightly, but it’s also not something to be hugged and blamed.

“If you don’t do it, you’re dead. If it’s a shitty operation, why are you commanding it? It’s either dangerous, annoying, important… or all three, which is why we need you.”

Kim cleared his throat in vain. As she spoke, her throat slowly became hoarse.

“Anyway, push through with the mindset that if I can’t do it, no one can. If it’s an incompetent person doing it, that’s one thing, but if it’s you, it’s fine.”

The professor’s mouth twitched. Her gaze dropped, then she hesitated, and finally she smiled weakly.

“……It’s a strange feeling.”

“What else.”

“I’ve never talked to you at this length before, but I always get that feeling with you. Hyun, you… you seem to know me so well.”

Know your stuff.

I’ve been playing the game for over 5 years, since the Open. I’ve participated in every event, even when I got bored in between.

I’ve read the wiki several times. I know everything about the game except for the professor’s stupidly pretty bare face, which doesn’t appear in the story.

They recognize your abilities more than anyone else.

“He’s not irreplaceable.

Directed many of the battles that occur in the campaign, and led them all to victory except for a few defeating events.

He’s very capable. He’s a person who doesn’t mind being left alone to do what he wants. As I said, professors need to take more initiative.

It will be a harsh experience in many ways, but it’s something you’ll have to live with. Kim didn’t have the heart or the confidence to take over the role of a professor.

“Even if you’re not like Leila, I’m counting on you, too. You’ll do great, if you don’t get yourself into trouble.”

“I don’t know if that’s an insult or an encouragement.”

“Probably both.”

The professor was smiling after taking a lot of abuse. The first relaxed expression I’d ever seen. That face was unfamiliar to me.

I even muttered to myself if I liked it.

“Unapologetically, shamelessly.”

They seemed to understand perfectly.