Vol 4 Chapter 17

"It's strange. He's not the type to care about such things."

Je-hwan went down to the lower floor as usual, not sparing a single glance at the people who gasped or turned in surprise as he passed by. He flung open the door of the office located in the center. As soon as he entered with large strides, he felt the shift from the noisy outside to a static space in an instant.

As he stood still, listening to the door close by itself after letting go of it, the person who had been looking at a small floating hologram monitor without any reaction raised his head and smiled quietly.

"I just received a call from the president."

Looking at the black nameplate on the desk that read 'Jin Seo-hwan, Head of Development', Je-hwan coldly declared.

"Then you should know what to do now."

"Well, it wasn't particularly necessary to attach the Circuit Eye to your surroundings, so removing it won't be a problem."

The Circuit Eye was a kind of hacking program created by Jin Seo-hwan a few months ago, a type of monitoring program that collected information without leaving traces in other games. It was essentially a specialized hidden camera installed to freely observe a game they would never play directly as a competitor. It was still operating well in THE MIST without being detected so far.

Jin Seo-hwan had attached it to specific user characters they had infiltrated to increase activity and secrecy, and of course, several were attached to Jin Je-hwan's game play character as well.

"But it's strange," Jin Seo-hwan said casually, still looking at the documents.

"Why are you suddenly paying attention to something you wouldn't normally care about? Second puberty?"

The joke delivered with a cold face only served to freeze the atmosphere, but Je-hwan answered without hesitation.

"Since I've found out something new about the main system, there's no reason to keep carrying around something that bothers me. I think you, who created it, know better that when the Circuit Eye is attached, it causes some distortion in the surrounding map."

Jin Je-hwan had started playing at his brother's request to investigate THE MIST, a game that stimulated his curiosity as a VT programmer, promising full support. At first, he had planned to just satisfy his curiosity by finding out information related to the main system and then quit appropriately.

However, not long after starting the game, things took an unexpected turn. By chance, he got his hands on the main quest, and even had the opportunity to meet Yoon Seok-ho, the Korean branch manager who was one of the core members of Saturn's game. It was certainly something his brother would fuss over if he found out.

But more than all of that, the biggest variable was meeting 'him', whose very existence had greatly shocked Jin Je-hwan. In fact, all the problems started from that moment.

'He' was a user at the center of MIST's main quest. His companions were the same. It was easy to imagine how many people, including his brother and father, would show interest in him if they found out that the yet-to-be-fully-revealed main quest might be closely related to the main system. THE MIST was currently the hot and dangerous eye of the storm attracting worldwide attention. The person right in front of him was someone who would do anything to obtain information about that game system.

Mage Soft, the major game company that Je-hwan's brother and father were running in its third generation, was in a state of freefall with no bottom in sight. And it was by Saturn, which had been treated as an outsider in the game industry.

Although they were hiding it with seemingly calm faces, Je-hwan knew that they were using every means to track down even the whereabouts of developers from years ago to dig into THE MIST. In fact, he had recently confirmed that they had tried to extract information using violent means even from people completely unrelated to this matter, and in his twisted mood, he had personally dealt with those trash subcontractors.

And Jin Seo-hwan also knew that Jin Je-hwan was digging into his background. The Circuit Eye attached to Jin Je-hwan was, in fact, half a warning from Jin Seo-hwan to him. Je-hwan thought it didn't matter, but he judged that the personal information of users progressing through the main quest should not be identified because of the Circuit Eye.

Je-hwan began a double operation of digging into THE MIST according to his original goal while simultaneously hiding the information he obtained to keep it from his father and brother. This was also why he left the Circuit Eye alone, which could have been easily shaken off if he had hacked and removed the control. It was the first time he had thought of taking a troublesome detour to protect something.

It might have been excessive worry, but Je-hwan had no faith whatsoever in his blood relatives. Once he acknowledged that man as currently the most precious to him, it was more important to block even a 1% possibility of him being in danger than the work itself.

To disguise the information that he was playing the game thoroughly alone, he faked his death and separated from the party when the right situation arose. He thought it was a good decision as the Circuit Eye was completed and attached just days later, but he had done something inexcusable to 'him' by pretending to be dead and cutting off contact without a word. The punch he actually received from him was quite painful.

After more than three months of conducting undercover work, piling up deceptions and lies, Je-hwan finally reported today as if he had just discovered the main quest that was certain to surface in MIST in the near future. If he could use this as an opportunity to return to him, the effort of taking this long detour would be rewarded.

He wanted to see him again, as he had actually seen him recently. This unfamiliar emotion was a first in his life. The sensation of being moved by a single living man, rather than the numbers he liked, or his bike, or VT programs, was so strange yet something he didn't want to let go of.