Stalkerizing

Shin-jae could, of course, check the existing customization as well. His eyes trembled slightly as he stared at the screen. Just yesterday, when he had been sitting right next to him, watching those emotions spill out, he hadn’t given this place a second thought.

Between Chasa and Killer, an NPC named NC walked in. NC was a specialist in appearance customization and was constantly moving around the narrow indoor space. He was close enough that there wasn’t even a need to use the keyboard to move.

All it would take was a single click of the mouse to talk to her, and then—he could finally see Chasa’s long-awaited customization. Maybe even every single past modification as well.

Shin-jae’s gaze shifted toward the closed door. Outside, the faint clinking of utensils suggested someone was still preparing tea.

Was this how Eve had felt when the apple was held out to her? He could hear himself swallow, the sound unnervingly loud. His lips were dry.

At that moment, a system message popped up in the chat window.

[47 hours have passed since login. You will be automatically disconnected in 5 minutes.]

Divine forcibly logged players out after 48 consecutive hours, claiming it was for their health. A blatant contradiction, considering they were the ones running login reward events.

Because of this, players had to reboot their connection at least once before hitting the 48-hour mark. This message meant that Sa-yoon had been logged in for exactly 47 hours and 55 minutes. In five minutes, the game would shut down on its own.

Then… couldn’t he just take a quick look before that? Just a glance—surely, that wouldn’t hurt? The devil’s whisper curled through his thoughts.

Thump. Thump. His heart pounded violently, a presence he usually forgot was even there. His gaze flickered toward the door again. It felt like any second now, Sa-yoon would walk through it.

After a brief hesitation, Shin-jae reached out his hand.

***

While Shin-jae was battling the devil in his mind, Sa-yoon was waging war against an electric kettle.

“Why the hell isn’t this working?”

The power was on, but the water refused to boil. He should have known something was up when he found the kettle shoved all the way to the topmost shelf of the kitchen cabinet. It had taken him ages to even find the damn thing.

Someone had definitely broken it and hidden it away. The culprit was bound to be whoever conveniently brought home a brand-new kettle today. As he ran through three possible suspects in his mind, Sa-yoon finally gave up and pulled out a pot instead.

“Sunbae.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s done.”

Just as he finally poured the vigorously boiled water into the cup after much struggle, he spoke the typical lie used by delivery workers. It wasn’t anywhere near done—the shriveled tea leaves hadn’t even begun to unfurl.

“I have something urgent to take care of, so I need to go.”

Shin-jae suddenly emerged and said that with such a rigid expression that Sa-yoon reflexively nodded without thinking. That left him with two untouched cups of black tea.

***

‘For a first message after leaving like that, this is completely out of nowhere!’

At this hour? Out of the blue? Did he really miss Sesame that much? Maybe he was worried after only seeing the kitten scared and uneasy in a strange home on the first day after discharge. Seriously, the more he got to know him, the more Shin-jae felt like an overly soft-hearted twenty-year-old…

The kitten he was so concerned about was now sprawled out in the middle of Sa-yoon’s bed, sleeping without a care in the world.

Thinking simply, Sa-yoon carefully snapped a photo, making sure there was no shutter sound, then sent it. After that, he turned his attention back to the monitor.

“Huh?”

He had assumed the guild members had gone off to do their own thing after the territorial battle, but the chat window was still blazing with activity.

[Server] Shokrates: Divine doesn’t enforce the shutdown system? It’s past 10 PM—why are the whiny little brats who threaten to tell their moms still online? ㅇㅅㅜ

[Server] GegulGegulFrog: Thought I wouldn’t have to see Mandarin installed, but I should’ve known—the law of conservation of dumbasses remains unchallenged.

[Server] Shokrates: Yeah, well, my parents are living a peaceful life~

[Server] GegulGegulFrog: You clearly have no clue what Confucianism is.

[Server] LargeMonitor: Wow, the level of family insults here is something else.

Sa-yoon retraced the events before checking his messages.

After the battle ended, Noize had thrown out a casual taunt—”Good job playing puppet leader~”—a typical jab. It was just the kind of petty bitterness expected from sore losers who had lost their commander. Nothing to get worked up over, especially since Oath’s Vow had been the one actually leading.

But for things to escalate into a fight with personal insults flying?

[Server] furple: Do people here think the server board is some kind of national complaints hotline? ㅜ

[Server] GegulGegulFrog: Stop crying and write it in your diary! Your homeroom teacher might even give you a ‘Great Job!’ stamp~

Instead of jumping into the chat blindly, Sa-yoon observed the flow of the conversation first. From experience, there was always a reason when seemingly normal people suddenly let their true colors show.

[Server] Freedeal: At this point, how about renaming your nickname to ‘Beggar’ or ‘Zombie’?

[Server] Oath’s Vow: This isn’t some round-robin song—aren’t you tired of repeating the same insult over and over? Swearing: 10 points. Creativity: 0 points. Total grade: F 🙂

Weren’t these guys supposed to be weak-willed office workers? Freedeal and Oath’s Vow were also locked in battle against invisible enemies.

The fact that the chat wasn’t showing up on Sa-yoon’s screen meant only one thing—they were talking to users he had blocked.

There were so many blocked users that he couldn’t even tell who they were arguing with anymore. But even without seeing it, he had a strong hunch that Killer was in that mess as well.

[Server] angryDonut: Chasa-nim, care to explain the personal insults on the server board?~~~
http://divine.board/1923935

And just like that, the reason for this whole mess became crystal clear.

Some low-level alt account, clearly made for sniping, had gone out of its way to even bring a link, demanding an explanation from Sa-yoon. Judging by how the guild members were losing their minds over it, it was obviously a smear attempt. And considering the territorial battle had just ended, the odds of it being connected were a solid 100%.

If they were generous enough to hand over the link like this, he might as well take advantage of it. With his deduction complete in seconds, Sa-yoon clicked the link.

Sure enough, a familiar nickname popped up.

[Cygnus] The kind of commander who throws family insults during a battle
Posted by: DdolgaengiGuk

“…Wow.”

For Noise, who usually couldn’t even get basic grammar right, this was a surprisingly well-crafted title. But for someone like Sa-yoon—who had already drawn every kind of aggro possible as a Warlock—this was just another dime-a-dozen provocation.

Did they really expect him to shake with rage over this? Falling for such an obvious bait was rookie behavior.

The post itself was exactly what he anticipated: a stitched-together mess of cherry-picked whisper screenshots, hacked up and edited for maximum distortion.

[Whisper] Chasa: Ah~ Grandpa, Grandma.

[Whisper] Chasa: Where’s your grave located? ^^

[Whisper] Chasa: If there’s misfortune at home…

[Whisper] Chasa: You should go visit your grandparents.

[Whisper] Chasa: Mister.

[Whisper] Chasa: Don’t start spouting crap about ‘family.’

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Sa-yoon let out a dry chuckle as he read the post.

No wonder the other side had been rambling about family and making a fuss with pointless excuses. This was supposed to be their big gotcha? Their attempt at leading him into a trap had completely flopped, and now they were left with nothing but a pitifully patched-up fabrication.

Below the screenshots were a few lines of whining. Something about how they had tried their best and how unfair this all was—blah, blah, blah.

“Why is it that idiots like these always resort to emotional appeals?”

Reading garbage like this was a waste of time, so he scrolled down in one swift motion.

Most of the replies were neutral, with people saying they couldn’t judge without seeing the original screenshots.

Until now, Sa-yoon hadn’t considered Cygnus to be a completely trash-tier server, but ever since he started working with the Reaper guild, he realized just how ridiculous things were here.

“If I’d known earlier, I would’ve bailed to a popular server ages ago.”

Maybe he should drop everything and start fresh, with a brand-new mindset?

Muttering to himself, Sa-yoon clicked on the reply box, opened his screenshot folder, and attached the full, unedited conversation log. He didn’t bother adding any explanation.

Then, he switched back to the game screen.

[Guild] Shokrates: damn

[Guild] Shokrates: Our guild leader looks pissed.

[Guild] Shokrates: Did he just talk about switching servers??

[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: Whoa.

[Guild] Shokrates: If our guild leader moves servers, do we follow?

[Guild] Furple: The problem isn’t the transfer cost.

[Guild] Shokrates: True, if I put in all that effort and some lunatics started pulling this kind of bullshit, I’d be mad too.

[Guild] Oath’s Vow: There’s no helping fools who are both dumb and stubborn.

[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: But like, y’know…

[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: I don’t think our guild leader realizes his mic is on right now.

[Guild] Shokrates: Ah shit.

[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: Hurry up and tell him!

[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: Heave—

[Guild] Shokrates: Ho—

[Guild] Freedeal: Screw the heave-ho, the reply just went up.

“…Ah, the mic.”

Come to think of it, after the territorial battle ended, he had disbanded the squad but completely forgot to leave voice chat.

When he pulled up the voice chat window, he saw that, thankfully, only the guild members were gathered there.

They must’ve heard everything. Feeling a bit sheepish, Sa-yoon scratched just below his eye.

“I’m not really mad. Their level is just too low to take seriously. Don’t bother engaging—just block them.”

He spoke in a calm tone, but at the same time, he opened his blocklist and began unblocking a few names that seemed relevant.

If he wanted to properly crush them, he needed evidence.

While he was at it, he also removed Killer from his blocklist. If he was unblocking even these kinds of bastards, then there was no reason to keep Killer blocked either. Compared to the disgusting mess Noize had created, Killer’s past actions felt almost quaint now.

[Guild] Oath’s Vow: Best way to deal with idiots is to ignore them.

[Guild] Freedeal: Then what does that make Inseong, who actually argued with them?

[Guild] Oath’s Vow: LOL.

“If you guys are pissed, how about a round of King Hunt?”

Small, low-population servers like this had their own advantages.

“If we queue up now, we might match against them. This is about the time they’d be doing King Hunt.”

The best part? Sniping their match was totally possible.