Oath: Statue.
Oath: Haah, those near the northern statue, please hit it once.
[Squad] Vice Commander-Oath’s Vow: Ranged dealers near the northern statue, focus your attacks.
[Guild] Oath’s Vow: Where did you find that person?
“Wait, just a moment.”
[Squad] GreenTea: ??
[Squad] BrutusEvenYou: Didn’t the commander just say something???
[Squad] Heart: Hold on, isn’t this getting weird?
Sa-yoon wanted to reply in chat, but he couldn’t. Ares, now in the 75% phase, was relentlessly beating down on the frail Warlock. Since Warlocks had their hands full during combat, they barely had time to type in chat.
That wasn’t the only problem.
[Whisper] GreenLight: Vice Commander-Oath’s Vow: Chasa, Red Slate.
[Whisper] WhiteNoise: Red Slate.
[Whisper] WhiteNoise: Red Slate.
[Whisper] WhiteNoise: Red Slate.
[Whisper] WhiteNoise: Red Slate.
[Whisper] GreenLight: Hahaha, damn, you didn’t fall for it.
[Whisper] RedAlert: Why aren’t you commanding? Are you just a figurehead?
Even annoying pests were chiming in through whispers, messing with Sa-yoon’s focus. This wasn’t even the right moment to use the Red Slate.
Normally, he would’ve just ignored them, but between handling an unfamiliar skill, following commands, and responding to Oath’s messages, his hands were already full. The troublemakers, taking advantage of the chaos to bait him into a mistake, only made him frown in irritation.
[The northern statue has been destroyed. The enraged war god Ares has been weakened.]
Fortunately, this time, the statue crumbled at the same moment its eyes glowed.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: Ah~ sorry, sorry… My grandfather called…
And, just like before, DolgaengiGuk showed up the moment the statue was destroyed. Flashy fingers, yet failing to do his job properly.
[Whisper] RedAlert: So, when are you using the Red Slate?
[Whisper] WhiteNoise: Red Slate~
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: There’s been some trouble at home, the calls just won’t stop.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: The timing, seriously…
“Won’t stop?” A shitty thought flashed through Sa-yoon’s mind. These bastards…
Even in the midst of chaos, his eyes quickly scanned the chat, narrowing slightly. Sure, Noise wasn’t the only one in the world who confused ‘안’ (an) and ‘않’ (ahn), but it was definitely suspicious enough to investigate.
Sa-yoon casually threw out bait. After all, a person can change their outward appearance, but not what’s inside.
[Whisper] Chasa: It’s ‘않,’ not ‘안.’
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: I’ll handle my grammar myself;
The response was identical, word for word, to the reaction last time when he got called out on his spelling. That shitty thought turned into certainty.
As far as Sa-yoon knew, Noise had poured hundreds into his gear, enough that people sometimes joked he climbed the rankings purely through equipment.
And in cases like that, people almost never actually delete a character just because they lost a deletion match. Maybe one in a hundred actually follows through.
The fact that he ran with his tail between his legs the moment he lost, instead of deleting his character, said it all. He had probably waited for people to lose interest before using an appearance change ticket and a nickname change to wipe his past clean.
That part, Sa-yoon had already predicted.
What he hadn’t expected was that this piece of trash would go so far as to use an entirely new character just to mess with him again.
At 74%, Ares turned his attacks back onto Oath. With a brief moment of free time, Sa-yoon opened the squad info window and began typing on his keyboard.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: This time, I swear I can do it well….
[Whisper] Chasa: You can do it well?
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: Yep.
[Whisper] Chasa: Lol, yeah, no.
They really think that just because I stayed quiet, I’m some pushover.
Sa-yoon wasn’t the type to let things slide when someone came at him head-on.
[Commander ‘Chasa’ has removed ‘DolgaengiGuk’ from the statue combat unit.]
[Guild] Oath’s Vow: Did you just remove someone from the statue unit?]
Oath: Chasa?
“I’ll explain later.”
Oath, seeing the removal notification, reached out, but Sa-yoon put off explaining for now. It was time to deal with this little pest.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: Huh?
[Whisper] Chasa: Hey, man.
[Whisper] Chasa: If your family’s in crisis,
[Whisper] Chasa: And you’re getting nonstop calls because of it,
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: No, wait—
[Whisper] Chasa: Shouldn’t you be with your grandparents instead of sitting here?
[Whisper] Chasa: They’ve been looking for you all this time.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: I told you, I have my own circumstances.
[Whisper] Chasa: Ohh~ your grandparents
[Whisper] Chasa: They’re the ones calling, right?
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: What, you don’t pick up when your family calls?
[Whisper] Chasa: Don’t start with that ‘family’ bullshit.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: It’s not an excuse.
[Whisper] Chasa: You ever seen
[Whisper] Chasa: A grave without an excuse?^^
[Whisper] Chasa: Just go home and take care of your damn household.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: It’s not like I did it on purpose;
[Whisper] Chasa: Iz,
[Whisper] Chasa: Stop using your family as a damn shield, lol.
[Whisper] Chasa: You keep dragging them into your lies,
[Whisper] Chasa: Doesn’t it make you feel even a little bad for them?
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: Ha, f***ing hell, lololololol.
[Whisper] DolgaengiGuk: Let’s see how well you do.
[Whisper] Chasa: Yep, later~
[The other party is now offline.]
Sa-yoon called out Noise’s name one last time, mocking him. Whether it was because he realized he’d been caught or just out of sheer frustration, DolgaengiGuk swore and immediately logged off. A reaction that couldn’t have been more telling.
Trying to pull some cheap trick when he couldn’t even handle the consequences.
The moment Noise disappeared, Sa-yoon took a screenshot for evidence. Then, he systematically blocked WhiteNoise, RedAlert, GreenLight, and the rest of the Noize guild members who had been spamming him with whispers.
After months of enduring Killer’s whisper harassment, he had developed an impressive speed for blocking people. Should he be grateful for that…?
Oath: For now, when the northern statue spawns, just hit it once.
As the expected statue spawn time approached, Oath let out a sigh and laid out a simple solution. Once a siege battle began, the statue combat unit couldn’t be changed anymore, leaving them with no other choice.
“I’m sorry.”
Technically, Sa-yoon was the commander, but in reality, Oath was the one shouldering all the responsibilities. Even though DolgaengiGuk had deliberately sabotaged them, removing him without discussing it first had been Sa-yoon’s mistake.
Oath: Yeah.
Oath stayed silent for a long moment before finally giving a short response.
Oath: I’ll just leave the statue alone.
“…What?”
Leave the statue alone? But in the third phase, eight statues would spawn in total.
[Statues are appearing.]
Before Oath could give a proper explanation, the third wave of statues emerged. Naturally, Sa-yoon’s gaze shot toward the northern statue.
Oath: Chasa, attack.
Because of that distraction, his skill misfired.
“Ah!”
Just before the protective barrier could form, Ares’ spear pierced straight through Chasa.
[The Demon’s Trickery has been activated.]
[High-ranking demon Hagenti returns to hell.]
Oath: Heal support, please. Chasa currently has aggro.
With the summoned creature forcibly dismissed, an extra life was lost. Sa-yoon desperately spammed his skills. Of course, that wouldn’t make them activate any faster, but the urgency gnawed at him.
[Combat] Commander-exclusive skill Barrier is activated. Incoming attacks will be nullified for 10 seconds.
Thankfully, the barrier formed just before the next attack landed. Ares’ strike crashed down onto the delayed barrier.
Only then did Sa-yoon take in his surroundings—there were six statues now. Someone had already destroyed two.
Statue combatants received an additional 10% attack power buff during siege defense. Since breaking statues meant missing out on combat, it was a form of compensation.
But he had just removed a statue combatant.
Which meant someone was out there destroying them without any reward, willingly taking a loss.
To ensure smooth combat, Sa-yoon had set all visual options to the lowest settings before the siege started—minimum graphics, hidden player characters, and even disabled name displays. Because of this, he had no way of identifying the player between the statues.
Who the hell…? Who would willingly take such a loss…?
His thoughts were cut short.
The barrier protecting Chasa had disappeared.
There was no time to waste. Sa-yoon immediately activated a defensive skill, blocking the next crushing blow. Even as he defended, a suspicion crept in.
There was one reason he had assumed it couldn’t be Killer.
During the siege meeting, they had made a promise.
To guarantee that the enemy would be swiftly eliminated, Oath had removed Killer—the strongest damage dealer in the main party—from the statue unit.
Even with the 10% attack buff, the loss of DPS from traveling back and forth to destroy statues outweighed the gain. The plan was to let Killer focus entirely on dealing damage, maximizing the party’s score.
Which meant…
The invisible statue destroyer shouldn’t have been Killer.
He shouldn’t have been.
[‘Killer’ tells ‘Chasa’ to just trust him.]
Shouldn’t have been…
“You crazy bastard…!”
