Ji-ho stared at the notification in shock, his eyes darting to Hyun-soo. "Hyun-soo ... I accidentally accepted it."
Hyun-soo's jaw dropped. "Wait, what?! How did—" He stopped, noticing Ji-ho's slightly panicked expression and the subtle, pleading look in his eyes.
Ji-ho gave him a sharp, urgent nod, silently begging him to accept as well.
"No way!" Hyun-soo hissed, frantically shaking his head as his ears pinned back. "I saw that rowdy guy bump you! It was an accident! Ji-ho, cancel it! There has to be a way to cancel it!"
"There is no cancel button," Ji-ho said, his voice dropping into a sharp, urgent whisper. His eyes were wide, fixed on his friend with a intensity that bordered on desperation.
Hyun-soo continued to shake his head, his hands hovering over his own translucent quest window as if it were a live bomb. "I don't care! I'm not clicking 'Yes'! This is insane, Ji-ho!"
Ji-ho leaned across the table, "Look at the corner of your vision. Do you see the notification?"
[ The God of Magic, Albus, is watching with great interest ]
Hyun-soo froze, his eyes darting to the side.
"If I go through with this and you don't, what do you think Albus would think?" Ji-ho pressured him, his gaze never wavering. "If you decline the quest, what do you think the penalty will be?"
Ji-ho leaned in, his voice dropping to a freezing whisper. "A fifty-percent reduction in all stats."
"I... I can't," Hyun-soo stammered, though his finger was now trembling near the button.
"Hyun-soo, listen to me," Ji-ho said, his expression becoming terrifyingly firm. "I didn't choose this, but the variable has changed. I also don't want this, but things happened for a reason."
Ji-ho leaned in even closer, his voice dropping to a low, cold whisper that cut through the tavern's noise.
"Remember, who asked me to play with you? It's you, right?"
Hyun-soo froze. The guilt hit him harder than any physical attack. He looked at Ji-ho's unwavering eyes and then at the crimson Yes button hovering in his vision. He was the one who dragged Ji-ho into this world, and now his friend was trapped in a death-contract because of an accident.
"I... I did," Hyun-soo stammered, his lip trembling as the weight of Ji-ho's words sank in. He looked at the glowing crimson window, his mind frantically spinning into a dozen different directions.
"But Ji-ho, think about it!" Hyun-soo hissed, leaning in so close their foreheads almost touched. "If I refuse this, I can stay 'clean.' I can be the one who talks to the Guild from the outside while you're... you know, doing the 'shadow' stuff. I could be your inside man!"
Ji-ho's eyes didn't even flicker. "If you decline, the penalty with the Barony applies to you alone. You'll be flagged as a hostile element while I'm moving with the Baron's authority. You won't be an 'inside man'; you'll be a liability in a jail cell."
"Then—what if I just ignore it?" Hyun-soo whispered, his eyes darting around the tavern. "If I don't click anything, the window just stays there, right? I won't be declining, so the penalty won't trigger, and I won't be accepting, so I'm not gonna kill someone either!"
Ji-ho's finger tapped the table with a sharp, rhythmic click. "The system auto-declines at the end of the timer, Hyun-soo. You'd just be delaying the inevitable imprisonment and wasting the only window we have to move together. It's a logistical dead end."
Hyun-soo let out a small, pathetic whimper. With a look of pure betrayal toward the rowdy NPC who had started all of this, he finally let his finger fall. Hyun-soo had no choice but to accept the quest as well.
Just as the crimson windows vanished, Lyra stepped up to the table, sliding two steaming platters of the Adventurer's Special in front of them. The rich, savory aroma of roasted meat and enchanted herbs immediately filled the table.
"Everything alright?" she asked, her head tilting as she noticed Hyun-soo's pale, sweat-beaded face and trembling hands. "You look like you just signed your soul away to a demon."
Ji-ho didn't miss a beat. He picked up his fork with a perfectly steady hand, his expression as cool as ever.
"He's just overwhelmed by the smell of the food," Ji-ho lied smoothly, his eyes meeting Lyra's with practiced calm. "It's, truly impressive. Thank you, Lyra."
Lyra giggled, seemingly satisfied with the answer. "Well, make sure he actually eats it instead of just staring at it! You'll need your strength if you're planning to leave town today."
With a playful wink, she turned back to the other customers, leaving the two of them alone with their meal.
After the meal, they slipped past the town walls and began a relentless, high-speed grind. They moved toward the Whispering Thicket, a dense, eerie forest bordering the western edge of the Sahara Plains.
To any onlooker, it was a pitiful sight. Ji-ho and Hyun-soo fought like madmen, their movements a blur of calculated violence. The forest monsters; the shadow panthers and thorn-beasts didn't stand a chance. They were being harvested rather than hunted.
Under the effects of a Medium EXP Potion, the golden bars of their level meters surged constantly. For hours, the only sounds were the crack of Hyun-soo's musket and the whistling of Ji-ho's spells slicing through the humid forest air.
As the last monster dissolved into pixels, Ji-ho finally called for a halt. They were deep within the Thicket, where the towering acacia trees blocked out the sun. They had been battling for hours without a single second of rest.
Hyun-soo collapsed against the rough bark of a tree, his chest heaving. "We've been at this for hours. I think my fingers are actually fused to the trigger."
Ji-ho leaned against his staff, his Butler's Vest slightly dusty but his eyes as sharp as ever. He pulled up the quest log, the crimson glow reflecting in his pupils.
[ Slay the Silestal Guild Master (A) ]
[ Time Remaining: 26 Hours, 10 Minutes Remaining ]
"We're done for the day," Ji-ho stated, his voice raspy from the dry forest air.
"Ten levels, we actually gained ten levels in a single sitting," Hyun-soo muttered, staring up at the canopy. "That medium EXP potion was the best. I've never seen a level bar move that fast."
Ji-ho didn't respond immediately. His eyes were already scanning a translucent blue interface of his profile.
He looked over at Hyun-soo, "Did you already allocate your stat points?" Ji-ho asked.
Hyun-soo jumped slightly, startled by the sudden question. He hurriedly pulled up his own profile. "Wait, I was so busy not dying that I completely forgot!"
He began mindlessly scrolling through his profile, his finger blurring as he flicked past each of the primary stats. One moment he was hovering over STR, thinking about the heavy recoil of his musket; the next, he was staring at DEX, wondering if his speed was the real issue and then his gaze drifted to CON, worried about his low HP.
"If I put it all in DEX, I'll be fast, but what if I get hit once and die because my CON is low? But if I put it in STR, my bullets hit harder, but I might be too slow to dodge..."
Hyun-soo's breathing became shallow as he stared at the primary stats. To him, it wasn't a menu; it was a headache-inducing puzzle. After three minutes of aggressive scrolling and incoherent muttering, his shoulders slumped. He let out a long, defeated groan and swiped the menu away.
"I give up," Hyun-soo said, flopping back onto the dry leaves of the Thicket. "Ji-ho, my brain is literally starting to smoke. If I pick the wrong one, I'll ruin my build forever."
He looked over at Ji-ho with a look of pure, helpless reliance.
"You do it. Just tell me where to put the points so I don't become a glass cannon that can't hit a barn door."
Ji-ho didn't even sigh. He had already expected this; to him, Hyun-soo's indecision was just a normal occurrence. He had already known this would happen the same way he knew the sun would set.
"Save them," Ji-ho commanded, surprising Hyun-soo.
Hyun-soo blinked, his finger hovering over his profile screen. "Wait, what? Why are we holding?"
"Because committing to a build right now is a death sentence," Ji-ho said, his voice dropping into a low, clinical whisper. "We're Level 14-15 at the moment. The Guild Master is an unknown variable."
He leaned in, the blue light of the menu reflecting in his calculating eyes.
"If you allocate now, you're guessing," Ji-ho explained, his finger tapping the air as if dissecting a complex equation. "If we dump everything into Strength and Dexterity, only to find out the Guild Master is a high-speed specialist, your entire build becomes a liability. We can't see his stats, his class, or his resistances yet."
Hyun-soo's ears twitched as he watched the window vanish. He shifted his weight, looking back toward the distant silhouette of Silestal Town.
"But Ji-ho," Hyun-soo started, his voice dropping into a hopeful, slightly desperate tone. "If we're this blind, why don't we just head back and ask Lyra? She probably knows the Guild Master's favorite breakfast, let alone his combat style. It would be a lot faster than 'observing' him from a bush."
Ji-ho's response was instantaneous, a sharp retort that cut Hyun-soo off before he could even finish the thought.
"Use your brain, Hyun-soo. Who do you think Lyra works for? If we just blatantly ask around, it's just advertising that we accepted the quest."
"Lyra is the head waitress of the tavern. If the hub is under the Guild Master's control, then her primary loyalty is to the very man we've been ordered to kill. Remember how hostile she was towards the Baron?"
Hyun-soo's bear ears slumped, the weight of the logic sinking in.
"Right. Stalking the boss of the tavern sounds like a bad idea," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the rustle of the thicket. "I'll just keep my mouth shut then."
The realization hit him like a physical blow. If Lyra was the Guild Master's eyes and ears, his "shortcut" would have been a direct invitation to their own execution.
Ji-ho replied flatly, "Awareness of the error is the first step toward survival. We don't outsource our intelligence to variables we can't control. We see it for ourselves, or we don't act."
The brief respite didn't last. With the A-Rank quest timer still a relentless reminder in their vision, the two continued their hunt, pushing deeper into the Whispering Thicket.
————— *** —————
The sun began its final descent, casting long, blood-orange shadows across the stone floor of the Baron's private study. Inside the estate, the air was thick with a predatory stillness. Baron Rael sat by the massive hearth dressed in a tunic of midnight-blue velvet, silver thread shimmering like frost along the edges with his cream silk shirt remained unbuttoned at the collar.
A rhythmic tapping filled the room. It was the sound of his fingers against the hilt of his blue-hilted sword.
"My Lord," a knight rumbled, stepping into the dim light. "There has been no movement from the two adventurers since they vanished into the thicket."
Rael didn't look up. His eyes remained fixed on the flickering embers in the fireplace. "They didn't run, did they?"
"Our scouts lost them in the Whispering Thicket, my Lord. They move with an unnatural speed, even for their kind."
The Baron let out a low, amused huff. He rose from his chair, his movements fluid and economical, the grace of a former mercenary who had survived a thousand battles. He walked to the window, staring out at the dark silhouette of the forest.
"I don't care about their speed," Rael whispered, his voice cold and expectant. "What I want is that butler from the tavern. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew he was the only one who could finish this quest."
The Baron poured a glass of dark wine, the liquid shimmering like blood in the firelight.
"I wonder if they are worthy of my time," his eyes never leaving the dark silhouette of the forest where the two were currently hiding.
[ Slay the Silestal Guild Master (A) ]
[ Time Remaining: 2 Hours, 17 Minutes Remaining ]