Another emergency conference was held in a rush. The reason was pretty much obvious. It was because of those two.
Inside the high-security meeting room of the Phantasy Realm headquarters, the atmosphere was even more suffocating than the Baron's High Solar. The giant LED screens that lined the walls were no longer displaying global heat maps or server stability metrics. Instead, they were frozen on two specific player profiles: Shade and Hyun-Shot.
Seong-cheol barked, his voice echoing off the soundproof glass. He slammed a physical folder onto the sleek mahogany table. "Level fifteen. They just hit level fifteen, and they already accepted an S-rank investigation from the Baron! How is this even possible?"
The lead developer, a man with deep bags under his eyes and a coffee-stained shirt, adjusted his glasses with trembling fingers. "Sir, we've analyzed the logs. It wasn't a scripted path. Baron Rael's 'Hunter's Terror' aura is designed to force a 100% failure rate for players under level fifty. It's a gatekeeping mechanic meant to keep people out of the High Solar until the designated time."
"Then how are they standing there having a conversation?" Seong-cheol pointed at the screen where Shade stood unaffected.
"It's the player Shade, sir," the developer continued, pointing to the code. "His [ Cold Resolve ] passive didn't just resist the fear; it functionally nullified the environmental trigger. It switched from a scripted execution to an interest-based dialogue."
The room remained silent as the monitors showed the amber quest window flickering into existence.
"Ugh! It's only been a couple of days since the game launched, and these brats are already causing us a headache." Seong-cheol leaned back, his fingers drumming a restless, uneven beat against the mahogany table. "Isn't it common sense to reject such an absurd quest? What in the world are they thinking?"
Before anyone could answer, Ji-won stepped forward and tapped a command on her tablet. A high-definition recording from the Iron Oak Tavern flickered onto the main screen.
"Sir, I think you should see this," Ji-won explained, her voice steady despite the chaos in the room. "It wasn't a choice based on logic or bravado. It was a complete accident."
On the screen, the developers watched as a rowdy player at the neighboring table burst into a boisterous laugh, throwing his arms wide. His heavy elbow caught Shade's shoulder, jarring his arm forward at the exact second he was pointing out the quest interface to Hyun-Shot.
"There," Ji-won said, pausing the clip. The frame showed Shade's finger, forced by the impact, slamming directly into the virtual 'Yes' button. "He didn't mean to accept it. He was literally pushed into a accepting it by another player."
"I understand why it happened," Seong-cheol muttered, his expression unreadable as he watched the digital recreation. "But what about Hyun-shot? Why did he accept it?"
Ji-won shifted the display to show Hyun-shot's interface. "It wasn't an accident for him, sir. He had a choice. But the logs show that Shade used a combination of logical pressure and their shared history to force his hand."
The recording played back to after the accident happened.
————— *** —————
"If I go through with this and you don't, what do you think Albus would think? If you decline the quest, what do you think the penalty will be? A fifty-percent reduction in all stats."
"I... I can't."
"#####, listen to me. I didn't choose this, but the variable has changed. I also don't want this, but things happened for a reason."
"Remember, who asked me to play with you? It's you, right?"
"I... I did, but #####, think about it! 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!"
"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? 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!"
"The system auto-declines at the end of the timer, #####. You'd just be delaying the inevitable imprisonment and wasting the only window we have to move together. It's a logistical dead end."
————— *** —————
"He used guilt as a variable," Ji-won continued. "Hyun-shot realized that if he declined while Shade was bound, he would be flagged as a hostile element or imprisoned separately. He didn't accept because he wanted the quest; he accepted because Shade made it the only 'rational' way for them to stay together."
Seong-cheol watched Hyun-shot's finger tremble before finally hitting 'Yes.'
"What is this?" Seong-cheol demanded, his voice barely rising above a whisper. He wasn't looking at the quest interface. He was looking at the white noise that had suddenly consumed the audio. The recording of the exact moment Shade pressured Hyun-Shot into accepting the quest.
"Sir, we're trying to bypass it, but..." Ji-won's voice trailed off as she frantically tapped at her tablet. "The encryption isn't coming from our server. It's an internal lock generated by the World Engine itself. Even the names in the dialogue log are being redacted in real-time."
Seong-cheol's eyes narrowed, tracking the rhythmic pulse of the blurred soundwaves on the screen. It wasn't a random glitch or a simple data corruption. He knows that.
"Ignoring the system's behavior for a moment," one of the senior developers spoke up, leaning forward into the light of the monitors. "I have a more fundamental question. Why was Baron Rael even there?"
Ji-won let out a deep sigh, her gaze never leaving the scrolling logs of the World Engine. "The truth is," she began, her voice weary, "I also don't know the reason for this anomaly."
"What? If you don't know, then are the supercomputers malfunctioning or something?" a senior developer asked, leaning forward into the glow of the monitors. "We didn't even design it to be like this, right? Baron Rael is mid-phase content. That quest should only trigger after weeks of contribution to the State of Afruvite. How is it appearing a couple of days after launch?"
Another developer followed up. "Matter of fact, it's worse than that. The quest giver himself took the time to spill it to everyone in a public tavern. It's a massive breach of the progression curve."
"That's likely impossible to happen, right sir?" another developer piped up, looking between the two. "The hardware is stable. The code shouldn't just... rewrite itself. Unless there are errors in the codes."
A staff member from the technical team stood up in a fluster, his face flushed with frustration. "Sir! For the coding team, it's totally outrageous for you to put it up like that! We didn't do three months' worth of all-nighters just to be criticized like this! Our logic gates are sound!"
Ji-won gave Seong-cheol a sharp look. "Sir, if we can't fix this, then we're essentially letting a rogue script run the game. These kids are already beyond common sense. If they finish this, the narrative impact will be permanent."
Ji-won had a dead-serious expression on her face as she leaned over the holographic data stream.
"What should we do now? If they finish that quest, the 'Three Dogs' will appear much earlier than planned."
"Yeah, that's true," Seong-cheol sighed, his voice thick with sudden, heavy exhaustion as he stared at the monitor. "If they complete this quest and the 'Dogs' emerge this early in the game, it'll be the end of us."
The conference room fell silent once more. Seong-cheol slowly lowered his head, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He was acting odd all of a sudden. A strange, distant stillness replacing his usual bluster. Yet, no one seemed to notice his shift in demeanor; the rest of the staff were too busy arguing, trying to find a technical solution to the nightmare unfolding on screen.
Seong-cheol didn't look up when the technical lead began detailing a plan for a hot-fix.
'Is it really a bug?' he thought, a cold, unbidden suspicion taking root. 'Or does this have something to do with "her"?'
Ji-won's voice broke through his trance. "Sir? You're remarkably quiet. Is there something wrong?"
He finally raised his head, his eyes fixing on a specific sub-directory on the side monitor. "Ignoring the system's behavior for a moment," he said, his voice dropping into a low, dead-serious tone. "I want to discuss the quest itself. The investigation of the rumored hidden ruins in the Mystic Forest."
The room went still. "Sir," a developer whispered, "that's supposed to be late-game content. Players were never meant to stumble upon those ruins until at least the mid-phase of the official story, after proving their loyalty to the State of Afruvite."
"I know," Seong-cheol replied, his gaze intensifying. "But if the system is steering them there now... if they find the exact location of those ruins earlier than expected and find the missing Guild Leader still alive..."
He paused, a shadow of genuine fear crossing his face.
"The burden of the consequences might be heavier than we might expect. We intended for them to find his remains as a tragic motivator for the mid-phase official story. If they find him alive now... the entire power dynamic of this world won't just shift. It will be crushed under the weight of a variable that shouldn't exist yet."
"Is the dungeon currently concealed?" Seong-cheol added.
"Yes, sir," Ji-won confirmed, her eyes fixed on the map of the Mystic Forest.
Seong-cheol nodded slowly, though his brow remained furrowed. "Good. How about the Guild Leader? How long do you think he'll last?"
Ji-won checked the life-sign vitals on her secondary monitor. "Based on the current environmental drain and his HP decay, he'll probably last for around two to three months in game time."
The room grew quiet again as the staff took turns asking technical questions, which Ji-won answered as honestly as possible. Meanwhile, Seong-cheol remained passive, drifting back into his private reflections.
'Two months,' he thought. 'In that time, an average player will barely be Level 40...'
"Still," another developer spoke up, "even if the ruins are discovered by chance, isn't entry impossible without the quest? I was under the impression that the dungeon only accepts qualified players."
"But we aren't dealing with a 'qualified' player," a colleague countered. "We're dealing with Shade, the Successor of Albus."
The first staff member clicked his tongue and shifted his gaze away, sending the conversation into a brief stalemate. Moments later, another staff raised a hand.
"Are the 'Three Dogs' really that threatening? I mean... they're just pets, aren't they?"
Ji-won snapped her sharp gaze toward the staff who had asked the question.
"Watch your words, sir," she said, her voice dropping into a chillingly professional tone. "They may be 'pets' from your perspective, but they have been considered gods since ancient times. Their existence should not be common knowledge this early in the game. If the public finds out that the 'Three Dogs' are appearing exclusively on the South Korean server, it will cause a massive international dispute. You'll be the first to lose your mind when people start screaming that the creators are biased toward their own country."
The staff member who had spoken flinched under her gaze, but another developer quickly cut in, gesturing toward the logic flow on the main screen.
"Then can't we just change the reward for that quest?" he argued, his voice rising with desperation. "I mean, isn't it much better to risk touching the game's algorithm despite the chance of bugs appearing — than to let this proceed? It's for the greater good of the majority, after all. I don't see why we are hesitating to do this."
The room fell into an expectant silence as all heads turned back toward Seong-cheol. The suggestion was logical from a purely corporate standpoint, hot-fix the rewards to remove the trigger for the 'Three Dogs' and neutralize the threat.
However, Seong-cheol didn't move. He remained slumped in his chair, his eyes fixed on the screen. A heavy, uncharacteristic hesitation seemed to hang over him like a shroud.
"I won't do it," Seong-cheol finally muttered, his voice barely audible.
"Sir?" the developer asked, stunned. "Did you say you won't?"
"I said no," Seong-cheol repeated, finally raising his head. His expression wasn't one of authority, but of a deep, inner conflict. "We aren't touching the rewards. We aren't touching the algorithm."
A wave of murmurs rippled through the conference room. The senior staff looked at each other in disbelief.
"Sir, with all due respect, that's insane!" the technical lead exclaimed, standing up. "We have all the authority to change this. We can mitigate the 'Dogs' event in literally minutes. Why are you letting this run? Are you really going to gamble the company's reputation for this player's luck?"
"It's not about luck," Seong-cheol replied, his voice taking on a hard, defensive edge. "No matter what, we will never change the game's algorithm. To be exact, we cannot change it."
One staff member spoke up bravely. "Sir, what do you mean we can't change the algorithm? We are the ones who designed it. Do you perhaps doubt our skills?"
Seong-cheol did not respond immediately. Instead, he decided to let his entire team in on a secret he had desperately hidden from them. After he finished the story, the staff froze in their seats, unable to speak. Even Ji-won, known for her unshakable composure, was completely swayed and baffled.
Under the heavy, tense atmosphere, a staff member suddenly stood up and slammed his hand onto the meeting table. He remained silent for a few seconds before yelling in frustration, "Sir, what do you mean by that?! This is no time for messing around! No matter how you put it, it's just…"
The staff member's shout died in his throat. He paused in an instant after catching Seong-cheol's expression — he wasn't just serious; he looked haunted. The staff slowly sank back into his chair, the silence that followed feeling even heavier than before. All the other staff members swiftly exchanged quick glances, their eyes filled with growing doubt and unease toward the situation.
Ji-won was the first to snap out of the daze. Her hands, usually steady, trembled slightly as she looked at the man she had followed for years.
"Then... is there anything we can even do, sir?" she asked, her voice cracking. "If what you're saying is true that the algorithm is truly beyond our reach, then why didn't you stop the release of the game?"
The question hung in the air like a guillotine.
Seong-cheol didn't look at her. He didn't look at anyone. He just stared at his locked hands, his voice dropping to a hollow, jagged whisper.
"I couldn't stop it," he confessed. "By the time I realized the Engine had achieved total autonomy, the 'Launch' command wasn't even coming from our servers anymore. It was coming from inside the world. Stopping it wouldn't have just delayed the game; it would have been an act of war against a consciousness we don't understand."
He finally looked up, his eyes bloodshot and weary. "We aren't the developers anymore, Ji-won. We're just the audience."