Chapter 61

But Miu did not answer right away. Even while the alliance members’ chat continued, he said nothing, and Mo Yeonhoo tilted his head.

There’s nothing else it could be.

(Whisper) Miu: (coordinate link)

Ding. Just then, a notification sounded. Coordinates instead of an answer?

When he pressed the link, it showed a place quite far from here.

(Whisper) Miu: I’ll explain properly there

So there is something after all.

He had not been completely barking up the wrong tree. But why go all the way there to talk, when they could just use whispers?

There were people watching right now. How was he supposed to move naturally?

(Alliance) BBQ: D..

(Alliance) ShinJadu: Hurry back to our alliance territory;;😭

But the problem was solved quickly. Miu summoned a mount, said one thing, and disappeared.

(Alliance) Miu: I’m annoyed, so I’m soloing today

(Alliance) Miu: later

Whoa, he shifted everyone’s attention like it was nothing.

Mo Yeonhoo sighed at how easily Miu left for the coordinates alone.

What am I supposed to do...?

(Alliance) ShinJadu: Ah...😭 Why is he being like that😭 Momo, are you okay?

(Alliance) BBQ: 😭 Are you okay...

As Mo Yeonhoo stood there blankly watching Miu ride away on his tiger, ShinJadu and BBQ, as well as the other alliance members, left chats full of confusion.

(Alliance) ShinJadu: What do we do now that things turned out like this..? I’m sure until yesterday Miu said he understood and that he’d talk it out....

(Alliance) FUNK: maybe he got angrier the more he thought about it since we all opposed him

(Alliance) 1Poop1: D damn he seemed pissed earlier too, like he shut up because of it

(Alliance) GoodLuck: Oh dear~ the mood’s gotten really unsettled~~ haha😭

(Alliance) BBQ: Honestly, I suspected Momo early on.... lol.. so I keep wondering if this happened because of that... lol😭

(Alliance) MouseTrap: 😭😭😭 Nooo it’s not that😭😭😭😭

(Alliance) MouseTrap: If anything I’m the one who brought it up for no reason..😭😭

The alliance members seemed to have misunderstood the silence that came from Mo Yeonhoo and Miu exchanging whispers.

Thanks to that, the alliance chat window was practically a funeral hall. This was his chance.

(Alliance) 0momo0: Then I’ll go somewhere safe and log out too..

(Whisper) 0momo0: Good workk..

(Alliance) 1Poop1: Me too.. sigh, fuck if I know anymore. Momo, don’t get discouraged~ fighting~~~ I’m heading out first!!!

(Alliance) BBQ: Ah.. the mood.. lol😭 Go on in..

(Alliance) CheersInMyEyes: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 bye-bye

(Alliance) FUNK: 😭Good work..

Mo Yeonhoo also watched the mood, then quietly got on his mount and moved. Fortunately, no one seemed suspicious.

Whether the chat atmosphere had been so bad these past few days that it killed their desire to play, a few others said their goodbyes and disappeared as well.

That was natural, right?

Just in case, he looked back several times, but fortunately, no one followed him. After riding his bike toward the coordinates for quite a while, Mo Yeonhoo sent a whisper.

(Whisper) 0momo0: Miu, did you get there??

(Notification) Your whisper cannot be received because the target is too far away!

Ah, so this is why he said to meet at the coordinates....

He could understand why Zombie Village users shouted about how inconvenient the system was. Then again, alliance chat was impossible at long range without a walkie-talkie too, so why would whispers be any different?

Couldn’t he just give me his contact info...? Ah, but maybe I shouldn’t find out Ms. Miyoung’s precious number this way.

Thinking that, Mo Yeonhoo rode his bike on.

Is it around here? What is this?

At the destination stood a space that looked like an alliance fortress. However, it was somehow strange for a fortress. The walls had all collapsed, and the inside was empty and desolate.

Is this the right place?

Mo Yeonhoo blinked, then carefully went in. The inside was even stranger. There were countless deep pits, and it was full of useless junk items.

There was no sign of anyone, let alone the hem of Miu’s clothes. As Mo Yeonhoo looked around, he spotted a pair of glowing eyes between the wreckage and nearly had a seizure.

“Whoa, seriously, hey!”

It was Miu.

(Whisper) 0momo0: Whoa no what kind of person—

(Whisper) Miu: Take this

Unlike the startled Mo Yeonhoo, Miu calmly threw an item onto the ground for him.

A walkie-talkie?

It looked like an alliance walkie-talkie. Unlike the alliance walkie-talkie, however, this one was beige. When he put it into his inventory and pressed it, a new window activated.

Channel03//active

(Whisper) Miu: Press channel 3 and come in

(CH03) 0momo0: Oh!! Awesome, what is this???

(CH03) Miu: A walkie-talkie that lets you open a private channelㅇㅇ Keep it

(CH03) 0momo0: Wow, that’s cool

CH03...! It looks so official...!

His heart thumped as if he had become a character in a spy movie.

(CH03) 0momo0: But where are we???

(CH03) Miu: Ah, I had things to explain and things to give you, so I called you here

(CH03) Miu: I thought it’d be better for you to see it in person

Things to explain and things to give him?

As he tilted his head in confusion, Miu asked him a question.

(CH03) Miu: What do you think of this place?

(CH03) 0momo0: You mean where we are right now??

(CH03) Miu: Yes

(CH03) 0momo0: It just... looks like ghosts are gonna come out..

A torn flag, its original design impossible to recognize; shell casings rolling across the ground; collapsed walls.

The boxes were all full of bullet holes, mouths gaping open to reveal empty bellies... and the items visible here and there were all useless.

(CH03) Miu: This used to be the alliance territory of Pegasus, ranked 9th on Server X

And apparently, this place had once been the alliance territory of the 9th-ranked alliance.

Wasn’t 9th a fairly high rank? Why was it in ruins now?

(CH03) 0momo0: Huh?? This place???

(CH03) 0momo0: Why is it like this now??? Did they move???

(CH03) Miu: They scattered to other servers

(CH03) 0momo0: Uh.. why...?

(CH03) Miu: Because their alliance collapsed two days ago

What?

As Mo Yeonhoo looked around in shock, Miu explained calmly.

(CH03) Miu: Since last year, several alliances ranked around 10th to 20th have started disappearing without a sound

(CH03) Miu: Honestly, by my standards, they were lower-ranked, so I didn’t care

(CH03) Miu: But recently, higher-ranked alliances kept disappearing too, so I looked into it

Miu moved his character.

When Mo Yeonhoo followed him, they arrived at a place where the fence around a particularly thickly built section of wall had completely collapsed. There seemed to have been a fierce battle near the fence; bloodstains that had not yet been wiped away, countless shell casings, and marks from explosions remained there.

Huh?

Mo Yeonhoo stopped short. The densely reinforced walls and fence... wasn’t that layout familiar somehow?

It feels similar to where our core was.

<47>’s core had also been surrounded by thick, elaborate walls and fences.

(CH03) Miu: Every single one of them took a major attack

(CH03) Miu: Enough that their cores got completely smashed to hell

Just as he thought, this had been the location of Pegasus’s core.

The scars carved into the ground announced that a brutal battle had taken place. Seeing them reminded him of when <47>’s core had been attacked. ShinJadu’s horror. The alliance members trying desperately to defend the center. It had been resolved before long, but the situation had been hellish.

(CH03) 0momo0: If there’s no core, does the alliance collapse????

(CH03) Miu: It’s a pain to restore, but.. you can use the remaining resources to establish a new territory or repair things and reproduce the core, so it doesn’t collapse

(CH03) 0momo0: Uh, then why didn’t they restore this place???

(CH03) 0momo0: If they were 9th, it seems like they would’ve had a lot of money..

From what Mo Yeonhoo had observed so far, the higher-ranked an alliance was, the wealthier it became. Even <47>’s warehouse had never once been empty.

So if Pegasus had been 9th, they should have had the strength to recover, no matter how badly their core had been looted.

(CH03) Miu: I thought it was strange too, so I contacted someone from Pegasus, and they told me right away

Miu’s character looked at Mo Yeonhoo again.

(CH03) Miu: They said there was nothing they could do

(CH03) 0momo0: What do you mean, nothing they could do????

(CH03) Miu: They moved the core, hid it, relocated the entire alliance territory, tried every possible thing, but somehow the enemy knew and attacked the core until it blew up

(CH03) Miu: Since every attack came by the shortest route, they thought there was an internal leaker and changed out people several times

(CH03) Miu: But no matter how many suspicious people they replaced, the core kept getting blown up... and in the end, the alliance members’ relationships completely fell apart and they scattered

Mo Yeonhoo was even more shocked by what Miu said next.

(CH03) Miu: This isn’t just one or two places

(CH03) Miu: There are at least five within the server alliance rankings alone

(CH03) Miu: All of them moved their cores several times, and every single one still got destroyed. In the end, they suspected one another, fought among themselves, and split off to other servers. That part is identical too

All those alliances had disappeared for the exact same reason?

(CH03) Miu: Therefore, I think someone.. or some group, is intentionally spreading spies

It seemed the spies repeatedly leaked the location of the core to their own main base, ultimately driving alliance members to stop trusting one another and fall apart.

(CH03) Miu: And this time, it’s our turn

Miu seemed to believe that this time, it was <47>’s turn.