Closed Beta That Only I Played

Chapter 306: Cleaning Up Monsters (2)

The loud shouts of the 700 people resonated through those living in the Myongjin Shelter who were watching us, and so the day’s event ended like that.

Since I moved together with them under the name of Myongjin, I had dinner with all of them in the main hall. When I was done eating, I went straight to my room and accessed ‘Revival Legend’. Of course, before I left the main hall, I reported to the top executives of the shelter including my father about the day’s happenings.

My father praised me a lot for what I had done. He even approved my commitment which I made without his prior consent to get rid of the monsters appearing in the vicinity of the shelter every 15 days.

The next day.

“Juyoung, can I come in?”

“Come in.”

I was puzzled by Director Sok’s visit early in the morning, but I immediately let him in.

If he had to come to visit me in person, he must have something important to talk about.

And it actually was something important.

“The Holdridge Group in the USA?”

“Yeah.”

The company that had the source technology for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation VR devices was a US company called Vten. And the closed-beta type game ‘Revival Legend’, or more precisely, ‘Forgotten Legend’ premiered first in America soon after Vten disappeared.

In other words, aside from the fact that the United States was powerful, they also had more intelligence about the company Vten than any other guilds around the world.

Moreover, since the Myongjin Guild has grown powerful to the extent that it’s very influential in Korea, they could find out that the major guilds that controlled the United States were Holdridge, Shaipe, and the US Government.

That’s why I had no choice but to ask Director Sok, “They are here to visit us? I don’t think they have come to celebrate my brother’s wedding belatedly.”

“Well, they didn’t mention exactly why they wanted to visit us, but they said they wanted to ask a favor of you.”

“Hmm…”

If somebody from Africa or Southeast Asia or South America with the exception of a few countries had asked for my help, I would probably have understood their motivations because Revival Legend was not as influential in those countries as North Korea.

But I felt it strange that the Holdridge Group from America was seeking my help.

“Got it, Director Sok. By the way, my father already knows about this, right?”

“Yeah. Right after I reported to the chairman, I rushed here to see you. Chairman Hong instructed me to let you know about this as soon as possible.”

“Okay.”

In the living room of my house in Cheongdam-dong, Seoul.

I had breakfast with my father, my brother, and Director Sok in the small meeting room over breakfast, but we could not figure out why the Holdridge Group wanted to visit us at this time.

So we decided to meet them first, and so we accepted them into the living room.

“Hello. My name is Austin, and I’m in charge of the Holdridge Group’s Intelligence Department.”

“Hello. My name is Sten, and I’m the Commander-in-chief of the 1st Army of the Holdledge Group.”

“Nice to meet you. My name is Sangman Hong, and I’m in charge of the Myongjin Group.”

The intelligence chief of the Holdridge Group and the commander of its 1st Army.

I could instantly tell they were here on an important mission, given their titles.

People with such important positions were either the closest aide of the guild leader or their right hand man.

Did I take what they said at face value?

Not really. The Myongjin Guild has grown powerful to the extent that they can speak their own opinions confidently to other guilds around the world.

Besides, Myongjin proved its power by winning first place in the 1200 level regular quest recently. I heard that the Myongjin leadership had been contacted in advance by the top executives of the Holdridge Group about their visit. Of course, they didn’t know their intelligence chief and Commander of the 1st Army would visit.

Anyway, they exchanged greetings with my father and sat down on the chairs.

They opened their mouths first.

“The reason we have come here is because we want to ask you a favor.”

“Well, I wonder if there is anything we can do to help you…”

“Hahaha! You are too humble. It looks like you rate the Holdridge Group too highly.”

Most of the talking was done between my father and Austin, the intelligence chief.

After praising each other a little bit, Austin hardened his face and said in a low voice, “Hmm, it’s slightly embarrassing to say this, but we made a big mistake this time because we were blinded by greed.”

“Mistake?”

“Yes.”

Summing up what Austin said, it seemed the Holdridge Group acquired a certain item from a dungeon. It was a large statue, similar to the one in the Dungeon of Ordeal in Indonesia. But when they chanced upon it, there was also a message that rang out.

[Destroy the statue!

-You will get a reward when you destroy the statue.]

As a result, he said the Holdridge Group launched an attack to destroy the statue.

But the moment they attacked it, the stone cracked and from the crevices emerged orcs.

Of course, it is not a big deal for a statue to throw out orcs these days.

So, the Holdridge kept attacking the orcs without caring at all.

Of course, the orcs, widely known as the weakest monster, were killed by their attack.

They had no problems until then. But the problem began to occur when the orcs dropped items as they died. They dropped as many as 500 coins.

Considering the function of the coins, this was a huge amount.

So Holdridge attacked the cracked statue carefully this time, but there appeared no monsters while the cracks in the statue began to become larger.

Because of that, they just waited without attacking the statue any more.

Then the next day, the cracks disappeared, and the statue was restored to its original untouched state. When they attacked it again, it cracked, and this time stronger monsters emerged. And each monster gave out 700 coins because they were more powerful than before.

The Holdridge judged at that point that they had acquired a fantastic treasure. But some top executives at the Holdridge argued that they should destroy the statue as soon as possible, for the appearance of stronger monsters this time meant that someday much stronger monsters than before would appear. And Holdridge wasn’t stupid enough not to miss that point.

But the coins kept piling up.

And eventually the coins dropped per monster exceeded 1,000, so they became more and more greedy, and kept collecting more and more, which in the end brought about a huge headache.

“Monsters are no longer the problem. At one stage, the statue reverted and we no longer could make cracks in it. It meant that we could no longer attack the statue, and as a result, we could no longer make the monsters that dropped a tremendous amount of coins appear anymore.”

Austin finished his words with a gloomy expression.

“So what? Why does this matter to you?”

Frankly, I felt jealous because the Holdridge Group probably obtained tens of thousands, or even more than 100,000 coins, even though Austin didn’t mention it. So I felt relieved when he said no more monsters appeared.

Austin replied, “Of course, it’s a big problem because the situation has changed…”