Chapter 88 - Clue (2)

After TarrTarr disappeared, Mayday left the banquet hall and was looking for him.

The guild's leader, XL, had improved the conditions and had asked her to try to make a new deal with him.

When she heard the amount of money, her first thought was that if he really was worth that ridiculous sum of money.

But after thinking about it, she concluded that it was a fair deal.

'Well, we indeed do not have lots of Thieves, so if we could make one with great control and abilities, the potential of Darkness would increase a lot!'

Although TarrTarr's level was low, that wouldn't be a problem with the guild's support.

It shouldn't be hard to cover him with rare and unique items. And with the speed at which he hunted, it shouldn't take him long to catch up.

Although admitting it hurt her pride, she thought his growth potential was probably higher than hers.

'Where is he?'

She exited the banquet hall and roamed around but couldn't find TarrTarr.

The only places users were allowed to in the Dark Palace were the banquet hall and the square in front of it.

There was no reason for him to be that hard to find.

'Maybe he already left...?'

Mayday started to become impatient.

Users who had received an invitation to the Dark Palace not only checked it out but also needed to check out the 'medal' and 'token' shops.

Since he’d won the first tournament, he probably needed more time than the rest.

'He isn't anywhere!'

Even though she'd searched for him everywhere, she couldn't find TarrTarr.

There weren't many users who'd been invited to the Dark Palace, so the chance of her looking past him was slim.

Mayday quickly ran toward the return portal.

There, she saw a familiar face.

"Huh, why are you here..."

Berard was in front of the gate as if he were a guard.

"Fufu, Mayday. It seems like you also want to make a new proposal! But be prepared for it because we're also going to offer him good conditions."

"What are you saying?!"

The moment she saw Mayday, he understood the situation.

TarrTarr had already left the Dark Palace!

By Berard's reaction, she assumed that he'd been waiting for him in front of the gate from the moment he left the banquet hall.

Despite that, they hadn't been able to meet each other.

That meant he had really left the Dark Palace without looking around!

'Was he serious when he said he preferred playing solo...?!'

Mayday and all the other executives of Darkness thought he'd said that to get a better deal.

They weren't expecting him to leave so easily.

Mayday could feel the strength leaving her body.

A few moments later, she just used the return portal and left.

Berard's eyes narrowed after seeing that.

'What... Why did she do that?'

He suddenly began feeling uneasy.

Berard, who felt something was off, started looking around the banquet hall and lobby.

Obviously, it was to find TarrTarr, but just like her, he couldn't find him.

"Damn...! This means that he already left this place!"

Berard also clenched his teeth and left through the return portal.

If TarrTarr really couldn't understand what the proposal was worth because he was still a kid, he had to find a way to contact him faster than Darkness.

After a few minutes, the one whom those two were looking for appeared in the square in front of the banquet hall.

The party organized by the Duke was still going on.

「Oof, we made it in time!」

「Let's look around. There seem to be many cool-looking things around here. Also, it seems like there are many interesting shops outside.」

「Even if you didn't say it, I was planning on doing that.」

Tasting the delicacies that Asrian had to offer was one of the things Hyun enjoyed the most since the game had even recreated the sense of taste.

He spent the remaining time checking out the items for sale in the square in front of the banquet hall.

He used the medals and tokens obtained as a reward for winning to buy some items. While doing that, an hour passed.

The next day…

Once again, SeoHyun was with JaeHoon, who was inviting lunch as a form of payment for the classes. No, for the advice given.

The $50,000 USD he had gotten from Jini was in his bank account, and there was a chance that he would be able to earn millions with the videos uploaded, but he had no reason to refuse free lunch.

'So today's menu is sashimi...'

Even while eating, SeoHyun kept thinking about the previous day’s play.

While doing a Heaven's quest, he had received a hint about Louise, but he hadn't been able to solve it.

He'd sent the footage of the gameplay to his smartphone. Even though he watched it whenever he had free time, he hadn't been able to find an answer.

"What are you looking at?" JaeHoon asked him since he was looking at his smartphone even while eating.

"Hmm, it's just that there's something bothering me. You see, what happened is..."

SeoHyun explained what had happened.

Some parts of the story surprised JaeHoon, and others made him laugh.

The story soon reached the part related to Louise.

He hadn't told them everything in a detailed way, but JaeHoon understood why SeoHyun was so deeply immersed in his thoughts.

"So you need to find someone, but you don't know in which moon that person is, Right?"

"Yes. Getting to one of them is hard in itself and takes a long time... So I can't go to both."

JaeHoon wasn't surprised after hearing about the world outside of the planet.

After incorporating an ex-Asra player, Stardust had obtained tons of information, and the fact that there were worlds outside of the planet was something that had been spread through numerous community boards.

"So this is that moon’s movement."

"Yes."

SeoHyun showed the recorded footage to JaeHoon.

It was a marble ball that recreated Asra's surface. The red dot was moving as if it were a GPS.

The red dot's movement became clear as the video's speed increased.

Hyun was about to put his smartphone away when JaeHoon, who had been watching the video closely, smiled.

"I think I know where that is."

"What?"

"The moon you're looking for. I think I know which one it is."

"R-really? How?!"

SeoHyun finished eating a piece of sashimi he had in his mouth and got closer to JaeHoon.

While smiling, JaeHoon said.

"You can know its trajectory by looking at the traces."

JaeHoon continued his explanation.

The position of the red dot changed depending on the movement of Asra and the orbit of the moon.

So by tracking the traces of the red dot, they could calculate the moon’s orbit.

To be honest, SeoHyun didn't understand what JaeHoon was saying very well, but he knew that JaeHoon had always been good at math and physics.

JaeHoon began explaining while increasing the reproduction speed of the video.

"If there are two variables, the orbit and rotation, then the trace should change both longitude and latitude, but right now, only the longitude is changing."

"...?"

Before SeoHyun became more confused, JaeHoon simplified the explanation.

"The target moon isn't orbiting around Asra. To be more precise, the moon and Asra have the same orbiting speed."

"...?"

"From what I know, there's exactly one moon like that."

JaeHoon thought about the information of the Asra world he'd seen in the Stardust's database.

He'd been fascinated for a while about Asra's world, which was just as vast as the real world, but at the same time, different.

Even among those, he couldn't forget about a very peculiar moon.

"The land of the eclipse, Iluna."

That was the name of that peculiar moon.

The sun, Asra, and Iluna were always in a straight line.

That phenomenon was why there were lots of solar eclipses in Iluna.

The reason why Asra's people called Iluna the 'Phantom Land' was that since it didn't reflect the sunlight, you couldn't see it, even at night.

'Eclipse...?'

After hearing JaeHoon's explanation, lightning flashed in Hyun's mind.

He couldn't understand all the complex words, but the moment he heard the word “Eclipse”, he remembered something.

'That's right. Why didn't I think of that?'

The day they were being chased by the masked enemies, Louise told him she had a curse while making a sad smile.

Stigma of Light…

It was a magic that made your location known the moment sunlight touched your skin.

It was a magic from which you could be freed from only after death. However, there were some NPCs with very specific skills that could help.

'Iluna is a place that isn't reached by the sunlight!'

He knew from first-hand experience that in Iluna, eclipses happened very often.

He blamed himself for not having thought about something so obvious.

As the entangled threads untied, the whole picture began to fit.

All the clues he’d missed…

The only place in the world where the sun didn't reach was beneath the ground.

But since the Abyss's base was beneath the ground, Louise couldn't stay there for a long time.

After all, angels belonged to the skies.

Iluna was probably the only place where Louise could stay.

"JaeHoon, I think you're right...! You really are a genius!"

"Huh...? O-okay. I'm glad..."

JaeHoon was surprised by Hyun's sudden change of atmosphere but smiled with him.

The first moment they talked to each other with Asrian as a topic, there was a weird atmosphere between them. But right then, Hyun and JaeHoon had become real friends that enjoyed talking about the game.

JaeHoon was the only person with whom Hyun talked about doubts he had regarding the game. Not only that, but JaeHoon had no intentions of using the knowledge Hyun had taught him in his gaming team.

Seeing his friend smile because his doubt was solved made him feel good, which made him smile.

* * *

Asrian's developer, Robert Connor, was once again spending time while sitting down.

Technically speaking, his job was solving bugs or reacting when something urgent happened, but since day one, there hadn't been an error, so it was as if he was being paid for playing around.

Except for Robert and Mary, most developers didn't show up to work if there wasn't a patch or something urgent that needed to be done.

'Finally...!'

With great interest, Robert looked at Hyun, who had infiltrated the Abyss Repository.

The magic marble ball reacted at Louise's necklace, and the moment the red dot showed in it, he could feel his heart beating faster.

'I guess he'll soon realize what moon that dot is pointing towards... He'll probably realize it immediately.'

Robert believed Hyun was going to guess it correctly because he thought he was a very intelligent player.

Then his next destination would be Iluna.

'So it's going to happen like this?'

Mary approached Robert, who had a serious expression on his face.

"It seems like you've seen something interesting."

"Yes. Mary, I'm sure you're going to find it interesting too. Check this out."

Robert could see the current location of influential NPCs and users.

Since he was a developer, he could see all actions of NPCs and users at one glance.

"Oh...!"

Mary exclaimed after looking at the screen.

According to the information, many important figures were gathered in Iluna or they were planning to go there.

Those were all beings that could influence the world.

Even a few Transcendents were interested in it!

Mary clapped after noticing something.

"Now that I think about it, Lattice is at Iluna right now!"

"Exactly. This means that something big is about to happen."

"Interesting! Is war about to happen?"

"Maybe... Haha, I'll show you another interesting thing."

Robert changed the screen again and put on the screen information related to Keidrial.

One of the most influential NPCs, the Great Demon of Deception.

Robert was very interested in the relationship between Keidrial and Hyun.

After looking through much information, he discovered that Keidrial had shown a very peculiar action pattern since the beginning.

And he confirmed that once more.

The moment Hyun discovered Iluna, she suddenly became interested in it too.

All her actions were in some way related to Hyun.

"This demon again… Is she somehow resentful to him?"

"Because the data of the Transcendents is so vast, it's hard to analyze them. So I'm not sure about that. I guess we're going to discover it soon if we keep watching."

Robert's only role currently was eating the meals provided by the company.

But still, he was happy because he was never bored.

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