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‘Considering how he’s been poking me nonstop, I can roughly guess what kind of quest it’ll be.’
Hyeonseong immediately checked the quest details.
‘What kind of “penalty” even is that…….’
If anything, Hyeonseong was the one who wanted to send him a contemptuous gaze.
Of course, “a gaze” might be metaphorical—some kind of euphemism for something else. But with wording like that, hidden meanings aside, it was hard not to just feel dumbfounded.
‘Better to refuse, right?’
Even before success, meeting the prerequisites would be difficult. And on top of that, the penalty for failure was basically unpredictable. Since there was no “cannot refuse” clause, the smart move was not to accept a quest like this.
The moment she chose to refuse, another quest flew in.
‘Are you kidding me?’
As soon as she checked it, Hyeonseong’s face twisted. Same quest—just one extra modifier word.
Ignoring the message, Hyeonseong refused again. Another quest arrived.
Same thing, with yet another modifier added.
‘What is this, a haunted doll?’
The more she threw it away, the more it came back with something extra—just like a cursed doll.
Hyeonseong only stared at the quest window, and it canceled itself. Then a new quest arrived.
‘Don’t tell me it’s the same thing with one more modifier again.’
With no real expectations, she checked the details—and her eyes widened.
system-start[…Reward: 1,000 Ghost Coin]system_end
This time, the part that changed was different.
‘One thousand Ghost Coins? Then that means…….’
Hyeonseong quickly opened the skill information for Infinite Corridor.
‘If I succeed, that means I’ll get the enhancement cost in one shot.’
The Ghost Coins she earned each month were barely enough to cover the usage fees the Interstellar Network took, just for keeping things on standby.
Even the first enhancement had only been possible by scraping together leftover pennies. Because of that, she hadn’t even dared to think about a second-stage enhancement.
If she accepted and cleared the quest that just arrived, she could immediately proceed with the skill enhancement she’d never been able to touch.
“Haha, if you want to hire me this badly, I guess I can’t help it. But before that, one thing—”
“What the—?”
She hadn’t even clearly said she accepted, but it was already processed as accepted.
‘When do I actually get to kill that bastard?’
Hyeonseong glared at the continuing messages from ‘Hands Faster Than Eyes.’ As if he found this situation that satisfying, he kept sending provocations.
‘Even the clues aren’t coming together at all.’
She had been steadily looking for a way to take down a Constellation. But no meaningful leads were showing up.
‘The only remotely meaningful thing is that a Constellation’s “rank” has something to do with human perception and belief, but…….’
It wasn’t hard to understand. The problem was there wasn’t a clear way to use that information.
‘How am I supposed to do anything to someone who’s already broadcasting his presence everywhere…….’
Anyway, that was not what she needed to handle right now.
“……So, how exactly am I supposed to start?”
Hyeonseong asked ‘Prankster of the Beginning.’
“Command authority first?”
“Me personally?”
Hyeonseong’s eyes returned to the battlefield.
Kwa-gwang!
“Argh! Song Jiwoo! Where are you aiming that attack—?!”
“Just fall back a little first!”
“And who the hell are you to order us around…….”
One guy still overflowing with energy, about five or six people trying to control him somehow, roughly a quarter of the group steadily losing focus.
And plenty of others who looked like they had zero intention of listening to anyone outside their own raid leader’s orders.
‘It’s a complete mess. What are the people who should be planning in the rear even doing?’
Then Hyeonseong quickly scanned the area around the battlefield.
Each guild’s tactical and command staff should, in most cases, be on-site too—because information relayed only through screens had severe limits.
Before long, she found the cluster of tactical staff not far away. They were with employees from a local branch of Jinri Workshop.
The tactical staff were also talking amongst themselves. Unlike the fighters, they weren’t yelling as they spoke, so she couldn’t hear the content.
But she could tell what kind of situation it was.
‘Those sour faces, those gestures like they’re about to punch the person next to them…….’
The mood was not much better than the frontline. That was easy to believe.
‘Earlier they couldn’t even manage traffic control, so they abandoned defense and ordered a pure firepower dump. Doesn’t look like anything changed now, either.’
After checking everything, Hyeonseong smiled with the calm of someone who’d attained enlightenment.
“I can’t just give up on this, can I?”
“Damn it.”
“Could you at least give me something even slightly helpful—”
“Haha.”
‘I really want to quit.’
Grinding her teeth behind an awkward laugh, Hyeonseong forced herself to endure.
At the word “help,” Hyeonseong almost answered on reflex—but shut her mouth the moment she saw the sender’s name.
‘What kind of chaos are you trying to stir up with that?’
“Thank you for the offer, but wouldn’t it look much better if I handled it myself?”
‘Either way, I can’t roll the quest back now, so I have to do it.’
Ruffling her hair in irritation, Hyeonseong started walking. Her destination was where the tactical staff were gathered.
“So even now, we should pull back and create distance—”
“You’re saying that because you don’t know the Red Horseman’s traits.”
“If you don’t even know the traits of the Four Horsemen—”
“Don’t act like I don’t know! Even considering that, right now—”
“But why has this guy been slipping into casual speech this whole time…….”
“What?”
Only when she got close did the voices properly reach her ears. As expected, it was exactly the atmosphere she’d anticipated.
‘How are people who should know better bickering this childish?’
On a normal day, she would’ve laughed it off. But right now, she couldn’t.
‘This is why you should’ve locked down what needed locking down when you still had breathing room at the start.’
“Uh…? Ye Hyeonseong?”
The first to recognize her was one of the Jinri Workshop branch employees standing with the tactical staff.
“Is potion resupply handled here?”
“It is, but…….”
“Oh, it’s not that I need it right now. By the way, did Hyunju say anything besides orders?”
“Mm, nothing else. Just told us to support carefully and keep proper accounting on consumed potions…….”
So there were no other updates or intel.
“Got it. Then.”
Hyeonseong turned away without hesitation. The moment she changed direction, the tactical staff were directly in view.
“Is this really the time to argue? So what are we doing?”
“I’m saying we need to create distance right now—”
“If we pull back wrong and they charge straight through, then what? You’re only saying that because your guild members are already behind the line—”
“Then what do you want us to do?”
They still hadn’t unified on an approach. Up close, two of them, in particular, looked like something was off in their eyes.
‘Not sure if that’s just my imagination, or if they’re under some kind of debuff.’
Either way, if no one stepped in, this would go on forever. Hyeonseong immediately inserted herself between them.
“Stop fighting already, you people!”
She almost let a real curse slip too, but managed to clamp down on it.
“W-What, who are you?”
“What the hell— Wait, Ye Hyeonseong?”
Startled, the arguing tactical staff stared at her.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“But who the hell are you to talk to us like that when we’ve never even met—”
“I’ll hand that exact line right back to you. More importantly, what have you been doing this whole time?”
Before the pointless back-and-forth could continue, Hyeonseong cut straight to the point.
“What have we been doing? Can’t you see?”
“A dogfight.”
“Dog—”
Apparently not expecting Hyeonseong to be that blunt, the person who had challenged her looked genuinely thrown.
“You can’t even conduct a proper tactical discussion and you’re only fighting about ‘respect’ and ‘manners.’ If that’s not a dogfight, what is?”
“Watch your mouth?”
“No, hold on. Ye Hyeonseong, you’re not even on our side. Weren’t you basically a passerby? What right do you have to butt in like this?”
“Y-Yeah! You don’t even live around here—”
The tactical staff quickly turned to attacking Hyeonseong together.
“Oh, great teamwork. Shame you didn’t use that teamwork earlier. If you had, the road wouldn’t be flipped, and you’d probably have killed one boss already.”
Hyeonseong shot back with an exaggerated admiration, loud enough for them to hear.
“What’s with this person?”
“She’s definitely being sarcastic, right?”
“Ugh, forget it. Just ignore her and keep talking.”
The flaring tempers finally looked away from Hyeonseong. At least they hadn’t forgotten that the fight still wasn’t over.
‘True enough.’
If not for the quest, Hyeonseong could’ve just turned around and left—no real problem. If those people fought later, that would be their responsibility, not hers.
But now she had a quest that demanded resolution. She had to find an opening and wedge herself back into their decision-making.
‘I need to catch a timing where I can cut in.’
Hyeonseong stepped back slightly and watched their discussion.
“So why do you insist we have to move like that—!”
“Then are you saying we should just charge blindly? Think before you argue.”
“You think I’m saying this because I haven’t thought?”
“If you had, you’d never propose something like that as an ‘opinion’—”
“Listen to yourself—”
A message arrived in front of Hyeonseong’s eyes as she observed.
‘Help?’
She frowned. The timing and the sender were both ominous.
But before Hyeonseong could react, it already happened.
“Wait—why are you making a fist?”
“Hey—!”
In the middle of their failure to reach consensus, someone suddenly threw a punch.
“Grab him!”
“Damn it, I’m not even a combat-type!”
“What’s wrong with you now—are you crazy?!”
“Shit, both of you have had weird eyes for a while now!”
The sane ones tried to restrain the two who had abruptly gone wild.
‘It’s only fun for you guys, that’s for sure.’
Hyeonseong looked at the brawl with a flat expression. Judging by the flow of their argument, even without Constellation meddling, it was practically inevitable that things would’ve exploded sooner or later.
‘Like someone pointed out, half of them already had weird eyes. Now that I’m looking…… someone’s been slipping a mental-type debuff in quietly.’
The fight itself was strange. Sure, alliances between guilds argued often, but today’s “can’t hold back anger” vibe was excessive.
‘I’ve never even heard that local guilds in this area hated each other enough to brawl without thinking.’
That unusually irritable, angry atmosphere could only be the result of artificial interference.
‘And the timing is obvious. Around when the bombardment order came down.’
She recalled the earlier message from the Constellation called ‘Aesthetics of Division.’
The “compete in firepower” quest had been sent to the waiting mages—but there was no way those were the only targets they’d tried to influence.
‘And while they were at it, they probably did something subtle to these tactical guys too. Or if it wasn’t that Constellation, another one with a discord/instigation attribute might’ve piled on as well.’
Hyeonseong raked a hand through her hair roughly. At this point, which Constellation had promoted the discord didn’t matter.
The discord was already here.
What mattered was restoring order and getting everyone focused on combat again.
“Feet! Are you not putting your foot down?!”
“Just pull them apart already—!”
Teoeong—
Between the two people about to kick each other, Hyeonseong opened an entrance to Infinite Corridor. The kicking foot struck the opening and bounced off, snapping back.
Everyone turned to look at Hyeonseong again.
“You’re still here?”
One of the sane ones said, looking flustered.
“Isn’t that a bit harsh to say to the person who just stopped you from getting kicked?”
At Hyeonseong’s retort, the speaker shut their mouth. They knew—if the kick had landed wrong, it would’ve been their knee taking the hit instead.
“Alright. We’ve got two people not in their right minds right now. So when we build a plan, that means we need to exclude these two for the time being—”
“……So?”
Someone asked in a dissatisfied voice.
“I’m thinking about how their guilds are going to react if we exclude them. I mean, I don’t need to tell you—this is going to get loud.”
There were few problems as annoying to assign blame for as a sudden incident caused by a Constellation’s prank.
The side that got caught up and caused trouble would want to write it off as an unavoidable disaster, but the side that suffered damage would want compensation from the troublemakers no matter what.
There were organizations that could mediate such disputes, sure—but the situation of having to mediate at all was exhausting for Awakened.
“In a situation like this, their guilds could also claim we excluded their tactical officers just to cut their contribution share.”
“Then what are you trying to say?”
Hostile stares turned toward Hyeonseong.
“Hand unified command authority to someone with zero stake in any of your conflicts. Because that’s the only way to avoid the pathetic, drawn-out fighting that comes afterward.”
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