376. Pure Love (4)

,Welcome.”

I immediately ran to Disnye-nim, who always greeted me with a bright smile, and jumped into her arms.

I briefly explained to Disnye-nim why I came here.

When I asked about how to remove Miko, who was the administrator of the Second World, from her position, Disnye-nim shook her head.

,That’s impossible. We are, after all, just administrators managing this world. Players and residents of this world may think of us as gods, but in reality, we are chess pieces moving within set rules.”

What’s fascinating is that all the administrators are aware that this world is a game world.

If I were in their shoes, knowing that I’m just a game NPC with a fabricated and manipulated mind, I would probably just despair and do nothing. It’s truly amazing.

Or perhaps they are programmed not to despair in the first place?

,But we can roam more freely than anyone else within the chessboard. That’s why both I and the other administrators do what we want. I want to turn this entire chessboard black, and Miko likes to shake the chessboard, making the chess pieces tremble.”

,So, there’s no way?”

,There is a way. It’s just that I don’t know if it’s possible.”

,What way is that?”

,To receive a ‘unsuitable’ judgment from the system AI, the true god of this world, the one who manages the administrators, or as Arang-nim would say, the one who oversees this world.”

The story started to get more and more confusing.

It would be one thing if this just ended as a story within a game. But suddenly, the story of the system AI is coming out.

I have no idea how the LORE story will unfold.

At first, I just thought it was a great game because it was unfolding the merging of servers into a story.

The story after that was simple too.

Disnye-nim’s world was destroyed, and she crossed over to this world where multiple worlds have merged, trying to invade by sending out her children, the monsters.

The other worlds and administrators are stopping Disnye-nim.

That was the end.

But suddenly, there were so many things added, such as shamans, hidden jobs, administrators, system AI, and so on.

It was quite a headache for me, whose mental age has dropped significantly.

There were a lot of words, but Disnye-nim’s words were simple.

Make the system AI remove Miko from the administrator position.

Then, what does the system AI use to judge?

It’s the chessboard that Disnye-nim mentioned.

The system AI is the chess referee.

The administrator is the chess player.

The players and NPCs are the chess pieces.

If a chess player breaks the rules of chess and does something strange, the referee disqualifies them. Similarly, if Miko doesn’t follow the set rules, she will be stripped of her administrator position.

The problem is that Miko knows this too, and she’s doing things that she can do without stepping off the chessboard.

In other words, there’s no way to do it right now.

There’s nothing that can be done right now, no matter what I do.

Of course, I know that this is happening because the system AI is setting the flow.

Originally, you had to play through the set quests and the set story, and wait for the next update when everything was finished.

But what about now? You can just grind time and continue your own story.

Not all users who play LORE play for 16 hours a day.

Rather, very few users play LORE for 16 hours a day. And those few users are the main figures in world-class quests.

The problem is that if those users continue to advance the world-class story, it will be difficult for users who normally enjoy LORE to keep up with the flow.

That’s why I’ve been feeling a lot lately that the system AI is suppressing the story progression to some extent.

And since a new raid is coming out in two weeks, it seems like it’s telling us to focus more on that.

==

,Now that we’re all gathered like this, shall we go to a dungeon?”

As soon as we got out of Disnye-nim’s cathedral, Arang-nim suggested that we all go to a dungeon together.

Demon King Arang-nim, Saintess Shueri-ssi, Legion Commander Bae D덮개 (Bae Deopgae), Magic Archer Eryusia.

It’s a party that wouldn’t be strange to call the strongest party in LORE right now.

Feeling regretful about parting without doing anything in a situation where the Saintess job might disappear at any moment, Arang-nim brought up the idea of going to a dungeon.

To be honest, Arang-nim also wanted to receive the Saintess’s buff again because it was so damn good.

Any user who has tasted the Saintess’s buff will know.

It’s really hard to get out of it.

It’s a buff that makes you wonder if you’ve become the master of this world with just one Saintess buff.

,Dungeon? I don’t think we need to go right now? Arang-nim, you don’t have any equipment that’s weaker than the dungeon equipment right now.”

,That’s true, but it’s too bad to part without doing anything after gathering like this. And Deopgae-unni hasn’t received the Saintess’s buff yet, right?”

,Right? Always on the opposite side.”

,Once you get the Saintess’s buff, you can’t move.”

,Huh…?”

,Your whole body is overflowing with power, and once you get the Saintess’s buff, you can’t even react to other buffs? You don’t feel anything. You become a body that can’t live without the Saintess’s buff.”

Deopgae-unni laughed in disbelief at Arang-nim’s words.

,I wonder where Arang-nim gets these kinds of 드립 (drip – jokes/banter) from whenever she says nonsense? Is it from the gallery again…? Arang-nim, you only do those 드립 (drip – jokes/banter) when you’re with us, right? Right? You don’t do that when other male users are passing by, do you?”

,Of course not. And I don’t do it to just anyone. I’m doing it comfortably because Deopgae-unni is in front of me.”

Eryusia glared at Bae Deopgae, who was stroking Arang-nim, then glared at Shueri-ssi at Arang-nim’s words.

,Um, then… there’s a dungeon I want to clear, could you help me?”

Shueri-ssi cautiously opened up about the dungeon.

,A dungeon you want to clear? Unni?”

Arang-nim tilted her head at Shueri-ssi’s words.

Since you can use hidden jobs in dungeons, honestly, even if you bring the lowest-tier dealers in LORE, the so-called white-tag dealers, you can clear it. That’s how overwhelming the Saintess’s buff and heal are.

The Saintess’s heal allows the tanker to heal without difficulty even if they don’t use the tanker’s unique skills, such as damage reduction and defense increase buffs, while going through the dungeon.

Suddenly asking for help to clear a dungeon that you can clear even if you grab anyone passing by?

,It’s a hidden dungeon!”

Arang-nim, who immediately smelled the scent of a hidden dungeon, slipped out of Eryusia’s arms and subtly approached Shueri-ssi, hugging her and saying,

,Of course, unni. It’s not a story right now, we’re just party members. We should help each other out~”

Even though she has the hidden job of Saintess, Shueri-ssi isn’t active with other users, but rather a user who takes care of NPCs in these slum shantytowns.

Because of that, Shueri-ssi naturally doesn’t have a fixed party or guild.

The fact that she’s still doing this even though she could have joined the Reverse Guild after the auction house raid incident is proof that she doesn’t have any friends.

,’It’s a little tough to get close to Shueri-unni.’

Giving food and healing to NPCs, mourning when they die, and even holding funerals for them? To be honest, the first time users see Shueri-ssi, they cautiously think, “Is she beyond a game addict… does she have a mental illness…?” That’s how serious she is about this world.

The nickname “Saintess” wasn’t given by users first, but rather NPCs called Shueri-ssi “Saintess,” and users who heard that started calling Shueri-ssi “Saintess.”

Other guilds have also tried to recruit Shueri-ssi.

Even the Mead Guild, which Reina is running. But the guild leaders who talked to Shueri-ssi all gave up on accepting Shueri-ssi as a guild member.

That’s how unique Shueri-ssi’s play style is.

In other words, she’s an outcast. Although Shueri-unni chose it herself.

But Shueri-ssi was closer to the NPCs than anyone else, and lived like family with them.

In other words, you can say she has a new perspective.

,’In other words, she might know a lot of hidden dungeons that haven’t been revealed yet!’

With the raid release two weeks away, Arang-nim, who doesn’t have many unique combat equipment yet, was captivated by Shueri-ssi’s words, who seemed to know a lot of hidden dungeons.

==

LORE really made the dungeon system well.

The real kick is that you can enter and play with hidden jobs or NPCs in dungeons.

Right now, the only things you can’t do with hidden jobs or NPCs are the latest raids and subjugation battles.

So, we entered the dungeon with four hidden jobs: Demon King, Legion Commander, Saintess, and Magic Archer.

Actually, Deopgae-unni and I don’t have hidden jobs.

Usually, when you say hidden job, the skills should change, but for Deopgae-unni and I, the skills don’t change, but the stats just get better, so the term “hidden position” is more accurate than “hidden job.”

But everyone outside calls them hidden jobs, so I just think of them as hidden jobs for convenience.

Anyway, the hidden dungeon that Shueri-unni discovered.

The hidden dungeon is a dungeon that Shueri-unni discovered while being close to NPCs for a long time like Yesol-unni.

The hidden dungeon that we arrived at after being guided by Shueri-unni was described as being quite difficult, but the monsters inside were simply swept away by our ridiculously strong party of four hidden jobs.

And I realized that Shueri-unni is really bad at combat.

,I-I’ll shoot…!”

Shueri-unni is attacking using magic while trembling. Even though you can’t hit allies in dungeons.

Even though she has a world-class job similar to the Demon King, she’s trembling and scared every time she attacks. I wanted to apply for a PVP right now and kill her about 100 times.

My middle school friends also did my PVP training, and they all adapted so well to LORE that they never got scared.