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#14 Chapter Magic Like Science VS Science Like Magic (4)

[Beyond Elysion. One week since the shocking death game declaration. Is it an attack from rival companies or an internal employee rampage?]

[Kainix official. “As of now, the resumption of services is undecided.” Will this massive game that led the era vanish into the pages of history?]

[Nebula should stop hiding in Kainix’s shadow and appropriately compensate the victims for their mental distress. A reprimand from the Youth Healthy Gaming Committee!]

> Damn it, so when is Elysion resuming? We need to mine Paradise Stones quickly!

> We haven’t been able to mine for a week, so they should at least compensate us when they resume. If they don’t, I’ll dance naked in front of the headquarters.

> Crazy idiots. It’s a game where people almost died, and you still want to play it?

> A game where people almost died is nonsense. No matter how crazy the game servers or GMs are, they can’t do anything to the players’ bodies.

> That’s right. The connection devices block that kind of thing, so if you shout, ‘Hurt yourself, Lancer!’ it just ignores you.

> But logging out was actually blocked, right? They could hack the server and do something dangerous.

> Are you seriously saying that with millions of concurrent users, they could all be hacked at once? If someone had that kind of ability, why would they bother with game management? They might as well conquer the world.

> I specialize in the AI field, and no current AI can do that. The idea of one AI causing chaos all over the world is an exaggeration.

> But what is the Youth Healthy Gaming Committee? I didn’t even know such a place existed.

> It’s a recently established organization with no influence at all. They’re just trying to secure their own position by biting at others.

> Anyway, it’s true that the crazy nonsense about a death game was announced. Logging out was blocked for a brief period. Isn’t that already a failure?

> Blocking it for just 5 minutes is too strict, don’t you think? The management responded quickly and suppressed it right away.

> But isn’t the fact that it occurred at all the problem? There’s no guarantee it won’t happen again.

> By that reasoning, you could just as easily get into a traffic accident while walking down the street. Anyway, they handled it well, so I think it’s fine to resume.

> Terror (5 minutes). Honestly, if I were that GM named Lunara or whatever, I would have been so embarrassed that I would have bailed out.

> LOL. Trying to act like a game overlord and immediately getting suppressed while being called a noodle head. So pathetic.

> But there was also a GM named Erin? I never saw her while playing.

> I only heard her voice, but she seems like the kind of character who would fit a villainous heroine’s visual.

“…Well, should I laugh or cry?”

Bae Byeongjin.

Before meeting the Ryu siblings, he was a technology director at Kainix, and now he has become the Chief Technology Officer, chuckling wryly.

A week since the incident occurred. Kainix had made several preparations to cope with the aftermath of the incident.

They had even ‘requested’ politicians to refrain from excessive attacks and had implemented some information control regarding Ryu Inseo’s death.

This was not only to prevent baseless conspiracy theories from escalating while Kainix itself was not completely aware of the situation but also to prevent sensational media from gnawing on the already shocked family members like a dog chewing a bone.

It would be hard to evade responsibility simply because the security team provided by Kainix failed to protect a VIP, but if the remaining family members were also attacked, what kind of humiliation would that be?

However, they did not try to manipulate public opinion directly; in a case with this much controversy, misusing such a method could lead to an even greater backlash.

They braced themselves for some criticism and decided to just withstand it with their stature.

However, despite this determination, public sentiment towards Beyond Elysion was not as bad as expected.

In fact, it was more than just not bad; there was a more favorable sentiment, urging them to quickly resume game services.

The situation was so dire that even those who had been claiming they should immediately end the game service and stop collaborating with Nebula had discreetly quieted down.

For the individual Bae Byeongjin and the company Kainix, this was undoubtedly a good thing.

But Bae Byeongjin couldn’t celebrate the situation too much.

“Isn’t there too little sense of crisis?”

Of course, it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.

From the perspective of people who didn’t know anything about the mystery surrounding Ryu Inseo’s death or that Kainix still hadn’t regained control over Nebula, the incidents happening in Beyond Elysion would likely just feel like one of many everyday troubles.

In a sense, Ryu Yerin’s response being too swift had an unintended side effect.

Even within Kainix, voices suggesting that it might be better to quickly resume the game started to emerge one by one.

While Bae Byeongjin was pondering future responses and gazing at the sky, a giant screen appeared above him so boldly.

“What?”

He rubbed his eyes momentarily, but regardless of how much he moved his arms or blinked, the display firmly anchored in the blue sky did not disappear.

It was bizarre.

If he were currently logged into the game, it might be understandable, but for something like that to suddenly appear while he was lost in thought in the company office?

Bae Byeongjin called for his secretary and asked him.

“Do you see that thing in the sky?”

“…Yes? Oh, yes. I can see it.”

The secretary, usually sharp and quick-witted, had a dull reaction this time.

That itself meant the secretary was also surprised.

Gazing through the transparent glass wall down at the ground, he noticed people walking on the street, murmuring as they slowly turned their gazes towards the sky.

And when enough people’s attention had gathered…

“Hello, everyone! My name is Lunara! I’m your guide here to deliver good news!”

Someone’s voice echoed resonantly from ‘inside their heads.’

Simultaneously in Korean, English, French, Japanese, Chinese, and every language Bae Byeongjin was familiar with.

Realizing that the secretary’s astonished reaction indicated he had a similar experience, Bae Byeongjin turned his gaze back to the screen.

There stood a woman.

She had a beautiful face, blue hair, and golden eyes.

More like a character than a person from reality, her appearance was realistic yet surreal, like a character from a virtual reality game.

With a beaming smile, she continued to speak cheerfully.

“Some of you might already know about me and might be wondering. ‘Wasn’t Lunara that black lump?’”

“Actually, that was just an avatar I used when I couldn’t show my real face. My sponsor told me that such a drab visual wouldn’t attract popularity, so, sniff, from now on, I’ll be working in this form, so please take good care of me.”

“The ‘good news’ I’m here to share is about a certain game! Beyond Elysion. I had a super fun and exciting event planned for this game that I’ve been keeping an eye on, but due to an unexpected incident, the event couldn’t even get started properly before it ended.”

“So, this time, we’re going to hold a new event that’s hotter, thrillier, and better structured! Yay! Clap!”

Naturally, no one responded with applause to the words of the woman who called herself Lunara.

They just pointed fingers at her in confusion or held their phones high to diligently film the scene.

“First, let me tell you about the rewards for the game. The last time’s rewards were about survival and escape, with the adventures you experienced being the true treasure, but it seems that’s a little stale nowadays, so I’ve added a bit of fun rewards. Now, do you see those two test subjects?”

The screen suddenly shifted, showing a view of two beds with a man and a woman lying on them.

The man was covered in wrinkles and wearing a respirator, barely clinging to life, while the woman had serious burns that left her skin mangled, and one of her legs was completely gone.

Lunara grinned widely, pulled out a blue and a red glass vial, and proceeded to give the blue vial to the woman and the red vial to the man.

The reactions were dramatic.

As the elderly man, who had lived long enough to await death, began losing wrinkles and changing in form, he transformed into a handsome young man, while the woman’s mangled skin healed, and the leg that had disappeared reappeared, restoring her youthful beauty.

The two looked at their bodies in disbelief, then soon shed tears of joy.

“The red one is the ‘Panacea,’ and the blue one is the ‘Youth Elixir.’ Although I’ve just shown you this much, if you request ‘I want to obtain something like this’ through a survey from players participating in the game, we may offer new rewards based on those requests. Ah, let me say in advance that we can’t do anything about the dead, so please keep that in mind.”

“Oh, and some of you might be suspecting that this is a manipulated video, right? To ease those doubts, I will randomly select 50 of you watching this broadcast in real-time and send you the Panacea and the Youth Elixir to test! Of course, since it’s a sample version, the effects might be slightly less than the real thing. The broadcast will be conducted simultaneously in various locations, so we’ll distribute about ten thousand in total globally. For those who still claim it’s a scam after this… well, just live your life like that. I don’t want to talk to you. Now, let’s get to the distribution of gifts! Ta-da!”

As Lunara playfully snapped her fingers, the air in front of Bae Byeongjin shimmered like a mirage, and a red glass vial appeared before him.

“Huh.”

Seeing such a terrifying act that seemed to completely disregard the scientific principles he knew, Bae Byeongjin let out a breath in disbelief.

“The conditions to obtain rewards are simple. Participate in the game we host and clear it successfully! The top 100 performers will receive either the Panacea or the Youth Elixir, or rewards of comparable value. Even if your performance is somewhat lacking, players who survive until the end will be promised rewards that aren’t bad.”

“The game will take place in a stage we slightly modified based on Beyond Elysion. Oh, but don’t worry! The server states will all be reset! Everyone will start from level 1, so new players won’t be seriously disadvantaged compared to existing players! There will be some informational discrepancies, but we’ll make sure to ‘properly’ adjust that too, so it’ll be fine.”

“Finally, here’s how to participate in the game; it’s very simple.”

Lunara flashed a mischievous smile and then raised one hand.

“Lift one hand, whether it’s your right or left, and declare, ‘I will participate in the game.’ While it would be more convenient for us if you accessed via game devices, that would cause issues with companies and social restrictions, so we’ve made it possible with just the user’s will!”

“Ah, while participating in the game, your physical body will temporarily disappear, so you don’t have to worry about managing the leftover body. If players are knocked out due to external factors, that would ruin the fun for us as well.”

“Participation recruitment will be for 24 hours. We hope to see many brave participants!”

Snap.

Like turning off a TV, the screen in the sky vanished.

It felt like a daydream in broad daylight.

Yet, the red glass vial still remained before Bae Byeongjin, asserting its presence and reminding him that this was reality.

*

Someone blinded by the rewards shouted to participate.

Someone who regarded all this as a prank or joke playfully shouted their willingness to join.

Patients nearing death, or those whose lives were full of pain, shouted to participate as a last resort.

Several organizations, having verified the drug’s effectiveness, secretly selected people and shouted their intention to join.

“I’ve succeeded in contacting Nebula. It seems they’ve been analyzing that mysterious power they use as per my previous instructions. They failed in reality due to limitations of observational equipment, but… now they’ve completely merged Beyond Elysion with that ambiguous power, so the analysis work on Nebula is proceeding smoothly.”

“So, what’s the conclusion?”

“Even with modifications, the foundation remains our system. Once you connect to the game and endure for a certain period, we might be able to steal their technology. Perhaps even the very control over Beyond Elysion.”

“Then let’s do it. Those bastards. If they have such technology, they should just make everything themselves from the start instead of messing with ours!”

A pair of siblings, furious at the idea of their game being exploited, resolved to participate.

At a point where the importance of the game overshadowed global loss of life, these humans weren’t exactly normal either.