“The meeting starts in 10 minutes at exactly 10 o’clock! Please gather by then!”
Hearing Kim Jisu’s voice, Jaehee checked the time. When he’d seen her at the Daejeon Station dungeon, he’d thought she had a shy and quiet personality, but surprisingly, Kim Jisu was bold and lively. She was probably the type who was very reserved around strangers at first but revealed her true nature once she became comfortable.
She was currently in charge of internal affairs at Eternal Guild, which was a great help to Jaehee.
After coming out of the Bukhansan dungeon, he found that the very next day was when the 2nd Global Mission would begin.
Jaehee had first summoned the guild executives.
Because Eternal Guild accepted ordinary people as members, the number of guild members had increased explosively. As such, suddenly gathering all guild members was now nearly impossible.
They had selected Awakened Ones and personnel necessary for the guild to make them executives, and now they were preparing for a meeting with those executives before the 2nd mission began.
Executives.
That unfamiliar word stirred various emotions—somewhat uncomfortable yet also proud. Though he had substituted “guild” because the words “king” and “kingdom” felt too awkward, he had ultimately created the guild to accept ordinary people as subjects.
“Alright, everyone gather! The meeting is starting!”
At Kim Jisu’s clear, ringing voice, everyone assembled in the conference room.
There were 34 executives. Of those, 26 were Awakened Ones including Jaehee and Jeongwoo, and the remaining 8 were ordinary directors. The ordinary directors were Jaehee’s father and his father’s acquaintances.
Jaehee made brief eye contact with his father in greeting. His father and his father’s acquaintances were all corporate executives or people busy with their own work, but seeing them all here instead of at their companies gave him a strange feeling.
There was a time when his father had felt like an insurmountable mountain, yet now he had his father as a director while he himself was the guild master. What a strange turn of events.
Jaehee walked to the front of the podium and pulled out a small umbrella from his inventory. The umbrella was the size one might use for doll play, but when Jaehee opened it, there was a pop and a translucent barrier covered the entire conference room.
“Wh-what is this?”
“Wow…!”
Jaehee smirked watching people’s reactions. The ordinary people especially had their jaws nearly dropping as they stared at the translucent barrier surrounding them.
It was an anti-eavesdropping umbrella, a lower-tier version of the blocking item Jeongwoo had used when speaking with Kang Mingyu. It couldn’t completely block interference from Constellations, but it could neutralize other Awakened Ones’ skills and eavesdropping devices, and most importantly, it had a long duration.
Using an umbrella for anti-eavesdropping was amusing, but “anti-eavesdropping umbrella” was the actual item name sold at the Galaxy Shop. The Galaxy Shop had many items, but since searching also consumed points, most Awakened Ones didn’t know what was available. Jaehee too wouldn’t have known such an item existed if Jeongwoo hadn’t told him.
“This is an umbrella item that prevents eavesdropping. It blocks all eavesdropping-related skills and devices. We plan to use this item for future meetings. First, Jeongwoo and I have safely completed our exploration of the Bukhansan dungeon. Though the Management Bureau hasn’t made an official announcement yet, all Guild Sahae members who entered the Bukhansan dungeon have gone missing. However, there are many suspicious aspects, so we need to be cautious.”
Before the meeting started, Jaehee had a long conversation with Jeongwoo. Since they couldn’t reveal everything they’d seen in the Bukhansan dungeon even to executives, they needed to discuss in advance how much information to share. The particularly tricky part was regarding Kang Mingyu.
Jeongwoo had wanted to tell people that Kang Mingyu was a prophet. Before Awakened Ones existed, claiming to be a prophet would have been like calling oneself a con artist or a lunatic, but now wasn’t this a world overrun with Awakened Ones? Even if Kang Mingyu said his awakening classification was prophet, no one would dare call him a con artist. Jeongwoo said that if Kang Mingyu revealed he was a prophet, running the guild would become much easier.
But Kang Mingyu absolutely despised and refused this. He even said that if the fact that he was a prophet was revealed, he would go into hiding.
After much deliberation, Jaehee sided with Kang Mingyu. This made it even harder to tell others about what had happened in the Bukhansan dungeon.
“We need to be cautious about the Bukhansan dungeon, but the immediate priority is preparing for the 2nd mission starting tomorrow. Yumi-ssi, has the Management Bureau shared any information about the 2nd mission separately?”
“Ah…, I-I’m sorry. The Management Bureau hasn’t said anything yet. In the current situation, everyone can only speculate, and they seem to be being careful in case inaccurate information is shared and causes greater confusion.”
“That’s right. The Management Bureau has its own position to consider. There’s nothing for you to apologize for, Yumi-ssi. You’re an Eternal Guild member now.”
At Jaehee’s words, Yang Yumi smiled awkwardly.
Yang Yumi’s position within the guild was complicated in many ways. Since she was a former Management Bureau person who came to Eternal Guild through Section Chief Lim’s introduction, it was hard to say she was completely an Eternal Guild member. Yang Yumi herself was well aware of this, so she seemed to try her best not to clash with other guild members.
“Another message appeared about the 2nd mission this time. It’s called Night of the Dead. Looking at the number notation, we don’t know how far it will go, but it seems there will be other missions after Night of the Dead.”
The 2nd Global Mission message was displayed on the screen behind the podium.
[Global Mission -1: Night of the Dead
Unwelcome guests visit your home every night. . ଲ༼Ꙩ Ꙩ ଲ༽
If you fail to send the unwelcome guests away, they will absorb the life force of the living and create more dead. But how on earth can you repel the dead?
The dead… so scary! Everyone run away! ヾ(((;ꈡ▱ꈡ;)))ﾉ Night of the Dead is overseen by the Constellation Dark Night.]
This was the system message that appeared as the date approached.
Seeing that even the emoticons that had appeared in the system window were faithfully reproduced made this message look truly bizarre.
System messages were always unhelpful and ridiculous, as well as unpleasant. They spoke vaguely about the truly necessary information while describing content mocking Earthlings in annoyingly specific detail.
At first, people had laughed at the flippant tone of the system window, but now no one laughed at this anymore. The playful text displayed in the system window now looked like the chilling pranks of a psychopath.
Whatever the identity of that system was, one thing was certain—it wasn’t very friendly toward Earthlings.
“The fact that Constellation Dark Night would directly oversee this has been appearing since before. Does anyone know anything about the Constellation Dark Night? This Constellation name is very unfamiliar to me.”
The Constellation Dark Night was quite an unfamiliar name. It barely appeared in the chat window and had never made its intentions known until now. Yet it suddenly appeared to oversee a mission. There must be some ulterior motive. Moreover, the Constellation’s name was Dark Night, and the main theme of this Global Mission was precisely darkness. Though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, all of this felt ominous.
Jaehee looked around at the executives of Eternal Guild seated before him, but no one raised their hand.
“Well, we still don’t know much about Constellations. Still, we’ve at least seen the names of other Constellations in places like Channel Earth, but Dark Night is a completely unfamiliar name. If they’re overseeing a Global Mission, it means they have a significant stake in Earth. We need to keep a close eye on them. If anyone learns anything about Dark Night, please share it. And about this Night of the Dead…”
“Since it’s called Night of the Dead, I think the dead will come back.”
At Kim Jisu’s words, sighs erupted from all around.
Though they had somewhat inferred this from the system message and name, hearing it from someone else’s mouth made them sigh.
When monsters first appeared, they were terrified, but at least they thought they could kill them since they were living creatures.
But the dead. Their instinctive revulsion came first.
“Ha, is that really possible?”
“It must be possible since it appeared as a mission. They’re surely not trying to throw a Halloween party. Ha, if it’s the dead, should we write talismans or something? This is truly overwhelming.”
“Does ‘the dead’ refer to Earthlings who have died so far? Well, distant ancestors are one thing, but if close relatives become the dead… For example, if dead parents, siblings, or lovers appear… could we kill them?”
“They’re already dead people, so…”
People chattered here and there.
Everyone was merely speculating based on the information the system had provided, but either way, it was a grim story that made them sick.
Jaehee glanced at his phone. There was still no reply from his mother. He rubbed the corner of the phone with his fingers. His anxious heart wouldn’t easily settle.
