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“Please bear with the pain a little, senior.”

Shin Hyeon-joo brought a rope and tied Kim Chi-seung’s wrists.

It took about three minutes.

Shin Hyeon-joo nodded with a satisfied expression and stood up.

Kim Chi-seung chuckled and then broke the rope with a burst of strength.

“Tying me up like this is pointless.”

“…You should have told me earlier.”

“I just wanted to see how far you’d go. Sorry.”

“Does anyone here know how to bind an Awakened One?”

At Shin Hyeon-joo’s question, everyone avoided eye contact.

Could it be that not a single person among this many people knows?

Just as she was about to give up on binding and resort to walking around with weapons drawn, she locked eyes with a participant who was fidgeting.

“You know it, right? Binding techniques.”

“Well, it’s not that I know it… but it’s not that I don’t know it either… It’s a bit ambiguous.”

“…I don’t understand what you’re saying, but just come and try.”

The hesitant participant reluctantly moved.

Indeed, it was different from ordinary binding techniques.

The team member’s binding technique wasn’t limited to just the wrists.

It seemed like they were trying to bind the entire body, as the length of the rope was unusually long.

‘I see, we need to bind the entire body. I’ll remember that.’

Shin Hyeon-joo also nodded and watched the scene.

But gradually, she felt something was off.

And before she knew it, it was almost over.

Kim Chi-seung was horrified.

“Sh*t… Is this a turtle shell binding?”

“…Sorry, this is the only binding technique I know.”

“What the hell do you do for a living…?”

“I just… love Japan.”

“….”

The rope was passed through the holes between knots twice, forming a hexagonal shape.

Kim Chi-seung, bound in a way that accentuated his body’s curves, sighed in resignation.

Ahem.

Several fake coughs were heard.

Many team members deliberately avoided looking at Kim Chi-seung.

“…Anyway, since we’ve caught you, give us some information.”

“Let’s go. If you get caught, you’re supposed to get hints as you go deeper into the island.”

Kim Chi-seung, who had been faithfully acting out his role until he was caught, seemed to discard the act after being captured.

The Blue Team headed deeper into the island with Kim Chi-seung.

Along the way, they could distinguish between heroes and villains based on Kim Chi-seung’s hints.

Heroes were given first aid, and villains were subdued and transported to the base camp.

In the process, most of the team members had to move.

“It’s better to focus on rescuing heroes and subduing villains while circling the island. Ragna and I, along with a few others, will head deeper into the uninhabited island.”

“Right, that’s better for your team’s score. There’s nothing too challenging waiting deeper inside.”

Shin Hyeon-joo’s leadership shone as the Blue Team accumulated points and got closer to the secrets of the scenario.

***

Meanwhile, the Red Team.

Jeong Gyeoul and the divine spirits wasted an hour and headed north.

It seemed like Hwang Bo-seung had taken over as the team leader.

Their progress was a bit different from the Blue Team’s.

As they headed north, they collected letter cards scattered around the island.

In total, they found 22 letter cards, excluding the 11 taken by the Blue Team.

[ㄹ], [ㅎ], [ㅓ], [ㅗ], [ㄹ], [ㅡ], [ㅅ], [ㅂ], [ㄷ], [ㅔ], [ㅇ], [ㄹ], [ㅇ], [ㅏ], [ㅇ], [ㅜ], [ㅁ], [ㅓ], [ㅇ], [ㅣ], [ㅣ], [ㄴ].

“…This is insane. We need to write down the letters and try to combine them to find words, but there are too many.”

“Let’s try anyway. We’re definitely behind the Blue Team. We need to find something concrete and act on it.”

Under Hwang Bo-seung’s lead, they began piecing together the letter puzzle.

“ㅎ, ㅇ, ㄹ. These three and ㅣ, ㅓ, ㅗ. These three seem like they could form ‘Hero.'”

“Hero… That seems plausible. Let’s keep that in mind and look for other letters.”

“I also found letters that could form ‘Villain.’ It seems likely that it’s about heroes and villains.”

“Then let’s set those cards aside. From now on, we’ll assume the words are related to us.”

At Hwang Bo-seung’s suggestion that hints might exist in words related to them, they had already set aside 12 cards.

It seemed like they were getting somewhere quickly.

Cha Seo-rin’s position seemed to be weakening naturally.

He was thought to be just a fist-fighting action leader, but he was surprisingly sharp.

His situational judgment was good.

He was also competent in giving instructions.

The team members looked at Hwang Bo-seung with newfound respect.

Following Hwang Bo-seung’s instructions, they diligently scanned the cards, but…

The remaining 10 cards made further interpretation impossible.

“[ㅡ], [ㅅ], [ㄷ], [ㅔ], [ㅇ], [ㅇ], [ㅏ], [ㅇ], [ㅜ], [ㅁ]. It seems like we need the Blue Team’s cards to make sense of this. It looks like the cards only form one complete sentence.”

“…At this point, we can’t locate the Blue Team. We lost too much time at the base camp.”

Tsk—

Hwang Bo-seung clicked his tongue and glared at Cha Seo-rin.

“It’s not fair! That was the fault of the divine spirits, not me!-”

Mid-sentence, a look of resentment flew towards Cha Seo-rin.

“-then it’s my fault. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again….”

He quickly changed his words.

It felt like if he kept making excuses here, he might lose the team’s trust forever, and his chance to return as leader would be gone.

As Cha Seo-rin was sulking, a ripple of magic power erupted from the northwest.

It was very faint, almost like it was carried by the air, so none of the team members seemed to notice.

“That! That! Early! Direction! That!”

“…What are you saying?”

“Magic! Magic! Bubbling! Bbang! Let’s go!”

In his excitement, his language skills seemed to deteriorate, but…

“I sensed a magic wave presumed to be from the Blue Team! The location is northwest! It’s the same direction as the information we overheard earlier!”

“…!”

“Let’s go! The cards aren’t getting us anywhere!”

“Where is it, Seo-rin?”

“Lead the way!”

The team members naturally began to follow Cha Seo-rin.

The cards and Hwang Bo-seung were left behind.

One team member looked at Hwang Bo-seung with pity.

“You… you… calling these hyenas team members….”

“…Let’s go too. Let’s see if we can find an opening.”

Belatedly, Hwang Bo-seung and the team member who comforted him followed Cha Seo-rin.

They hurriedly ran to where the magic wave was felt.

As soon as they got close, Cha Seo-rin waved talismans and stuck them on every team member’s chest.

“Shh. These talismans block presence and conceal magic. From now on, we’ll move stealthily. Don’t answer. We’ll use hand signals from now on.”

Creak—

Cha Seo-rin lowered her stance and signaled to move forward.

Not long after, they saw the Blue Team and Kim Chi-seung in a confrontation.

Cha Seo-rin, with her fists clenched, stopped and waited for the confrontation to end.

‘If the Elf Girl wins, we’ll follow secretly. If that guy wins, we’ll subdue him then.’

Even though she hated being called a Taoist Girl, she had somehow gotten used to it.

She naturally called Shin Hyeon-joo the Elf Girl.

She wasn’t even aware of it.

Jeong Gyeoul’s naming skills were incredible.

“…?”

“….”

“…!”

The Red Team showed various reactions as they watched the Blue Team subdue Kim Chi-seung and bind him in a turtle shell.

Cha Seo-rin, who didn’t know what it was.

Hwang Bo-seung, rolling his eyes, wondering how to understand this.

Team members, shocked to see a binding technique they’d only seen in adult videos.

Regardless of their reactions, the binding was soon over.

The Blue Team moved Kim Chi-seung and headed deeper into the island.

The direction was northeast.

Creak—

Cha Seo-rin and the Red Team slipped into the bushes and followed diligently.

“…?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Kim Chi-seung sensed the Red Team’s presence but chose not to say anything.

Although their reaction was suspicious, if they said it wasn’t them, what could he do?

The Blue Team continued walking, guided by Kim Chi-seung.

‘I wondered where the other team was and what they were doing, but it seems they were tailing us.’

The strange journey of the Red Team, the Blue Team, and Kim Chi-seung began.

The goal was the very center of the uninhabited island.

The place where Jeong Gyeoul and the giant butterfly had their decisive battle.

A devastated land, unlike other parts of the island, where not a single blade of grass grew—a land of death.

Being the first to reach there wasn’t the victory condition.

In the center of the island was an artifact targeted by the villain.

The team that brought it back to the base camp would win this scenario.

From now on, it was an inevitable direct clash between the Red Team and the Blue Team.

 

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