-[ISO: I had some expectations, but this is beyond what I imagined. The scale, armament, and overall force are far more severe and dangerous than the ragtag groups wandering around near New York.]


    -[ISO: This entire region is a tech valley, but it’s also an area that was once ravaged by the Rust Belt. In other words, this ce was an ungoverned wastnd teeming with criminals, vagrants, and beggars—people who had nothing left to lose.]


    -[ISO: Yeah, it used to be like that. Now, all those people are quietly rotting on the streets. Or they’re frozen solid under the snow. Who else but Artemis would have done that?]


    -[ISO: It’s going to be tough, but we need all the information we can get about the recent activities and scale of Artemis Technologies'' PMCs. They might be holding onto production lines for cutting-edge weapons meant for the frontlines of war.]


    -[Objective: Investigate the building’s basement.] ?[Head to the elevator.]


    “Are you still alive, teacher? How was it outside?”@@novelbin@@


    “Thanks to the gear and clothing, it’s warmer thanst time.”


    <ul>


    <li>"Anaconda (Pig)"</li>


    <li>"Get her some puffy clothes already."</li>


    <li>"Haha, this is making me want to survive again."</li>


    <li>"New Yujin skin released: Super Chubby Yujin."</li>


    <li>"So where can I buy that skin?"</li>


    </ul>


    The chat was going wild.


    Though it’s calmed down a bit now, the inte was pretty noisy back when I was just surviving. Out of the thousands of streamers, why was the reaction rted to me so hot?


    Naturally, the fire hasn’t died down even now, and as soon as my clothinges up, everyone is openly demanding a new image.


    What do they call this… gap moe? I could endlessly wonder why that concept applies to me, but what can you do? You just have to ept it.


    Anyway, scrims.


    Honestly, I never even imagined it. Blocking my inbox and friend listpletely and forgetting about it turned out to be the worst move I could have made. If I had known, I would have just left it unblocked and simply not checked the messages.


    Feeling a bit anxious, I quickly cleared the surrounding enemies and checked my message window… It was a total mess, but what was clear was that all the recent messages were rted to scrim requests.


    I feel a bit guilty, thinking they must have felt ignored.


    Recalling the schedule ahead, I reviewed my ns.


    ording to thest check, the Asia Qualifiers are scheduled for the second weekend of September, which leaves roughly three weeks.


    There’s one week left until thepetitive rank closes.


    But ording to the chat, scrims are considered private games, so they’re not much affected by the rank closure, which means I don’t have to worry about that too much….


    So, I’ve got three weeks left. I’m not sure how much this will help me, but I figure it’s better than doing nothing.


    But not today.


    I can’t just change the ns for today’s stream to scrims on a whim. Especially since today’s schedule involves a coboration with Harmony.


    —ng!


    I forcefully pried open the tightly shut elevator door and slid the ascender onto the thick steel cable in front of me. With a click, it locked firmly in ce.


    “Think of it as wrapping your feet around the concave part of the cable, grip the ascender tightly, and press the down arrow button with your thumb. Or in Harmony’s case, the script prompt might pop up.”


    “Ah… looks like it’s thetter.”


    “Then I’ll go down first.”


    With a strange sound, my body rapidly descended along the line.


    The lower I went, the fewer lights there were, except for the emergency lights. There wasn’t much need to install many lights in an elevator shaft, after all.


    Beyond the dark floor, thankfully, the door leading to the basement was open. I quickly checked the surroundings for any enemies before Harmony descended.


    Once Harmony safely reached the ground, blinking as she looked around, she promptly replenished the ammunition she had used from a supply box in front of her.


    The sudden drop in lighting and the dpidated interior,bined with the randomly ced spacesuit mannequins, turned the atmosphere into something straight out of a horror movie.


    Even the weather was cold enough to give me a slight chill.


    “…It feels like the game just turned into a horror game.”


    “If there were ghosts here, they’d get shot while trying to scare someone.”


    <ul>


    <li>"What is she even saying, lol."</li>


    <li>"She always says the most random things with a straight face, lol."</li>


    <li>"Haha, dead ghosts are less scary than the living person holding a gun."</li>


    <li>"At this difficulty level, ghosts would actually be easier."</li>


    <li>"Traditionally, lead bullets have always been the best way to deal with ghosts."</li>


    </ul>


    Still, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the cliché of an unusuallyrge underground area, typical in horror movies, had been achieved.


    As we crossed the ruined corridors, we didn’t encounter a single enemy, which could only mean that they were hiding somewhere else.


    And, as expected…


    “…What the hell is this ce?”


    “Looks like a server room. We probably shouldn’t fire recklessly here.”


    In front of us was a critical facility that looked like a ce where enemies woulde pouring out at any moment.


    It wasrge—football field-sized, to be precise. Servers filled the lower level, and the temperature had dropped sharply, likely for cooling purposes.


    There were no enemies patrolling yet.


    -[ISO: They’re not as cautious as I thought.]


    -[ISO: Anyway, this is excellent news. I never expected the enemy’s heart to be right in front of us. If you can directly ess the servers, the firewall won’t matter.]


    -[ISO: Let’s give it our best shot. Like we did on the rooftop earlier, one of you should go around the servers, connect to thework, and secure the data or set up a backdoor. The other should deal with any enemies that show up.]


    With a quick exchange of nces, Harmony went inside, and I leaned against a suitable spot, checking for any signs of movement nearby.


    Through partial vision sharing, I confirmed Harmony had reached the designated location. As the Icarus Gear activated, a defense game suddenly began.


    -[ISO: I guess the enemies aren’t fools.]


    -[ISO: Well, no one would just sit back and watch as thieves try to rob their house. The longer you maintain the connection, the more the Icarus can do, so please try not to damage the server.]


    -[ISO: Even the Artemis guys will refrain from using heavy firepower here.]


    So they said.


    I put down my gun and drew my melee weapon.


    Normally, I would draw the tomahawk holstered on my right thigh with my right hand, but in this situation, more troublesome enemies might appear.


    In that case, instead of using an axe that could get chipped after a few uses… it seemed like the right time to open the pouch tied to my belt.


    With a snap, the button came undone, and I pulled out a weapon simr to a tomahawk that was securely fastened inside.


    <[A donation of 1,000 KRW from user “Jelly who Boils Ramen”]>


    <ul>


    <li>"Oh my god, what ominous weapon has the teacher pulled out this time? Seriously, there''s no end to it."</li>


    </ul>


    “It’s a tactical spike hammer.”


    <ul>


    <li>"Stop making everything sound cooler just by adding ''tactical,'' lol."</li>


    <li>"This person is really a walking weapon, lol."</li>


    <li>"I mean, even if it''s just data, don''t you feel bad at all?"</li>


    <li>"Cover Harmony’s eyes!!!!"</li>


    <li>"Seriously, this person is amazing in so many ways, lol."</li>


    </ul>


    It was a hammer, but it had a sharp de on one side and a spike on the front, a special weapon with lethal potential. Originally, a weapon designed specifically for me would weigh around 2.3 kg, but this one was about 887 g.


    Still, it was enough for me to use.


    A faint vibration traveled through my entire body, starting from my toes.


    A sound distinct from the continuous server hum, a more irregr noise. Naturally, it was the enemies—a group equipped with pistols, thick body armor, helmets, and even exosuits, ready forbat in the server room.


    In other words, Artemis’ special forces, prepared to counter our freedom to shoot considering the server’s safety.


    They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.


    —Crack!


    With a sinister sound, the spike-tipped hammerhead flew through the air.


    Considering the enemy’s speed and timing, I swung it toward the head of an Artemis special operative rushing down the corridor, and he fell forward with his running momentum.


    But in the next moment, my nanosuit’s shield gauge dropped sharply as I was hit by a pistol shot to my upper back.


    Quickly turning around, I used the server as a shield, tucked the hammer under my arm, switched to a C-grip, raised my HK337, and aimed at the enemy’s torso, pulling the trigger.


    The .300 ckout rounds fired on full auto thankfully hit their mark.


    “Hey, it sounds pretty rough out there. Are you okay?”


    “There’s no major problem, but I’m a bit concerned about what’s going to happen next.”


    There was no time to reload.


    Smoke was still rising from the muzzle.


    “What the hell is this guy up to? Seriously….”


    “Why? What’s he doing? Get off the inte ande check this out.”


    “This guy is just picking fights left and right… No, just sit down and watch this.”


    Xi IMPRESSIVE, often shortened to Xi.


    It’s one of South Korea’s Dark Zone pro league teams, and if you were to name prestigious teams worldwide, it would be frequently mentioned.


    Two professional gamers from that team were watching a video together.


    In the global esports market, where trillions of dors are at stake, Dark Zone alonemands a significant share. As such, the professional gamers belonging to the team were as sensitive to information as the internal headhunters.


    This was only natural. These yers were the ones who actually yed the game and were best suited to filter out the diamonds from the rough among countless users.


    In this context, one particr user had caught their attention.


    “Another female character and another boob party?”


    “Ah, shut up! Sit down already! Your avatar’s part of the boob party too!”


    “Ugh, my eardrums are going to burst. What’s there to see? Whale, you’re just watching gamey footage of that user, Yujin, right? I’ve already seen that fifteen times yesterday alone.”


    “Yeah, I watched it a lot….”


    So, in the end, they had both watched it.


    Reluctantly, Whale, the user with a slight dialect in his speech, nced at his teammate, Corvus, who was sitting in the chair, and shared the screen.


    The screen was the size of an A4 sheet of paper. One half was filled with notes, so much so that it was pitch ck. The contents were all close to gamey analysis.


    Corvus nearly uttered, “What a crazy person,” but he had seen it a few times before, and the situation was quite serious.


    “Has this person ever scrimmed with us?”


    “The management guys said they donated money out of their own pockets today to ask for a scrim. Everything was blocked—friend requests and messages—so they had to contact him for the first time during the stream.”


    “This person is really something….”


    Anyway, that wasn’t the important part.


    Naturally, these were pros. They had been filtered through and through among the best, possessing the skills to make investors open their wallets and mobilize their resources.


    They had watched and analyzed countless other yers’ matches, adapting to the rapidly changingndscape of Dark Zone.


    And these yers were now admiring one person.


    “Is this person really ying in hardcore mode?”


    “Icarus HQ certified it themselves. And if you look at how our headhunters have been actingtely, it seems like they’re willing to test anyone, hardcore or not. Being a hardcore yer doesn’t mean they can’tpete.”


    Dark Zone’s basic policy on hardcore yers was one of strict non-interference.


    Since almost all content was governed by real-world physical abilities, hardcore yers had nearlyplete freedom. In other words, it was as if they were saying, “Do it if you can.”


    The fact that Yujin’s unique, ingenious gamey was possible only in hardcore mode was why it stood out.


    Meanwhile, even as they discussed this, their thoughts were drifting in another direction.


    As always, in internationalpetitions—although there was somemunication with other teams—their ultimate goal was victory.


    If a final championship winner emerged from South Korea, it would be a national pride. But looking deeper, the question was which team the winner woulde from.


    In other words, what are the other teams up to?


    “…When does the rank for selecting the top 100 qualifiers open?”


    “One week left.”


    “Besides us, do other yers know about this user?”


    “If they’re solopetitors in Apex, they probably know to some extent.”


    The answer was clear.


    “We need to scrim with him as soon as possible.”