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Season 2: Chapter 188: Icarus (2)

Icarus was a foolish character depicted in Greek and Roman mythology. He was a young man who became trapped in a labyrinth of misfortune due to his father's sin.

Ironically, the labyrinth was designed by his father. However, even the designer himself did not know how to escape. They could have starved to death in the labyrinth without a clue on how to escape.

Then, they looked at the candlelight that illuminated the bird's path in the sky and came up with a thought.

“Let's gather bird feathers and make wings hardened with wax to fly out of here.”

His father, the skilled craftsman Daedalus, successfully gathered bird feathers and hardened them with wax to make large wings. When he flapped the wings, his body actually flew.

Icarus was greatly excited.

“Father. I'm flying in the sky. Now I can leave the labyrinth.”

Daedalus warned him not to fly too high and near the sun as the wax would melt nor too low near the sea as the feathers would get wet. The advice was to maintain a moderate altitude, but Icarus didn't listen to him.

Once he started flying, exhilaration enveloped his body. Icarus gradually lifted his wings higher and higher. He wanted to reach the gods. He wanted to go where humans had not been before.

Eventually, the heat of the sun melted the wax. The feathers scattered like lies, and Icarus fell and died.

***

Almond recalled the myth of Icarus and pondered.

'I thought Swift was Icarus.'

The myth of Icarus was often used to depict a human consumed by ambition. Almond thought it was a metaphor for Swift, who kept choosing option three out of ambition and eventually died just like Icarus.

It wasn't. Even after Swift's death, the third star did not appear.

'Then...'

It wasn't a story about Swift. Who was Icarus here? Who would make that reckless move?

Almond's bow bounced.

Bang!

"Luna. Ben. Let's kill that bird and get out of here."

Almond aimed at the bird, the administrator of this place.

Ting!

Although the bird easily deflected the attack, it was enough to declare war.

He stared at Almond and muttered, "Interesting choice."

Almond had to escape this labyrinth by killing the bird and gathering its feathers. Even if they would ultimately crash down, that was the only way.

***

This was probably inevitable. There was no way to avoid fighting the top administrator of this abyss, but Luna and Ben were confused.

"Kill the bird and get out of here?"

"How do we kill that bird...?"

Almond said bluntly, "Otherwise, we have to kill each other."

The faces of Ben and Luna paled.

Yes, the bird had ordered them to fight until one of them remained. He was still saying that.

"I told you all to fight, but you are attacking me? If you start fighting now, one of you can enjoy the promised glory."

The bird was inducing division among them.

"But if you oppose me again, no one will get anything. You will repeat this ordeal without dying."

Ben shivered at those words. The tip of his sword shook.

Meanwhile, Luna was furious.

"What? Repeat? Why can’t we die?

"..."

— ? Yeah, that’s right.

— True, it's strange.

— Isn't it recycling? Lol.

The bird remained silent and Luna's gaze turned to the sanctuary.

"Could it be...?"

Although it couldn't be known in detail, there was a palpable sense that there was more energy than before.

"Why did it rise? You. Answer me."

The bird smirked.

"If you die here, it's only natural that your experience points go to the sanctuary. Or are you just going to waste them?"

The children who died at the hands of Swift. Their experience points had been stored in the sanctuary.

"... Swift hasn't even chosen three times yet."

Luna trembled.

"But why!? Why did you take the experience points of those kids without permission!!"

Almond couldn't understand why Luna was breaking down like this. He understood when he heard the next words.

"Isn't your goal also to fill the power of this sanctuary!?"

— Yeah.

— True, it seems like the birds want to fill this place up with the experience points too, right???

— Wow, creepy.

— Is that why the bird didn’t say anything when Swift made those choices?

— Wow.

'So that's what it was.'

It seemed that Swift wasn’t the only one who wanted to fill up this sanctuary. The bird also wanted to fill up this sanctuary.

If that was the case, it naturally raised questions about the fairness of the competition unfolding in this abyss and the reason why Swift kept winning.

"So... Swift was able to continue like this and kept winning!?"

Of course, the bird did not provide a clear answer.

"The judgment is made by the sanctuary."

Instead, he threatened them.

"Execute."

Shwack!

The bird flew up while spreading his wings threateningly.

"I'll give you the final choice."

The bird’s figure grew dark from the backlight. It looked overwhelmingly threatening.

He said in a booming voice, "Kill each other! Then we can return to the original course at least."

Perhaps, they could survive if they submitted to him now.

Ben trembled and asked, "Luna... w-w-we can't fight well. Are you okay?"

"Who said we can't fight!? Just shut your mouth!"

Then, she drew two swords.

Swish!

'That's...'

Luna drew Swift's swords. With a familiar motion, she spun the swords and lunged at the bird.

"Almond! I've made up my mind!"

Bang!

A flying sword cut through the air and passed over the bird's shoulder. It seemed like it missed, but...

[Flash]

Shwack!

Luna was glowing golden and appeared above the sword.

[Sword Vitality]

She ignited with the Sword Vitality skill and slashed at the bird.

Chwaaak!

The bird allowed the attack.

[HP: 97%]

It turned around and swung its winged sword at Luna, but…

[Flash]

Luna was already gone.

Shwack!

She reappeared with a sword in hand next to Ben.

"L-Luna." Ben was surprised and murmured. "So you were good at fighting?"

"Haa... Haa... How long have I been rotting here? I can do at least this much."

— What did she do? lol

— Her hitting Swift once and running away is what makes her good at fighting, lol.

— Ben is so cute, lol.

— Luna's self-confident face is so annoying, lol.

"It's not a very good choice."

The bird, who received a blow from Luna, seemed quite unhappy and growled.

"Fine. I'll judge everyone."

"Almond. I'll attack again. Protect me. If we fight like this, we can win."

Luna asked Almond to protect her.

Almond nodded.

"I’ll shoot first."

Bang!

Almond shot an arrow. The bird flapped its wings and deflected it. Although the bird blocked the arrow, a gap opened up and Luna's blade plunged into it.

Shwack!

[Flash]

At the same time, Luna slashed with her sword.

Fwoosh...!

The blade pierced the bird's abdomen, but the bird clenched the knife in return.

Thud.

"Huh...? The blade won't come out!"

The bird swung its fist. It was so huge that if it hit, it would definitely be fatal.

Boom...!

At that moment, Almond's arrow struck the bird’s weak spot. The bird's fist paused for a moment.

Luna threw herself with all her might and pulled out her sword. The punch missed her by a hair’s breadth.

— Wow, what a combo!

— Fantastic teamwork!

— It's like a fifth-year student's hostility and a medical student's teamwork!

The bird flailed with an empty fist and Almond's arrow struck again, revealing another weakness that stunned the enemy.

Boom!

From the bird's perspective, it was an unfair one-sided battle.

— Stun is so unfair.

— How can the bird win this lol (The boss entered)

— That five-star bow is going crazy, lol.

— It’s crazy because Almond is using it.

— Let's proceed smoothly until phase 2!!

[HP: 73%]

As the battle continued, the bird’s health quickly decreased.

[HP: 47%]

It had already decreased by less than half.

***

Some time passed.

"Haa... Haa... Was it easier than expected? This bird bastard. You were all bark and no bite."

Luna seemed quite confident as she made such remarks.

— That remark...

— Did she almost finish him off in one go? Lol.

— Oh.

Like all bosses, this bird also had a phase two.

Ka-blam!

The bird's form exploded.

[Transcendence]

Its whole body burned white and its health partially recovered.

[HP: 60%]

Moreover, the sparse feathers on the edge of its blade completely grew back.

The bird soared up with terrifying momentum. It ascended to heights where even arrows couldn't reach.

"You managed to push me this far."

Despite taking so much damage, its voice sounded casual with no desperation. There was no sign of hesitation at all.

"Impressive," the bird said and activated another skill.

[Memory]

It began to recall different memories.

"It's been a while since I faced a human. I'm a bit rusty on how to deal with them, but..."

It began to recall memories of the most outstanding opponents it had faced so far. Complex rune characters swirled around its head and white beams shot out from its eyes.

The bird’s form gradually changed into a human's.

'So this was it.'

Almond had a hunch. He had been fighting against the data of previous players all along. That was what the bird meant.

'Memories of JeonJaPa...'

Maybe that was it?

One donation caught Almond’s eye.

[OrangeKing has registered a mission.]

[Bring me my tears, Almond!]

A mission came in from OrangeKing.

— ??

— Huh?

— Is this for real? lol.

— OrangeKing, lol.

— Out of nowhere?

— Tears? lol

— Is this about the orange juice incident?

Even though it was the same nickname, it could have been anyone. It was impossible to know if it was really OrangeKing.

[Mission]

[Kill the Last Boss]

[200,000 won]

Since this bird was practically the last boss, adding the three star clear mission to this made it a whopping 400,000 won on the line.

Donations always came in bunches.

[ShyFox has added an additional donation to the mission!]

[I'll pitch in.]

[+300,000 won]

Another viewer added a whopping 300,000 won. The total mission reward set by OrangeKing became 500,000 won.

"Thank you, OrangeKing and Shy Fox. I will definitely accomplish this."

— LOL, robbery declaration.

— The birdbrain will be down in 2 minutes, lol.

— ShyFox is so generous, haha.

— I guess ShyFox won't even get a spotlight, lol.

With the current 50,000 won and the previously set three star clear mission of 200,000 won, the bounty for the bird's neck totalled 700,000 won.

'A whopping 700,000 won.'

Almond's gaze at the soaring bird in the sky suddenly changed.

*

Ju-Hyeok was panicking.

"What's this? Is this for real?"

The OrangeKing who jokingly set up a mission earlier was indeed OrangeKing. Distinguishing whether he was real or not was easy from the perspective of someone looking on a PC. Simply clicking on his ID information would take one directly to his channel.

The channel linked in the information window was OrangeKing's real streaming channel. OrangeKing wasn't streaming right now. Of course, he wouldn't go to someone else's stream and set up a mission while doing his own stream.

‘This is going great.'

At this moment, Ju-Hyeok had a great idea. After all, wasn’t OrangeKing and Almond currently in a cooperative relationship? Moreover, OrangeKing was already going to help during today's Civil Empire solo queue with Almond going for S+ rank.

Ju-Hyeok sent a message to a number in his contacts.

[How about starting work a little earlier today?]

Almond was fighting against JeonJaPa’s old data and OrangeKing was watching it.

Ju-Hyeok smiled contently. How commercially perfect was this combo?