“What did you just say...?”

Siegfried instantly realized that the side effects of the Elixir of Transcendence had taken effect, and he bolted toward the laboratory.

He did not doubt Seung-Gu one bit.

Just as Seung-Gu trusted Siegfried with his life, Siegfried also completely trusted Seung-Gu.

He did not consider, even for a fraction of a second, the possibility that Seung-Gu had betrayed him. Hence, he concluded that it was all the Elixir of Transcendence's fault.

‘Damn it! What the hell happened?!’

As he rushed past the corridors, chaos unfolded before his eyes.

Bam! Bam!

Krwaaaang!

Iron Golems were rampaging wildly through the palace, slaughtering everything in sight.

The servants, maids, and officials who were going about doing their duties were all butchered before the imperial guards could even intervene.

And that was not all...

The Iron Golems smashed through both objects and structures alike, leaving behind them a wake of destruction.

The magnitude of the disaster unfolding within the imperial palace couldn’t be put into words.

However, Siegfried did not let the chaos distract him and stayed focused.

‘I need to subdue Seung-Gu first.’

He knew that the only way to stop this madness was to subdue the one controlling the Iron Golems—Seung-Gu.

Finally, Siegfried arrived before Seung-Gu was only to find that someone else was already there.

“...!”

Siegfried flinched upon seeing him,

The man born a mere human yet clawed his way up to the rank of Grandmaster. He lamented not being able to stand at the pinnacle of the world, but instead of feeling despair, he trained endlessly until he seized the power of invincibility.

He was the most powerful being in existence, one so powerful that the very law of causality was trying to wrestle him out of the mortal realm.

Rather than pursue great riches or fame, his final wish as a human was to leave behind a successor and watch him grow.

In addition, he cherished his successor’s daughter as if she were his own granddaughter.

Deus.

The Level 999 Hidden NPC gripped Seung-Gu by the throat.

“No matter how mad you’ve become, you dare lay a hand on my granddaughter?” Deus said in a low voice.

The rage radiating from him was beyond imagination.

“Arghh...!”

The energy he released was so overwhelming that even Siegfried couldn’t take a single step toward them.

Badump! Badump! Badump!

Siegfried’s heart pounded wildly, and his veins bulged as though they could burst at any moment.

“How dare you...” Deus growled low.

Seung-Gu’s body began to slowly disintegrate.

‘N-No!’ Siegfried screamed inwardly after realizing what was going on. Deus was not merely trying to kill Seung-Gu right now. He was going to erase him. He was going to delete Seung-Gu's character.

How did Siegfried come to that conclusion?

It was all because Deus was someone who could kill Seung-Gu with a flick of his finger.

The fact that Deus had grabbed Seung-Gu by the throat to disintegrate him meant that he was dead serious about annihilating Seung-Gu.

“M-Master! Please compose yourself!” Siegfried shouted.

“Hm?”

At Siegfried’s cry, Deus stopped disintegrating Seung-Gu.

Then, he realized that he had gone too far due to being blinded by rage.

“Ahem!”

He coughed awkwardly, seemingly embarrassed.

“It seems I let my anger carry me away.”

“Master...”

“Ahem! The thought of my precious granddaughter being harmed was too much to bear, so I went too far.”

“Haha... Hahaha...”

Siegfried scratched the back of his head and laughed awkwardly.

‘Wow... So even master has this side to him,’ he thought.

He had always seen Deus as the picture of transcendence. He was detached from this world and always composed, as if nothing could ever shake him.

Witnessing Deus act on such raw emotion was surprising and astonishing. Despite being a being who had a foot in the realm of the divine, he revealed his human side the moment his beloved granddaughter was harmed.

‘It proves just how much he loves and dotes on Verdandi,’ Siegfried thought.

And he was right...

Deus thought of Siegfried as his own son, so naturally, he regarded Verdandi as his own granddaughter. When his beloved granddaughter was in danger, divine or not, Deus couldn’t contain his rage.

***

Thanks to Siegfried's timely arrival, Seung-Gu barely escaped the fate of permanent deletion.

“Hmph! I guess this was a mistake,” Deus said nonchalantly before flinging Seung-Gu to the side like a ragdoll.

He could have been more understanding of Seung-Gu, but he chose not to on purpose.

Why?

Seung-Gu had consumed the Elixir of Transcendence, after all. The Elixir of Transcendence was no different from a drug, one that granted power to the user.

While Seung-Gu had taken it out of desperation, Deus was a perfectionist who sought power through hard work.

No matter how pitiful Seung-Gu appeared, his use of the Elixir of Transcendence was not something that Deus would tolerate. Besides, Seung-Gu had committed the cardinal sin of daring to strangle Verdandi.

That alone was more than enough reason for Deus to erase him from existence.

“I’ll heal the boy, so don’t worry,” Deus said.

“Thank you, master,” Siegfried replied with a courteous bow.

Surprisingly, it seemed that Deus felt a hint of guilt toward Seung-Gu. Despite everything Seung-Gu had done, the fact that Deus had offered to heal him from the side effects of the Elixir of Transcendence was a gesture of extending grace—at least, in his own way.

“Hmm... More importantly,” Deus muttered. Then, he turned and walked toward Verdandi, who was still under the protection of the knights.

“My dear little one. Were you frightened?”

“Not at all, Grandfather!”

Even after facing such an ordeal that would have traumatized other people of her age, Verdandi seemed unshaken. Her mental strength and maturity had surpassed even that of grown men, so she was not going to suffer from something like this.

“Please forgive Uncle Seung-Gu! He was under mind control! He did not mean to hurt anyone!”

“Oh, my sweet child. So kindhearted. Okay, I will not hold him accountable for what happened.”

“Thank you, grandfather!”

“Anything for you, my child.”

Deus scooped Verdandi up in his arms, smiling gently at her. Her pure innocence was so beautiful to him that he simply couldn’t help but dote on her.

‘I’m really glad master was here,’ Siegfried sighed in relief while binding Seung-Gu tightly with restraints. Then, he thought, ‘Damn, so this is the side effect of the Elixir of Transcendence...’

Though the immediate problem had been dealt with, Siegfried’s worries only grew the more he thought about it.

‘That tower with the antenna... It was for brainwashing. It controls the minds of those who drank the Elixir of Transcendence. Damn it, that means every high-level Adventurer who took the elixir will end up a slave of the Marchioni Empire now.’

The side effect had finally revealed itself, and it was the worst thing that could happen—an account hijack. Siegfried would feel relieved if the side effect were the permanent deletion of the accounts of those who had taken the elixir.

At the very least, those Adventurers would not turn into his enemies, after all.

But now?

Tens of thousands of high-level Adventurers had essentially become puppets of the Marchioni Empire.

This was not a problem; it was an absolute disaster. When taking into consideration military might alone, the Marchioni Empire was already daunting. And their military had just grown by at least thirty percent.

This was nothing short of the worst-case scenario for the Proatine Empire.

***

Meanwhile, the high-level gamers were thrown into utter panic as word of the incident started to spread.

[Alert: Status Ailment!]

[Alert: You have been afflicted with Mind Control!]

[Alert: You have lost control over your character!]

[Alert: You will be logged out in 10... 9...]

Those who had drunk the Elixir of Transcendence found themselves booted from the game the moment they logged in.

In other words, they couldn’t play the game anymore.

Naturally, the BNW community erupted into an uproar.

The number of high-level gamers who lost control of their characters reached a staggering six hundred ten thousand users. Those six hundred ten thousand users stormed the official BNW forums and protested heavily.

— Sun1004: You fucking bastards! Just shut down the game if you’re gonna run it like this! Fuck you!

— Yeongbiram: What the hell is going on? Why can’t I log in? This is really fucked up!

— Noknok: I hope you trip over a rock and break your teeth.

— GUyou: Fuck this game! Piece of shit shit shit shit shit!

— Nutella: For fuck’s sake! What the hell is wrong with you?!

— Sp0: So just because we drank a potion given by an NPC... you steal our accounts? How does that make sense...?

Something like this had never taken place in the history of all video games. The players had not done anything wrong, yet the NPCs stole their accounts and locked them out of the game.

The sheer absurdity of the situation led to the gamers staging protests against Hive Games Entertainment.

In fact, the chaos even made it onto the evening news as the top headline.

At first, BNW’s developer and publisher, Hive Games Entertainment, said nothing. Eventually, they finally released a statement regarding the matter, but it was no different from their usual response.

As clearly stated in our Terms of Service, we do not intervene in gaming incidents or accidents that occur within the game world.

(omitted...)

The current situation is the result of the NPCs, governed by artificial intelligence, taking control of the players’ characters.

Therefore, we have concluded that it is a part of the game’s content.

(omitted...)

We regret to inform you that we cannot resolve this matter on your behalf.

“Tsk... These guys never change.” Tae-Sung shook his head and clicked his tongue after reading the announcement.

After the incident, he spent most of his time comforting Verdandi before logging out to take a break, which was when he saw the announcement.

The official announcement was made in true Hive Games Entertainment fashion.

Why else would people say that the beehive doesn’t care?

The main concept of BNW was a world created together by players and NPCs, and Hive Games Entertainment clung to that concept as if it were the word of god. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

From start to finish, they had been insisting on running the game without any intervention, no matter what happened. However, philosophy or terms of service aside, the players were not going to take this lying down.

— News/General: BNW players move to launch a class-action lawsuit against Hive Games Entertainment!

— Breaking News: The largest law firm in the United States will be leading the class-action lawsuit against Hive Games Entertainment!

— Hot Issue: Gamers preparing a class-action lawsuit against the game developer!

— Breaking News: Players file a formal complaint via the largest law firm in South Korea, Kim & Chang!

Most of the successful gamers were incredibly wealthy. They earned tens of billions of won or even hundreds of billions of won in a year, so they could afford to hire elite lawyers.

Of course, Hive Games Entertainment was the industry’s top mega-corporation, so they would no doubt assemble an elite legal team of their own.

However, the world had changed quite a lot, so even a mega corporation would face a grueling legal battle if law firms from multiple countries launched class-action lawsuits against it.

‘I guess things are going to get noisy for a while,’ Tae-Sung thought. Then, he scrolled through the flood of comments left by the gamers on his G-Tube channel.

Many people expressed relief that they had trusted his earlier warnings about the side effects of the Elixir of Transcendence, while others apologized for doubting and criticizing him before.

‘What’s done is done. I did my best to warn them. And if even one person didn’t drink the elixir, then that’s more than enough. Ah, forget about it. I’ll be fighting a war soon, so I should just rest up and focus on that.’

Tae-Sung was just about to shut down his computer and head to bed when—

Knock! Knock!

Someone knocked on the door.

“Excuse me, Young Master?” his head bodyguard asked cautiously.

“Yes?”

“My apologies for disturbing you, but...”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Vice President Oppenheimer of Hive Games Entertainment is requesting a meeting.”

“...Who?”

Tae-Sung doubted his ears for a second.

“He claims to be Mr. Oppenheimer, Vice President of Hive Games Entertainment. He happened to be visiting their office here in South Korea when this incident occurred.”

“What the hell...?”

Tae-Sung did not expect Oppenheimer himself to come looking for him.

“He is currently staying in the Grand Hyatt. Shall I prepare the car?”

“Yeah, I should go.”

Tae-Sung quickly got dressed and prepared to go out.

If anyone else had asked to meet him, then he would have refused.

However, the Vice President of Hive Games Entertainment was a different story. Someone in such an esteemed position had expressed his desire to meet him, so he had no choice but to go.