| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 2877 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 1759 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
The server maintenance time was so long that it was making us totally bored. It seemed like the scale of the update was quite large, as it was as long as the server maintenance it took to apply the last large-scale patch in the past. And it seemed the patch was still ongoing for now.
Katalina was busy endlessly giving orders to her officers in the guild through her phone for matters offline. I was definitely the leader of the alliance guild, but as Katalina still focused on the matters of the guild, I didn’t need to set out to deal with that at all.
If it was like usual and there wasn’t any server maintenance, there was supposed to be a meeting between guild leaders of the alliance. However, it was delayed due to the long server maintenance.
“I’m sure Katalina will take care of it.”
I was sounding really irresponsible, but as someone who doesn’t even know how to personally contact those people, it was the only thing I could do.
“She said she uploaded an announcement online, right? Speaking of which, I told her that I was going to take care of the commercial that was going to be aired on TV, didn’t I.”
Remembering the promise I had made her, I called for my butler.
“Did you call, your highness?”
With a simple phone call, the butler immediately came to my side.
“Please don’t call me with that designation. ‘Your highness’? I think just calling me Duchess would be better…”
“Why is it that you find that disagreeable? To call someone with a higher title of nobility, the correct manner is to call them ‘your highness’. Though that mannerism is nowadays not used as frequently, I as the butler of the great Kent family cannot allow myself to ignore such tradition.”
He was inflexible as all hell. The butler’s expression was more stern than ever as he claimed he can never call me anything else.
“Sigh. Then please call me whatever you wish.”
“I shall do so, your highness.”
I was just worried about whether every single employee of the household will be calling me ‘your highness’ as well.
“But what is it that you called me for?”
The butler assumed that I wouldn’t have called him simply for the matter of the manner of how he calls me.
“Ah! I just had a few things to ask you, which is why I called for you. Are you busy right now?”
“I am not. And even if I were, I cannot possibly ignore the orders of your highness. It is my job to put everything aside and carry out your orders as the highest priority.”
Just say you’re not busy…
“Then I’ll ask you a few things.”
“Go ahead then.”
“Do we possibly have some personal connections with any broadcasting companies with our family household?”
“Hmm. A Broadcasting company, you say? May I dare ask you why you are suddenly bringing up a broadcasting company?”
“I’m thinking of making a commercial to air on TV.”
As there wasn’t any need for me to lie to him particularly, so I answered his question without any lies.
“Commercials, you say. Is it perhaps related to things that your highness is doing in Blue Sky?”
“Yes.”
As I was answering him, I was still a little nervous. He was really cutting down my status by pointing these facts out like this. Because it would be quite troublesome for me if he were to say that to do such a thing will bring shame to the family and that he fully opposes making such a commercial.
“Understood then. We do have a few connections to the broadcasting companies, I’ll do my best so that you’ll be able to air a commercial on TV as soon as possible.”
“Huh?”
Though it was the answer I was hoping for the most, I didn’t think he would so easily agree to my request, so my face looked puzzled for a moment.
“Did you need more?”
The butler looked worried upon seeing my expression and asked.
“No, no. That’s perfect. I’ll create the commercial with the length of time from 30 seconds to 1 minute, so please try to contact the broadcasting company that has the most widespread influence.”
“I’ll take care of the costs discreetly.”
“Please do. I’ll let you take care of everything relating to it. And please carry it out so that the commercial can be aired as soon as possible.”
In some ways, I may be pushing my luck here. I had given him some partial executive power over my funds so that even if corruption were to possibly occur, I had practically given him a free pass since I won’t be able to stop him. However, Elizabeth’s grandfather who passed away did mention in his will that the butler was someone that I could trust the most. Considering that he was someone that was suspicious of everyone, I was certain that the butler’s loyalty towards me was absolute no matter what.
“How long would you like to air the commercial?”
“Hmm…”
That’s right, the airtime was the problem. I wasn’t sure just how long the war would go on in the game, so it was something I had overlooked until now.
“Let’s keep it airing continuously for 2 weeks. But also leaving an option to extend the contract if needed.”
“Yes, I’ll do so.”
The war may end within 2 weeks. But it may help in the long run to advertise the guild so that users will be more likely to join as time goes on even if the war has already ended.
Like that, I watched as the butler left before becoming curious about what kind of public opinion had formed on Blue Sky’s website, as well as what topics became controversial, so I turned on the computer to check the website ‘Those Who Love The Sky,’ a Korean official fansite that I haven’t visited in a long time. The hottest news was mostly about a few skirmishes happening in foreign country servers, especially the England servers with headlines about a character called Artoria. However, there were a few hot topics that caught my attention among them.
‘Phoenix guild has smashed the Reaper guild!’
A war had broken out between two guilds of the top 5 who had a strong rivalry between them for a long time. It was a little hard to tell exactly which side had an advantage over the other though. Meaning that two almost equal guilds had finally determined the winner and loser.
“They were planning it for a long time, and it looks like they finally landed a good hit on them. I’m sure the guild leader of Phoenix was called ‘Singha’, right? Must be really thrilled about it now.”
Personally, I had a pretty good relationship with the Phoenix guild, and actually had a close friendship with Singha the guild leader.
He was in his mid-thirties with a well-off household and had a nice and easygoing personality, which made him popular amongst the people around him. Aside from his flaw that he becomes completely rude and crazy whenever he’s drunk, he was someone that was great to have as a friend.
I once had a quarrel with him at one of the hunting grounds that the Phoenix guild owned in the past, but thanks to his broad-minded and easy-going personality, we became good friends even after having a few rounds of sword clashing. As someone who wasn’t good at making personal relationships, he was one of the very few that was on my friend’s list.
“Hey, I really like you kid. If you come over to Mok Dong1 one day for whatever, call me. I’ll buy you a nice meal.”
I was reminded of the last conversation I had with him. At that time I laughed and considered going out of my way to see him at Mok Dong2 one day, but in the end, that was the last interaction I had with him.
“I guess he’s someone that’s completely unrelated to me now…”
It was a sad thought, but it seemed like my relationship with him ended there. Even if I were to go to Korea, I had already lost any reason to meet up with someone named Singha after all.
The next thing that caught my eye was…
“There’s no way!”
I shouted out loud in disbelief.
‘Cross was actually female?! Shocking news!’
‘Cross was not actually dead!’
A huge number of related articles about Cross ran down the screen. Whether they’re bait headlines or not, I was shocked to see that they were saying that even though I had already died, I was still playing the game somehow.
Did my original body become alive again? The worst possible situation flashed across my mind. But then I shook my head to get rid of that idea.
When I saw the videos and photos that were attached to the articles, the user ID Cross was clearly on the character but it couldn’t have been me.
“I’m a woman?”
That’s right. The user with the Cross as ID was a woman in the media I was seeing. Suddenly I had a thought that was plausible. I had died in real life, that was for sure. My character would have been deleted, and someone else could have taken my ID and made an account using that ID name. The fact that the user was female was just coincidental and nothing more than that.
“But it certainly is strange… I mean, really strange.”
But the more I read into the article and saw the images and videos of the user, I realized that the truth was different than what I assumed.
Though it seemed like she had fallen quite far from top-ranking players on the server, she was still at least level 700.
It hasn’t been that long since I had died, so how is she level 700 already? I realized that it meant my assumption was wrong yet again.
“No way…”
Thinking about the possibility, I looked at the video which had the clearest view of the user among the videos. I then used a program to zoom in on her face.
The picture zoomed in, I realized that her face was very similar to someone I know, and finally I became certain who it was.
“Why is Ha Yeon…3”
I mumbled to myself in a quiet voice the name of my blood-related little sister4 who should be living in Korea now.
