Chapter 59 : Hypothesis
Chapter 59: Hypothesis
“Sure.”
Since 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 had been carelessly leaning at the very back of the armory, there was no reason to linger any longer unless he wanted to look at the previous weapons again.
Baek Woohyun accepted Kim Hana’s suggestion, and the two immediately moved to leave the armory. The way back was long, so they had to walk briskly.
And while they were leisurely walking away, one place had fallen into utter chaos—
‘ChocoFlavorJenga’ donated ‘1000 won’!
[If all seals get released it’s literally gonna be an endgame weapon, insane upvote ㅋㅋ starting with me ㅋㅋ]
“Upvote…”
“This is the kind of post that gets upvoted into oblivion. Legendary post incoming.”
—the studio that had been calmly watching Baek Woohyun explore the armory.
Viewers were spamming chat and donations nonstop, debating whether obtaining a weapon of that caliber at this point in the game made any sense.
When 「Bloodsucking Spear ‘Dragos’」 first appeared, they had only gone “damn that’s good ㄷㄷ,” but 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 was far beyond “good.”
Their reaction was perfectly normal. Any Reverse Planet player would have reacted the same way.
Even Cha Seongcheol had involuntarily shouted, “Why is a weapon with options like that appearing now?!” the moment he saw 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」.
Jeong Nayeon beside him doubted her own eyes and then became speechless.
That was the level of weapon 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 was.
“At the current main story timeline, the upper limit for obtainable gear is generally considered 「Sharp Dagger of Return」, right?”
“At this point in the game, a 2-option weapon would already make people bow down and use it.”
“Yet Hackphysical just obtained 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」, which is 3-option right now and becomes 5-option once the seals are lifted. Heh heh. Truly, heh heh.”
“As ‘NotStagnant’ said, the current 3 options are already an insane collection of top-tier effects. Indestructible, growth-type cutting power increase, and lifesteal on top of that.”
“We don’t know yet whether these are the inherent options of 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 or if Hackphysical just got astronomically lucky with the rolls.”
Item farming in Reverse Planet could be summed up in one phrase: “option rolling.”
Even if two people obtained the exact same weapon, the number of effects and what those effects were would differ.
Therefore, it was impossible to know whether the five effects on Baek Woohyun’s 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」—with these incredible ones—were the original fixed effects, or if Baek Woohyun’s insane luck had rolled them this way.
At least until someone else obtained the same 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」.
“I’ve come up with a hypothesis about how he could obtain a weapon like 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 at this stage.”
“Wow, as expected of a game expert! No wonder you’re a commentator.”
“Haha, thank you. But I can’t be certain this is correct, so please take it as pure brain speculation.”
Cha Seongcheol cleared his throat and continued calmly.
“Actually, this isn’t the first time Hackphysical has obtained gear that’s extremely hard to get at the current point. It got somewhat buried, but when he got 「Sharp Dagger of Return」, he also obtained—”
“—「<Shadow Storage> Necklace」!!”
“Exactly. 「<Shadow Storage> Necklace」 exists. That item normally starts appearing around mid-game, and even then at a very low rate.”
“Think about it. How did Hackphysical obtain 「<Shadow Storage> Necklace」?”
“He killed the Hunting Dogs and— ah!”
“You caught on. Yes. Hackphysical took down Hunting Dogs before even unlocking his second core element and looted 「<Shadow Storage> Necklace」 from them.”
If Baek Woohyun hadn’t fought the Hunting Dogs, he never would have obtained 「<Shadow Storage> Necklace」 or the other gear.
Fighting enemies where running away seemed the best option—and winning—earned him high-level equipment as a reward.
“As those who know already know, Reverse Planet has extremely clear risk-return calculations. The harder the challenge, the greater the reward. Exactly like Hackphysical killing the Hunting Dogs.”
“So you’re saying obtaining 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 this time follows the same principle.”
“Correct. Even if we say the Hunting Dog kills were separately rewarded with items like 「<Shadow Storage> Necklace」, the achievements Hackphysical has shown aren’t limited to that. We all watched everything live, after all.”
The feats during the research facility escape.
The massacre of the security forces in the forest.
Clearing a Reverse World in place of the injured Lee Yujin after defeating the Hunting Dogs.
Indeed, as Cha Seongcheol said, Baek Woohyun’s record throughout the broadcasts had been nothing short of dazzling.
Even if he received tremendous rewards, people would simply nod and accept it.
“And this time he also earned Kim Hana’s full recognition through the spar. In other words, he has completed every mission up to now with perfect scores.”
Cha Seongcheol paused for a moment, then shook his head.
“No, correction. Not perfect scores—beyond perfect. If full marks are 100, he’s been performing at 1000 points. Or maybe full marks? Anyway.”
“So the reward for exceeding every mission is 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」? That actually sounds extremely plausible.”
“Well, it’s still just my brain speculation. Proving it’s actually true would be difficult. We’d need another Hackphysical who can replicate the exact same actions.”
The viewers found Cha Seongcheol’s theory highly convincing. There simply wasn’t any other explanation that satisfactorily accounted for 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 appearing at this point.
It was also far easier to accept than the idea that he had simply gotten extremely lucky in the armory.
Thus, the commotion caused by 「Soul-Extinguishing Sword ‘Soul Eater’」 in the studio gradually died down.
All while Baek Woohyun himself remained completely unaware that any commotion had even occurred, exiting the armory with Kim Hana.
“The armory really is huge.”
“Right?”
After walking for quite a while, they finally reached the entrance area. Baek Woohyun made a casual remark, and Kim Hana quickly chimed in.
The Bureau’s armory, occupying most of the basement level, was that enormous—as if proving the sheer amount of achievements they had accumulated.
They had come out relatively quickly only because they didn’t re-examine the weapons on the way back; otherwise it would have easily taken twice as long.
“Oh! You came out faster than I expected!”
The person who greeted them as they left was Team Leader Kim Hyeonu, who had said he would prepare the paperwork outside.
Approaching with a bright expression, he looked at the greatsword Baek Woohyun was holding and said,
“Is that the weapon Agent Baek Woohyun chose?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, a greatsword. Such a romantic weapon!”
Team Leader Kim Hyeonu gave a big thumbs-up to Baek Woohyun’s ‘Soul Eater’, saying a man’s weapon has to be big and heavy like a greatsword.
It didn’t feel like empty flattery; his face showed he genuinely believed it.
(As an aside, after his comment, the studio viewers suddenly started a heated debate about what truly constitutes a “man’s weapon,” but that wasn’t particularly important.)
“Item registration number… here it is. D-04. Oh, it’s a really old item.”
Even though no one asked, Team Leader Kim Hyeonu kept talking nonstop while filling out the paperwork.
Thanks to that, they learned that weapons in the armory were assigned numbers from 00 to 99 in alphabetical order, and D-04 meant it had entered the armory almost at the very beginning.
It wasn’t information Baek Woohyun particularly wanted, so he let it go in one ear and out the other.
“Done! Item D-04’s ownership has now been transferred to Agent Baek Woohyun. I’ll send you the weapon maintenance guidelines separately, so please read them later!”
“Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. This is my job. I just did what I’m supposed to do!”
After quickly finishing the paperwork, Team Leader Kim Hyeonu said, “Then I’ll go register these documents!” and left first.
Only Baek Woohyun and Kim Hana remained in front of the now-locked armory—Team Leader Kim Hyeonu had locked it the moment they stepped out.
The two looked at each other.
Kim Hana was the first to speak.
“You just got a new weapon, so how about we go clear a Reverse World to get used to it?”
The tone was as light as suggesting a walk out front, but the content was anything but.
Clearing a Reverse World just to break in a new weapon?
“…Is that really okay?”
“Why not?”
Kim Hana shrugged at Baek Woohyun’s question.
“Who’s going to stop a Bureau agent from wanting to clear a Reverse World? That’s literally what agents are for.”
She wasn’t exactly wrong.
In fact, Kim Hana’s statement was closer to the orthodox truth.
Bureau agents were hired exclusively from awakeners with supernatural abilities for the purpose of clearing Reverse Worlds.
Therefore, agents clearing Reverse Worlds was something to be encouraged, never discouraged.
……Whether that truly applied to a freshly minted probationary agent was another matter entirely.
“Alright.”
Baek Woohyun didn’t make any unnecessary refusals.
The fact that he wasn’t an ordinary probationary agent was already widely known within the Bureau.
Plus, he himself wanted to swing around the weapon he had cherished for years now that he had it back—quite vigorously, at that.
“Then shall we go right now?!”
“Where are you planning to go?”
“There happens to be a perfect spot. I heard a Reverse World opened in a mountain not far from here.”
Kim Hana took the lead and pulled out her smartphone from her pocket. After a few swipes, an alarm sounded from Baek Woohyun’s pocket.
He took out his phone and checked—Reverse World information had been sent as a file. The sender was, naturally, Kim Hana.
“Reverse World size is small, danger assessment grade is F+ to E+. Beast-type individual invaders. It’s wolf-based, so it shouldn’t be too different from insect-type—just fewer in number and a bit stronger? Ah, they’ll probably coordinate attacks too.”
“Beast-type…”
“It’s wolf-based, so it won’t be much different from insect-type. Just fewer numbers and slightly stronger individuals? Oh, and they’ll team up moderately.”
“Is it really not that different?”
Fewer numbers, stronger individuals, and they coordinate attacks—if anything, comparing that to insect-type swarms that only relied on sheer quantity felt like an insult.
Excluding raw numbers, it was clearly a higher-tier threat, yet she flatly declared it “not much different,” so Baek Woohyun couldn’t help but question it.