CH 352

“Yo yo yo, what’s up guys? Welcome back to my channel, and I got something special lined up for y’all today! We are about to post a video of me linking up with the one and only Caliber Kwon Seong-Il. This dude might look like your average Joe on the streets, but in the Stage of Advent, he is a straight-up powerhouse. And get this, homebody has been strolling around in his undies since he got back from the association, haha! So without further ado, let’s get up close and personal with this super-strong Awakened and see what he is all about!”

The clip started with the cameraman going into the living room from a room. It was a prank on Kwon Seong-Il. The in-suite corridor of the Presidential Royal Suite of the Ilsung Hotel was long. At the end where the main living room was connected, Seong-Il’s back appeared on the screen.

With Seong-Il’s muscular back as the backdrop, Ki-Cheol gave a thumbs-up. The editing was amateurish and awkward, with the image of the Hulk poorly superimposed, clearly showing the work of a middle school student. Nevertheless, Ki-Cheol’s videos always became the most-viewed clips as soon as he posted them.

In the video, there were no empty alcohol bottles rolling around in Seong-Il’s room. He seemed to be regaining his senses, waiting for the day when he would enter the extraterrestrial world.

At an angled extension of his arms, every time he made a fist, the resultant force flowed into his back muscles, then continued to propagate upwards, specifically targeting the trapezius muscles and those in close proximity to his spine. The muscles in his entire body reacted as soon as he applied strength to his fist.

Previously, those muscles were buried under a thick layer of fat as there was no point in being fit in a world filled with peace, but they were large and defined. Ki-Cheol seemed to have lost his words since this was his first time seeing his dad like this.

It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

「 (I was so close to going out of my mind. Isn’t his back so sexy?) 」

“Aren’t they cute?” Yeon-Hee said when she saw the sloppily edited words pop up on the video. The clip continued to play.

“You are filming again? You must be having lots of fun.” Seong-Il smiled at the camera.

“Mr. Caliber. Are you working out right now?” Ki-Cheol asked.

Seong-Il rolled his eyes. “Hey, why are you calling me that? Just call me dad.”

“Please explain to the subscribers. You don’t seem to be working out.”

“Huh, subscribers?” Seong-Il blinked.

“Yes, the ones who are watching my videos. They are also your fans.”

“So they are like Krong?”

“Krong?”

Seong-Il explained, “I had something called Kronos’s chest plate. It was the first A-class item I got, and it was frighteningly good. It's too bad that I can’t show you and Yong-Joo now because it got destroyed.”

“Yeah, it’s something like that. I named them Swordies. Do you want to say hi to them?”

“Gosh, you are making me do everything. Hello, S…swordies~ Is this how you say hi?”

Ki-Cheol interjected, “You should wave your hands, too.”

“Oh, um…”

「 (Mr. Caliber is shy. He is adorable!) 」

“Hahahaha, oh my gosh. Look at them. They are calling Seong-Il cute.”

In fact, it was Yeon-Hee who showed me this video with her phone. She was exaggerating her laugh more than usual because she hoped her brightness would calm my anger.

Looking back, there was no setback in the preparation process of the association. I spared no financial resources to the system security team. I put together a team that consisted not only of the country’s top award-winning hackers, but also individuals who had previously worked in Silicon Valley and the U.S. Defense Department. In addition, we also welcomed groups of white hackers from India and China to join our team.

However, the end result was bad. Jamie, who had carried out all the work, wouldn’t have expected such results from them as she offered more than basic salaries and membership in the association. We had planned to provide the data that was leaked to the newly formed market, including the list of the Awakened’s code names and levels.

Nonetheless, the fact that the identity of Awakened was disclosed by another group was bound to be a blow. It would appear that there were weaknesses in the Awakened association, and me, Odin. That was why I was pissed.

The power that the Awakened had gained didn’t include that of the IT world that human civilization had created independently. It was the domain of some computer geniuses.

At that time, Jamie called me. Yeon-Hee paused the video that she was watching and waited for me to answer the call.

This was Jamie’s first time getting scolded by me since I hired her. Like Yeon-Hee’s tone, which was higher than usual, there was a change in Jamie’s voice as well. I interrupted her coldly.

She hesitated to answer that she would follow my order. For Jamie, who didn’t know much about the world of hackers, it could seem reasonable to scout criminals.

However, that kind of thinking was wrong. The skill set possessed by the hackers on our IT team was no less impressive than that of the association’s physical security team. In fact, had the roles been reversed and the black hackers been in charge of security, there was doubt that our IT team would have been capable of infiltrating and extracting even more data given the remarkable experience of each member.

The key takeaway here was that any firewall currently in existence could be breached as long as the hacker’s organization had LAN line access to a computer that was connected to the world’s internet. The U.S. Department of Defense and CIA servers were often treated as trophies for black hackers.

However, there was an obvious reason why black hackers seldom targeted national intelligence facilities, even assuming that they weren’t foreign intelligence agents. This was because the penalties for getting caught were much more severe. It was a whole different story from robbing private companies and threatening them with the data.

Therefore, the association would reveal a more extreme punishment. The vulnerability of the association’s firewall could be supplemented through Bug Bounty’s Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP). Anyway, those who attacked our servers would be sentenced to life imprisonment. A life sentence without parole!

Black hackers around the world would realize a lot from watching these people getting old and dying in prison.

Jamie had too much work to do.

***

“Is the trading system on hold?” Yeon-Hee asked in a very disappointed tone.

She had been waiting for the day to trade insignias as she planned to reinforce the Clown’s Dagger.

I explained, “Until the successor takes over the association.”

She sighed. “I think this is a better outcome. If we had already launched the trading system, it would have been much more challenging to resolve the situation, don’t you think?”

I replied while shaking my head, “Take the Light Pillar in Act Two, Stage One as an example. Black hackers succeeded in breaking through the boundaries on the first floor, but they were wiped out on the next floor. For a hacker, nothing is more important than not getting caught. Breaking through the firewalls is just the first step. Hacking is meaningless if you are caught, but they failed to hide from us.”

Yeon-Hee asked, “Can I say that the association’s security team won? I’m just curious.”

I clarified, “No one actually won.”

“But what if we have to come to a conclusion?”

“The system’s security team won, but it was a pyrrhic victory.”

“Because we caught the hackers?”

“Yes.”

“What about you? You accessed the system of the Eight Evils and the Eight Virtues before.”

I shook my head. “No, it was a system of rank-and-file officers under them.”

It was a time when no system was connected to the Internet. It was imperative to infiltrate the home base to gain access. To connect the USB, armed with the hacking tools, to the server, I had to navigate through a series of security devices that were as complex and forbidding as a labyrinthine dungeon.

“Don’t you know the hackers you worked with at the time? Why don’t you look for them? Is it hard to find them?”

“If those people are in the diamond section, then the association’s security team members are in the challenger section. They are the best in the world.”

Yeon-Hee looked at me with a puzzled look as if she was saying, ‘But they couldn’t defend the server.’

“They can hack the U.S. Department of Defense if they want to. So, our job is to make them not think about even doing that.”

Yeon-Hee tilted her head to the side. “This field is quite interesting.”

“Every field is like that. Whether it’s big or small, there are rules and disputes. You should know that because you used to be a teacher for a while.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s a long time ago.”

“Hey, don’t pretend you know nothing. You were Bronze in the teaching world.”

Yeon-Hee smirked. “You grew up a lot, Seon-Hu. I didn’t expect you to say such mean things, hehe. Do you want to get scolded by me?”

“Save your energy for the night. We won’t sleep at the hotel today.”

Yeon-Hee smiled and shifted her gaze back to her phone where Ki-Cheol’s video was. When I nodded, she resumed the video and Seong-Il started moving again.

“What did you just do, Mr. Caliber? It was dope!” Ki-Cheol exclaimed.

“Haha, was it?’’

Seong-Il smiled happily at Ki-Cheol in the video.

“Of course!”

“Uh… Ummm… I was controlling my Strength. But… Did you get permission to film this?”

“Yes. Mr. Caliber would have been usually drinking around this time, but he was controlling his Strength today. I think he is about to enter the fantasy world.”

“Wow, my son should be a news reader. You are so good at speaking, son. Yes, I should go beat them all up. They should know their place and never attack us again. Don’t you think so, Ki-Cheol?”

“Yes, sir. We are going to film an experiment video today. If you show us the power of the Invincible Caliber, it would be a great opportunity to…”

In the video, Seong-Il and Ki-Cheol engaged in a lengthy exchange of words, which was then edited to play at several times the original speed. Even Yong-Joo joined them, then rubbed his hands together multiple times. Similar scenes quickly passed by after Seong-Il scratched his nose several times.

Then, the screen was switched to darkness with no sound.

「 (It was so hard to get permission ^^ Thank you again to Mr. Caliber and the World Awakened Association for allowing us to film. Please subscribe and like the video!) 」

Ki-Cheol’s exhausted face overlapped the message, then the video started again with Ki-Cheol and Seong-Il standing side by side. They were outside with the twelve-story residence building located behind the Ilsung Hotel in the back.

The interesting thing was that a five-ton refrigerated truck for transporting food ingredients from the Ilsung Hotel was lightly placed on Seong-Il’s right hand. Ki-Cheol and Seong-Il were covered in the shadow below it.

We fast-forwarded through the video and paused at the moment when it zoomed in on the marks left on the cement floor. As we continued to advance the footage, we saw Seong-Il leaping toward the roof of a towering twelve-story building.

「 (This time, I will ask Mr. Caliber to carry me and jump up to the highest floor of the building.) 」

As Ki-Cheol held the camera, the video aptly captured the exhilarating sense of speed that was palpable at that moment.

「 (I thought I was going to die ㅠㅠ) 」

“Seong-Il must love his son a lot. He is doing everything that his son asked for.”

Just as Yeon-Hee was staring at me with a pensive expression, I received a notification indicating that the vehicle I had requested was now available.

[Please select the dungeon that will go through transition.]

Of course, I could have made the necessary adjustments on the spot with my Sixth Sense, but I had a specific reason for wanting to drive there myself and select the dungeon personally. My intention was to be the first to infiltrate the civilization of the Star Dragorin and confront any potential adversaries head-on. I wished to evaluate their strength and assess the situation with my own eyes.