VPN

[Passive Skill : Awakened Eyes]

[Description : You open your eyes.]

I blinked.

But the familiar message didn't change.

“Come on. No way. It can't be....”

Was I really going to lose this precious level-up opportunity like this?

In such a ridiculous way?

“No way. It can't be. It has to be....”

That was when it happened. A new system window popped up before my eyes.

[You have obtained the same skill twice.]

[The passive skill ‘Awakened Eyes’ evolves.]

[Passive Skill : Insight Eye]

[Description : What you see isn't everything.]

“There was such a thing as skill evolution?”

Then this was definitely a gain.

Suddenly, I started to feel much better.

I still couldn't tell what kind of skill Insight Eye was from its annoyingly vague effect.

But there was no way it was a dud.

It had originally been the first platinum-grade skill I'd ever obtained.

I had already gotten plenty of use out of Awakened Eyes up to now.

There was no way combining two skills like that would make it worse.

“If combining them turns it into a 3-star skill, wouldn't that make it near-Rainbow grade? That'd be a huge jackpot....”

Thrilled by the unexpected windfall, I grinned as I left the tower.

For now, I needed to check again what was possible with Awakened Eyes.

But once I got out of the tower, I froze in place.

“Huh?”

I blinked dumbly.

The tower's color was strange.

It wasn't the pitch-black pillar that always seemed to swallow every bit of light.

The tower's surface was faintly glowing purple.

Over it, unidentifiable geometric patterns were slowly rippling like waves on water.

“There definitely wasn't anything like this when I entered the tower....”

Had something happened in the meantime? No. Impossible.

This was just how it appeared to my eyes.

Because I'd only just opened my eyes anew....

I instinctively realized that this was because some kind of magic had been cast on the tower.

“I see. So this is what magic looks like.”

Come to think of it, this was the first time I'd seen another person's magic since getting Awakened Eyes.

No, even before getting Awakened Eyes, I hadn't really seen any magic that actually felt like magic.

Makkakno? No matter how you looked at it, that crazy bastard's stuff wasn't magic.

A scene I'd never seen before in my life.

I was captivated by the strange beauty of the magic.

I approached the tower as if under a spell.

But the closer I got, the more the magic on the tower's surface seemed to churn.

It was trying to pull away from me.

As if it were a living creature, it was avoiding my very presence.

What the hell was going on?

I was so curious that I suddenly wanted to know everything about this magic.

Given my personality, that was unusual.

What's more, I kept feeling this strange certainty as a mage.

My mage's intuition, the same intuition that had guided me several times before, was telling me

that if I touched it, I wouldn't suffer any harm.

No, it was warning me that smashing it apart right now would actually be safer.

I reached out in a daze and pressed my hand to the tower wall.

That was the moment.

Crash-!

The sound of a giant pane of glass shattering shook the area.

The purple magic wrapping the tower's surface shattered to pieces and scattered into fragments of light.

“What the hell!”

Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep!

The anti-theft alarms on the cars parked nearby all went off at once.

Startled, I turned around and ran straight home.

“Haa, haa....”

As soon as I got home, I turned on the computer first.

Then I logged into the Mage Gallery in one familiar motion.

I needed to find out what the hell had just happened.

[Title: I Touched the Tower and Something Weird Happened]

Author: ㅇㅇ(D44.444)

There was some wave-like thing on the tower, so I touched it?

Suddenly, there was a huge glass-breaking sound.

Looks like some kind of magic was cast on it.

All the car alarms around me started going off too. What the hell is this.

I think I'm pretty screwed....

The Mage Gallery users who saw my post reacted seriously.

ㄴ Magic Is Firepower: What? Explain in detail.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: There was magic on the tower? I'll go check it out right now.

ㄴ Fridge: That glass-breaking sound just now—was that it...? I'll go out and investigate too. I'm the only researcher here, after all.

ㄴ p깟쮸: Anyway, even if I go, I won't know anything, so recommend me a breakfast menu.

The three of them left, saying they were going to investigate separately.

Only p깟쮸 was calmly killing time as always, typing nonsense with complete composure.

I kept hitting refresh anxiously while waiting for them.

“Ah, I should go check Hunter Gallery too.”

A thought suddenly came to me.

Sure enough, once I went over there, people were already in an uproar.

[Title: Anyone else just hear a glass-shattering sound?]

[Title: My window cracked. What the hell is this?]

[Title: It's not just Incheon, is it? What the fuck]

“...This didn't only happen here?”

No matter how I looked at it, I'd done something huge.

I trembled, cold sweat running down my spine.

There was no way. My mage's intuition had clearly said it was fine.

***

Meanwhile, at that same moment in the U.S.—the underground bunker beneath the Pentagon.

There, a massive operation was underway to track down a single person.

The director in charge of the operation sat with his arms crossed, staring at the central screen.

On the screen, the status of tracking magic by continent was displayed in complex graphs.

“No problems in the Europe sector.”

“The Asia sector is stable as well.”

The reports were proceeding smoothly. Everything was going according to plan.

If Double O showed up in the tower again, the spiderweb of tracking magic would immediately pinpoint his location.

That was when it happened.

“Huh?”

A quiet voice from one analyst broke the silence in the control room.

“Director? One tracking-magic signal in the Europe sector has vanished.”

The director's brow furrowed slightly.

“Report.”

“The cause is unknown. It could be a system error....”

Before the analyst could even finish speaking.

Beep- beep- beep-

A sharp alarm rang throughout the entire control room.

Dozens of monitors were instantly covered with red error messages.

“All tracking magic in the Asia sector has vanished!”

“All CCTV feeds at major bases have turned to static!”

“Signals have been cut off across Europe, North America... every sector!”

It happened in an instant.

The control room was plunged into chaos.

The sounds of frantic keyboard typing and shouted reports mixed together.

The director barked.

“What the hell is going on! Figure it out right now!”

The chief analyst stood up, his face drained of color.

His voice trembled thinly, as if he couldn't believe it.

“Director, this makes no sense.... All the tracking magic installed around the world was neutralized simultaneously, with not even a one-second margin of error.”

“Not only that, but the communications networks and all CCTV for the surveillance troops stationed around the tower were also completely paralyzed at exactly the same time.”

At the chief analyst's report, all the noise in the control room died away.

An eerie silence hung in the air.

The agents stared blankly at one another.

The director looked at the screen, now a mess of chaos, and muttered.

“I'd better take swimming lessons before I end up taking a dip in the Atlantic.”

***

A little later, people returned to the Mage Gallery.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: Situation checked. Looks like the newbie has done something huge again.

ㄴ Fridge: There was insanely secret and powerful tracking magic on the tower. The moment you touched it, it all blew up. What exactly did you do?

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(211.58) : Uu.... I'm just a baby.... I know nothing....

The mage who managed the Busan tower seemed quite flustered by this situation.

ㄴ Magic Is Firepower: What? I couldn't see that at all....

ㄴ Fridge: It's normal not to see it. I only knew because I had research equipment.... and Dung Beetle is S-rank, so maybe he saw something.

ㄴ Fridge: But this was the government's doing, right?

ㄴ Dung Beetle: Yeah. I went to the Blue House and asked what the hell was going on, and they admitted it straight away.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: They said they had no choice because of pressure from the Demigod and foreign governments. Of course, I'm not planning to let it go just because they said that.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: This is a real headache.

ㄴ Fridge: Wow, so you can actually get that serious? That's the first time I've seen you like that.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: Honestly, I'm angry too at this point.

A heavy silence briefly fell over the gallery comment section.

It was Magic Is Firepower who broke the silence.

ㄴ Magic Is Firepower: Anyway, that was a really close call. Newbie. You know that, right?

ㄴ Magic Is Firepower: You need to be a little more careful.

ㄴ Magic Is Firepower: No, even if I say it like this, I still can't relax. Where do you live? Just come to Busan. Then I can protect you. Why won't you come?

ㄴ p깟쮸: That lady is the most dangerous person!!!

I mentioned the thought that had just come to mind.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(211.58) : But I think I know why this happened.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(F44.444) : You mean the magic Makkakno cast on me. Looking back, he said weird things like it would 'break free of causality' and whatnot.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(211.58) : Maybe that was actually a spell that made me free from tracking magic like this?

The others agreed that my deduction made perfect sense.

ㄴ Fridge: Come to think of it, yeah. You'd have been sniped by tracking magic dozens of times by now.

ㄴ p깟쮸: Even that Hunter Gallery extreme verification post I made somehow didn't get caught.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: That's because I had the National Intelligence Service erase the record.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(F44.444): God Dung Beetle, just what are you.... (hug).

The gallery's atmosphere became much lighter.

It really did seem like everything had been solved.

ㄴ Magic Is Firepower: Anyway, magic from Makkakno must definitely have some risk. I don't know what it is. Shouldn't we look into it?

The moment Magic Is Firepower said that,

p깟쮸 noticed something.

ㄴ p깟쮸: Huh? The newbie's IP is weird.

ㄴ p깟쮸: No, the newbie has become normal again.

At p깟쮸's incomprehensible remark, I checked the text beside my nickname.

ㅇㅇ(211.58)

“Oh, shit?”

Horrified, I hurriedly wrote a new post.

[Title: Test]

Author : ㅇㅇ(211.58)

Content : As the title says

My IP had really gone back to normal.

Wait, was this a time-limited spell?

Or was there a limit on the number of times it could be used?

Whatever it was, this was bad.

“No!”

I wailed in despair.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(211.58): No, my invincible VPN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ㄴ Fridge: Calm down. The tracking magic is all gone now too.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: Yeah, there's nothing to be scared of. If anything happens, I'll take responsibility and block it for you, so don't worry.

I posted another test post, and this time the IP had weirdly switched back to its original state again.

ㄴ p깟쮸: Huh? It went back again. Looks like the magic hasn't completely disappeared yet.

ㄴ Fridge: Then I guess you can still relax for now.

But my cry meant something else entirely.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(22E.E4): Nah, nah. At this point, before the VPN effect wears off, I'd better go cause all the trouble I planned to cause. Then bye-bye.

With that as my last post, I immediately headed for Hunter Gallery.

Silence settled over the Mage Gallery I left behind.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: Sometimes, this really isn't easy.

ㄴ Fridge: I'm curious what they look like in person. In my opinion, they're definitely a 30-something guy.

ㄴ p깟쮸: No, they're a woman. I saw the clone last time. They said they made a female avatar because they were a man, but I think that's a lie. I think they're about my age.

ㄴ Dung Beetle: No idea. Don't go looking for them now. You'll find out eventually anyway.