Chapter 10 – Shadows in the Market
One year.
A single year since Three Burning Eye had risen from nine misfits into the silent backbone of Yggdrasil's information network.
A year ago, we were explorers.
Now, we were myth.
The black markets of the game whispered our name in reverence and fear.
Need the drop rate of a World Boss?
Ask the Eyes.
Want to know a guild's hidden dungeon routes, or their members' builds?
Ask the Eyes.
Need rumors — even false ones — to manipulate the political tides between the great guilds?
Ask the Eyes.
Information had become the currency of Yggdrasil.
And we printed it.
But with fame came the disease of awareness.
Rumors spread of invisible spies infiltrating the great guilds.
Of anonymous players who joined for weeks, learned their secrets, and vanished — leaving digital ghosts behind.
At first, the great guilds thought it was paranoia.
Then they started finding evidence.
Player chat logs.
Fake scouting reports.
Encrypted transactions leading back to us.
It was only a matter of time before the first body dropped.
HIME's voice echoed softly through my earpiece one evening as I monitored the guild database.
HIME: "Ren-sama, five of our field agents have been flagged as expelled from their host guilds. Correlation suggests compromised infiltration."
I sighed, resting my chin on my hand. "They got sloppy."
HIME: "Additionally, three of them report being PK'd upon re-entry attempts. Their coordinates indicate ambush zones."
"Predictable," I murmured. "The hunted always panic when they realize they're prey."
HIME: "Recommendation: containment protocol?"
"No," I said, standing. "We adapt. Like we always do."
Two days later, I called a Grand Assembly.
For the first time in months, every active member of Three Burning Eye — all one hundred and five of them — gathered inside the Aeternum Sanctum's great hall.
The vaulted chamber pulsed with light, the reflections of data streams flickering like constellations.
Rows upon rows of avatars filled the arena-style seating, their digital armor gleaming, faces half-hidden by masks and runes.
At the center, I stood on the crystalline dais, my hood drawn low — still Traveler_R, the rogue with no face.
Beside me, as always, stood HIME — the silent sentinel.
"Comrades," I began, my voice amplified through the hall's echoing system.
"The world has started to notice us."
A low murmur rippled through the crowd.
"They whisper our name in every market, curse us in every forum, and fear our eyes in every guild. That means we've succeeded."
I paused, letting the words sink in.
"But success always breeds exposure. Several of our agents have been discovered — expelled, hunted, even killed."
The atmosphere shifted.
Some looked tense. Others frustrated.
EchoLynx, sitting near the front, spoke first. "So what do we do, boss? Fight back? Start counter-attacks?"
Kurohane frowned beside him. "No, that's too risky. The devs might flag it as griefing."
I smiled slightly under my mask. "Neither."
They looked at me, confused.
"We'll disappear."
Gasps and murmurs.
Pix raised a hand. "Disappear? You mean go dark?"
"Not exactly," I said, pacing slowly. "We're going to make them believe we've been broken. That the great Three Burning Eye has lost control of its own network."
Mourne tilted his skeletal head. "And how do you propose we do that?"
"Simple," I said. "We die."
The room went silent.
Then Dyna laughed nervously. "You're… kidding, right?"
"No."
I projected a holographic chart in the air — guild member stats, class trees, connection routes.
"Every player who's been compromised will voluntarily reset. Die in-game. Respawn. Lose their accumulated levels. And in that death, they'll seek something new."
I pointed at the display.
"Job data. Racial data. System quirks. Death resets more than progress — it resets possibilities."
Kurohane's eyes widened. "You mean… exploit death itself for research."
"Exactly," I said, a grin spreading unseen beneath the hood.
"We'll collect data no one else can. And the world will think we're desperate — that our spies were caught, that our foundation is cracking."
EchoLynx leaned forward, tail flicking. "A cover operation disguised as a breakdown. That's insane."
"Insane works," I said. "It's the only language Yggdrasil respects."
HIME stepped forward, her voice clear and calm.
HIME: "Implementation parameters: target group—thirty-seven compromised members. Estimated loss of guild strength: thirty percent. Estimated gain in unique data: fourfold."
She turned to me.
HIME: "Permission to execute protocol Ghost Bloom?"
I nodded. "Execute it."
The room lit up in faint crimson, signaling the activation of a new guild-wide directive.
[Guild Directive #33: Ghost Bloom]
All compromised members are authorized to perform voluntary resets. Data collected during post-death exploration is to be uploaded via Mirror Card interface upon revival.
The reactions were mixed.
Some were uneasy — losing levels was brutal.
Others looked excited, thrilled by the idea of discovering new job data.
But as always, my voice steadied them.
"This isn't the end. This is a rebirth. We don't vanish — we mutate. We'll make the world think we're wounded while we map the next frontier."
Kurohane smiled faintly. "Always playing three moves ahead, huh, Trave?"
"Someone has to," I said.
That night, the operation began.
Across Yggdrasil's many realms, dozens of players from Three Burning Eye allowed themselves to fall in battle — to monsters, to traps, to rival guild assassins.
The news spread fast.
The Brokers are collapsing.
Three Burning Eye is dying.
The Eyes have gone blind.
Exactly as planned.
Behind the illusion of defeat, our network remained intact.
HIME's systems masked our active servers, rerouting data through mirror proxies and cloaked subnodes.
To the world, we were silent.
But beneath that silence, a thousand new datasets bloomed.
New jobs.
New races.
New loopholes.
All harvested by ghosts who were never really gone.
A few days later, I stood alone at the top of Aeternum Sanctum, gazing down over the luminous clouds of Asgard-tier.
HIME appeared beside me, her golden eyes reflecting the distant flicker of system lights.
HIME: "Operation Ghost Bloom proceeding smoothly. External perception of guild stability: negative. Internal stability: optimal."
"Perfect," I said softly. "Let them think we've fallen."
HIME: "Deception within deception. A recursion of masks."
I smirked. "You're learning my style."
HIME: "Correction: I already learned. I'm simply optimizing."
Beneath us, the great guilds fought each other for scraps of data, paranoid and blind.
And in that chaos, Three Burning Eye continued its quiet ascent.
We were ghosts.
We were shadows.
We were the illusion they could never see through.
And as long as they chased our reflection —
the real us would always stay one step ahead.
End of Chapter 10 – Shadows in the Market