The Horror Crypt Lord—no, Wonhyo—advanced, spewing blue flames.
Boom! Boom!
The metal golem, spewing blue flames over three meters long, naturally forced all the pets and monsters to retreat.
"Do they really instinctively know what's scary?"
"No, that's not it."
Excel replied to Newbie's words.
"You say no?"
"Yeah. I can sense their emotions. It feels like something other than fear. Hmm, hmm... How should I put it... It's like the feeling I have for you."
Hearing Axel's words, Newbie felt like he understood.
Just as Wonhyo had said, to all the monsters and pets here, he was a friend, a comrade, and family.
That emotion was strong enough to suppress the bugs.
"Grr!"
"Grrrr!"
But that didn't mean they were invincible.
In places Wonhyo couldn't keep an eye on, the creatures began to lose their battle against the bugs and slowly started closing in on them.
Especially as they neared the command wagon, the bugs pressed in on them even more fiercely.
Wonhyo couldn't move any further.
To calm them down, Wonhyo had to hold this position.
"Calm your friends down. Maestro—no, I'll take care of them."
Wonhyo nodded at Newbie's words and scanned the surroundings.
While Wonhyo was calming down the entire White Ghost Night Parade, only Newbie and Excel managed to reach the command wagon.
To be honest, Newbie had never really felt just how dangerous the bugs were.
He had only ever experienced how dangerous NPCs could be when they used bugs maliciously.
But the scene before him now was truly bizarre beyond compare.
Crackle... crackle-crackle!
When playing games and encountering a bug, the entire scene would sometimes look like a broken TV screen.
The crackling noise tormenting his ears and the entire landscape appearing fragmented.
The command carriage was twisted grotesquely, and the surrounding buildings and roads lay shattered, scattering debris into the air.
On top of that carriage stood a figure wearing a mask and a bowler hat, holding a baton.
He was none other than Oli, the maestro overseeing the White Ghost Night Festival and Wonhyo's friend.
"$$@!%!!#%#@..."
He seemed to want to say something, but only incomprehensible code and static came out of his mouth.
"Ugh... This is unpleasant."
"What on earth are we supposed to do about that?"
In most games, enemies are beings you defeat by beating them up, but bugs were a completely different matter.
Just as he had done when dealing with bugs before, he reached out to automatically eliminate it.
Beep
[This is a complex bug that cannot be handled by automatic debugging]
[You must perform manual debugging to resolve this bug]
"What? I'm not a programmer—how am I supposed to do that?"
[The area currently requiring primary debugging is highlighted]
[You must make direct contact with this area to debug it]
"So, you're saying I have to touch the problematic part myself?"
[That is correct]
It's just a fancy way of saying you have to poke the very core of the bug.
So the problem was figuring out where that core was.
To find an enemy's heart, you first need to know the enemy's information.
"Show me that NPC's information."
[Viewed information on NPC 'Oli']
[Used once]
Ding
NPC Name: Oli
Title: One Connected to the Horror Crypt Lord
Special Abilities: Taming Wild Monsters, Commanding Beasts
HP: Invincible Object
The newbie was certain the key to solving this lay right here.
Scrolling down quickly through the information, he spotted Oli's equipment section.
Current NPC's Equipment
- Dapper Bowler Hat
-Conductor's Tailcoat
-Golden Baton
-!$%#$#@Mask
The mask was clearly covered in a jumble of error characters, and to anyone's eyes, it looked like the weak point.
Moreover, Ollie was standing still, seemingly struggling to restrain himself.
He blinked his red eyes and stared intently at the newbie.
"Alright. I'll help you."
As if he understood those words, he stood with his arms spread wide.
To anyone watching, it clearly meant, "I will never harm you."
Newbie slowly reached out and touched the creature's mask.
[Starting manual debugging]
I thought it would end that anticlimactically.
The sword embedded in the Maestro's chest glowed.
Ting
[Level 1 permission activated]
[Deleting code linked to the bug according to the permission's specifications]
"What on earth is that supposed to mean?"
[With your current Level 9 permissions, you cannot remove the code causing the bug, but through the Level 1 permission command embedded in this NPC, all related code will be deleted]
[This is mandatory; there is no option to refuse]
Newbie couldn't understand what that meant, nor did he have time to.
Cracks began to form in his mask.
"!@#!%#!"
He let out a groan, distorted with static, as if in pain.
At the same moment, a shockwave erupted, flinging the newbie away.
The newbie, Excel, and even the glowing sword embedded in his body were all pulled out.
His body twisted grotesquely, and his eyes glowed red as if on fire.
A massive amount of black powder poured out from the wound where the sword had been embedded.
Whoosh! Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
The black powder swirled around Oli as if it were alive.
"$!@$@!%..."
Oli's body shifted, and he began to swing his whip with dazzling speed.
At the same time, he swung his baton back and forth.
In sync with the baton, the floating black powder clumped together and transformed into an eagle, attacking Newbie.
"Get back!"
Excel swung his sword, slicing through both of them at once, but the eagle crumbled into black powder and immediately clung to Excel.
"Excel!"
"Ugh! What is this... All of a sudden... I'm so sleepy."
Exposed to the bug, Excel fell asleep right then and there.
"Damn it! Let's just do this for now!"
Newbie barely managed to grab Excel and pulled him into his arms.
Oli swung his baton once more, and the black dust transformed into a flock of crows that swooped down.
Newbie instinctively slashed at them with the sword he was holding.
But the shattered crows simply turned back into black powder, dealing no damage at all.
'This will never end.'
Even after that, Oli's baton didn't stop.
He kept swinging the baton, transforming the black powder into various animals to attack them.
The black dust began to gradually darken the surroundings.
The landscape, already unstable due to the glitch, grew even more grotesque.
However, there was one strange thing.
The area around the shining sword—which had been pulled out earlier and was now stuck in the carriage pillar—remained completely undisturbed.
Newbie instinctively realized that there was some kind of glitch-curing power there.
He reached out to touch the sword embedded in the pillar.
At first, an unknown force pushed his hand away, but soon the sword clung to Newbie's blade.
Then, Newbie's sword began to glow like a lightsaber.
A very familiar sensation.
'That's the feeling I get when I eliminate bugs.'
The newbie instinctively realized.
How to use this.
Just then, Ollie swung his baton again.
"Woo-eong! Woo-e-e-e-eong!"
This time, the black powder merged into a single form, becoming a giant bear.
The bear lunged forward with its front paws, as if it were going to tear him apart.
Newbie ducked to avoid it, then immediately kicked the bear's paw.
As he did, the cut surface began to glow, and the black powder that had formed the bear's forepaw turned into light and vanished.
Startled, Oli swung his baton again to gather the black powder.
With a fervor he had never seen before, he began to gradually create his own White Ghost Night Parade.
Crows, tigers, wolves, eagles, and even crocodiles—all manner of beasts were born from the black powder.
"!$@"
Then, Oli thrust his baton forward.
The White Ghost Night Parade, formed from the black powder, charged at Newbie.
Newbie simply took a stance, gripping that single shining sword.
A situation he had only ever evaded until now.
But now was the time to show his true strength.
The swordsmanship honed through training under countless veterans and decades of battle against the player Arien came to life.
"Here I go!"
With that, the newbie also began to charge forward.
Crows and eagles were the first to swoop down from the sky toward the newbie. But the newbie calmly swung his sword toward the sky.
With each swing, the eagles' and crows' wings were severed, and they vanished.
Behind them, wolves charged in, but they were sliced apart by Newbie's sword before they could even bite into his neck.
A crocodile approached with its jaws wide open, but Newbie leaped right into its mouth and sliced the crocodile clean in two, starting from the jaws.
Finally, a tiger charged at Newbie with its jaws wide open.
"Roar!"
Even though it was a creature made of black dust, it pushed Newbie back with the immense power of a real tiger.
Newbie's sword caught on the beast's teeth, and the tiger shoved Newbie away with brute force.
Crack! Crackle, crackle, crackle...!
Gradually, Newbie was driven to the very edge of the carriage.
Beneath him, countless monsters—including the crocodile consumed by the bug—were waiting, ready to tear Newbie to pieces.
Swish-.
Oli raised his baton upward, preparing a single strike.
If he simply gave the command for the tiger to finish it off, that would be the end.
At that moment, Oli's hand froze.
The tiger, which had been poised to push the newbie out, froze in place as well.
A figure appeared in Olli's bloodshot eyes.
A shabby, small, and frail-looking skeleton.
Even his only garment, a cloak, was torn, and his skull was cracked.
Yet that skeleton was looking at his friend.
Just then, Newbie mustered his remaining strength and swung his sword straight into the tiger's mouth.
The top of the tiger's head was sliced off, and it scattered into black dust.
Olli tried to swing his baton again in a hurry, but Newbie had already sprinted right up to him.
Newbie swung his sword with all his might at the face behind the mask.
Crack!
The mask, which had already been cracked, split clean in two and fell to the floor.
There, revealed beneath it, was Olli's true face.
Unlike a regular NPC, it was covered in fur, had a long snout, and even fox ears on top.
To anyone looking, it was clearly not the face of a human.
But that didn't matter.
Newbie threw a punch at Olli's face.
The moment Newbie's hand made contact with Ollie's face, time seemed to freeze, and everything slowed down.
At the same time, the message window he had been waiting for appeared.
[An error has been detected]
[Manual debugging mode is activated]
Then, a light emanated from Newbie's hand, and black dust along with the forms of black bugs began to be sucked into that light all at once.
Just when it seemed like it was over, the light began to grow larger.
[The scale of the bugs is large]
[Initiating stabilization of the surroundings]
With those words, the light grew as large as it could, soon expanding to the point where it covered the carriage and the surrounding area.
"Guh!"
As if a flashbang had gone off, Newbie shut his eyes tightly.
The sounds exploding around him like bombs gradually faded into the distance.
It was as if everything was beginning to fade away like a distant memory.
When no sound could be heard after that, Newbie slowly opened his eyes.
There was nothing but a completely white space.
There was only a single message window.
[NPC 'Ollie's Database]