Cha Ye-Eun quietly looked down at the map before her.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen…?” Jin Seok-Tae asked, looking at her worriedly.

Ye-Eun said quietly, “It’s odd.”

“Pardon…?” Seok-Tae asked.

“It’s strange for the Red Ghost to have suddenly appeared here,” Ye-Eun said, drawing Gwak Do-Woon’s route on the map with a red marker. “If his goal were to buy time, he should have gone in this direction, not that one.”

She spoke almost as if she were questioning herself. According to the map, Do-Woon was climbing up a steep mountain ridge that was difficult to climb even for a Player. As he was being chased, he should have gone downward, where the slope was gentler… but he was making sure to avoid going downward.

“Well, maybe it’s because he thought the lower part of the mountain would be blocked by the punitive force,” Seok-Tae suggested.

“Still, climbing up the steep slope is just as difficult as going through… Wait,” Ye-Eun stopped, suddenly realizing that Do-Woon was not moving far from the Gate.

Do-Woon seemed to be putting in a lot of effort to escape, but he remained hundreds of meters away from the Gate—no, he was moving around the Gate, which suggested that his goal was neither to flee nor buy time. Then what…?

Ye-Eun suddenly felt as if she had been struck in the back of the head with a blunt object. Dumbfounded, she said, “It’s a trap.”

“Pardon?” Seok-Tae asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“It’s a trap! He deceived us and dragged us...