500 Gold Per Run, Just Five Runs Please
The chat on Kang Minseo's stream was burning up again today.
It happened so often that Kang Minseo didn't bother checking the mood of her audience. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Please…! Please! Sir Knight! I can't go without you! I won't go, I won't! I can't do it! I can't clear it!"
Last night, Kang Minseo had fallen hard after watching the overwhelming charisma of the mount Jeong Hana rode. So she gathered her viewers and streamer friends to form a party for Baron Roshan.
In truth, she'd headed out humming happily because the streamer Irea had cleared it in one try in under an hour.
"I seriously almost cried yesterday!"
But the Gemstratholme Back Gate was no joke.
Jeong Hana, who knew every strategy by heart, immediately explained the patterns to the two DPS players sitting on either side of her in the PC bang. In contrast, Minseo's party was completely blind—even the leader herself didn't know the strats. They had no answer for the single fatal pattern each boss possessed, so wipes were constant.
"That…! Ramjwi-nim told me hitting her would cancel the effect, so I hit her and a crit went off and she died!!!"
"It wasn't funny at all!!! Do you know how hard I prayed with both hands every time I got that six-second ice trap?!"
"Ugh…! I only copied it because I heard Irea-nim's party cleared it that way!"
Unfortunately, Kang Minseo wasn't the type to analyze the game like Irea. To her, the Shield Block skill was simply "If I press it, it helps me survive!" and "I should press it often!" She didn't know the fine details—that it had a 75% chance to block for two attacks.
Even though she'd tasted hell itself yesterday, Kang Minseo still wanted the skeletal warhorse that the community called "Roshanma."
"It's just… it looks like something out of a fantasy movie. I really want it…"
It wasn't some ordinary brown or black horse with a cool mane. It was a skeletal warhorse!
The sight of a horse made entirely of bones—something she'd never seen in other games—made her heart race and her eyes spin.
"No! No! Sir Knight!"
Kang Minseo let out a genuine scream.
"Aaaah! No! Sir Knight! I'm the one paying! I'm offering because I want to, so please just join my party!"
Kang Minseo screamed and clutched her hair.
If Jeong Hana wouldn't party with her, she only had three choices left.
'Absolutely not with Nina! I'd rather die! I can't! I won't!'
After experiencing Danina's rock-bottom understanding of how healers worked, Kang Minseo never wanted to party with her again unless she was literally being carried by gear.
'And the other healer streamers…'
She pictured the faces of streamers she knew even indirectly.
'Why does everyone only play off-meta classes?! I'm raising a Protection Warrior here!'
Unfortunately, they all played Restoration Druid and Restoration Shaman—classes that were clearly inferior to Priests in both fun and performance.
'Wild is… even worse! There aren't even any healers for Wild in the first place!'
"Yes! Yes! Hell yeahhhhhhh!"
Kang Minseo shot up from her seat and clenched both fists in victory.
"But! The knight is really, really good!"
Looking wronged, Kang Minseo hurriedly opened her friends list.
"Everyone! You see this, right? Rogue! Warrior! Rogue! Mage! Warlock! Gunner! Warrior! Rogue! Mage! Warlock! Void Priest! Warlock! Mage! Mage! Mage! Mage! Mage! Mage! Mage! Mage! Mage! Mage!!!"
Out of the thirty-plus streamers registered on her friends list, the vast majority were DPS.
"Who raises tanks here? Just Irea-nim! Who plays healers? Nina and Hawase-nim!!!"
There was no need for long, complicated explanations.
To outsiders, DPS looked like they were doing something cool and impressive. At least when you smashed monsters they died quickly, so there was the fun of pure damage.
On the other hand, tanks and healers didn't look like particularly attractive streaming choices. And the people who actually played them didn't find them fun either…
"It's hard enough getting streamers together in the first place!"
"Anyway… I'll… I'll put the party together. Please wait~ Sir Knight~!"
Kang Minseo reached for her keyboard, so happy she practically had bells jingling from her mouth.
As she spoke, Jeong Hana immediately summoned her mount.
"Huh?"
But it wasn't the overwhelmingly charismatic Roshanma from yesterday.
"What, what, what is that? Where do you get a horse that wears golden armor like this?!"
Startled, Kang Minseo fired off another whisper instead of inviting people to the party.
Jeong Hana rode back on the horse clad in shining armor.
"Whoa… that's so cool… If I had to choose between this and the Roshanma, I'd actually have to think about it…"
"…Huh?"
"C-class quest…?"
Kang Minseo pointed at herself with the most wronged expression in the world.
"Why don't warriors get cool stuff like this?! This is class discrimination!!!"
After crying out in anguish, she clung to the hem of Jeong Hana's skirt, sobbing, and ended up running ten runs instead of five.
Of course, the Roshanma with its 0.02% drop rate never appeared.
"Unnie, unnie."
Today, the day after Kang Minseo had apologized by stuffing twenty of the 'Orb of Execution' into my bag, Im Harin dragged me to a tteokbokki place. She'd been singing nonstop about wanting to eat spicy tteokbokki before heading to the PC bang—belting out every verse of the national anthem and everything.
"Don't you usually just eat this with your friends?"
"I told you earlier. They're all at academy. The academy only gives them thirty minutes for dinner. How are we supposed to eat Yeoptteok together?"
"This is going to kill me…"
The Yeoptteok that girls supposedly went crazy for, or whatever it was called, did taste good. I just couldn't imagine paying tens of thousands of won for it.
"So why did you call me out?"
"I thought it might not suit your taste, unnie. You were eating so slowly."
Im Harin spoke while picking up a piece of tteokbokki with her chopsticks, popping it into her mouth and chewing happily.
"No, it's just that this is…"
Does she actually think this tastes good?
Okay, fine. Objectively speaking, it does taste good. I'll admit it.
But it's spicy.
So spicy that sweat was starting to form under my arms and on my chest, which felt pretty gross.
"Um, unnie, do you not handle spicy food well?"
"A little… Ha, this seems pretty spicy, doesn't it?"
"What? This? Unnie, are you a spice wimp?"
"Call Lee Siwoo over and make him eat it. This is spicy."
"How is this spicy? It's only level four."
"Excuse me, Miss Im Harin… Hoo, ha. The shop only goes up to level five. Isn't level four already spicy?"
Im Harin giggled and reached for the kiosk.
"Then I'll order you a Cool Juicy, unnie. You can drink it all yourself."
"Ha, I'm fine…"
"Just drink it. The effect is amazing, I swear."
I really didn't want to destroy my tongue with spicy food on purpose.
I'm not some masochist who'd eat something spicy, then drink something cold to heal, then eat spicy again.
It's not like I'm trying to heal-spam or anything…
"Thank you~!"
Im Harin must have wanted some too, because the moment the drink arrived she poured some for me and then for herself.
"Never ask me to eat this again."
"Then next time let's get malatang, unnie?"
"You little…"
I couldn't even hit her for that!
Anyway, the yogurt-like drink that tasted like peaches definitely cleansed my tongue.
"Oh, by the way, unnie. Did you see that post that's been blowing up on the community since lunch today?"
"What? What's going on? Did the full-plate guys start another witch hunt?"
"These days if you even mention full-plate videos on the community you get called a full-plate freak. Who would bring that up?"
...They did it all the time, though?
"So what is it?"
"People have been hitting max level a lot lately, right?"
"True."
"Maybe that's why stuff like this keeps getting posted."
"It's a really hot topic in the community lately. There's this meme that in wild parties, you should filter out Holy Paladins, Shamans, and Druids. That just those three will guarantee a hell party, so you have to blacklist them."
"Really? Well…"
"But isn't it hilarious? Paladins are so good!"
Im Harin said it with a bright smile, but I couldn't lie.
"They're not. They suck."
"Huh…? Even you think so, unnie?"
"They suck so I say they suck. Holy Paladins aren't that great."
Why was she looking at me like she couldn't believe what she was hearing?
"For real? They're not good? Why?"
"Harin, just think about it."
I waved my right hand.
"This healer only needs to stack Spirit and Intellect. The heals are perfectly tailored to the situation. It's trash, but it even has an aggro dump skill."
"Uh…"
"This healer has effectively zero Spirit in combat and only two healing skills. No AoE heals. If you don't stack the five-second mana regen, you'll go OOM in the Four Major Dungeons and have to chug runes and potions like candy."
"…The left one is the Paladin, right?"
I nodded and took a sip of the Cool Juicy.
"Can't you see which one sucks just by looking? Pure healing performance, Priests are better. Holy Paladins have to rely on utility like auras and blessings."
If I had to put it into words, it meant they could 'create variables.' Which also meant if they couldn't create variables and just spammed inefficient heals, they sucked.
"Tanks… yeah they suck. What about Retribution Paladins? I heard they're melee DPS!"
"Have you ever actually seen a Ret Paladin?"
Im Harin blinked.
"Uh… no?"
"Then they're trash. Why would you play one? We've already got Rogues and Warriors. And why play melee when there are ranged DPS?"
In the end, Im Harin pointed at her smartphone.
"So, unnie! According to these people, Paladins really are trash?"
"In Lost of Fantasy, hybrid classes are only for perverts and masochists."
"But… what about you, unnie? You play one."
"I…"
I straightened my back and smiled.
"Am good at it."
"What are you even saying!!! Unnie!!!"
Unfortunately, Im Harin wasn't the only one asking if Paladins were good.
Quite a few people in the community were looking to me for the 'answer.'