Holy Paladin? We'll Escort You to the VIP Trash Seat...
For starters, I wanted to hear an explanation.
And the streamer Irea was the kind of person who at least had that much common sense.
— Ding!
“Ah! Welcome, Sir Knight! I’m truly sorry for suddenly inviting you to join the content like this!”
As soon as I entered the invited Discord channel, Irea greeted me in such an energetic voice that I half-expected him to drop into a dogeza.
Of course, I had zero intention of turning on my mic.
I didn’t particularly want to reveal that I was a woman, and I definitely didn’t want to leave my personal information floating around the internet.
“Oh my god… Oh my god! Unnie, a ton of people just flooded into Irea’s stream!”
Im Harin, sitting right beside me, was kindly busy monitoring Irea’s broadcast and checking the internet reaction for me.
…Well, even I—who was sneaking glances—had to admit my life was pretty legendary.
Feeling good just from watching the chat fly by. What a world.
“So… while we streamers were running the Moonlight Abyss earlier today, we had a little prank.”
Wait, did Daydream throw another tantrum?
“It was basically a WWE, but Sky and Ramjwi joked that anyone riding the bus should have to pay the fare.”
It didn’t sound like they were seriously demanding money from RamjwiThunder or Sky, though?
“Then… yes, people like Jiye and a few other streamers got a little triggered…”
“Ah, yes, exactly. And as you know, when we run the Moonlight Abyss, Minseo is always the one who does the dungeon leading and first tanking, right?”
Kang Minseo definitely had pretty high combat ability among the streamers. She’d been through the wringer so many times that she could tank decently.
She wasn’t top-tier, but thanks to what I’d taught her, she wasn’t at the level where she’d get flamed into oblivion.
Unfortunately she still lacked godlike sense.
“Did you happen to watch the broadcast?”
Wait, it was actually true?
“Pfft… Yeah, from what I saw last time! It looked like Kang Minseo could handle tanking by herself? The streamers’ combat power has gone up a lot, so it’s basically a full-DPS zerg party now, right Unnie?”
“Well… if a full zerg becomes possible, there’s no reason to bring two tanks. You can just burn everything down.”
Once it turns into a zerg, they start cutting both healers and tanks.
At least during the original era when farming dungeons, that kind of thing was possible.
“Anyway… so the streamers voted on which classes they wanted to run with and which ones they didn’t.”
“Still… we are streamers, aren’t we? Once we’ve been looked down on, we have to prove we’re not actually that bad.”
Im Harin poked me in the chest with her elbow.
“Unnie, look. They’re running with Ret, Holy Paladin, Shadow Priest, and Feral Druid.”
They really were the hardest trash classes to find.
It was honestly impressive they’d reached max level and kept running the Four Major Dungeons this whole time without ever changing specialization.
“Ah… well, Sky-nim jokingly said that since our party was full of terrible classes, we should at least bring one skilled caretaker along.”
Just from skimming the chat, I could already see where this was going.
“No, well, that’s… hahaha. As you know, Sir Knight, after hitting max level the healers people actually see are mostly Priests, with Holy Paladins coming in second.”
It wasn’t a wrong statement.
“Restoration Shamans rarely cause problems.”
If someone asked me which healer was the biggest piece of trash, I could comfortably raise my hand for Restoration Druid. It really felt like a class that had been slapped together.
They made it a hybrid and then drove players insane with it…
From the very beginning, the fact that Feral had to live a double life as both bear and cat made the tanking performance ambiguous and the melee DPS performance ambiguous. That alone said everything.
“Then ultimately, within the range that normal gamers can perceive, the worst healer is the Holy Paladin, right Unnie?”
“Hey…”
“Restoration Druids never join my party anyway so who cares. Resto Shamans at least drop mana totems so it feels nice, and their heals are decent enough!”
Im Harin grinned brightly.
“But Holy Paladins—I don’t even know what they’re doing, their mana is always on the floor, and the heals that come in are tiny little—ow!”
“That’s not true! It’s because those guys suck at playing it!”
It was true that Holy Paladin’s small heals had genuinely terrible output, but only using those was insane!
And spamming big heals all the time was even more insane!
“Anyway…”
“Aigoo… Sir Knight, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m not asking you to do it for free.”
Irea sent me a whisper as he spoke, and the moment Im Harin peeked at it she immediately started making a fuss.
“Whoaaa! Prize money?! Prize money?! He’s offering you prize money?!”
“What are you talking about? This isn’t even a real tournament—why is there prize money?”
“Unnie, you didn’t know? At first the pot was only one million won?”
Streamers really operated on a completely different scale.
“Since nine streamers were joining, they each put in 100,000 won. Then Sky felt bad for starting the whole thing so he added another 100,000, making the total prize one million won.”
“Then they’re giving me around 200,000 won.”
“No no! That’s not it! The prize pool has now grown to five million won!”
“Huh? What do you mean? You just said Sky added money to make it exactly one million.”
Im Harin grinned again.
“No, Unnie~ How could the viewers possibly hold back? It’s God-tier versus Trash-tier, a Gald Cup where streamers race to clear the dungeon the fastest! Everyone went crazy donating for the prize pool.”
“So one dungeon speedrun match now has a five-million-won prize? That’s a million per person?”
“Pretty much? Unnie, if you win you’ll get two million won.”
Two million won.
It was definitely an amount that made sweet saliva pool in my mouth.
“Ah… Sir Knight, would it really be that difficult? If you don’t like it because you won’t receive any prize money if we lose, I’ll just give you a fixed amount instead.”
“Unnie… do you need money that badly? I’ll give you some so can’t you just do it?”
Im Harin kept poking my waist, but I wasn’t doing this for the money.
“Excuse me?”
Unfortunately, when it came to dungeon speedruns, I had a reason to be better than anyone else.
‘Pay the Bus Fare’ Team VS ‘God God God God God’ Team Dungeon Speedrun
Raised Amount: 11,258,000 won
“Everyone! Stop! Stop right there! We’re done accepting donations for our speedrun prize pool!!!”
Kang Minseo let out a small shriek and lightly wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.
This! Why did the scale blow up so much?! We only did a silly WWE as a joke, so why did the amount get this big?!
Somehow she had ended up participating in a ten-million-won speedrun and was even forced to host the event, so her hands were trembling.
“Aigoo… I feel bad for the other team. Looks like we’re going to take everything.”
“Wow, how much money is that? Bro, that’s two million won each, right?”
“What the hell is this prize pool? This is insane!”
The streamers on Kang Minseo’s team were naturally riding high.
Rogue, Gunner, Mage.
They were classes that lots of people were raising right now with good performance evaluations.
“Well… since the scale has grown this much, let’s enjoy it fairly and properly.”
“Everyone heard Irea-nim, right? We’re only doing this seriously for one match! A proper speedrun! If we lose, you know we won’t have any excuse even if people tell us we have to pay bus fare forever, right?!”
“Alright! Then everyone remembers the rules, right?”
Kang Minseo smiled and pointed at the entrance of the Moonlight Spire Upper behind her.
“From now on, our team and Irea-nim’s team will enter the upper floors at the same time.”
“The speedrun ends the moment the final boss, Droki, is killed.”
“Since everyone usually does a lot of Droki runs. Okay, everyone understands the rules?”
After roughly finishing her explanation, Kang Minseo straightened her posture.
Well… since the Paladin made that insane declaration, it should be fine even if I try my hardest to betray him, right?
Kang Minseo felt quite guilty toward Jeong Hana.
Logically, her party—made up of classes that received good evaluations from players—was obviously going to win this speedrun.
If they won, it wouldn’t just end with the reputation of the Paladin Jeong Hana raised taking a hit; even the evaluation of the most famous Paladin, Jeong Hana herself, would drop.
But because Jeong Hana had said something outrageous before the match even started, she felt a little relieved.
“Alright! Then we’ll begin right away! Three! Two! One!”
With Kang Minseo’s brave shout, the speedrun with a total prize pool of over ten million won began inside the Moonlight Spire Upper.
Still, I have a conscience, so if we win I’ll apologize to the Paladin and give him some of the prize money… That should be fine, right? The community won’t criticize me for ganging up on a regular player, right?!
Unfortunately, Kang Minseo’s opponent was Jeong Hana.