Michelin Tire
Michelin Tire.
Kim Young-cheol was a man who had never gone without every luxury since the day he was born.
Born as the son of a mid-sized business owner, he had always taken his good fortune for granted, spoiled rotten by overprotection.
From the cradle to the company office, it had been a life paved with red carpets and perfect success.
He had never once experienced failure, a smooth and effortless journey.
At some point, though, Kim Young-cheol began to believe it was all because of his own talent.
“I’ve worked hard without complaint. I never got anything for free.”
That mindset left him with no choice but to rage instead of reflect after the Catacombs incident.
‘Aaaah! I died! My exp, my gear!’
Kim Young-cheol clenched his head and bared his teeth.
“It was all their fault!”
He had done nothing wrong.
This was entirely the fault of the Necromancer who spoke down to everyone and the Monk who followed him around.
And the party members who failed to stop the real boss.
‘I hated the very idea of him yapping from the start.’
Kim Young-cheol immediately began damage control.
First, he fired his underling Vane, who had single-handedly wiped out the entire party due to inexperience.
The method was simple: he publicly humiliated Vane in front of everyone, removed him from the company, and warned the executives so he couldn’t even show up at events.
‘That guy got on the boss’s bad side.’
‘Kim must have really messed up his assistant job, tsk tsk.’
Because it was a small company, the rumors spread like wildfire.
And that was only the beginning.
On the owner’s orders, Vane was dumped into a rural logistics warehouse management position almost overnight.
In other words, it was a direct order to quit.
‘No reason to keep a useless, unskilled idiot around.’
Now that he had eliminated the contemptible Vane, it was time to recover his losses.
Kim Young-cheol poured another ten million won into upgrading his specs.
All equipment was Rare grade.
He spent a fortune to acquire info on Rare-grade linked quests.
The Black Forest was the final destination of that linked quest.
“This must be the Black Forest.”
“Y-yes.”
“Why are you so late? Did you intentionally wander around because you wanted more pay?”
“There’s no way. I took the shortest route.”
“You’d better hope so. If you want to avoid becoming someone like Vane again, you’d better behave yourself.”
The thief user kept bowing to Kim Young-cheol.
He had seen what happened to Vane right in front of him, after all.
“Good. Lead the way.”
“Yes, just let me refill my stamina and MP for a moment…”
“Wait? You’re gonna pay the hire fee yourself? Who goes on a job without money—”
Kim Young-cheol was about to unleash his roar when a cool, young voice came from behind him.
“It’s fine. The boss monster isn’t going anywhere. Just wait a bit.”
“I can wait that long.”
“Oh, Hoon-nim.”
Kim Young-cheol’s reaction instantly turned respectful.
The man in front of him was clearly someone worth hiring.
Hoon was a level 130 top-tier user and a mid-level executive in the famous guild PureScum.
‘Fifty thousand won an hour, but it’s worth every penny.’
A short while later, once the thief’s stamina was topped up, Hoon gave a nod.
“Let’s go.”
“Sure. Hey, radar!”
“Let’s go!”
The moment they entered the Black Forest, the owners’ welcome began.
A pack of blood-red wolves—large, starving, vicious—rushed them.
Kung-kung-kung!
“Whoa!”
A normal user would have logged out right then.
But Kim Young-cheol had a hidden card up his sleeve.
– Hero Appears.
– Rotate Guard.
Kwak-wak-wak!
The knight who appeared in front of Kim Young-cheol thrust his shield forward.
A whirlwind exploded from the shield, sweeping away the blood-red wolves in one go.
Cheers erupted from both sides.
“Waaaaah!”
“He wiped them all out in one swing!”
No skill or technique was needed against that overwhelming power.
A knight who casually slaughtered a pack of blood-red wolves.
Keng-keng!
Kim Young-cheol swung his sword with all his might at the fleeing wolves.
The ones with almost no HP left collapsed without even resisting.
– Experience gained.
“Yes!”
A smug smile spread across Kim Young-cheol’s face as he thought.
‘Of course, only I among them are useful.’
If it weren’t for him, those wolves would have definitely escaped.
In reality, the other two were too busy dodging and using skills to pay the wolves any mind.
‘Tsk tsk, useless idiots.’
Kim Young-cheol clicked his tongue while glaring at the pair.
‘Lucky for us that Hoon-nim handled all those wolves. Otherwise we wouldn’t even have made it past the entrance.’
Of course, the one slaughtering the wolves was Hoon, the one Kim Young-cheol had hired.
But the one who brought him here was Kim Young-cheol himself.
So the one doing the most work right now was… Kim Young-cheol.
Their levels were higher than his, and they were still dodging without receiving Hoon’s protective skills.
– Level up!
As Hoon finished off the wolves, the three of them quickly gained exp.
Every time it happened, Kim Young-cheol puffed out his chest and took the lead.
“Huh.”
While they were still hunting, Kim Young-cheol’s expression suddenly changed.
“The number of wolves is way lower than it should be.”
He was dense about almost everything else, but when it came to incoming exp, he was extremely sensitive.
“Hey, are you not herding them properly?”
“I am, boss!”
“Then why is this happening?”
“The wolves are running somewhere else.”
Hoon answered for the thief user.
“Maybe someone else is hunting over there.”
“Then—”
“We have to chase them! How dare they leave our territory—”
Kim Young-cheol stomped his foot.
“But isn’t that unsportsmanlike? Our territory—”
“Do you seriously have nothing between your ears?”
Kim Young-cheol fired back at the thief user after giving him a scolding.
“When we were going after the wolf king, if that guy stole it from behind or something, what would you do then? Just sit there and cry ‘It’s gone’?”
“I-I don’t mean that.”
“Then find it quickly!”
There was only one wolf king in this entire forest.
Unlike instance dungeons, it didn’t respawn.
If the other side was also after the wolf king, Kim Young-cheol wouldn’t yield an inch.
“That side! There are tracks—”
A short while later, the thief user reported back.
The footsteps of everyone heading that way suddenly stopped dead.
“No way…”
“He got completely wiped out.”
Everywhere were corpses of countless wolves.
The trio froze at the sight.
Then, right in the middle of the wolf corpses, the man turned his head toward them.
“What?”
“Isn’t that the Necromancer from before?”
The moment Kim Young-cheol saw Fafnir, he burst into laughter.
“You had such a low level last time. What are you doing here? Still taking the bus?”
He was already in a foul mood, and seeing someone alone only made the sarcasm flow easier.
“Since you’re hunting alone, why don’t you stop?”
Fafnir turned away, unwilling to deal with him.
But Kim Young-cheol relentlessly chased after him and started the argument.
“Looks like you’re freeloading off someone else again. Don’t you feel ashamed in front of your own party members?”
He didn’t even think he was in the same boat!
The mage and the thief next to him joined in the mocking.
“That’s right.”
“Hey, stop bothering us. This is our hunting ground.”
None of the three felt even a hint of tension.
It was only natural.
They were facing one low-level Necromancer.
If they fought, they could easily bully him one-sidedly.
“A bus, huh? You can’t even dodge that?”
That was why the mage casually cast Fire Arrow.
“Hua!”
“Stop it.”
Fafnir deliberately didn’t dodge the perfectly aimed Fire Arrow.
As expected, it missed, and Kim Young-cheol laughed again.
“Haha, too scared to react?”
“…”
“What now? Are you hunting wolves too? Or do you PVP?”
With Vane’s death on his record and now this guy’s, Kim Young-cheol felt he had partially repaid his debt.
“I’ll handle this one.”
The thief user raised his sword.
Then, right as the thief raised his hand, he staggered.
“Huh?”
“My neck!”
A blood-coated spear was already stuck in the thief’s throat.
The moment HP hit zero, he collapsed dead.
“What the—!”
“Who did that?!”
A black-haired girl dropped down in front of the shocked Kim Young-cheol.
– Hostile target. Excluding.
Unlike Skeleton, Homunculus could think and judge for itself.
The most important factor in its judgment was… its master’s safety!
“Wait!”
“Gak!”
While Kim Young-cheol scrambled for his sword, the mage took a spear to the neck like the thief.
“You bastard!”
Grinding his teeth, Kim Young-cheol charged at Fafnir.
‘Kill the party members first! And the skeletons as a bonus!’
The judgment was correct.
In PVP, it was standard to target the weakest point first—the core Necromancer.
Because of that, Kim Young-cheol wasn’t even wary when he saw the light on Fafnir’s sword.
The price was steep.
Precisely, it was the cost of his Rare sword and shield.
– Critical hit.
– Weapon and shield shattered in one attack.
– New achievement ‘Broken Weapon’ obtained.
“Cough!”
With a crash, Kim Young-cheol flew backward.
‘How annoying.’
In front of him, Fafnir clicked his tongue.
‘How can he fight worse than an elite Skeleton made just yesterday?’
***
Horizon was a complete virtual reality.
Even without special conditions, user-versus-user PVP was always possible.
But most users avoided it.
– Scared of losing reputation, they’d rather not fight.
– Getting wanted was scary…
Not only did killing someone raise your notoriety, but it also slashed away hard-earned reputation in an instant.
That’s why, unless they wanted to become a villain on purpose, users tried to avoid PVP.
Fafnir hadn’t cared about it before.
‘Anyway, I’ll have to do a lot of PVP later, so why bother now.’
A large number of the big Necromancer quests required PVP as a condition.
Right now, when growth was the priority, there was no need to deliberately hunt other players.
Of course, that didn’t mean he had to hand them over on a silver platter either.
“Damn it… you messed up! You were too bad at it back then—”
“Guess my gear’s gone. Lucky for me.”
“Wait! I’ll pay 20 gold! 20 gold! Just—”
Kim Young-cheol was trying to run away while sitting down.
Around him, three Skeleton soldiers had surrounded him tightly.
“You don’t need the money. Just kill me and get it over with.”
Fafnir raised his sword.
Then, a young knight appeared between them.
“That’s enough.”
“The mistake was on their side, and I took their money, so I have to protect them. I’ll stop the attack, Necromancer-nim.”
Fafnir carefully observed the knight.
‘That’s the bus driver from that party.’
Even without flashy gear or skills, the fundamentals were obvious from his posture.
“Hoon-nim! Do something about that guy!”
Kim Young-cheol, who had been lying there, pointed and yelled.
“He’s a vicious killer who died two players in PVP! Right now—!”
‘Is he coming over?’
As Fafnir tensed up, Hoon shook his head.
“Sorry, but that’s not possible.”
“What? You saw it! He tried to kill everyone at once! That guy is evil! Hurry—!”
“It wasn’t monster hunting. It was personal grudge. I saw it.”
The condition for hiring Hoon was to handle the wolf king hunt and Black Forest activities as a “bus driver.”
He had clearly not agreed to handle PVP.
“H-but—”
“One more word and I’m calling off the contract.”
Hoon cut him off sharply and bowed to Fafnir.
“This was their mistake. I’ll take responsibility and stop the attack. Necromancer-nim, I’d be grateful if you’d stop here out of respect for my reputation.”
“…”
Normally he would have nodded and left.
But this wasn’t a normal situation.
‘Look at this.’
In his past life as a pro-gamer, Fafnir had earned a name for himself.
He was known for playing with computer-like efficiency.
Among those efficient plays, there had been quite a few that made the opponent extremely irritated.
“Hmm.”
Fafnir frowned slightly and asked.
“How am I supposed to believe you?”