A Strategic Windfall
“Is this the end?”
“Clink.”
“Huh? Yeah, it’s the end.”
“Good. Get out.”
“Yes.”
“Clink!”
The field near the labyrinth.
Fafnir, who had avoided the spot before the second hunting squad arrived, checked the list of loot he had gained this time.
The results were surprising.
‘My experience points have increased a lot.’
He hadn’t reached the next level yet, but the efficiency was several times better than farming the same level monsters.
It wasn’t just that.
‘Item status window!’
[Dark Elf Sena’s Black Twin Blades] - Grade: Unique - Level Limit: 148 - Physical Attack Power: 285 - Durability: 53/100 - Agility +65 - Luck +10 - Critical Hit Rate +20% - Critical Hit Damage +70% - When used, it applies the Dark Elf’s poison debuff effect. - Detailed Effect: Deals 320 health damage per second. - Skill Casting Time -15% - All Twin Blade Skills +1 Level - Description: A blade used by the dark elf female detective Sena. A cursed weapon where darkness mana and poison have fully settled.
[Bermond’s Holy Armor] - Grade: Unique - Level Limit: 150 - Physical Defense: 450 - Strength +40 - Vitality +20 - Agility +20 - Luck +7 - HP Recovery Speed +30% - A low probability of activating divine power to repel harmful curses and magic attacks.
‘Jackpot.’
Unlike monsters that drop a single item after killing dozens, players have nearly a fifty-fifty chance of dropping equipment items and gold when they die.
Even though he couldn’t sell them right away because of the risk of being traced, they would be a huge help when he put them on the market later.
It wasn’t just that.
‘Skeleton soldiers and knights have become quite familiar with combat.’
Their combat expertise had risen, and even their actual skills and levels had increased one by one.
‘Now I can use them organically in combat with the skeleton knights.’
Fafnir looked at Louis, the skeleton knight sparring with Number 1.
Louis, being a knight by nature, was fighting Number 1 evenly one-on-one.
‘But that guy is even more impressive.’
Fafnir glanced at Number 1. Despite being a skeleton soldier, Number 1 was evenly matched with Louis and then overwhelmingly outclassed him.
‘Elite skeleton soldiers are surprisingly strong.’
An elite skeleton soldier that had accumulated experience points and honed its skills through countless battles!
Normally, even one hundred ordinary skeleton soldiers couldn’t defeat a single knight.
Just being able to fight like this was amazing.
‘If I keep doing PVP from now on, growth will come quickly.’
In fact, PVP was one of the main ways bad-aligned jobs grew in the original novel.
Of course, good-aligned jobs also gained levels through PVP.
But doing so would inevitably lower good karma, so in reality, PVP was content for bad-aligned jobs.
However, unrestricted PVP wasn’t possible either, because there were many restrictions on PVP for bad-aligned jobs.
Their reputation would suffer because of the fallen good karma, and in extreme cases, the kingdom or church would even issue a wanted notice.
They could also receive the same level-ups, item rewards, and skill mastery gains by raising good karma, so there were always pros and cons to either choice.
‘Since I’m bad-aligned, PVP is effective.’
Fafnir stroked his chin.
‘In any case, I’ve roughly figured out what I’m lacking from this battle.’
The first was the lack of mages and archers.
All the skeleton soldiers right now were close-range fighters, so he needed skeleton soldiers capable of ranged attacks and magic.
‘This is something that can be solved quickly as I grow, so I don’t need to think about it too deeply.’
The second was not directly related to combat, but it was far more important.
‘They need scouting. Something like a CCTV that gives real-time information.’
In the strategy game “Star Wars,” it’s not a good idea to send workers out for scouting from the very beginning.
In reality, of course, the importance of scouting goes without saying.
‘Until now, the forces were insufficient, so it couldn’t be helped, but I’ll have to start paying attention.’
There were various ways to see the field of vision.
The most representative ones were summoning monsters related to the relevant attribute or casting a field-of-view sharing skill on undead.
Either way, if they could be obtained, they had to be obtained. That was because the basic soldiers were in place and the importance of scouting became even more prominent.
‘That’s something I’ll look into when I get the chance, and right now I should focus on these things more than anything.’
Fafnir opened his inventory.
The shiny items dropped by the Kingsman guild executives were emitting gold and pink auras.
Eyesore-bright light!
Attacks that were harmful to dark children like necromancers.
But Fafnir’s smile only grew deeper.
*** World Wide of Horizon. Abbreviated as WWH.
On the incident and accident bulletin board of the most popular Horizon community in the world, one post had appeared.
- Title: [news] Hidden boss appears in Caters terror dungeon! - Author: Brownmount - Date: 2031/5/13 - Content: After going to hunt the Kingsman guild, the guild master and executives were wiped out. The poison level is rising, so they’re forming a second hunting squad, and it seems the Black Reaper guild came too.
(In-game video: Two 170-level rankers were captured by guild members and entered the scene.)
Honestly, I think this is around 160 levels lol.
(Comments) (1,234 comments)
Properly caught a big fish. This is why it’s “gear first, skill second.”
I heard the guild specs are pretty impressive though…… He seems pretty strong.
Those are the guys who controlled the hunting grounds and collected money from Kingsman, right? Damn it lol
The users’ reactions were generally welcoming.
The Kingsman guild had taken so much money and controlled so much that the public sentiment had turned.
Meanwhile, the identity of the boss that had been robbed by the Kingsman guild had become a hot topic.
It was only natural.
All that was known was that a wandering boss had appeared, but information about what kind of monster it was had been thoroughly hidden.
It was a rule of human nature that people were more interested in things that weren’t revealed.
The users were speculating about what kind of monster the boss was and what items might be in the related quest.
- Judging from the video, it looks like a necromancer or death knight type. The hunting squad is carrying a lot of holy water and holy relics, and there’s a high proportion of clerics. Normally, if there are that many clerics, the dealer-tanker balance would break, so they don’t usually do it like that. The few times that happened was when they were hunting dark-attribute monsters.
Starting with the analysis of their identity.
- If it were the Sun Guild, this kind of thing wouldn’t have happened.
Trust me! 100% safe! Super fast! The Sun Guild will give you a free ride on the bus.
They were digging into the gap and promoting it among other controlled guilds.
Our Kim Gap Family is the enemy…… hehe.
Kim Gap Family? What the hell is that……
Haha, you still don’t know about the Kim Gap Family.
I’m Kim Ho Kang!
I’m Kim Resistance.
I’m Kim Tetris! We’re the ones who’ll catch that boss.
Crazy bastards……
Those are concept kids. Don’t worry about them.
At this moment, weird people who revealed their concepts took the opportunity.
All kinds of people were dropping bait on the bulletin board.
‘Hmm……’
Inside the game.
Fafnir, looking at the website through the status window, shrugged his shoulders.
‘Fortunately, I wasn’t caught.’
Horizon was a game where it was extremely difficult to distinguish between NPCs and players.
That was why transactions, guild joins, and using status were all blocked.
Thanks to that, even this incident had only been known as a boss monster, and no one thought anyone was a player.
‘If the users had been revealed, it would have been troublesome, but that’s good.’
That was when.
The door to the room where Fafnir was opened, and a man with long hair and handsome features entered.
“Yo, long time no see.”
Kindorhan.
“What was the favor I asked for?”
“That…… I did bring him, but there’s a small problem.”
“A small problem?”
“Huh, didn’t I tell you not to talk about that information? But that person didn’t listen to me at all…… so I had no choice.”
Fafnir immediately understood the situation.
“You talked about my information.”
“A little! Really, just a little. Thanks to you, I got the big catch and the self-defense squad authority. If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t even have listened to you in the first place.”
“Hmm……”
That amount was more than enough to forgive. The person Kindorhan brought this time was that big of a deal.
But Fafnir put on a pretense of narrowing his eyes.
“I won’t forgive you this much. From now on, try not to bring up my information unless absolutely necessary.”
“Understood. I won’t forget it.”
Breaking the confidentiality contract would mean they could no longer work together.
Kindorhan nodded and waved toward the door.
“Are you the person who raised this friend?”
The man who entered next spoke in a low voice.
The man was wrapped in a black robe from head to toe and wore a Hahoe mask on his face.
“At first I thought it was a lie, but as I listened, I got interested.”
“Lucky.”
Fafnir waved his hand lightly and moved on to the main topic.
“More importantly, shall we start the transaction? I want to sell items.”
“Then you came to the right place. What we do mainly is process items.”
The Hahoe mask man’s job was none other than a pawn.
Moreover, he was a high-ranking official in a super-giant pawn organization, not an ordinary one.
‘Hong Gildong’s Hwalbindang…… a ruler of the underworld that keeps appearing in the original novel.’
Fafnir recalled the novel’s content. Hong Gildong, one of the top ten villains, had become a powerful player who, together with Kindorhan in the future, would seize control of the underworld’s stolen goods.
‘He’s a pawn, but he strictly hides the customer’s information and doesn’t try to cheat.’
Because it was a guild you could trust unlike any other, the Hwalbindang received the credit of countless people.
“Come on, let’s see the contents.”
Following the man’s words, Fafnir took out the equipment from the Kingsman guild executives.
Fifteen in total.
Thirteen junk items from the action members, and three out of the five dropped by the executives.
“Hmm……”
The Hahoe mask man’s eyes lit up as he examined the items.
“From where did these come?”
“Stolen from the Kingsman guild.”
There was no need to hide this.
The Hwalbindang’s absolute rule was to strictly protect the customer’s secrets.
“Huh, that explains why the equipment has such good quality.”
The Hahoe mask man finished his assessment and continued.
“I’ve decided to buy, but there’s one thing you should know……”
“You can’t buy at the official price, is that right?”
“Very perceptive.”
The man nodded at Fafnir’s words.
“You’d probably face the same thing at other brokers.”
“Of course, that’s how pawns are. It’s fine.”
“The price is 25% of the official price, and the junk items are between 20 silver and 40 silver per piece…… these two are 5 gold each, and this one is 10 gold…… but since that’s the cost, 25% here…… total 9 gold 70 silver.”
25%!
His head was spinning, but since it was items he had chosen, he had no choice but to endure it ruthlessly.
‘As expected, as a pawn, I can’t help it.’
Other brokers sold at 30 to 50 percent. The remaining 5 percent was the cost of using the Hwalbindang’s infrastructure and brand.
‘But by avoiding things like cheating on pawns or exposing information, you can always avoid risk, so it’s still a profitable business.’
It wasn’t by accident that he had introduced himself to Kindorhan and gotten an introduction to this side.
“Understood. Let’s proceed like this.”
“Then please take care.”
Fafnir honestly completed the transaction.
After handing over the equipment and receiving the gold, the Hahoe mask man stood up.
“I hope you’ll continue to use our Hwalbindang often.”
Ssssh, the Hahoe mask man faded away as is.
At that moment, Fafnir asked.
“Before you go, one more thing……”
“What?”
“After buying these items, how do you dispose of them?”
“Hmm…… It’s a business secret, but since you and I will be meeting often from now on, I’ll tell you specially.”
The Hahoe mask man whispered into Fafnir’s ear.
“We’ll receive the recovery fee from the Kingsman guild and sell them again. That side gives us the most profit.”
“……!”
They buy stolen goods and then steal them back and give them to the original thieves while taking money again!
The Hwalbindang was achieving true creative economy.
＃I Became a Necromancer Villain in a Game Novel
--- REMINDER: All system notifications, comments, letters, status windows, and special in-universe content MUST use styled blocks with inline CSS from the templates. Never output them as plain
text with emojis.