Lucky Strike?

Kim Tae-hyun wanted to take a closer look at Lucky Strike, but he didn’t have the luxury of time.

Dodging a single goblin’s attack was easy enough, but when several of them rushed him at once, it turned into absolute chaos. On top of that, if he let them fall back, Ji-su would be forced into close combat.

Normally, using a skill should have reduced his mana. But Lucky Strike consumed none.

"...?"

Instead, a gold coin appeared in midair and spun in place.

"?!"

Tae-hyun couldn’t hold back his curiosity.

"Come on!"

While dodging the goblins’ attacks, he pulled up the skill description window.

"What kind of skill is this?!"

Tae-hyun stared in disbelief.

Now he understood what this skill actually was.

A skill that applied a damage-boosting buff every time you correctly called a coin toss.

What kind of lunatic made a skill like this?!

People joked about games being all about luck, sure—but only as a joke.

And yet someone had actually gone and made a skill like this.

Of course, in reality it had been generated automatically by the AI, but Tae-hyun had no way of knowing that.

"That’s enough. I’m ending this now!"

Maybe because the skill was still low-level, the buff duration was short.

Each success reset the timer, but still, it felt like about five seconds had already passed.

Powpowpowpow!

Lines sliced through the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠air.

Every goblin caught in that path was cut apart.

"!!"

Tae-hyun’s mouth fell open when four goblins died in a single blow.

Whish!

At that moment, an arrow flew in from behind him.

Ji-su had fired at the goblin archer.

"What did you just do?!"

Of course she was shocked. One second he’d looked like he was gathering strength, and the next he’d split the goblins in half with a single strike.

"I don’t even know!"

He’d been startled at first too, but after trying the skill a few more times, Tae-hyun realized it was actually pretty good.

For one thing, it used no mana.

If you failed, the active effect vanished and you couldn’t use it again until the cooldown ended—but honestly, that wasn’t much of a penalty.

The skill’s greatest advantage was that it stacked.

One success made it 2x. A second in a row made it 4x. Then 8x after that...

If you kept guessing right, then in theory it had no upper limit at all—an infinite buff.

What is this, a gambling addict’s wet dream...?

Thank God the coin wasn’t affected by Luck.

If it had been, he would’ve been able to chain endless heads forever.

For Tae-hyun, who lacked raw attack power, it was practically a perfect skill.

And since the effect grew stronger as the skill leveled up, it had even more room to develop.

"Human! A human! Kill him!"

"That human’s weird! Our attacks keep missing!"

"Then you guys should’ve put points into Luck!"

Even though his attack power was low, his criticals kept landing one after another, and the few attacks that did come his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way kept missing. There was no way the goblins could catch him.

Grinding their teeth, they kept throwing themselves at him, but in the end they fell one by one.

"That human is too strong!"

"Grrrk! Curse the Tyrum Hunters!"

Tyrum Hunters?

Hearing what the goblins were shouting, Tae-hyun frowned.

Tyrum Hunters?

Is this a quest area connected to the Tyrum Hunters?

It was possible.

There was no way a dungeon like this had been designed for beginners.

Since it was a difficult dungeon, the leveling speed was definitely good.

Even just hunting goblins, his level was climbing quickly.

Have I already leveled up twice in this dungeon alone?

His Luck was finally on the verge of reaching 500.

He’d decided to raise a completely bizarre character, but seeing that number made him feel a little proud anyway.

"By the way, what level are you now?"

"Seventeen!"

"Only a three-level gap? I mean, I know I’m building weird, but still... you’re growing fast."

That meant Ji-su was getting a lot of experience.

She was probably receiving bonus EXP for hitting vital points so accurately with her arrows.

"Let’s stop for a second and pick up the drops."

"Okay!"

Ji-su answered brightly and started collecting items.

"Nothing useful, right?"

"No..."

"Then let’s sort it out and keep moving."

Tae-hyun gripped his sword again and started forward.

The dungeon was difficult, but there were a few fortunate points.

The goblins didn’t swarm all at once—they attacked in small groups.

They also never surrounded him, only appeared from the front.

And so far, goblin shamans or anything like that hadn’t shown up yet.

At most, it had only been goblin warriors and goblin archers.

Do we have to go deeper before those appear?

"Oh. There’s a treasure chest over there!"

"A treasure chest?"

It was an ordinary chest with a lock on it.

But sitting off by itself in the dark corner of the corridor, it looked suspicious as hell.

"Can I open it?"

"That looks... trapped."

"You think? That’s too bad."

Tae-hyun was curious too about what was inside.

If it was a quest-related chest, it might hold some kind of reward.

"All right. You stay back. I’ll open it."

At his words, Ji-su quickly retreated.

With a nervous look, she watched Tae-hyun open the chest.

Click.

There was no trap, but it was firmly locked.

To open it, he’d need a certain level of Dexterity or a lockpicking-type skill.

"No trap?"

"No trap, but it’s locked. Feels like this is the kind you open with a key from an earlier quest..."

The more he thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed.

It really ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt like they’d skipped over a whole chain of prerequisite quests and barged in here.

Can’t leave now. Seriously, how the hell did this even happen?

Tae-hyun never even considered the possibility that his insane Luck stat had caused the floor—something that normally never would have collapsed—to give way.

"What if you use this?"

"Hey..."

Tae-hyun stared at the metal skewer Ji-su had handed him, dumbfounded.

That lock obviously required a pretty high skill threshold. What was poking at it with this supposed to accomplish?

"If this worked, huh? Then why would anyone ever become a thief? Everybody would just carry one of these around."

Grumbling, Tae-hyun still jabbed the skewer into the keyhole.

Clack, clack—

"?!"

"..."

Ji-su stared at Tae-hyun.

Clearing his throat, Tae-hyun opened the chest.

The alerts flashed past one after another.

At a glance, it was obvious these were quest rewards.

Tyrum Ranger? Not Tyrum Hunter?

"What’s a Tyrum Ranger?"

"No idea. Probably some class related to Tyrum Hunters. An advanced class, maybe?"

With some classes, you first changed into a base class, then completed a special quest to advance into a higher-tier version of it.

If Tyrum Ranger was a class you could promote into after leveling as a Tyrum Hunter...

Ah, yeah. We definitely came into the wrong quest line.

It would be a real shame to discover something like this and not be able to claim the reward properly.

"Let’s equip it for now. No reason not to."

"Okay!"

Up until now they’d been throwing gear on with no rhyme or reason, but after equipping the items from the chest, they suddenly looked surprisingly put together.

"This is a set item, right?"

"Yeah, it is. You’re not going to use the longsword?"

"...I don’t think it’d mean much if I did."

"...Fair enough. Just take the dagger."

Ji-su nodded, keeping her bow in hand.

* * *

"That opened too? Wasn’t that chest supposed to require a key from the quest?!"

"I-I think his Luck stat must’ve been high enough to trigger it by chance."

"Ugh. This AI really... what kind of game system did it make?"

Choi Myung-sung grumbled as he stared at the screen.

The game’s finer details had all been decided by the AI.

Even the developers had no way of knowing things like that in advance.

"If he gets that reward and enters the final plaza to find the corpse, that’s basically the end of this dungeon, right?"

"Yes. But there’s still a boss monster."

"Watching Kim Tae-hyun play right now, though, it looks like he’ll handle the boss just fine too..."

Most ordinary attacks missed him completely.

The few that did connect got evaded anyway thanks to his absurd Luck.

At this rate, nothing in the dungeon was going to kill him.

"Bad matchup. Total bad matchup. If he’d gone somewhere else, it wouldn’t have been this easy."

"The boss in there isn’t that much of a pushover. One mistake and he’ll get surrounded and die immediately. But Team Leader, I thought you liked Kim Tae-hyun?"

"I do. I like him. But this is too easy to be fun. Kim Tae-hyun is at his best when he wins by playing right on the edge."

"..."

Yoon Ju-hwan looked at Choi Myung-sung as if he were ridiculous.

"He’s entering the boss room."

"Oh. Team Leader, Do Dong-su just started a new quest."

"Who cares about that guy? Just tell me the result later."

In Fantasy Online 1, Do Dong-su had been a Thief ranker, and in Fantasy Online 2, he’d even gotten the Heroic class Shadow Dancer—but he was still being dismissed out of hand.

* * *

"It’s a hobgoblin."

A larger goblin, the kind with leadership ability over the others.

In the center of the broad plaza at the end of the corridor, a hobgoblin was dozing.

"What should we do?"

"There aren’t any other goblins around? No way there aren’t."

"I don’t see any."

"Hmm..."

Tae-hyun scanned the area as well.

Aside from the hobgoblin, the dome-shaped plaza appeared empty.

But Tae-hyun wasn’t fooled.

In Fantasy Online 1 alone, he’d cleared hundreds of money dungeons.

A dungeon that wasn’t this dangerous would’ve been more suspicious.

"...!"

Tae-hyun spotted several narrow side passages in the corners.

Those were obvious enough.

Once the fight starts, goblins come pouring out of there?

If you got careless because you only saw the hobgoblin and rushed in, you’d be surrounded instantly.

He could already picture exactly how it would go.

Don’t think we can block those off. And the second there’s noise, we’ll get swarmed.

Then an idea came to him.

"I’m going out there to attack. You stay here."

"Huh? You don’t need help?"

"You can still shoot from here, can’t you? If I can’t kill that thing in one hit, it’ll definitely come down this passage. The moment that happens, run."

"...?"

Ji-su tilted her head.

Kill it in one hit?

She knew Tae-hyun was skilled, but taking down a boss monster in a single blow was another matter entirely.

Silently, carefully, Tae-hyun crept forward.

The moment I attack the hobgoblin, the boss battle starts?

You see a hobgoblin alone, think it’s easy prey, attack—and then goblins flood out from all around you.

If you didn’t expect that kind of setup, you’d panic.

Of course, Tae-hyun had absolutely no intention of playing along.

I finish this in one strike!