The Tyrum Ranger’s Legacy
Of course, there was no way to finish it all at once by ordinary means.
There was only one thing Kim Tae-hyun trusted.
Lucky Strike
Heads.
Your attack power doubles for 15 seconds.
The skill’s cooldown has been removed.
Come on, heads!
Tails.
“Ugh!”
The skill’s effect vanished just like that.
“One more time, just one more time...”
Every time the skill failed, Tae-hyun waited for the cooldown to pass.
It’ll work next time. It has to work next time!
At this point, it wouldn’t have been wrong to say he was already well on his way to becoming a full-fledged gambling addict.
The Hobgoblin was still dozing.
Just like I thought. It doesn’t wake up until I attack.
The moment the Hobgoblin woke and made a sound, the other goblins would come swarming in.
Which meant there was no downside to trying Lucky Strike over and over.
Lucky Strike wasn’t a noisy skill.
All it did was flip a coin in front of Tae-hyun and ask him to guess heads or tails.
There were no flashy visuals, either.
Which, in a situation like this, was perfect.
Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike
“Um... what are you doing...?”
Yu Ji-soo looked baffled as Tae-hyun walked up to the Hobgoblin and just kept standing there with a knife in hand.
She’d expected him to charge in, but instead he kept moving, stopping, moving, stopping, over and over again.
Then suddenly, Tae-hyun’s face lit up with joy.
“Got it!”
Ji-soo couldn’t have known from the outside, but this was already his fourteenth attempt.
It had taken all the way until attempt number fourteen for him to call the coin right ten times in a row.
This should be enough!
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!
The Hobgoblin’s body was blasted backward with an explosive roar.
The power was enough to shock even Tae-hyun himself.
The goblins flee in terror.
“Huh? Oh. So that’s how it works?”
While you fought the Hobgoblin, the goblins came out to help it. But once the Hobgoblin died, the goblins ran.
Since Tae-hyun had killed it in a single blow, the goblins seemed to be panicking and scattering.
“Should we chase them?”
“Forget it. If we corner ourselves in some dead end and get mobbed, it’ll be a pain.”
Tae-hyun looked around the area where the Hobgoblin had died.
There was a skeleton in the middle of the plaza.
And that skeleton was wearing gear similar to theirs.
As he approached, he noticed a piece of paper clutched in its hand.
Damn it.
This is how I die.
For me, a great Tyrum Hunter and proud descendant of the glorious Tyrum Ranger, to die like this...
I made the mistake of underestimating the goblins.
Even if I die, my comrades will avenge me.
The only one I worry about is my wife, Sophia.
She must be terribly worried... I wish I could taste the soup she made for me one more time.
Come to think of it, I still haven’t chosen a successor to the Tyrum Ranger.
And now this has happened before I could.
If the one who avenges me and finds my body is a Tyrum Hunter, then that person should be qualified to become the next Tyrum Ranger.
Tyrum Ranger Succession
Tyrum Ranger is an honorable class traditionally passed down only to the finest among the Tyrum Hunters.
Hunter Dainz was a Tyrum Ranger, but an unexpected accident prevented him from choosing a successor.
Instead, he named as his heir the one who finds his body and avenges him.
Would you like to change class to Tyrum Ranger?
🎁 Reward: Class Change to Tyrum Ranger
“A h-h-h-heroic class!! A Heroic class!!!”
“I’ve got eyes too.”
Ji-soo practically jumped in shock, but Tae-hyun sounded utterly indifferent.
“It’s a Heroic class and you’re not excited?!”
“Good for you. You’re taking it, right?”
“Of course I am! Huh? O-op—... no, Hyung, aren’t you taking it?!”
Tae-hyun’s attitude gave Ji-soo the distinct feeling that he was about to refuse, and that genuinely stunned her.
A Heroic class.
Not a Normal class, not even a Rare class, but a Heroic one.
Ordinary players almost never got a chance to class-change into a Heroic class.
You had to be insanely lucky, or obsessively focused on nothing but that goal.
And yet they’d gotten the opportunity at around level twenty.
By sheer accident, no less.
How could anyone not be thrilled?
“Yeah. I’m not taking it.”
“Why not?! Let’s both do it!”
“No thanks. Tyrum Ranger isn’t my style.”
“W-well, okay, I guess it is an archer-type class, so maybe that’s part of it, but... it’s still a Heroic class! Don’t you think it’s a waste?!”
“Nope. Not at all.”
“...!”
Ji-soo was beginning to understand what kind of person Tae-hyun really was.
Whether she understood him or not, Tae-hyun put a hand on her shoulder and said,
“To me, whether it’s a Heroic class, a Rare class, or even a Legendary class... it doesn’t mean much. If anything, Heroic classes are worse.”
“What? Why?”
“Look. Say you’re a Normal class and you beat a Rare class in a one-on-one. People would call that amazing, right?”
“They would.”
“But say you’re a Heroic class and you beat a Rare class one-on-one. What would people say then? They’d just say you won because your class carried you.”
“Is that seriously your reason?!”
“No, that part’s a joke.”
Ji-soo let out a long sigh. If he’d been serious, that would have been...
“But I’m serious about not caring that much about Heroic classes. Don’t let yourself get hung up on whether a class is Normal, Rare, Heroic, or Legendary. What matters is how well it fits you—and how well you raise it.”
“Is that how it is?”
In Fantasy Online 1, Tae-hyun had cut through rankers as a blacksmith.
Of course he wasn’t particularly greedy for rare classes.
If anything, he found it more fun to discover the potential of classes everyone dismissed as weak and use them to crush the so-called stronger ones.
“Ah, but you should definitely take this one. Your close combat is seriously terrible.”
“...”
It was true, which somehow made it more annoying.
Ji-soo nodded.
“Then I’m taking it!”
Class changed to Tyrum Ranger.
Skill acquired: Enhanced Rapid Fire.
Precise Shot has been upgraded to Enhanced Precise Shot.
Skill acquired: Barrage.
Skill acquired: Blood Arrow.
Skill acquired: Enhanced Vision.
The flood of pop-up messages came so quickly Ji-soo could barely process them.
Even with her limited experience, she could tell just how good this class was.
“Th-this is amazing. Seriously.”
“Good for you. Congrats.”
“Could you maybe put a little more emotion into that?”
Then again, Tae-hyun had leveled up too.
He opened his status window to dump his stat points into Luck.
Oh, did Luck finally hit 500?
Name:Kim Tae-hyun
Level:22
Class:Jobless
HP:310
MP:310
Strength:10
Agility:10
Constitution:10
Wisdom:10
Luck:500
Bonus Stat Points:0
Skill acquired: Probability Manipulation.
Based on your Luck stat, you receive bonuses to probability-based skill effects.
Special phenomena may also occur.
“??”
The moment his Luck reached 500, an utterly unexpected skill appeared.
A passive skill.
Probability Manipulation.
This is... interesting. Seriously?
Tae-hyun was becoming more and more curious about how exactly Luck had been designed in Fantasy Online 2.
And he realized it quickly.
This skill called Probability Manipulation could probably be used in a whole lot of ways.
“Um, how do we get out of here?”
“The boss monster’s already dead, so there probably aren’t any more traps. Let’s try that passage in the middle.”
Tae-hyun’s prediction was correct.
They soon found a staircase the goblins had built.
It led them to a mountain entrance cleverly hidden behind brush.
“L-let’s go back to town!”
Ji-soo seemed desperate to rest after everything she had been through today.
Tae-hyun nodded.
“Wait—those clothes?!”
August was stunned the instant he saw them.
That outfit could only be worn by someone among the Tyrum Hunters who had been recognized as a Ranger.
“What happened?!”
Tae-hyun gave him a moderately edited version of what had happened.
Quest complete: Missing Tyrum Hunter.
Quest complete: Sophia’s Tears.
Quest complete: Enemy of the Tyrum Hunters.
Quest complete: Find the Goblin Nest.
Pop-up windows appeared one after another in rapid succession.
This had originally been a place you were supposed to reach only after clearing all those quests properly.
How on earth had they ended up skipping straight to the ending?
August offers you his highest possible favor.
Your affinity with the Tyrum Hunters has reached maximum.
You are recognized as one of their comrades.
You may now recruit them into parties or undertake quests alongside them.
“It says max affinity!”
Ji-soo, who until now had gotten pushed around every time she showed her face, cried out in delight.
“Wait. If it goes any higher than this...”
“You truly are fit to be a Tyrum Hunter!”
Hunter August...
...uncannily offered Tae-hyun the class change again.
He had just turned down a Heroic class, and now this guy was pushing a Rare class on him.
“N-no, I’m not taking it!”
“Hahaha! Even if you say that, I know what lies in your heart! A burning spirit of comradeship and honor! If that were not true, how else could you have gone through such hardship to recover Dainz’s body? I shall wait for you, whenever you are ready!”
Ji-soo whispered quietly from the side.
“You should’ve just class-changed into Ranger with me.”
“Shut it.”
“He actually cleared it somehow. That’s incredible. I think I get why Team Leader likes him so much now. One-shotting a Hobgoblin... what kind of skill was that?”
Choi Myung-sung muttered to himself as he stared at Tae-hyun.
“Now that he’s partied up with that girl, I really wish he’d move on somewhere else. He’s not seriously going back to hunt rabbits again, is he? How high is he planning to raise Luck...?”
Ji-soo said she was logging out to rest first, while Tae-hyun pocketed his dagger and walked through the streets of Tyrum.
There was something he’d told August, after all.
Tae-hyun: “I’ll be the one to tell Dainz’s wife.”
August: “As expected! You understand responsibility! Truly, you are a Tyrum Hunter—”
Tae-hyun: “I’ll be going now!”
There was only one reason he was going himself instead of making August do it.
Reward.
“Anyone home?”
“Yes. Come in.”
A woman with long blonde hair and ordinary good looks opened the door.
Because of Dainz, her face wasn’t bright.
“Are you a Tyrum Hunter?”
“Ah, yes. I’m sorry, but... I came to deliver news about Dainz.”
“Did you find my husband’s body?”
“I’m sorry, but your husband... huh?”
Tae-hyun stopped short.
He’d been wondering how to break the news that her husband was dead, but Sophia already knew.
What the hell? So everybody already assumed he was dead? I got nervous for nothing.
“Yes. We found him.”
“Ah... thank you. Now he can finally rest in peace. This isn’t much, but...”
“I didn’t do this for money.”
Sophia likes you.
Your Fame has increased.
Your reputation in Tyrum City has increased.
“But I can’t just let someone who helped me this much leave with nothing.”
“In that case... would something else be acceptable?”
Sophia’s face reddened at Tae-hyun’s words.
Tae-hyun took one step closer.
“W-what do you mean?”
“Teach me how to cook.”
“...Pardon?”
Ever since he’d read Dainz’s will, Tae-hyun had suspected Sophia’s Cooking skill was high.
And when he’d asked August, sure enough—she had been the one cooking for the Tyrum Hunters.
Since Dainz’s disappearance, though, she had stopped leaving the house.
Grinding was one way to raise a skill, but learning directly from a highly skilled NPC was another.
Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Cooking...
They were all non-combat skills, but there was no downside to learning them.
In fact, Tae-hyun had been a blacksmith in Fantasy Online 1, but his Tailoring and Cooking were also so high they hadn’t lagged far behind it.
Excellent cooking could grant temporary—or even permanent—stat increases when eaten.
Tailoring let you create and repair leather or cloth armor, or buff it temporarily.