A Child's Simple Wish
The guild members stared at Su Ning with bewildered expressions. Beside him stood... a little player they had never seen before.
"Who is that?"
"No idea. Did Master Su Ning have a kid?"
"I heard he got rejected after hitting on an actress last time, though."
"Shh. Do you want to die?"
He was walking around with a little girl, and Su Ning was fidgeting like a mouse before a cat.
"Uncle, I want to go up there."
"O-of course, sweetheart."
"Uncle, this statue looks like it's actually alive."
"No, it's not. That's just a regular statue."
"Uncle, this is delicious. Make me some more!"
"T-that was made for the rankers..."
"Am I not allowed to eat it?"
"...You can..."
The guild members coughed awkwardly and averted their eyes. Every time their gazes met, Su Ning glared at them as if to say, Lower your eyes or I'll kill you.
"Who is she? Is she the Guild Master's niece?"
"Looks like it."
Su Ning let out a deep sigh and called his officers over.
"As you all know, my older brother entrusted his daughter to me. Now that she's growing up, she wanted to play Panon."
"Heavens, Master Su Ning's brother is..."
"Yes. He's a high-ranking official in the Princelings faction."
An officer of a highly influential faction in China! At those words, someone muttered:
"Wait, then why is his younger brother just playing video games?"
"Who said that?!" Su Ning roared.
"..."
"..."
When Su Ning flared up, everyone pretended to know nothing.
"Anyway, my niece... she really wanted to play Panon. And since I am... so reliable, my brother entrusted her to me."
"..."
"..."
The officers suddenly felt a chill run down their spines. At first, they hadn't thought much of it, assuming she was just Su Ning's niece, but now they realized her terrifying background. And she was a child! What if she got player-killed in Panon...?
Waaah... Daddy, mean people attacked me in Panon! Uncle couldn't protect me! Uncle's friends couldn't protect me either!
...What were the names of those friends, my little princess? Tell Daddy.
...It would definitely end up like that! Shivers ran down their spines. This wasn't just a game anymore; their actual lives were on the line.
Hey, isn't this a huge deal?
If we get assigned to watch her...
The officers all avoided eye contact. The rankers, having caught wind of the news, were hastily turning off their whispers. If they got stuck with this duty, they wouldn't live to see old age!
"...Don't worry. I will be the one taking my niece around."
"Ohhh...! Master Su Ning! We believed in you!"
"As expected of our Guild Master!"
"Having the daughter of a Party official here makes us feel so secure! We shall call her Princess!"
"..."
Sometimes, Su Ning found these guild officers even more detestable than Kim Tae-hyun. How could people be so transparently shameless!
"...Set up a rotation for the guild's rankers to act as escorts. Anyone who tries to skip out on this, I will personally report their names to my brother."
"..."
A threat that no Chinese ranker could ever ignore! Su Ning was more than capable of protecting himself, but his niece, who was low-level and had absolutely zero mechanical skill, required rankers to keep her safe.
"We will do our absolute best!"
"Assign regular guild members too! Don't just leave it to the rankers. We'll need at least dozens of people."
"Uncle. Uncle."
"Yes, my dear niece?"
Su Ning instantly wiped the scowl off his face, forcing a bright smile as he looked at her. If he frowned, she might cry!
"I want to see player Kim Tae-hyun."
"...Huh?"
"Player Kim Tae-hyun. You know, the player who beats up those bad uncles in the matches."
"..."
Those aren't bad uncles, they're the players from the teams your uncle supports...! Of course, even if he said that, his niece wouldn't understand. It was all because of those commentators shouting, "Player Kim Tae-hyun is incredible! How many seconds will it take him to kill the next player? Ten seconds? Twenty seconds? No, he just killed them instantly! A three-second kill! Three-second kiiiiill!" No wonder little kids heard that and became fans! Su Ning cursed the commentators in his heart. No matter how popular Tae-hyun was, shouldn't Chinese commentators support the Chinese team?!
"Can't I see player Kim Tae-hyun?"
"Uh, sweetheart. Player Kim Tae-hyun isn't in our guild."
"But Uncle, didn't you say you're the best in Panon?"
"?"
"???"
"??????"
The officers were flabbergasted. Wait, Guild Master? We might be the best guild alliance in Panon, but you are definitely not the best player in Panon.
Does he have no conscience?
Lee Se-yeon just hit level 300, and all the rankers are running wild trying to hunt ancient giants, so where does he get the nerve...
"M-my dear, when did I say that? I said we are the best guild alliance!"
"If you're the best guild, why isn't player Kim Tae-hyun in it?"
"..."
The adults present were struck directly in the solar plexus by this heavy blow and fell silent. Well... why indeed?
"Why isn't he? Can't you ask Daddy to bring him over?"
"There are some things in this world that even your father can't do, my dear...!"
Unless Kim Tae-hyun completely lost his mind, there was no way he would ever join the Guild Alliance!
"Aww. Is it impossible to even meet him, then?"
Fortunately, his niece wasn't the type of child to throw a tantrum when told no.
"Well, player Kim Tae-hyun is a very busy person..."
"But my friend went directly to his territory and met him! She said she held her daddy's hand and went to... the Valley? She met him there."
"..."
Su Ning's face turned pale. The other officers looked just as horrified. Ugh, these damn parents...! Just because your kids want to meet someone doesn't mean you should spoil them and make it happen! You're making things difficult for us!!
"T-that was just extremely lucky... Player Kim Tae-hyun is often not in the Valley..."
"Aww... Huh? He's in the Valley right now! My friend just told me! Uncle! Let's go!"
"..."
Ugh, these damn kids...! How is their information network so fast!
Clang, clang, clang—
You have completed the item!
This task was too easy for you!
Your Engineering skill has increased slightly!
"Tsk."
"Thank you! Thank you so much!!"
"It's nothing. It's not an item worthy of such gratitude."
Tae-hyun was currently destroying the market. To be precise, he had set up in the plaza and was doing free crafting.
Thanks to this, the nearby crafting classes were completely wiped out! No, actually, even the crafters themselves were lining up. Honestly, they wanted to receive an item made by Tae-hyun too. It was an incredible honor!
"Could I get something like a small airship? My friends and I gathered the materials together..."
"Are you insane?! What are you asking Lord Tae-hyun to make!"
"Do you have no conscience? Ask for something small and light! An airship? You're going to kill him!"
Insults flew from behind immediately, but Tae-hyun shook his head.
"Ten minutes."
"?"
"I can make it in ten minutes. Hand over the materials."
"...!!"
The crafters watching from the side felt their hearts race, even though it wasn't their own commission. I mean... he was just too cool!
I-I want to say a line like that too...
If you say ten minutes and fail to make it, do you know how embarrassing that would be?
...True.
And Tae-hyun actually pulled it off. Within ten minutes!
It definitely rises a bit more if I make something with a higher difficulty...
Even for the same item, crafting it faster and under more difficult conditions granted more skill experience. However, Tae-hyun was currently leveling up his Highest-grade Mechanical Engineering skill. No matter how many bonuses he stacked, there was a limit. To climb higher in either Blacksmithing Skill or Engineering, he needed to craft something new, powerful, and difficult.
The easiest option is bombs.
The convenient thing about Engineering compared to Blacksmithing Skill was the existence of bombs. He just needed to make bigger and stronger bombs!
Though making them is the hard part.
Since it wasn't realistically something he could make right now... Tae-hyun kept his hands moving with those thoughts. The crowd was astonished by Tae-hyun's mechanical control as he crafted in the blink of an eye. Usually, when people said "Kim Tae-hyun has good control," they meant in combat. Reading the opponent's movements, predicting them, moving first to block, countering with skills—all of those battles! Being skilled in those areas was what people typically called "good control." But crafting classes had their own form of control too. And Tae-hyun was demonstrating exactly that. Control that perfectly reflected the immense amount of time he had spent as a blacksmith in Panon 1!
"M-my god..."
"Is he really just hitting it with a hammer? Is he even looking where he's striking?"
"If he weren't looking, would it turn out like that?!"
Even after several hours, Tae-hyun patiently sat in his spot, clearing through the crowd. The incredibly long line actually began to dwindle first!
"Phew. All done."
"I... I respect you so much!"
"I brought some drinks for you!"
"Please take a break!"
The crafters who had been watching from the sidelines rushed over in a swarm.
"??"
Tae-hyun was puzzled, but he accepted them gratefully anyway. Why were they acting like this?
"Tae-hyun, we received this proposal."
"?"
Su Ning had an official contact channel for the Guild Alliance, but Tae-hyun had no such thing. Consequently, the explorers had gone to find Power Warrior.
"Excuse me, I came because I have a message to send to player Kim Tae-hyun."
"Ah. Go line up over there."
"...??"
An empty lot swarming with over hundreds of people! Hundreds of players were each holding onto something, busy doing tasks.
"W-what are they doing?"
"Since so many people want to send messages, our guild set up some conditions. One junk quest per character. How many characters is your message?"
"..."
The explorers felt their minds go blank. What on earth was this...?
"S-so that means... No, wait. Does it absolutely have to be junk quests? Can't we just pay gold?"
"Ah. Of course you have to pay gold too. Doing the junk quests is just the basic requirement. Once you submit the quests, we send the messages starting from whoever paid the most gold."
"..."
"I-isn't this too much?!"
"Too much or not, thousands of people come every single day wanting to send messages to player Kim Tae-hyun. What are we supposed to do? We have to filter them out somehow. Don't you see this line?"
The Power Warrior guild member pointed to the lines. One side was completely empty, while the other was packed to the brim.
"This side is the line for new guild members, and that side is the line for sending messages. Honestly, they should just join the guild."
"...If we join, can we send it faster?"
"Hey, are you crazy?! You're actually going to join?"
"Don't you see that line over there? If we wait in that line, our message might not get through until we quit the game."
At the explorers' words, the guild members' faces lit up.
"Are you going to join? Wow, that's great! We even give steel swords to new members..."
"Our levels are too high, we don't need that."
"..."
In any case, thanks to the sacrifice of one member of the explorer party, they were able to send their tearful message. Ah, of course, even if they joined the guild, they still had to do the junk quests. Power Warrior was a fair guild, after all!
"They'll give me historical books related to the Archisus Church and things like that if I come open a door for them? Hmm..."
The explorers' proposal was persuasive. Since it was related to the Ancient Empire, it made sense that such conditions would exist in these Ruined Sky Castles. Furthermore, the offer to hand over historical books and quest clues related to the Archisus Church was highly tempting. How convenient would it be to receive all of that at once?
"The offer is so generous it's almost suspicious."
"Indeed. Honestly, I'm a bit worried it might be a trap."
The explorer party, who had sent the message to Tae-hyun with utmost sincerity, was being suspected of setting a trap precisely because of their diligence. It's not... a trap...!
It would be great to find something useful in the Ruined Sky Castle and obtain an Archisus Church-related Authority in the Sky Island region. Instead of those weird Chimera prisoners or ghosts... Tae-hyun thought.