A Chance Given and Thrown Away
Even after being given a chance, if someone still refused to take it, Tae-hyun had no reason to hold back.
Buford raised his sword, set his jaw, and shouted with a look of grim resolve, “Don’t think for a second this is going to be an easy win for you!”
“Hmm. Under normal circumstances, that would’ve sounded pretty cool. But my guys and I just came back from killing the Fire Magic Beast. You don’t exactly look stronger than the Fire Magic Beast.”
“?!”
“Well, you done with your last words? Go ahead and thrash around if you want. Or don’t. Makes no difference. The result’ll be the same.”
Buford was startled.
Wait, these bastards killed the Fire Magic Beast?
How the hell?!
He couldn’t even imagine how they’d brought down that monstrous thing. Most players hadn’t even been able to get close to it.
And of course, Buford was much weaker than the Fire Magic Beast.
No—he was even a little weaker than a high-ranking Holy Knight of the Sadiq Order.
So his odds of winning in a straight fight were, naturally, zero.
Knowing that, Buford quickly spun his brain into overdrive.
“E-even if you kill me, you won’t get the item you want.”
“Ah. True enough.”
When a player died, their dropped items were random.
Sure, depending on the severity of their penalty status, better items were more likely to drop.
But random was still random.
Tae-hyun, however, was confident.
“You’re part of the Sadiq Order, right? Which means you’ve probably cleared a ton of their quests. So naturally your Infamy’s high, and you’re in a penalty state. On top of that, I actually...”
He paused.
“...No, forget it. Why am I explaining all this in such detail? Just die.”
“W-wait! Even if you kill me, you won’t get what you want, so how about we make a dea—”
“I said I’m confident I’ll get it, so just die!”
Tae-hyun cut him off and charged.
Buford clenched his teeth and glared at him.
The knights around them were terrifying, but this wasn’t a situation where he could just lose without fighting!
Sadiq’s Eye
For an instant, Tae-hyun’s movements seemed to slow.
Buford braced behind his shield and planted his stance.
If he could read his opponent’s attack, defending against it would be easy!
I block his strike and counter!
Buford’s style was the classic Holy Knight setup: sword in one hand, large shield in the other.
It lacked explosive burst damage, but it was solid, stable, and reliable.
That, however, meant absolutely nothing to Tae-hyun.
I’ll feint left, and if he reacts, I’ll switch immediately and come in from the right.
Tae-hyun was reading him a full step ahead.
Trying to read Tae-hyun’s attacks first with a skill, the way Buford was doing, was idiotic.
Tae-hyun was exactly the kind of person who would see through that kind of intent faster than anyone.
A glance. A twitch of the hand. The angle of a foot.
From details that minor, he could tell what his opponent was aiming for.
And once he did, all that was left was to dangle bait and spring the trap.
Tae-hyun threw out a light feint.
Buford instantly turned his shield toward it.
“What are you looking at?”
“?!”
A critical hit has been landed!
“Ghk!”
The impact came from a completely unexpected direction, and Buford staggered.
But Tae-hyun’s attack had barely even begun.
“Next up, the shield.”
“Uwahhk?!”
Tae-hyun relentlessly targeted Buford’s arm while he was still in confusion.
You have successfully struck the opponent’s arm precisely. Swordsmanship skill has increased.
The target is temporarily unable to use that arm.
Clang!
The shield hit the ground.
After disarming one of Buford’s hands, Tae-hyun kicked him, then followed up with another slash.
At this point it was less a fight and more like beating on a practice dummy for fun.
As he got pounded, Buford desperately tried to regain his senses.
What he needed right now was—
F-first, I need to open some distance!
Somehow he had ended up in point-blank range with Tae-hyun and was getting beaten one-sidedly.
If he wanted any chance of fighting back, he had to create space and recover his composure.
Sadiq’s Explosive Flame
Light flared from Buford’s body, and fire burst outward in a ring.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Three consecutive waves of expanding flame.
Buford assumed Tae-hyun’s attack would finally be halted by that skill.
But—
A critical hit has been landed!
Strong Strike
The enemy has been stunned by a powerful impact.
W-what?!
Buford was genuinely panicking now.
Why had he used a skill, and that bastard still wasn’t reacting?
Of course, Tae-hyun hadn’t dodged. He’d simply nullified it through evasion alone.
“N-no...!”
Buford desperately tried to do something, but Tae-hyun already had him completely in the palm of his hand.
Buford could do nothing but get played with.
Thud, thwack, crackcrackcrack—!
“You should’ve just handed it over when I asked. Bye now.”
“W-wait! We can negotiate—!”
Thud!
HP has dropped to 0. Death confirmed.
With his HP hanging by a thread, Buford shouted in desperation, but Tae-hyun had already made up his mind.
He struck without mercy.
“No!”
Buford screamed as his body turned gray.
No way I get tripped up here and die! That’s impossible!
Whatever he tried to say after that went unheard.
He’d already been forcibly logged out.
And in the spot where he vanished, a ring dropped to the ground.
Tae-hyun whistled and picked it up.
There was no reason to hesitate.
Tae-hyun immediately checked the item he’d just picked up.
Durability: 1/1
Holy Requirement: 5000
If the wearer does not believe in Sadiq, they may be cursed.
A sacred relic of the Sadiq Order. A ring containing sealed power of Sadiq.
If the conditions are met, Sadiq may be summoned.
“...Huh?”
It was a ring, sure, but not the kind of ring Tae-hyun had been expecting.
What he’d wanted was the ring the blacksmiths of the Punglimhwasan guild had poured gems, ore, and every last bit of their skill into—a masterpiece dripping with stacked options.
But this ring...
“What the hell is this?!”
Tae-hyun burst out in disbelief.
“Aaargh! That bastard! Just wait till I get my hands on him!”
After dying and being logged out, Buford climbed out of his capsule and stamped his feet in fury.
He couldn’t even begin to understand how everything had gotten this screwed up.
The Sadiq Order had lost the battle and fled?
He’d died without completing the quest the Sadiq Order had entrusted to him?
Sure, both of those were massive failures, but up to that point, he could still have dealt with it somehow.
The Sadiq Order had fled the Valley, which had served as their base, but they weren’t completely ruined.
Their key figures had escaped, so the Order itself still remained.
He should still have been able to continue the Sadiq Holy Knight questline.
Even failing to stop what the Sadiq Order had told him to stop was, somehow, potentially salvageable.
The death penalty hurt like hell, but he could still recover from that too.
The real problem was—
I lost Sadiq’s Sacred Ring!
That was something even Buford had never anticipated.
Yes, his Infamy was high. Yes, he’d been acting as a Holy Knight of the Sadiq Order.
But to actually drop Sadiq’s Sacred Ring?
Sadiq’s Sacred Ring was practically the Sadiq Holy Knight questline itself in item form.
Later on, it was supposed to be the proof that he was a true Holy Knight of Sadiq. The key to accepting Sadiq’s power. The key to all sorts of things.
And now he had dropped it.
What kind of dogshit situation is this?!
No matter how much he denied reality, it didn’t change the facts.
Buford clutched his head and sank into thought.
And he wasn’t the only one doing that. Tae-hyun was too.
“Hmm...”
He’d flared up at first, but once some time passed, Tae-hyun was able to think calmly again.
Tae-hyun trusted his own Luck stat.
And he was certain Buford had been in a penalty state too.
If an item dropped under those circumstances?
Then it was definitely valuable.
Even the name alone. At a glance, this obviously isn’t some ordinary item...
The question was whether it was actually better than the ring made by the blacksmiths of Punglimhwasan with every ounce of effort they had.
He didn’t know how the Fantasy Online 2 system had evaluated value, but as far as Tae-hyun was concerned, a ring he could use right away was more convenient.
And this Sadiq’s Sacred Ring was a defective item he couldn’t use immediately.
Damn it. He should’ve just dropped a normal ring.
Tae-hyun had no idea that his Luck was so absurdly high that Sadiq’s Sacred Ring had dropped instead of whatever ring was originally supposed to.
“Tae-hyun-nim, shall we continue the pursuit?”
When the knights asked, Tae-hyun gave up cleanly.
“No. Forget it.”
He was already guaranteed first place in contribution points from everything he’d done so far.
Sure, it would be nice if they could capture the Sadiq Order’s important figures who had escaped, but—
Honestly? No chance.
He didn’t believe they could catch them now, not after the core figures had already fled first.
If those people were weak enough to be caught that easily, the whole situation would never have escalated this far to begin with.
“Let’s head back and collect our rewards.”
Far off on the horizon, he could see other players finally bustling into motion.
The people who’d been beaten to both the Fire Magic Beast and the remaining Sadiq Holy Knights by Tae-hyun were only now starting to move.
They were chasing after the Sadiq Order, hoping to scrape together some contribution points however they could.
But all the real substance had already been picked clean by Tae-hyun.
Looks like I can rest a little until the rewards come in.
After returning to the royal army barracks, Tae-hyun logged out.
He had plans today.
Bae Jang-wook glanced at his wristwatch with an eager expression.
He was currently sitting in a café in front of the broadcasting station.
The one he was waiting for was Tae-hyun.
The star of Katerand Island, who had become a major hot topic.
Heh heh heh. Good thing I made that investment.
Bae Jang-wook felt deeply satisfied with himself.
Other people would’ve missed it.
But he hadn’t.
He’d picked up the clue on an auction site and made a bold investment because of it.
That’s the difference. That’s skill.
Right now, MBS was earning strong reviews as a gaming-focused broadcaster.
But in the broadcasting world, status could change at any moment.
SBC, one of the major networks, had finally realized that Fantasy Online 2 was a gold mine and had begun pouring massive resources into gaming broadcasts.
And it wasn’t just them.
Other stations were also starting game-related programming one by one.
There were plenty of BJ streamers too, so teaming up with those players and launching something new was easy enough.
Bae Jang-wook could feel it coming.
Before long, the golden age of war among game broadcasters would begin.
And in order to survive that brutal competition, there was only one answer.
Content.
Make the kind of show viewers had no choice but to watch.
A broadcast fundamentally different from the other stations.
That was Bae Jang-wook’s strategy.
And for that, I need talent.
BJ streamers who were entertaining on camera were getting a lot of attention these days, but Bae Jang-wook wasn’t focused on them.
It was the station’s hosts and panelists who could make a broadcast entertaining.
What he wanted from players was capability.
Ability inside Fantasy Online 2.
No matter how entertaining someone was, if they were only making already-known information fun, they had no competitive edge.
How many entertaining streamers were already out there?
In the end, what mattered was who claimed rare quests and rare information first.
“Are you Bae Jang-wook?”
A low voice.
Bae Jang-wook looked up.
A well-built man who looked about college age was staring at him.
Bit of a rough-looking guy.
If Tae-hyun had heard that thought, he would’ve gotten mad on the spot. Thinking it anyway, Bae Jang-wook rose to his feet.
“That’s me. Are you, by any chance, the one I’m meeting—”
“Yes. Kim Tae-hyun.”
“Haha. Great to meet you!”
They shook hands and sat down.
Bae Jang-wook immediately launched into cheerful chatter.
The Katerand Island quest had been amazing to watch, even among rankers you rarely saw anyone doing that kind of quest these days, our network produces this kind of programming and keeps exclusive contracts with players like that...
As he talked, Bae Jang-wook stole a glance at Tae-hyun.
Thinking to himself, Well? Doesn’t MBS look tempting?
“?!”
But Tae-hyun just yawned, wearing a thoroughly bored expression.