Rumors, Lies, and a Legendary Class
“The landlord is kind, sure, and a good man too, but people always get soft when it comes to their own children, don’t they? What if he decides later he ought to make a job for his son and kicks us out?” the restaurant owner said with a worried look.
It was a real possibility.
When a place was doing this well, landlords inevitably got greedy. Throwing the current tenants out and installing family instead was absolutely the kind of thing that could happen.
Of course, to Tae-hyun—who knew the full situation—it was complete nonsense.
The idea that he would covet this wildly successful restaurant enough to ask his father for it?
Not a chance.
First things first, he needed to stamp out the rumor. He didn’t want the neighborhood getting the wrong idea about him.
“Nah, I don’t think that’s it,” Tae-hyun said. “As far as I know, the landlord’s son is diligent, has a good personality, works hard, and while his face might look a little rough…”
He’d almost said handsome, but his conscience stabbed him, so he changed course.
“He even got into Korea University. He’s not going to be eyeing this place.”
“Really? Korea University?”
The owner looked startled. Well, it was the best university in the country.
“Then why did that man say something like that?”
Because Tae-hyun had ranked first and then gone into Korean Literature instead of medicine or law.
But Tae-hyun kept his mouth shut. There was no need to explain that.
“That landlord—his name is Kim Tae-san, right?”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
“I live around here too. I heard the rumors. They say he’s a nice guy, but these days he’s a little…”
Tae-hyun raised one finger beside his head and spun it in a circle.
“Apparently he’s a little strange. Maybe he drinks too much. People say he spouts nonsense…”
“Oh my goodness, really?!”
“Yep. And his son has a reputation for being diligent, so you really don’t need to worry.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I went to high school with his son.”
Tae-hyun lied shamelessly without the slightest change in expression.
The owner’s face immediately relaxed.
“Well, that’s a relief. So? Good meal?”
“Yeah. It was delicious. And I’m glad your worries got sorted out too.”
“Right. I just wish my daughter were a little more outgoing, like you.”
“Huh?”
Tae-hyun looked back over his shoulder.
As far as he knew, the owner’s daughter, Ju Hyeon-yeong, was working in the kitchen. Since he was a regular here, he saw her now and then.
She’s shy, sure, but she’s pretty and she can cook. Isn’t that basically perfect?
“Is there something wrong with Hyeon-yeong?”
“She’s young, but she never goes out and only works. That’s what worries me. At this rate, will she even get married properly…?”
“Come on. Doing your work properly is already great. It’s not like everyone has to be out running around.”
“Even if she doesn’t go out, the girl doesn’t have any hobbies. I tell her I can handle the work alone and give her free time, tell her to go do something, but she just comes right back out and cooks…”
Is that why the food’s so good?
If all her care went into cooking, then of course it would taste incredible.
“What about you, young man? What’s your hobby?”
“Me? I play games.”
“What kind of games?”
“There’s this new one that just came out—Fantasy Online 2… have you heard of it?”
“Oh, that? I saw it on the news.”
It was the unrivaled king of VR games in both scale and polish, so naturally it had been all over the news. It had even gotten to the point where an entire cable channel existed just to cover stories from inside the game.
“Is it really that fun? Maybe I should tell Hyeon-yeong to try it too…”
Some people had to fight tooth and nail for permission to play games, while others got pushed into it.
Tae-hyun shrugged.
“If it’s just to try it once, it’s not a bad idea. It is fun.”
“All right. I’ll have her give it a shot. You seem to know a lot about it—if she starts playing, could you help her?”
“Uh… if I can?”
With the way Tae-hyun was currently playing, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be much help.
“Ah. Did anyone answer my question?”
Back home, Tae-hyun checked the post he’d made earlier.
I got a dagger like this—how good is it, roughly?
Maybe three replies? I’d be happy if there was even one.
Replies: 129
“?!”
Startled, Tae-hyun opened the thread.
A war had broken out under his post.
In truth, the dagger Tae-hyun had posted wasn’t all that incredible if you looked only at raw performance.
By level eighty or so, normal items could easily beat it.
The problem was that items from that level range all came with restrictions.
Minimum level. Minimum Strength. Minimum Agility.
Things like that.
Level restrictions alone weren’t a problem for mage classes, but requirements like Strength or Agility were hard for them to meet.
But the dagger Tae-hyun had posted had none of those limits.
No level requirement.
No stat requirement.
And despite that, both the attack power and bonus options were absurd, so naturally people were losing their minds.
There had to be over twenty comments like that.
Apparently there was a Blacksmith player among the commenters.
He started rattling off his knowledge in long, authoritative bursts.
One user was steering the entire conversation.
And because he sounded pretty convincing, the others seemed to be buying it.
Tae-hyun, though, wasn’t particularly angry.
Well, if they don’t want to believe it, that’s their business.
If anonymous comments like this were enough to make him mad, he would’ve blown up back in Fantasy Online 1.
Still, there was one particularly funny comment chain.
If it were Tae-hyun, he never would’ve taken the bait.
There was never anything to gain from biting on that kind of provocation.
But the Blacksmith seemed to have a short fuse.
“Tsk, idiot.”
Tae-hyun shook his head.
Why do something like that when there was nothing to gain even if you won?
The thread had gotten so many replies that it had climbed onto the daily best list.
Anything else interesting?
“Oh, Lee Se-yeon?”
It was a name Tae-hyun knew.
The player who had defeated him in Fantasy Online 1. There was no way he’d forget that name.
“Man. A class really is a class, huh? She’s seriously killing it already. Got a Legendary Class this fast.”
The broadcasters covering Fantasy Online 2 were scrambling to interview her.
Lee Se-yeon herself had been a frequent TV face ever since the first game, so it looked like she had edited and uploaded her class-change quest footage personally this time.
Traffic on her personal site was practically crashing it.
Tae-hyun managed to get the video running.
In some dark underground temple, impossible to identify, Lee Se-yeon was walking alone.
At a glance, the staff in her hand was obviously a masterpiece. Its black body ended in a gem layered with intricate workmanship, and the robe she wore was patterned with unusual designs.
Sell that and you could buy a few houses.
With that completely random thought drifting through his head, Tae-hyun kept watching.
Crash!
Knights burst out from all directions without warning.
They looked like the enemies that spawned when the class quest was complete.
Lee Se-yeon was a Necromancer.
And Necromancers were strongest when they had corpses to raise and minions under their command.
Naturally, in a one-on-one situation—or alone without an army—they were supposed to be at a disadvantage.
But Lee Se-yeon had shattered that limit back in Fantasy Online 1.
What about now?
No minions with her…
Dark Arrow
In an instant, thick black spikes materialized in midair and shot forward like bolts.
The charging knights tried to block with aura-infused shields, but the spikes pierced straight through the shields and skewered the knights anyway.
“……”
Just looking at them, Tae-hyun could tell the knights were well over level 100.
The armor and swords they wore weren’t ordinary gear either.
And Lee Se-yeon had punched through them in one shot.
Bind
The knights rushing in from behind froze with a single flick of Lee Se-yeon’s finger.
Blood Explosion
The knights already impaled by the spikes exploded. The immobilized knights fell with them.
Undead Summon
Spell after spell, chained one after another without even the slightest hint of cooldown.
And these weren’t trash mobs.
Knight NPCs were elite units by default—kingdom troops.
And against enemies like that, she was massacring them.
With a solemn expression, Lee Se-yeon swung her staff.
Death Knight Summon
In an instant, the battlefield changed.
The very first knights to charge her rose again the moment they died, becoming her subordinates and turning on their former allies.
The knights behind them, who had been preparing to charge in next, shouted in alarm.
“Priest, bless us!”
“I-it won’t work! The blessing won’t take hold!”
Seeing the ground ripple in black, Tae-hyun guessed Lee Se-yeon had cast some other spell as well.
Probably some curse that sealed a priest’s abilities.
“Die!”
“By my master’s command!”
“T-this can’t be happening. Get a hold of yourself, Edward!”
“You bastard! How dare you turn our comrade—Gahhh!”
With no servants at all to begin with, she slaughtered an entire knight unit through spells alone.
Then she immediately summoned the dead knights as undead, and even upgraded some of them into Death Knights.
The power on display was beyond imagination.
Is she even stronger than she was in Fantasy Online 1…?
She was clearly well past level 100.
Tae-hyun was certain other rankers watching this video were getting shocked out of their minds too.
The knights and priests resisted fiercely, but before long they collapsed.
Every time one of them fell, it rose again as undead, increasing her numbers—and each time that happened, the situation tilted further and further against the survivors.
When every last enemy had fallen, Lee Se-yeon turned away with an expressionless face.
At once, every undead subordinate present dropped to one knee.
It was one hell of a video.