Come Help! Hurry!
"Hey! Get over here! I need backup, now!"
Roy urgently called for his guildmates.
He swung his spear at the Orcs charging him from every direction, but these Orc guild members were no ordinary bunch.
No, what the hell are they wearing? Why is their defense this ridiculous?!
Normally, if one of his skills landed, the target should've been stunned or knocked back.
But these Orc guild members took those hits and kept coming like it was nothing.
Judging by their skills and attack power, they probably weren't higher level than Roy.
Which meant there was only one answer left.
Items!
Don't tell me these old guys are all cash-whaling and throwing money around?!
Roy had no idea he'd actually guessed right.
Surrounded, he lashed out with his spear like a madman.
It was a display worthy of a ranker.
Even so, the Orc guild members encircling him didn't so much as flinch.
Back in Fantasy Online 1, plenty of enemies had come after them.
Some of them had even been better players.
But in the end, they'd always won.
A simple truth, but an absolute one.
The old men of the guild knew their strengths very well.
They might lack flashy mechanics, but they had powerful gear and teamwork.
"Uoooooooh!"
When Kim Tae-san roared, his guild members' stats rose.
Summoning an Ancient Spirit to increase command ability.
Party members receive bonus stats.
No matter how wildly Roy rampaged, the Orc guild members ignored it and kept attacking him.
They weren't using anything complicated or impressive, either.
One grabbed him, another hit him, then another grabbed him again...
Their assault came in waves, like being dragged under surf.
Thud! Bam-bam! Bam-bam-bam-bam!
Roy's HP was dropping fast.
These worthless old bastards!!
What drove Roy craziest was their level of skill.
They weren't using advanced techniques. They were just chaining simple moves together, over and over, and somehow he couldn't break through it.
"Hey! You bastards! Get over here already!"
Roy's face was tight with panic.
From the distance, Kim Tae-san smiled and said, "What, looking for your friends?"
"......!"
"All your friends are dead."
At Kim Tae-san's words, Yang Sung-gyu gave Roy a wave.
While Roy and Kim Tae-san had been fighting, the rest of the Choigang Jizon Mussang Guild had cleaned out Roy's guildmates.
"Huff, huff... Y-you... coward! Fight me one-on-one!"
Now completely cornered, Roy had started making absurd demands.
Kim Tae-san dug at his ear and said, "Huh? Is some puppy barking somewhere? Can't hear it."
"I said fight me one-on-one! And you call yourself a man?"
"A real man stomps on a mosquito with everything he's got too. Seriously. If I underestimated you and you ran off, do you know how annoying that'd be?"
At Kim Tae-san's words, the other guild members clapped in approval.
"As expected of the boss!"
"Loyalty loyalty loyalty!"
Grinding his teeth, Roy looked around.
The encirclement was too tight. There wasn't a single gap to break through.
"I said fight me one-on-one!!"
As Roy screamed, one of the Orc uncles opened his mouth.
"Hey. Kid."
"......!"
"Quit forcing it. No matter how much noise you make, we're never gonna fight you one-on-one. You guys are always on broadcasts and stuff, showing off by dueling someone you've already got dead to rights..."
"But old guys like us don't do that. We just kill 'em. Why bother going one-on-one with somebody you've already caught? We've got nothing to lose."
"Right. Right."
Even the Orc uncles were mocking him now, and Roy's face turned red.
Kim Tae-san clicked his tongue.
"That's enough teasing. He's young. Kids make mistakes."
"......"
At a glance, it sounded almost kind.
But Kim Tae-san was not, under any circumstances, a kind man.
"All right. Said everything you wanted to say? Then die."
"W-wait! Wait!"
Roy desperately waved both hands.
"I surrender! I surrender!"
"Surrender? The only Hangbok I know is a guy's name in an old story. There is no surrender. You picked the fight first, and now you're surrendering? Are you insane?"
For a ranker, dying even once could be devastating.
The death penalty really could cripple you.
That was why Roy clung on so desperately.
He had to survive somehow.
"Sirs! I was wrong! I judged you badly! I'll reflect on it, so please, just spare my life!"
"Huh. I like this kid's attitude."
"Get on your knees first."
"Y-yes, sir!"
Roy dropped to his knees.
"Now shout, 'I will never look down on uncles again.' Loudly. How do you record video on this thing?"
"Wasn't it like this?"
"I think that's whisper mode."
"......"
They were middle-aged men, all right. They weren't exactly used to recording videos.
After a long while, the Orc uncles finally finished getting the camera ready.
"All right. Now say you'll never bother random people passing by, you'll never look down on uncles... what else was there?"
"That's probably enough. Shout it loud."
Still on his knees, Roy started shouting exactly what they told him to.
The humiliation made his skin crawl, but survival came first.
Roy grit his teeth and repeated every word.
From farther off, where he'd been yawning, Kim Tae-san asked, "Finished?"
"Yes!"
"Good."
Whoosh—
Crash!
HP has fallen to 0. You have died.
"Oops. My hand slipped."
"Hahaha. Boss, seriously."
"Maybe keep a better grip next time!"
After killing Roy, Kim Tae-san took the experience—and the items too.
None of the other guild members were surprised.
Except for Kim Sang-cheol, the young newcomer.
"Uh... weren't you going to let him live?"
"Are you crazy? Why would we spare some punk who came at us first?"
Not a single one of them had ever intended to spare him.
They'd gone as far as filming his humiliation, and every last one of them had been thinking the same thing.
A chill ran down Kim Sang-cheol's spine.
They laughed like kindly older men, sure—but they were absolutely not people to be taken lightly.
These were men who had once ruled games.
There was no way they'd let someone go just because he got on his knees and apologized after starting a fight.
"?!"
Roy didn't even have time to shout before he died and was forcibly logged out.
Kim Tae-san had swung his giant hammer with all his strength, using a skill on Roy when he was already at death's door.
Of course he died.
"What kind of fucked-up—!"
Roy shouted in outrage, but now that he was outside the capsule, there was no one there to hear him.
He pounded his chest.
"Those bastard old men... just wait! Just you wait!"
Getting done in like this by a bunch of uncles he'd looked down on wasn't just infuriating—it was unbearable.
How do I get revenge?
Now he knew they weren't pushovers.
And it wasn't just one person. It was a whole guild.
Worse, their fighting power was absurd.
It was strange, honestly, that a guild like that wasn't already famous.
The real reason they weren't known for their skill was their appearance.
The guild name, the Orc uncle members, the bizarre outfits...
From the outside, they just looked like some middle-aged social guild put together for fun.
People talked about how ridiculous the Choigang Jizon Mussang Guild looked, but nobody cared how strong they actually were.
Ah!
Something flashed through Roy's mind.
He remembered what Kim Tae-san had said.
Tae-hyun. Kim Tae-hyun, maybe?
Come to think of it, didn't that Kim Tae-hyun say on stream that he had an enemy? That there was someone he needed to PK...?
Roy clenched his fist.
If this old man Kim Tae-san and Kim Tae-hyun were enemies, then this was a perfect opportunity.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
If he could find Kim Tae-hyun, join forces with him, and attack Kim Tae-san together, that would be a huge advantage for Roy.
Just wait, you old bastards!
Far away, while all sorts of unexpected things were happening, Tae-hyun was chatting lazily with Cain.
"So what you're saying is... the Abalab City Arena is a total train wreck."
"Pretty much."
After hearing Cain's explanation, Tae-hyun shook his head.
The arena format in Abalab City was pretty extreme.
It wasn't 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, or 15v15. It wasn't even monster versus monster.
It was 1v1v1v1v1v1...
In other words, everyone in a round entered as an individual, and only one person came out alive.
Even if they split it by participant count, there'd still be what, ten or fifteen people in one match?
If ten to fifteen people all fought as individuals?
Chaos and destruction were only part of the problem.
There was another factor that would inevitably worm its way in.
Politics.
Even by simple math, if two people teamed up, their odds of winning would multiply several times over.
Tae-hyun knew very well what happened in arenas like this.
People made secret deals, joined hands behind the scenes, singled out someone strong and turned them into a mob target, or just entered the same arena with guildmates from the start.
In a place like this, being strong didn't guarantee victory.
What you needed to win was a good eye for the situation—and a cold heart.
"Mmm. If I have to play politics, I'm starting to lose confidence."
"?!?!"
At Tae-hyun's words, Cain looked like he'd just been smacked in the head.
Tae-hyun saying he lacked confidence in playing politics was like a carnivore saying, Actually, I prefer vegetables.
The shock was that severe.
"What's with that look? Got a problem?"
"N-no. Nothing."
"It's not like I'm especially good at political maneuvering, right?"
If that's not good, then who the hell is?
Cain swallowed the thought.
"And even in small arenas, people collude. If the field's bigger, they'll collude even harder."
"How? Is there some method to it?"
"You idiot... is that thing on your neck just for decoration? They can form teams at the start, or just enter together with guildmates from the beginning."
"Wouldn't they get caught if guildmates entered together?"
"Obviously they'd do it in a way that doesn't get them caught!"
Tae-hyun rapped on Cain's helmet.
A clear, bright ring echoed out.
"And in games like this, famous people are at an absolute disadvantage."
"......?"
"Say you're in a fifteen-man match and one of them's a famous ranker. What do you think everyone'll do?"
"They'd obviously... focus him down."
"Exactly."
In games like this, the more famous you were—or the stronger you looked—the worse off you were.
Because everyone else would join forces to eliminate you first.
And lately, Tae-hyun was one of the most famous players around.
The attention on him wasn't just hot. It was blazing.
"Well, no point worrying about it yet. We can think about it when we get there. I can disguise myself, anyway."
"Wouldn't it look suspicious if you're fighting in disguise there?"
"A good disguise doesn't look suspicious. Don't worry about it."
Tae-hyun spoke confidently.
He'd been good at hiding his face ever since Fantasy Online 1.
Tae-hyun had mastered the razor-thin balance between suspicious and maybe that guy just likes wearing a mask.
And there was one more thing.
"There's a saying—if you want to hide a tree, hide it in the forest."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"You enter the arena, and one guy looks suspicious as hell. His gear looks good, but it also looks like he's using some item to conceal the outside of it... what would you think?"
"I'd think some high-level player disguised himself so he wouldn't get targeted."
"Exactly. And compared to him, everyone else gets less attention. I'm counting on you."
Tae-hyun patted Cain on the shoulder and started walking away.
For a moment, Cain didn't understand.
What did he mean by I'm counting on you?
"H-hey, d-don't tell me?!"
"Act like the most suspicious guy in the world. It's fine. There's no death penalty in the arena anyway."
"Urgh...!"
Cain couldn't answer. He just trembled.