The Rabbit Extinction and the Beginner Blacksmith
After finishing his conversation with Gurendal, Tae-hyun headed straight out of the city.
There was only one reason.
Did the rabbits respawn yet?
Even after personally driving them into temporary extinction, he still refused to give up.
The kind of obsession that would make the developers swear if they saw it.
Even if the world ends tomorrow, I’m still squeezing out another five points of Luck today!
But of course, there were no rabbits.
Once they’d vanished, it took time before they reappeared.
“Guess I should do something else while I wait?”
“Opp—... I mean, Hyung! Hyung!”
“Hm?”
At the familiar voice, Tae-hyun turned around.
“We never added each other as friends!”
Jisu came running up to him, panting.
Unlike Tae-hyun, she couldn’t stay logged in nonstop.
Still, she’d gotten on as fast as she possibly could.
Of course, it was because she wanted to clear quests with Tae-hyun.
When she’d first been dumped into Tyrum City, she’d been depressed, wondering what kind of insane city this was.
But now she’d changed her mind.
After all, she’d gained Luck no other players could get.
And all of that was thanks to Tae-hyun.
The thought of playing together with him had made her so excited she’d ditched her friends and logged in right away, but then—
I forgot to send a friend request?!
That part had completely slipped her mind.
“Friend request?”
“Yes! Let’s do it now!”
“Uh... do we really have to?”
“What?!”
Jisu stared at him as if he’d just said something truly shocking.
“You don’t want to be friends with me?!”
“No... it’s not that I don’t want to... it’s just, you’re kind of...”
A pretty boy kept calling him Hyung with sparkling eyes.
That was starting to make him a little uneasy.
This kid doesn’t actually swing that way, does he?
Jisu lowered her head, looking utterly dejected.
And seeing that, Tae-hyun’s resolve softened again.
“Hey. Hey. Fine. We’ll be friends, okay?”
Brightening instantly, Jisu nodded with a beaming smile.
“You seem like you play solo a lot, Hyung, so that means I’m your first friend, right?”
“Huh? No. I’ve got friends.”
“...What?”
Jisu looked at him with pure betrayal in her eyes.
“No, I mean... I can have friends too. I’ve got real-life friends, you know. Friends exist outside the game too!”
“Oh...”
Jisu was disappointed, but she understood what he meant.
She had friends too, after all.
“Are you hunting rabbits again today?”
“No. No rabbits for a while.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because I killed too many of them.”
“...”
“I should probably start leveling up and getting proper gear soon. I’ve already locked down the basic skills, so...”
He’d gotten a lot of good stuff in Tyrum City by sheer luck.
But he couldn’t stay here forever.
If he wanted better gear and better skills, he’d have to move around, clear quests, and enter new dungeons.
“Then come with me!”
“Hm? Why?”
“...You don’t want to go with me?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I was asking if you had a quest or something.”
“Ahh. Yes! Of course!”
Jisu quickly opened her quest window.
Duty of the Tyrum Ranger
The Salz Kingdom may be a small nation, but it is strong. No one underestimates the military power of a kingdom that has endured so long in the mountains.
However, a troublesome problem has recently arisen. A wandering Orc tribe has appeared near Aden Fortress.
Protecting the border is the most important duty of a Tyrum Ranger.
Go to the fortress, assess the situation, and assist the soldiers.
📍 Location:Aden Fortress
🎁 Reward: ???
“This is a class quest, isn’t it?”
Tae-hyun knew the instant he saw it.
Only a Tyrum Ranger could receive a quest like this.
“Huh? Then... can’t we do it together?”
“No... I can still help you...”
Tae-hyun said that, then paused.
Come to think of it, he had no intention of changing classes anyway.
In that case, there was no problem tagging along on another class’s exclusive quest.
He probably wouldn’t get rewards on the same level as a real Tyrum Ranger, but it wasn’t like he’d lose anything.
“Then should we go together?”
“Yes!”
Jisu answered brightly, full of energy.
“Before that, let me see your gear.”
“Huh? Sure. But why?”
Jisu took off her equipment and handed it over without the slightest suspicion.
Tae-hyun replied in disbelief.
“That’s the kind of question you ask before handing it over. And what do you mean, why hand it over? Just take it out and show it, like you’re giving it to a blacksmith.”
“Oh. Is that what you meant?”
At the moment, Jisu’s gear was better than what she’d gotten in the dungeon.
It had been a gift from August.
Tae-hyun hadn’t changed into either a Tyrum Hunter or a Tyrum Ranger, but Jisu had already advanced to Tyrum Ranger.
August had given her gear along with the Orc subjugation quest.
Compared to the old days, when he’d looked utterly displeased with her, it was a difference like heaven and earth.
While Tae-hyun handled her armor and arrowheads, Jisu asked,
“Rare-grade and Heroic-grade items really are a lot better, right?”
“Hm? Probably. Why?”
“No reason. I just suddenly thought it’d be nice if I could get Rare-grade or Heroic-grade items someday.”
Right now, Tae-hyun had both in his bag.
Though both of them were daggers.
“At your level, Heroic items would be hard to get. Rare, maybe, but Heroic gear is incredibly hard to come by... even now, if you check the trade sites, even low-level Heroic items sell for a ridiculous amount.”
“Buying them with money doesn’t really appeal to me.”
“...?”
Tae-hyun looked at her.
“You don’t have any money? Well, I guess you’re still young...”
“Th-that’s not it! I can absolutely afford them! But still... it feels best when you earn things yourself in the game through your own effort...”
That was pretty similar to how Tae-hyun thought too.
With an approving look, Tae-hyun patted Jisu on the head.
“That’s a good way to think. But what do you mean you can afford them? You know how expensive those things are, right? Plenty of them go for tens of thousands of dollars.”
At Tae-hyun’s words, Jisu muttered quietly,
“That much isn’t really all that...”
“What was that?”
“N-nothing.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Tae-hyun, but telling him she was the only daughter of the Yuseong Group was difficult.
Until now, nobody’s attitude had stayed the same after hearing that.
And on top of that, Tae-hyun thought she was a boy.
“Here. Your armor’s done. Take it.”
“Thank you.”
Durability: 70/70
Defense: 28
Movement Speed +5%
Requirement: Strength 5, Agility 10
Light armor used by Tyrum Hunters. Made light enough for swift movement even in the mountains.
If you wear equipment of the Tyrum Hunters, the people of Tyrum City will welcome you.
◈ Additional stats granted by an outstanding blacksmith’s Rust Removal skill.
◈ Defense +50%, Evasion Rate +50%, Luck +50
◈ Skill available: Safe Fall
“????”
Stats had been added through the Rust Removal skill.
At the completely unexpected numbers, Jisu’s eyes widened in shock.
“W-what is this?”
“What is what?”
Tae-hyun hadn’t even checked the window before handing it back.
So he had no idea why Jisu was so stunned.
“The stats went up!”
“Do you seriously know nothing about blacksmith skills? It’s a rust removal skill. It temporarily boosts armor performance.”
“It’s that amazing of a skill?!”
Jisu couldn’t help being shocked.
No matter how she looked at it, the stat increase was way too high.
“You didn’t class change into a blacksmith, right?”
“Nope.”
“Then how did it go up this much?”
“What do you mean, this much? How much could it have gone up?”
Tae-hyun genuinely didn’t get it.
At his current skill level, he figured the defense had gone up by maybe three or four at most.
Check.
!!!
While Tae-hyun stood there in surprise, someone else was also having a very bad day.
That someone was Gu Sung-wook.
“Damn those cursed Tyrum Hunters!”
The moment he’d been told to go catch rabbits, he’d gotten excited and run off immediately.
And then he’d been reminded all over again why he’d left Tyrum in the first place.
These cheap, dirty bastards...!
They’d obviously told him to bring rabbits knowing full well there weren’t any.
No, but seriously—where did all the rabbits go? Just a few days ago they were everywhere around here.
The rabbits around this area were famous.
They endlessly respawned and tormented beginners.
Gu Sung-wook had experienced it himself.
And now those little monsters were nowhere to be seen.
Who on earth had wiped them all out?
“Ugh... I should just head back to the guild for now.”
Gu Sung-wook let out a deep sigh.
Still, the situation wasn’t the absolute worst.
It wasn’t as if the rabbits would never come back.
If he waited long enough, they’d start respawning again.
Rather than wasting time standing around, he planned to return to his guild and then come back later.
And while he was at it, he’d get the gear Tae-hyun had touched checked out too.
“Man... seriously... there has never been a single time I came to Tyrum and got anything good out of it.”
“Calm down. Even if you’re annoyed now, you’ll feel better once you get the quest reward later.”
“Thank you, Phil.”
Phil was a Dwarf.
The race chosen by players who set their minds on becoming blacksmiths from the very start.
Of course, there were people who chose Dwarves and went into other professions.
But the overwhelming majority became blacksmiths.
That was how well the Dwarf racial traits suited the trade.
Tae-hyun, however, had chosen human in both Fantasy Online 1 and Fantasy Online 2.
- Absolutely no interest in gaining advantages from racial traits!
That perverse determination of his to deliberately choose the thorny path every time.
“All right. Let’s see how much damage some beginner did.”
“Yeah. Sniff.”
Gu Sung-wook pulled out the equipment Tae-hyun had handled.
Even so, thinking that the gear he’d once used so well might be ruined made his heart ache.
Phil accepted the equipment and opened the item windows.
Then he froze solid.
“Th-th-th-this is...”
“That bad?”
“No, it’s not that...”
“It’s even worse than that?!”
“No, that’s not what I mean—!”
“You mean it’s so bad even you can’t fix it, Phil?!”
“Would you shut up and let me talk, you idiot?!”
“Gah. Sorry.”
Even easygoing Phil had snapped.
Gu Sung-wook instantly shrank back.
“Better if you look for yourself. Here, take a look.”
The item’s maximum durability had actually gone up.
He checked the defense and attack just in case, but those hadn’t gone down either.
And on top of that, there were temporary added effects.
Effects granted by a skill.
When low-level blacksmiths used enhancement skills, the increase was tiny and didn’t last long.
But the effect Tae-hyun had added was still active.
Attack Power:+50%
Critical Rate:+10%
Luck:+35
An absolutely broken effect that boosted attack power not by +5 or +10, but by a full percentage!
And on top of that, it had stat bonuses like Critical Rate and Luck—stats that never normally appeared from ordinary weapon enhancement skills.
“What the hell is this?!”
“A beginner did this? You’re not screwing with me right now, are you?”
“I swear to heaven, he really was a beginner! A beginner who’d been stuck in Tyrum the whole time! At a glance, he didn’t even look level 30 yet!”
“And someone like that did this?!”
Phil’s face turned grave.
Gu Sung-wook wasn’t the kind of person to lie about something like this.
If what he said was true, then had a beginner blacksmith really done this?
“What in the world is going on here?”
“If what you’re saying is true... then he probably changed into a Rare class—no, not even that. Rare wouldn’t be enough for something on this level. He definitely class changed into a Heroic class. A blacksmith-type Heroic class.”
A Heroic class!
Just hearing the words made Gu Sung-wook’s heart pound.
He’d class changed into the Rare class Dual Swordsman, and the benefits had already been enormous.
But a Heroic class? And a blacksmith-type one at that?
“Those buff effects aren’t something you see at low levels. And Critical Rate and Luck aren’t stats you usually see from weapon enhancement skills in the first place.”
“Right.”
“Then it has to be a class-exclusive skill. Something that grants Critical Rate, or grants Luck.”
“Ooooh...”
The two of them were completely off the mark.
It wasn’t a class-exclusive skill, and it wasn’t a Heroic class either.
It was just the result of Tae-hyun’s absurdly, monstrously high Luck.