He Had No Choice
“Fine! I’ll go on my own!”
Cain glared at Tae-hyun, who was standing beside the soldiers.
One look, after hearing what Tae-hyun had just said, was enough for him to know.
That bastard did it!
“You… are you out of your mind?” Cain threatened in a murderous voice.
When he sounded like that in-game, nobody failed to get scared.
Of course, Tae-hyun wasn’t included in that category.
“No, Centurion! Look at this guy! He says he’s going to kill me!”
“Y-you-you son of a bitch, I’ll tear you to pieces!”
The Centurion flew into a rage as if someone had threatened his own family.
At Tae-hyun’s shameless act, Cain felt the back of his neck go stiff.
Tae-hyun only beamed at him.
While they had been fighting the Orcs, Tae-hyun had persuaded the fortress commander.
He had wound up with a strange quest thanks to his Affinity, but that same Affinity also made persuasion easy.
The commander swallowed Tae-hyun’s lies whole, became thoroughly enraged, and gave the order.
And now…
The soldiers were glaring at Cain and his guildmates with murderous eyes.
Behind them, the Orcs and their chieftain were steadily finishing off the mercenaries, but the soldiers didn’t care.
The guild members felt like their insides were burning alive.
“Hey, we need to kill those Orcs first! If we finish them off, they’ll come up here!”
“We’ll deal with you lot first! Stop trying anything clever and come with us!”
Grinding his teeth, Cain turned on his stream.
The comments were already in full festival mode.
Cain had built up exactly as much Infamy as his actions deserved.
Naturally, all the people who hated him had come swarming in to celebrate.
Tae-hyun looked down below.
The few elite Orc warriors left were pushing the mercenaries aside and trying to force their way up.
“Good. Let’s go.”
“Okay.”
They were of one mind.
Choi Sang-yun could understand Tae-hyun’s intent from a single glance.
The viewers watching the stream recognized Choi Sang-yun and immediately started posting.
An explosive response.
Choi Sang-yun’s fans went berserk at the sight of Tae-hyun looking close to her.
“Hah!”
Choi Sang-yun was the first to leap in.
He moved with blinding speed, cutting through the necks of the elite Orc warriors.
Thud! Slash-slash!
“Chwik, how dare this human!”
“Kraaagh!”
Whenever the elite Orc warriors tried to counterattack, he used the remaining mercenaries as shields.
With movements as quick as dancing, Choi Sang-yun gave them no chance to deal any meaningful damage.
It was slaughter, plain and simple.
While that was happening, Tae-hyun carefully approached the Orc chieftain, Kazak.
Kazak had been about to charge Choi Sang-yun, but when Tae-hyun drew near, he turned his gaze.
“Chwik. I can sense divinity from you.”
Divinity.
It sounded similar to Divine Power, but it meant something different.
Divine Power was the stat possessed by classes related to gods—priests, paladins, and anyone else with a divine calling.
But Tae-hyun’s stat wasn’t Divine Power.
It was Divinity.
Because his class wasn’t priest or paladin.
He was an Avatar.
Tae-hyun was slightly startled.
Would a low-level boss in a place like this normally say something like that?
That sort of line—I know exactly what you are—was usually reserved for high-level or plot-important boss monsters.
Not some Orc chieftain raiding a fortress outskirts area.
“Chwik. The fact that you aren’t answering means I’m right.”
“How did you know?”
“Chwik. A human who bears divinity. Do not mock me. I am the Orc with the brightest eyes and the keenest ears. No human can deceive me.”
Is this guy really a low-level boss?
Tae-hyun was starting to feel uneasy.
The Orcs here really had been fighting suspiciously well.
According to Choi Sang-yun, the Red Zone guild members were around level fifty to sixty. The Orcs outside had simply been swept aside, but the warriors around the chieftain were nearly on par with them.
Which meant their levels were similar—or even higher.
Ah, damn it… something feels off.
Tae-hyun clicked his tongue to himself.
It wasn’t because he felt despair at being unable to win.
It was because it felt like there was something important he hadn’t noticed.
His instincts were warning him.
Before they had come to the Orc village, the two of them had checked each other’s combat power.
To be honest, Choi Sang-yun had been curious.
He knew Tae-hyun had obtained a Legendary Class, but Tae-hyun hadn’t said much after that.
Just how good could it be?
The only Legendary Classes publicly known so far were Lee Se-yeon’s Successor of the Necronomicon and the Legendary Class Smith was currently pursuing.
Of course, none of them had been fully revealed, but even what little had been shown was absurd.
Stat bonuses, superb exclusive skills, Fame boosts, NPC reactions…
There were even rumors that Lee Se-yeon now commanded several necromancer factions.
If you played Fantasy Online 2, there was no way not to be obsessed with Legendary Classes.
The class at the very pinnacle of all classes.
“So, if you’ve got a Legendary Class, you got some crazy good skills, right? What do you have? Tell me.”
“……”
“No?”
Seeing Tae-hyun’s expression, Choi Sang-yun was thrown off.
Can a Legendary Class actually fail to give good skills?
“I did get class-exclusive skills, but… they all feel kind of awkward….”
“W-well, even then, they’ve got to be better than regular classes! And once you level up and clear class quests, won’t you get more?”
It was rare to see Tae-hyun looking this weak.
Flustered, Choi Sang-yun hurried to comfort him.
“Stats! Right, there are stat bonuses too.”
“Ah. That’s true. I got a lot of stats.”
Even putting Luck aside, Tae-hyun’s stats were extremely high.
The stats he’d received from server-first titles, the stats from his Legendary Class…
“Excluding Luck, the rest are all somewhere in the one-twenties….”
“Seriously? What the hell, that’s great. With stats like that, you’re basically around level fifty. So even if your level’s low, a Legendary Class really is a Legendary Class?”
“This amount of stats is around level fifty?”
“Roughly? Usually people don’t just gain stats from leveling up—they get some from quest rewards too. Though you’re kind of weird. Most people focus on one main stat and keep the others lower.”
Choi Sang-yun had no idea how much Luck Tae-hyun actually had.
Compared to Luck over two thousand, stats in the one-twenties were like fireflies in front of the full moon.
“Usually, yeah.”
“Right. Anyway, the total stat sum should be in that ballpark. But don’t go arm-wrestling some same-level warrior or anything. Even if his total stats are similar to yours, he’ll have put way more into Strength.”
“What am I, you? Why would I do something that stupid?”
Crash!
Tae-hyun was flying through the air.
He had lost a contest of strength against the Orc chieftain, Kazak.
Ah, seriously…
“Hey! I told you not to compete on Strength!”
“It’s not like I did it because I wanted to, you idiot!”
Tae-hyun grumbled as he hurriedly got back to his feet.
Watching him, Kazak tilted his head.
“Chwik. You use strange techniques, human.”
He had definitely brought his axe straight down at Tae-hyun.
With enough force to split a boulder in half.
But somehow it had slid off target as if Tae-hyun were greased.
“Like you’re one to talk.”
Tae-hyun had never intended to engage in a raw Strength contest with a high-level boss monster.
But the moment Kazak reached out, Tae-hyun’s body had been dragged toward him automatically.
It didn’t matter if he tried to flee.
He got yanked in like he was being pulled by a magnet.
It had to be one of the monster’s exclusive skills.
Ah. Bad matchup.
Tae-hyun had genius-level instincts for reading movement and dodging a step ahead—but even that had limits.
Area attacks or absurd cheat skills like this left him with no answer.
Thankfully, his Luck meant regular attacks usually wouldn’t deal real damage, but if even one solid hit landed, his life would be in danger.
There were plenty of ways in Fantasy Online 2 to attack while ignoring evasion.
“Chwik, go on then. Try dodging this again!”
Kazak reached out once more.
Tae-hyun clicked his tongue.
Dodging was hopeless, so instead…
I’ll turn it back on him!
He lunged forward.
The pull became even stronger, and he shot in at far greater speed.
Riding that momentum, Tae-hyun raised his sword.
Lucky Strike, 5 Stacks!
Clang-clang-clang!
“??”
He had stabbed perfectly into Kazak’s chest—but the sword didn’t go in.
Your attack is blocked by the target’s armor!
The target takes no damage!
Kazak hadn’t even bothered dodging. Instead, he sneered at Tae-hyun as the latter was dragged in close.
“Chwik, human. Did you really think the likes of you could pierce this armor?”
“?!”
Tae-hyun was stunned.
No matter how strong a boss monster was, it was rare for him to be unable to deal damage at all.
Kazak threw off the animal hide draped over him.
Then he pointed to the armor he wore beneath it.
It was a suit that covered almost his entire body flawlessly.
The black armor gleamed with an ominous light and looked, at a glance, incredibly—
—like really good gear. Damn it!
It would be hard to brag more blatantly than that.
Whatever kind of item it was, it clearly had ridiculously broken options attached to it.
It had completely shut down Tae-hyun’s attack, after all.
“Chwik, die, human!”
Evasion successful.
The ordinary attack slipped harmlessly past him.
“?!”
“You’re not the only one who gets to cheat, you Orc bastard.”
“Chwik, human! You use strange tricks!”
Tae-hyun shook his head and glared at Kazak.
The Orc still didn’t seem to realize Tae-hyun’s evasion rate was so absurdly high that normal attacks simply couldn’t hit.
If Kazak figured that out, he would switch to another method of attack.
Tae-hyun needed to keep him using straightforward attacks just like this.
“This is getting interesting.”
Team Leader Choi Myung-sung watched the situation unfold while eating popcorn.
Dozens of interesting incidents happened every day in Fantasy Online 2.
The continent was huge, and the number of players was immense.
Even among all those incidents, the one currently happening was especially fascinating.
Kim Tae-hyun was there, and so was the recently buzzworthy Red Zone Guild and its Guild Master…
“See? It had to be Kim Tae-hyun. You saw how he dragged the soldiers over, right?”
“Ah. Yes.”
Yoon Ju-hwan shook his head as he looked at Choi Myung-sung.
Was it really okay to fanboy that openly?
“But can Kim Tae-hyun beat that Orc?”
“That armor’s busted, sure. But it has a weak point. There’s an opening in the back.”
The armor Kazak was wearing really was absurdly powerful, but there was an exposed gap in the back.
If you wanted to beat him, that was what you had to target.
“Would Kim Tae-hyun notice?”
“Someone like him? He’ll catch on. I’m more curious whether that Red Zone Guild is going to sit still. Their Guild Master absolutely isn’t the type.”
“What can they even do right now? They’ve been completely detained.”
“You never know what someone will do when they’re furious. Let’s just watch Kim Tae-hyun deal with Kazak first. Once Kazak dies, that starts one of the continental quests, right?”
“Yes.”
A continental quest.
A massive questline on a continental scale.
A dragon waking up and running wild, a powerful Lich appearing and attacking a kingdom… that sort of thing.
Whether players liked it or not, they had no choice but to be affected.
“Chwik! Annoying human!”
Kazak snarled in irritation as he swatted away the incoming arrows.
They were carefully aimed shots from Ji-su in the distance.
If they hit the armor it wouldn’t matter, but because she kept targeting his face, he had no choice but to deal with them.
During that opening, Tae-hyun switched equipment.
“Chwik, human. What is that?”
“It pains me to say this, but… fine. I’ll give up on the armor.”
“??”
In Tae-hyun’s hand was a hammer burning with raging flames.