The Art of Demolition
"Th... thank you?"
"Of course. You should be grateful."
...This guy feels like an old middle-aged uncle.
Baher stared at Tae-hyun with suspicious eyes. Usually, people who got along well with his father, Baha, were rare. Most of them weren't young people, but older uncles! Although it was his first time seeing Tae-hyun, the fact that he clicked so well with Baha made him highly suspicious.
If Tae-hyun ever found out, he would have smacked Baher on the back of the head, thinking, I am not an uncle, you punk!
Even his name sounds like an uncle's...
And if Cain ever found out, he would have added, What's wrong with my name! as a bonus.
Sssss... Sssss...
In the corridor ahead, floating blue spirits appeared.
Low-grade Mana Spirits. They were easy monsters that even beginners could catch. They weren't a fitting match for their party's level, but the Magic Tower Dungeon was notoriously unbalanced! No one knew when or where the layout would shift, or when a powerful monster would suddenly spawn.
"A Low-grade Mana Spirit has appeared. Let's take it down!" Baha shouted, his voice brimming with enthusiasm.
There was no need to feel down just because they were facing a weak monster. This was the perfect opportunity to practice their teamwork! Since they were a hastily assembled party, they needed to make the most of these chances.
"Deok-su, we don't have a tank right now, so could you summon some undead to... Huh? Deok-su?" Baha turned to look beside him.
But Tae-hyun was already gone.
Patter-patter-patter!
"Deok-su?!"
Tae-hyun was sprinting forward, staff in hand!
"Senior?!"
"Deok-su!"
Even if it was just a Low-grade Mana Spirit, none of them had ever seen a mage charge in swinging a staff! Terrified, they tried to stop him.
Sssss...
The Low-grade Mana Spirit unleashed a flash of blue light, but Tae-hyun tilted his head slightly, easily dodging it.
To anyone watching from behind, it was a move that elicited a silent Wow, that's impressive!
Baher was amazed, but then grew puzzled. Wait, why is a mage dodging so well?
But there was still a bigger shock in store.
CRACK!
A massive, booming sound erupted as Tae-hyun swung his staff.
The Low-grade Mana Spirit burst apart on the spot.
"..."
"..."
Senior! You're wearing mage robes!
Ah, right. Habit...
Habits were terrifying things. Even when dressed as a mage, his first instinct was to charge in and beat things to a pulp.
It'll take about four hours for my Strength stat to convert back to Luck. I should be careful with my defense until then.
Because the Luck stat was so convenient, he sometimes made mistakes like this.
"Ex-Excuse me, what on earth was that just now?" one of Baher's friends asked, utterly unable to comprehend what they had witnessed.
Tae-hyun put on a shameless face and replied, "It's a mage skill."
"Pardon...? There's a skill like that?"
"Yes, there's a dark magic skill that consumes MP to temporarily boost your melee combat capabilities."
"Really?!"
It was a magical skill they had never heard of! However, since Pandemonium Online had an unfathomable variety of skills that players couldn't possibly keep track of, they had no way of calling out his lie.
Wait, what kind of dark mage learns a spell like that?
Is this guy... some kind of weirdo?
He seems to fight well, but why would a mage do that... That was definitely not the movement of an amateur.
Come to think of it, accepting Uncle Baha's offer in the first place was suspicious. A normal person wouldn't have agreed to it.
The way the party members looked at Tae-hyun shifted. They were now looking at him as if he were a complete eccentric!
"Well then, I'll summon the undead."
"Ah, yes."
"Summon Intermediate Undead!"
Fssss!
Specter monsters began to rise from the ground.
Your Infamy is extremely high. The specter monsters under your command become much more ferocious and powerful.
You possess the Authority of Sadiq, the Evil God. A portion of your summoned specter monsters receive his dark power.
Oh?
These were effects Tae-hyun hadn't even anticipated! Because his Infamy had skyrocketed and he possessed the power of the Evil God Sadiq, his undead summons had automatically become stronger.
Is this why those dark mages run around trying to raise their Infamy...?
But Tae-hyun didn't realize one crucial detail: his Infamy was leagues higher than those dark mages who actively tried to raise it!
If Tae-hyun's Infamy stat were ever revealed on the community forums, the reaction would undoubtedly be: Wait, does this guy do nothing but commit crimes all day? How on earth did he stack up this much Infamy?
"Huh? Are these really Intermediate Undead?"
"Do specters normally look like this?"
The mages tilted their heads in confusion.
While clearing quests in the Magic Tower, they had naturally encountered many other dark mages. The Intermediate Specters summoned by those mages looked nothing like this! Those had felt much weaker, frail, and wispy...
Why do these look so sinister and terrifying?
Well, I guess it's better if the undead are fierce and scary... It must be a special skill.
"But aren't you going to summon any other undead?"
Tae-hyun's shoulders flinched slightly, though no one noticed.
"I prefer controlling specter-type undead."
"But... shouldn't we have some bulky ones to block the front?"
"My specters are more than capable of handling that role! You'll see once we get into combat!"
"Ah, yes."
Overwhelmed by Tae-hyun's sheer confidence, Baha nodded. He couldn't possibly imagine that his companion was simply incapable of summoning any other type of undead.
"Oh, a trash item dropped. Shall we roll the dice?"
At those words, Kim Se-hyeong tilted his head. "Don't people usually just let whoever picked up trash items keep them, or give them to the one who got the kill?"
"But isn't rolling for them much more fun!"
A true dice addict! Instead of real-life gambling, Baha absolutely loved rolling dice in-game.
"Go ahead and roll, then."
Wanting to roll dice in a party wasn't really a drawback. There were far crazier people in the world, after all.
Clatter-clatter—
"Bwahaha! A 90! I got a 90!"
Baha, who rolled the highest number, jumped up and down in pure joy.
Baha's son and his friends looked away, their faces flushed with embarrassment.
"Dad... it's just a trash item..."
"What's wrong with a trash item! What matters is the number on the dice! My luck seems amazing today. Should I buy a lottery ticket after we're done?"
Tae-hyun watched the two of them with a warm, pitying gaze.
Enjoy it while you can.
Because once those four hours passed, they wouldn't be able to win a single item drop!
Soon, they reached their first crossroads.
Divine Foresight.
While everyone else feared the Magic Tower Dungeon, Tae-hyun did not. Other players had to enter and exit multiple times just to map out the area, but Tae-hyun could usually clear it in a single run. Because Akisus was with him!
However...
The path is shifting!
Tae-hyun clicked his tongue.
Divine Foresight worked best when there was a single, clear path. But right now...
The paths were branching out in all directions. To the left, to the right, and even behind them.
In a brief span of time, the path illuminated by Divine Foresight flickered, vanished, and then reappeared. It was clear that the very structure of this dungeon was constantly shifting.
What should I do? At this rate, there's no point in choosing a path...
Left one second, right the next, and backward two seconds later...
In a situation like this, one truly had to rely on pure luck. And while Tae-hyun had an incredibly high Luck stat, he wasn't the type of person to leave absolutely everything to chance.
"...!"
Suddenly, Tae-hyun blinked.
For a split second, Divine Foresight had pointed straight ahead.
Directly at the solid wall!
And then it vanished again.
Hmm... Maybe I should just go straight.
Since all the players who followed the conventional paths ended up getting lost, he figured he might as well try a path no one else had taken.
Hey, guys. Distract them for a second.
Pardon?
I said, distract them.
Along with his mental command, Tae-hyun raised his staff and prepared Dark Arrow.
"Are you going to shoot the wall?"
"Yes! I'm going to break it."
"Ah, that won't break. Everyone's tried it. I've tried it myself," Baha said, looking slightly embarrassed.
It was something everyone tried at least once or twice upon entering the Magic Tower Dungeon. Wall demolition!
People who got hopelessly lost in the shifting corridors eventually gave up and tried to smash their way through.
"Well, I haven't tried it yet. I'm going to try it now."
"...Fighting! Give it your best shot!" Baha said sincerely.
"Dad, you should be stopping him, why are you..."
"It's a waste if you don't at least try!"
"Even so, it's just a waste of time and MP..."
At that moment, Jeong Su-hyeok pointed behind them. "Huh? Isn't that a monster back there?"
"??"
The moment everyone turned their heads, Tae-hyun pulled out the Ancient Hammer.
"Dark Arrow!"
Shouting the skill name as a cover, he fired a Dark Arrow at the wall (which, of course, did absolutely nothing), and then swung the Ancient Hammer with all his might.
Combining his overwhelming Strength stat—which currently had no equal on the server—with the Ancient Hammer...
CRASH!
Rumble, rumble, rumble...
You have destroyed the wall of the Erangs Kingdom Magic Tower!
You have destroyed a wall protected by ancient magic. You have acquired a new title.
Your Engineering skill has increased.
Your Strength has increased.
If the mages of the Erangs Kingdom Magic Tower find out about this, they may react violently.
...Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
What a confusing message window! Since he had destroyed a Magic Tower building, they would probably hate it, but since it was an ingenious idea, maybe they would like it...?
I'll test the waters first, and if the reaction is bad, I'll just say some other guys did it.
A flawless plan that only someone with Advanced Rhetoric could pull off!
"T-This is impossible..."
"How?!"
Behind him, the mages cried out in shock.
In the brief moment they had turned their heads, a Dark Arrow had completely demolished the wall.
"How did you do that?!"
"Yeah! How did you break it?!"
Even Pyromancers with high destructive power and other mages couldn't break these walls. Yet Tae-hyun, a mere dark mage (in appearance), had shattered it.
"I broke it with Dark Arrow."
"D-Dark Arrow? With just that?"
"Baher. Baher. That's rude. Stop asking." Baha stepped in to stop his son.
Normally, players didn't easily reveal their skills. You never knew when or under what circumstances you might end up fighting each other! A hidden skill was always a trump card.
"Haha. My apologies. It was just so fascinating and amazing... Wow. I didn't know that kind of destructive power was even possible." Baha nodded as he spoke.
"It's nothing special."
"If that's nothing special, the rest of us might as well quit the game! Bwahaha! Well then, shall we head in? Since a new path has opened up?" Baha pointed ahead.
"What on earth are those guys?!"
Gadel cried out in shock.
When he heard that his real-life friend and rival, Baha, was tackling the Magic Tower Dungeon, he thought it was a golden opportunity.
I'll tail them from behind, and when they get into trouble, I'll strike and steal their items!
It was a sinister plan that would surely ruin their real-life friendship if he ever got caught!
But Gadel was confident. He possessed magic skills specialized in this kind of PVP.
"Dad... this is so embarrassing. Can't we just leave? It'll be so humiliating if we get caught."
"Quiet. Don't you remember when Baha came over to our house last time and we played Go-Stop?"
"That was because you played terribly, Dad—"
"But who on earth are those guys?"
"I'm not sure. Are they rankers?"
"Do you know any rankers like that?"
"No, I've never seen them before."
"You useless punk! What have you been doing instead of playing Pan-On? Your friends can identify a ranker's entire profile just by looking at their face!"
"I was studying, okay?!"