The Addictive Sensation of the Spear
"The God of Assassins, Zaxuna, whom assassin classes primarily worship, and Henen, the God of Thieves, are surprisingly inefficient. The reward skills they offer are just inferior versions of my own class skills. The Phytos Church is much better. That's why I started clearing the Phytos Church quests, but..."
With the support of the Guild Alliance, Alcott easily cleared the early quests of the Phytos Church. However, after completing a few and rising in rank within the order, the quest difficulty spiked dramatically.
⊳ Go to the battlefield where the paladins are currently fighting and bring back five heads of Elite Giant Warriors.
⊳ Kill the despicable warrior, Pulban, who fled after killing the paladins.
⊳ Capture and bring back the wicked Great Thief, Ed-an, who stole the armor of the Phytos Church.
⊳ Clear the dungeon.
Some of these quests were so difficult that players would give up on them from the very beginning!
However, the quest that appeared this time was one he absolutely could not abandon.
The Awakening of Carbanog's Power
The great god, Phytos, has sensed that the power of Carbanog has awakened on the continent and has issued a divine oracle.
Carbanog is a god with no established church, but whose power has overturned the continent for generations! Only the Phytos Church can handle that power safely and moderately.
Find [Carbanog's Spear] and bring it to the Phytos Church. If you succeed, you will become a key figure within the order.
However, beware. Other religious orders will also know that Carbanog's power has awakened...
🎁 Rewards:
⊳ Position: [Archbishop's Direct Assassin]
⊳ Divine Authority: [???]
⊳ ?
⊳ ??
⊳ ???
The massive amount of contribution points was one thing, but the position of [Archbishop's Direct Assassin] and the Divine Authority skill [???] were simply too incredible to pass up.
[Archbishop's Direct Assassin] was an immense position that allowed one to command powerful NPC church assassins!
And [???] was one of the Divine Authority skills that Alcott had been eyeing within the Phytos Church.
No. I can never give up on this!
Furthermore, the hint that other churches had also received the quest weighed heavily on his mind.
There was no telling when players doing quests for other orders would receive this quest and snatch [Carbanog's Spear] away!
Poke—
"Ah! Stop it! Seriously!"
"Sorry. It's just too fun."
"Is that how someone who's sorry behaves?!"
Cain, who had fallen over again, yelled in frustration.
Kim Tae-hyun was holding [Carbanog's Spear] in one hand.
"No, Cain. Honestly, there's a serious reason for this. To win the dungeon clear competition, we need to have more diverse strategies than others. And from that perspective, a unique piece of equipment like this, rather than gear everyone knows about, could be our trump card, don't you think?"
"Is... is that so?"
"Exactly. So let's test it a few more times."
Crash!
He hadn't discovered any hidden performance as he'd claimed to Cain, but Tae-hyun did realize one thing.
This spear... the tactile feedback was incredible!
It's addictive!
A sensation so satisfying that even Tae-hyun felt himself getting hooked. A feeling that made him want to keep poking Cain over and over.
Carbanog is pleased with your devotion.
"..."
Tae-hyun's expression suddenly turned cold. He quickly put the spear away.
"That's enough playing around. Let's head to a dungeon. Is this all the dungeons currently revealed in the Uruk region?"
The map Lee Da-bi had given him marked the known dungeons in the Uruk region. Tae-hyun crossed out the ones that were too easy or unnecessary with an X, then scanned the remaining ones.
"First, we also have to do the quest to lure the pirates into the Archisus Church, so we can't spend too much time clearing dungeons. Let's move toward the coast where the pirates are and clear the dungeons along the way."
"Isn't that too dangerous?"
"...!"
Cain gasped in surprise at the sudden appearance of Choi Sang-yun.
"W-W-Who is that? Your girlfriend?"
"...You really are something..."
Tae-hyun looked down at the fallen Cain with pity.
Should I just leave him be since this is strangely entertaining?
Is that Choi Sang-yun?
It's Choi Sang-yun.
Jeong Su-hyeok and Lee Da-bi had recognized him instantly, but Cain was the only one who couldn't!
"Come to think of it, I saw you back during the Red Zone days...! Hello! Nice to meet you!"
Cain bowed deeply, completely forgetting any past grudges.
"Cain. Didn't we agree to clear dungeons as a party of five?"
"Huh? Yeah, we did."
"Then who do you think he is?"
"......!!!!!"
Choi Sang-yun smirked at Cain's reaction. Ignoring them, Tae-hyun continued.
"True, if the five of us just recklessly raid every dungeon we see, we won't have enough lives to survive. Let's set a few ground rules. First, we check the preliminary information, and if it looks too dangerous once we're inside, we pull out immediately."
Tae-hyun planned to test both 'dungeons cleared by others' and 'dungeons no one has cleared yet.'
Both would serve as opportunities to gauge Team KL's current level.
"By the way, Cain, weren't you whining constantly about needing to deal with the demon blood?"
"Wh-What?"
Cain was flustered by Tae-hyun's question. At first, he had been horrified and wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible, but his mind had changed slightly.
The performance of the half-human, half-demon race was surprisingly incredible!
It was on a completely different level from the clumsy demonization that the Woodstock Guild had accepted in the past.
Moreover, he had worried about receiving a class penalty, but for some reason, this class had no penalties even after he became a half-demon.
Is this really a holy class?
"Maybe I can keep it a bit longer?"
"...You're not keeping it just because you think it looks cool, are you?"
"N-No, I'm not!"
And finally, his appearance did look rather cool.
"Are you sure you saw right?"
"I'm telling you, yes. There's no way I wouldn't recognize him. He was our guild leader once. And did you see the recent posts? They say his race changed due to some curse. How many people could look like that?"
"Hmm..."
A few raider players lay prone on a mountain ridge, watching Tae-hyun's group pass by.
The reason they had come to the Uruk region was the bounty quest offered by the Auston Kingdom.
They had promised territory to anyone who brought back Karag's head, but that wasn't the only reason.
When a massive quest drew so many players, there were bound to be plenty of scraps to pick up.
Hiding in a secluded spot and attacking any player who looked easy—that was the basic textbook play for raiders.
Moreover, many parts of the Uruk region were still unmapped, making it the perfect place for them to lie in wait.
But when the quest fever suddenly cooled and players began leaving in small groups, they had to make a choice.
—Should we stay and wait a bit longer, or should we just go somewhere else?
—We came all this way and barely caught anyone. If we wait just a bit longer... Huh?
Just then, a group caught their eye.
Normally, they would have jumped up shouting, "Jackpot!" and charged...
But they couldn't.
They had recognized the targets.
—C-C-C-Cain?!
—What?! Cain? Then the one next to him...
—I've never seen that face before, but it's definitely Kim Tae-hyun! I heard he has a skill that lets him change his face.
—Eek!
The moment he heard Kim Tae-hyun's name, one of the raiders slammed his head to the ground.
Raider players had an outlaw image of not caring even if their opponent was a ranker, always aiming for a big score, but...
Raiders were human too.
They were more calculating and shrewd than anyone!
Unless they were part of the tiny minority of absolute lunatics, they never got involved in a fight they had no chance of winning.
And to raiders, Tae-hyun's name was synonymous with the Grim Reaper.
His performance in Pan-On 2 was already enough to make him untouchable, but now that his identity from Pan-On 1 had been revealed, it was even worse.
—I heard my friend picked a fight with Kim Tae-hyun back in Pan-On 1 and got hunted until he literally quit the game.
—My friend's brother's cousin's friend set a trap to catch Kim Tae-hyun, but he got found out and had to strip off all his gear and jump into his own trap.
These terrifying rumors about Tae-hyun circulated periodically on the raiders' private bulletin boards!
Whatever the truth, it was a fact that the vast majority of raiders had absolutely no intention of messing with Tae-hyun.
—Let's run! I don't think they've seen us yet!
—No, wait. I have a great idea!
Stopping his panicked companions, one of the raiders spoke with absolute confidence.
"Is this really a good idea?"
"Hey, trust me. They say Kim Tae-hyun isn't the same as he used to be. He's mellowed out, probably because he's been on broadcasts so much."
"...Really?"
"I heard from the guys who participated in the Orc fortress raid quest that Kim Tae-hyun showed up and actually saved people's lives. He's human too, and now that he's famous, he can't act like he did in Pan-On 1."
"..."
"And look. If we don't attack, how are they going to know we're raiders? We just act innocent and play dumb."
The method they chose was simple: pretend to be nice!
To be precise, it wasn't entirely a "pretend" act, since they genuinely intended to behave nicely right now.
To say, "Let's follow them and attack when they show an opening," they were too terrified, and Tae-hyun was far too scary.
"Come on! Let's follow them. If we discover even one hidden dungeon or hidden quest, we hit the jackpot! And you know how much info on Kim Tae-hyun sells for, right?"
"Of course. Didn't someone get a few million won just for a single line of his location before? Damn it, if it weren't for those Power Warrior Guild bastards, we could still sell his location instantly. No business ethics whatsoever..."
Once it was revealed that Tae-hyun was the legendary Tae-hyun of Pan-On 1, those who held grudges against him spent all their time plotting his demise.
The 1-vs-100 chase happened right around then!
Because so many players had suffered at his hands, they bought up any information regarding Tae-hyun on the forums.
In Pan-On, players could sell information for real money on the bulletin boards.
At the time, someone posted a single line of Tae-hyun's current location for millions of won, and desperate players bought it instantly.
That incident, which showed just how desperately people wanted to catch Tae-hyun, became almost legendary.
Naturally, money-blinded players tried to gather and sell Tae-hyun's information, which was exactly what those hunting him wanted.
No matter how brilliant Tae-hyun was, it would be hard to survive if everyone he met from all directions sold his location!
And that was when the Power Warrior Guild stepped in.
The Power Warrior Guild members had gleefully spammed these posts!
Even if their accounts were reported and suspended for false information, they just created new ones and kept posting.
They were people who didn't care about reports in the slightest.
As a result, information on Tae-hyun became utterly worthless.
Real and fake information were so thoroughly mixed that it became impossible to tell what was true!
Thanks to that, if anyone wanted to sell Tae-hyun's information now, simple details like his location wouldn't cut it.
They had to bring something substantial, like what skills he used or what gear he wore, to even make a sale.
"Still, useful information still sells for a pretty penny."
"I still don't understand that one. Did you see that post uploaded last time titled [How to Tame Kim Tae-hyun]?"
"No idea. Who cares, as long as we get paid."