A Near Miss and a New Trend

Yang Sung-gyu looked back. He wondered if one of the Orc uncles had shot the arrow. However, the Orc uncles looked just as bewildered.

"Did you shoot that?"

"No. You know I don't use bows."

"Gasp, don't tell me the undead did it! How admirable of them... Wait, no, that bastard is running away again! Get him! Get him!"

The undead were getting thrashed as they tried to scurry away! The uncles had formed a tight perimeter, keeping a watchful eye to ensure the undead couldn't escape.

Even though it was a golden opportunity, the ambushers and other players couldn't seize it. Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack! A relentless rain of arrows began to pour down from above.

The previous assassination squad had been a formidable unit composed of skilled archers, but the attack flying at them now felt incomparably more fierce.

"Aaargh!"

"Take cover behind the rocks! Fall back for now!"

So that's where they were hiding! Yang Sung-gyu let out a sigh of relief as the players who had been lying in wait behind the hill came scrambling out. It was obvious they had planned to wait for his group to pass, then spring an ambush from all sides the moment they stopped.

Had things gone according to plan, it would have been an absolute disaster for Sung-gyu's group, who had been moving slowly while distracted by the undead. But who on earth are they?

Yang Sung-gyu narrowed his eyes and focused his gaze on the distance. He saw a few unfamiliar players, along with a troop of hunter NPCs they had brought along. Even at a glance, both the players and the hunters looked extraordinary.

The players looked like high-level rankers, and the hunter NPCs seemed to be elite forces. Thwack! Thwack-thwack! As the merciless barrage of arrows continued to rain down, the ambushers finally gave up one by one and began to flee.

Now that their ambush had been thwarted from the very start, they risked being wiped out if those Orc uncles joined the fray. "They sure run fast. Roy, you're recording this, right? Make sure to capture it well and upload it."

Yang Sung-gyu pointed at the fleeing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠players. He found their behavior quite offensive. Leaving Tae-hyun alone while targeting them? In other words, they thought his group was an easy target! They needed to be taught a harsh lesson.

"Oh? Are you taking a picture?"

"Not a picture, a video. He's probably going to upload it. Young folks watch a lot of those these days."

"Ahem. Hold on a second. Let me change my gear first..."

"Can you Photoshop videos too? Make me look a bit handsome, will you? Shave off some of this belly fat. I didn't originally have a body like this, but since I chose the Orc race..."

Roy ignored them and kept filming the fleeing players. If he started entertaining the uncles, there would be no end to it.

"Hello!"

"Oh... thank you. But who might you be...?"

"I'm Yu Ji-soo, and this is the Pied Guild. As for the people behind us..."

Ji-soo glanced back at her hunters. While the Orc uncles had a bizarre sense of fashion, the hunters she brought with her were no less eccentric. They were fully decked out in matching leather gear from head to toe, which was then sloppily smeared with gaudy, colorful paint.

"...They're just NPCs you don't really need to worry about. Just some hunters."

"Hey! Lady Ji-soo! That's too much!"

"Please introduce us properly! We are the honorable Tyrum Hunters, recognized even by the Salz Kingdom!"

The hunters clamored and protested from behind. Ji-soo pressed a hand to her forehead, looking like she had a massive headache. Seeing this, Yang Sung-gyu felt a strange sense of familiarity. That was exactly how he looked when struggling to manage the uncles! I guess life is the same ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠everywhere.

"Those guys have some decent fashion sense, don't they?"

"Ahem. Not quite on our level, though."

The Orc uncles whispered among themselves from behind. Yang Sung-gyu felt the urge to smack them but held back.

"By the way, where is Tae-hyun Hyung... Oppa... Mr... I mean, Player Kim Tae-hyun? We came to help." Ji-soo asked, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

"He's over there... but you do know the fight is already over, right?"

"...Pardon?" Ji-soo looked utterly bewildered. There had been so many enemies, and it was already over?

Hearing this, her guildmates began to whisper.

"The fight is already over? No way, how did they finish off that many people so quickly?"

"That's not what's important right now. What about Ji-soo? Poor Ji-soo, what is she going to do?"

"She couldn't even log in because of the College Entrance Exam, so she came all this way just to make a dramatic entrance..."

Tremble, tremble! Ji-soo's tightly clenched fists shook.

"Everyone, please be quiet!"

"Shh. Ji-soo is mad. Let's all pretend we didn't say anything. Just look at her with warm, supportive eyes."

"I can hear you, you know!"

Ji-soo turned back around. "W-well, since he's still over there, we should at least go say hello..."

"Oh, Ji-soo. It says here on the community board that Player Kim Tae-hyun already left for his territory," one of her guildmates said, looking up from their screen.

"...What?"

"Do you want to follow him now?"

"That feels a bit stalkerish, though."

"She already looks enough like a stalker, so wouldn't it be fine?"

"Everyone, please shut up..."

Ji-soo buried her face in her hands, let out a deep sigh, and stood back up. "Let's just go do our quest."

She had finally given up! She realized that going to his territory now would be far too late.

"Yeah, yeah! Kim Tae-hyun is no big deal! Sure, he's incredibly good at the game and handsome, but if you look around, there are plenty of other guys!"

"?"

The Orc uncles doubted their ears when they heard Tae-hyun was handsome. We must have misheard, right?

"Exactly! Even if you break up with a lover, your character remains, so playing the game is a win-win. Let's go do the quest!"

"No, thank you."

"Don't you think Ji-soo has gotten a bit colder lately?"

"It's because we tease her too much."

The guildmates whispered as they followed behind Ji-soo. She used to be so much more innocent back in the day...

"?"

"?"

The two groups, who had been about to say their goodbyes and part ways, stared at each other as their paths overlapped.

"Uh... are you going this way?"

"Oh? You too?"

Unlike Tae-hyun, who had to wander all over the continents of Pan-On searching for the fragments of Archisus, the Tyrum Ranger Yu Ji-soo had primarily been active in the Salz Kingdom.

Consequently, the contribution points and affinity she had built up with the NPCs in the Salz Kingdom were immense. Ji-soo's rank had climbed higher and higher until she finally became the Centurion of the Salz Royal Guard.

It was a position that allowed her to mobilize and command the Tyrum Hunters at will—a rank that, had Tae-hyun heard of it, would have made him exclaim, Wait, there's such a sweet gig?! Of course, Ji-soo was not Tae-hyun, so she did no such thing.

In the first place, her guildmates always helped her whenever she needed anything, so she had never had a reason to mobilize all the hunters. However, once she attained that rank, the class quests she received changed entirely.

Even in the Salz Kingdom, being a Tyrum Hunter was considered a "3D" (Dirty, Dangerous, and Difficult) job. The elderly Tyrum Hunters often lamented, "Young folks these days don't want to be Tyrum Hunters; they all want to be Magicians instead."

Until now, she only had to wander around alone or in a small party to hunt monsters. Most of her quests as a Tyrum Ranger had been like that.

But once she attained her rank as a Centurion, she had to search for, recruit, and train NPCs... Having to perform tasks she had never done before, Ji-soo had to go through a great deal of trial and error.

Ji-soo already struggled with interpersonal relationships. Managing the Tyrum Hunters, most of whom were highly eccentric NPCs, was several times more exhausting.

I'm so glad the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠College Entrance Exam is over. In fact, when her father, President Yoo Sung-woo, saw her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠climbing straight into the capsule as soon as the exam ended, he had tried to stop her out of concern.

And the quest she was currently working on was the Uruk Region quest! It was clearly a time-consuming and highly difficult quest, so she had been planning to gather her hunters and prepare thoroughly before setting off...

But then, news had arrived that Tae-hyun had appeared near the Salz Kingdom. And right before a massive battle, no less!

"I'll go help him first! I want to help him! I'm going to help him!"

"G-go help him then. No one is stopping you. Calm down, Ji-soo."

"Yes. I am calm."

"Don't calm down so suddenly like that! It's scary!"

Now that her plans had fallen through, she had been about to head to Uruk with tears in her eyes... only to run into this group on their way back to Uruk.

"This is perfect! We mostly operate in Uruk too, so if you need anything, just let us know. We'll help you out."

"Ah. Come to think of it..." Ji-soo recalled that a guild called the Ultimate Matchless Guild had recently begun pioneering a new territory in the Uruk Region. And the guild leader of that guild was... Tae-hyun's father!

"...I look forward to working with you!"

"Don't mention it, we're the ones who owe you. The land is vast, so feel free to use any area you like. Ah! That undead bastard is running away again. Get him! Get him!"

"..."

Unlike the Arena League, the Fantasy Online Dungeon Tournament allowed any team to participate as long as they cleared the preliminary rankings. In other words, an amateur team could potentially advance to the main tournament instead of a professional team!

Thanks to this, the response to the Dungeon Tournament was explosive. Hundreds of parties constantly entered and exited the dungeon gates, repeatedly challenging the tournament dungeon. Community boards were flooded daily with dungeon strategy guides...

"But it doesn't look like there's much worth using."

The one most adept at this kind of analysis was, of course, Lee Da-bi.

Currently, the goal of Tae-hyun's team was simply to pass the preliminaries! While everyone who knew Pan-On thought, There's no way a team with Kim Tae-hyun won't pass the preliminaries, right? Tae-hyun's team thought otherwise.

If we're not careful, we might actually fail to pass!

That was how disconnected they had been from actual training! It couldn't be helped, as the quests Tae-hyun had received were so massive and required an immense amount of traveling.

Because of this, the team members were incredibly serious and passionate. Especially Cain.

"Why? I was hoping to use them as a reference."

"That's because professional teams don't post on these public boards."

She was right. Most of the people posting threads like "This is how I cleared the dungeon" or "You should clear this dungeon like this" on the boards were amateurs.

Professional teams kept their strategies strictly under wraps. There was absolutely no benefit in revealing their tactics before the main tournament. No pro team would expose their strategies just to gain a few views when others could copy them and break their records.

"The strategies of amateur teams are too varied, and the skill gap is massive..."

Having traveled with Tae-hyun, the standards of Lee Da-bi and the rest of the party had skyrocketed. Watching most of the strategy videos, their reaction was usually along the lines of: Huh? They call this a strategy? They're terrible.

"And one more thing. You could call this a trend."

"Since it's a tournament, of course there'd be a trend. What kind of trend?"

Trends existed everywhere. The Arena had its own meta, field hunting had its own meta... Choi Sang-yun and Tae-hyun began to guess.

"Is it some kind of potion combination?"

"Or maybe the clearing route? Has an optimal monster-killing order already been established?"

"No. It's bombs."

"...Huh?"

"It's currently a trend to bring bombs as one of the allowed items. Right now, a huge number of teams are utilizing bombs."