Rewards of the Great Escape
You have successfully completed the Great Escape Quest. You have gained 840 Fame.
You rescued everyone without leaving a single player behind. You gain an additional 200 Fame.
Your honorable actions raise Divinity by 500.
If you formally establish an order later, its name will spread quickly.
Yeah. This is it.
Kim Tae-hyun nodded to himself as he lounged comfortably in a chair inside the cabin.
At that moment, Tae-hyun was resting in what might have been the most comfortable posture in the world.
To be honest, fighting the Specter of the Ancient God had been mentally exhausting. Barely dodging attacks that came in right up close wore a person down fast.
And there was only one thing that really cured that kind of fatigue.
Quest rewards, of course.
If I’m getting this much Fame, that magic book from earlier might actually be worth learning.
He could suppress the Infamy with Fame, and as for the Luck penalty—well, he could handle that much anyway.
Other players would probably swallow their tears and give up.
Check items.
Tae-hyun started going through the loot he had picked up during the expedition.
The first things he checked were, naturally, the items he had stolen from the pirates’ underground warehouse.
The stuff he’d grabbed in a hurry, just snatching whatever his hands touched.
An arcane tome that explains the secrets of Blood Magic in extremely simple terms.
If it became known that you possessed this book, the blood mages who let their secrets spread this easily would be furious.
Use effect: Learn Blood Magic.
A secret method that temporarily uses HP instead of MP, and stamina instead of mana, to strengthen spells.
Because of its severe side effects, several schools have banned it outright.
“Nice.”
Tae-hyun was impressed.
Compared to dedicated mages, he lacked mana and MP. A skill like this was exactly what he needed.
The title was a little ridiculous, sure, but still.
◈ Durability: 45/45
◈ Attack Power: 75
◈ Attack Speed: 3x
◈ Critical Hit Chance: 10%
◈ Has a set chance to inflict Bleeding
◈ Level Requirement: 65
◈ Agility Requirement: 125
◈ A dagger carried by the pirate captain. Valuable not only for its performance, but also as a decorative piece.
“This one’s a dud.”
Not only did Tae-hyun not use daggers, if he ever did use one, he had another dagger he’d rather use.
One he had made himself a long time ago—which had somehow turned out even better.
Durability: 40/40
Attack Power: 90
Attack Speed: 1.5x
Critical Hit Chance: 10%
Does not count toward inventory weight.
Does not count toward equipped item weight.
Has a set chance to inflict Bleeding, Stun, and Part Destruction.
The workmanship of the creator is terrible, yet for some reason the weapon’s performance is utterly insane. One might reasonably suspect that Archisus personally descended to make it.
“Come to think of it, I really did somehow make something like this.”
He’d crafted daggers a few times afterward too, but nothing like this had ever appeared again.
He’d gotten plenty of light daggers, high-quality daggers, and light, high-quality daggers—but never again a very light and high-quality dagger.
It wasn’t in-game Luck that had made it.
It had been real, literal luck stacked on top of itself.
Beginner’s luck?
People always said beginners were blessed with luck when they first started something.
It was a shame he couldn’t recreate it, but Tae-hyun’s thoughts were already moving elsewhere.
Maybe I should gather materials and make a sword while I’m at it.
He already knew the recipe for a longsword; he had learned it from Gurendal.
Without a blacksmith class, it would be hard to imbue it with magic or give it any special traits, but whatever he made would still probably be better than the standard stuff sold in shops.
And I should try enhancing more too…
He’d been careful with enhancement because he was afraid of destroying valuable gear, but if it was something he had made himself, he could relax a little.
Besides, wasn’t there a perfect source of materials right next to him?
Merchant groups really are wonderful things.
“Ah-choo!”
Rufo sneezed suddenly.
Even though the expedition was over, he had a bad feeling creeping up on him.
Much as it pained him, he decided to sell the pirate captain’s dagger.
The Blood Magic tome alone was valuable enough.
Intermediate Cooking 1 (49%)
└ Beginner Spice Sprinkling 4 (55%)
└ Beginner Butchering 8 (35%)
└ Beginner Ingredient Appraisal 7 (65%)
└ Beginner Ladle Stirring 4 (85%)
└ Beginner Poison Making 4 (15%)
Beginner Eloquence 7 (38%)
└ Beginner Threaten 4 (75%)
└ Beginner Scam 1 (5%)
“That all went up a lot…”
Tae-hyun felt a swell of satisfaction as he looked over the skill list.
The charm of a mixed build was this right here—a whole screen full of all kinds of skills steadily rising together.
I barely even used Tactics, and it’s already Beginner 4?
It felt like he had made out with a profit.
Tae-hyun slowly scanned through the item windows.
A weapon-and-armor set once used by Denelson, who had once commanded the Caterand Pirates.
Can I repair and use it…
Then he noticed there was one more sentence in the description.
A weapon-and-armor set once used by Denelson, who had once commanded the Caterand Pirates.
It has been destroyed beyond repair.
“Tch.”
There were also the fragments of Kazak’s armor and axes—the ones he had obtained after killing Kazak during the fight with the Red Zone Guild.
“Aren’t there way too many broken items?”
He’d kept them because it felt wasteful to throw them away, but for now they were just dead weight sitting uselessly in his inventory.
Once they got back to land, Tae-hyun decided he would call in other blacksmiths if he had to and make use of the broken items somehow.
I’ll break down the Pirate King set and patch it into something, and I’ll melt down the armor and axe fragments and see what I can make of them.
Kazak’s armor really had been incredibly durable.
If he could make use of that material, it would be a huge gain.
Knock knock.
Someone knocked on the cabin door where Tae-hyun was resting.
“Rufo?”
“A-ah, no. It’s us.”
The ones at the door were Kim Ji-sahn, Park Seong-chan, and Woo Jeong-sik.
Unlike the other two blacksmiths, Woo Jeong-sik looked thoroughly cowed.
Which made sense. He had gotten himself kicked out for saying the wrong thing.
As Woo Jeong-sik came in, Tae-hyun rose from his seat.
Woo Jeong-sik flinched.
But then Tae-hyun put on a gentle expression and held out his hand.
“……!”
Kim Ji-sahn and Park Seong-chan were quietly moved.
Ah… now that the quest is over, he’s making peace with him.
That’s actually kind of touching.
Woo Jeong-sik, also looking slightly moved, reached out and clasped Tae-hyun’s hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Pardon? I thought… we were shaking hands?”
“Why the hell would I shake your hand? I’m telling you to hand over the items I entrusted to you.”
“……”
The other two nodded with expressions that clearly said, Yeah, that sounds more like him.
Woo Jeong-sik awkwardly started pulling junk items out one by one and returning them to Tae-hyun.
Tae-hyun took them as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Then he settled back into his seat comfortably.
“So. You came because you want to learn skills, right?”
“……!”
The two blacksmiths lit up instantly.
They nodded over and over.
There was only one reason they had stuck around despite Tae-hyun scolding them and constantly making them do work.
Tae-hyun was the better blacksmith.
Unless you joined a guild, getting a high-level blacksmith to personally teach you skills was next to impossible.
“I told you before,” said Tae-hyun. “My blacksmithing skills aren’t anything special.”
The blacksmiths looked at each other.
There he goes again, acting humble.
For a man who could handle items the way Tae-hyun did, saying they were “nothing special” was absurd.
No matter how they looked at it, it could only be false modesty—or humblebragging.
And when someone did that, there was an obvious correct response.
“That’s fine!”
“We still want to learn them!”
“Exactly!”
Their voices burst out in perfect unison, as if they’d rehearsed it.
But Tae-hyun still looked unconvinced.
“Eh. I don’t think so.”
“No, really!”
“What if I teach you, and then you go, ‘What is this?’ or ‘Who needs a skill like this’? I think my heart would be deeply wounded. I’m very delicate, you know.”
At Tae-hyun’s shameless claim, all three men thought the exact same thing.
If you’re delicate, then who in the world counts as tough?
There weren’t many people in the world with thicker skin than Tae-hyun.
No matter how strong the monster, no matter how badly things went sideways, he never backed down and fought to the bitter end.
And on top of that, he had the kind of shamelessness that didn’t budge even when a whole crowd protested at him.
Kim Ji-sahn raised his hand and spoke.
First, they had to persuade Tae-hyun.
“That absolutely won’t happen!”
“Really?”
“Yes! If we learn from you and then ungratefully say something like that, we’ll get off the ship and swim home ourselves!”
“Why would you do that? What kind of idiot would do something so stupid?”
Woo Jeong-sik lowered his head, embarrassed.
He had just remembered the bet he had made.
Tae-hyun dusted off his hands and said, “Fine. If you’re that determined, I’ll teach you. But… hang on. Do I have to accept you as disciples to teach you? I’d rather not do that.”
Kim Ji-sahn and Park Seong-chan looked at each other.
Then tilted their heads.
“You don’t need to formally accept someone as a disciple to teach them a skill.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Although if you did accept us as disciples, we would devote our loyalty—”
“No need. I’ll just teach the skills.”
“!!”
Being accepted as disciples would have been nice, but being taught the skills was already more than enough.
Really, where else would they get an opportunity like this?
The three blacksmiths looked at Tae-hyun with sparkling eyes, like puppies waiting to be fed.