SSSSSSSSSSS
I hadn't realized damage options came in two kinds.
The first applied to everything, the way an all-skill damage increase does. The second applied only to a skill carrying some specific condition I'd rolled, and that one was obviously the fussier of the two. In my case Dragon Tongue magic counted as all magic, but options that blanketed everything were rare for most people.
Stick a condition on an option and it got awkward to use. Awkward to use, and the numbers ran higher than the same option without one.
"If I hadn't known that, I definitely would've rerolled this."
Anyway, I was glad it seemed to have come out well. A good option only made me hungrier for the next one, so I dug deeper through the community, trying to decide what to roll for next. Recommendation posts were everywhere. Plenty of people had never rolled the things themselves, but options that would sit just fine at SS already showed up in the lower tiers, and a lot of them looked tempting.
A few posts, though, actually caught my eye.
That post had a theory I liked quite a bit.
"Oho."
If that was true, there was no way I was walking past it. A special option. One other people couldn't even roll—one that only existed at S-grade and above. My mouth was already watering.
"Tomorrow I'm pulling for a special option."
Even if it wasn't proven, I didn't much care. If something better-looking showed up, that would be the end of it.
For the moment I got through the daily life I'd been ignoring for the game.
"God, I'm starving."
I was about to eat when I found the texts stacked up. Lee Yeonju. She'd attached a capture of a broadcast screen, so she'd been watching.
I'd gotten up in the afternoon and turned the stream on, and somehow it was already sliding toward dawn.
This was Seoul. There was no way a good Korean restaurant wasn't still going at dawn. Going out, though, sounded like a hassle.
While she was on her way I washed up and put a stream on. Lately I'd been hunting Haven Online videos so often that the algorithm wouldn't stop feeding them to me, and I killed the wait on a Haven collab Yeonju had done. It was fun. She had a feel for broadcasting, and because she actually liked talking to people, her chemistry with the other streamers landed cleanly.
The doorbell rang in the middle of that. I'd already told the lobby, so getting her upstairs was no trouble.
"Wow. This room's even nicer than the one last time."
"You got here fast."
"Yeah. It's dawn, so I gunned it. Felt great."
The food wasn't far behind. I'd asked them to have it ready, and it showed up the second I called.
"Whoa. This is insane."
Hotel room service usually meant a fixed menu. Order it every day and you were bound to get sick of the same plates. This place was a little different—or, more precisely, a long-term guest at a six-star hotel got a special service.
"This is actually on the room service menu?"
It was a lavish home-cooked spread, lavish enough that she had to ask.
"VVIP members only, they said. You tell them what you want and they send up a full table. They mentioned it once I'd been staying long enough."
"Wow. Can I ask how much?"
"Uh... I didn't catch the details. I think it was a few hundred dollars. Sorry."
"No, it's fine. Rich people really are different. You just live without even hearing the price."
"That's the nouveau riche for you. I blow money like water and don't think about it."
"Pfft. I think that's what's cool about you, Siwoo."
"What is?"
"Showing off money without coming off as obnoxious? Making someone think, huh, that's kind of impressive, and then just leave it there—that's not easy."
I hadn't exactly been trying to brag. Still, if it wasn't obnoxious, I'd take it.
We ate well with the collab video on. Honestly, once I'd heard about this menu I barely ate out anymore. At least once a day I ended up calling room service for whatever I felt like: white rice and kimchi stew simmered long on aged kimchi, seasoned greens in every color, five slices of steak seared just right. The Spam, the fried eggs, and the roasted seaweed were extras I'd asked for.
"This is seriously incredible home cooking. First time I've ever had hanwoo beef show up in a home-cooked meal, though."
The mood had loosened, and Yeonju and I talked about a lot of things. Being alone with a beautiful woman in a hotel suite—that faintly indecent air—warmed me more than a little, too.
So this was it. Living while actually being with people.
As a kid I'd been too busy with school to understand it, and after my parents died I'd cut myself off from the world. Not that the world had amounted to much beyond the army. Even there I'd had seniors and juniors beside me for two years, so I'd opened up a little. Only a little.
"Thanks for the meal!"
"What do you want for dessert?"
"I feel like I'm seriously living an upper-class life."
"Come on. You make plenty too, noona."
"Not like this! I mean it. I'm already dumping everything I earn into buying a place."
She must have gotten a lot more comfortable with me, because the honest stories started coming out.
"Honestly, the reason I even went on that dinner date was because you're such a huge spender. I came to milk you."
"You just blurt trade secrets like that in front of a mark?"
"I don't know. Looking at you, Siwoo, I stopped wanting to. I'll still take the donations and be grateful, but I don't want to nudge you for more anymore."
"What? I was all ready to get sucked dry."
"..."
At the line that lunged in out of nowhere, Yeonju ducked her head.
"Huh?"
"...Huh?"
The air went awkward. Did I just blurt that out too fast?
"No, I mean... your lips, that time... tasted good..."
"...Oh!"
Once I hurried to explain, she finally lifted her flushed face and laughed—an awkward laugh, a sheepish smile.
"And here I thought—you came on so strong I jumped."
"Huh? Did I?"
"...Siwoo, you really are a pure kid."
Yeonju sighed. Then she slid in beside me and leaned her face close.
"Makes your noona want to teach you."
"—!"
A languid smile, and a hand I could feel settling on my thigh. In a breath the air turned into something—something—indecent. Maybe the thing we hadn't done last time...
I was still on that thought when the video we'd left running ended and skipped ahead. It had landed on a livestream that was on right now. Caring about the TV in a moment like this was a dumbass move, but both of us ended up looking anyway.
"Huh?"
"Whoa. What is that. That's the Haven weekly roundup."
A channel past a million and a half subscribers that gathered up whatever was making noise in Haven and walked you through it. And I was on it.
"Whoa. Siwoo, you're seriously huge."
"Is it that big a deal?"
"Well, yeah. A 5-star is exactly the kind of thing that shows up there. Probably every Haven user in the world has searched you at least once."
"Heh. So spending the money was worth it?"
"I was shocked too, you know. We were in a collab and somebody said our room's Chairman had gone live. Seeing it like this, it really is insane."
On the video they were walking through the story of me pulling a 5-star class over several days, the information on the class itself, and even the exclusive-option rolls.
It was interesting. So that was how other people saw me. Someone who did the impossible like it was nothing, and then tried to go past even that. Say it the other way, of course, and it was nothing but pissing money away.
They were pumping me up that hard. I'd already been planning to do it, but hearing it out loud made me decide all over again.
"So? I'm this kind of rich."
"Completely cool. You'll have to give me a carry later, right?"
"Obviously. I started because of you, noona. Milk me all you want. You taking a little off the top won't even leave a scratch."
"...You're teasing me, right?"
The crease between her brows was cute. Her face was already close, and now she was pouting on top of it. Before I knew it, I'd offered her my lips.
"Go on. Suck this sucker dry. All you want."
Yeonju shoved me straight down onto the bed.