Supreme Holy Water
GoldenHolyKnight was living through the happiest days he had known in a long time.
"Twenty billion won... what am I even supposed to do with this?"
Cash out twenty billion in Haven currency and it came to roughly 6.6 billion won. These days, thanks to the boss, the exchange rate had climbed, and it was closer to eight billion—enough, if he simply sold it off, to buy a modest storefront in a decent part of town. Of course, GoldenHolyKnight had not the slightest intention of doing any such thing.
"First thing, a full set of gear..."
He was a ranker paladin. From the day he started the game until this very moment, he had never once forgotten that he was a holy knight of the Temple. Even with money suddenly in his hands, all he could think about was devoting himself to the Temple still further.
"I can finally outfit my knights, too."
Haven Online was called a second reality, and however you chose to play it was a user's own business. You could ignore the class you had been given and drift along as an ordinary person, traveling or idling your life away. You could read the economy that turned inside Haven and earn your living in trade. You could haul real-world money in and multiply it at the gambling tables. Even a trade like dealing drugs was nobody's concern. Haven had laws of its own, of course, and if you were caught, the user was the one who answered for it.
GoldenHolyKnight had enjoyed the game in his own way. In a world this vast, he believed the road to success was climbing high inside an NPC faction. Seeing how brutally hard it was to stack Temple contribution, and how high that barrier to entry stood, had only confirmed it. So while others hunted, he made his rounds of the Temple, prayed, and donated.
The result was an item setup a little shabbier than other users at his level. It couldn't be helped. He had poured a great deal of money into his class, and every step of donating and building contribution had been either money or time. Nor was he a rich man in the real world. Diligence and hard work had left him with a fairly solid sum set aside, but in one bold decision he had invested his entire fortune in Haven. Calling it an investment was being kind; even he thought of it as an addiction. He wanted to see where this road ended.
The mercy, at least, was that it wasn't debt. As his contribution at the Temple grew, so did his standing, and a steady income—enough to live on—came in without fail. But that was as far as it went. At some point he hit a wall. Unable to spend any more money, he ground out more time than the people around him: serving at the Temple, praying. Even so, on the axis of time, he could not surpass the NPCs. They were people who had lived in Haven from the beginning. The wall set before an outsider was still higher than he had thought.
Then, just as he was wearing thin, an opportunity arrived.
Supreme Holy Water.
With this, he could tear down that long wall of time. So effort really does bring a chance. He scraped together what was truly the last of his fortune and crafted the Supreme Holy Water. Along the way he sold two pieces of the gear he had been wearing, but he didn't care. If he could just get over this wall. If he could just raise the knight order. With still more Temple contribution, he told himself, he would finally be able to buy the high-grade items sold only at the Temple, one piece at a time.
And when the Supreme Holy Water was finished, a practical question met him head-on. Donate it, and what would he actually receive?
That was when he met the boss.
Kim Siwoo—a whale who, as luck would have it, was looking for Supreme Holy Water. Instinct told him he had to seize this chance. Until now he had played the game telling himself that Temple contribution mattered more than money, but this once, without even setting the two on a scale, he judged that money mattered more. And he was satisfied with the result.
"To think I'd plaster myself in four-stars for the rest of my life."
Level sixty, five-star. In practice a level-sixty five-star dungeon had never been cleared, so gear of that grade might as well not exist—but even in four-star dungeons, at a truly vicious rate, a clear reward or a boss kill could drop a piece at random. The price ran from several billion won into the ten-billion range. He had told Kim Siwoo a full set would come to about eight billion, but gear of that caliber was nowhere near enough at a figure like that. Siwoo had no need to know, line by line, exactly how much the setup would cost, so he had glossed over it. He had never meant to spend all the money on his own items anyway.
Even so, gearing himself in nothing but level-sixty four-stars, he could say with confidence that his items were the best among living rankers. A weapon. Four pieces of armor. Three accessories. Even with the accessories set for value at level-forty four-stars, he had spent eleven billion won in all.
"Hahh..."
Tears blurred his sight. For the single reason that he was a paladin, he had pinched every coin he could on items. Temple contribution could have bought him Temple items—gear with better options—but he had saved, and saved again. That was how he had come to command a knight order, small as it was. And now that man had a full set. For the first time. Watching his stats climb and the options pump themselves full, he understood why people staked their lives on equipment. With the remaining nine billion he could even fully outfit every NPC in his knight order. And after all of that, a billion won was still left over.
"Commander! I don't think even a level-sixty three-star dungeon will be a problem!"
"I'll take the lead! Haha!"
"This order-ranking evaluation—we'll crack the top... no, the top three!"
"Hahahaha!"
He was happier than he knew what to do with. He knew they were NPCs. But if he thought of them as ordinary people living ordinary lives in this place, there was no reason at all they should feel any different.
So this is the taste of it. People who trusted him and followed. He wanted to rise with them to the highest seat in the Temple, and the gratitude he felt toward Kim Siwoo, who had made all of this possible, would not wash away.
Of course, an item setup alone could not turn knights—relegated, almost driven out, to the lowest order for lack of skill, lack of level, lack of potential—into the finest order overnight. But shortcomings could be patched, to a point. In the end, it was a game.
"I'll purchase the Supreme Holy Water."
"GoldenHolyKnight... your love for your god is sufficient."
It had come together by a hair. A single Supreme Holy Water in all the Temple, purchasable only by stacking contribution. With this much contribution he could also have bought one level-sixty five-star Temple item. He would have been lying if he said the greed didn't stir. But GoldenHolyKnight trusted his instinct. Not once in his life, when he had trusted that instinct, had it led him to failure.
"A man who doesn't know a favor is no better than a beast."
He was someone who begrudged even a single point of contribution. And yet buying Supreme Holy Water to give to Kim Siwoo did not feel like a waste at all. He reached out at once. It was the day of the five-star dungeon—the very moment the stream went live.
"Whew. I'm not late, am I."
"Oh. GoldenHolyKnight."
"I came to give you this. I heard you'd finished speccing up, but you can't do that and leave this out."
"Wha—!"
Surprise lay bare across his face. He hadn't even considered it. A swell of pride rose up in GoldenHolyKnight.
"No—how did you even..."
"I cleaned out all my contribution. I told you, didn't I? That I'd bring you one more."
"That was just a joke... is it really all right to burn Temple contribution like this?"
"I was paid more than it was worth. Take too much and it comes back on you. I feel a little easier now."
"I mean... some people try to sell a seven-billion-won item for over twenty billion..."
"Haha..."
At the hesitant look on his face, GoldenHolyKnight waved it off in a hurry.
"Just in case you're wondering, I can't take any more money. This is really because I couldn't sleep after selling that Supreme Holy Water for too much a few days ago, so please, just take it and don't think twice. Clear the five-star dungeon solo. I'm rooting for you."
And then he fled, as if he were running away. He put a decent distance between them and turned the stream on.
"No way... Brother GoldenHolyKnight... a gift I never saw coming... this is way too moving, isn't it?"
"Heh."
However much GoldenHolyKnight was a true-born paladin who cared for nothing but the Temple, he was still a person. How other people saw you was something everyone took an interest in.
"Paid for what? I'm telling you, the message came in the second I turned the stream on."
"Heh heh."
People were talking about him. None of it had the slightest thing to do with contribution inside the Temple. And yet, somehow, he felt good.
"Kehehe."
He turned the stream off. As a reward for the contribution he had stacked over two years, this was enough.
"Haa."
His usable contribution had hit rock bottom, but that didn't mean his cumulative contribution disappeared. He would fill it back up and buy things slowly, one at a time.
"Maybe I ought to get going, too."
GoldenHolyKnight was a busy man. The Temple's internal quest, opening in three days—the event that would settle the rankings of the holy knight orders—was a quest he absolutely could not miss. Which was why he never heard it.
As for the shape in which that goodwill would find its way back to him—