47. Beginner's Luck
Watching the World Tree come down, a thought struck me out of nowhere.
"Hey, everyone. Didn't someone say five-star items can drop from boss monsters too, even if the odds are awful?"
The viewers laughed at me. I didn't care.
"And if something drops off the boss, and something else comes as a clear reward, those are separate, right?"
Some of it was calculated bait, of course. When else was I going to get a chance to stir the pot like this?
A world first. There might be clears that had never been made public, but among every record that was, I was the first user to solo a level-1 five-star dungeon at level 7. And if, on that very same first day, I also swallowed three five-star items, that in itself would go down as one hell of an event.
That was precisely why Ellen's Tears had become famous—a five-star accessory dropped alongside a first clear. You never knew.
"Please!"
It was a performance, sure, but deep down I wasn't entirely without hope. A five-star item. Farming one with my own hands and putting it on would mean something all its own.
I jumped off a fairly deep cliff. Supreme Holy Water still had thirty seconds left on it, so I wasn't worried.
"Hup."
Thud!
The impact shook me from head to toe, but it didn't hurt.
"Whew. Didn't die."
The pit where the Corrupted World Tree had stood was devastation, plain and simple. The air was thick with the stench of charred dark elf corpses, and the enormous World Tree had been scorched down to ash, nothing left of it but the shape. The elves who had survived could be counted on one hand.
That last attack from the World Tree—looking back on it honestly, it had been an absurd thing to throw at anyone.
"Wow. But how were you even supposed to dodge that final attack? I died once right there."
Haven Online is a game, in the end. They may have copied reality and pasted it in, but if it were exactly the same as real life, there'd be no reason to abandon reality and come to Haven. And because it's a game, boss monsters and special monsters have phases, just like any other game. The usual trigger is HP. Drop below a certain line, and they start using specific patterns—or they simply get stronger.
The World Tree seemed to have been no different. When its health was nearly gone, the party-wipe it unleashed out of sheer refusal to die was probably that crackling thorn-tentacle attack that had gotten me. That was the guess, anyway. It had been a close call.
"Without Supreme Holy Water, I couldn't even have attempted this."
Anyway, it had ended well. I walked up to the World Tree and started digging through the remains.
Rare materials and monster parts from a dungeon come in as clear loot, but every once in a while an item drops straight off the monster itself, so you have to look carefully.
"Hey now. I burn through plenty of money as it is, so I've got to pinch every penny. And an item I grew with my own two hands and then equipped has a certain meaning to it, doesn't it?"
Unfortunately, I circled that enormous World Tree and searched every inch of it, and there was no item.
"Ugh. I'm the only one with no luck."
Leaving the dumbfounded viewers behind, I opened the clear loot.
The list went on without end. I scrolled straight to the bottom. Materials didn't interest me. Only one thing did.
"Please!"
"Oh!"
It had actually dropped.
"See!! I knew it! I had faith!"
The joy hadn't even settled before a flicker of disappointment crept in.
"But why armor..."
"Ah. But this isn't the quest reward, is it?"
Fortunately, it wasn't.
"Heck yeah~ Two five-star drops!"
Their resentful congratulations pulled a smile out of me all on their own.
"Thank you."
Envious chat. Still, most of them congratulated me.
"Ah... that's true..."
What mattered was simply the feeling of having gotten a five-star myself. Armor, in truth, wasn't all that useful. If a helpful option turned up, the most I'd do was swap it in for something on the level of the Troll Leather Gloves. That was why the box mattered.
"I'm cracking it open right here. Right beside this World Tree. Please."
I opened the box. No hesitation. Level-1 five-star dungeons had already been cleared for a year; this wasn't the kind of place worth milking.
Pop!
Light burst out of the box. And then—
"Huh?"
The message came up first, and as the light faded, what had been inside the box appeared.
"It's a ring!"
I snatched it up at once and checked the options.
"My god..."
"Huh. So there are items where the base options don't even come with stats?"
On most of the items I'd seen so far, the first option had been a stat. This one wasn't.
"Hmm. Elemental skill damage just applies all the time, but then how does advantaged elemental damage actually work?"
Haven was still difficult for me. I had a rough sense of how things felt, but knowing exactly what you had to do for an effect to apply was a different problem entirely.
"So right now, I only get the extra damage against water-element or fire-element monsters?"
They say it's also a little fuzzy whether a monster even has an element of its own.
"Ooh."
Even against monsters it didn't apply to, they said elemental skill damage of just ten percent was already an incredibly good option on its own.
On top of that, taken as options on a level-1 item, the starred lines were extremely good. Honestly, with two empty accessory slots, any option that came out would have been fine for me.
"Whew. All that effort was worth it."
"Whoa. Love, thank you."
After that, a donation relay took off.
"VroomPikPik. WhoWasThatAgain. Neisha. NovelNibbler. Dkshsb... Just4... WaaahImABabyHighschooler. MrCuckoo. Shooting. IAmHuman. Unaired. K2MasterKimSeaSeong..."
They kept bursting in faster than I could read them. Even with a minimum donation of 50,000 won, I spent nearly a full hour doing nothing but taking donations.
"I mean, I've already got plenty of money... just chatting would have been more than enough..."
Something welled up in my chest. No matter how much money you have, a donation that comes from someone thinking of you feels good, amount be damned.
"...sniff."
I wiped my nose, tipped my head up a little, and dabbed at the corners of my eyes.
"Ah... sorry. The tears aren't actually coming. Anyway, thank you, everyone."
Scratching my head, I stepped out of the five-star dungeon with the afterglow still clinging to me.