The Five-Star Necromancer
Not long ago, back when I was glued to five-star class-roll streams, there was a man who deleted his four-star level-68 ranker and started spinning the class gacha.
Coin assets alone put him past four hundred billion won, and he was pulling classes under a room title that read 400 Million and Counting, If You Ask Me — the same user who had loudly sworn he would land a Dragon Words Mage at least once.
I never even got tense. If someone meant to catch me, a five-star that wasn't a Root Class would hardly be a threat, so I forgot about him and went on with my life. I had far too much to do to sit around nervously watching a man who hadn't even pulled yet.
About a week passed after that. I'd been so buried in the game that I hadn't noticed time moving at all.
Then the news arrived. It wasn't even something anyone had gone out of their way to bring me.
Chat exploded first, and at the same time popular posts shot up across the communities, pinning coordinates to the stream in question. I was in the middle of crafting badges, with nothing else to do, and curiosity sent me looking. It was that same broadcast.
If that title didn't bring the memory back the instant I saw it, I'd have called it early-onset dementia. I gave him a perfectly sincere round of applause.
"Wow. This guy was grinding like crazy back then, and he actually pulled it."
Felt like he'd rolled for a lot longer than I had. Still — pulling it was pulling it.
Everyone else clicked their tongues, but my first thought was that he'd gotten it at a perfectly decent price. For people with money, it doesn't matter how much they spend — what matters is that they eventually pull. This user was supposedly a crypto whale sitting on four hundred billion, so burning eighteen billion to punch through a probability that might never have hit at all was, if anything, a win.
Same five-star class or not, the viewers in my room still took my side. Objectively, catching me on the strength of a five-star pull alone was absurd — that was part of it. I didn't bear him any ill will, but once a competitive mood starts to form, the mischief kicks in on its own. Calling it mischief is generous, honestly. Maybe I simply don't go for the throat because I'm comfortable enough to feel at ease.
Either way, I'd been bored, and this was welcome news. Since the stream was already up, I figured I might as well watch.
That overflowing confidence coming through the broadcast brought back the exact swagger he'd used to provoke me, back when I'd first dropped in on his stream. At a glance he looked like he had no manners at all — but then again, he clearly had the money, so maybe that was just how it came out. The viewers in his room loved him for it. Probably not so different from the way mine don't so much as frown at the things I do without hesitation, and simply enjoy them. In the end, that streamer — the user called Bulldog — was also someone who sold vicarious satisfaction with money.
Was this how the people watching my stream felt? Seeing him declare it like that made my heart kick, for no good reason. Setting aside all the talk of rivals, a thought occurred to me.
"Could a special option really show up on a two-star SS?"
Why hadn't I thought of that? I took a brief moment to reflect. But back then the other users had said special options don't appear on two-stars, and I'd simply believed them. And thinking it over again, even if a special option could appear on a two-star SS, the mana-reduction option was such a GOAT that—
"If it looks worth using, I'll roll it."
I don't have the kind of pride that flinches at turning into a copycat who chases whatever someone else is doing. If it's good, you follow it. I led the five-star trend; if something shows up that can make me stronger, the correct move is to take it.
A similar question landed in my chat at just the right moment. I told them exactly what I was thinking.
"No. I do think of him as a competitor. If anything, I hope he keeps up well enough to actually threaten me — so I go looking for even more ways to get stronger off pure, maxed-out pay-to-win efficiency."
"And honestly, if we're really keeping score, my biggest competitor right now isn't the guy who just pulled a five-star. It's Sarang..."
That five-star high. I'd seen it with Lim Sarang too, but it was sincere enough to get the people watching worked up right along with him.
There's a romance to it. The kind of thing everyone imagines at least once — full-gearing your summons. I was ready to applaud.
"Necromancers are stupid broken."
Set side by side, I figured it came down to taste. A necromancer summons minions and fights through them; a Dragon Words Mage fights alone, hurling spells. Raw one-shot damage, the Dragon Words Mage surely hits harder — but as Bulldog said, a necromancer's true face would show itself the further the game went, and the more fully geared skeletons he stacked up.
He made straight for the bank, and sure enough, the old level-68 ranker was still in there somewhere. Then, after the exchange—
While Bulldog had his character deleted and was rolling classes around the clock, I had done a fair bit of exchanging myself. Because every country uses its own currency, Haven's exchange is also real cash for Haven money on a nation-by-nation basis, and once you start moving money in units of a hundred billion, the rate doesn't drift — it falls off a cliff. When that happens, Haven Bank swaps Haven-Korea currency against foreign Haven currency at the in-game rates and nudges things back toward balance. Even then, it doesn't recover easily. Plenty of other users exchange in step with the drop. Anyway, the rate these days was holding around the 2.5 line, and the eyes of the chat swung, naturally, toward the man responsible.
"This is an exchange rate done properly. Flutter."
Other people's Haven gameplay is fun in its own right. I already watch plenty of other users' Haven streams, and I go to the video channels for the edited cuts too. I even let myself imagine it.
Usually, when you picture a balance game like that, each side has its strengths and its weaknesses. So why was this the thought that came to me?
"But if there are a ton of skeletons, isn't that just good for me?"
On top of that, every skeleton that died was a mana shuttle, feeding recovery straight back to me.
The balance game lost its charm in a hurry. Even at equal specs, you'd have to see what options a Skeleton Summoner actually had, and what the skills looked like, before it was even slightly worth contesting. On imagination alone, beating the strongest thing currently alive — a Dragon Words Mage, a Root Class — did not look easy.
And the most important question was still waiting.
I used the roar of the chat as cover, cut the outgoing audio, and asked Windy.
"Windy."
A voice only I could hear.
"Is Skeleton Summoner a Root Class too?"
When we'd talked about Root Classes before, Windy had told me the necromancer line had one as well. Same as Dragon Words Mage. Same as Moon Saintess. A Root Class didn't necessarily wear a name like mage or healer, so I had to check. If anything sounded like the foundation of a necromancer, it was Skeleton Summoner. Wouldn't that make it the Root Class?
"Ah... really?"
"Thanks..."
Suddenly the mood went a little solemn.
Better not to say anything — not until people worked it out for themselves. Right?