Chapter 90
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 90
Chapter Title: Between a Crappy Game and a God Game
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The next day. Five days remained until the 704th wave. I left my officetel early in the morning.
I was on my way to find the apprentice who had inherited the mana deployment turret manufacturing technique.
“This must be it.”
Two hours later, I stood in an alley reminiscent of Mullae-dong.
An alley filled with the sounds of grinders and hammering steel, even this early in the morning.
It was the ironworks district in Dowon-dong, Incheon.
“14-2 Dowon-dong, this… is it.”
I checked Yu Geonha’s message one more time before looking straight ahead.
There was indeed an old building that looked like an ironworks. But the shutter was down.
Just as I was thinking I might have come too early, I noticed the other workshops were already busy crafting items.
“Wise One.”
*Snort.*
The Wise One bobbed its body up and down. After snooping around and casting ‘Spy’, it returned with new information.
[The Wise One informs you that a basement exists beneath the building in front of you, and there is a biological response within that basement.]
“A basement?”
Instead of answering, the Wise One led the way.
After squeezing through a gap between buildings barely wide enough for one person, I saw a staircase behind the ironworks.
I went down the stairs and found another closed steel door leading to the basement.
It was locked.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
At first, there was no response. But as I kept knocking at 30-second intervals.
- Ugh, what is it? Who’s there?
An irritable male voice drifted from inside. He sounded about my age, or maybe a little younger.
I cleared my throat once and spoke.
“Hello, I’ve come to request a commission.”
- I’m off today. No, more importantly, how did you know to come all the way down here?
It seemed he had no intention of opening the door anytime soon. So, I used the cheat code.
“I was referred by Chairman Yu Geonha.”
*Crash!*
I heard a chair topple over inside, followed by a mumble that sounded like, “This son of a….”
I could have heard it if I strained my ears, but I didn't bother.
*Clank.*
Soon, the metallic sound of a lock being undone echoed.
A man with shaggy hair appeared from within.
He looked my age, or perhaps a bit younger.
He had a reasonably sturdy build, but the dark circles under his eyes made him look worn out.
“You said you were referred?”
“That’s right.”
It seemed Yu Geonha had only given me the address, without giving the man a heads-up.
“…Come on in, then.”
The basement was decidedly different from Sancheon’s workshop.
If Sancheon’s workshop was reminiscent of a master craftsman’s forge, this place brought to mind a technician’s workshop.
A large workbench sat in the center, surrounded by a cluttered mess of mana-powered mini-lathes, a pneumatic hammer for forging, and welding tools.
Without even guiding me, the man sat down in a chair in the corner of the workshop and picked up a gamepad.
“Just a sec. Let me just clear this stage.”
Ah, so that’s why he was so irritable. It’s only natural to get angry when someone interrupts you mid-game.
I nodded and turned my gaze to the old-fashioned TV, when suddenly.
“?”
I was surprised.
It was unexpected enough to see someone enjoying an obsolete gamepad in an age where VR games were all the rage.
What was more surprising was the game he was playing.
‘Isn’t this Monster Defense?’
On the old-fashioned TV was a maze with a structure similar to a Lord’s Castle, where pixelated monsters moved relentlessly.
Monster Defense.
A classic game released about 15 years ago, a sort of predecessor to MonMonMak.
‘I dabbled in it a bit before MonMonMak. To think I’d see it here.’
You hire monsters to defend a dungeon from invading parties of heroes.
It was a tired cliché and not particularly user-friendly, so it was forgotten without even earning the label of a crappy game.
“Ugh, ah. Just a little, a little longer. Let’s do this, guys!”
The man was clinging to this long-dead crappy game, his tongue sticking out in concentration.
However, his skills were far from impressive. His monster placement, the timing of his skill usage, the combinations.
And so.
“You know, I think combining the Ogre Warrior and the Tentacle Plant would be better…”
The words slipped out of my mouth.
The man’s eyes widened as he stared at me.
“?”
“Ah, my apologies.”
“You know this game?”
“Of course. It’s ‘Monster Defense,’ isn’t it? Seeing the mace-wielding hero, this must be version 1.2. In versions up to 1.1, the hero faction was too weak, so the difficulty…”
I trailed off excitedly, then caught myself and cleared my throat.
“I like these kinds of defense games. I used to play them quite a bit.”
“Ah, I see.”
The man nodded.
His face had relaxed considerably. Knowledge of crappy games proved to be quite helpful.
*Beep, boop!*
But the man’s control was still clumsy, and eventually, his dungeon couldn’t withstand the wave and was overrun.
The man smacked his lips and put down the gamepad.
I said consolingly.
“That’s a shame. You almost had it.”
“Tell me about it. Well… it took me about 300 tries to get this far, so I guess I should be satisfied.”
…It’s only the 5th wave? The first time I played Monster Defense, I reached wave 30.
To only reach wave 5 after 300 tries, just how little talent did he have?
As I was thinking this, the man stood up.
He scratched his messy hair and spoke.
“Anyway, this is the first time I’ve met someone who knows about this crappy game. It’s my day off, but if it’s a decent commission, I’ll take it. What do you want me to make?”
He hadn’t even bothered with introductions, his face still full of annoyance.
He also didn’t seem particularly moved by the fact that I was referred by Yu Geonha.
“I’d like to commission the production of a mana deployment turret.”
“…What?”
“A mana deployment turret.”
The man’s eyes widened.
He then scowled deeply and shot back.
“We don’t make things like that here.”
He turned away, his mood soured. I spoke to his back.
“You’re Jeong Taewoo, the grandson of Master Craftsman Jeong Taehwan, aren’t you?”
“……”
“I absolutely need a mana deployment turret. If you have any pre-made ones, I’m willing to buy several at once.”
“...Hah. What got into that cyborg geezer to make him spill the beans like that?”
Jeong Taewoo shook his head and scratched his hair again.
His eyes, now turned back to me, were filled with suspicion.
“First of all, I don’t have any pre-made ones. They’re not exactly hot sellers. Where would anyone even need a mana deployment turret these days? Are you with the military or something?”
“No. I’m a Hunter.”
“So why on earth would a Hunter need such an old-fashioned piece of…”
Jeong Taewoo trailed off, his mouth closing.
He looked me up and down before continuing.
“Come to think of it, you know my name, but I don’t know yours. Let’s get proper introductions out of the way before we talk.”
That was just what I wanted. There was no need to use an alias or hide my identity here. I extended my hand and bowed slightly.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Kim Hanul.”
“……”
But Jeong Taewoo didn’t take my outstretched hand.
Thinking he was still wary, I looked up. The young man was frozen, his mouth agape.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes?”
“Excuse me?”
“?”
“Wh-who?”
“Kim Hanul.”
*Gasp.* Jeong Taewoo sucked in a sharp breath, clearly stunned.
Well, considering the way the rookie Hunters looked at me on the Steel Airship, it was an understandable reaction.
My name, at least, was as widely known as any celebrity’s.
However.
“Cr…”
Cra?
The word that came out of Jeong Taewoo’s mouth was strange.
“Cra… Crappy…”
“?”
“CrappyGame-bro?”
Why is that nickname popping up here?
***
It took about 30 minutes for the situation to settle down.
Of course, that was just the time it took for my own surprise to settle.
“No, holy shit! Are you kidding me?! I can’t believe I’m meeting CrappyGame-bro like this!”
Jeong Taewoo was still in an uproar.
“I knew your voice sounded vaguely familiar! Wow, is this for real? Wow, this is insane, insane! Seriously insane!”
Jeong Taewoo was still in an uproar. A rough snort erupted from his nose, which took up half his face.
I stared blankly at Jeong Taewoo, who was rampaging like an excited minotaur.
‘Could this man be…?’
To think he was a viewer who had watched my crappy game streams for five years.
His ID was ‘CrappyGame-bro’s Stalker Fan’.
He called me CrappyGame-bro and truly looked up to me like an older brother.
“What should I do? Should I get an autograph first? Should I ask for your real name or your ID?”
…No wonder he’s making such a scene.
It’s a small world.
Or is it that the world is small, or were the people who avidly watched MonMonMak extraordinary from the start?
I didn’t know. But I knew one thing.
This was a fortunate encounter with no downsides.
“B-Bro. You said you were looking for a mana deployment turret?”
Jeong Taewoo, who had been wearing a sour expression just moments ago, now said this with sparkling eyes.
“Yes. But since you said you don’t have any, I was hoping to commission one…”
“Hey, what’s with the formality! Just call me Taewoo. And drop the formal speech! You’re way older than me anyway, so it’s fine. Hahahaha!”
Jeong Taewoo twisted his body, waving his hands.
Was I? Based on his face, he looked my age or even older.
“I may not look it, but I’m only twenty-one. Hahahaha!”
“…Younger than Asha?”
“Huh? Who?”
“Nothing. I’ll speak casually then.”
“Heh, to think I’d meet CrappyGame-bro like this. All those donations I made with my grandpa’s allowance since my school days are paying off! What goes around really does come around! I love you, Gramps!”
…So that’s why CrappyGame-bro’s Stalker Fan always made his donations in a lump sum on specific days.
Wait, why would he blow his allowance on something like this? Now I understood why his late grandfather had scolded him so much.
“Ha, seriously. Do you know how bored I’ve been since you stopped streaming, bro? MonMonMak is dead, and you’re making a name for yourself everywhere as a Hunter. I was so bored I even started playing crappy games like ‘Monster Defense’ again.”
“Uh…”
It wasn’t really something to apologize for, so I just shrugged.
We were getting off-topic again. I brought up my original purpose before his excitement could escalate any further.
“Anyway, let’s save the personal talk for later. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. About the mana deployment turret.”
“Yep!”
“Can you make them?”
“Totally possible!”
“The quality doesn’t have to be perfect. I recently acquired a mana deployment turret that was Master Craftsman Jeong Taehwan’s final work. Something about half that quality would be fine.”
“Wow, then it’s even easier!”
Jeong Taewoo grinned, giving a thumbs-up.
…Didn’t you just say you don’t make those?
Is this the strong bond forged through MonMonMak?
As expected, MonMonMak was a god game that made my heart swell with pride.
“I’ll deposit the money for the byproducts, materials, and production costs right away.”
“Ah, it’s fine, bro!”
“What do you mean, it’s fine? Of course I have to pay you.”
“No, really, it’s fine. It’s just a matter of touching up some stuff I already have.”
Stuff he already has?
Instead of explaining, Jeong Taewoo walked over to a part of the basement workshop where a steel shutter was down.
He started raising the shutter and spoke.
“Now, don’t be surprised.”
*Krrrrrng.*
With a heavy sound, the shutter rose, revealing a warehouse about twice the size of the workshop.
Jeong Taewoo grinned, pointing to a pile in the corner of the warehouse.
“This should be enough, right?”
Illuminated under the lights was a pile of mana deployment turrets, stacked like scrap metal.
I followed Jeong Taewoo into the warehouse and asked.
“Didn’t you say you didn’t have any pre-made ones?”
“Well, I didn’t make them to sell. These are the few successful ones among the countless turrets I made while getting yelled at by my grandpa.”
“They’re successful, yet you leave them like this?”
“Hahaha, they’re useless anyway, right? I actually thought about throwing them away, but that wasn’t so easy.”
Jeong Taewoo gazed at the pile of chairs with a look of love and hate.
“It seems you didn’t dislike making them.”
“Aw, come on, bro. You know why.”
Jeong Taewoo grinned and nudged my arm.
“Have a seat here.”
As I sat in a separately placed chair, it immediately reacted to my mana, and a subspace unfolded as the turret began to deploy.
The small chair quickly transformed into a howitzer armed with a 2-meter-long barrel.
“Now, listen up, bro. All guys played with transforming robots when they were kids, right? Honestly, this thing basically makes that fantasy a reality.”
“…You think so?”
“Of course! A turret that clanks and deploys in response to mana like a siege tank from that one game! There’s a reason I doggedly learned the manufacturing skills even while getting chewed out by my grandpa!”
Jeong Taewoo shouted, his face excited as he clenched his fists.
Man, if this kid saw the robot golem the Father of Steel made, he would have fainted from joy.
‘It operates without any issues. Feels a bit lighter than the one I sent to the Lord’s Castle.’
I nodded as I checked the mana deployment turret’s hologram window.
The quality wasn’t as good as the one I got from Yu Geonha, but it was more than serviceable for combat.
I turned the turret back into a chair, stood up, and asked.
“But why were you so against it earlier? You scowled the moment I mentioned the turret.”
“Well… I’ve had some bad experiences with Hunters who just came to look.”
“Hunters who came to look?”
Jeong Taewoo’s expression darkened.
“Yeah. Guys who had no intention of buying and just came to gawk. Then they’d laugh and say, ‘Why would you make such an old-fashioned thing?’ There were quite a few people like that. After a while, I just piled them up in there and didn’t even look at them.”
“I see.”
“Yep. I know why they laugh at me, but I still don’t like being laughed at.”
Seriously, the world is full of strange people.
“And what should I call it? It’s a love-hate object for me, too. One moment I love it, but then I remember getting chewed out by that monster of a grandpa while making them, and I just want to smash them all. It’s like a bad breakup with an ex-girlfriend, you know?”
“I get it.”
“Oh, for the record, I’ve never dated. You too, right, bro? Being single your whole life is the unwritten rule for MonMonMak players.”
So you’re a strange one, too.
I gave a bitter smile to my younger brother, who was being impertinent with a grin.
It was true that I’d never dated.
Jeong Taewoo asked with a smirk.
“So how many do you need, bro?”
“How many are here?”
“About fifteen? Five of them have issues with the subspace formula, so they need some work. But well, about ten should be…”
“Give me all of them.”
“What? All of them?”
“Yeah. And let’s draw up a contract. A steady supply of at least two per month. Of course, I’ll pay the production costs properly.”
“…No, uh.”
Jeong Taewoo’s mouth fell open.
Then he asked.
“Bro, are you going to war or something?”