Chapter 192: The One Who Staged an Incredible Spectacle...

Harp, having just staged an incredible spectacle, let out a great yawn.

"Haaahm……."

"Harp. Think you can keep going?"

"No. I used up all my energy. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for. You already did more than enough."

"Hehe. Then I'll sleep just a little longer."

"All right."

Harp was asleep before Yujun had even finished speaking. The little one had been sleeping so long for exactly this—to replenish his energy—and for a performance of that caliber, a bit of sleep was nothing to begrudge.

Harp had produced a variable no one had seen coming. Not merely a variable, either. He had overturned the entire situation, having killed nearly half the hawks. The captain hawk said nothing, but he could not hide the shock on his face. Yujun smiled, thoroughly pleased. Harp was as proud a sight as a son coming home from school with a prize.

Then the Empire's knights and mages collided with three of the hawks. Paranet and Tapagol had been broken through. In truth, that they had held out this long was already extraordinary. The hawks' caliber and raw might were not something even Yujun could take lightly, and his two summons had all but done the impossible.

He used Flash and slipped in behind the hawks who were slaughtering the knights and mages. As it happened, the gaps between them were not particularly wide. Yujun did not hesitate. He poured Chaos into his blade and swung.

Two hawks lost their heads at the same instant. The last of them noticed and hurled himself clear, but Yujun was a step faster. Having claimed one more life, he sprang back, and the captain hawk's fist tore through empty air. It never connected, yet the sound of the air ripping alone was power enough to chill the blood.

Including the captain, thirteen hawks remained.

Not an unmanageable number. But I'm short on Chaos.

Without Chaos, he could not so much as damage them. As things stood, killing every last one was impossible. What Chaos he had left might take down three more, but what good were three?

Once again, Yujun decided to look for the answer in his inventory. The hawks, for their part, had grown extremely wary of him and would not charge in rashly. This was his chance to look the items over.

Equipment first. Quickly.

Insane.

The options were so absurd that no word could do them justice. A single syllable—Extreme—had been tacked onto the name, and yet these were items at least two full tiers above the armor he was wearing. The amplification to Strength and Agility had jumped in plain sight, and Attack Power and Defense had climbed by a margin that was frankly ridiculous. And the set effect? Simply completing four pieces raised Attack Power and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Defense by 140 percent each and lifted every stat by 45 percent. He was already wearing a Transcendent-grade weapon, which meant his Attack Power would quadruple.

"……."

The level requirement was 630. By the privilege of the Primordial Player, it was exactly the limit a level 580 Yujun could equip. Better still, every piece that triggered the set option had been transmitted together, complete. Could that really be coincidence?

Maybe the items I need are being sent to me in order.

If not that, then perhaps they had simply been stuck together and shipped over in a lump. Either way, it was good for him. He did not even have to collect the set. The whole of it had arrived at once. If this was not luck, then what was?

The one remaining item was the longsword he already owned. Four set pieces had come through. A satisfying transfer.

Thanks, No-Pay Casual Gamer.

He offered the thanks as a matter of courtesy. Whether it would ever arrive was another question. At this point he found himself curious about what No-Pay Casual Gamer was doing. To be carrying a level 630 Mythic-grade set—that alone made it impossible to imagine how strong the man was.

But that was not the important part. It was important, yes. There was simply something more important still.

With Super Concentration active, Yujun began changing his armor. In front of the hawks, and in front of tens of thousands of players.

The bizarre display left not only the Empire's players but the captain hawk himself dumbfounded. Changing equipment in the middle of a fight? There was careless, and then there was this. The hawks' stunned freeze lasted only a moment. They surged in—and Yujun finished equipping in an instant of his own.

He met the charging hawks with a single hand.

Clang-clang! Boom!

Super Concentration was no longer active. Even so, their attacks lay so plain before his eyes that they were almost laughable. Where before he had needed a proper measure of tension, now he felt he could face them with his eyes closed. And in fact, he was handling them with ridiculous ease.

"This is what items are for. This is the life."

He smiled, satisfied. Attack Power and Defense had shot up all at once, but what had changed his movement most of all was the conspicuous jump in Agility. Swapping four pieces of gear had more than doubled it. In raw numbers, nearly thirty thousand. A full 30,000—and that for a single stat. An unbelievable figure for a level 580 player.

The fundamental problem, however, remained unsolved. He still could not land a finishing blow on a hawk.

Let's think this through.

He had room to spare now, even while fighting them. There was no need to buy time. He left his inventory open and fought the hawks at the same time. In a battle where he absolutely could not afford to drop his guard, Yujun did something that could only be called pure swollen nerve, and he did it without a flicker of hesitation.

Let's see…….

An item capable of killing an opponent of this caliber. There wasn't one. Search as he might, there wasn't one.

Do I have no choice but to wait for Chaos to recover?

But the Chaos he had spent was nowhere near regenerating. He turned it over for a long while and still found no answer. Then something flickered across his mind.

Wait. Isn't this actually working out?

Thirteen opponents against whom his enormous Attack Power did not work at all. For Yujun, there were no better training partners anywhere. Looked at a certain way, this was nothing short of a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Did I kill those hawks for nothing?

He regretted it, just a little. The further he drove himself into an extreme, the higher the odds of reaching an enlightenment—was that not so? And he had already killed more than half of them.

Then I'll start now.

Not a fight to bring the enemy down, but a fight undertaken in order to grow. The hardest trial of his life, and in the middle of it he meant to train. No one present, however, knew what he was thinking. To the Empire's players, it simply looked as though Yujun's desperate crisis was still ongoing.

A knight of the Imperial Knight Order, watching from a distance, spoke as if whispering.

"……Shouldn't we be helping him?"

"Why?"

"Think about it. If that man loses, our Empire goes down with him. How are we supposed to stop those things on our own? There are more than ten monsters out there that even Lord Conte can't handle."

"He's already killed more than half of them by himself, though."

"That was only possible because he poured everything he had into it. That's why he's barely holding the line now."

"And if we step in, would we actually help? We'll be lucky if we don't get in the way. Besides, I have no desire to throw myself into that fight and invite my own death. It wouldn't even be an honorable one. What would be the point?"

"Well…… now that you say it, you're right."

For a time the clash between Yujun and the hawks went on, and with it that strange spectacle: the Empire's players, with no choice but to stand and watch.

"What's so funny?"

The smile kept playing at Yujun's mouth, and the captain hawk seemed to find it strange.

Yujun did not answer. The captain had ignored his words earlier. It might look childish, but this was a matter of pride. More than that, he was concentrated to a degree he had never known. He was not even using Super Concentration, and still his mind felt as though it were spinning at speed. He had fallen into that state because, through clash after clash, he had begun to see something on the hawks.

What is that?

A line. He narrowed his eyes and watched, and still he could not make out what the thin line was.

An Eagle-Eye Scouter would be perfect for this.

He could not put the scouter on. He would have to remove the Helm of Extreme Omnipotence, and the tremendous amplification of the set effect would vanish with it. Lose the set effect alone, and this kind of ease against the hawks would be difficult to keep. So Yujun activated the skill.

That alone made the world look different. Every stray thought fell away, and his head felt clear. Swinging his sword, he watched every motion of the hawks' bodies, every flick of their hands, in minute detail. There was nothing wrong with the movements themselves. The anomaly lay in their bodies—more precisely, a faint, hair-thin line seated over the heart.

Ordinarily he would never have found it. But once the new equipment was on and the hawks' movements began to look slow, he was able to catch the line. He could have ignored it and moved on. On any other day, he would have. He was short on Chaos, though, and could not kill them here and now. In that situation, he thought the thin line—visible only now—might be the one and only move capable of bringing them down.

Boom! Kraang!

Yujun slammed one hawk back with his sword and broke into a run. The hawk flew with its back bent, and the two of them were suddenly one on one. Thanks to perfect control of pace, Yujun's sprint and the hawk's flight were the same speed.

Now.

He set his sword against the white line that had snagged his eye from the start. He did not swing hard on purpose. He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meant neither to cut past the faint line nor to fall short ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of it, but to meet it exactly. And then he did what he had aimed to do.

A thin slice.

In that instant, the hawk's body vanished without a trace. It had not disappeared through a spatial-movement skill, nor through Blink. It had been erased. He had more or less expected it, and yet a mere touch upon the line had wiped the hawk out completely.