Chapter 30
Chapter 30
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Mochibol Endurance Challenge
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Chapter 30]
“Uwaaaah!!!!”
“Quiet down.”
“Eeeeeek!!!!”
Mochibol’s face turned pale blue as he suddenly collapsed right there on the spot.
For an NPC in a game, realizing how well he knew his own world must have terrified him more than he’d imagined.
“Uwaaaah!!”
He probably wouldn’t have screamed this much otherwise. Just a “Ugh, what the hell?” at most.
Even Poopy seemed annoyed by Mochibol’s noise, furrowing his brow.
“Kim Gaeddong, block his face except for his nostrils.”
Poopy hopped up and sealed Mochibol’s face. He left just the nostrils open so he could still breathe.
[Huee…… It stinks…….]
“Bear with it.”
When Mochibol tried to peel Poopy off his face, Poopy puffed up his body and wrapped Mochibol’s entire form tight.
After a little time passed, Mochibol stopped thrashing. He seemed somewhat calmed down, so Dun told Poopy to let him go.
“Huff…… Huff…… What the hell are you, really?”
The freed Mochibol asked Dun with eyes tinged with fear.
“Just got friendly with players and picked up this and that.”
“Even so, how is that possible……?”
“No reason it shouldn’t be. Stop dissociating and log out quick. Call this number. You know Lee Yoo-hyun, right? Something’s wrong with her, so check and call 119 to her house.”
“Uwaaaah!”
“Stop before you piss me off.”
“Uwaak……. Yes, sir.”
Feeling Dun’s killing intent, Mochibol nodded. He fiddled with the paper bearing the phone number, looking dazed.
“I get you’ve got a lot to say, but this could be life-or-death urgent, so hurry up and go.”
“……Got it.”
Mochibol gave a half-hearted reply and logged out in a fluster.
* * *
‘JessicaIllinoisChicago’ and ‘_Eleina_’, whom Dun had sent out, returned without finding Lee Yoo-hyun.
“Couldn’t find her.”
“No sign of anyone around here at all? Saw some trap traces now and then, followed them, but not even a rat turned up.”
They came back empty-handed, shoulders slumped.
“Yeah? Good work. Head back now.”
“Ah, come on! Sending us off like that again? We’re just your five-minute standby crew, huh? Waiting for quests just to see Dun……. And quests drop like rain in a drought…….”
“Right, right.”
“Honestly, I’d rather spend time with Dun even without quests.”
“Right, right. Bump up our affinity a bit.”
As Eleina grumbled, Jessica-whatever chimed in agreement.
“You guys are busy too. Eleina, didn’t you say you have an important main quest?”
“Duh, Dun comes before any main quest. I ditched it to come here— you’re not just gonna send me back empty, right? Right? You’ll hang out a little?”
“Gimme higher-rank quests over playtime. Preferably affinity ones if you can.”
Jessica and Eleina stared at Dun with burdensome, sparkling eyes.
Dun clicked his tongue once and popped up a quest.
[F-Grade Quest: Vanish]
Content: Disappear from Dun’s sight within 10 minutes.
Reward: Rare-grade item
“Decline!”
“Hey, why?”
“Dun’s better than any item.”
“Aah. I see.”
Dun deliberately upped the item grade and reissued the quest, plain as day.
“Y-…… You devil!”
Eleina and Jessica scattered fake tears, calling him out for treating them like greedy materialists, but they clutched the items Dun gave them close to their chests.
After sending off the rest of the players like that, Dun waited for MochibolTV.
He’d thought the guy might bolt in fear, but thankfully, Mochibol had successfully handled everything Dun asked.
The returning Mochibol opened his mouth, eyes wide.
“No, but how’d you know someone outside the game was in danger?”
“What happened?”
“Yeah, apparently Lee Yoo-hyun collapsed unconscious in her room. Good thing they got her to the hospital safely.”
His uneasy hunch had been spot on.
Was it misfortune that her health was poor, or fortune that she hadn’t died? At least she’d made it to the hospital safe, so that was a relief.
“How’d you know she was in danger?”
“She’s always had health issues. She vanished for a long stretch all of a sudden, so I got suspicious.”
Mochibol stared hard at Dun, then muttered in a long sigh of admiration.
“Wow, you’re seriously smart no matter how you slice it. At this rate, you’re no different from regular folks?”
Among the NPCs, Dun always seemed to know extra about players and the outside world, but he knew even more than expected.
It was downright chilling.
“Ah, what a shame. This is total YouTube gold. Dun, how about spreading the word just a tiny bit in the group chat instead of YouTube?”
“Group chat?”
“Yeah, oh right— Dun, you’ve got a fan club.”
“Fan club?”
“It’s a group made by people who like you.”
Dun raised an eyebrow in confusion, then smirked, curling the corner of his mouth.
“Bullshit. It’s an item info-sharing club.”
“Uh, wha? Ahem. Nah, it’s not for impure motives like that.”
Mochibol, who’d jotted down and shared Dun’s past quest rewards, stammered.
Sure, at first, players who’d been summoned by Dun to share info on his generous Epic items had made the group chat for that.
But as time passed and fondness grew, they shared photos more than info now. Dun’s screenshots in the chat alone numbered well over 500.
Dun half-listened to Mochibol and spoke up.
“Anyway, Mochibol.”
“Yeah?”
“What’re you up to from now on?”
“Fire up streaming, hit the dungeon, hunt around for quests, I guess?”
“No time-limited quests on the go?”
“Nope. For now……?”
Dun rummaged in his subspace pouch at the idle response and pulled out an item called ‘[Normal] Resonance Stone’. Break one, and the other breaks too.
“But what’s this stone?”
“A gift.”
[E-Grade Quest: Mochibol Endurance Challenge]
Content: Plant yourself right where Lee Yoo-hyun vanished and wait for her to return! If you spot Lee Yoo-hyun, smash the Resonance Stone to let Dun know.
Reward: [Unique] Sage’s Staff
On Failure: Dun’s Dislike
Mochibol rubbed his eyes reading the quest.
“E-Grade for Unique? Wait, you just sit there not knowing when she’ll show? If she comes in a month, you sit a month? Hold up. Dude, I gotta stream!”
“Pass if you don’t want.”
“No way, the penalty’s too harsh to decline! Getting disliked would kill me! I’m teetering on minus already! Do you hate people that easy? Huh?”
Mochibol vented to Dun.
Newbies or players who didn’t know Dun well treated his affinity like roadside pebbles, but top rankers who owed their status to Dun’s favors valued it like Epic-grade rewards.
They knew his affinity scaled with quests and item ranks.
But raising Dun’s affinity was hellishly tough. Chat him up too much to boost it, and it drops. Do nothing, and it stalls…….
Seemed like he gave affinity via errands, but it plunged invisibly sometimes too.
No one in the group chat had maxed affinity at 10. Not even 5. Minuses were plentiful, though.
Mochibol had busted his ass to hold his at 2 without dipping negative— a dislike could tank it.
At Dun’s words, Mochibol’s brows drooped.
“Abusing affection like a tyrannical brat…….”
Tearing up inwardly, Mochibol accepted the quest and sat ramrod straight where Lee Yoo-hyun had last vanished.
“I’m firing up the stream soon, so if you don’t wanna be on it, better make yourself scarce.”
At the stream mention, Dun scaled a sheer wall and perched on a hillock. Mochibol fiddled with setting windows, and soon the chat popped up.
[MochibolTV Stream ON: N-Hour Sit-in Challenge at 50-Lvl Monster Zone]
-1st
-???
-Mochiha~
-What’s this new suicide method lololol
-Mochiha~ Mooha~
-Bro why sit
-Was hunting till yesterday??? Sudden???
-Crying Chibol sent to pasture for hunt content?
-Live scene of content drought right now
The stream chat showed via system, so Dun— with his system perks— saw Mochibol’s feed too.
Pretty popular streamer, apparently; chat flooded in the instant it went live.
Killing boredom with a stream and passing time, looks like.
Having planted Mochibol at Lee Yoo-hyun’s vanishing spot, Dun left the hunting grounds.
|NPC and Monster_VER.C.PRIM
Prim brushed her long golden hair while gazing into the mirror. She met her own pink eyes reflected there.
Prim slipped a hand under the shawl draped over her shoulders. Beneath it, countless deep scars like tree branches met her touch.
Lifting the shawl, blotchy burn marks stood out starkly.
She pulled ointment from a drawer and spread it over the burns. Likely from Montgehell’s heat, they hadn’t improved despite years of treatment.
The skin mangled by burns didn’t bother her, but years later, they still burned hot with pain.
“Guess I should be grateful just to have survived.”
Childhood memories still tormented her. More precisely, the monster that had tried to tear her apart.
Black, sticky fluid had coated its body, with only vivid pink eyes peering through— eyes like Prim’s own.
“Despicable creatures.”
Prim loathed all monsters. No compromising with them; they were brutally cruel. Monsters didn’t even eat humans for survival— they killed for the thrill.
And Prim herself was Bachinum, the child of fate destined to purify the world’s evils. She could never see monsters in a good light.
Bachinums, appearing roughly once per generation, were granted immense power to manage and exterminate monsters.
But the imperial family checked them, adopting the weakened Prim under the guise of protection, making her royalty.
With Bachinum’s role faltering, monsters— already surging— began revealing themselves more boldly.
Desperate to eradicate the arrogant rampaging beasts, Prim scoured magic tomes day and night for solutions.
Then she dreamed of the current ‘adventurers’. Heroes spawning from a massive portal, annihilating monsters.
Gathering the palace mages, Prim opened a portal just as in the dream.
And exactly as dreamed, the self-proclaimed ‘adventurers’ reliably culled the monsters.
Prim’s top interest now: the adventurers’ existence and their entry portal.
Unraveling them might reveal monsters’ secrets— including that one who’d kidnapped and tried to kill her.
“And, Dun.”
Prim eyed the photo of Dun she’d secretly obtained.
At first mere curiosity, now a key fixation.
Taming ferocious monsters was bizarre enough, but he knew the otherworld adventurers inside out.
And most crucially.
He was stubbornly adorable. Right up her alley.
“Princess, I’ve brought the materials you requested.”
“Thanks, just leave them.”
With a knock, a servant entered and handed Prim a stack of papers sealed by magic seal. Prim skimmed the file on Dun.
“……?”
-----------------------------------------------------------------