Chapter 12
Chapter 12: Achievement Record-Breaking (2)
The Player Headquarters' exclusive training ground is located at Yongsan National Park. It was originally a place where U.S. Forces Korea had been stationed, and the Headquarters had purchased a portion of it for their own use.
"Hoo."
The evening sky glowed amber.
Staring at the yellowed sunlight, Park Chang-seok let out a restless sigh.
And before him—
"Councilman."
"What's with the sudden assembly when it's time to clock out?"
"I'm present!"
Several players came up to greet him.
10 in total.
All Headquarters-affiliated players—men and women who trusted and followed Park Chang-seok quite well.
People who wouldn't leak the strategy even if he spelled it out for them.
Park Chang-seok smiled faintly.
"I called you all here because I have something I'd like to test with you."
Tuesday hadn't passed yet.
He'd hesitated too long and risked having to wait another week, so he'd assembled them in a hurry.
"A test?"
"What kind of test?"
"……Oho, that actually sounds kind of exciting."
If any other councilman had called the assembly, they would've shown up with sullen expressions and grumbling.
But Park Chang-seok was different.
Unless it was something genuinely important, he never called gatherings like this.
Every one of them looked at Park Chang-seok with eager, expectant eyes.
"Are you all aware that the Low-grade Tuesday Dungeon record was broken recently?"
"Ah, that."
"Yes, I saw it."
"Was it Baek Jin-woo?"
"Didn't a notice go up? Telling people not to argue about it. What was that about? He's not even a ranker."
As expected of hardcore players who were sharp when it came to information.
Even though it had only happened today, they already knew it inside and out.
This is what made sharing strategies so satisfying.
"I sourced the strategy from overseas. I tested it on a player who recently registered, a fellow named Baek Jin-woo—and it yielded fairly significant results."
This was part of his promise with Baek Jin-woo.
He'd been told never to let word get out that the information had come from him.
"I-Is that really true?"
"So that's why the notice went up telling people not to spread it around!"
"Just where on earth did you even buy information like that?"
The players began to buzz with excitement.
Why else would he have summoned them here?
Surely it was to share that strategy with them!
Jackpot.
Good ol' reliable Park Chang-seok!
He never calls an assembly over something trivial.
Watching the players' eyes sparkle, Park Chang-seok slowly opened his mouth.
***
Among B-rank Summoner Beasts, there's one called the ‘Spotted Komodo’.
It's a lizard about the size of an adult man—a classic damage-tanking Summoner Beast: sturdy, yet capable of dealing solid hits.
However,
True to its B-rank nature, it wasn't easy to raise, and compared to other B-ranks, its damage and tanking were both awkwardly lacking, so it rarely saw use.
You might call it a thankless creature.
For something that only had a 1% chance of coming out of a High-grade Summoning Scroll, the cost-performance ratio was pretty abysmal.
So it was cast aside—until one of the Five Emperors, Xenos, found a use for it.
[Xenos: You know what that thing's staple food is?]
[Xenos: Giant Slimes. It goes absolutely nuts for them. You wouldn't believe how ravenously it devours those big squishy things.]
The key point here was this—
It wasn't just any slime, but specifically Giant Slimes it went crazy for!
Struck by a great idea, Xenos tried releasing a Spotted Komodo right from the start of a Tuesday Dungeon.
And then—
The Spotted Komodo charged through the maze at tremendous speed, crawling forward in great strides!
It found its own way through the paths, tore into the Giant Slimes, and gulped them down one after another.
[Xenos: Insane!]
[Xenos: I can just loop this thing around, right?]
[Xenos: Don't even need to control it manually. You throw it in, go smoke one cigarette, come back and it's already cleared lol]
That was around year 5, maybe?
Thanks to Xenos's intel, the Komodo hunting method was all the rage for a while.
Of course, the number of people who knew about it was minuscule.
One Heaven Five Emperors, and a handful of people close to them—that was it.
As for Baek Jin-woo—well.
Back then, he had all the maze layouts memorized anyway, so he never bothered using it.
In any case.
Baek Jin-woo had given Park Chang-seok that information.
Park Chang-seok passed it on to those players as is.
"……What is this?"
"So you just… Let the Spotted Komodo loose and it clears the dungeon by itself?"
"That sounds too simple. Are you sure about this?"
Park Chang-seok had procured a Spotted Komodo from the Marketplace at a fairly steep price.
Now they just had to rotate it around and use it to break Achievement Records.
"We're moving to the dungeon now, but precision timing matters. The current clear time is exactly 5 minutes 32 seconds, so we need to cut it to 5 minutes 31 seconds. If you overshoot, just retry."
"Yes, understood."
Gulp.
The players swallowed hard and nodded.
***
[Tuesday Dungeon — Low-grade]
[Domestic Record, 1st Place — Park Chun-sik]
[Clear Time — 00:05:31]
"I-It's real!"
Park Chun-sik came bursting out of the dungeon, face flushed, practically convulsing.
"This is a revolution, a revolution!"
His whole body was trembling.
"Around the 3-minute 30-second mark? It had already reached the Boss Room and was trying to eat the Slime, so I had a bit of a time stopping it—but other than that, it's genuinely easy. I didn't do a thing!"
[Tuesday Dungeon — Low-grade]
[Domestic Record, 1st Place — Lee Dong-myeong]
[Clear Time — 00:05:29]
"Ugh! Sorry. I was supposed to cut it by just 1 second, but by mistake I…… cut it by 2. This blasted Komodo! The gluttony is unreal. It's like a Bichon Frisé with food placed right in front of its nose."
One by one.
The players broke the record.
[Tuesday Dungeon — Mid-grade]
[Domestic Record, 1st Place — Park Chun-sik]
[Clear Time — 00:08:30]
"Whoa, this Mid-grade is just a 3-minute clear too? I deliberately cut just 1 second off the original record."
"Man, no more worrying about Polish!"
"If you equip the Komodo with a movement speed Rune, can't you go for a world record?"
It was nothing short of a festival.
An Achievement festival.
Gather up players who had yet to claim their Achievement—pass the Spotted Komodo along to them. Then they break the Achievement and split the rewards.
Headquarters takes 2 High-grade Summoning Scrolls, the player keeps 1.
Even with that split, applicants were more than plentiful.
Insane.
At that moment.
The one most excited of all was none other than Park Chang-seok himself.
Was it simply the joy of breaking Achievements?
That was part of it—but what mattered more was Baek Jin-woo.
Baek Jin-woo is the hope of the Republic of Korea.
This made it certain.
A simple first-year gamer?
No.
Clearly, he was someone of far greater value than that.
Squeeze.
Park Chang-seok's fist tightened.
I can't let this slide.
He took a deep breath and steadied himself.
I'm creating a dedicated team for Baek Jin-woo.
As he'd mentioned before, there was really only 1 thing to block.
Naturalization!
He had to tie that man to the Republic of Korea by any means necessary.
If he could manage that, perhaps their Republic of Korea could one day follow in the footsteps of the 5 great summoning nations.
For now—
"Secretary."
Park Chang-seok made a call and gave the order.
—Yes, Councilman.
"That thing I mentioned earlier. Move on it immediately."
—You mean disbursing 150 million won and 10,000 Low-grade Summoning Scrolls?
"That's right."
Baek Jin-woo had kept his promise.
Now it was his turn to keep his.
***
[Account Details]
[Account Holder: Baek Jin-woo]
[Priority Savings Account]
[Available Balance: 167,004,500 won]
"Kya."
9 million won from selling 3 High-grade Summoning Scrolls. A reward of 5 million won. And 150 million won on top.
"Was making money always this easy?"
A mild sense of disillusionment washed over him when he thought back on his past life.
The value of earned income suddenly felt impossibly light.
And on top of that—
[Summoning Scroll Inventory]
1. Low-grade Summoning Scroll × 10,000
One of their staff had come over and loaded all 10,000 directly into his inventory.
So what was left to do?
Rip Summoning Scrolls until he was sick of it!
He'd promised not to resell them, which meant he had no choice but to keep pulling.
Baek Jin-woo moved to the deserted open lot he usually frequented.
At the same time, he summoned the Wind Fairy.
—Lamba's—here—!
"Lamba."
—Mm!
"We're going to start a summoning ritual now."
—Okaaay! Wash your hands and pray, right?!
"That's right."
Baek Jin-woo unscrewed the cap of the bottled water he'd brought and tilted it.
Splash.
Water trickled out, and Lamba diligently rubbed her hands together beneath the stream.
—Please let a good Summoner Beast come out~!
This was an innocent ritual Baek Jin-woo had started back in middle school, ten years ago.
Lamba—an extraordinarily advanced AI (now that he thought about it, she was probably something more than a simple AI)—had always enthusiastically played along.
—Please, for our Jin-woo! Let a good Summoner Beast come out~!
"Alright, that's enough. Let's rip!"
Riiip!
['Low-grade Summoning Scroll' has been used!]
[Player 'Baek Jin-woo' has obtained the Summoner Beast 'Blue Dragonfly' (F-rank)!]
Riiip!
['Low-grade Summoning Scroll' has been used!][Player 'Baek Jin-woo' has obtained the Summoner Beast 'Horned Caterpillar' (F-rank)!]
Riiip, riiip, riiip!
And so the endless grind began.
Obtained Summoner Beasts accumulated in the formless storage, to be cashed in at the Fusion Hall later.
***
"Huff, huff."
He'd just cracked open 3,600 scrolls.
Time elapsed: 1 hour.
In other words, he hadn't stopped once—1 scroll per second.
"Ugh. I can't keep this up. Let's take a break."
Seriously.
If he'd received 50,000 scrolls, he would've been in real trouble.
"And why won't these guys come out?"
Drill Instructor (E-rank). Explosive Dragon Sorcerer (D-rank).
They were coming out way less than expected.
If he'd actually bought Low-grade Summoning Scrolls with his own money, it really would've been a disaster.
Still, with 35 D-rank and 182 E-rank Summoner Beasts coming out……. The rates seemed roughly right.
For reference, D-rank Summoner Beasts were so common they practically tripped over each other and didn't sell well.
Summoner Beasts only started fetching real prices from C-rank up.
—You dummy.
"Hm?"
—Think those would come out so easily? They're not just E-rank or D-rank—they're EX-rank.
"Why. You came out on the first try."
—That was the kind of heaven-sent luck that defies all reason! Even 10,000 scrolls isn't remotely enough to pull those two—honestly, even 100,000 might fall short.
"……?"
Watching him fall silent, Lamba let out a long sigh and began to explain.
—You know how the summoning system actually works?
"How does it work?"
There was no way he'd know.
Even the encyclopedic knowledge Baek Jin-woo possessed was knowledge from a player's perspective.
And in the first place, back during Battle of Summoners, there had been no way to communicate with Summoner Beasts through conversation.
—Basically, the number of Summoner Beasts in existence is exactly 10% of the total number of players. That Horned Caterpillar you just pulled? There used to be only a few hundred, but by now there are probably over 800 million of them roaming around.
"……Huh?"
Ah.
The global population was around 8.1 billion, so—
—But the important thing is, we're under a Suppression Seal, which means there's only 1 of each of us.
"……What?"
—I don't know the reason either, but the only person who can summon those of us under the Seal is you alone. So maybe they kept exactly 1 of each of us—or maybe not. Could be that the god who made us sealed us away, but couldn't quite bring themselves to throw us out, so they preserved just 1. Ugh, it's making my head throb.
"Huh……"
If that assumption was correct, the situation was dire.
From what Baek Jin-woo knew, there were tens of thousands of Summoner Beast species alone……
And each of those species had 800 million individual copies out there?
And he had to pull the 1 EX-rank out of all that—by chance?
Even by rough calculation, the odds were nonsensical.
Winning the lottery back-to-back would've been easier.
—Still, don't worry too much. Summoner Beasts that have already been sold can't be pulled anymore. Meaning—if all 800 million Horned Caterpillars in the world have already been summoned, then no matter how many scrolls Jin-woo rips open, a Horned Caterpillar will never come out again.
"It's still incredibly hard either way."
—Yeah.
"Ha—should I just try Mid-grade ones?"
Of course, that wasn't an option.
A single Mid-grade Summoning Scroll went for 500,000 won, and there wasn't exactly a great supply of them in the first place.
There were limits.
"Forget it."
Just keep ripping.
Eventually something would come out if he kept at it.
Lamba had beaten those astronomical odds to come out, so he'd just have to trust the others would pull through too.
Riiip, riiip!
Having rested a little, Baek Jin-woo started moving his hands diligently again.