Eat This
Eat This
Naturally.
Even while Yor fought the Owlbear, the stream was still running.
Sure, she was injured and dying in real time, but that was absolutely no reason to turn the stream off.
Thanks to that, she and her viewers could watch Yor fight from start to finish.
At first, when Yor faced off against the Owlbear, the viewers were, of course, worried.
They had a rough idea he was strong, but the opponent was a level 107 monster.
A monster that dozens of high-level players couldn't handle even if they all rushed it.
It was only natural they'd worry about the first interesting NPC to come along in ages.
[What the hell's that idiot doing lol]
[No, tell him to run]
[No! You can't die!]
Because of that, most of the early chat was people worrying about him.
Unlike players who resurrected when they died, once an NPC died, that was it.
[But doesn't he seem way too relaxed..?]
However, that worry gradually faded as the fight progressed.
The first moment of awe came when Yor dodged the Owlbear's claws.
Yor dodged the Owlbear's attack—barely visible to the eye—with what was literally complete ease.
[Oh]
[Whoa, what the hell, you can dodge that?]
[That thing's crazy fast and he dodged it smooth as hell lol]
That was something even the fleetest-footed archer in Kim Mari's party couldn't have done.
The second came when Yor's spear tore into the Owlbear's flesh.
His spear, like a toy compared to the creature's bulk, sliced through its tough hide.
[No lololol]
[Holy shit holy shit, look at him counterattacking, so damn natural]
[Those feathers could actually be cut?]
[Seriously, what even are you?]
That was something even the wizard, the strongest damage-dealer in her party, couldn't manage.
The third moment of awe came just as Yor was about to unleash his thrust.
No—could that even be called awe? It was closer to outright shock than awe.
The first two things were at least within the realm of comprehension.
An NPC they already suspected was strong dodging and striking a powerful monster.
That was a scene the viewers had vaguely expected, had even been looking forward to.
But that final thrust was different.
From the very first preparatory stance, it was something that surpassed the viewers' expectations.
Wooooong—
The moment he readied his stance for the thrust, an unusual current of air began to swirl around him.
The ambient mana surged, then infused his body with vitality.
His muscles swelled, scattering refined killing intent into the surroundings.
The spearhead was even wreathed in a blue light.
By then, Kim Mari's eyes had flown wide open.
Then came the thrust.
Pa-pang—!
The spear shot forward and literally tore the Owlbear's body apart.
It didn't just pierce through it—the area around where the spear passed got ground away, taking the Owlbear's flesh with it.
The spear was clearly smaller than a fist, yet the hole it bored was, with a little exaggeration, the size of a soccer ball.
A level of destructive power that current users couldn't even dare to imagine.
It was only natural that the viewers watching the stream went absolutely wild.
[???]
[?????]
[????? Holy shit, what the hell did I just see right now]
[Whoa, no lol, how does that make any sense????]
Shock, disbelief, amazement—countless emotions surged from beyond the chat window.
The chat scrolled at a furious pace, with question-mark-filled messages pouring in one after another.
Normally, she might have enabled slow mode to cool down a chat moving this fast.
But right now, even she was stunned speechless by that single strike.
What the hell was that?
Defeating an Owlbear—okay, that much she could fully understand.
No, honestly, she'd more or less expected that much.
She wasn't stupid enough to underestimate an NPC living in a high-level zone.
There had to be a reason he'd survived. She'd figured that.
But one-shotting it?
Defeating an Owlbear and one-shotting an Owlbear were somewhat different problems, weren't they?
That was only possible with a truly overwhelming gap in skill.
He had literally ground its tough hide away.
And there was one more astonishing thing besides that.
That blue energy that had shimmered along Yor's spear.
Most viewers seemed to have just glossed over it, but she, with her considerable combat knowledge, had been able to recognize it.
She murmured to herself.
'Was that... Sword Aura?'
Sword Aura.
The privilege of the strong, the benchmark dividing the ordinary from the talented.
The technique called Sword Aura was something a knight could only barely achieve after years of toiling on the battlefield.
It was that advanced a skill, and among current players, there was not a single one who could manifest Sword Aura.
And yet now, an NPC before her eyes had just used it, completely out of the blue.
As a result, Kim Mari's mind was filled with confusion.
'Just who on earth is he...?'
Was he someone who'd retired after fighting on some battlefield?
No, he looked too young for that—younger than herself, even.
Or could anyone who lived in this forest eventually manifest Sword Aura like that? She had no idea.
All sorts of thoughts surfaced and vanished in her head.
As she stood there in a daze, Yor began to approach her.
An utterly relaxed stride, as if the awe-inspiring display from moments ago had been nothing.
Perhaps because of that overwhelming showing just before, his thin short-sleeved shirt and shorts didn't even register in her eyes anymore.
Soon, he crouched in front of Kim Mari like a neighborhood thug and spoke, looking at her.
"Because of you, my neighbor died."
"...P-pardon?"
Naturally, Mari, having no clue what he was talking about, simply tilted her head.
Of course, Yor didn't bother explaining, since telling her his neighbor had been the Owlbear would make him look like a lunatic.
Soon, after a brief silence, Mari opened her mouth.
"I don't know what that's about... but first, I'm sorry. And thank you. I almost got killed by that Owlbear."
"...Well. Sure."
Yor nodded vaguely.
After all, he'd already washed away his memories of Mr. Owl Bear with a single tear. There was no need to apologize.
Yor looked at her physical condition and remarked.
"You're badly hurt."
"...Yeah."
Her body was a complete wreck.
She was dying from excessive blood loss in real time.
Still, because she'd lowered her Assimilation Rate, the pain was just a slight burning sensation, but her consciousness was gradually fading.
It was a sign she'd die and be logged out soon.
"No potions?"
"Yeah, my party had a Priest."
Mari's tone had become extremely polite before she knew it.
Honestly, she seemed to be the older one by age.
But she found it difficult to speak casually to a powerhouse of that caliber.
She clicked her tongue inwardly.
Damn. If it was going to be like this, she should have brought at least one potion. She could've extended her life a little.
"Hmm..."
And then it happened.
Yor, who had been watching her the whole time, held something out to her.
"Try eating this."
It was a deep red fruit.
A peculiar fruit, different from an apple, and also a bit different from other fruits.
It seemed like a specialty product that only existed in the game.
Could it be...?
She asked him, holding a faint hope.
"Is it, by any chance, a recovery medicine?"
"No? I'm just giving it to you because it's tasty."
He added that at least dying with something good in your stomach made for a slightly better-looking corpse.
When she heard that, she was dumbfounded. What on earth was he talking about?
The chat window seemed equally dumbfounded.
[Excuse me, but are you maybe a crazy bastard?]
[Hey, now, how dare you call Yor a bastard!]
[Aha! So you just give tasty things to someone who's about to die?]
Various reactions came up in the chat window.
Still, since he was giving it to her, she accepted it, bewildered, and took a bite.
"Ah... thanks."
"What's there to thank."
Yor smirked as he thought to himself.
He was going to loot every item she dropped when she died anyway.
He could spare a single fruit.
And so she bit into the fruit.
Crunch—
Maybe because her Assimilation Rate was at the minimum, she didn't taste much of anything.
And with that single, tasteless bite of fruit, her life ran out.
Using her fading vision, she checked her viewer count one last time.
The final count she saw was 15,000 total.
The stream itself was a massive hit.
*
The stream Kim Mari did concluded with great success.
Although all her party members were wiped out and she lost a significant amount of the gear she was wearing.
At the very least, they'd shown users that they were nowhere near ready to tackle the Forbidden Forest.
The level of ordinary field mobs roaming around was over 100.
Considering the vast majority of users hadn't even hit level 60, it was a truly overwhelming level gap.
And on top of that, the community had finally confirmed Yor's abilities—something they had been so desperately curious about.
The news spread like wildfire among the users in an instant.
+
[It's just insane]
Just how high does your level have to be to one-shot an Owlbear?
I'm such a noob I can't even imagine it;
+
[If you replay the stream, his expression is so damn relaxed too lololol]
[All you bastards who ignored him, stand up and bow your heads]
[↳ I'm sorry I didn't believe...]
[↳ I will never act out again...]
+
[Today too, we Otherworlders are just pathetically weak, I see]
What can we even beat? lololol
We get cut down by knights, have our throats ripped out by monsters, and even low-rank mercenaries we have to fight to the death just to beat
At this rate we're gonna lose to some neighborhood mutt
+
[We're the weakest in the setting wwwww]
[Even the highest-level rankers are barely just knocking on the threshold of A-Rank Mercenaries, what are you expecting..]
[Yep~ just give it time and we'll dominate it all eventually anyway~]
+
[Anyway, what was that guy muttering in the video?]
I keep replaying just the fighting scene in the video
But that bastard Kim Mari was so far away I can't hear what Yor's saying;
Doesn't anyone know how to lip-read?
What's that dumbass saying?
+
[Whoa, it's real, his lips are moving]
[↳ Just how many times did you replay it to notice something like that;]
[↳ No, so I'm asking what he said;]
["Mr. Owl Bear, I'm truly sad it has come to this..."]
[↳ For real???]
[↳ This crazy bastard's having a conversation with a monster lolololol]
[↳ Our guy... is a little cracked in the head...]
[↳ It's fine, he's handsome lol]
The community was incredibly noisy.
Even if it was only a commotion in the small corner of the internet called the Demon's Saga Gallery.
Within that well, it was practically a typhoon-level commotion.
The sight Yor had shown them this time was beyond shocking.
Of course.
"Wow, good heavens..."
Among those watching those posts was Yoo Chae-rin.