Chapter 93: Respective Daily Lives
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 93: Respective Daily Lives
A desolate room, devoid of even a single common ornament.
On the TV, videos of the 5th-floor raid and stories about Kang Jinhyuk played on loop.
"That guy again," muttered Cheon Yu-seong, sitting on the edge of his bed.
His monologue, steeped in complex emotions, carried several meanings.
One was the frustration that the gap between him and the opponent he had to surpass wasn't narrowing in the slightest.
The other was the self-loathing of realizing that, at some point, he had begun imitating that very opponent's swordsmanship.
‘Learning the techniques of the opponent I want to surpass most, just to fight him...’
It was a contradiction of sorts. He had never wanted to win that way.
But no matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn't see any other way to close the distance without becoming like his opponent.
Thus, he had reached a single conclusion: to drink the sweet nectar of victory, he had to cast aside his pride.
Clatter.
The tableware on the table rattled.
Chicken, pizza, cream shrimp, yangjangpi, and two bottles each of beer and soju. It was the exact menu Jinhyuk had prepared for his past mukbangs.
On a tablet PC at the corner of the table, videos of Jinhyuk's past ViewTube broadcasts were queued up in order.
[Hello, guys! Today's content is 'Legend of Legends'. I'm going to show you a proper 1v5 pentakill with Teemo. What? 'Rip Teemo apart'? If you've got the balls, try stream-sniping me. I'll shove a poisonous mushroom right up your nostrils.]
Not just his lifestyle, behavior, and eating habits—Yu-seong was imitating and retracing every single game and piece of content the guy had ever touched. For a medical student like Cheon Yu-seong, designing an efficient learning curriculum was child's play.
‘So the key to this video is Teemo.’
[Hut, two, three, four! Never underestimate the Scout's Code! Captain Teemo!]
Teemo.
Teemo, huh...
Cheon Yu-seong grabbed a Monami pen and scribbled in his notebook. Underlining it with a yellow highlighter and adding a star was a given.
‘I will... win.’
Taking a bite of chicken, Cheon Yu-seong immersed himself in the video with a grimly determined expression.
How many hours had passed like that?
Ding-dong!
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
Naturally, Cheon Yu-seong tried to ignore it. An unknown visitor was the least of his concerns right now.
But when his front door was sliced clean off, ignoring it was no longer an option.
Screeech!
A high-speed sword strike. The severed edges of the metal door glowed cherry red.
And through the gap, a sly-looking, blonde foreigner revealed himself.
"Haha. Excuse me."
"Who the hell are you?"
"I have a real name, but you can just call me Gawain."
"Ga...wain?"
"Yes. That's what they usually call me on our side." Gawain shrugged.
He slowly scanned Yu-seong's living space.
"Hmm. This is a bit unexpected. For the residence of 'Unknown,' it's rather small and cramped, isn't it? I wasn't expecting a five-star hotel, but I did anticipate something with a bit more class than a studio apartment."
Unknown?
He breaks in out of nowhere and calls me Unknown?
Yu-seong tilted his head in confusion.
Wait, could it be...?
But the truth dawned on him almost instantly. There was only one person in the entire world capable of pulling a stunt like this.
"Kang Jinhyuk, that absolute bastard...!"
Yu-seong couldn't even finish his curse.
"Hmm. I don't think you have the luxury of worrying about someone else right now."
His opponent, who had drawn a razor-sharp sword at some point, approached with a pleasant smile.
* * *
At that exact moment.
In front of the Shinsegae Department Store in Yeongdeungpo, Jinhyuk scratched his ear.
"Strange. Why are my ears so itchy?"
It felt as if a tiny threadworm was wriggling around his eardrums.
"Isn't it obvious that someone is cursing you?" Standing beside him, Alice gave him a look that asked why he was even questioning the obvious.
"What? Who would curse me? Where else can you find someone who lives as kindly and diligently as I do?"
"Tsk, tsk. Even among vampires, I have never seen a creature as venomous as you, yet you utter such nonsense with a straight face."
Look at her. I treat her well for a bit, and she immediately tries to climb all over me.
"Should we just head back? Forget the department store. Running dungeons all day sounds much more fitting for a rare day off."
Jinhyuk threatened her on the spot. Alice's voice instantly turned sharp.
"Ah! Why are you being so petty and bringing that up?!"
"Why? I have two favorite four-character idioms. One of them is Yeok-ji-sa-ji—putting yourself in someone else's shoes. It means to think about the other person's feelings before you speak."
"Pfft, putting yourself in someone else's shoes my foot! You're the one who cares least about others!"
Hmm. Strangely logical. She hadn't lived for thousands of years for nothing.
But it didn't matter.
"My other favorite idiom is Nae-ro-nam-bul—double standards. It means all these rules apply to everyone else except me."
"That's not even a real idiom!"
"If I like it, it's an idiom."
What makes an idiom anyway? If the masses admire and relate to it, it's an idiom. Just you wait. In a hundred years, this will proudly have Hanja characters assigned to it and show up on civil service exams.
"But this is a reward I rightfully earned. You shouldn't threaten me with this so pettily..."
In exchange for Alice occasionally feeding various pieces of information to Andrea, Jinhyuk had promised to let Alice enjoy Seoul's cultural life.
How a boss lives. A boss's daily routine. A boss's way of speaking, and so on. It was a kind of 'Introduction to Boss Studies,' and Alice was the professor teaching the course.
"I'll let it slide just this once, so stop sulking. I already have a headache from the growing number of employees I have to manage."
He also needed to contact Kim Hee-woong, whom he had put in charge of the Black Crow Guild. He had half-abandoned them while focusing on climbing the tower and growing stronger, but he should check in on them at least once.
"You really said I could shop as much as I want?"
"Yeah, yeah. Our Alice can do whatever she wants."
And that he would regret those words so deeply... he had absolutely no idea at the time.
A moment later.
Upon entering the department store, Alice began to run absolutely wild, as if unleashing all her pent-up stress.
"I'll buy everything."
"E-everything...?" The employee's eyes went wide.
"It means I will buy everything in this department store."
"Hey, you crazy..."
Jinhyuk barely held back the stream of curses rising from his throat. Seriously, what did this bat think money was? Even if her grasp of economics had been blasted to Andromeda, this was on a level of viewing money as a public good, like air.
"Customer, I'm terribly sorry, but even so, that is..."
"I always get what I want. Whether it is an object or a person, I do not discriminate."
Alice waved her hand lightly.
At her gesture, a golden mist shimmered behind her back. The True Ancestor's subspace inventory was about to open.
Clatter!
Massive, high-grade diamonds poured onto the glass counter. Even a complete layman could tell they were extraordinary.
"Gasp!"
The employee's eyes practically popped out of their sockets.
It was only natural. With sales plummeting due to the appearance of the Tower of Trials and the subsequent economic crisis, the staff had been struggling to cater to petty spenders who threw around a few thousand dollars and acted like kings.
But now, a super VVVIP who could buy out the entire establishment had appeared.
Promotion? Bonus? Those weren't even a question anymore.
I have to lock this customer down, no matter what.
And so, the God of Wealth, whose name would be whispered in the annals of Yeongdeungpo for generations, had descended.
"P-please wait just a moment! The branch... the branch manager...! I will bring him right away!"
The employee bolted like a shot.
Meanwhile, Jinhyuk massaged his temples.
"If Korea goes bankrupt, it'll be because the country couldn't handle the hyperinflation caused by your ridiculous spending."
He used to feel pity when looking at countries like Zimbabwe or Venezuela. His eyes had welled up when he saw citizens pulling out wheelbarrows of cash just to buy a single bottle of water.
But now, he realized it wasn't someone else's problem. Right here stood a walking disaster capable of triggering national-level hyperinflation.
"Do not worry. I do not know what this 'inflation' is, but if it becomes a problem, I shall simply buy that as well."
Sigh.
"I should just keep my mouth shut."
Arguing any further would only give him a headache.
* * *
After surviving that chaotic battle, Jinhyuk and Alice headed to a fairly famous pub nearby.
After ordering the most popular items on the menu, Jinhyuk took the opportunity to check on the tasks he hadn't processed yet while waiting for the food to arrive.
The most important task, of course, was distributing the stat points he had gained from leveling up.
Ding!
The status window materialized.
--------------------------------------------------
Name: Kang Jinhyuk
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Level: 30
Strength: 19 | Agility: 19 | Stamina: 19 | Magic Power: 74 | Gap: 100 | Luck: 10 | Adaptive Stat: 78
Stat Points: 9
Coins: 1,283,288
Class: None
Unique Abilities: Fusion, Grave of Swords, Blessing of the Stars, Judgment of Anubis, Blood Demon Qi, Mandala
Skills: Lv6 'Fire Element', Lv5 'Gluttony's Eye', Lv4 'Communion', Lv4 'Brand of the Flame Soul', Lv4 'Monopolize', Lv4 'Shallow Breathing', Lv8 'Glacial Shaping', Lv4 'Daylight', Lv1 'Giant's Grasp', Lv3 'Soul-Chasing Sword', Lv1 'Double Agent', Lv1 'True Grand Purity Hwarang Heart Method', Lv2 'Sword Demon Emperor Stepss', Lv1 'Faint Body Scent', Lv1 'Mental Barrier'
--------------------------------------------------
The Adaptive Stat points he had gained from dealing with the Cult Leader and the fanatics amounted to a whopping 68. On top of that, his level had increased by three.
Even looking at it again, this speed is absurd.
Despite spending a whole month gathering Gap, his leveling speed was incredibly fast. Even the rankers who were nurtured by major guilds—with exclusive dungeons secured for them and power-leveled through mob-pulling—were only in their early 30s.
If you factor in my raw stats, there's virtually no player with better specs than me.
With his veteran knowledge and experience on top of that, the gap between him and the rest of the world would only widen further.
Good.
Jinhyuk wore a satisfied smile. He felt as though all his hard work was finally paying off.
I'll round up my physical stats to a clean 20 and dump the rest into Magic Power.
[Strength increases from 19 to 20.]
[Agility increases from 19 to 20.]
[Stamina increases from 19 to 20.]
[Magic Power increases from 74 to 80.]
Call it obsessive-compulsive, but there was something deeply satisfying about seeing his stats end in clean, round numbers. Besides, the video he had uploaded this time seemed on track to hit 100 million views. Once he used his 'Coin Exchange Coupon', everything would be perfect.
Just then.
"Table 127, your order is ready."
A server arrived, wheeling a cart laden with a feast. There were two main dishes to go with their drinks, two 500cc glasses of Hoegaarden, ice water, and various side salads.
"This is gopchang and salmon. This is how you eat it. Watch closely."
Jinhyuk's chopsticks moved in a blur.
The spicy sauce perfectly cut through the rich, fatty flavor of the grilled gopchang. On top of that, taking a thick, melt-in-your-mouth slice of raw salmon piled high with tartar sauce and onions brought an involuntary groan of delight to his lips.
This was a meal that practically demanded a drink.
Alice, who had stuffed her mouth full, also had eyes sparkling with wonder.
"Th-this meat... what is it? How can it taste like this?!"
Hmm. How should I put this?
"It's asshole."
"Pardon?"
"It's a dish made from a cow's intestines. Near the anus."
"Do... do not jest. I am enjoying my meal, so why must you utter such appetite-ruining nonsense?"
"Have you ever seen me joke about food?"
It didn't take long for Alice to realize that the look in Jinhyuk's eyes was dead serious.
Immediately, she fell into a state of profound existential despair.
"I must eat it. No, how can a noble aristocrat consume a cow's... but this taste is unlike anything I have ever... No! I must resist! Resist my foot! Argh!"
For a long while after, Alice remained locked in a fierce mental battle with the gopchang.
And while she was despairing in the gap between her pride and her appetite, Jinhyuk...
Boundary-Breaking Mirror.
He pulled out the long-awaited special item he had obtained from the fifth floor.