Chapter 18
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Class Change
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A peculiar light flashed in Ryu Min's eyes as he saw the stalker.
It was because he recognized the face.
'That person is... Seo Ah-rin?'
Seo Ah-rin was a rookie actress currently popular among the younger generation.
Her beauty was so striking that his younger brother, Ryu Won, would talk about her with excitement.
He'd heard from his brother that she had a good personality and a sincere image to match her innocent looks.
'A woman like that was tailing me?'
He wasn't mistaking her for someone else.
'It's definitely the woman who lives in the penthouse upstairs.'
Not only did she look the part, but her nickname was even [Seo Ah-rin].
"I-I'm sorry for following you."
As Seo Ah-rin bowed her head, Ryu Min stared at her with a cold gaze.
Just as he was about to ask why, another man emerged from behind a tree.
It seemed Seo Ah-rin wasn't the only one tailing him.
"My apologies. We weren't following you with any ill intent, so please calm down."
The man, with the nickname [Ahn Sang-chul], spoke with a smile as if wanting to make peace.
But the corners of Ryu Min's mouth didn't budge.
It was because the nickname and face were familiar.
'Ahn Sang-chul? Isn't he Ma Kyung-rok's right-hand man?'
Ma Kyung-rok.
The eldest son of one of the country's top conglomerates.
With the nickname [Cheonma], he was one of the people Ryu Min was targeting.
'I need to get Ma Kyung-rok on my side to make my own growth smoother in many ways.'
In particular, there was a top-class priest among the people connected to Ma Kyung-rok.
To take her to the 20th round, he needed to catch Ma Kyung-rok's eye.
'To think I'd meet Ma Kyung-rok's right-hand man this early.'
Ryu Min was inwardly surprised but maintained his cold gaze.
Ma Kyung-rok was someone he needed to get close to, but that didn't make him a good guy.
'If you think about it, he could be considered a villain.'
He acts like a gentleman on the surface, but behind the scenes, he has psychopathic hobbies.
There was no reason to look favorably upon such a man's right-hand man.
'But why is that guy, Ahn Sang-chul, with Seo Ah-rin?'
Ryu Min suddenly recalled the man he saw when he visited the floor above.
It was the man who had been next to Seo Ah-rin, embarrassing his brother by saying they didn't need any rice cakes.
'Could the man who was with Seo Ah-rin be Ahn Sang-chul?'
His face was different from his real one, perhaps changed through customization.
So he couldn't be certain they were the same person, but...
'There were rumors that Ma Kyung-rok sponsored celebrities as part of his business.'
Circumstantially, it seemed the man he saw yesterday was indeed Ahn Sang-chul.
"You two. Where did you start following me from?"
"From the starting point. We saw you enter the forest and followed... I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable."
She apologized again, but Ryu Min's expression didn't soften.
It was only natural, as no one had tailed him in his previous life.
Of course, he wasn't pleased to see Seo Ah-rin.
'The future has changed. That means I must have done something different than before... Could it be?'
He had indeed acted differently from his previous life.
'Is it because I gave rice cakes to my brother and the neighbors?'
He had only run into Seo Ah-rin while delivering rice cakes, but that seemed to have caused a change of heart, leading her to follow him.
"Why were you tailing me?"
Seo Ah-rin answered nervously to Ryu Min's frosty question.
"We weren't following you with bad intentions... There's something I wanted to propose."
"Propose?"
"You got first place in the first round, right? So I was wondering if we could cooperate...."
"Cooperate?"
The corner of Ryu Min's mouth curled up in a sneer.
"Isn't 'cooperation' a word used when both parties need each other's help?"
"Th-that's right."
"But I don't need you, do I? I'm doing just fine fighting on my own. Didn't you see that while you were following me?"
Seo Ah-rin could only nod in agreement.
While tailing him for thirty minutes, she had seen the monster corpses Ryu Min left in his wake.
It was an overwhelming sight, proving he didn't need any allies.
"Stop wasting my time with pointless things and go back. I have no intention of forming a team."
As if he had no more business with them, Ryu Min turned his back.
As he disappeared into the forest, Ahn Sang-chul voiced his complaint.
"What's with that bastard? His arrogance is piercing the sky, isn't it?"
Seo Ah-rin, on the other hand, collapsed to the ground as if her tension had finally broken.
"Hah... I guess he's not the first-place ranker for nothing. His presence is no joke."
"Presence? What presence? Anyone would get nervous if someone glared at them with a knife."
"Still, maybe because he's number one, he had this unapproachable aura. His eyes were scary, too...."
"It's probably just good customization. It would be a problem to think that's his real face."
"True. You changed your face too, bodyguard...."
Seo Ah-rin sighed deeply, gazing in the direction where Black Scythe had disappeared.
"I was hoping to team up with the number one ranker, but it didn't work out."
"See? What did I tell you? I said people like him have too much pride to make allies."
"You're right... Still, I thought he'd team up since sticking together increases the survival rate...."
Having watched Black Scythe since the clearing, Seo Ah-rin had finally decided to follow him.
She wanted to propose a partnership.
But things didn't go as planned.
"What do we do now?"
"What do you mean? We'll just have to do it ourselves."
"Should we find someone else and ask them to cooperate?"
"That sounds good. It's probably better to stick together to survive."
"It would have been better if we could've gotten Black Scythe on our side...."
"Forget it. Let a guy like that fend for himself. He'd probably just be a hindrance if we let him on the team."
"Still, it's a shame."
"A shame? We just wasted our time following him, that's what."
They had tried to join forces to survive in this harsh world, but it wasn't easy.
"I didn't know there would be monsters in the forest, though."
"Tell me about it."
"It seems Black Scythe isn't interested in the vote. Everyone else is probably at the starting point, discussing who to elect as representative...."
"He probably gave up early, thinking it would be hard to get chosen as the representative."
Seo Ah-rin nodded at Ahn Sang-chul's words.
After all, choosing one person out of five thousand meant the competition would be fierce.
"We should head back too. Who knows, you might get a lot of votes just for being a celebrity."
Ahn Sang-chul said, turning his head, but Seo Ah-rin didn't move.
"Miss Ah-rin?"
"Should we spend the remaining time hunting, too?"
"Huh? Hunting?"
"Yes. If even Black Scythe gave up on the vote, there's no way we'd make it, right?"
Ahn Sang-chul nodded, seeing the logic in her words.
"Well, that's not a bad idea."
"Then let's go, bodyguard."
The two of them entered the forest, weapons in hand.
They had given up on tailing Black Scythe.
Not only did they lack the confidence to persuade him, but they were also worried they'd get stabbed if they followed him again.
But they didn't know.
Rustle-
That someone was now tailing them.
* * *
Shunk-!
Having brushed off Seo Ah-rin's proposal, Ryu Min was now hunting hobgoblins.
'Cooperation when I'm already so busy. There's nothing to even think about.'
These were monsters he could easily handle on his own anyway.
There was no reason to team up.
'Still, the fact that Ma Kyung-rok's right-hand man lives on the floor above me... That's not a bad situation.'
The future had changed, but not to a degree worth worrying about.
Minor branches of the future could change at any time.
As long as the main trunk, the most important part of the future, remained unchanged, it was fine.
'When I return to reality, the first thing I need to do is confirm whether that man with Seo Ah-rin is really Ma Kyung-rok's right-hand man.'
Confirming it wouldn't be difficult.
He just needed to find out if the name of that man, whether he was a manager or something else, was Ahn Sang-chul.
'If it is Ahn Sang-chul, it'll be easier to approach Ma Kyung-rok.'
That said, he wouldn't do anything right away.
It wasn't time to make contact with Ma Kyung-rok yet.
That was also why he had rejected the proposal.
'The only thing that matters right now is leveling up by hunting.'
Ryu Min once again pushed through the forest.
"Kiaaak-!"
"Kiiit-!"
Hobgoblins charged at him, but they couldn't even touch his body.
His swift movements turned them into nothing but corpses.
It was inevitable.
[Current Kills: 60/100]
[Due to the effect of the Slaughter Rune, all stats are increased by 60%.]
His stats had increased by 1.6 times.
'Raising all stats... As long as I build stacks, the Slaughter Rune is a real game-changer.'
Just as he was smiling at his noticeably increased stats.
"Kyaool!"
"Grrrr!"
Five gnolls, which were said to appear only occasionally, showed up.
Even so, to Ryu Min, they were nothing more than a good source of experience.
[You have defeated a Gnoll!]
[A 3x experience buff is currently active.]
[EXP +7.2%]
[Gold +20]
[Current Kills: 65/100]
[Due to the effect of the Slaughter Rune, all stats are increased by 65%.]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have reached Level 10.]
[You can now use the Shop.]
[The conditions for a class change have been met.]
[There is a hidden sub-quest!]
He reached level 10, meeting the requirements for a class change.
Ryu Min immediately checked the sub-quest that had appeared.
└ Change your class before the voting time.
└ Obtain a class change item and acquire a class!
└ Success Reward ▶ 50% discount coupon for Today's Item!
Most people seeing this message would think.
Obtain a class change item?
How do I get one?
What's good about getting a class?
Since there was a class section in the status window, everyone should know that classes exist.
'Though a slow person might be learning about classes for the first time.'
In any case, anyone who wasn't an idiot would know that getting a class was a good thing.
'Ages 15 to 29 is an age group very familiar with gaming.'
The problem, however, was that they didn't know how to obtain a class change item.
'I didn't know at first either, so I wandered around. I thought they dropped randomly from killing monsters.'
Of course, class change items do drop from killing regular monsters, albeit at a very low rate.
However, class change items are fundamentally easier to obtain by meeting specific conditions.
'For example, to get a warrior's class change item, you have to kill 30 monsters within an hour after raising your strength stat to 10 or higher.'
A berserker's item appears after hunting for a certain period while bleeding, and an assassin's appears after successfully landing multiple surprise attacks from behind monsters.
In other words, you have to perform actions related to a class to get its class change item.
'That's why a person's class reflects their tendencies to some extent.'
Ryu Min had also obtained the Hunter class at first.
It was a class he got after repeatedly tracking or fleeing from monsters in the forest.
'But now, there's no need to change to the Hunter class.'
He didn't need to get a class change item either.
He had already obtained it in the previous round.
Ryu Min took out the Angel's Blood from his inventory and spoke the activation word.
'Use.'
Light burst forth from the Angel's Blood, and a message appeared.
[You have used a class change item.]
[You cannot change your class later, so please decide carefully.]
[Do you wish to change your class to 'Grim Reaper'? Y/N]
To a question that required no thought, Ryu Min answered immediately.
'Yes.'
At that moment, Ryu Min's body began to glow with a golden light.
An intensely blinding light erupted, but it was only for a moment.
It subsided as if it had never happened, and messages came into view.
[You have changed your class to Grim Reaper. Congratulations!]
[As a class change reward, you have acquired 'Scythe of the Grim Reaper'.]
[As a class change reward, you have received the 'Rune of the Grim Reaper'.]
[The acquired rune will now be automatically engraved onto the player's body!]
[You have learned the Grim Reaper exclusive skill, 'Mark of Death'!]
[The next skill can be learned automatically upon reaching Level 20.]
As a commemoration of his class change, he received a weapon, a rune, and skills.
But that wasn't all the good news.
[Your grade has risen from 'Beginner' to 'Apprentice'.]
[You have completed the sub-quest!]
[A 50% discount coupon for Today's Item has been issued!]
The grades were Beginner (Lv1), Apprentice (Lv10), Regular (Lv20), Expert (Lv40), Master (Lv60), and Grand Master (Lv99).
By changing his class, Ryu Min's grade rose from Beginner to Apprentice.
There were several benefits to a grade increase.
New class skills would become available, and existing skills would be enhanced.
Locked features would be unlocked, and he could equip higher-tier items than before.
'But without a class change, you remain a Beginner for life.'
Therefore, changing classes was an indispensable element for growth.
He had received several rewards, but the messages weren't over yet.
The first class change reward was still pending.