Newbie... Right?
“Ooh, nice~ This is tasty. Real tasty.”
Two level 1 helmets.
One level 1 and one level 2 bulletproof vest.
One assault rifle, an M4, and one pistol, a P92.
Choi Pinam hummed happily over the haul, clearly pleased with himself, and held out the loot to Yeongho as he approached.
“The helmets are both level 1, so we can just use one each. The vests are level 1 and level 2, so... Hyeong-nim, you take the level 2! Respect your elders!”
“Haha, yes. Thank you.”
- Look at him, acting all generous lol
- What’s he even taking credit for? Gadiva did all the killing lol
- Bow deeply before you put it on~
“Ahem! The weapons are a rifle and a pistol. Hyeong-nim, you take the M4 and I’ll keep the pistol as my sidearm.”
Since Choi Pinam was already carrying a shotgun, it made perfect sense to hand the assault rifle to Yeongho, who only had one pistol.
But Yeongho waved his hands and offered a different idea.
“Actually, I’d prefer the pistol.”
“Huh? But you’re already using a pistol...”
“Then I’ll just use two. Pistols aren’t really weak on damage, and they’re light, so they’re easier to handle. And swapping between different ammo types is a pain too.”
Come to think of it, there was such a huge difference between Yeongho while fighting and Yeongho while looting that they almost seemed like different people.
He didn’t really understand item priority like a beginner should, and he was clumsy at organizing his inventory; even telling ammo apart took him time, so his logic was simply that he’d rather stick to one kind of weapon.
Fortunately, the P92—commonly called a Beretta—was the exact same model as the pistol Yeongho had looted, so there was no danger of him confusing the ammunition.
It wasn’t a normal setup, of course, but Choi Pinam, who’d been left standing around with nothing to do, couldn’t exactly say no.
And so, one man became heavily armed with an assault rifle and a shotgun.
And another stepped onto the path of the dual-pistol gunner, a style no one else would choose unless they wanted pure cool factor and absolutely no efficiency.
“No, wait... is this actually okay?”
- Wow! Dual pistols!
- Pistols are romance! Two guns means twice the style!
- Isn’t the practicality just terrible, though lol
- lol Gadiva might be different though
- We believe in you, Gadiva!
- Ugh, look at Choi Pinam hoarding all the gear for himself, tsk tsk
“Hey, you jerks! I was clearly trying to give it up!”
At Choi Pinam’s aggrieved expression, the chat was instantly covered in laughter.
If this had been a ranked match, he would’ve needed to stop a teammate from insisting on dual pistols.
But this was just a casual game, and the viewers were enjoying it, so it was fine.
He even showed that ridiculous pistol accuracy in Is City. I bet he’d handle dual pistols amazingly too.
Even from the brief skirmish they’d just seen, his skill had been unmistakable, so Choi Pinam decided they might as well turn up the pace.
“Hyeong-nim! We’ve got decent gear now, so why don’t we head to the center?”
“Sure, let’s do that.”
Gunfire echoed intermittently in the distance.
At the suggestion that they dive straight into the hot zone, where plenty of players were clearly already fighting, Yeongho nodded without a hint of hesitation.
Honestly, he didn’t know enough about the game to argue, so his mindset was to just follow his teammate’s lead whenever possible.
- Here we go, big play incoming?
- Even with good armor, if you get caught in a messy firefight, you’re dead fast.
- You’ve gotta look manly, right??
“When have I ever let you guys down? All right, let’s go!”
“Huh? Pinam! We should be using that to get there, shouldn’t we?”
A voice stopped Choi Pinam just as he was about to stride off with renewed vigor.
He turned around and saw Yeongho climbing onto the motorcycle they’d arrived on with his partner.
“Uh, Hyeong-nim? The motorcycle is a bit...”
Of course, riding a vehicle would get them to the center much faster.
But if they did that, they’d instantly become a target for everyone already entrenched there.
In the first place, a two-seater motorcycle had terrible durability, and unlike a car, it left its riders completely exposed, making them vulnerable to gunfire.
On top of that, its balance was absolute garbage, which made it easy to tip over. A trash-tier ride, really.
It was the kind of thing you used when you needed to move in a hurry and had no other choice—not something you drove straight into a citywide brawl. That was basically suicide.
- Gadiva told you to do it!!
- Scared? You scared??
- lol Racing through a metropolis on a two-seater bike? Now that’s a challenge~
- Okay, the sensible thing is to stop this, but lol I’m not the one doing it, so haha
- The fake macho act is getting exposed, isn’t it?
But under the viewers’ gleeful baiting, Choi Pinam ultimately had no choice but to change his mind.
Trying to bring up common sense or safety in that atmosphere would only make him look like a coward.
Viewer count is... 3,200? That’s a lot more than I thought. No choice. I’ve got to go full clown mode this round.
He might look like the simple, brute-force type, but he was a professional streamer through and through.
Choi Pinam mentally crunched the numbers, watching the chat flow, then slapped his chest with heroic confidence and headed for the motorcycle.
“Fine, let’s do it!”
“I’ve never actually ridden a motorcycle in real life, so I was curious. May I drive?”
“Uh... y-yeah, go ahead! Hyeong-nim, do whatever you want!”
“Ah! Thank you.”
Watching Yeongho smile brightly as he settled into the driver’s seat, Choi Pinam felt a flicker of unease, but the die had already been cast.
He lacked common sense, so he made choices other people wouldn’t make, and because he didn’t know better, he simply found the whole thing fascinating as he gripped the handlebars.
- lol He’s like a kid, all excited.
- Gadiva is adorable lololol
- He really is a newbie lol
- It’s a fun toy right up until it causes an accident~
- I can already see how this ends lol There’s no stopping it
Ugh, whatever. If we get wiped, we get wiped. The viewers are loving this anyway.
It really did look like a clueless newbie just enjoying the game, and that was exactly the kind of thing viewers ate up.
With half his mind already at ease, Choi Pinam wedged himself into the passenger seat, which offered about as much stability as a wet cardboard box.
Grrang-ang-ang— bwaeng!
“Ooooh!”
The motorcycle roared to life and shot forward.
With a delighted shout, Yeongho twisted the throttle, and before long he had the bike at full speed, tearing down the road.
“Ghk, eek! Hyeong-nim! Too fast!”
Choi Pinam screamed from the rattling passenger seat, but the speed didn’t drop.
And then, in an instant, they were racing toward the city center.
The gunshots that had been occasional and faint until a moment ago were now louder and coming far more frequently.
It meant the players who had finished looting had started fighting in earnest—and that the hot zone was now right in front of them.
As the bike thundered through the city streets without slowing.
They spotted several groups of players trading fire while using the wrecks of ruined cars as cover, as well as the hyenas lurking in buildings nearby, waiting for a chance to leap in and pick off the survivors.
“What the hell are those guys?”
“Are they crazy?”
Right into the middle of at least fifteen, maybe even twenty players, the two-seater motorcycle plunged at breakneck speed.
The stunned players quickly started opening fire at them.
Ratatat! Puh-buk!
Rrrrrat-a-ta-ta!
“Aaaah! H, Hyeong-nim! Take cover! Stop the bike!”
Choi Pinam shrieked at the barrage of bullets raining down on them.
He ducked as low as he could to reduce the chance of being hit, but even so, his health had already dropped by nearly 30 percent.
Worse, the motorcycle’s durability had been shredded in an instant, and smoke was already curling from it as though it might explode any second.
Damn. This was my mistake.
Yeongho had gotten so absorbed in riding the motorcycle—something he’d never once done in real life—that he’d lost track of the situation.
He should have stopped at a reasonable distance and approached on foot, but by the time he came to his senses, they’d already pushed too deep into the battle zone and were on the verge of being wiped out.
By common sense, he should have gotten off the motorcycle right now and taken cover wherever he could.
If we stop here, we’ll just get pinned down by a concentrated barrage.
The Battle Sense that had always guided him to the optimal choice was urging him to keep moving instead of stopping.
Pyaaeaeng!
He twisted the throttle all the way open, and as the bike went full throttle, the engine screamed in protest.
To everyone else, it probably looked like he was just trying to die.
But Yeongho believed this was the right choice.
“Kyaaah!? H-hyung-niiiim—!”
“We jump when the timing’s right!”
“What the hell do you mean, jump—aaagh!”
Choi Pinam screamed from the passenger seat.
Yeongho ignored him and kept the speed up until, at some point, he signaled and hurled himself sideways off the motorcycle.
“Now!”
“Aaagh! Shit!”
Both men leapt violently clear and rolled across the ground, their health bars plunging so far that less than a third remained.
If they were attacked right now, neither of them would survive.
But—
“Get out of the way!”
“Ah, crap! Are these guys nuts?!”
The duo that had been most aggressively firing from directly ahead stopped shooting and backed off to avoid the burning motorcycle hurtling toward them.
If they got caught in the explosion and took unnecessary damage, it would only strengthen the enemies they’d been fighting all this time, so they had no choice but to pull back.
“Dammit!”
Thud-thud-thud! Thudddddd—!
And not just them. Other teams who had been watching the situation also stopped attacking and temporarily fell back, because Choi Pinam had propped himself up on his elbows and, while scraping across the ground, pulled out his rifle and started laying down suppressive fire.
Even while firing on the move from such an unstable position, he controlled the recoil well enough to deliver surprisingly accurate shots. The man’s physical ability really did seem to know no limits.
Of course, if any one of the surrounding players had been willing to take the damage and return fire, the ones in worse shape would’ve been this side, with health already near empty.
But from their perspective, the two of them looked like they were going to die soon enough anyway, so there was no reason to spend their own HP trying to finish them off first.
Unfortunately for the enemies, that was a huge miscalculation.
Booom—!
As the explosion sent the burning wreckage of the motorcycle scattering in all directions.
Yeongho’s mind neatly mapped the players caught within the spreading sensory net.
The brief commotion had only made them hesitate for about two seconds.
Two at two o’clock, one by the bus at three, one by the window on the fifth floor, one by the truck at eight—
But two seconds was more than enough for Yeongho, now upright and aware of every enemy around him, to identify and lock onto every target.
The pistol muzzles pointing in different directions spat fire.
Thunk! Tink! Thud! Tink-tink!
He turned in place, rotating his body rapidly as he aimed and pulled the trigger again and again.
To everyone else, it looked like he was blindly spraying bullets in random directions, so the viewers all voiced the same confusion.
- Did he tilt, or something?
- ??? Why is he just shooting like crazy all of a sudden?
- Huh?
- Eh??
- Holy crap, what is that;;
But the moment the kill log began scrolling rapidly up one side of the screen, confusion turned to shock.
SJ DAD → MyPaint12Colors (Dead)
SJ DAD → TheDayOfNyochi (Near Death)
SJ DAD → SisterRizyIsDeadNow (Dead)
SJ DAD → StickyCocoaChoco (Dead)
SJ DAD → TheDayOfNyochi (Dead)
SJ DAD → ···
The system messages kept rising without pause.
In the end, it concluded with the complete annihilation of roughly seven or eight duo teams.
“Phew. That was close. I almost died.”
Breathing in the acrid smell of gunpowder pouring from the two pistols, whose magazines had both been emptied in a matter of seconds.
Yeongho let out a short breath and walked over to Choi Pinam, who was lying on the ground with a blank stare and a slack jaw, then held out his hand.