Chapter 25

There was the Korean branch office of a Japanese trading company within a building next to the Sword Palace. 

The office, which was usually tightly closed, was, in reality, being used as the Korean branch of the Neo Self-Defense Force. 

The Neo Self-Defense Force had established a branch next to the Sword Palace for the simple reason of recruiting Sword King Yoon Sae-jin.

Therefore, since the office had become useless.

"Crunch… Crunch…"

It had turned into Takeda Kazuo's, the recruitment manager's, personal space.

There was a huge desk with eight monitors on it, and Takeda consumed a hamburger over it in the blink of an eye as he watched JiHan's performance with dissatisfied eyes.

"Mr. Sung… If you're already standing out like this… Offers from other countries might also come."

The view of JiHan sweeping away the zombies by himself showed that, despite being a Bronze, he was a player with a potential that couldn't be compared to others.

He wasn't receiving much attention yet since he hadn't been active in the League for long, but if he kept producing such results, there was a chance things would get noisy before he even got to Silver. 

'I must somehow secure Mr. Sung…'

Takeda frowned.

If it were a matter of money, the Neo Self-Defense Force wouldn't lose against anyone, but JiHan wasn't the type of person who could be recruited with money alone.

A special method had to be used to make him move to Japan, and to do that…

'I need to get the approval of the higher-ups.'

The conservative upper ranks of the Neo Self-Defense Force hadn't granted him permission yet.

If he wanted to convince them, he needed solid evidence.

'And that's the status window.'

If he provided JiHan's status window data—which would definitely be special—and added the combat footage, he would be able to convince the upper ranks of the Neo Self-Defense Force. 

Glup- Glup-

Takeda sipped Coca-Cola through a straw and began to devise a plan.

'Yes… The goal of the Bronze defense map is to protect the crystal.'

A crystal floated over the middle of each tower, and protecting it was the primary goal of the defense map.

The crystal could be broken by team members as well.

Tap. Tatatap!

Takeda put down his food and began typing.

One of the eight monitors that were watching JiHan switched to another person.

['Sword King FC 898' has entered Gyu-hyuk's channel.]

Takeda's sub-account, 'Sword King FC 898', entered Mage Kim Gyu-hyuk's channel.

- Mr. Kim! I can't stand to see that bastard JiHan, who went against the Sword King, doing so well!

Takeda started planning his scheme. 

* * *

"Haa… That crazy bastard's too strong." Gyu-hyuk grumbled as he watched JiHan playing the role of a lone hero.

They were both in Bronze, so how could he be so different?

"What a stupid game. The balance is shit…" Gyu-hyuk muttered as he turned his gaze away.

He didn't want to see that annoying guy's performance anymore.

"Ahh~ It's beautiful… So beautiful!"

Gyu-hyuk looked at Golden Light with disgusted eyes and turned his back as he walked toward the crystal.

'Haa… When will it end?'

He had no other thoughts at the moment. He just didn't want to see JiHan.

[Sword King FC 898 has donated 100 GP.]

[Mr. Kim! Please, accept a quest from the Sword King Fan Club!]

A donation message suddenly appeared on his channel, which didn't have even 10 viewers.

[Sword King FC 898 has sent a viewer quest.]

[Break the crystal and prevent Sung JiHan from finishing 1st.]

[Reward: 50,000 GP]

A quest with 50K GP as a reward appeared, and Kim Gyu-hyuk stopped moving.

'50,000…?'

Getting 50K USD for destroying one crystal was insane, but that wasn't all.

- Is this where Mr. 898 said to be?

- Haa~ As expected of Mr. 898. 

- We cannot stand still and watch Sung JiHan jump around like that.

- I'll also donate to this quest!

His near-dead channel was livened up as messages from members of the Sword King Fan Club started to flood in.

The GP for completing the quest began increasing little by little.

52,000, 53,000…

When it reached 55,000, Kim Gyu-hyuk's eyes began shaking.

'I knew that the Sword King's fans were crazy… But what's up with this…?'

[Sword King FC 898 has donated 300 GP.]

[Mr. Kim! Please hurry! If one more tower collapses, JiHan will finish 1st place!]

At Sword King FC 898's urgent message, Kim Gyu-hyuk made a fishy smile.

'It seems like he really hates JiHan.'

'Even if I end up in last place, I won't lose any skills…'

'Of course, I have to accept it! When I remember how I lost a skill because of him…'

'Yes, I'll make up for the loss with this GP!'

55,000 GP was a high enough amount to distort past memories.

Kim Gyu-hyuk started to move.

[Sword King luv124 has donated 100 GP.]

[Please insult Sung JiHan as much as possible before destroying the crystal. I can't stand seeing him all high and mighty.]

Kim Gyu-hyuk nodded as he looked toward JiHan in the distance.

What could he do to him from such a distance?

"Hahaha."

The fear he felt when he saw JiHan had disappeared.

Feeling a thrill, Gyu-hyuk approached the crystal.

When the crystal was within his attack range, he turned on voice chat.

"Sung JiHan, you motherfucker."

'What's going on?'

After he heard the curse, rather than being angry, JiHan was confused.

Troll Kim Gyu-hyuk had been quiet until then, so why was he suddenly insulting him?

'He's picking a fight with me just when I'm about to achieve a thousand kills.'

His kill count was 920.

Why would he do that at such an important moment when he was about to unlock the next quest?

Was it that he wanted to get revenge for what happened last time since the game seemed like it would end soon?

'Let's ignore it for now.'

80 kills could be achieved quickly, so there was no need to pay attention to such provocations.

JiHan was about to turn off the voice chat so he could focus on zombie killing when Kim Gyu-hyuk began cursing again.

[Is it fun to scam your high school niece? Her father probably abandoned her because she was fooling around with you.]

Gyu-hyuk kept cursing Sae-ah and JiHan.

It seemed he knew that JiHan had been about to turn off the voice chat.

[He went to Japan because of the shock of you two fooling around, right? You dirty bastards~ Haha.]

Gyu-hyuk poured out insults almost as if he were rapping. 

As soon as JiHan turned off the voice chat, he wouldn't be able to hear the insults anymore, but he stopped moving.

"…"

He was okay with being cursed. He was used to it because he'd gone through all of it during his previous life, after all.

He'd mastered the art of ignoring criticism a long time ago, however…

Bothering his niece was an entirely different story, especially the way Gyu-hyuk was saying such dirty things about her and him.

"…"

Sae-ah's last moments came back to him. She had suffered an attack from the Sword King's fans.

They'd cut her face, and she'd suffered injuries all over her body even though she was the biggest victim of the Sword King's treason and had no relation to the Sword King trampling over Korea.

If a fanatic could think rationally, they wouldn't be a fanatic.

'She barely survived…'

Her torn face couldn't be restored with modern medicine, and she'd needed to receive care from a high-ranking Support to return to her original state, but none of them had wanted to help the daughter of the Sword King.

After a month of hospitalization, Sae-ah was able to stand and slowly walk again, and the first thing she did when she recovered was…

'She committed suicide.'

Sae-ah had jumped out of the window.

Many things pushed her to make such a choice, but…

JiHan recalled the messages he'd seen on her smartphone after she took her own life. He had read the messages of hatred she'd endured from the Sword King's fans.

- Since we've torn your face, JiHan will probably abandon you too. Hi. Hihi. Hihihi.

- What will you do since you can no longer use that dirty body?

After the Sword King's fans attacked Sae-ah, they bombarded her smartphone with messages.

The ones he could remember were the least offensive ones, and most of them were so disgusting that he'd erased them from his memory.

'That was what drove Sae-ah to the edge and triggered her to make such a decision.'

If Sae-ah was watching his broadcast, she must have heard those words.

'The chain quest isn't important.'

JiHan turned around and looked at the tower.

Although it was quite a distance away, JiHan was able to fully see the scene above, and he saw something unexpected.

Gyu-hyuk was standing before the crystal, casting a Fireball.

'I wondered why he suddenly began cursing.'

He was throwing a tantrum before shattering the crystal.

'I'm not sure if it's simply because of the grudge from last time or if there's someone who pushed him to do it…'

No matter what the reason was, the course of action JiHan had to take was simple. 

'I'm going to kill him.'

The distance was quite far, and the Mage was about to break the crystal at any moment.

There was no way he could reach the tower before that happened.

What he needed in order to close the distance was…

'Nameless Divine Arts.'

It was an SSS-rank skill that he was unable to learn because his Martial Power hadn't reached 30 yet, but even if the skill weren't there, he'd used it for half of his life.

If he used all of his strength, he could imitate it.

Nameless Divine Arts Footwork Technique: Lightning Thunder Step.

Bzzt-

Bright lighting erupted from JiHan's foot.

All of the zombies approaching him from behind were burned and disappeared.

Lightning Thunder Step was a footwork technique that pierced the sky, but JiHan's foot felt heavy.

Maybe it was because Nameless Divine Arts wasn't in his skill window, but he was only able to make lightning, not turn himself into it.

'No.'

JiHan tried to calm himself down.

If he couldn't use it because it wasn't in his skill window, lightning wouldn't have appeared in the first place.

There had to be a way.

BZZT-!

When he tried to lift his foot with all of his might, he felt his middle and upper elixir fields responding along with the Ki of his lower elixir fields.

Since he'd heightened his senses, he could detect the faint movement, and he found a clue there.

'Nameless Divine Arts wasn't a technique only used in the lower elixir field?'

Since he'd only ever used it through the skill, he'd only used it with the lower elixir field.

Testing his speculation, JiHan gathered Force within himself.

The upper elixir field, the middle elixir field, and the lower elixir field….

The power of the three elixir fields gathered, and he felt his body lighten. It was a sensation similar to when he used the skill before regressing.

Then, JiHan became sure.

'I can do it.'

RUMBLE!

JiHan's body turned into light, and a bright current soared up high from where he'd been standing.

Flash!

Soon enough, lightning struck the tower.

* * *

[Sword King FC 898 has donated 100 GP.]

[Mr. Kim, hurry up! JiHan is going to arrive soon!]

Kim Gyu-hyuk, who'd been cursing for a while through the voice chat, thought that he should start wrapping things up after he read the viewer's donation message.

'There's no way he'll be able to reach me in time from such a distance…'

JiHan was at the bottom of the tower, so he wasn't worried about him.

"What are you doing?!" Golden Light, who'd been filming JiHan, approached him menacingly. 

With that, Gyu-hyuk concluded he should focus on his priority quest.

"Hehe… Explode!"

The fireballs Gyu-hyuk had summoned in advance were about to fly forward, but…

BOOM!

They exploded in the air.

"Wh-what?!"

Tap. Tap…

A soccer ball had exploded the fireballs, and the culprit was clear.

"Massid! You son of a bitch!"

As Gyu-hyuk raised his middle finger, Massid calmly raised his middle finger in return.

"You. Insulted. A kid."

Massid pretended he didn't understand Korean, but it seemed that he actually understood it very well.

Gyu-hyuk wanted to teach him a lesson, but he needed to complete the 55K USD quest.

"Fuck… Fireball!"

"Kim Gyu-hyuk…"

Before he could renew his attack, he heard the cold voice of someone who shouldn't have been there.