Indeed, a freelancer.
To think the sun hadn't set even after finishing work and returning home.
This was an opportunity for photosynthesis that couldn't be enjoyed during my salaryman days.
As much as I wanted to jump straight onto the bed where sunlight was streaming in.
Thud—
I neatly hung the clothes I'd been wearing on a hanger.
Not stopping there, I headed straight to the bathroom.
I turned on the shower.
Shaaaaa—!
Damn noble discipline and rules!
What annoyed me more was that I was gradually adapting to this tiresome daily life.
Still, let's think positively.
It was definitely good that cleaning didn't feel tedious.
"There's a lot of dust."
......Even so, wearing a mask to clean even inside the house felt excessive.
After finishing cleaning, the sun had set.
'Right, what photosynthesis for someone like me.'
I immediately prepared dinner.
The me who used to roughly solve meals with delivery food or convenience meals no longer existed.
Fresh ingredients that arrived via early morning delivery.
Dishes created with skilled hands.
How was a noble proficient in cleaning and cooking?
If asked, it was because Grandfell was a fallen noble.
"Not bad."
This too was a setting acquired in order to make a living.
Naturally, Grandfell's lofty pride wasn't broken by something like getting his hands wet.
For me, it was a personality that was both bothersome and grateful.
'Anyway, cooking and eating is better for the body, right?'
In fact, I was feeling the effects of a disciplined life with my body.
Including the back pain that disappeared thanks to always keeping my posture straight.
Chronic fatigue, insomnia, the trivial diseases modern people lived with had all cleanly disappeared.
Of course, it wasn't all good points.
Looking at the mirror, my hair shone under the fluorescent light.
'Someone might think it's white hair.'
The silver hair passed down through generations of the Claude family.
Just as that setting described, my hair was being bleached to silver.
The fortunate thing was that the silver hair seemed to suit my current appearance quite well.
Trickle—
I brewed green tea and had tea time.
'Making a fuss over 50-won green tea. Really.'
Even as I thought this, I didn't care at all.
Because in recent days I'd learned how to enjoy tea and leisure.
This too was probably the influence of Grandfell's high self-esteem.
'Right, well, whatever it is, it's better than the habit of sitting in front of the computer right after eating.'
Thanks to this, my thinking time had increased too.
Perhaps that was why.
I was able to reach a quite plausible possibility.
"......My dark history is influencing the real me."
One by one, whenever I became aware of Grandfell's settings, they became reality.
Then wouldn't Grandfell's 'talent,' who was praised as the greatest genius in the Claude family's history according to the setting, also be realized?
『Grandfell's talent wasn't limited to just one thing.
A brilliant mind was basic.
His innate magical talent was to the degree that he could imitate most magic just by watching it once. Furthermore, he even had physical potential that didn't fall behind that.
There was a valid reason why Granfell was chosen as the family's successor at the mere age of 7.』
The more I recalled it, the more it really was a middle school second-year notion.
I just threw in everything good and cool, didn't I?
"Deeply embarrassing."
I muttered thus.
Whether it was because my dark history was embarrassing.
Or because the excessive praise was embarrassing.
That would be something I'd find out by checking gradually.
For that, several tests were needed.
"What a convenient era."
Accessing NetTube on my smartphone.
I searched for players' videos.
Indeed, the saying that those who have more are worse wasn't said for nothing.
Channels of players with millions of subscribers came up.
-Rift Conquest Live Part 17 — Griffin's Nest
-What Skills Does a Flame Wizard Use?
-A Day in the Life of Non-Combat Class Alchemist? Vlog Edition
Each one had tremendous view counts.
I understood.
Since ordinary people couldn't even approach rifts, let alone become aware of their existence.
It was natural to be interested in the players inside rifts hunting monsters.
Of course, if a rift collapsed, they could watch it in reality.
But then it would be a disaster, no longer something to spectate.
I selected an appropriate video.
"?"
Just as I was about to play it, a text arrived.
Checking the number, it was Nam Cheol-min.
Though we hadn't particularly exchanged numbers, I had contacted Nam Cheol-min first after seeing his job posting.
So my number must have remained with him.
......Why is the message so long?
To summarize the lengthy text, it was about wanting to meet.
Right away at that, and if not possible, then tomorrow.
Oh dear, I didn't know the purpose but this was troublesome.
"This requires concentration."
Unfortunately.
Because this might turn my player life upside down.
I sent a short reply and played the video.
A boss raid video with skills and magic flying everywhere.
For quite a while.
I, who had been watching that video with an upright posture, opened my mouth.
"This will be sufficient."
***
A high-end restaurant in Cheongdam-dong.
Nam Cheol-min and Nam Tae-min.
The brothers were waiting at the appointed place.
"I'm still half-doubtful."
"You believe even half of it? Your incompetent brother? Thanks."
"Hyung, are you going to keep talking like that?"
Nam Cheol-min burst into laughter when Nam Tae-min bristled.
'Why didn't I realize it back then.'
My proud younger brother, Tae-min.
"Everyone's talent is different. I just mindlessly played games. Hyung just lacked time to play. When it comes to knowledge about Arcana, hyung is probably better than me, right? I guarantee it."
The fact that such a guy was sincerely acknowledging him.
To think he had felt inferior to such a younger brother.
Nam Cheol-min was truly ashamed of his own foolishness.
"It's a joke. A joke."
"You're such an unpredictable fellow, I don't know whether to believe you......"
"Still, I don't say two things with one mouth. I'll do it properly, as an analyst."
"Can I record that?"
"Go ahead."
"Ha, should I really believe this?"
Nam Cheol-min had decided to quit being a player.
He was planning to accept Nam Tae-min's proposal and work as the guild's analyst.
What led to such a decision was naturally the experience of having his body taken by an imp.
'I already knew I was lacking. Rather than that.'
The man who had saved him in despair.
This was the only way to repay his debt to him.
He hadn't just defeated the imp.
So that he could pull himself together and move forward.
He had saved him.
Nam Cheol-min wanted to give him fitting repayment as well.
"Now that it's come to this, I'm curious. Hyung wouldn't misjudge a player...... He really hunted an imp, right? Overwhelmingly at that?"
At Nam Tae-min's question, Nam Cheol-min nodded.
"Actually, saying overwhelmingly is even insufficient. How should I put it? Even while fighting that imp, he didn't seem to suffer any status abnormalities or even look slightly tense."
"If hyung says so, then it must be so. But I don't understand?"
Nam Tae-min scratched the back of his head in frustration.
"Why would such a player enter a low-level rift?"
The reason was simple.
At the time, the man called Ho-yeol's level was only 55.
However, Nam Tae-min and Nam Cheol-min couldn't realize that fact.
Nam Tae-min furrowed his brow and continued.
"Plus, that battle is honestly questionable too. Resisting status abnormalities means his mental stat must be tremendous...... That person fought with a dagger, right? Not magic."
"Right."
"They say there are thousands of classes in Arcana, but I can't guess at all."
Shake shake.
Nam Tae-min shook his head.
But frustration and possibility were separate matters.
"......So that makes me want to recruit him even more to find out?"
Above all, wasn't he a player hyung had acknowledged?
Nam Cheol-min's help had been significant in Nam Tae-min becoming the 11th ranked player.
From analyzing boss patterns.
To the guild's operational direction.
Even recruiting new players.
He knew well that without hyung's help, he wouldn't have risen to this position.
"Well, I'm also very grateful."
Moreover, he had helped such a hyung.
So Nam Tae-min prepared a recruitment contract filled with such gratitude.
Nam Tae-min, who was looking over that contract again, clicked his tongue.
"I absolutely can't let our newcomers, no, even our executives see this."
"Why? Would there be a riot if they saw it?"
"Of course. This is what, a business where only our side loses out."
However, it would be a proposal impossible to refuse precisely because of that.
Nam Tae-min was confident.
So with a comfortable mind, he waited for a reply.
Buzzzz—
"The reply came quickly. What does it say?"
Even at the moment the vibration rang.
Nam Tae-min calmly drank his orange juice.
"......He says it's troublesome?"
"?!"
Dribble—
Juice flowed down from such Nam Tae-min's mouth.
"Wh-wh-what?! Let me see!!"
Unable to believe it, he checked the text directly and it was even more absurd.
-Troublesome.
Exactly four characters.
That was the reply to that long text message.
However, who was Nam Tae-min?
He caught a hint from that short text.
"......It's not a refusal but that it's troublesome."
His eyes narrowed.
"As expected, did he already receive an offer from another guild?"
There were many players, but valuable players were rare.
It was why guilds were desperate to recruit rookies.
Above all, in South Korea, recruiting promising players had become even more difficult.
The [Mage's Tower] that rose in Seoul.
Thanks to that, all the notable large guilds were staying in Seoul.
Nam Tae-min's narrowed eyes were directed at those competitors.
"You bastards. No matter what, Seoul is our home turf."
South Korea's greatest guild, 'Gaon'.
However, going out into the world, that position barely made it into the top five fingers.
Nam Tae-min knew that reality well.
That's why he couldn't afford to lose even one player.
"Hyung, tell me specifically."
"What?"
"What that man looks like. If it comes to it, I think I'll have to run on foot to personally escort him here."
"What he looks like......"
At those words, Nam Cheol-min recalled the man in his memory.
Dress shirt and slacks, and as if that wasn't enough, even dress shoes.
"My first impression was, 'what kind of thing is this.'"
Though he did properly wear items inside the rift......
Wasn't it inappropriate attire for conquering a rift no matter who looked at it?
Moreover, he kept wearing the dress shoes until the very end.
However, in the rift, the man didn't have a single bit of disorder.
The moment he got tangled with ghouls in close combat.
The moment he fell into a trap and was surrounded.
Even the moment he faced the imp.
There was no change in the man.
All of that.
It was an attitude as if looking down from a high place.
"......But it's hard to express that in words."
To the pondering Nam Cheol-min, Nam Tae-min asked.
"Did you see some fantasy animal? Why can't you even explain?"
......Fantasy animal?
At those words, something suddenly came to mind.
"......That's it!"
Though I'd never seen one because they didn't exist in modern-day South Korea...... There would be no word more appropriate to express the man's appearance than this.
"He seemed like a noble. A very noble one at that."
"......Huh?"
***
"This will be sufficient."
That was about possibility.
As I stared intently at the video, there were thoughts flowing chaotically in my head.
They weren't primitive emotions like 'cool' or 'envious.'
I was watching magic and 'analyzing' it.
"!"
The concept of magic came to mind.
Actually, it would be absurd.
If we traced the fundamentals, that wasn't magic but a skill.
However, I could see it.
The conviction that if sufficient mana to support it was met, I could manifest that magic......!
Naturally, that wasn't 'Lee Ho-yeol's' talent.
"It seems my head hasn't hardened yet."
The Claude family's greatest genius in history.
Grandfell's talent was certain.
Of course, it was still too early to judge hastily.
However, since I saw possibility, it was worth investing in.
Moreover, that possibility was open in various places.
Not just magic, but swordsmanship, archery.......
Because Grandfell's talent wasn't manifested in just one place.
Well done, past Lee Ho-yeol.
Right, if you're going to set it anyway, you have to throw in everything cool and good.
Either way, isn't the embarrassment the same?
Let's be confident before our dark history.
I learned that there was sufficient possibility, but there was no need to rush.
Swordsmanship, archery, magic.......
Even if I decided on a direction right away, there wouldn't be any particular benefit.
That was because of the characteristics of the ambiguous class called demon hunter.
However, the word ambiguous wasn't only said when everything was a disadvantage.
Right, when everything is an advantage, the word ambiguous can come up too, can't it?
Even if that wasn't the case, for now it would be better to leave all possibilities open.
"In that case."
Let's gradually invest the stat points I'd been saving.
[Available Points: 12 points]
I checked my status window.
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