[Name: Grandfell Claudy Arpheus Romeo]
[Class: Demon Hunter]
[Level: 67]
[Stats]
Strength: 23 / Agility: 28 / Mana: 18 / Luck: 2
[Available Points: 0]
Fortunately, Grandfell's brilliant mind remembered the previous numbers precisely.
Thanks to that, the change in stats was visible at a glance.
[Stats]
Strength: 25 / Agility: 30 / Mana: 18 / Luck: 2
[Available Points: 0]
Strength and agility had risen by a whopping 2 points each.
......Was it okay to receive this much?
It was big enough to make me think that.
A stat increase of 4 points.
It was no different from having risen a whopping 4 levels.
But I shouldn't simply calculate and move on like that.
'Because the level itself remains the same.'
I had become able to get ahead by four steps—no, more than that—compared to players of the same level.
Let's think about the price of items that raised stats.
'Even just raising 1 point cost hundreds of thousands of won, and from there on the price per point fluctuated wildly.'
Perhaps this was a reward that even my office worker days' annual salary wouldn't be enough to cover.
However, that wasn't the end.
I flinched while looking at the quest window.
─Train your weakened body. (Repeat)
The quest that raised stats was a repeatable quest.
Of course, there was no guarantee the quest's reward would be exactly the same as now.
But if I could raise stats even by just 1 point through training......!
This was a quest I had to perform repeatedly whenever I could.
By that point, I understood.
Why articles poured out just from starting a class quest, and why they said you could aim for the very top of the rankings.
I looked at the quest window.
─Defeat a demon. (Success)
─Train your weakened body. (Repeat)
'Since the first quest reward is this much......'
What kind of reward would be waiting in the chain quest?
If one were human, one had no choice but to anticipate.
'No.'
However, I didn't anticipate.
This much was purely my will, not Grandfell's influence.
Great expectations bring great disappointments.
Right, I mustn't forget to know my place.
......Still, couldn't I purely rejoice just for this moment? After all the hardship I went through! The aftereffects of the harsh training over the past week still remained in my body.
However, I didn't show any emotion at all.
A shirt and slacks soaked through with sweat.
Two legs that seemed about to collapse at any moment.
However, I stood up from my seat without the slightest delay.
My current appearance was expressing most appropriately me, Lee Ho-yeol's dark history that was Grandfell.
What on earth was pride that I couldn't honestly express anything?
I started thinking then stopped, thinking that thinking itself was the problem.
Adolescence was all like that. Well.
.
.
.
My stats had risen.
There was no bonus effect like the body's fatigue cleanly disappearing.
So......
Having returned home, I had no choice but to prepare a meal with hands trembling like hand tremors.
The menu was flawless.
Chicken breast and fresh vegetables.
A very high-quality meal even accompanied by rye bread.
The problem was cutting.
Thud thud─
I looked at the crookedly cut vegetables.
Then shamelessly said.
"Sometimes cutting things differently isn't bad either."
Holding up a particularly crookedly cut carrot piece, I continued.
"This looks like it's shaped after stars in the night sky."
Sure you do.
Though somehow I felt like I was getting more shameless as time went on.
This too was something I had to adapt to.
As I said, what more could it be than spitting in my own face?
......Still, let's make at least one excuse.
If it had been before, this would have been a menu I'd have finished within 5 minutes.
Cut the rye bread in half and put chicken breast salad inside.
Because I could simply solve a meal with a sandwich.
However, I held a fork and knife in both hands and had a very elegant meal.
Though my forearms trembled so much I ended up spilling chicken breast salad on the table.
"......Poisoning."
My pride didn't allow even small mistakes.
"It seems pesticide remained in this part."
I had no choice but to seriously ponder.
'......How about the excuse that I hit my head?'
This wasn't even filming stand-up comedy!
As expected, wouldn't pitying gazes be better than being looked at like a crazy person?
After the meal finished, fortunately with no watching eyes.
I immediately picked up the bundle of papers on the table.
Written there were the concepts of magic I'd written down while watching NetTube videos.
Though I wrote it myself, wasn't it absurd every time I looked at it?
'Above all, what's more absurd is that I understand this.'
Magic isn't creating something from nothing.
You 『Search』 for a target.
『Interfere』 with the target.
And 『Manifest』 it.
Most magic starts from searching for and interfering with mana. Mana capacity has a critical impact on searching for and interfering with that mana.......
It was quite plausible in its own way.
Not simply classified as a 'skill.'
To the degree it made me think.
Could the concept of 『magic』 really exist?
'Well, I don't know if I understood it correctly.'
Just by looking at videos, I had understood up to the process of 『Search』 and 『Interference』.
However, I still hadn't 『Manifested』 magic.
Despite investing stats in mana, in the NetTube video.
It was because it was insufficient to manifest magic.
'Because that mage's level was close to 300.'
Naturally, their mana would be a similar number.
Of course, was it simply because mana was insufficient?
Or was this also a defense mechanism to protect pride?
There was no way for me to know right now.
That said, hoping my mana would rise to that mage's level was also unconscionable.
In the end, it meant I had no choice but to dig into easier magic to the level of 『Searching』 and 『Interfering』.
'Studying when it's not even in my fate......'
Time taken to analyze one magic in a video: three days.
My head already throbbed thinking about analyzing another magic.
However, separate from such feelings, my actions had no hesitation.
I played a video on NetTube again.
I immediately began writing letters on blank paper.
"Once I adapt, the time will also be shortened."
Hoping this confidence wasn't bravado.
Desperately hoping I could keep my spoken words.
***
8 PM.
International organization, Anti Arcana United.
The lights in the AAU Korea branch office hadn't yet gone out.
"......Damn, Thursday."
That overtime continued every Thursday.
Seong Hyun-jun lay flat on his desk.
Every Thursday he missed the past.
That time when Arcana was still just a game.
"Where did it go? My work-life balance!!"
The world's greatest virtual reality game, Arcana Continent Chronicles.
When he'd gotten hired at 'Cosmo,' which developed that Arcana.
He'd really felt like he had the whole world.
What kind of company was Cosmo?
Starting with CEO Raymond Shawn, a believer in work-life balance.
While still paying annual salaries at the industry's highest level.
It was a dream workplace for all developers.
But everything changed when that CEO went missing.
Arcana was no longer a game but had become reality.
It was a matter of time before Cosmo closed its doors.
From executives to the lowest ranks, even the janitors.
All of Cosmo's employees except the missing CEO frequented courts in countries around the world as if they were their own homes.
What came down at the end of that long trial was insufficient evidence.
And now was now.
"......Really Raymond, know that if you fall into my hands, you're dead."
Seong Hyun-jun had been forcibly hired at the AAU Korea branch.
Right, he should be grateful.
In these times of employment difficulty, to secure a position at a public corporation.
Moreover, it was work where he could contribute to international peace by utilizing his experience.
However, gratitude and resentment were separate emotions.
Seong Hyun-jun asked his senior in the next seat.
"Senior, still, there won't be a new update by this week, right?"
"I really hope so."
"Seeing there's no notice until 8 o'clock, there probably isn't one, right?"
New update.
That was a different way of expressing Arcana's erosion into reality.
The appearance of Arcana overlaying reality.
There was no more appropriate expression than 'new update.'
Naturally, colleagues in the same situation as Seong Hyun-jun couldn't know about that update.
"How would I know? Those whims are too severe."
Only Raymond would know, wouldn't he?
They could only guess.
Because Raymond wouldn't be dead.
The proof was Arcana's official website that had been operating normally until now.
Thanks to Arcana's website, the world could know players' levels and rankings.
They could also know which player cleared which rift, and through that, they could pay rewards to players.
Because that website existed, the world could keep turning.
What on earth was he thinking?
Seong Hyun-jun scratched his head vigorously.
"That Raymond person...... No wait, is he even human? Anyway. Why on earth is he doing this? Isn't it a bad hobby? Overtime every Thursday. It still feels like he's servicing Arcana."
However, even that grumbling didn't last long.
It wasn't from anywhere in particular.
Lamentations burst out from all over the office.
"Shit. An update dropped!"
"Ah, seriously. I put in for leave tomorrow."
"This won't do. I'm writing my resignation and going to catch that bastard Raymond."
Right, there hadn't been an update for about a month.
They'd somewhat expected it.
Seong Hyun-jun slowly got up and accessed Arcana's official website.
Just as his colleagues said, update details really were uploaded on the website.
The author was naturally Raymond, right?
"......What kind of crazy?"
"I-is this for real?"
"No, is that bastard Raymond sane?!"
Those reading through the update details couldn't help but be shocked.
This was an update that made absolutely no sense.
『A new demon visits by your side.
New rift, 'Count's Castle' is added.
New named monster, 'Count Ascura': Lv.430
New rift, 'Count's Territory' is added.
New monsters are added.
'Count Ascura's Confidant': Lv.390
'Count Ascura's Knight': Lv.350
'Count Ascura's Soldier': Lv.300
New rift, 'Territory Outskirts' is added.
New monsters are added.
'Blood-stained Beasts': Lv.220~Lv.250
'Blood-stained Bandit': Lv.230』
"They already brought out Count Ascura?"
A named monster at a whopping level 430.
The current player ranking 1st place, Skal's level was only 401.
A gap of a whopping 30 levels.
Moreover, Count Ascura was a demon race monster.
Growth-type monster.
Tremendous status abnormalities.
If you considered even the characteristics of demon races released into reality.......
"......Senior, this wasn't updated to be cleared, was it?"
The new rift absolutely couldn't be cleared.
"Right. This is just telling us to suck our thumbs and watch."
If this had been update details from when it was a game, it wouldn't have mattered.
How are you doing balance patches for players?
They'd get cursed at a bit.
But eventually, players would die dozens or hundreds of times and discover a strategy.
However, this was reality.
Where if you died, that was the end.
Furthermore, if the rift wasn't conquered, that terrible demon would be released into reality.
It was a terrible reality.
Ring ring─
Phones poured in from everywhere.
However, not one person answered the phone.
Because everyone realized the seriousness of the situation.
"......Would it be difficult even if rankers joined forces?"
"We'd have to try to know, but it won't be easy. You know too that demon races aren't opponents you can take down by rushing in with numbers, right?"
"If we received help from the Mage Tower's NPCs......"
"Those NPCs would move readily. In the setting I know, the Mage Tower's mages only move when crisis comes to the Mage Tower. Whether Earth is destroyed or whatever happens. As long as the Mage Tower is fine, those things won't move."
Seong Hyun-jun said.
"Then putting the Count aside for now. What about the other mobs?"
"Guilds, and they'd have to move as an alliance to even try."
"So there's not absolutely no solution. Hunt the mobs in the outskirts or territory rifts and raise levels. Then challenge the castle rift where the Count is!"
"I wonder, will there be time? I think the rift collapsing will be faster."
"……."
Seong Hyun-jun lost his words.
Really, was there no method?
Then what would happen to us?
Ring ring─
"First, let's answer the phone."
At the senior's words, Seong Hyun-jun answered the phone with a blank expression.
An excited reporter's voice came from beyond the receiver.
However, he couldn't concentrate.
"......I'm sorry. We have nothing to say as of now."
***
Early dawn.
"?"
My vision blinked as I sat at the table filling in paper.
"!"
[Class Quest: Prelude to Counterattack]
Last demon hunter.
Let the demons know that the time for counterattack has come.
─Defeat a demon. (Success)
─Train your weakened body. (Repeat)
─Hunt vampires. (In Progress) ▼
Vampires.
I put down my pen.
"An inferior race is interfering with precious time."
I murmured lowly.
"I will hold them accountable and punish them severely."
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