Chapter 20
The next day.
Jung-hoon returned to the VR room at 1 p.m.
“Hey, you’re here?”
As soon as he logged in, Cheonma greeted him as if he had been there all along.
“Have you eaten? You need to fill your stomach if you want to play the game intensively.”
“Yes. I’ve had a hearty meal, two bowls of rice with soup.”
“Excellent. After all, there’s nothing that can beat rice with soup in terms of cost-effectiveness.”
“No, but the food isn’t the most important thing right now. Hyung, are you okay from yesterday?”
Jung-hoon recalled what had happened just before he logged off yesterday.
After completing his class change yesterday, Karpe’s first action was shopping.
“I bought a few items from the costume shop and put them on. The One Piece guys might recognize me.”
“I need to change my hair color and buy a hat or something.”
After cheaply disguising himself for 2,000 won, Karpe sat down at the town fountain and began editing his gameplay footage.
“Oh, right. There. Cut out all the personal status window parts and mute the sound. Hmm… Alright. I guess that’s enough, I’ll just upload it.”
It only took 10 minutes for Cheonma to finish editing the video with the help of Cheonma. The surroundings suddenly turned slightly red, and an alert sound was heard.
Beep beep.
After about 5 seconds, the red environment and the alert sound disappeared.
“What, what was that?”
“The timer went off. You have 30 minutes left until your login time ends.”
“Oh, is that what it was?”
Lase was a game with designated play times.
Maximum of 10 hours per day, with time reset at 6 a.m.
And the system that notified you when there were 30 minutes left of playtime.
“Wow, time really flies. I’ve already played for 9 hours and 30 minutes straight.”
Well, come to think of it, a lot had happened during that time.
Starting from the tutorial, then the One Piece, Squirrel Dungeon, and finally the Myth class change.
They were all major events that couldn’t be deleted from memory.
“I still can’t believe all this happened in just one day… Hyung, why do you look like that?”
“Hey, what am I supposed to do?”
“Why are you suddenly saying nonsense out of nowhere?”
“What happens to me when you log out and leave?”
“….What?”
Karpe realized what he was saying and had the same expression as Cheonma.
The two could only stare at each other with blank faces.
“Yeah, it’s unprecedented… situations like this…”
“Other overlords can just come and go with their players, but I only have you.”
“That’s right.”
What will really happen? He couldn’t grasp it at all.
“Well, don’t you have a solution?”
“Even if I try to think positively, I can’t think of anything? Really, worst-case scenario, my existence might disappear as soon as you log out.”
If not, he could only imagine floating around in some strange void.
“…I’m sorry, but I have no way to help.”
“Right! You have unlocking, don’t you? Unlock the login time limit with that! Well, can’t you do something like that?!”
“Will it work? Just, unlock my status as an overlord and bring me out with unlocking?”
• Oh! That sounds good.
“Oh, forget about it.”
Seems like he’s in a daze.
Despite acting rationally and coldly, he’s spouting nonsense, which shows, right?
“Phew.”
Karpe sighed. Despite trying various things with “unlock,” like Cheonma’s confusion, nothing worked.
“Give up.”
• No! Don’t give up! Don’t abandon me!
“How can I do something that’s impossible?”
Meanwhile, the remaining 30 minutes were passing by.
[You have 10 seconds until forced logout. Please log out for a smooth exit.]
“Prepare yourself mentally. It was a short time, but I was happy to be with you.”
[10… 9… 8…]
• Yeah. You did well too. No matter how many times I regress in the future, I won’t forget about you.
“That’s a bit… If I regress, my Myth class will also disappear.”
• You’re such a bad guy, Cheonma.
Seeing Cheonma still gloomy despite his attempt at a joke, Karpe felt a bit bitter.
He couldn’t offer practical help, but could he somehow boost Cheonma’s courage?
“I’m not sure if this will work, but…”
• Huh?
“I’ll cast a powerful spell for you.”
• A blessing spell? When did you learn such a skill?
“Cheonma, did you finally get it?”
• What?
That was the last word.
[You have consumed all your login time. Forced logout.]
Pop!
Karpe, returning to reality, opened his eyes and moved his neck around.
“Phew. Stiff.”
After lying down in the same position for 10 hours, his body felt heavy.
‘Is everything alright?’
Although he had cast the most powerful resurrection spell he knew, there was nothing else he could do.
“Phew.”
A sigh escaped involuntarily, but since his login time had ended, there was nothing more he could do. With nothing left to offer, Karpe opened a channel and uploaded the video before returning home.
That was the end of yesterday’s events.
“Still, I avoided the worst-case scenario of being erased or regressing. What happened? Did you really get dragged away?”
• Well, I was actually dragged to some space after you left.
“Wow. Could it really be the realm of overlords?”
• No, not that. I was dragged to my room.
“…Your room?”
Karpe asked in disbelief at the unexpected answer, but Cheonma just nodded calmly.
• Yeah, my room where I used to play the game until I was sealed as an overlord. It was unchanged, exactly as it was before.
Of course, he couldn’t leave the room, and electronic devices like TVs or PCs didn’t work, but it was definitely Cheonma’s room.
“Is that even possible?”
• It actually happened, so what can we do? My guess is that it’s probably a space manifested based on my memories. Of course, I don’t know the exact mechanism behind it.
In a game where regression is possible, this level of surprise is hardly surprising, Cheonma added.
• It’s a bit boring, but I can read books and the bed is comfortable enough to spend time in.
“Anyway, I’m relieved. It’s not a strange place.”
He felt surprisingly at ease. Perhaps during the past 10 hours, he had grown more attached than he realized.
“By the way…”
• Yeah, it’s a bit noisy, isn’t it?
Karpe was near the fountain in the center of the village where he had logged out yesterday.
Surprisingly, the area was packed with people unlike yesterday.
The reason was very clear.
“Buying coins! Selling coins at a high price! I offer the best rates around here!”
“Excuse me. Can you please follow some moral standards? I saw that newbie over there first.”
“What’s the point of arguing? I offered the deal first.”
People trying to buy coins from new users just starting the game.
“Arrest the scammers. If anyone has seen them, please report them.”
“Hey, aren’t you that familiar face over there? Just stand still for a moment. Take off your costume items.”
“He’s running away!”
“Why isn’t he staying there?!”
Angry users were gathered, shouting. It was unprecedented for so many people to gather at the fountain since the launch of Lasé.
-It’s probably because of the video you uploaded.
“Oh, come to think of it, I didn’t check that.”
-What? No way, why didn’t you check it after uploading it with so much effort?
“You… “
Cheonma was unexpectedly moved by Karpe’s statement. Of course, Karpe had checked the video despite what he said.
And he was shocked.
“What, what’s this? Why are the views like this?”
Karpe blinked for a moment before checking again. But of course, the number remained the same.
“400,000???”
He wondered if he had mistaken the channel, but that wasn’t the case either.
“No, I just created this channel yesterday?”
Even well-known channels don’t get this many views in 12 hours, right?
Perhaps because emails and messages were blocked, there were already over 1,000 comments on the single video.
-Where do we meet this NPC? And do you accept coins for junk?
-Can you please share the NPC’s location… If it’s difficult to share publicly, please send a mail to [email protected]…
└ Me too. [email protected]…
└ Approved.
└ Please, me too.
-What do we get for completing the quest? Since you’re sharing information, make it exciting.
-CheonmaTV, I wish you all the best, and please send quest tips via email…
80% of the comments were requests for the NPC’s location.
-It’s probably a hoax.
└ Yeah, it’s a hoax. Does it make sense that something undisclosed would exist in the beginner’s village for six months?
└ True. The number of users passing by there is in the billions.
A 15% hoax theory.
“You’re really good at fighting. Do you happen to belong to a guild…?”
“Do you need a video editor and uploader? JC Management guarantees high quality…”
And there were comments trying to recruit Karpe himself, about 5%.
“You’ve become a star overnight. How about trying to become a real streamer now?”
“I can’t. I don’t have the connections for that.”
“You’ll get used to it as you go. If it doesn’t work out, you can just show your actions like in this video.”
“I’ll think about it.”
The video he uploaded hoping to make coin supply smoother and to give those Momonism guys a hard time turned out to be a hit. He was just stunned.
“Anyway, I need to move.”
Since he had to avoid places with people as much as possible, Karpe hurried out of the village.
“Wow, everyone’s gone.”
“Information spreads in an instant.”
There was no longer a line of users waiting to do the mutant deer quest. There were just some users forming parties to hunt deer, a common sight.
“I don’t see any Wonpiddan either.”
“Hmm. It would be suspicious if Momonism disappeared at the same time. That money ghost guy would definitely notice… Did something else happen?”
He ventured into the forest, but there was no attack from Wonpiddan like last time. Only wild animals were spotted here and there in the forest.
“Alright, no one’s here.”
“Shall we begin then? Status window!”
Karpe entered the sparsely populated forest to do a final check on what he obtained before leaving the beginner’s city.
He needed monsters to test his attack skills.
Ding.
[Name: Karpe]
[Level: 10]
[HP: 905/905]
[MP: 250/250]
[Strength: 1(+31) Agility: 1(+37) Stamina: 1(+29) Dexterity: 1(+33) Magic: 1(+29)]
• Distributable Bonus Status: 45
[Titles (10)]
• 0-Star Mastermind and 9 others
[Masterminds]
0-Star - Cheonma Jijon (Irregular)
[Skills (5)]
10-Star - Unsealing Lv. 10
8-Star – Mado Engineering Lv. 1 (New!)
7-Star - Elemental Mastery Lv. 1 (New!)
3-Star - Elemental Arrow Lv. 1 (New!)
3-Star – Striking Lv. 1 (New!)
• Distributable Bonus Skill Points: 19
“I’m speechless. How is this the status window of someone who just advanced now?”
The weight of the status received from items and title effects alone was a whopping 159.
In terms of level, it was equivalent to level 32.
“Hmm… I may have crossed a line.”
The status window that even a layperson would find suspicious, prompting the thought: “Isn’t this a bit unusual?”
That’s how abnormal the things obtained yesterday were.
First, just the titles obtained after the tutorial were added up to 5.
[Legendary Dungeon Complete]
• You have defeated the rare mutant monsters that occasionally appear in legendary dungeons.
• Experience & drop rate increased by 10% in legendary grade dungeons.
[One Shot to the Lord’s Side]
• You have defeated monsters 10 levels higher than yourself in one shot.
• Additional 10% damage on first attack.
[Gamna-bit!]
• Cleared the dungeon without allowing a single attack.
• Agility +2
[Different from Others]
• You have discovered a hidden class.
• Bonus skill point +1 increase
[Myth]
• Advanced to a class of myth grade.
• Bonus status points increase by +1 with each level up. Increased probability of appearance of job-related skills when skill pack is opened.
“Perhaps, there might be no one else in the beginner’s city with titles like these, right?”
“Why bother saying it? Even I only had a record of 7 titles at the beginner’s city stage.”
“If I end up doing broadcasts regularly, I should probably hide the titles a bit.”
It wasn’t a joke; he didn’t know if people would start to resent him the moment these were made public.
For the users who had been there since the game opened, having less than 3 titles was the norm.
After checking all the titles, the two moved on to the next section.
“Finally, skills!”
In the world of Lasé, where there were plenty of things to see and enjoy, skills were still considered the highlight.
“Indeed, despite Unsealing being a scammy ability, it lacked visual appeal.”
Sword beams from one’s own hands, exploding magic! It was something one might have imagined at a young age.
“Skill window!”
Karpe eagerly opened the skill window.
“Huh?”
• Hm?
They were faced with a situation they had never anticipated.
Mad Engineering.
Elemental Mastery.
Elemental Arrow.
Striking.
Karpe had gained a total of 4 new skills the moment he completed his advancement.
Among them, the 8-star skill ‘Mad Engineering’ was blinking intermittently. It seemed to be urging him to touch it.
“What does this mean?”
• Hmm, I’m not sure. It seems to be a job-specific skill since it’s the first time I’ve seen it.
“I’ll press it for now.”
Ding.
[A item that syncs with the skill ‘Mad Engineering’ exists in the inventory.]
“Inventory?”
Karpe reflexively opened the inventory after reading the notification.
“Huh?”
There were 8 acorns blinking just like Mad Engineering.
[Would you like to synthesize magic materials (attribute acorns) through Mad Engineering?]
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