“My name is Clorence.”
The staff member seated Seo Minjun on the sofa in the VIP room.
“I have been waiting for you, Adventurer.”
Clorence poured a cup of tea and handed it over, then got straight to the point.
“The Adventurer’s Guild is a chain with branches across the world, but Hander Village has an unusually high number of beginner adventurers.”
Naturally, that would be the case. This was a beginner village where only those below level 15 could operate.
“So every adventurer who comes here is a new face. They possess no more fame than street thugs. But.”
Clorence spoke.
“There is quite a rumor circulating within the guild. That one adventurer overcame every disaster in the Dimensional Rift and even slew Crocotus.”
In Stunning Life, all players were set as adventurers who had crossed over from another dimension.
And the “Dimensional Rift” Clorence spoke of was the tutorial.
“There is a matter I wish to entrust to you, Adventurer. Will you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Actually, the goblins in the western forest of Hander Village were originally creatures that did not emerge from the forest. However, they have been raiding the village periodically since fifty years ago.”
Clorence explained.
“The reason is that an Elder Goblin has been hiding in this village. Our Adventurer’s Guild has pursued him for a long time, but we could never find him. I wish to request this of you, Adventurer.”
[Hidden Quest Triggered]
▶This quest is part of the main scenario.
▶This quest has triggered because the player has initiated the main scenario.
『Slay the Elder Goblin』
▶Reward: Adventurer’s Medal and Fame, and 1 piece of Unique-grade or higher equipment.
Seo Jeongin’s prediction had been correct. It really was the main scenario. And not only that.
—Elder Goblin!
She shouted.
—Wow, that actually existed!
“What is it?”
—It’s one of the oldest baits in the beginner villages of Stunning Life.
It had been an unsolved problem for the fifty years since Stunning Life launched.
‘Elder Goblin.’
Several NPCs in Hander Village would often mutter to themselves things like, “If only someone slew the Elder Goblin, the village wouldn’t be raided anymore.”
So countless players had speculated that there was a hidden quest involving the monster called Elder Goblin and tried to uncover it, but all had failed.
That bait, which had been the hottest topic at launch, slowly cooled over fifty years, and now no one bothered searching for the Elder Goblin anymore.
—This… If I upload this video, how many views would it get…
Immense excitement was visible on Seo Jeongin’s face.
It was a fifty-year-old bait. Fifty years!
Part of the main scenario shrouded in mystery, and the greatest unsolved problem of the beginner village.
The “Elder Goblin” quest that everyone was curious about, captured in a single video and uploaded to MyTube?
She was certain that there wasn’t a single Stunning Life user who could resist it.
“I will do it.”
Seo Minjun accepted the quest.
“Thank you, Adventurer. It is said that the Elder Goblin was last discovered in the Typaeum Cave west of the village.”
“Typaeum?”
—It’s probably the name of a region on this map.
Seo Jeongin said.
“Finding that cave will not be easy, but I believe in you, Adventurer.”
Clorence added.
***
After that, a full five hours passed.
“What the hell, what do you mean there’s a cave!”
Seo Minjun, who had been filled with fighting spirit, was completely exhausted from boredom.
West of the village was a forest covering roughly one million pyeong—about the size of World Cup Park.
Despite searching every inch of this forest for five hours, he had yet to find the cave.
—Hidden quests aren’t supposed to be easy to find.
Seo Jeongin had said that at first.
“Is it normal for it to be this hard?”
—Of course. Otherwise someone would have found it in fifty years. Still, the quest info probably isn’t wrong.
She analyzed it calmly.
—The cave definitely exists. Search properly. I’ll help you.
And she had truly opened “Hander Village map” on Google and coached him on search directions.
However, after five hours even she exploded in anger.
—What the hell, what do you mean there’s a cave!
“Calm down.”
—We need to film the Elder Goblin and upload it to MyTube quickly! The view jackpot is right in front of us, what kind of quest is like this, where we can’t even find the monster from the start!
“What’s further west from here?”
Seo Minjun, who had now left the forest, asked. The only thing before his eyes was a rugged rocky area.
—There’s nothing there. Because past that is a cliff.
“A cliff?”
—Yeah.
From what Seo Jeongin said, Hander Village was like a mushroom-shaped island village. Waves continuously crashed beneath the cliff, making it a rocky island with a mushroom-like concave underside.
“Wait. A cliff?”
Suddenly, something came to Seo Minjun’s mind.
—Huh, what?
“That’s it!”
—What is?
“Jumping off the cliff is the key.”
—Have you finally lost it? Oppa, log out and get some rest…
But Seo Minjun had grounds for his reasoning.
First, there hadn’t even been a rabbit hole in the western forest and rocky area, let alone a cave.
“Typaeum.”
The cave’s name was the second piece of evidence.
“Do you know what that is?”
—What is it?
“In ancient Greece, sporting events like the Olympiade that became the origin of the Olympics didn’t allow women to even spectate. So if there was a woman secretly watching the games…”
—If there was?
“They threw her off a cliff to her death.”
—…
“That cliff was called Typaeum.”
—How do you even know that? That’s not common knowledge.
“Anyway, it’s related to the Olympics.”
—I really have nothing to say.
Sports pervert. Olympics otaku. The kind of person who made you think, “This guy should compete in the Olympics.”
That was Seo Minjun.
“Anyway, I’ll jump off the cliff.”
—No, wait.
*Ta-da-da-dak.*
Seo Minjun immediately crossed the rocky terrain and began running toward the western edge.
—Are you really going to jump? If you fall there, you can’t get back up. You can’t leave the beginner village unless you ride the Gate at level 15. The moment you fall into the sea, it’s a death judgment. No matter how well you swim, you die the instant you hit the water!
“No, I won’t die.”
—Why won’t you die?
“Our Dumbbell will cast Death Resistance on me.”
—Huh?
Listening to him, it made sense.
“Even if I fail and fall into the sea, I’ll survive for ten seconds, and during that time I’ll use a Village Return Scroll. That’s my plan.”
—…
“But I think I can find it. So wait and see.”
Seo Minjun’s intuition was usually correct.
*Tak.*
He lightly kicked off from the cliff edge.
***
‘How on earth would anyone find this kind of hidden piece?’
To be precise, leaping off the cliff was indeed the correct method.
However, rather than falling into the water, there was a cave ten meters below the cliff.
*Ta-ang!*
While falling, Seo Minjun stretched out his arm, grabbed the cave, pulled himself up, and entered.
[You have discovered a hidden location.]
『The Elder Goblin’s Hideout』
“I’ve found Hander Village’s fifty-year-old bait. Let’s head inside.”
He delivered his line.
While pointing his spear and shield forward.
***
One unexpected fact.
‘Oppa has a talent for games.’
Setting aside combat ability, he had a talent for solving puzzles and finding hidden pieces.
Seo Jeongin made that judgment, and shortly after.
“Is this even human…”
She couldn’t hide her shock at his combat ability.
It was closer to “massacre” than “hunting.”
Rather than feeling tension by empathizing with the hunter, it was a scene where you felt pity for the goblins.
Those monsters notorious for tormenting newbies in Stunning Life were popping like balloons pricked by needles.
Though it was a “rather large needle.”
*Shuwook-! Kwajik!*
He threw his spear. Then he bashed a charging goblin with his shield, sending it flying.
—Return!
He recalled the thrown spear and struck down.
That figure looked somewhat familiar.
Because it was his home turf.
—Throw Spear!
The spear thrown as if training at the athletes’ village flew with tremendous force and ended the goblin’s breath.
—*Hap!*
The shield thrown in the exact same posture as a discus throw also smashed the goblin’s head.
—Return!
He resummoned it through the combo command of Transcendently Cast Throw Spear.
—Throw Spear!
He threw it again.
The spear never missed; the damage was one-shot-one-kill.
The skill ‘Throw Spear’ determined damage based on Strength and the weapon’s throwing attack power, but Seo Minjun’s strength was already far beyond newbie levels due to the ‘Tutorial Pioneer’ achievement.
Furthermore, the damage was corrected up to five times through Transcendent Casting, so low-level mobs like goblins had no way of enduring it.
Additionally, that athlete’s superhuman reflexes didn’t allow a single strike to hit him.
*Ta-ang!*
Sensing the ambush of a goblin stabbing from behind with keen senses, Seo Minjun leaped into the air.
It was a light jump for him, but to Seo Jeongin, it was a two-meter aerial tumble like a scene from an action movie.
—Return!
And he struck down with the resummoned spear shaft.
*Kwajik!*
In merely five minutes, over a dozen goblins were annihilated.
Now Seo Minjun began chasing the fleeing goblins.
*Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!*
Goblins were weak but considerably quick and fast, yet Seo Minjun was much faster.
He had even outrun the swarm of rats in the tutorial, after all.
*Kwa-ah-ang!*
Using that speed to bash with his shield, the goblin couldn’t help but have its head buried in the wall and slump down from the tremendous momentum.
‘How is this a newbie.’
The average time for newbies to catch one goblin at first was five minutes.
That was normal. No matter how much it was a game, an ordinary person who wore suits and cut steaks wasn’t used to moving their own body to fight.
The strange one was Seo Minjun. No matter how many achievement bonuses he received, this really made no sense.
‘They say the ancient Olympics were sports that militarized abilities required in war for ancient Greek warriors, right?’
Javelin throw, shield throw, running, long jump, high jump, skills like that.
Yet by coincidence, Seo Minjun had equipped the skin of a Greek warrior as his background, and wielding spear and shield, he had become completely possessed by a Spartan warrior.
—The Abandoned Heavy Infantry is a really good background.
That monster’s absurd remark burst out before the camcorder. It was after annihilating a whopping twenty-seven goblins in just ten minutes.
—They give you the Throw Spear skill from the start. They say there aren’t many backgrounds that give skills as background options.
It was true, but there was a correction. That the ‘Throw Spear’ skill was famously a useless trash skill.
That was the case until Seo Minjun used it.
‘He might really become a ranker.’
They say warrior classes are terrible, but it’s not absolute. Naturally, a high-rank warrior could beat an ordinary mage one-sidedly.
Of course, if you were talking about matches between rankers, that was a different story.
‘Still…’
Even taking that into account, Seo Minjun’s play aroused anticipation.
To the point where one wondered how far that strength would carry him in the rankings.
At least none of the athletes Seo Jeongin had seen until now fought as skillfully as that.
‘If he builds his class and skill tree well and gets equipment, he might really become a monster.’
And shortly after.
—Found it.
Seo Minjun, who had been barging into the dungeon like a runaway train, spoke.
***
[Elder Goblin]
That monster looked more like an ogre than a goblin. It was three meters tall, sitting on a stone chair with a bloated body packed with fat.
And.
“An intruder has come.”
It spoke.
—It’s a Speaking Monster!
Seo Jeongin shouted.
Some monsters in Stunning Life were capable of conversation. They possessed intelligence equal to humans, and all interactions were possible—trade, cooperation, promises, threats, murder. Even that monster might give a quest.
They were essentially a type of neutral NPC.
—Speaking Monsters guarantee views just by filming them!
Seo Jeongin shouted excitedly.
Seo Minjun was focused on his conversation with the Elder Goblin.
“You are the first human to set foot here. How did you descend the cliff?”
“I just jumped.”
“Hmm. It cannot be helped. I must kill you and move my hideout.”
The Elder Goblin rose from his seat.
He took out a large staff from behind his back, and Seo Minjun assumed a spear-throwing stance.
But at that moment.
“Ah…!”
Suddenly the Elder Goblin let out an exclamation and lowered his staff.
“Wait. Stop. You serve Athena?”
“What nonsense?”
“That owl is the symbol of the goddess Athena. Did you not know?”
The Elder Goblin pointed at Dumbbell.
“Athena?”
“Booo!”
Dumbbell flapped its wings, putting strength into its eyes.
“It seems you truly did not know. But if that owl has come to you, it is certain. You have been chosen by Athena.”
Stunning Life was a game where various worldviews were mixed. Medieval, early modern, Renaissance, even ancient times.
And there were divine-rank NPCs.
The prime example was the NPC ‘Horus’ in the temple of the Deseret Kingdom. Famous as an NPC who gave incredible blessings to visitors.
Besides that, there was ‘Loki,’ whom Stella discovered during a live stream on the arctic coast and became famous (after which no one could ever find him again), or the serpent god ‘Orochi,’ who massacred 140 players in the Yamato Kingdom map and vanished.
—But divine-rank NPCs discovered so far are extremely few. And no one has ever heard of anything like Athena.
Athena was a goddess of ancient Greece.
‘The goddess of war who wields spear and shield.’
The owl is Athena’s symbol.
It was no coincidence that an owl appeared as a reward for 50,000 points in the tutorial.
The main scenario was guiding the Abandoned Heavy Infantry before the ancient goddess of war.