Episode 8. Ted's Siege Warfare (5)
‘The steal chance is 15%.’
Ted hurriedly began tapping away at the calculator in his head.
His total mana was 830.
He had used 400 of that to cast
Remaining mana: 430. Of that, 100 for
He used another 50 for
However, a small amount of mana had regenerated during the roughly twenty minutes of combat.
His remaining mana was approximately 180.
So he could use it approximately twenty times.
‘Even if the steal chance is 15%, if I try twenty times, I'll succeed about 95% of the time.’
The exact probability of failing more than twenty times was 3.7% or less.
“
Having finished his calculations, Ted began to steal.
Ted's stealing began with a failure that, for some reason, felt like an obvious, acceptable outcome.
However, Ted smiled with complete composure.
‘Just as I thought, he can't move.’
Earlier, when Ryunghen's magic had flown toward him, Paragon hadn't defended himself even though it could have been a fatal blow.
He had failed to properly undergo
‘Keep going!’
And that suspicion proved to be exactly right.
And so, even though Paragon knew he was being stolen from, he couldn't move to interfere with Ted.
He couldn't even turn his head to recognize Ted. In other words, the steal chance remained intact!
With certainty, Ted continued casting the
With a very triumphant expression!
….
Three minutes was all it took for Ted's expression to crumble.
Around the three-minute mark, the seventeenth Steal failure popped up.
‘…Does this even make sense?’
Ted had used Steal every time the cooldown came back up. Yet the 15% chance had failed a staggering seventeen times in a row without a single success.
The probability of failing seventeen times in a row was approximately 6.3%.
Ted frowned in displeasure. No matter how you looked at it, wasn't this too much?
‘I still have 3 chances left… First, I need to meet that bastard.’
Petty Ted often needed someone else to blame.
While waiting for the eighteenth Steal cooldown, Ted let his imagination run wild.
The bastard, drawing Ted's face on an imaginary wall and tapping it with a stone, thump thump.
A four-leaf clover with eyes, a nose, and a mouth… precisely the God of Fortune!
‘Long time no see.’
—Eek!
The bastard fled in terror. But Ted was faster.
—You said you'd let me go last time! You damned jinx!
‘It's all your fault!’
Soon Ted grabbed the bastard by the collar and shook him mercilessly, back and forth. The powerless bastard flailed limply.
It was a warning to behave himself.
…The delusion ended there.
Perhaps Ted's delusion had some efficacy; fortunately, the eighteenth
‘I got it!’
Ted opened the status window of the item that had entered his inventory.
[Rank A] [Chronicle] Skill Orb material.
A black gem that trembled while emitting murky demonic energy from his hand.
‘Huh? This is….’
Chronicle material!
Ted's jaw dropped.
‘This is insane.’
It went without saying, but Face Chronicle was an incredibly vast game. A game with an annual user base of a staggering 1.5 billion!
Naturally, the number of skills and items was astronomically large to match.
The number of skills publicly revealed online alone was approximately 100,000. There were estimates that including unrevealed ones, there were 150,000.
But it didn't end there.
Face Chronicle always had room to create new skills.
And materials with the [Chronicle] designation were items capable of
‘This really… has infinite potential, doesn't it?’
Storing the Skill Orb in his inventory, Ted came up with a good idea that could combine with it.
‘If I meet Brahman, the God of Blacksmiths, the Master Blacksmith, and give him this….’
If such a tremendous material passed through the hands of the only level 1,000 Master Blacksmith.
No matter what came out, it would definitely be extraordinary.
Just as Ted was wracking his brain over the newly obtained item.
Srrrrrk….
Archlich Paragon's body began to crumble.
At the same time, status windows began scrolling up from above his head to below his chin.
All Stats +50
Maximum mastery increase for skill
Ted, the number one contributor to hunting a boss monster of a whopping level 500.
Yet Ted's level was merely in the early 200s.
Thanks to that, his level rose by 21 at once. It was truly tremendous experience. Additionally, he had obtained a monstrous title that raised all stats by a whopping 50.
It was called All Stats +50, but in terms of levels, it was stat increases equivalent to 50 levels.
On top of that, a title that exceeded the skill mastery limit!
With this, Ted could raise the mastery of his
It was a record-breaking reward obtained in a single blow.
However, Ted didn't jump for joy or do a celebratory dance.
No, rather, he solemnly bowed his head.
“Huu…….”
“……Heketan….”
“Master… Ugh… How could you leave like this….”
What lay on the ground was no longer a human form, but Heketan's corpse.
NPCs hurriedly ran over and gathered near his corpse, which was gradually dematerializing into mana after death.
An NPC who had come as Heketan's assistant even fell to the ground and wept.
A victory was a victory. But it was not a happy victory at all.
Unlike outsiders, when NPCs die, that's the end.
‘….’
Master of the Warrior Academy, and Knight of the Wave, Heketan.
Today was the day he was erased from the continent of Face.
* * *
An adjutant NPC came to the hunting party that had returned to the territory.
After checking a few reports, he mentioned the hunting party's conduct.
“We are busy preparing for the defensive battle right now, so once the siege warfare ends safely, there will be a merit evaluation regarding this incident.”
Ted nodded and returned to the academy with Raiden.
His level was now 232.
He could now equip the
Since the Expert Marksman's Uniform set did not include a belt, he could equip it immediately.
Minimum Level Requirement: 220
Durability: 325 / 325
Defense: 78
—Additional Options—
Vitality: +27
Ted, having equipped the item, opened his status window.
“Status window.”
< Ted > Level: 232 (1 Rebirth)
Class: Musketeer / Race: Human
Title: Throne of the Six Desires, The Howling, Qualified as a Hero, Heartstealer,
Achievement: Stubborn Sniper, Righteous Thief, Survival Expert
Innate Ability: 1. Indomitable
— Life: 4,814 / Mana: 1,224 —
Strength: 211 / Agility: 623
Vitality: 521 / Intelligence: 281
Sight: 342
Attack Power: 23,433.8 / Defense: 1,178
—All Stats: +25
—Additional Life: +10%
—Additional Mana: +10%
—Additional Defense: +100
—Additional Life: 10%
—Additional Life: 5%
—Maximum mastery increase for all Thief-type skills: 10%
—Mana consumption decrease for all Thief-type skills: 10%
—Activates when Life falls to 10%. Adds 50% of total Attack Power to Physical and Magic Defense for 1 minute. (Cooldown: 7 days)
All Stats +50
Maximum mastery increase for skill
Passive Skill:
It had been a while since he opened his detailed status window.
Looking at it all gathered like this, he had collected quite a lot.
Ted's level was 232, but his stats, achievements, and titles were far superior to those of users at the same level. His overall stat level was similar to users in the 300s.
‘The siege warfare starts tomorrow… Let's rest a bit today.’
Ted logged out.
In a large-scale event like siege warfare, he would surely end up playing continuously without sleep.
He had to sleep in advance to prevent any mishaps.
“Huu….”
Cheon Gyeong-u saved the video of this playthrough for Elder Cheon Gyeong-u.
And then he fell into a deep sleep.
“Mmm… mmnya… you little Dukkugi….”
However, he enjoyed Face Chronicle even in his dreams.
It was truly the visage of a gaming addict.
* * *
“…I am ashamed, my lord.”
“I see… so that's what happened.”
Count Ssaullon, having received the report, let out a heated sigh.
Heketan. He had been one of the ten strongest in Count Ssaullon's house.
Count Ssaullon felt troubled for two reasons.
First was the death of Heketan, with whom he had a personal friendship.
Second was the loss of part of the strong force needed to stop the siege warfare.
“Very well. Bring the next agenda.”
Yet though his chest felt tight enough to burst, the Count maintained a cool head.
If he couldn't stably stop the siege warfare, there would be even greater damage.
He pushed the preparations for defense even harder.
“The next agenda concerns the outsider who showed the most outstanding performance in this hunting party.”
The adjutant presented the report.
The Count's expression changed moment by moment as he checked the report.
“Is this… truly the truth?”
Count Ssaullon had believed until then that it had been slain by the hunting party's combined strength.
But the report contained an unbelievable story.
“An outsider, and a mere 2-star outsider at that… slew a monster that five 3-stars couldn't handle together. Does this make sense?”
An absurd report.
However, the report's author was none other than Viscount Ryunghen.
At a time like this, there was no reason for Viscount Ryunghen to file a false report.
“Verify the report's authenticity.”
“Yes, sir!”
Soon, Viscount Ryunghen, having been contacted, entered the Count's office personally.
“Is the report true?”
“Yes. I swear by the name of Grand Archmage Rune that not an inch of it is false.”
As he finished speaking, blue light flickered from Ryunghen's body, and mana gathered to form a dot between his eyebrows.
It was an oath that mages made, wagering their mana cores.
If it was proven false, they would destroy their mana core—the very essence of a mage… an oath of truth.
Even though there was no need to go that far, Ryunghen had taken the oath.
Because he had something additional to mention.
“My lord… Your Excellency Count Ssaullon… you must hire him as a mercenary.”
“Hah….”
“With his great strength, we can protect the County even more safely.”
Count Ssaullon closed his eyes and furrowed his brow.
He had begun various complicated calculations.
“We shall wait and see for now.”
It was the Count's answer after much deliberation.
“May I ask the reason?”
“Ryunghen. Do you think you can control his power?”
“….”
Viscount Ryunghen's mouth shut.
Indeed. Ted was not someone born and raised in Ssaullon County. Thus, he had no reason to risk his life in the siege warfare.
And decisively, he was an outsider. From an NPC's perspective, outsiders fundamentally didn't listen well.
All the more so if they possessed power.
So he was like a blade without a handle. One that might fall and cut one's own foot at any moment.
“However….”
“Yes. One could argue it's best to hire him just in case. If tied by money, he might be safe. However, we don't need strength of that magnitude. There's no reason to deliberately use unnecessary funds.”
He didn't know the exact level of force, but based on the prowess shown in the report, he was top-tier even among 3-stars.
This man called Ted could potentially devour the entire defensive war by himself.
That much was fine. But siege warfare and defensive warfare—in other words, all territory wars—had a system called the
It applied only to outsiders, a system where points had to be distributed according to merit.
In this system, there were
If Ted were hired and defended the territory by himself?
Those points would skyrocket. At the same time, the rewards that had to be given would also skyrocket.
This was one of the reasons lords couldn't casually hire outsider mercenaries.
“Moreover, I looked into our opponent
If they didn't hire him, even if Ted went wild and participated in the defensive war on his own, the points paid out would be extremely low compared to Hired Mercenary Participation.
It was a way to cut costs.
“I will defend this County. And it shouldn't be too difficult even without that outsider's strength.”
Having accessed various information, the Count was certain.
That there was no need to be overly tense. Patak was strong, but they were not his house's match.
Still, he remained uneasy about the motives of those who had declared siege warfare.
“Say no more about the outsider. Now then, next agenda.”
The Count finished the remaining agendas and fell asleep.
Unaware that a tomorrow which would overturn all his expectations was being made.