Episode 9. The Siege of Tedman (7)+(AS)
‘Kuhuk!’
An indescribable rage and a dazed feeling surged from Ted’s chest. At the same time, a dizzying euphoria swept over him as if he were completely submerged in drugs.
—Krrraaaaa!
Ted, now a demonkin, had completely lost his mind.
To be precise, it wasn’t the demon, but Ted who had gone mad from the power of Berserk.
The demonkin were a race that inherently sought destruction. It was merely because the parasitism was incomplete that it couldn’t properly run amok.
But when Ted, too, fell into a state craving destruction, the synergy between the two was phenomenal.
And so, the first target of the completed demonkin Ted.
It was the nearest and strongest enemy.
None other than
Ted as a human couldn’t sense it, but Ted as a demonkin could accurately detect the Shaman Sage’s location.
“H-huh? Kyaaaak!”
—Krrraaaaa!
KWA-BOOM! KWA-BOOM!
The massive bullets fired by the 3m-tall Ted instantly pierced through the air.
The first bullet smashed through the several layers of protective barriers guarding Ruri in an instant.
Already formidable attack power, now combined with
Numerically speaking, it was an attack power that would rank in the single digits of every official ranking in the world!
Ruri, struck by such an attack, died in a single hit and was forced to log out.
—Krrraaaaa!
But that was only the beginning.
The moment he killed Ruri, Ted glimpsed something like a status window.
But even as he looked at it, he couldn’t discern what it was. Ted, loaded with a string of status abnormalities such as
Truly a boss monster!
—Krrraaaaaa!
The maddened boss monster began its rampage.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
After that.
Exactly 10 minutes later, the siege war met its end.
* * *
Ten minutes later.
It was when Ted had nearly annihilated the Partak camp.
When a single bullet was entangled with the demonkin’s supernatural ability
Such attacks were enough to smash the camp to pieces in 10 minutes.
‘Heok!’
As soon as the potion’s duration ended and his mind returned perfectly, Ted checked his surroundings first.
The army of the Partak side lay in ruins.
After full-scale battle broke out, about 4,000 users had remained in the Partak camp, but now not a single one was in sight.
‘I killed them all.’
As he looked over the battlefield, countless status windows caught Ted’s eyes.
Status windows hanging from head to toe. They were truly… the most status windows Ted had ever seen in his life.
Among them, Ted checked the status windows related to his body first.
‘What the hell is this.’
Ted looked down at his own hands.
Thick, glossy black skin on his palms. And at the ends of the membranes protruding like scales along his arms, horn-shaped blades jutted out.
All equipped items except for Black and White had been stripped off. Because his body, once 175cm, had grown gigantic to 4m.
In other words, his body was still that of a lesser demon.
—Level Bonus: 128
—Classification:
—Race: Demon
—Supernatural Ability Added: Demon Hand (魔手)
‘Huh?’
Ted’s eyes, which had been following the status window, went wide.
‘My race is Demon? And… a Boss Monster classification. Did I really become a boss monster?’
Users of Face Chronicle could play as various races if they met a few difficult conditions.
Elves, dwarves, armored humans, and so on.
But playing as a monster was impossible.
And yet now, Ted was being classified as a
A situation akin to a bug, born from the encounter between the Grand Sorcery [Parasitic Grand Sorcery] of a high-rank shaman and the [Sun Liberator Syamushion]!
‘If it’s a Boss Monster classification…’
Ted closed his eyes and thought for a moment.
Boss Monster.
The
At that moment, its HP increases 10 times for small-sized ones. Up to 1,000 times for colossal ones.
‘No way?’
Ted opened his status window and his jaw dropped.
< Ted > Level: 314(+128) (Reincarnation 1)
Class: Musketeer / Race: Demon / Classification: Boss Monster
Titles: Seat of the Six Stars, The Encompassing, Possessing the Qualifications of a Hero, Heart Stealer, One-Man Army, Siege Slaughterer
Achievements: Reckless Sniper, Righteous Thief, Survival Expert
Supernatural Ability: 1. Indomitable
— HP: 67,852 / MP: 9,757 —
‘Did I really become a boss mob? Level in the 440s? And HP at 67,852?’
A stat called
Thanks to that, his HP had increased nearly tenfold.
Truly a mind-boggling amount of HP!
At 67,000, it was roughly on par with the tanker
And that wasn’t all.
Two titles Ted had never seen before were now stacked on his status window.
Hurriedly, Ted pulled up the title status window among the countless status windows floating all around him.
—Attack Power Bonus: 2%
—Defense Bonus: 2%
—All Attribute Resistance Bonus: 5%
—Stat Generated: Presence
—All Stats Bonus: +99
‘One-Man Army? Heok! It’s the
Siege Slaughterer was an incredible achievement.
A top-tier achievement that increased attack power and defense by a percentage!
But what was truly important lay right below it.
‘To think I’d actually obtain the Presence stat in my lifetime…!’
Face Chronicle emphasizes
But balance does not always mean equality.
There were cases like this. Things that clearly existed within the framework, yet were powerful enough to trample everything else.
Such things were very rarely found across items, skills, supernatural abilities, and class combinations.
Face Chronicle had a book that collected and introduced such things, and its name was
The stat
—Additional Stat: [Presence] is generated.
Will you generate it?
‘Of course! Goodness. To think the way to obtain Presence is slaughtering 5,000 users.’
Stat: Presence.
It was a stat that allowed you to control your own presence.
When using Stealth, a stat coefficient was added to the skill, allowing one to move even more covertly.
Conversely, skills that needed to reveal one’s presence, such as
It dramatically improved the efficiency of skills that revealed and erased presence.
A stat that lets you draw attention when you want to, and not draw it when you don’t!
It was truly the jackpot.
‘Now then, let’s summarize again. What kind of state am I in right now?’
As Ted was sorting through several status windows to organize what he had ultimately gained and what had changed,
pushing aside some status windows, a red status window caught his eye.
—You have killed allies in an attack and obtained a high crime score. Therefore, an
—You have left your designated position, entered a city, and disturbed public order. Countless individuals will recognize you as an
‘Damn it…’
The moment he saw the status window, Ted panicked and searched for other status windows.
‘I tried my best not to attack NPCs… *Sigh*, in the end, I attacked them while drinking Berserk.’
Users implicitly knew.
Face Chronicle had greatly reduced the penalty for killing other users to maintain the game’s tension.
But conversely, the punishment for killing NPCs was extremely severe.
The crime score increased by 100 for killing a user. But it increased by 2,000 per NPC killed.
Just now,while rampaging mindlessly, about 50 NPCs on Count Ssauron’s side had died from Ted’s bullets.
‘…I didn’t even know I was shooting.’
The problem was that the attacks toward allies he had unwittingly committed were not processed as
As if he had committed murder while completely intoxicated. All crime scores hit Ted directly.
Because of that, Ted had stacked up an astronomical crime score and became a
Soon, powerful rankers within the Caron Kingdom. Or high-ranking NPCs from the security forces would come looking for him.
Then how should he react?
‘For now… I have to run.’
Yes. That came first.
Being a public enemy literally meant making the entire nation your foe.
He could think of his next plan after getting himself out.
‘Sigh. Why do things keep twisting around so strangely of their own accord?’
Having made his decision, Ted stood up from the Ssauron Grand Plains.
Ted, whose demonification was complete, stood about 4m tall. Once he started running, he could get outside the outer wall in no time.
‘First, I’ll use this demon body to escape the Caron Kingdom within 12 days.’
The moment he leaves the kingdom, the
Ted began running toward the nearby Pixie Kingdom.
Soon, an empty wind blew across the barren plains from which he had vanished.
* * *
Temporary Staff Office of the Count’s Domain.
Watching the situation change in an instant, Count Ssauron furrowed his brows fiercely.
“Huu. I simply cannot believe it even as I watch.”
It began with the foreigner named Ted transforming into a demonkin.
A demonkin born suddenly at the very center of the count’s army.
Because of this, the staff office was in an uproar. Because there was no one who could stop a monster with the power of at least a lesser demonkin, if not a lesser demonkin itself.
Soon the demonkin smashed part of the inner gate with a powerful attack.
“I will step out. All Three Stars, follow behind me.”
Accordingly, the count stood up, gripping his massive battle axe.
Because he was the only one here who could face such a monster alone.
“Your Excellency, Count!”
“My lord!”
Several staff members grew restless at this.
The count joining the battle.
Because it meant the situation was escalating to the worst possible outcome.
But just then, Ted, now a demonkin, left the staff office and charged into the Partak camp.
And then began to smash the Partak camp to pieces in an instant.
“Huu….”
At this, the staff officers gulped.
The demonkin was strong. Far too strong.
Soon the demonkin finished its attack and sank down on the spot. As if its strength had fled. Its momentum had died down.
“We must… eliminate that demonkin right now.”
Even in such a situation, there was one who overcame their fear and spoke correctly.
At one staff member’s words, Count Ssauron’s brow narrowed.
“No matter how powerful a demonkin, it expended such strength fighting. Now is precisely the time to strike down that axis of evil and kill it.”
“I agree as well, Your Excellency.”
At his words, the other staff members nodded.
They couldn’t give it time. The creature was still in the Ssauron Grand Plains. They had to eliminate the threat when the opportunity came.
“Hmm….”
The count listened to their words in silence, his brow furrowed.
“Your Excellency, Raiden would like to speak.”
Then, Raiden, who had been standing silently without a word, opened his mouth.
“Whatever the essence of that demonkin, its root is the foreigner Ted. We must not attack the one who turned around the chaotic situation.”
“What? Raiden, are you in your right mind?”
“Raiden, I heard that foreigner is from Sibori Academy. However, now is the time to distinguish between public and private affairs.”
“This is not a matter of public and private affairs.”
Raiden raised his voice at the staff members’ words. As the staff members tried to retort,
“Then what is it.”
The count unexpectedly took Raiden’s words.
Soon the mouths of the noisy staff members snapped shut.
“The foreigner Ted….”
From then on, Raiden spoke of what he had learned while spending a month with Ted. And what he had realized by chance.
He spoke of the foreigner Ted, who possessed something beyond internal energy.
And that it was a power even a demonkin could not contend with.
Along with Ted’s records, that story convinced the staff officers, and at the same time, painted an illusion of Ted.
‘Huu… indeed, there had to be a reason why a foreigner with so little internal energy was that strong.’
‘Then we were blessed by heaven in this siege defense.’
The staff officers remained silent like mute people who had eaten honey.
There was that kind of power in Raiden’s story.
Count Ssauron, who had been silently listening to his story, burst into a hearty laugh.
Then, a voice rang inside Raiden’s head.
Raiden’s eyes flew open in great surprise. It was a
Having said that, the count turned his eyes away from Raiden.
‘Did His Excellency know about
Even he, whose eyes were the sharpest among the Three Stars, had taken a month to find out. And even then, he couldn’t be certain what it was.
Yet Count Ssauron, who had only briefly met Ted in private, had figured it out in a single meeting.
‘No wonder he handed over the shamans so easily back then… so this is what it means to be a 3-Star, 2nd Stage… this is the level of His Excellency Count Ssauron’s ability.’
Soon the meeting ended.
Raiden came out to the plains and watched Ted gesturing incessantly in the air.
‘How peculiar. Sahyung. Is that a demonkin’s body movement?’
Soon Ted, who had been gesturing in the air, stood up and headed outside the outer wall.
‘You are leaving now. Sahyung… thank you.’
The demonkin who had safely protected the crisis-ridden County of Ssauron.
Raiden gave a sharp salute to his retreating back, his heart full of respect.
* * *
“What the. All of them at once.”
Nam Yunho let out a short sigh.
The Moonlight Hunter Roan, and following him, all his party members had logged out.
“They were going on and on about formulating a good strategy. Why did they come out like this after dying already?”
“Well, what can you do? We died, so we had to come out.”
U Yuri answered.
Everyone was in a situation where they had received death penalties.
But none of them frowned. They were simply full of regret.
After that, they all headed to the Netherworld together a few days later.
And there, they enjoyed conversations about Ted over drinks.
The good thing was, there was alcohol in the Netherworld!
Every day they held drinking sessions, talking about Ted.
“When Lord Ted, who had become a demonkin, went and attacked me, wham….”
That day too, as usual, U Yuri was completely drunk, her tongue loose, happily muttering about the moment she was attacked by Ted.
“Sis… that’s the thirtieth time you’ve told that story.”
“Shut it, you little girl… you don’t know my heart….”
“Why wouldn’t I know? I too was attacked by Lord Ted… hehe… ah, right. But sis, how did you come to like Lord Ted?”
“Huh? Well… noona. I’m curious too….”
At her words, Kon, who had been listening the whole time, and Roan, who had been blankly tilting his glass, pricked up their ears.
Things they hadn’t asked each other over the several months they had been Ted fans.
“You see….”
U Yuri hesitated for a moment, her lips twitching, then opened her mouth.
“That day was truly… a very wonderful day. Because it was the day I found happiness in my life. Truly the most wonderful day of my… such a day.”
U Yuri began to speak brightly.
But from the eyes of the smiling her, tears began to drip little by little.
A smile she almost never showed, usually being expressionless or only annoyed. And tears she had never shown before.
For several minutes, she calmly told a story she had never told anywhere before.
“…So… that’s why. I can’t help but love Lord Ted. He is the savior of my life… well, that’s about it. What about you?”
Having finished speaking, she wiped the tears from her smiling face and spoke to Tedheart.
“I….”
Soon Tedheart and even Kon. They revealed inner feelings they had never really spoken of before.
They were all stories that couldn’t help but be deep affection for Ted.
To them, Ted wasn’t just a YouTuber content creator.
He had gently caressed their lives, which had been standing on the edge of a cliff.
Truly a savior-like existence.
“Now it’s oppa’s turn!”
“Hyung… why did you come to like Lord Ted?”
The two young friends’ gazes turned to Roan.
“I don’t know, you brats.”
Roan cut his words short.
Internally, he was displeased.
Lord Ted had originally been his alone.
But to become everyone’s Lord Ted like this….
His mood was slightly hurt, but after listening to their stories, he could fully sympathize. Because he wasn’t much different.
‘Sigh, this time I couldn’t meet him properly… but someday, I’ll definitely meet him again.’
And so Tesamo spent a pleasant month in the Netherworld.
Upon returning, they had to complete all sorts of quests right away to remove the
But while clearing quests, they continued to gather information on Ted.
Once they removed the title, they would go to meet Ted again right away.
A meeting with Ted.
That was still their wish.
* * *
The dead Ruri and Tenichi could revive three days later.
Because they always drank the potion
Ruri, revived three days later, knuckled Tenichi’s head.
“Ahahaha! Sorry! I didn’t know he was that strong!”
“Mr. Tenichi. The worst.”
“Hey, what about you? You ended up like this because you got hit too!”
“Hmph.”
Anyway, the mission had failed.
The two would likely receive quite the earful from the Master when they returned to the guild headquarters.
But the Master nagged them less than they thought.
He simply said it was fine since they had succeeded elsewhere.
‘Whew. This mistake luckily worked out. Anyway….’
However, Ruri found the current situation extremely intriguing.
‘It’s the first time. A 2nd job advancer who resisted my shamanism… just how is my shamanic power circulating now?’
Fortunately, she had used
It was a top-tier grimoire of her own creation, capable of insight into a character and even a person’s soul.
But the information appearing through that grimoire was all strangely odd.
There were occasionally interesting things too.
‘Does that mean this teddy bear character has a skill or ability with this question mark? How fascinating… is this the so-called connection I’ve only heard about?’
After that, she continued to look into the grimoire until its expiration date.
‘What in the world is this….’
Stranger and stranger states began appearing on the grimoire.
And on the 7th day, the day the Observation Grimoire’s effect would end.
Watching the status window appearing in real-time on the grimoire, a chill ran down her spine.
Soon she felt a baleful gaze behind her.
The feeling of a giant being’s sharp eyes watching her.
Startled, she turned around, but there was nothing there.
‘So the one who was being observed these past few days… was me.’
A chill ran down her spine.
Shaman Sage Ruri hurriedly tore the grimoire to pieces.
But her trembling hands would not calm.