Used for Lifetime Luck Enhancement-Chapter 44(44/196)

Episode 10. The Demon’s Clandestine Double Life (2)

By then, the Karon Kingdom page of some online community was in complete chaos.

Starting with posts like these that had gone up a few days prior.

—Comment 1: Isn’t that the Japanese ranker?

—Comment 2: Wow, godly. Why do they block recordings during sieges -_- I wanna watch that live.

—Comment 3: First comment is lying, nope. My friend said he’s a Hong Kong ranker.

Including posts of Tenichi’s exploits—

—Comment 1: OMG lmaoooo a demon lmaoooo

—Comment 2: Huh? Isn’t this photoshopped?

—Comment 3: Guys, the siege just ended. They say Pateuk’s Chalsu-nim quit the game. TTT

—even photos of Ted transformed into a demon devastating Pateuk’s forces.

‘Interesting.’

With the repeated bizarre incidents, the Sauron siege became a huge hit and made the community’s best-post list.

As view counts rose, countless speculation posts flooded in. Some were elaborate and well-written, while others simply rambled on endlessly.

‘So on the internet, I’ve become an 800-level Archmage NPC who shoots lightning.’

Of course, from the person in question’s perspective, they were all completely off the mark….

Recently, posts had begun appearing related to the . This quest was a nationwide event, and users were pouring their attention into it.

—Content: All the Mint raid experts are gathering. They say they’re gonna catch that demon lol.

—Content: They say it went south, so they’ll probably catch its tail soon.

—Content: Looks like the archbishop wants to look good before the Pope.

From there, Cheon Gyeong-u began focusing and searching through the posts one by one.

This was the information he actually needed going forward.

Information about the who would come looking for him.

Scroll. After checking most posts for thirty minutes, a title caught Cheon Gyeong-u’s eye.

Cheon Gyeong-u, who had brought his finger to the title, paused.

‘Such a curious title…. What on earth could it be? Ah… no. I shouldn’t look. I’ll just get sucked into the clickbait and waste time.’

Posts with that kind of phrasing were everywhere, baiting clicks with provocative titles.

Those two hours he’d wasted before, searching for news about Alibaba and CGTV capturing kingdoms without even knowing the siege had started!

When he couldn’t afford to waste even an hour like now, such waste must never happen again.

‘Ugh. I need to hurry up and log in to power-level.’

To make matters worse, Ted had been simmering with irritation for the past few days. After carefully calculating the gains and losses, he realized he hadn’t been leveling up enough during the siege!

‘The number of enemies killed was 6,000, and I only leveled up 34 times? Are you kidding me?’

It was the unavoidable effect of the system.

Ted’s current level was 314. Before, he had been 280.

In Face Chronicle, every time the hundreds digit of your level changed, you had to hunt a boss monster befitting that level bracket. If you were a non-combat class, you had to do something very special that you normally couldn’t.

That piece of content was called .

Because of that, Ted had hunted the at level 99,

and at level 199, the of the mountain ridge.

The problem was that to change the hundreds digit without , a user had to gather at least several times—up to several dozen times—the normal amount of experience.

So Ted ended up suffering a loss of nearly thirty levels.

It was no small loss. It normally took a level-314 user at least three months to reach 344.

‘My luck is utterly shattered… Wouldn’t it have been nice if I’d hit 300 before doing all that in the siege? Sigh.’

Sighs poured out.

But what good would it do to regret it now?

Lately, Ted had been seriously contemplating .

‘Yes. It’s fine. It can totally happen. This is the life of none other than me, Cheon Gyeong-u! Haha.’

A somewhat sad… resignation, but.

Either way, for that very reason, Ted hurriedly logged into the game.

‘I’ll make up for it starting now. All the losses from the siege.’

With firm resolve.

* * *

The first thing Ted did upon arriving at the Ka-Pik mountain range was secure a base.

‘A boss monster ought to have the dignity befitting one.’

Of course, he had absolutely no intention of wasting time building a base with his own hands.

—Shhhriek!

The chieftain of the border region in the Ka-Pik mountain range, !

The creature cried out in shock upon facing Ted.

The Orc Samurai was also a powerful boss monster in the 300s. It tensed up the moment it saw a demon intruding in its territory and drew its longsword.

“”

Of course, it was no match.

First, Ted roared at it with the skill. The creature soon flinched as it was afflicted with .

Thwack———!

Then he fired a bullet imbued with the demonic power , blowing its head off. Ted’s experience shot straight up at once.

‘There. This is my base from now on.’

The base was spacious and decorated quite comfortably with logs and such. And so Ted seized the base that the Orc Samurai had painstakingly prepared.

The sight of killing the landlord and plundering the house!

It was the very image of a wicked thief befitting his crime stat.

‘Here they come. The first guests.’

As Ted sat with his eyes closed, listening intently, ominous sounds reached his ears.

The grinding of heavy armor, clank—

Those who appeared shortly after were bounty hunter users who had come targeting Ted.

“It’s the demon! We start right away, Priest!”

“Grant me the power to smite evil. !”

The users who had tracked Ted’s trail were a party of eight in the late 400s.

Two tankers, one interceptor (a class that creates variables), two dealers. Moreover, perhaps in preparation for an anti-demon battle, there were three priests.

‘Hmm. I’ll need to put on a good act as a demon from now on, won’t I?’

The world at large held great doubts regarding Ted’s state of existence.

A user who became a demon?

Was such a thing even possible?

If so, was it a user or a demon? Such were the questions.

‘This is an opportunity.’

Options had opened up for Ted.

The choice of whether to make himself appear as a demon or as a user.

‘To lure more of them, I have to be the prize.’

After worrying it over for several days, Ted finally reached the conclusion to himself.

There would be rewards for catching him!

Like a Venus flytrap, Ted intended to string users along in that manner.

And so now.

“Kraaaah!”

Ted stretched his mouth wide and screamed as if he were truly a demon.

The practice he’d put in startling monsters over the past few days seemed to be paying off. Even without the skill, the users flinched at his scream alone.

“We can take him! Don’t chicken out, you bastards! !”

“Here goes! ! !”

Soon the users, who had completely recognized Ted as a monster, attacked. Ted moved in turn.

“It’s limping!”

“Focus attacks on the leg! Mage!”

“It’s weaker than I thought, contrary to the rumors!”

The users gained confidence.

They had come half in doubt, having heard it swept through the siege alone.

But the demon wasn’t that strong. At this rate, they could catch it soon!

So for ten minutes, they poured their best attacks and whittled down the demon’s health.

‘Hm?’

But something was strange.

‘Up until just now, we were definitely winning….’

Bit by bit, the demon’s attacks grew stronger, and soon it overwhelmed them.

Variations gradually appeared in its once simple attack pattern, and it began firing bullets it had never used before.

At this change, they understood that the boss had entered as its health dropped.

However, compared to other bosses, this one’s Mode 2 was much stronger.

“Urk! Block it. Just a few more crits!”

“No… We almost had it…. Krrk.”

And so one party was annihilated in twenty minutes.

Ted, who had been struggling after taking critical hits until just now, stood up perfectly fine.

‘Pretending to be weak is hard too.’

Ted had been pretending to be weak!

‘If I come out too strong all at once, it’ll be a problem.’

Currently, Ted’s level was 315.

Even the party he had just wiped out was over 100 levels higher than him. Because of that, despite killing only eight people, he succeeded in leveling up and simultaneously filled nearly 30% of his experience bar.

But if it became known that the demon was too strong, 400-level users wouldn’t even come.

Ted’s goal was to gradually lure even stronger hunters starting from the 400s and beat them all to death!

So for the time being, he had to thoroughly pretend to be weak.

‘By the way… I feel a little sorry for these users.’

Suddenly, Ted had such a thought.

Every user who fell to him would have to spend a not-so-short time in the underworld. Yet they were innocent users who bore no grudge against Ted himself.

Ted, briefly reflecting on his actions, shook his head.

‘I’m sorry to the innocent users, but it can’t be helped. Let’s not bother rationalizing myself. Because I can’t level up while agonizing over good and evil one by one like that going forward.’

For revenge, and for his goal of rank one. To achieve that.

Ted resolved to twist his own values.

His worries ended there.

‘More have arrived.’

“It’s over there. The demon’s energy is coming from that direction!”

“Everyone, get ready. The raid begins.”

Because new hunters targeting him had appeared.

* * *

“Krrk… What a shame…. To think we couldn’t kill the demon like this.”

The party leader, a user belonging to the Holy War Knights, fell to his knees.

“Rrrrr… Die…. Filthy dogs of the Lord….”

Ted pretended to be a lesser demon, speaking slowly with all his acting might, then shot him in the head.

‘Not a bad first day’s record. I raised 23 levels, didn’t I?’

It was evening by the time Ted had spent the whole day hunting users.

A whopping twenty or so hunting parties had come to catch Ted.

Among them were users from raid-specialized guilds, famous bounty hunters, and even high-level users from knight orders. There was a diverse crowd.

Accordingly, Ted invested roughly twenty minutes per team, pretending to barely scrape by as he beat them to death.

The pattern was like a rigged slot machine.

First, he fought evenly, building tension.

Then, he gave them hope.

That’s right. There, Ted pretended to be hurt, pretended to be weak, acting as if he were taking their attacks.

‘Boss classification sure is nice. With close to 70,000 HP, I barely have to worry about dying.’

Bosses weren’t invincible.

Ted clearly had his health whittled down each time he took a hit.

Nevertheless, he hadn’t died in the ensuing battles because he had .

Ted had used frequently lately, and its proficiency had risen, triggering a change.

Until then, Ted had been able to recover 5% of his attack power of 51,129 every ten minutes—that is, 2,556 HP.

But now, combined with his skill , it became possible to recover 5,000 HP in one go.

‘I have to save Mode 2, so I should always plan to keep my health at a minimum of around 10,000 and keep recovering.’

Then even in death, they felt regret.

Because they had almost caught him but ultimately lost.

The effect of the regret they felt… soon showed itself on the community.

quest, but it was strong…. We lost after a close battle.

My level was 501, and the three Holy War Knights party members who went with me unfortunately lost.

If you’re around level 510, you should be able to catch it.>

‘Yes. This is it.’

Accordingly, stronger and stronger users headed south searching for Ted.

However, from around that point, it was Ted who was feeling regret.

‘I wish more would come….’

Perhaps because detailed information wasn’t shared among them, quite a few were wandering around trying to find him.

Compared to yesterday, fewer users had sought him out today.

He was less competent than he thought.

‘What to do…. Why don’t the forum users reveal my location information? Are they not telling each other because they had a hard time finding it?’

The users were more cutthroat than Ted thought.

They didn’t easily release the information about Ted they had painstakingly obtained online.

It was regrettable.

If someone were to share weaknesses and information about him?

More users harboring hope would surely come hunting him.

‘Huh? Wait?’

Then suddenly, a good idea came to the mind of the worried Cheon Gyeong-u.

‘I’m a forum user too, aren’t I?’

Cheon Gyeong-u, whose thoughts had reached that point, logged into the community for the first time in a while.

And began writing a post.