Vermouth—he may look flashy, but his moves are surprisingly simple.
What you really have to watch out for is that axe blade.
Depending on whether the axe blade is glowing or not, the safe zone switches.
Right now the blade is glowing, so he’ll definitely attack the area in front of the boss.
Like this!
—Whoosh!
[SaintessNice has been killed by Vermouth.]
“Ah.”
I died.
Why?
I’m sure I pressed it at the right timing.
Well, dying is dying. What’s more important is chewing over the mistake I just made.
I checked the color of the axe blade, and the timing of the swing was perfect too.
So why on earth did I fail—
“Here’s the food you ordered.”
“Yes, please put it here.”
First, let’s eat the ramen.
It’s rude to think about something else when there’s food in front of you. Mm-hmm.
When I turned and handed my card to the part-timer holding the POS terminal, she had a somewhat strange look on her face.
Her expression was one of shock, as if she couldn’t believe what she had just seen.
“Um, excuse me… customer…?”
“Yes? What is it?”
Don’t tell me I don’t have enough money?
Nah, no way.
“Don’t tell me there’s no balance…?”
“Um, well… ah, no. It’s nothing.”
“?”
Thankfully, there was more than enough money.
“T-then, goodbye!”
The part-timer vanished in an instant, as if fleeing.
Thinking back on where her gaze had been, I quickly figured out why she’d reacted like that.
“Ah.”
I was wondering why she was staring at me so intently.
…I came out without wearing underwear.
No wonder people had been staring so blatantly even on the street.
—Slurp.
Well, that can happen.
“Mmph, mmph…”
This try isn’t even over yet, and everyone’s working hard to clear the boss, so it’d be rude to press the restart button.
[Hey! What are we supposed to do if you die!]
Therefore, I quietly turned on Eder-hyung’s stream and entered spectator mode.
—Slurp…
This is good.
If I ask for more pickled radish, will they give me some?
ㅡㅡㅡㅡ
Vermouth might not be considered a particularly difficult raid, but that was only by the standards of experienced users.
[FullBloomLeaf has been killed by Vermouth.]
[FullBloomLeaf: Ah, I’m sorryㅠㅠ]
Newbies encountering a raid for the first time could die from any number of minor mistakes.
“Hey, it’s fine. Everyone, don’t get greedy for damage. Let’s just dodge the patterns slowly first.”
—Kyaa.
—As expected of Father Eder.
—Emperor Eㅡ
The process of gaining proficiency was one of learning and growing through trial and error.
“All right, axe blade pattern again~ This time I won’t ping it for you, so try to dodge it yourselves!”
At first, you get hit several times; then, little by little, you start dodging the patterns; and eventually, you learn when you can safely deal damage.
—It’s back.
—Everyone’s finally dodging a bit now.
—Oh, they’re dodging even without callouts.
—Whoosh!
[SaintessNice has been killed by Vermouth.]
“Hey, you son of a—”
Of course, there were cases where people didn’t improve even after dozens of attempts.
People like that Saintess, who had already died to the same pattern who knew how many times.
“Hoo. What did I just say?”
—Wow, she died again lololol.
—Uh-oh, Eder-hyung’s mask is cracking.
—Who the hell is that guy breaking Emperor E’s mask…
Whenever most people were figuring out the patterns and growing more accustomed to them, there was always someone flailing in place all alone.
In the end, with a try party, you could only see a clear angle after even those lagging behind had gotten used to it, so the exhaustion level varied wildly.
[ㅇㅇ has donated 1,000 won!]
[I’ve been holding it in, but seriously, that guy is fucking terrible.]
—Agreed.
—That’s why they farm for cash lol.
—Makes me realize all over again that Senbing was an angel for putting up with someone like that.
Before long, the mood in chat had shifted into ripping SaintessNice apart.
With the already unlikable image of being a cash-farming leech, combined with her frequent mistakes, she had become the perfect target.
“Hey now, watch your language.”
If Eder himself simply stood by and let this flow continue, the situation would spiral out of control.
At all costs, he wanted to avoid a controversy about trying to cyberbully an ordinary user.
‘No… why do you keep dying…!’
SaintessNice definitely wasn’t a player with so little skill that she’d die to something like Vermouth.
If she were truly griefing on purpose, there’d be no room left to defend her, but if it really was a string of accidental mistakes, he wanted to cover for her to some extent.
“One support is dead, and a few DPS are down too, so let’s retry.”
[Restart]
[7/8]
It was already the fifth try.
It was a normal flow for a training party, but Eder’s stamina was already running dry.
The chat was now treating SaintessNice like someone who deserved to die, and SaintessNice kept dying at strange timings.
Trying to mediate between the two was making him feel like he was going to lose his mind.
‘…My viewer count did skyrocket, though…’
He didn’t know where they had been directed from, but his viewers had increased to twice the usual number.
The reason they had flocked in was probably SaintessNice, infamous as a malicious user.
If that was the case, then the more mistakes SaintessNice made, the more likely Eder’s stream was to explode.
—Hoooop!
“All right, axe blade~ Check the color!”
At last, it appeared: the axe blade pattern that had already killed SaintessNice three times.
The axe blade wasn’t glowing, so the boss would swing the blade toward the rear.
—Ding! Ding!
Praying that SaintessNice would move to the front, Eder pinged over and over again.
“Please!”
But SaintessNice instead moved to the rear of the boss, the opposite side from the pings.
‘No…’
If SaintessNice died again here, the chat would catch fire with no way to turn it back.
If that happened, Eder’s future would head straight down one of two paths: trash who tried to cyberbully an ordinary user, or a frustrating streamer who defended an intentional griefer.
‘Seongna… did you really have to do this to your hyung…?’
They were both from Apocalypse Gallery, and yet she was dragging him down like this.
‘If I ever meet you in real life, you’re seriously dead.’
Thus one-sidedly making an indefinite promise for an IRL fight, Eder watched the Saintess character, who was about to be split in two by the axe.
—Whoosh!
The enormous axe blade immediately swung toward the Saintess.
There was no way a Saintess with such frail defenses could withstand that attack.
Sensing that chat would soon go up in flames, Eder began setting the stream to seven-day follower-only mode.
—Ting!
But what reached his ears was not the sound of his character being hit, nor a scream, but the crisp ring of metal striking metal.
“Huh?”
Far from dying, the Saintess character was standing proudly in front of Vermouth.
With her pride and joy, a one-handed sword, raised high.
—???
—What?
—Why didn’t that kill her?
—Did she use an invincibility skill?
[SaintessNice has successfully performed a Perfect Guard against Vermouth.]
“She hit a Perfect Guard…?”
Perfect Guard.
A judgment that occurred when you guarded a boss monster’s attack at the exact right timing—
[ㅇㅇ has donated 1,000 won.]
[When successful, the boss enters a groggy state, creating a long damage window.]
—Thanks for the explanation.
—Ohh.
—Who the hell is this guy now?
Compared to that relatively simple explanation, Perfect Guard was considerably difficult to pull off.
First of all, the timing for the guard was extremely brief and passed in an instant.
On top of that, the timing differed wildly depending on the boss’s pattern and the character’s weapon, and there was also the risk of taking even greater damage if you failed.
Especially for a Saintess, who had strength stats at the very bottom tier, failure meant almost certain instant death.
Eder couldn’t tell whether SaintessNice had aimed for that on purpose, or whether it was just a coincidence.
“F-for now, everyone, dump your damage in!”
But as a DPS, his pride wouldn’t allow him to give up dealing damage during a free damage window.
ㅡㅡㅡㅡ
[SaintessNice has successfully performed a Perfect Guard against Vermouth.]
“Hoo.”
So that’s why the timing felt off.
I hadn’t taken into account that this body’s reaction speed was different.
There was quite a large difference between the reaction speed of my body back when I was an ape and my body now.
If the ape had to see the boss’s telegraph and press guard ahead of time, now I could wait until I saw the swing and still match the timing.
To succeed at a Perfect Guard, which didn’t tolerate even the slightest margin of error, I first needed to properly test that gap.
‘I did die a few times because of this, but, well…’
Now I’ve got the hang of it.
All right, Eder-hyung. From now on, I’ll show you the true face of the one-handed sword Saintess.
Because a one-handed sword Saintess only truly begins after she succeeds at a Perfect Guard!
ㅡㅡㅡㅡ
—Ting!
[SaintessNice has successfully performed a Perfect Guard against Vermouth.]
As if the first successful Perfect Guard hadn’t been a coincidence, the Saintess was landing Perfect Guards at every opportunity.
[ㅇㅇ has donated 1,000 won!]
[What the fuck am I looking at?]
—For real lololol.
—Is that really a Saintess?
—Isn’t that a paladin? Fuck, how is she that good at guarding?
—Ting!
[SaintessNice has successfully performed a Perfect Guard against Vermouth.]
—Ting!
[SaintessNice has successfully performed a Perfect Guard against Vermouth.]
—Ting!
[SaintessNice has successfully performed a Perfect Guard against Vermouth.]
—Wow, fuck.
—Three in a row???
“Huh…”
SaintessNice kept succeeding at a dangerous attempt where even the slightest mistake would lead to instant death.
‘A demon really is a demon.’
Indeed, it was a display befitting the Apocalypse demon Eder had known in the past.
[ㅇㅇ has donated 1,000 won!]
[No, forget the guards—the damage buffs coming in right now make no sense.]
“Right? No, I’m kind of curious about this person’s setup. The damage buffs keep coming in.”
In Ias, a supporter didn’t simply take care of allies; they also performed the role of a buffer who increased damage.
A supporter’s skill was determined by when they applied which buff according to the boss’s patterns and the allies’ situation.
But right now, SaintessNice’s buffs were coming in continuously, without any downtime.
“There’s no way buffs can last this long, though?”
Thanks to the free damage windows created by the Perfect Guards and the buffs, the boss’s health bar was gradually approaching the bottom.
“All right, all right, just a little more!”
[ㅇㅇ has donated 1,000 won!]
[Vermouth is just melting lol.]
[Ravager Vermouth | 0%]
“Nice!”
—Krrgh… Don’t think this is the end…!
In the end, they were able to defeat Vermouth far faster than expected.
[Dungeon Clear]
[MVP: SaintessNice]
[Perfect Guards: 8]
[Buff Contribution Rate: 41%]
“Forty-one percent?”
—????
—Does that even make sense?
—Why is the number like that?? lololol.
ㅡㅡㅡㅡ
[“Forty-one percent?”]
—Slurp…
Forty-one percent, huh. It didn’t come out as high as I expected.
Maybe because I was eating in between, the timing for refreshing my buffs was a bit late here and there.
But what can I do? If you just leave ramen alone, it gets soggy.
[ㅇㅇ has donated 1,000 won!]
[Eder-hyung, let’s ask Seongna about her setup??]
[“Sss…”]
Before I knew it, public opinion in Eder-hyung’s stream chat had flipped.
—Agreed, agreed.
—This one-handed sword Saintess might actually be usable.
—Let’s invite her on?
—Interview time, Eder-hyung.
Just a moment ago, the viewers had been tearing into me like they wanted to kill me, and now they were praising me and curious about my setup.
It was certainly a happy thing that people had finally realized the greatness of the one-handed sword Saintess, but I didn’t much like that attitude of flipping over as easily as turning a hand.
[ShieldBearingEder: Um, excuse me.]
[ShieldBearingEder: SaintessNice?]
[SaintessNice: Yes?]
[ShieldBearingEder: It’s nothing else, but]
[ShieldBearingEder: I have a lot of questions about your one-handed sword Saintess setup, SaintessNice]
[ShieldBearingEder: So would you be able to appear on my stream sometime and explain your setup?]
Oh-ho. Look at this guy.
After betraying Apocalypse Gallery and succeeding as a mainstream streamer, now he wants to suck the marrow out of my bones?
“How insolent…”
Come to think of it, one of the reasons I had applied to Eder-hyung’s raid group was to punish the traitor.
[SaintessNice: Of course I’m fine with that.]
[ShieldBearingEder: Oh.]
At my positive reply, Eder-hyung was visibly pleased.
[SaintessNice: It’s you and me, Eder-nim, hehe. Of course I should do it for you!]
[ShieldBearingEder: ??]
Unfortunately for him, I had no intention of moving the way he wanted.
[“Excuse me?”]
Eder-hyung’s flustered voice came through the stream.
—What?
—Eder-nim, you know Seongna???
—What? You didn’t meet by chance, you called her on purpose??
—Was Seongna an Apocalypse demon too?
[“Wait a second, SaintessNice?”]
[SaintessNice: Please contact me privately about the detailed schedule hehe.]
[You have left the lobby.]
It seemed he wanted to hide from people that he knew me to some extent.
As if I’d just sit back and watch that happen.
[“No, wait, everyone, calm down. It’s true we knew each other before, but… I mean…”]
—Wow, this is insane lololol.
—Eder-hyung’s sense for content is crazy, absolutely crazy.
—I’ll look forward to the collab with Seongna later.
—Eder-nim, please tell us SaintessNice’s build.
—What is that one-handed sword build?
—Eder, if you have any sense for content, hurry up and call Seongna.
The chat was questioning the relationship between me and Eder-hyung.
Since I had disappeared, cleaning up the aftermath was naturally Eder-hyung’s job.
—Slurp…
“Mmph, mmph.”
Ah, I’m full.