◈ Chapter 430. Are You Prepared? (2)
Hidden classes.
It wasn’t enough to say it with certainty; it could be generalized.
Hidden classes were the object of every player’s envy. ‘You think I was any exception?’ Back when Arcana was nothing more than a game.
The memory was vivid.
The few players I had envied, even though I’d been obsessed with Demon Hunter. ‘They were all hidden-class job changers.’
Greatness unseen.
I, with my contradictory tastes.
Enough to shake even Lee Hoyeol’s particular preferences. ‘Interest in hidden classes was enormous.’
Weren’t hidden-class job changers famous simply for being hidden-class job changers?
Didn’t high-ranking NPCs speak to them politely?
Beyond that, didn’t they appear on broadcasts and give interviews…?
Why, there were so many players who deleted their accounts, remade them, and raised new characters just to change into hidden classes that no further explanation was necessary.
Of course, interest and ability were separate matters.
Except for a few hidden classes.
There were plenty of cases where the results were pathetic compared to the difficulty of raising them.
Back then, I’d thought they couldn’t even lift a spoon to a meal already laid out for them.
If that was how they were going to be, they should just give that hidden class to me.
I’d secretly badmouthed them in my heart. ‘……
Now that I’ve experienced it, I fully understand how they felt.’
Akshan’s last Demon Hunter.
Wasn’t I being treated no differently from a hidden class? Thanks to that, I came to know all too well the misery of raising a character without a single method of growth. How bad must it have been for me to invest points into the [Luck] stat?
However, hidden classes varied from one to another.
Let’s think back. Why did Skal become famous in the first place?
Because of the strength befitting his grand class, Dragon Knight.
Since the Cataclysm, right up until recently.
Skal had defended the top spot in the rankings all by himself, without even a guild. I could still remember Nam Taemin, the strongest barbarian, keeping Skal in check after he joined the Holy War Alliance.
“So what’s the Dragon Knight’s main stat?”
“Am I supposed to tell you that?”
“……
No? I was just asking because I was curious. Why are you being so prickly? Anyone would think I was trying to keep you in check. Forget it. See if I ever tell you anything about barbarians.”
That was right.
That was why I was seriously deliberating at this moment.
I mulled over the words that had come from the Black Dark Dragon’s mouth.
Not ordinary Draconic, but a ruler’s Draconic.
Not an ordinary hidden class, either.
[Would you like to change class to the hidden class, ‘Dragon Lord’?]
Dragon Lord.
……!!
‘I feel a little bad saying this to Skal.’
[Dragon Knight]
It was a class name with a completely different weight to it. If Dragon Knight felt like someone who had merely tamed one dragon, this one reeked of a ruler who reigned above all dragons.
‘Just look at the job-change difficulty.’
I couldn’t know exactly what the requirements were. But one certain condition was that I had to fully understand Draconic, wasn’t it?
I quietly looked at Yunaxus’s legacy, the glove. ‘In the end, he left even that position to me.’
The previous Dragon Lord had surely been Yunaxus.
Though in his later years, because of the Primordial Evil’s instigation, Yunaxus had been driven out from that position……. Even so, at the end, he had once again earned the dragons’ recognition and fulfilled that role admirably.
The Black Dark Dragon continued speaking to me.
“Great power will dwell within your Draconic. Even if they are dragons suffering from the Evil Fruit, if it is the Draconic of the Dragon Lord, perhaps you may be able to stop them from running rampant.”
At the same time, messages flashed one after another before my eyes.
[Upon changing class, you will acquire the unique skill ‘All-Dragon Muster’.]
[Upon changing class, you will acquire the unique skill ‘All-Dragon Glide’.]
[Upon changing class, you will acquire the unique skill ‘All-Dragon Control’.]
……
The way the messages kept sparkling made them look like signboards trying to lure in customers. I, Lee Hoyeol. To be honest, the desire to close my eyes and change classes surged up within me.
‘The foundation is different. The foundation.’
Hidden class, Dragon Lord.
It meant it was of a different “rank” from the scorned Demon Hunter.
Putting everything else aside.
‘Just looking at the class-exclusive skills gives you the estimate, doesn’t it?’
This was treatment incomparable to Akshan, who had only thrown me [Natural Enemy Relationship]. However, there was not the slightest change in my expression. It wasn’t only because of my iron mask. I had been thinking it inwardly as well.
‘Could I really quit after coming this far?’
Quit Akshan, that is.
I’d dug in far too deep.
Above all, I could not give up Akshan’s unique skills.
Wouldn’t changing into Dragon Lord raise my combat power several times more than that little [Natural Enemy Relationship]?
Perhaps that wasn’t wrong.
‘It’s not an ordinary hidden class, after all.’
However.
The skill I couldn’t give up was not only [Natural Enemy Relationship].
[Exorcism Ritual].
The reason demon-type monsters were evaluated as a dreadful calamity for players was precisely because of the status abnormality, [Possession].
‘If you kill the demon possessing a player.’
The possessed player would die as well.
However, within [Exorcism Ritual].
A Demon Hunter’s attacks harmed only the demon.
And so I answered.
“How regrettable, Black Dark Dragon.”
At the same time, a message flashed.
[You have refused the class change to the hidden class, ‘Dragon Lord’.]
I recited grandly.
“One cannot cast aside one’s mission.”
Mission, huh.
Whether that was thanks to those damned tastes or because of Granfell’s way of speaking, I couldn’t tell. But Granfell, even for your sake, I couldn’t give up being a Demon Hunter.
‘We have to uncover it together, don’t we? The past entangled with Akshan’s civil war.’
Even if only because it would be a waste of all the class quests I’d progressed through so far.
“Is that so……”
The Black Dark Dragon’s disappointment was plain.
Concern was likely mixed into it as well. Perhaps he believed there would be no way to respond to the trials to come without the Dragon Lord’s immense abilities.
‘I agree with that, too.’
But it wasn’t as if I had no thoughts at all, was it?
That’s right. Who am I?
I am Lee Hoyeol, a man exceptionally skilled at struggling with all his might.
Enough that I would simply let go of the Dragon Lord’s power I had happened to learn about?
I am not such a clean-cut person.
Looking at the Black Dark Dragon, I continued speaking.
“Therefore, now is the time for you to uphold a mission, Black Dark Dragon.”
This thing called Dragon Lord.
It didn’t necessarily have to be an actual dragon who did it, did it?
If even I, a player, could do it……
Then you, Black Dark Dragon, a legend made manifest, should be able to do it too, shouldn’t you?
“A mission, you say. What do you mean?”
“Ascend.”
“Ascend?”
I spoke directly.
“For my sake, seize it. The qualifications of the Dragon Lord.”
“……!”
Flash.
At the same time.
“!”
Beyond the torn dimension.
The hidden piece, the “Temple of Dragons,” revealed itself.
There were no dragons there.
The Fire Dragon to the flames, the Ice Dragon to the iceberg, the Thunder Dragon to the storm, the Sea Dragon to the sea. Each had scattered in order to suppress the manifestation of the Evil Fruit.
The empty Temple of Dragons.
In that desolate space, I stared at one place.
The peak of a towering rocky mountain.
It was the very place where Elder Dragon Yunaxus had stayed.
Following my upright gaze, the Black Dark Dragon also shifted his eyes.
I opened my mouth.
“Ascend to a higher place, observe, and harmonize.”
“……”
“That is the mission I bestow upon you.”
That’s right, Black Dark Dragon.
As you said, considering the trials to come.
I was in a position where I could not overlook even the smallest thing.
‘What kind of power is the Dragon Lord’s power, which I happened to come across?’
I don’t know about Granfell, but I cannot let it slip away like this.
If I cannot seize it, then one of my avatars, the Black Dark Dragon.
Wouldn’t it be enough if you seized it?
“Are you prepared to stand in my stead?”
Did he notice my heart, filled with greed?
The Black Dark Dragon bowed his head to me.
With his enormous wings, he soared toward Yunaxus’s seat.
“I shall solemnly uphold that mission.”
[The legend, ‘Black Dark Dragon Lee Hoyeol,’ is changing.]
Changing? Well, that’s all fine, but……
[You have acquired the legend, ‘Dragon Lord, Black Dark Dragon Lee Hoyeol’.]
……
Why does it feel like the full name keeps getting longer?
*
Inside the subway.
Creak—
As the doors opened, a wave poured in as though it had been waiting.
“Damn. I thought I was going to die!”
“At this rate, when are we ever going to set foot on the Arcana Continent?”
“Did you hear? About the buffs being applied over there!”
A rift where reality and the Arcana Continent coexisted.
What a rift with an appropriate level of 150 required was a bright and hopeful future.
Still, because they were players, they could earn as much as their abilities allowed.
‘I’m still far off.’
Yun Taeseop, a knight belonging to the Goddess Order, smacked his lips.
Had the party member thought the same thing?
He opened his mouth.
“They said that buffs you couldn’t even imagine in reality are constantly active on the Arcana Continent right now, didn’t they? Just the ones I remember include an increased experience gain buff and a skill proficiency buff……”
“Is that all?”
On and on.
As he quietly listened to the list of buffs his party members rattled off.
His perfectly fine stomach seemed to start aching.
Yun Taeseop moderately closed his ears.
‘What’s the point of listening to that?’
The news players brought from the Arcana Continent was astonishing.
Enough to remind him of the Continental Chronicles days, when Arcana had been nothing more than a game.
However, the current Arcana Continent was the domain of high-level players.
Other party members who had been listening quietly also joined the conversation.
“They say that even though it’s dangerous, the situation is much better than when it was heading toward destruction, right? How about we go there once too? If it doesn’t seem right, we can come right back……!”
“Even so, they say you need to hit level 300, don’t they?”
“What? Th-three hundred?!”
Yun Taeseop shook his head.
No, even level 300 was lacking.
There was no need to mention the pinnacle, Lee Hoyeol. After the [Zero Mountains] were updated into reality, top-ranking players had been able to raise their levels at a rapid pace.
The Magic Tower, of course, the Lionheart Knights, the Yusra Kingdom……
The active support of Arcana’s forces for players could not be overlooked either. Even Yun Taeseop himself had changed class from an ordinary warrior to a knight of the Goddess Order.
‘Still, I’ve shaken off the newbie label.’
Yun Taeseop clenched his fist tightly.
‘Of course, since I awakened late, I’m behind.’
It was true that there were more opportunities than in the past.
The reason he could be certain? Because Yun Taeseop made sure to watch every single interview with rankers. Thanks to that, he also knew about the “walls” that were said to exist every 100 levels.
Yun Taeseop, who had kept his mouth shut in silence, opened it.
“But the higher your level gets, the slower your growth becomes. Just because rankers have set foot on the Arcana Continent doesn’t mean the gap will widen further. Those above must have their own hardships as well.”
Rather than waste time lamenting his lot.
He would hunt even one more monster.
It was the moment Yun Taeseop rose from the subway seat.
“Wow, your head’s way too full of flowers~”
Twirl, twirl.
A woman who had been twisting her hair around her finger sneered.
Of course, Yun Taeseop let it in one ear and roughly out the other.
That too was a thought one could reasonably have.
But……. wasn’t this a little much?
“No matter how hard we work ourselves to death like this, the gap is bound to grow~ Honestly, bottoms like us can barely live from hand to mouth, you know? I know because I’ve seen it~”
Yun Taeseop looked around at his party members.
Everyone’s faces were growing darker and darker.
It felt like morale was being steadily crushed every time the woman opened her mouth.
‘What is she, exactly?’
It was absurd.
Beyond that, she was hateful.
Objectively speaking, the woman was strong.
‘……Even though she has that kind of skill.’
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she was carrying the party. Even while easily dealing with enemies Yun Taeseop had to give his all against, she was spouting such weak-minded nonsense.
Yun Taeseop shrugged.
‘What can I do? If I don’t like it, I’ll be the one to leave.’
His connection with this party ended here.
It was the moment Yun Taeseop sorted out his thoughts.
The subway stopped and the doors opened.
“This is the midpoint, so why don’t we all take a short break before moving on?”
The party leader got off first and made the suggestion.
‘I’ll find a party in Yusra and try again tomorrow…….’
Yun Taeseop intended to return to reality around then.
However, Yun Taeseop’s feet, after he stepped off the subway, suddenly stopped.
The party leader walking ahead turned his head and asked.
“Why? Is something wrong……?”
Yun Taeseop was suddenly looking up above him.
“H-huh?”
When they lifted their heads along his line of sight, they saw something that should not have been visible.
“The c-ceiling?!”
The subway of reality and the tropical forest of the Arcana Continent.
It was a rift where the two landscapes were mixed in exact halves.
What should have been visible was the platform ceiling covered in plants.
“Wh-what is that……?”
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
There was no ceiling above their heads.
Eight enormous eyes.
They merely looked down at them, each pupil moving its focus separately.
The party leader spoke without pause.
“Could it be a named monster of the rift? No, there was no information like that……? F-for now, let’s get back inside the subway and search……!!”
However, there was nothing useful in his words.
It was the moment everyone fell into confusion.
Only the message flashed rationally.
“!!!”
That was right.
At the same time.
Before the eyes of every player who had entered a rift.
[In the Demon World, primordial beings have begun to move.]
The eight superior Demon Kings.
It had been declared that they had reached some kind of agreement.
At the same time, a roar burst out.
“U-uaaaaaaagh!!”
The Demon World’s roar became, in reality, a terrible scream.
“?”
When Yun Taeseop turned his head, there was the woman who had picked fights over every little thing.
To be exact, the nape of a party member she had been conversing with until just moments ago.
A woman, no, a demon, was viciously tearing into it with her teeth.
[All demon-type monsters are stained with malice.]
“……!!”
[The Prostration of Ten Thousand Demons begins.]