◈ Episode 5. Demon Hunter (2)
Indeed, this was freelancing.
To think the sun still hadn’t set even after I finished work and came home.
It was a chance for photosynthesis I could never enjoy back in my salaryman days.
If I had my way, I would have thrown myself straight onto the bed bathed in sunlight.
Tak—I neatly hung the clothes I had been wearing on a hanger.
As if that weren’t enough, I headed straight for the bathroom.
I turned on the shower.
Swaaaah—!
Damn noble rules and regulations!
What irritated me even more was that I was slowly getting used to this exhausting daily routine.
Still, let’s look on the bright side.
It was definitely a good thing that cleaning no longer felt tedious.
“There is a great deal of dust.”……
Though even so, wearing a mask while cleaning inside the house felt rather excessive.
By the time I finished cleaning, the sun had set.‘Right. Photosynthesis, with my lot in life? As if.’I immediately prepared dinner.
The me who used to get by with delivery food or instant meals no longer existed.
Fresh ingredients that had arrived through dawn delivery.
Dishes prepared with practiced hands.
How was a noble so proficient at cleaning and cooking?
If one were to ask, it was because Granfell was a fallen noble.
“Not bad.”
This, too, was part of the setting he had acquired in order to survive.
Naturally, Granfell’s lofty pride was not something that would break merely from getting his hands wet.
For me, it was both troublesome and something to be grateful for.‘In any case, cooking for myself has to be better for my body.’In truth, I could feel the effects of a disciplined lifestyle in my body.
Starting with the back pain that had disappeared thanks to always standing and sitting up straight.
Chronic fatigue, insomnia, and all the minor ailments modern people lived with had vanished cleanly.
Of course, it wasn’t all good.
When I looked in the mirror, my hair shone under the fluorescent light.‘If someone saw me, they’d think it was gray hair.’Silver hair passed down through the Claudie family for generations.
Just as the setting said, my hair was bleaching into silver.
The only saving grace was that the silver hair seemed to suit my current appearance fairly well.
Drip—After brewing green tea, I had tea time.‘Making such a fuss over green tea that costs 50 won a bag. Seriously.’Even as I thought that, I didn’t mind in the slightest.
Because over the past few days, I had learned how to enjoy tea and savor leisure.
This, too, must be the influence of Granfell’s lofty self-esteem.‘Yeah, whatever it is, it’s better than the habit of sitting in front of the computer right after eating.’Thanks to that, I had more time to think as well.
Perhaps that was why.
I was able to arrive at a fairly plausible possibility.
“……
My dark history is affecting the real me.”
One by one, whenever I became aware of Granfell’s settings, they became reality.
If so, then according to the setting, perhaps Granfell’s “talent,” praised as the greatest genius in the history of the Claudie family, had also been realized?『Granfell’s talent was not limited to a single field.
A brilliant mind was a given.
His innate magical talent was such that he could imitate most magic simply by watching it. Furthermore, he possessed physical potential that was no less extraordinary.
There was a fitting reason why Granfell had been chosen as the family heir at the mere age of seven.』The more I recalled it, the more it felt like the kind of idea a second-year middle schooler would come up with.
I had just crammed in everything good and cool, hadn’t I?
“Profoundly embarrassing.”
I muttered that.
Whether it was because my dark history was embarrassing.
Or because the excessive praise made me feel awkward.
That was something I would find out gradually.
To do that, I needed a few tests.
“What a convenient age.”
I accessed NetTube on my smartphone.
I searched for videos of players.
Sure enough, the saying that those who had more did more wasn’t wrong for nothing.
Channels belonging to players with millions of subscribers appeared.
-Live Rift Raid 17 ─ Griffin’s Nest
-What Skills Does a Flame Wizard Use?
-A Day in the Life of a Non-Combat Class Alchemist? Vlog EditionEach and every one had an incredible number of views.
It was understandable.
Ordinary people couldn’t approach rifts, let alone notice their existence.
Of course they would be interested in players inside rifts hunting monsters.
Naturally, if a rift collapsed, they would be able to watch it in reality.
But at that point, it would be a disaster, no longer something to spectate.
I picked a suitable video.
“?”
Just as I was about to play it, a text came in.
When I checked the number, it was Nam Cheolmin.
It wasn’t as if we had exchanged numbers, but I had contacted Nam Cheolmin first after seeing the recruitment post.
So he must have had my number saved.……
Why was he saying so much?
To summarize the lengthy text, he wanted to meet me.
Right away, and if that wasn’t possible, then tomorrow at the latest.
My, I didn’t know his purpose, but this was troublesome.
“This is work that requires concentration.”
Unfortunately.
This was something that might change my life as a player.
I sent a brief reply and played the video.
A boss raid video where skills and magic flew wildly.
For a long while.
After watching the video with a ramrod-straight posture, I opened my mouth.
“This should be enough.”*
A high-end restaurant located in Cheongdam-dong.
Nam Cheolmin and Nam Taemin.
The brothers were waiting at the appointed location.
“I still only half believe it.”
“You believe half of it? Your useless older brother? Thanks.”
“Hyung, are you going to keep talking like that?”
When Nam Taemin bristled, Nam Cheolmin burst into laughter.‘Why didn’t I know back then?’His proud younger brother, Taemin.
“Everyone’s talent is different. I was just stupidly playing games. Hyung, you simply didn’t have enough time to play. When it comes to knowledge about Arcana, you might even know more than me. I guarantee it.”
The fact that a guy like that sincerely acknowledged him.
To think he had felt inferior toward such a younger brother.
Nam Cheolmin was sincerely ashamed of his own foolishness.
“I’m joking. Just joking.”
“He’s such an unreadable man that I don’t know whether I should believe it…….”
“Still, I don’t say one thing and do another. I’ll do it properly, being an analyst.”
“Can I record that?”
“Go ahead.”
“Haah, can I really believe this?”
Nam Cheolmin had decided to quit being a player.
He planned to accept Nam Taemin’s offer and work as an analyst for the guild.
Naturally, the reason he had come to that decision was because of his experience having his body taken over by an imp.‘I’d known my own shortcomings for a long time. More than that.’The man who had saved him from despair.
This was the only way he could repay the favor.
That man had not merely defeated the imp.
He had helped him gather himself and move forward.
He had saved him.
Nam Cheolmin wanted to repay him in a way befitting that.
“Now I’m getting curious. Hyung, it’s not like you’d misjudge a player……. So he really did hunt an imp? And overwhelmingly at that?”
At Nam Taemin’s question, Nam Cheolmin nodded.
“In truth, calling it overwhelming doesn’t feel like enough. How should I put it? Even while fighting that imp, he didn’t seem to be suffering from any status effects, and he didn’t seem the least bit nervous.”
“If you say so, then that’s how it was. But I don’t get it.”
Frustrated, Nam Taemin roughly scratched the back of his head.
“Why would a player like that enter a low-level rift?”
The reason was simple.
At the time, that man, Hoyeol, had only been level 55.
But there was no way Nam Taemin or Nam Cheolmin could realize that.
Nam Taemin furrowed his brow and continued.
“On top of that, that fight is honestly questionable too. Resisting status effects means his Mental Strength stat is incredible……. But you said that person fought with a dagger, right? Not magic.”
“That’s right.”
“They say there are thousands of classes in Arcana, but I can’t even begin to guess.”
Shake, shake.
Nam Taemin shook his head.
But being frustrated and seeing potential were separate matters.
“……
Which makes me want to recruit him no matter what and find out.”
Above all, wasn’t he a player his older brother had acknowledged?
Nam Cheolmin’s help had been a major reason Nam Taemin had been able to become the ranker in 11th place.
From analyzing boss patterns.
To the guild’s direction of management.
To recruiting new players.
He knew very well that without his brother’s help, he would never have climbed to this position.
“Well, I’m also very grateful.”
And that person had helped that brother of his.
So Nam Taemin wrote up a recruitment contract with that gratitude in mind.
As he looked over the contract again, Nam Taemin clicked his tongue.
“We’ll have to make sure our rookies—no, even our executives—never see this.”
“Why? Is it enough to cause an uproar if they see it?”
“Of course. This is a deal where we’re the only ones taking a loss.”
But precisely because of that, it would be an offer impossible to refuse.
Nam Taemin was confident.
So he waited for the reply with an easy heart.
Bzzzt—“The reply came fast. What does it say?”
Even when the vibration sounded.
Nam Taemin leisurely gulped down his orange juice.
“……
He says it’s difficult.”
“?!”
Dribble—Juice flowed down from Nam Taemin’s mouth.
“Wha, what, what?! Let me see!!”
Unable to believe it, he checked the text himself, and it was even more absurd.
-It is difficult.
It was exactly four syllables.
That was the reply to that long text.
But who was Nam Taemin?
From that short message, he caught the hint.
“……
He said it’s difficult, not that he’s refusing.”
His eyes narrowed.
“As expected, did another guild make him an offer first?”
There were many players, but valuable players were rare.
That was why guilds were frantic about recruiting rookies.
Above all, in South Korea, recruiting promising players had become even more difficult.
The [Mage’s Tower] that had risen in Seoul.
Because of it, every major guild worth mentioning was staying in Seoul.
Nam Taemin’s narrowed eyes were directed at those competitors.
“You bastards. No matter what, Seoul is our home turf.”
South Korea’s greatest guild, “Gaon.”
But once one went out into the world, even making it into the top five was difficult.
Nam Taemin knew that reality well.
That was exactly why he couldn’t afford to have even a single player taken from him.
“Hyung, tell me more specifically.”
“About what?”
“What that man looks like. If things go wrong, I might have to run around in person and escort him here.”
“What he looks like…….”
At those words, Nam Cheolmin recalled the man in his memory.
A dress shirt, slacks, and as if that weren’t enough, even dress shoes.
“My first impression was, what the hell is this?”
Inside the rift, he had equipped proper items, but…….
No matter how one looked at it, wasn’t his outfit inappropriate for someone who had come to clear a rift?
On top of that, he kept wearing the dress shoes until the very end.
However, inside the rift, the man did not show the slightest disorder.
In the moment he tangled with the gnoll and engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
In the moment he fell into a trap and was surrounded.
Even in the moment he faced the imp.
There was no change in the man.
All of it.
His attitude was as though he were looking down from a high place.
“……
But putting that into words is.”
As Nam Cheolmin pondered, Nam Taemin asked.
“Did you see some kind of mythical creature? Why can’t you even explain it?”……
A mythical creature?
At those words, it suddenly came to mind.
“……
That’s it!”
He had never seen one, since they did not exist in modern-day South Korea, but……. There could be no word more fitting to describe the man.
“He was like a noble. And an extremely highborn one.”
“……
Huh?”*
“This should be enough.”
That was about the possibility.
When I stared intently at the video, thoughts flowed chaotically through my head.
They were not primitive emotions like cool or enviable.
I was “analyzing” the magic I saw.
“!”
The concept of magic surfaced in my mind.
In truth, it should have been impossible.
If one got to the root of it, that wasn’t magic, but a skill.
However, I could see it.
The certainty that, if only I met the sufficient amount of mana to support it, I could manifest that magic……!
Naturally, that was not “Lee Hoyeol’s” talent.
“It seems my mind has not yet gone dull.”
The Claudie family’s greatest genius in history.
It was undoubtedly Granfell’s talent.
Of course, it was still too early to jump to conclusions.
But I had seen the possibility, so there was more than enough value in investing in it.
Moreover, that possibility was open in many directions.
Not only magic, but swordsmanship, archery…….
Granfell’s talent had not manifested in only one field.
Well done, past Lee Hoyeol.
Yes, if you were going to make settings anyway, you should cram in everything cool and good.
Either way, the embarrassment was the same, wasn’t it?
Let’s stand tall before my dark history.
I had learned that there was ample possibility, but there was no need to hurry.
Swordsmanship, archery, magic…….
Even if I decided on a path right away, there wasn’t any particular benefit.
That was because of the ambiguous nature of the class called Demon Hunter.
But the word ambiguous wasn’t used only when everything was a drawback.
Yes, even when everything was an advantage, one could still call it ambiguous, couldn’t they?
Even if that wasn’t the case, it would be best to leave all possibilities open for now.
“In that case.”
It was about time to invest the stat points I had been saving.[Available Points: 12]
I checked my status window.