Chapter 22
The moment he stepped across the boundary, he could feel that something had changed.
And as if waiting for it, the guards rushed at him.
Reflexively, Seojun tried to draw his sword from his inventory with his right hand.
But his left hand flailed in the air.
‘Guess I can’t get used to it right away.’
-lolololololololol
-What are you doing?
-Even for the Nameless One, this is too much.
-It’s bound to be hard for anyone who’s just a normal person.
Seojun stumbled backward with an awkward gait, clumsily drawing the sword with his right hand.
And he swung it.
Claaaang!
-Oh?????
-Huh? Why... is that a parry?
-He’s hitting it even though his senses are switched? lololololol
Seojun smiled and swung his arm once more.
Claaaang!
“Yeah, I’m getting the hang of it.”
He quickly grew accustomed to the altered sensations.
For someone like Seojun, who could control his body down to the millimeter, it was merely a matter of a little conscious adjustment.
Although his reaction speed had slowed.
A gap of this level might only become a critical misstep in a fight against a master. Against an NPC, it was within acceptable limits.
“Ah, this game is easy.”
Seojun brought his sword to the fireball flying at him, like a right-hander trying to write with his left hand.
Awkward, but he drew the stroke perfectly.
-ㅂㄷㅂㄷ
-What on earth can’t this streamer do?
-Stream settings
-lolololololololol
“Honestly, I’ve never seen a game as easy as Dosum. You just go and fight.”
There’s always a way, it seems.
Seojun walked slowly, step by step, and dealt with the mage.
Swoosh.
-Is this that thing where if your body is good, your brain gets a break or whatever?
-lolololololololol
-I’m so jealous of that physical talent
-Do you even play other games? Stop the gaslighting!
After that, maybe because he had fully adapted, Seojun repeated exactly what he had done on the 4th floor.
Putting random junk items into the experimenting mage’s test tubes.
Snatching the book from the engrossed mage and closing it without marking the page, etc.
-Why on earth are you doing this?
-???: I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything so please just go!
-Such a troll lololol
Of course, Seojun had his reasons.
He was testing if the reactions would lead to anything special.
Frankly, Seojun’s skills made it difficult for him to find enjoyment in a game’s combat difficulty.
Besides, if the opponent were human, he might at least find pleasure in teaching them, but Dawn of the Assassins wasn’t a PvP-centric game.
Because the game wasn’t designed with combat as its main premise to begin with.
The intricate details.
The open world.
Seojun found these aspects fun.
Seeking out the grain was the same.
“Well, unfortunately, I’ve already found the stairs to the 6th floor. Let’s go right now.”
After looking around the 5th floor, it felt like he had already confirmed all the magic that could appear on the 4th floor.
Of course, a thorough search would be better, but since when has he been hung up on one or two spells?
Just because he didn’t see them didn’t mean it was a grain he couldn’t find.
-What’s so unfortunate?
-The remaining mages are sweating bullets praying for you to leave.
-Finding it unfortunate is true madness lololol
As Seojun left the 5th floor and climbed the stairs, his senses returned to normal.
“So it’s this kind of method.”
Flexing his right hand open and closed, Seojun climbed the stairs, re-adapting to his returned senses.
The next floor was Slowing.
A debuff that makes the body sluggish.
Upon opening the door and entering, he felt as if iron rods were attached to his entire body this time.
It was as though gravity had more than doubled in an instant.
He even felt fatigue throughout his entire body.
It was a debuff others considered much easier compared to the Confusion of the 5th floor.
But for combat rather than infiltration, Seojun thought this Slowing was just as difficult as Confusion.
“Hmm. It feels a bit frustrating.”
Seojun began to move by predicting the enemy’s attacks in advance.
Because he judged that otherwise, he’d be hit while trying to dodge.
Rumble rumble rumble.
Rock spears rose from the ground.
The sharp tips of the rocks rushed toward him, aiming for Seojun.
And Seojun’s sword collided with the approaching tip of the rock at the exact timing.
Magic splitting along the grain.
Seojun neutralized the magic and killed the mages standing guard.
After that, he quickly found the stairs heading to the 7th floor.
-Ugh. I’m the one watching and I feel sluggish lololololol.
-It was fun when the infiltrating players got slowed down, but watching the guy who’s been mowing down enemies get slow is super frustrating.
-Fast skip gogo
“Yes, reflecting the opinions of my viewers, I will be skipping the 6th floor.”
If it hadn’t been for the stream, he might have looked around at his leisure, but Seojun didn’t particularly care.
Actually, while climbing the stairs, Seojun was thinking about something else.
‘All the environments this game creates would have been excellent for training in my past life.’
Perhaps the level of virtual reality users rising so high in just over ten years was thanks to gaining experience, without fear of death, in these various environments.
In his past life, people with high skills unattainable through ten years of training were active as pros, which had suddenly sparked the thought.
And the low barrier to accessing martial arts probably played a part too.
Unlike his past life where martial arts were the exclusive domain of a special few, now anyone could easily access it by entering a capsule room.
“We’ve already arrived at the 7th floor.”
The debuff here was Darkness.
His vision was completely blocked.
Seojun opened the door wide.
He could see the stairs leading up to the 8th floor directly across from him.
“Oh, I don’t particularly need to search the 7th floor.”
It was likely a consideration by the developers, who judged that finding the stairs to the next floor while unable to see would be unreasonable.
Even so, it wasn’t easy.
Two mage NPCs visible in the middle of the long corridor.
They, just like on the previous floors, had been waiting for Seojun to step through the door.
-Is he gonna die here?
-Honestly, Darkness is totally overpowered.
-How can he do anything when he can’t see a thing?
-Just climb the outer wall now.
-Even Spider-Man couldn’t do this lol
Seojun looked at the chat window making a fuss for a moment, then smiled and stepped forward.
While replaying all the senses he had collected from the past floors.
Instantly, the screen was replaced with a space containing nothing but darkness.
The only thing visible was Seojun’s own body.
Whooo.
In the silent world where even a small breath sounded loud.
Fwoosh.
The sound of a fireball being generated rang out.
Recalling the shape of the corridor, Seojun began to slowly walk forward.
‘Head.’
Whooong.
He tilted his head to the left, and something grazed past where his head had been.
He felt a sensation of heat.
And a second later, the red afterglow of magic power drew a solid line in the dark space, showing the trajectory of the spell that had already passed.
‘An effect, huh. The presentation is beautiful.’
Rumble rumble.
While still in that motion, Seojun rotated his body and used his sword to dig into and split the rock jutting out from the wall.
Brown sparkling dust scattered into the dark space.
Sssss.
He threw his body forward, evading the vines crawling up from the floor.
Fwoosh!
Two this time.
Rolling forward and naturally rising, Seojun dodged one by slightly leaning his body back and destroyed the other with his sword.
Crackle.
Red sparks flew.
Crrrrack.
He heard the sound of an ice magic spell being created right in front of him.
Seojun immediately swung his sword upward from below, aiming for the body of the incomplete ice arrows.
Catching the sound of the mage, whose spell was destroyed, stumbling backward, he brought his sword down right next to the empty air where blue powder was falling.
“I hear everything.”
After that, he started running quickly.
‘Above? Below? Or both?’
The mage he had just killed wasn’t the only one who had created ice arrows.
The mage waiting at the stairs had been casting ice arrows at the same time.
The problem was that the sounds had overlapped, so Seojun hadn’t captured it properly.
Seojun ran as fast as possible, trying to deal with it before the magic was created.
But he was too late.
Whoooosh.
He felt the faint current of air being sucked into the spell like a whirlwind.
It was the signal that the magic was complete.
But that was okay. If he had felt the wind, that is.
Pewooong!
‘Fortunately, I’m within range. Three shots.’
Seojun spun sideways in the air and brought his sword down.
Two projectiles passed by the spots where his head and legs had been, followed by a chill wind.
And the arrow flying toward his heart was blocked by Seojun’s sword and fell to the floor.
He had pinpointed the arrows’ positions through the movement of the wind.
He began to leisurely walk through the darkness again.
Step, step.
In the dark silence, only the sound of his footsteps echoed.
“An assassin is naturally stronger in the dark.”
-Excuse me. This isn’t darkness, it’s just being blinded, you know?
-For real lololololol
-Assassin? No. In the dark? No.
-Holy Roman Empire meme lololol
-Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, that ‘country’
Fwoosh.
A spell was being cast once more right next to him.
Grab.
Seojun seized the mage’s arm.
“Urraaagh!”
The casting was naturally cancelled.
-Spider-Man is real, and he’s streaming on Travel right now!
-???: You can no longer deceive me.
-Info) The streamer was never deceived in the first place.
After finishing the mage, Seojun stepped onto the stairs and looked back.
In the world filled only with darkness, the darkness receded around him.
The corridor he had passed through came into view all at once.
“Wow. I dodged it all cleanly, thankfully.”
What had looked like glowing powder in the darkness was indeed all the remains of spells.
-Did I watch a circus or a game?
-Crazy, for real
-All that was magic and he actually dodged it lololol I’m busting out a laugh from sheer disbelief
Enthusiastic reactions flooded the chat window.
Donations also began piling up in an instant.
Normally, he had set donations not to appear during gameplay to avoid being disturbed, but this was a short break, so it was probably fine.
[‘ㅇㅇ’ donated 10,000 Won!]
[That was f***ing awesome.]
[‘damn’ donated 10,000 Won!]
[Damn!]
[‘Me, who saw this live’ donated 10,000 Won!]
[I am the victor]
[‘Armchair Director Bong’ donated 10,000 Won!]
[Why are you making a movie all by yourself?]
“Alright, thank you all for the donations.”
Seojun sat on the stairs for a moment.
“Well, but this level is that thing, what was it. Sound play? If you just know how to do that, anyone can do it. Isn’t that right? You can all do it too, right?”
He began to interact.
-Ah, here we go again;;;
-Honestly, if you’re this good, you’re allowed to gaslight, but I still want to hit you.
-The moment he makes one mistake, everyone’s going to jump him lolololol
-How is this sound play? It’s superpowers lolololol
-So... it turns out I can’t do sound play...
Sound play refers to a style of play where you listen to sounds and use them as a basis to tactically grasp information like the enemy’s position.
But what Seojun showed felt different to the viewers.
Almost like.
[‘Is that’ donated 100,000 Won!]
[Is that the thing where you visually materialize auditory senses or something? I’m grade 9 in Korean but I understood that perfectly.]
-The meme game is crazy lolololol
-No matter how I look at it, he really is a Korean teacher lololololol
-Synaesthetic expression is insane lolololololololololololololol
-lmaololololol
-Mom! I’m studying! Mom! I’m studying! Mom! I’m studying! Mom! I’m studying!
Even Seojun couldn’t hold back and laughed.
As expected.
Streaming is fun.