Chapter 347
The Arbiter.
This NPC, both the suppressor of the safe zone and a raid boss, was the final endgame raid boss of Last.
Why was that?
For one, he was just too tricky to catch.
The Arbiter’s defense was incredibly high.
He was fully decked out in gear that players simply didn’t have, and even if you managed to hit him with a bullet, there was literally no spot where damage would register properly.
Not a single one.
And unless you used a tier 3 or higher weapon, damage was reduced by 98%.
Even with tier 3 or above, damage was reduced by 40%.
[???: I’m going to summon and kill the Arbiter.]
==
Maybe this guy just doesn’t know what the Arbiter is?
==
And so, when Seojun stated his goal, the reactions from those outside were uniformly incredulous.
In their current situation, they couldn’t deal any meaningful damage to the Arbiter.
No matter how much you hit him with only 2% damage, it was pointless because the Arbiter’s health constantly regenerated.
Literally.
Thus, there was a heated debate over whether Seojun would actually summon the Arbiter or not.
Arguments flew about whether it was just a bluff, or that Seojun was simply being an idiot.
Because if it was summoned, things would spiral out of control.
[Trolling, what a brat]
[No, seriously, this is not it]
[Guess your faith is lacking because it’s Raven]
[Yeah, you’ll get to see it crash and burn, so maybe that’s a good thing]
[Right, let that server go down in flames]
[Caused a mess, caused a mess lololol]
But then, that very Arbiter was summoned.
By killing the leader of the Slayer team.
And the one responsible even had the leisure to loot the body so casually.
A few minutes later, the Arbiter was set to appear at the camp’s central helipad and begin a indiscriminate assault.
[You need a hundred people united to solve this. For the sake of the server, they must.]
[The production crew, who’d been raking in sweet numbers from Travel viewers, weeping bitterly]
“Hey, are you insane?”
There were many people gathered around Seojun.
Some of them were from the Slayer team, who of course wanted their items back.
“Too late.”
Seojun’s looting speed was fast.
“Wow. Don’t you know this is going to turn into a total shitshow? No, are you seriously crazy? You’re trying to ruin the content? You’re a streamer!”
Hmm.
Seojun grinned.
“Are you mad because you lost all your coins?”
From what I saw while looting, there were quite a lot.
“Wow! Wow! You really are…!”
“What?”
Seojun smiled amiably. With that unimaginable amount of coins, a company working this hard deserved some respectful words even if not a reward.
The surroundings buzzed.
“What? No, you actually killed him?”
“There’s the body, isn’t there? And the server message, too.”
“Yeah, but….”
They still didn’t seem to fully grasp the situation.
If that was the case, they needed to be brought up to speed quickly, so Seojun said.
“Yes, the Arbiter has appeared. For the record, I planned this from the beginning.”
He aimed his gun.
The very same gun that had just killed Ray.
-lololololololololol
-I seriously don’t know anymore lololol
-The streamer is a madman lololol
-Causing trouble and then acting so damn brazen, this bastard
“Aaaagh! Crazy!”
“Run for now!”
“What the hell! Everyone, get out of the survivor camp!”
For reference, every time you kill a person, the number of Arbiters increases.
Seojun didn’t want to increase the number of Arbiters coming to the server any further, so this was just a performance.
“Everyone is so easily tricked.”
But there was one person who wasn’t fooled.
A fuming member of the Slayer team.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“Our leader is talking right now. Brace yourself.”
“For what?”
Seojun’s eyes filled with curiosity.
What did the recently deceased Ray have to say!
“Our Slayer guild will absolutely not cooperate in catching the Arbiter. You, streamer, get ready to hit rock bottom. Think you can catch it? Whether the server gets bombarded by the Arbiter, or you give up on the server, both will be fatal for you. We will definitely block any tier 3 raids.”
“In that case.”
“What.”
“I’ll have to run to your base.”
“What?”
“Since it’s an infinite rocket situation, we can’t fight at my place.”
“You, you piece of trash.”
Either way, the Arbiter arrived on the island by helicopter.
* * *
Honestly, there was no time to run to anyone else’s base.
Seojun knew the Arbiter all too well anyway.
It was a fairly powerful boss monster.
Especially in the current situation.
‘Movement speed? Fast.’
It’s a boss that moves freely without a set zone.
If you get too far away, it immediately heads toward your base with the intention of bombing it back to the Stone Age.
So you can’t just run without looking back.
What can I do?
‘Fortunately, like a common trait of NPCs, it tries to avoid being hit, and…’
There’s something else I’ve thought of.
Even if my damage is lacking, it can be supplemented.
[Hey. Are you going to be okay?]
“Don’t worry, just stay at home. I’ll handle it alone.”
First, let’s meet it.
Whup-whup-whup-whup.
The helicopter tore through the sky above, heading inward toward the camp.
This place was no longer a safe zone for Seojun.
If the Arbiter could kill Seojun, it would shoot anywhere.
But the same applied to Seojun.
‘Though it’s 2% damage.’
I took out the best rifle I had prepared and waited.
The helicopter must have landed in the center of the camp.
As I waited, leaning against a wall for just a moment, a man in a gas mask approached from afar, his movements controlled, neither leisurely nor hurried.
As if he knew exactly where Seojun was.
‘He must know.’
Since that’s how the programming works.
That gas mask is a bulletproof mask.
Not literally a bulletproof mask, but I mean it reduces damage even with a headshot.
That’s possible.
Even in a world with cyborgs, it wouldn’t be strange. After all, the game company never explained the lore.
In a game, you have to fight under set conditions regardless.
When the opponent’s condition is a bulletproof mask, you find another way.
All sorts of weapons hung from the Arbiter’s back.
‘Incredible strength.’
To show such controlled and swift movement while carrying all that.
“Everyone, doesn’t he look like he has inner energy? Even if it’s portable, you can’t move with a rocket launcher strapped to your back like that without some kind of inner power, right?”
-lololol
-Stay sharp, streamer! You're fighting such a monster! lololol
-How are you seriously going to deal with that?
-You could just log out for life lololol
“Still, don’t worry too much. I’ll catch it.”
Just then, the Arbiter’s arm moved with cowboy-like speed, immediately firing a scattergun-type shot at the spot where Seojun had poked his head out.
Bang!
The spread of bullets rushed in, and Seojun ducked behind the wall.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Arbiter fired as it closed in.
Bang!
And the moment it fired the fourth shot was Seojun’s only window of opportunity.
Seojun leaned over the wall and fired at the Arbiter.
The Arbiter stopped its advance to take cover, ducking to the side, and Seojun didn’t miss this chance, flowing like water as he retreated.
The game of tag had begun.
BOOOOM!
“Throwing this out every chance you get… that’s a bit much.”
BOOOOM!
Seojun was fleeing the camp, making his way into Last’s most common map: the forest.
Any time the distance grew just a bit, the Arbiter fired its rocket launcher without hesitation.
If you know exactly when it attacks, you can create an opening afterward to make it dodge and then escape; that was the way to survive.
But on top of that, you had to dodge the flying rockets and still keep it engaged.
If you got too far, it would turn around without a second thought.
Truly an awkward fellow.
BOOOOM!
[You still alive?]
In a different sense, an always awkward fellow, Taewoo, asked Seojun.
“Yeah, I’m alive.”
One lapse and I’d be dead, but I just had to not lapse.
Seojun had faced far more difficult moments than this.
The problem was that surviving was manageable, but finding a way to kill it was a different story.
“First, I’m heading home.”
[What? Get lost! Don’t come here! You haven’t found a way to deal damage, have you?]
“……”
Awkward.
“I’m still coming. Get ready.”
Without further explanation, Seojun focused on the present moment.
BOOOOM!
Look at it, just firing rockets nonstop because there’s some distance.
It’s not for nothing that the Arbiter is known as the Stone Age propagator.
[Hey!]
[Seojun, what do you mean by get ready? Please explain.]
[Sigh, should we just pack all our stuff?]
“No.”
BOOOOM!
The tree Seojun hid behind vanished.
Before the next rocket came, he had to hide behind anything—a rock, a hill, another tree.
So he hid behind the next tree.
BOOOOM!
And just like that, another tree was erased from the world.
Without even leaving any items behind.
“If we succeed, we’ll get tier 3 raid-level rewards, and above all, I’ve taken every single coin from the Slayer team, so it’s an enormous gain. This operation is perfect.”
[Only if you can catch him!]
[Why are you changing the subject, Seojun? Just don’t come.]
[So what do we do? Don’t we need to pack up immediately?]
“No.”
Even amid the frantic movements, Seojun intermittently fired attacks to maintain distance.
In the middle of all that, he managed to land a hit.
[Arbiter – 99%]
The health doesn’t go down.
[Arbiter – 98%]
No, it regenerates.
[Arbiter – 99%]
-You’re going to catch that?
-Yeah, this is definitely not it.
-Probably a ploy to blow up his own base! The streamer’s personality has always been indiscriminate toward friend or foe!
-No matter how much I think about it, this is impossible. What, can you fire fifty shots at once?
-If he were to gather allies, maybe, but the problem is it dodges, hides, and thinks like a player.
-I think Ha Yoonho’s team should help.
[At least come back after you’ve made a plan!]
[Shall we call Yoonho now? Even if setting up an angle where we all hit it at once is nearly impossible, if there’s even a shred of possibility…]
[In a crisis, they might not interfere with a tier 3 raid.]
[They’ll probably interfere even more, saying this is exactly what he's aiming for. There’s no reason for them to let it slide.]
“Don’t worry. I’m here.”
Seojun opened the door and entered the house.
Since his destination was always the house, he had rushed regardless of the distance closing or stretching.
The team members were crowded near the entrance, but contrary to his relaxed tone, Seojun rummaged through crates like a doctor attending an emergency patient, quickly gathering items and heading up to the rooftop.
“Only Pro Baek Doyul, follow me.”
Baek Doyul followed Seojun up.
Arriving on the rooftop, Seojun handed Baek Doyul the sniper rifle he had just pulled from a crate.
“He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Yes… and he’ll destroy things with his rocket launcher and enter the house, won’t he? Thanks to you, Seojun? Even if I hit him with this sniper rifle now, the damage won’t register.”
Seojun nodded.
That was exactly the point Seojun was aiming for.
Meanwhile, outside—especially in the Last community—many people were skeptical about Seojun.
[Any way to overcome this situation?]
==
Successfully pull off a tier 3 raid despite the Slayer guild and the Arbiter both hell-bent on interfering, obtain the item, and then use it to catch the Arbiter.
VS
Just give up the base and pray.
This streamer chose the latter! Hahaha
==
-Why do you guys hate this streamer so much?
└Because it’s just not right to bulldoze someone and kill them in a safe zone
└That’s true
└It’s okay to bulldoze only in other games. If you act like that here and then can’t handle the aftermath?
└Then nothing good will be said
-Well, let’s just watch and see
└How much of the base gets blown up?
└Hahahaha
-Wow... wait a minute, I think I know the method?????? Wow, no, is this it...?
└What is it?
└The Arbiter’s rocket launcher is tier 3 or higher
└So what about it?
└Ah...??!
└Even if hitting it is one thing, is it possible to fire at the exact timing? Multiple times, at that?
[Arbiter – 100%]
At a slight distance, Seojun spotted the gas-masked figure eyeing their house.
“He’s here.”
“Aren’t you going to explain what I need to do?”
“No need to explain. It’s really simple. Watch and follow my lead.”
Seojun and the Arbiter simultaneously aimed at each other and pulled their triggers.
After that, the result was.
“See, I told you it would work.”
[Arbiter – 80%]
-???
-???
-???
-???