Chapter 6
“I am Joseon’s Assassin” had been a diehard fan of Dawn of the Assassins since its PC days.
He was so devoted that he sank thousands of hours into earlier titles that were criticized for failing to capture the fun of virtual reality once the series moved to VR.
And on top of that, VR suited him quite well. Put simply, he had some talent.
Of course, he couldn’t fly around like the pros, but there weren’t many who could outplay him when it came to Dawn of the Assassins.
He was a community name who uploaded countless veteran gameplay videos and was also a beta tester for this title, Shadow in the City.
[We aim to focus on true infiltration and assassination. Musou? Try it if you can.]
The developers announced that design principle before the game’s release.
When he heard it, he cheered.
After all, he was so into musou play that he loved the phrase “If there are no witnesses, it’s assassination!”
And now they’re making it harder?
For a skilled player like him, that was a fresh challenge. He also liked that it would become a playstyle not just anyone could pull off easily.
And then that expectation crumbled to dust during the beta test.
The reason was the difficulty.
It had become far, far too difficult.
All the melee combat skills carried over from the previous game, but enemy HP and numbers had increased way too much.
To break through, you had to use the new system where parrying blew up your damage, but the parrying difficulty itself had become extremely high.
Even a seasoned, near-pro player like him would fail occasionally. And a single failure in this game was a brutal one.
On top of that, despite their talk about focusing on assassination, the bosses—clearly crafted with insane effort—had combat difficulty that left him in despair.
In the end, during the beta test, he had to enjoy mainly assassination play instead of musou.
Still, he was satisfied enough.
It was a god-tier game praised for opening a new horizon in assassination games, offering insane freedom in assassination methods to the point it was called the Breath of the City.
But when the beta ended and the official release came, Joseon’s Assassin felt something was missing.
Because, to him, true assassination was musou.
So he started watching streams. After all, he’d already played the game plenty, and he’d keep playing.
But—
[Guys, you can assassinate by collapsing buildings, too. Crazy.]
Look here.
[The target really sits on a bench reading the newspaper every morning. Now just detonate this box and it’s an assassination success. This crazy god-game.]
Look there.
[Three hours hiding in the shadows. Still getting stepped on by people in the street. When the hell is he coming, seriously!]
—lol why are you doing this? gather intel, please, bro
—That is assassination, after all. Mm!
—Why the hell have I been watching this for three hours????
Wherever he looked,
he couldn’t find any musou play.
And so he couldn’t enjoy himself.
At a time when every fan of Dawn of the Assassins was laughing and chattering, swarming around and stirring up attention!
Just as he was losing motivation and about to close Travel, a recommended stream popped up.
He figured it was just some ordinary small stream, but the title caught his eye.
[Newbie, both streaming and VR gaming for the first time as DoSum. Anyone want to backseat?]
A newbie starting VR with Dawn of the Assassins? Legal backseating?
This he could not resist.
So he clicked in—and the first thing he saw was a veteran player perfectly parrying the tutorial sentry’s sword.
‘A coincidence?’
Even though he knew better than anyone that parrying couldn’t happen by coincidence, he thought that.
But then the streamer went on to take down the sentry, and then dealt with four out of five soldiers using parries.
“Yes, this is assassination!”
Joseon’s Assassin cheered and delivered some righteous education to the viewers who had been ignoring him.
Of course, he got muted shortly after.
And a little later, a single line came through the stream.
[Guys, I’ll show you a 13-hit parry chain.]
“13-hit parry chain? Just surviving in there alone would be insane...”
Joseon’s Assassin swallowed in anticipation and fixed his eyes on the screen.
In this new installment, one-versus-many combat had become especially difficult.
The reason was coordination.
Whether the developers really set out to force assassination play, I don’t know, but in this game, if the mobs were grouped together, they moved efficiently—
so much so that once they took their positions, you couldn’t find any gaps in their movement.
Yet the host gave them time to take those positions. This could reasonably be seen as a beginner’s arrogance.
But...
why does it feel like he’s going to win?
He switched from first-person to third-person view and locked it.
To watch his play—which seemed like it was about to show something—in greater detail.
[Kill the intruder!]
[There is only one! Do not fear!]
Clank!
Clank!
The sounds of iron weapons shifting rang out, and the encircling soldiers lunged at the host in sequence.
Only then did the host start moving his feet.
And then the cane drew a semicircle.
Claaang!
Claaang!
Joseon’s Assassin’s eyes widened.
‘How on earth did he parry at that angle? Looking at his account creation date, he’s not even a beta tester.’
It was ridiculous.
Just by swinging his cane wide, he almost simultaneously parried a sword lunging from behind and a sword flying in from the side.
It was as if he had grasped, in that brief instant, that a parry judgment removes reaction force, allowing smooth movement—and then acted on it!
Lightly downing two opponents, the host tilted his upper body back, then ducked and narrowly weaved through the slashing attacks like he was walking a tightrope.
And then, once again.
Claaang!
Claaang!
One wide swing downs two at once.
‘How the hell does he see attacks coming from behind? Is he hacking?’
13 versus 1 became 9 versus 1 in an instant. 9 versus 1 became 8 versus 1, and 8 versus 1 became 6 versus 1.
—Wh, whoa, does he seriously have eyes on the back of his head?
—Is our host a pro or something?
—I feel like even pros couldn’t do that...
—If you delete your account you have to wait 4 years to remake it, who’d endure that? Anyone who’s tried VR can never quit lol. He’s really a newbie.
Even a thirty-thousand-piece puzzle gets completed if you start fitting the edges one by one.
The host did the same: methodically dodging what could be dodged, parrying what could be parried, and whittling down the enemies.
‘Easy to say.’
Joseon’s Assassin thought that if anyone could survive over a minute in that chaos, that person could make it their actual profession.
But the host went even further—closing in on groggy enemies and taking their lives.
In the midst of dodging the enemies’ coordination, at some point, he would be beside a fallen enemy.
Smoothly, as if it were unintentional. Yet the play was clearly deliberate.
—Just how many steps ahead do you see! O greatest of all time among assassins!!!!!!!
He typed in the chat, full of excitement.
* * *
Seojun killed the last fallen soldier, then glanced at the chat.
—Hope of Musou! Hope of Musou! Hope of Musou! Hope of Musou! Hope of Musou!
—Wah
—Woooaaaah
—Is it okay for my shabby corneas to witness this?
—Host, are you hacking?
“Why are you amazed by just this?”
—????
—Then what the hell should we be amazed by?
—Wait, do you actually get amazed by things?
“You just dodge what you can dodge and parry what you can parry.”
—Bro lol like we don’t know that lol
—This is assassination! This is assassination! This is assassination! This is assassination!
—This stream’s fraudulence is a bit much
“Too much fraudulence? So, you won’t watch?”
—No
—lololol
—I already hit follow
Oh.
Seojun checked the follow list and was startled. All six people currently watching had followed him.
You could say it’s only six, but as a ratio, it’s 100%.
The small numbers make that possible, but it definitely wasn’t a bad sign.
“Shall we go catch Etor now?”
—Somehow... I feel like he’s gonna catch him
—For real lol
Seojun walked to where Etor was.
As expected of a grand mansion, a chandelier and various luxurious furnishings caught the eye.
He went up to the second floor and opened the central bedroom door—and a silver flash appeared between the gaps.
His pupils dilated in an instant, and he threw his body to the side.
CRAAAASH!
Etor, fully prepared, had waited for the moment Seojun opened the door and brought his flail crashing down.
The iron ball at the end of the flail half-destroyed the door and the floor.
—He dodged that lol
—Already felt it when he banned earlier, but his reaction speed is insane
—Most people die at least once here...
But Seojun immediately rushed in and slashed Etor’s neck with his cane.
HP barely ticked down.
“Guys, can a flail be parried?”
—Nope. lol. He’s trying to one-shot the boss.
—Where’s your conscience?
—If it worked, someone would’ve cleared the tutorial by now.
—Even the devs have common sense. How do you parry a flail with a cane lol
“Kahaha! You dodge like a little rat! Let me show you the taste of my flail!”
A flail is a weapon with a spiked, round mace head connected to the handle by a rope or chain. For convenience, people in Korea just call it a mace.
Whooosh!
Etor started swinging the flail recklessly.
Crunch!
Crunch!
Seojun stepped back, and the flail smashed into innocent railings and walls.
—O GOAT, if you don’t kill Etor within five minutes of facing him, the Death Squad’s reinforcements arrive and it’s an instant fail.
Seojun read the chat and thought back to the damage he’d dealt so far. He quickly concluded that killing him within five minutes was impossible.
But he didn’t give up.
Unless the game was designed to be unbeatable, there had to be a way.
He considered drawing the sword from his cane and aiming for weak points like the eyes—
when more chat messages came in.
—They say hitting the same spot repeatedly increases damage. The community consensus is that might work. O GOAT!
What the hell does ‘GOAT’ mean?
“First, thanks for the info, Joseon’s Assassin.”
Damage increase multiplier?
Let’s check it out, then.
The opponent’s weapon actually held the key to closing the distance.
Using an HP advantage in combat to close the gap might normally be like willingly walking into a death trap, but surprisingly, this game didn’t include that kind of unrealistic combat behavior.
Meaning, the soldiers don’t adopt a tactic of trading hits just because they have high HP; instead, they move as if they think a single hit will kill them.
Just as expected.
Etor seemed flustered.
Even if getting stabbed in the eye with a cane wouldn’t actually kill him, he didn’t know how to exploit that. A real human would have.
Seojun slashed Etor’s neck as he tried to pull his flail out of the floor.
Then he grabbed the flail’s handle along with Etor and slashed his neck again.
A contest of strength began.
The dangerous part of the flail is the head studded with sharp spikes.
But if you hold the handle together, the force doesn’t reach the head, effectively neutralizing it.
—He grabbed it?!
—In an instant, for real
But that’s only if his strength is at least in equilibrium with Etor’s.
Seojun could feel that his set strength was lower than Etor’s.
So he immediately slashed Etor’s neck once more.
Because every time Etor flinched, he felt the man’s power drain.
“Get your hand off my weapon! You son of a bitch assassin!”
He sensed Etor trying to kick him away.
Before the leg could even rise, Seojun struck Etor’s shin with the cane, blocking it.
This time, Etor threw a punch with his other hand. Seojun lightly turned his head and dodged.
Slash.
Once again, the cane cut Etor’s neck.
The HP bar visibly dropped—enough to clearly notice the difference.
“Just keep going like this.”
—Wow lol
—Etor, we’re sorry ㅠㅠ
—Is that something a human can do?
* * *
Meanwhile, Joseon’s Assassin, who had been watching the stream in third-person on another level of appreciation, couldn’t stop expressing his admiration.
“Dispersing Etor’s strength, dodging and nullifying every attempt to shake him off, taking not a single hit while slashing his neck dozens of times. This is an art! He’s truly insane! As expected of the GOAT!”
What gave him even more chills was that Seojun hadn’t even drawn the sword from his cane.
Other streamers had tried using the hidden blade in the sword stick, the hidden blade in the gauntlets, wires—everything—and failed. Yet the host was facing Etor with nothing but his cane.
The cane did have a blade, but its damage was only half of the hidden sword, and one-third of the hidden blade.
[It’s over.]
Even though Etor still had a fifth of his HP left, a voice of certainty came through the speakers.
Since the damage increased like an exponential function, the host might have calculated that the next hit would kill him.
With that level of skill, damage calculation must be a piece of cake...
[Never mind, he needs one more hit.]
Maybe not. He seemed a bit of an airhead.
[Ahem.]
Finally, the HP bar cleanly drained, and a cutscene played.
[You hypocritical hound of the Assassin Corps! I won’t go alone!]
[Tutorial Quest—Assassination Mission]
[Success]
—Isn’t this the first clear??
—No way lol I just happened into a small stream and witnessed the first clear lololol
—We are witnessing history right now
At this genuine first clear, Joseon’s Assassin briefly joined the equally bewildered chat, then opened an internet browser.
His destination: the Dawn of the Assassins community.
Then he began writing a post, attaching the recorded stream footage.
The title, first of all.
[Newbie, first time streaming and gaming, parries 13 versus 1 in the tutorial, wipes out the mobs, and becomes the first in the universe to take down Etor (no cap, for real)]