Chapter 8
The next day.
Before starting his stream, Seojun checked the Dawn of the Assassins community.
Heading to the 30-upvoted posts, most were about major streamers and game info.
The post Joseon's Assassin had written yesterday...
'Found it.'
Flipping to the second page, he saw plenty of 30-upvoted posts about it.
[30-Upvoted: Why Unknown’s Video Is a Fake]
[30-Upvoted: Why Unknown’s Video Is Legendary]
[30-Upvoted: Pros Didn’t Clear First Because They Didn’t Try, Not Because They Couldn’t]
[30-Upvoted: Why Make Such a Big Deal Over Musou Anyway?]
The posts had high view counts and lots of comments. And it seemed like fights had broken out too.
-But in the Unknown video, how does cutting with a staff deal damage?
└ You’ve never played Dawn of the Assassins, have you?
└ Nope.
└ I’ll explain. The staff is made of iron.
└ So?
└ It’s tetanus damage.
└ Cut the crap. There’s a blade embedded in the staff. It looks like it’s meant for when you can’t pull out the sword inside, but that guy just never pulled it out till the end.
Comments like these were posted.
But that was it.
‘It really does get buried fast.’
Just scroll up a bit and people are already fiercely debating other topics.
The community Seojun was looking at constantly threw out new attention-grabbing topics. So, unless you supplied fresh material, sticking around for long was nearly impossible.
Seojun browsed other posts.
And before long, he noticed one eye-catching post.
[Repost) The Reason the New 10th Stage AI Is So Damn Annoying]
‘This is the Dawn of the Assassins community. They talk about the Training Grounds here too?’
Seojun didn’t know much about it, but famous incidents were often mentioned regardless of a community’s main theme. Since most people already knew about it, it got upvoted easily too.
The Training Grounds were a gateway everyone passed at least once when starting virtual reality, a place to warm up that many used. Shin Ha-yeon’s AI, which had held the 10th stage for five years and frustrated other pros, was widely seen as an impregnable fortress.
The fact that someone beat that AI and didn’t reveal their identity—by now, it would be strange if the whole community wasn’t buzzing about it.
Seojun clicked the post. It turned out to be a direct repost from another community.
====
You all know the 10th stage AI changed, right?
A few days ago, on that stream by the retired pro whose routine was to launch the Training Grounds and challenge Shin Ha-yeon before starting the game, some guy suddenly replaced her and everyone freaked out.
The name is Unknown. An undisclosed user.
That’s why everyone’s fixated on this Unknown’s identity, but I want to talk about the personality.
A buddy of mine gave me a video of him fighting Unknown this time.
This is that video. Got permission to upload it.
(Video of fighting the 10th stage AI)
If you watch this, putting the skill aside—there’s no question about that—you can see just how vicious this bastard is.
Sometimes he deliberately turns his head away and blocks the sword.
His personality is insane.
He wants to prove he can block without looking, so he turns his head even in the middle of a good fight. My buddy got super pissed about this.
The AI didn’t do anything wrong.
You can see the intent behind uploading this data.
Personality flex.
And when you drop your sword, Shin Ha-yeon used to wait until you picked it up, right? This Unknown is a bit different.
Drop your sword, and it’s over right then. He steps on it first, then taps it with his sword to mock you, or throws it far away.
Is this why he kept his info private? Lololol.
An even creepier fact: back when people registered the 10th stage AI, the AI made them fight the previous 10th stage AI for hours to mimic them.
That’s how it collects data.
Why is that creepy? It means this Unknown fed in this data while fighting Shin Ha-yeon, who reigned for five years. Parrying, turning his head—he did it all. Lolololol.
For reference, my buddy’s convinced Unknown is definitely not human—some kind of new AlphaGo made by a project team. ㄷㄷ
(Original post link)
====
-Shin Ha-yeon didn’t play ranked in The League yesterday lololol
└ I’m 100% sure she’s in the Training Grounds. It’s well-known she periodically updates her data because she doesn’t want to lose her throne.
-Personality is insane lololol
└ For real lol. That’s a position of honor, so other masters used to be courteous. But he stays undisclosed and acts like that lololol
Seojun felt an undeserved sense of injustice.
‘I was just chatting with Taewoo while blocking and ended up like that...’
Updating the data was more tedious than expected. It was just continuously repeating battles.
That’s how it was, and before I knew it, I’d become someone accused of a personality flex.
-I saw the video, is it by chance Unknown?
└ Quit bringing up small-fry streamers.
└ Stop overdoing it!
It was Joseon's Assassin again. Did he have some kind of divine ability?
‘He’s sharp. Hmm.’
After checking each comment, Seojun felt a bit regretful. He hadn’t expected this much attention.
But.
‘Getting something suddenly is never good.’
Hadn’t he learned that from his past life’s experience?
That unprepared power is rather poison.
And.
‘Just grow day by day.’
Seojun stretched and got into the capsule to prepare for his stream.
[Followers: 432]
More people had followed than he expected. But among them, only six had watched his live broadcast.
How many would come this time?
[Streaming Start]
Seojun pressed “Breath of the City” in Dawn of the Assassins.
The background dyed black, and the buildings that had been lying flat on the far edge of the land rushed up beside him and began to loom.
* * *
“T-Ha!”
As soon as Seojun turned on the stream, the chat window and viewer count began to climb.
-Seo-ha!
-Is this really that famous Unknown’s stream?
-I’ve been waiting.
-Bang on.
-It really isn’t Joseon Assassin’s stream after all. ㄷㄷ
“Yes, this is not Joseon Assassin’s stream. And for the record, I didn’t bribe him either.”
-Lololololol
-Controversy swiftly blocked lolol
-Is this the seasoned composure of a day-2 streamer?
Just as he started interacting, a fanfare-like sound rang out.
[‘HowDoIReallyDoIt’ has donated 10,000 won!]
[I challenged after watching your video, but I can’t beat Ettore. How do I do it? I’ve been waiting just for the stream to ask!]
It was his first donation.
“Oh, thank you for the donation. Hmm, how to beat Ettore? Just hit one spot. That’s what did it for me.”
-Kya! Didn’t know that.
-Speaking as a viewer from yesterday: don’t ask him anything lololol
-Only the streamer is allowed to ask questions.
-10,000 won down the drain lololol
Seeing the chat about the wasted 10,000 won, Seojun snapped to his senses and offered some advice.
“If I have to give a tip, aiming for vital points seems good. NPCs don’t panic much when you cut them elsewhere, but hitting their vitals makes them panic and breaks their stance a lot. The damage is actually similar, though.”
After that, Seojun chatted casually, buying time as more viewers came in.
[‘Finally’ has donated 1,000 won!]
[I... can... breathe...]
“Ah, uh, congratulations?”
A puzzled look crossed Seojun's eyes. Was this some new meme?
-Congratulations? lololol
-Is that the guy from yesterday’s 30-upvoted post?
After a brief interaction before starting the main broadcast, Seojun checked the viewer count.
[Viewers: 327]
He’d expected about a hundred, but far more viewers than that had come to watch.
‘Seems like everyone who’s going to join has joined.’
Seojun felt the need to stop the chit-chat and start the game. After all, his stream was a game stream.
But Seojun didn’t know the details.
With other games, he could just follow the instructions, but Dawn of the Assassins was an open-world game.
A normal player would wander around and learn naturally, but Seojun was a streamer and needed something to show the viewers immediately.
“Alright. What should I do now?”
At Seojun's question, chat flooded in.
-Show us Musou.
-Finally a skill check?
-What’s there to check, you idiots.
Those who’d come from the community wanted to see a fight.
-You can just look around. If you want something, get a request from the Assassins to earn money, or pickpocket, or sightsee in the city. This is open world!
-If you want to push the story, you need to complete assassination requests: wander the city districts and assassinate key figures.
Someone typed out a detailed chat about the game.
Checking the nickname, it was the same person who’d explained things in detail during the first stream.
“Hmm. So if I want to see the story, I use this signal stone?”
The signal stone’s description read:
[A tool imbued with magical power that allows contact with the Assassin’s Order.]
-Yep, or you can go to a tavern.
-Amazing fact) No matter which district you go to, Cristina unnie is always there.
Seojun recalled the basic info he’d looked up the day before.
The city that served as the setting for this work was called Altheon.
Altheon was an ideal city that appropriately mixed the beautiful architecture of old Europe with the lively vibe of modern crowded streets.
This Altheon was divided into four districts.
The city center where the royal palace was, the northwestern part with the Mage Tower, the northeastern upper-class streets, and finally the rest where commoners lived.
Security went: Royal Palace > Mage Tower > Nobles > Commoners, and assassination difficulty scaled the same way.
Players could receive district-appropriate missions through the Assassin’s Order wherever they went, and in fact, they could even assassinate indiscriminately without taking missions.
Even the Assassin’s Order itself.
“First, I’ll try pickpocketing as a warm-up.”
He’d never pickpocketed in his past life or this one. So he was curious.
-Avoiding a fight because you’re scared your skills will be exposed? Lolol
-Yep, give it a try. If you get caught, the guards come running.
-To the market, go go.
Seojun opened the map.
“Whoa, the city’s huge.”
The market was in the center of the 4th district, where commoners lived.
It was just a short walk from where Seojun currently stood.
Seojun looked around the city streets and continuously expressed admiration, and the viewers liked his reaction too.
Thus he arrived at the market.
Seojun naturally melted into the crowd. Like a shadow.
And he deliberately bumped into people while moving his hand covertly.
“Oops!”
Swish.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!”
Swish.
“Oh dear, are you alright, young man?”
Swish.
Before he knew it, Seojun had three wallets in his pocket.
“I applied the subtlety of Gold Hand, and it was pretty easy.”
-The streamer is suspiciously freakishly good at pickpocketing lololol
-Wait, were his control skills honed in real life? Is he from some back alley?
-He’s from the martial world, they say.
-Was this a thief stream instead of Musou? Lololol
-No, the real fun of pickpocketing is getting caught and chased by the guards, man.
Seojun looked at the chat with a proud expression.
“At this level, you won’t starve to death anywhere, right?”
-At that level, you’d put up a building in Gangnam lolol
That’s when it happened.
“Hey, hey, come here.”
Seojun turned his head to check the source of the voice.
What he saw was a shadowed market alley.
Two people quietly emerged from it.
“Yeah, you. I saw you doing something funny. If you’re gonna do business in this market, you gotta get permission from us, y’know!”
Seojun looked back and forth between the two, then made a dumbfounded expression.
“Wow. I get caught pickpocketing, not by guards but by gangsters, and they’re shaking me down? What kind of game is this.”
He felt utterly dumbfounded.
-For real lololol the freedom is too high.
-What building in Gangnam lolol instant cut!
-Are we finally seeing the Musou? Let’s wreck them all.
“This won’t do. Can we, like, wipe out their organization in the game?”
Seojun’s mind started working. Wouldn’t it be good to link this incident to the stream?
-Yep.
-If you just take down their boss, the market gets cleaned up.
-Dawn of the Assassins is a god game!
Seojun flashed a wide, bright smile.
“We can? Then let’s make today’s stream goal wiping out their organization.”
The goal was set, and people began getting excited by Seojun’s words.
-Keu, are we filming a noir?
-You’re gonna take down the Dismemberers? Lolol
-A skill test with the Dismemberers? I cannot resist this.
That was only natural. Because the guys who had called him were members of the Dismemberers, a mask mark tattooed on their shoulders.
And the Dismemberer boss was the ruler of the 4th district—a mid-boss-level existence in the game.
-I bet the streamer doesn’t even know what the Dismemberers are lololol
-Alright, let’s go.
-Plum cookie.
-An insane alpha male who’ll take down a gang just to pickpocket
-Ah, I’m watching for the first time today and this stream is super fun lololol