Chapter 119 - Asrian Festival (1)

'So the most important thing is tricking the opponent's eyes.'

The most important thing he had gained from the experience in the duel arena was learning to twist his options numerous times.

The skill he had used the most was «Illusion Run».

Just sending an «Illusion» forward was enough to put opponents at a loss.

The cooldown time was also five seconds, so he could use it numerous times.

To confuse opponents even more, he could perfectly use «Spirit Run» and make them 30% slower.

And then, at the decisive moment, he could use «Shadow Run», his moving skill, and finally, end the battle with the «Sword of Darkness».

It was a simple combo, but he hadn't seen anyone who could resist it.

'So this is its potential in dueling… There were other skills useful for hunting or even boss raids.'

Since it was a job he'd obtained after being recognized by Louise, who was weak, he had initially been worried.

What if it was a trash job that only had useless skills?

At first, he'd accepted being recognized by Louise based on emotions, but as time went on, he’d started to get a little bit worried.

But all of those worries had completely disappeared. Rather than being disappointed, he was very excited about his job and available skills.

It was better than expected!

Hyun kept smiling in satisfaction.

'I should buy Louise something delicious to eat.'

* * *

Salon kept looking at the message window.

His pride was hurt a little bit.

The reason was that Hyun still hadn't answered the friend request he’d sent the other day.

'Why hasn't he answered?'

After logging in once the 48 hours penalty had ended, Salon had been excited.

How should he reply if he had already received an answer?

But maybe he would look cheap if he answered immediately…!

‘Even if I accept his proposal, I better wait before answering, right…?’

But he had gotten ahead of himself. Salon frowned after looking at his friend list.

'Huh…?!'

Salon's eyebrows twitched.

Not only had he not received a message yet, Hyun hadn't even read his friend request.

'Has he already forgotten about me?'

He hadn't refused his friend request…

'Or is he busy?'

After thinking for a while, he nodded.

‘Yes, he's an amazing player. So he's probably really busy!’

While Salon was thinking that, Hyun was just hanging out with Louise, but there was no way Salon would know that.

'He'll eventually answer. I should be patient and wait.'

Four days after the Iluna quest had ended…

Salon was starting to get anxious.

Because he had confidently said he wouldn't join any guild, he wasn't receiving any more proposals from famous guilds.

He had taken that decision because he was waiting for Hyun to contact him… He never thought he wouldn't receive any kind of message at all!

'If I knew things would become like this, I wouldn't have ignored that call…!'

He regretted it a little bit, but there was no going back.

Salon was someone who had pride.

'No! I must learn what happened first! Why hasn't he read my message? Is he really not interested in me?'

The reason was actually quite simple…

Hyun's only friend from Asra Online was Ain.

In Asrian, it had remained the same way. However, he had progressed in the social aspect a little bit. Thanks to that, Practice and Jini had been added to his friend list.

Hyun had three friends in total in Asrian.

He talked with Ain through whisper or the capsule, and he heard updates about the other two from JaeHoon.

That's why Hyun never felt the need to look at his friend list; that was also the reason why he hadn't seen Salon's message.

There was no way Salon knew about such a situation, so he was immersing himself in delusions and getting upset.

'Damn it. I don't know! My specs are good enough, so why hasn't he accepted it?!'

Ring-!

While he was complaining, Salon heard the sound of a message notification.

He quickly opened it.

But after looking at the details, he sighed.

It wasn't a message from Hyun.

'What's this? Festival invitation?'

He had received a message from NFM.

Annoyed, Salon began reading the contents of it.

<You've been invited to the Asrian Festival!>

「Congratulations! You've been chosen as a VIP of the Asrian Festival!

To become a VIP, you must be in the top 100 of the Hall of Fame, but there are a few special users who are the exception, including Mr. Salon!」

News about the Asrian Festival had been a hot issue among users.

After Iluna's Quest, that had been the biggest news.

Due to how often he frequented the community boards he had obviously heard about it.

'VIP user?'

He wasn't in the top 100 of the Hall of Fame.

If he'd received the message despite that, it meant he was among the 'few special users.'

'Hmm… It seems like the people from the game company know something about recognizing people.'

After seeing the words ‘special user’, Salon's mood improved.

Satisfied, Salon kept reading the message.

[ Many users are waiting for an update from you! We've prepared some special gifts for the users who are willing to give an interview! ]

Participate in the festival and show yourself off to users worldwide!

You can also obtain special Asrian perks during the festival!

Let's all spend an intense Asrian day!

It was basically an invitation to an offline event.

Finally, the map of where the event was going to take place was drawn.

Not only that, but it seemed like the company would take care of all expenses of VIP users, including plane tickets and hotels.

"Meeting all the top rankers… It sounds fun."

After reading the last part, he noticed something.

"Wait, this festival is in Korea?!"

He suddenly realized something…

There was no way they hadn't received an invitation.

Hyun and Ain were probably going to be there!

If they were Asra users, they definitely had to be Koreans, so Salon thought he would probably be able to meet them.

Even if he weren't Korean, Hyun would surely participate in the festival.

'Yes, I'll just go and meet them!'

Salon quickly checked out the date of the festival.

Even if he started to prepare immediately for his visit to Korea, there were lots of things he needed to take care of.

Salon's heart started to beat faster.

There was an expectant smile on Salon's face while he made his travel arrangements.

* * *

Salon wasn't the only user who got an invitation.

15 people had received invitations in the Darkness Guild.

—The top six executives were included in that 15.

Even though they weren't in the Hall of Fame, XL and Reina were also invited.

—That showed how prestigious Darkness was.

"So, who's going to Korea?"

The private room of the Darkness Guild…

Reina questioned everyone while looking around.

"I'm already in Korea…" Keiji, who had just joined the executive team, said.

Although it was for a short while, Keiji had once reached 2nd place in the rankings in Asra Online.

Because he was an Asra Online user, he was probably Korean.

—That's why he’d received a train ticket instead of a plane ticket.

"Anyone else?"

"Hmm… Since I've been invited, I'll go. After all, the hotel and food are going to be free."

"I'm also going!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't."

Piace and Mayday accepted.

Bear Shield said he couldn't go because of personal reasons.

Some people who hadn't been invited said that they were also going.

The reason why they were planning to go to Korea was simple…

Big guilds received the support of sponsors.

As long as you were part of a guild, focusing solely on gaming was egotistical.

You needed to do things like appear in shows and events and make sure that the name of the sponsors appeared everywhere. Since they were receiving support from them, it was normal business stuff they had to do.

Especially in an official event like that, they had to be there.

"No need to feel pressured. Just think of it as a vacation."

After checking out how many would participate, XL tried to lighten the atmosphere.

Reina smiled and spoke.

"Fu, our guild leader will probably spend the event trying to recruit people."

"Haha, that's one of the reasons why I'm going."

"Is Lattice going to come? Although I think there's a huge possibility that he won't."

"I'm more interested in Ain. How do you think she looks?" Mayday suddenly mumbled.

The rest of the guild members nodded.

According to the previous game's ranker, Keiji, Ain had approximately five years of experience.

But from her appearance, she seemed to be a middle school student.

Had she customized her outer appearance?

That seemed to be the only reasonable explanation.

Their doubts would soon be answered.

Of course, that was also if Ain participated in the event.

* * *

Asrian's first offline event…

NFM did its best to promote the festival.

Asrian Festival was slowly becoming more than a 'simple game festival' and was becoming a festival for all gamers.

It was understandable since Asrian had tens of millions of online users at all times. The total amount of users was over a hundred million.

The community boards were very active with topics related to the festival.

Users spent the whole day discussing the information NFM had made public.

- News! They're going to announce the rules of the tournament!

- They said that it's a PvP that has a special system added on top of it… I can't imagine what they're talking about.

The tournament was the hottest topic among users.

According to the announcement, they would announce information related to it during the festival.

It had been a few months since Asrian's servers opened. But most people thought the tournament wouldn't be viable if it were similar to how the duel arena worked.

Then, how were they planning to organize the tournament?

Due to the game's nature, many people were skeptical about the tournament.

- But this is an RPG game. People who've spent hours and hours are going to have an advantage. Is a competition even possible?

- That's why they said they would balance that with a system.

- Well, the developers are going to take care of that, so we just have to wait until the announcements.

NFM said that they were going to stream the event.

Users could see what was going on even in their homes.

But many foreign users were planning to travel to Korea to participate in the event.

- Can someone share with me some travel information?

- Get somewhere to stay first. It seems most of the hotels around that area are fully booked.

- Fufu, I'm also going to Korea. I've told my wife that it's job-related travel.

- It seems that some gaming teams are traveling in groups.

While gamers worldwide were excited because of Asrian, the event had also become a hot issue in the science community.

Kwon DaeHo was a legend among modern scientists.

He had won three Nobel Prizes in three different fields. He had announced that he would return after eight years of absence.

Many articles appeared in all sorts of media.

Kwon DaeHo was someone who remained calm or even looked bored while announcing theories that shook up the world.

The anecdote about him re-organizing a formula he had written in a notebook and announcing it that got him a Nobel Prize was famous.

If he said 'Important Announcement,' just how impressive would that be?

After hearing that Kwon DaeHo was going to return, most scientists couldn't sleep because of excitement.

Coincidentally, the announcement was going to be made next to where the Asrian Festival was going to take place.

A game festival and a scientific announcement being made in the same event venue was hard to see.

Many scientists hadn't heard about a game called Asrian.

They were going to participate in an academic conference that would take place in a building that was next to where the festival would take place.

They wanted to see with their own eyes what kind of impressive announcement he was going to make.

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