Chapter 74 - Ways to Earn Money (2)

Swish-

He took the elevator toward the last floor of the Knight's Hall and immediately went toward Commander Ollie's office.

After he had obtained recognition, the guards didn't block him.

—That was because they also remembered the faces of Hyun's party.

"Oh, are you alone today?"

After he'd cleared the quest that had been troubling Commander Ollie so much, he always welcomed the visit of one of the party members.

Hyun quickly brought up the main point before the story got too long.

"Commander, I've been wondering about something… What do you think about me?"

"Hmm? Well, I think you guys are quite skillful and trustworthy."

[The Knight Commander doesn't trust you completely.]

[To gain his recognition, you'll have to put in a little bit more effort.]

[How much Ollie trusts you: 56%]

Suddenly, Hyun received some system messages.

He took a deep breath and asked once again with a serious voice tone.

"Do you really think I'm trustworthy...?"

"Of course, I'm saying it under my name."

"Hmm..."

Hyun, who was talking to the Knight Commander, frowned.

'This guy is lying to me!'

While Hyun was cursing Ollie inside, he was making a graceful smile.

As if he knew what Hyun was thinking, Ollie mumbled in a low voice.

"I've been waiting for you guys. I've been hearing a weird rumor these days."

Hyun did his best to change his expression.

It seemed like the Knight Commander was about to give him another quest.

'Even if he doesn't completely trust me yet, I'll probably be able to revert that if I complete another quest.'

Just as Hyun thought, Ollie began saying things that resembled a quest intro.

"Have you ever heard about an existence called a demon?"

"Demon...?"

"Yes, demons are both cunning and evil. Not only that, they're so strong that a human can't go against them."

Because those were all things Hyun already knew about, he just nodded.

He had chosen the Support job because Keidrial had deceived him.

"The problem is that, after remaining silent for hundreds of years, the reports of people seeing them have recently increased. If the rumors are true, the Empire must respond in advance."

Ollie's sharp eyes met Hyun's.

"I know you have a talent for 'infiltration.' That's also probably why you've been able to find the Evil's Seed, so I want to give you a similar task."

Ting-!

<Heaven's Hidden Linked Quest: Search for the Traces of Evil>

- The Knight Commander is asking you to bring more information about the traces of evil.

[Reward]

- Heaven's Medal of Honor x 15

- All stats +6

- The Empire's Knight Commander's Necklace

(* The fact he's entrusting someone with his necklace means he completely trusts that person.)

"Okay."

Hyun immediately replied.

[You've accepted the Knight Commander Ollie's Quest!]

Anyway, to complete the job ascension quest, he had to be recognized by the Commander.

As soon as Hyun replied, just as if he'd been expecting this answer, he took out a certain item and gave it to him.

"Accept this."

It was a little glass bottle that had a liquid inside.

"It's a potion that can erase the Heaven's Rune that's on the back of your hand. The effect lasts for an hour."

"If you're giving me this, that means..."

"Yes, you'll have to go to the Hates Valley this time. There's a rumor that says that a demon has appeared there. It's a place frequented by followers of the Abyss, so this potion should be useful for you."

After giving him a leather poach, Ollie kept talking.

"Maybe you're going to need these things. Inside here, there's a piece of the monster's skin and nails. They're things we've found at the place where people said that a demon had appeared."

"I see..."

"First, go to the Abyss Repository. It's a place where you can find all information related to the Abyss. Go there and find more traces of the demon."

Those were all things Hyun already knew about, so he just nodded.

"These are all the clues we have. I know it will be hard, so don't be afraid to fail."

"Leave it to me."

As soon as Hyun left the Knight Commander's room, he called TarrTarr.

Because the Knight Hall was the last place he was at before logging out, they found each other soon.

He asked him the most important question first.

"Did you upload the video?"

"Yes, I finished editing it and just uploaded it."

"Really? Let's see it."

TarrTarr turned on the hologram.

There was a new video on a YouTube channel with the ID TarrTarr.

Because he didn't want to manage it, he had asked TarrTarr to use the channel he was already using.

Not only that, but he didn't give him the footage. It was TarrTarr who had recorded it on his own.

People say that the quality of the footage was better in terms of quality if the editor recorded it, but the truth was that he just thought it was too bothersome.

"Woah..."

A groan came out of Hyun's mouth as he watched the video.

Even though he had direct it himself, TarrTarr’s edited video had the ability to draw a user's attention.

"Woah, it really looks like a movie. No, it looks more amazing than one."

Since Hyun had almost never seen a movie, it was hard for him to make a precise comparison, but he knew that the video was incredibly well made!

"Hmm?"

After watching the video again, Hyun found something weird.

"Where's the first part? It seems you've only used the footage recorded after surpassing a thousand combos... It doesn't show how the combos were stacked at the beginning."

"Oh, I didn't include that on purpose."

"Eh, why? I'm sure that's what people will wonder the most about."

"That's exactly why," TarrTarr said while smiling.

That was a strategy he'd come up with after listening to Arneng's advice.

But since Hyun didn't understand it, TarrTarr explained it to him again.

"Look at this."

Even though the video didn't have that many views, many people were commenting on it.

Hyun read the comments through the auto-translate option.

- Woah, I was lost for words while watching.

- Who's this?

- This person seems to be almost as good as me!

Most people were writing short exclamations or jokes, but some wrote about the missing first part.

- Where's the first part of the video?

- Can't you also upload the first part?

- I could also do it if I could kill skeletons in one or two hits, had amazing controlling abilities, and practiced a lot... But for this to be even possible, first you must have the ultimate attack 'Trance' and surpass a thousand combo points! So, my point is... How can you stack so many combos?!

- Hmm, I also have Trance... But after looking at this video... I decided to keep doing what I've been doing.

- Crazy combo snowball effect!

After looking at countless similar comments, Hyun understood what TarrTarr was saying.

While feeling a little bit of a chill, he looked at TarrTarr, who seemed to be enjoying people's reactions.

Hyun began thinking that maybe TarrTarr had more talent for it than he initially thought.

Ain had to do her best to reduce the level gap between them for a while, so Hyun started to wonder if he should use him as a temporary damage dealer.

'Should I take TarrTarr to the Knight Commander's Quest?'

If he recorded while doing a quest together... He should be able to upload tens of high-quality videos. Right?

To gain the confidence of the Knight Commander, he had to do at least one more quest.

Right then, there wasn't anyone else, so maybe moving with TarrTarr wasn't a bad idea.

It was nighttime for TarrTarr, so it was a great time for him to game!

* * *

A few days ago, Salon had reached level 90 as a Thief.

He proudly smiled after reading his name in the Hall of Fame.

He couldn't believe that his name was near rank 900.

"Oof... I finally became a ranker."

Salon had a very good gaming sense.

After all, he was the first user to find the Count's Quest, which had become a hot topic some time ago.

Of course, because of the big mistake he made, all party members ended up dying.

To make himself accountable, he ended up leaving the party.

The party members who had been together with him since the beginning tried to convince him otherwise, but he felt responsible for the mistake he'd made.

But right then, he thought that he had made the correct decision.

"Maybe I'm more suited to hunting alone."

During the Count's Quest…

He had almost lost his mind after being annihilated by the Dark Priest.

Once the news that the Dark Priest was actually a user came out, he didn't see a way to catch up to her.

But that struggle helped him improve.

'If I don't have a talent for PvP... I will try to become the best at what I'm good at!'

At first, he was hunting to empty his mind.

But unexpectedly, he discovered that he had a talent for solo playing!

His level began increasing at an incredible speed.

In one week, he went up eight levels. Then, it was 10.

In RPG games, leveling up became harder as time went on, but Salon was leveling up faster as time passed.

'What happened?'

Salon was impressed by his speed of growth.

The truth was that he had an idea about what the reason was.

The main reason why he was growing at such speed was that he was getting better at playing.

In PvP, because the opponents were people, there were a lot of changes and variables, but monsters moved in a relatively simpler way.

Optimizing fights that didn't have many variables was Salon's specialty.

And among that, the thing he was the most confident about was comboing!

Salon was a combo-specialized Thief.

While hunting alone, he started to have more time to think, and he also had more time to investigate about combos.

That's how he started to develop one or two personal techniques, and after practicing a lot, he became one of the top combo-specialized Thieves.

'Is it that other people aren't aware of this way of doing things?'

After discovering his talent, he wrote some posts in the communities or even uploaded videos.

But the reaction from other people was the same. They struggled with even the easiest movements.

Even famous rankers could barely imitate his movements after practicing for a long time.

Not only that, but because of some videos, some people had categorized him as a bug user.

It was a video where he wiped out a group of hundreds of enemies. Some people said the damage output was too strong compared to the level.

Those people said that he was using some sort of damage hack.

'What a pathetic bunch, so if there's something you don't know, is it either a hack or a bug?'

Because the comments were getting more aggressive, he had revealed his ultimate attack.

It was his secret. He had obtained it after clearing the third level of the awakening quest.

[«Sword of Despair»]

- Depending on the number of combos, the damage slightly increases.

- If less than 2000 combo, increase the combo consideration time by 0.5 seconds.

Compared to the other third-level awakening quest ultimate attack, Trance, the number of increased damage wasn't that high, but the attack speed by which it was decided if an attack ended up in a combo or not increased, so it was safer in terms of stacking combos.

That was also the reason why he wasn't overwhelmed while facing an army of monsters alone.

In the video people thought was a bug, the number of combos was almost at a thousand. Thanks to that, the damage output was increased by 2.5 times; that was why he was able to kill all the enemies in one or two hits.

The effects of Salon revealing his know-how were bigger than he initially thought.

The preferences for ultimate attacks completely changed—especially among combo-oriented Thieves, picking «Sword of Despair» became a must.

「How should I proceed in the awakening quests to obtain the «Sword of Despair»?」

The Thief boards were full of questions like that.

There was also a strategy that allowed users always to obtain «Sword of Despair» as a reward.

'He... With this, you could say that I've become relatively famous. Right? It seems like the number of users that recognize me has increased as well.'

As time went on, Salon's presence grew.

In some of the boards where he was active, some people used the word 'Name' on him as a nickname.

One day…

A video caught his attention on YouTube.

It was a video that was on the suggested videos list.

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