“Uwaaaack! Doran, that bastard! He forcibly gave me a quest I didn’t want, only to kill his teammate? Fuck! Thieves, robbers, and thugs—now I know why there are all these names. Doran! In the future, this name itself will be a curse!”
Shin Youngwoo left the capsule, opened the window, and shouted outside. The rain was strong, so his voice wasn’t heard by the people in the neighborhood. Thanks to that, he was able to shout for a long time.
It wasn’t even 4 o’clock in the morning yet. This was a day when his family could rest until late afternoon due to the heavy rain, but he couldn’t access the game for 12 hours during such a golden holiday season!
“Level -3… The more I think about it, the worse I feel. Doran, Doran, Doran!”
Shin Youngwoo headed to the bathroom to cool off his head that was flush with anger. He soaked his face in cold water and listened to the gushing stream of water. After washing his face for two minutes straight, he felt much better.
“...Doran isn’t to blame for the situation.”
Unlike his prediction, Doran had been extremely strong and fought well. Grid had been like a bridesmaid and hadn’t had to do anything. Doran had taken care of all of the enemies by himself. Grid only had a chance to succeed in the quest due to Doran’s power.
Yes, Doran had done really well. However, an unexpected situation had occurred; a ranker had appeared.
“Damn witch...”
Why had Yura appeared there? She was a black magician. The Yatan Temple was an important base for black magicians, so it wasn’t unusual for her to appear there at any time. Why had Yura interfered? Grid had been an intruder in the temple. Yura was obliged to protect the temple, so it was obvious that she would be hostile to Grid. That was understandable.
‘The moment I accepted the quest, the black magicians in the temple had a separate quest to stop me. The real enemies are the users, not the NPCs. There is a reason why Doran was so strong. No wonder why the S-grade quest felt too easy,’ Shin Youngwoo concluded. ‘Witch... Thanks to me triggering the quest, you were able to receive a lot of benefits. A girl who didn’t shed blood or tears—she tried to kill me instead of thanking me...’
After Grid died, Yura would’ve succeeded in the quest. After all, Yura was strong, and Doran had been quite exhausted. It was really detestable.
It was because of Grid that Yura received the quest in the first place, and the reason Doran was so tired was that Grid was weak. Meanwhile, Yura just sat back and ate bread—the bread that Grid had put in her mouth.
“Bad person...”
A ranker over level 200 had snatched the quest of a negative level! Shin Youngwoo entered the capsule, connected to the Internet, and then searched for Yura.
He just typed in ‘Yura’, and hundreds—no, thousands of related links filled the screen.
Despite only checking the postings of highly popular blogs and large-scale communities, he managed to get information about Yura. Contrary to her creepy nickname of the ‘Blood Witch’, she was well loved and respected, as well as a target of envy.
Thanks to her superb beauty, perfect gaming skills, and ideal image in the media, Yura was praised by both men and women. Admiration for her also transcended race. There were thousands of Yura fan clubs created on overseas servers. At first glance, she was even more popular than Hollywood’s top actors.
‘That is the modern world now.’
Satisfy was more colorful, thrilling, and dramatic than any movie, so the main characters of Satisfy enjoyed more popularity than movie stars. If someone watched TV these days, hundreds of channels were filled with Satisfy-related programs. They also achieved high ratings, so professional Satisfy news channels were created.
Of course, it wasn’t just limited to South Korea. Satisfy had more than two billion users. The broadcasting market wasn’t just South Korea but the world. As a result, movie actors received less exposure than Satisfy’s protagonists, the rankers.
In particular, Yura was much more recognizable than other rankers due to her beauty. Thanks to that, she had both money and fame. It was a perfect contrast to Shin Youngwoo, who was in debt due to Satisfy.
‘I am suffering because of the game, while she is living a fantastic life because of it.’
To think that she could enjoy her favorite game while being recognized by the world...? Shin Youngwoo was incredibly envious. If he were Yura, he would have no disappointments in his life.
“...A person like you had to take away a poor person’s quest.”
Yura wasn’t a witch. She was just a really wicked girl.
Kwaduduk! Shin Youngwoo opened up the hologram keyboard and started to comment on Yura-related posts one by one.
[-Yura is garbage. She interfered in the quest of a low-level user. She is completely different from her appearance on TV. Her personality is rotten.]
[-Yura isn’t very pretty when you see her in real life. She got plastic surgery a facelift. There is dirt on her nose, and she always looks like she is chewing shit. Her smile is just for the TV.]
[-Why is Yura good??? She is a bad person. How many people has she ruined? She also ruined my brother-in-law.]
[-A ranker interfered in a quest!! Don’t be fooled by the image created on TV.]
“Huhuhu...! Kukukuk!”
Shin Youngwoo informed people about what he had actually experienced with Yura. He felt great because he became a great journalist, spreading the truth to the people who were deceived by false information. The terrible reality that he experienced a while ago was gradually fading from his mind!
Tadak. Tadadak.
Shin Youngwoo continued posting comments, with his ten fingers tapping against the hologram keyboard that glowed in the darkness. This image of a person tapping on the keyboard in the darkened room—if someone saw it, they might think it was beautiful and mysterious.
One might view it as just writing malicious comments... but no, it was a movement to reveal the truth.
“Oppa... have you finally gone crazy?”
Shin Youngwoo jumped in surprise at the voice he suddenly heard. He turned his gaze toward the source and saw Sehee staring at him from the door.
“You surprised me,” Shin Youngwoo said, placing his hand on his chest.
Sehee entered his room with folded arms. “I was going to the toilet when I heard Oppa giggling in your room. You were crazy about the game, so I thought you went crazy in reality. I was worried about Oppa and decided to check on you. Are you crazy? Please say that you’re not.”
“...Why are you speaking like that to your Oppa? I’m not crazy.”
“I’m glad you’re not crazy yet. Urgh, something smells. Take a look at your head, you should wash more. And get rid of that bowl of rice that you ate! No, why are you eating rice in your room in the first place? You should eat together with us... Bah, never mind.” Sehee looked at the empty rice bowls and side dishes that Shin Youngwoo had stacked up and started cleaning up.
‘This girl—she is nice and pretty. It is good that she doesn’t resemble me.’ Shin Youngwoo watched his younger sister approvingly.
Sehee felt his gaze and turned around. “Don’t just sit there and watch. If you’re not busy, shouldn’t you help? No, go and wash up. I don’t like that appearance.”
“Leave it. I’ll take care of it. Why are you getting up when it isn’t even morning yet? Go back to sleep.”
“I saw Oppa laughing in a creepy manner, so my sleepiness has fled. Please go wash up. I want to see your face properly after a long time... Ah, no! Wash off that dirty and unpleasant scent!”
When Sehee was one year old, Shin Youngwoo was nine years old.
Was it right for his younger sister to act like this?
‘If I knew this would happen, I would’ve washed up when I washed my head.’ Shin Youngwoo headed to the bathroom in an annoyed mood.
He washed his head with soap and dried it with a towel. However, why was his hair so stiff?
“...It was laundry soap.”
He returned to his room with his stiff hair and smelled something different in his room. It was a rather refreshing scent.
Did she spray perfume? Sehee was truly meticulous.
The room had been cleaned and tidied up during the time he used to wash up.
Sehee was a very diligent girl, unlike him. She would be a nice bride.
Seeing Sehee sitting in the capsule, Shin Youngwoo lay down on his bed. “Connect to the Internet if you want~”
Anyway, it wasn’t like he could access the game right now, so he easily yielded the capsule to his little sister.
Sehee shrugged and unexpectedly sent him a look of disdain. “Oppa... are you a keyboard warrior?”
“Keyboard warrior?”
What did that mean?
When he looked up, Sehee got up and pointed her finger to the monitor floating in front of the capsule. “Why are you spreading false rumors about a woman younger than you? Even if there is a reason, this behavior is too naughty. I’m really disappointed in Oppa.”
Her voice sank. Sehee was sincerely angry.
Shin Youngwoo belatedly realized his mistake and hurriedly checked the monitor.
The damning list of comments that he’d made about Yura was still showing.
‘Dammit! I should’ve turned off my Internet window!’
“S-Sehee, this...”
“How low.”
He tried to explain to Sehee, but she returned to her room and locked the door without giving him a chance to talk. The door wouldn’t open, no matter how pathetically he acted. Shin Youngwoo realized that the last bit of good opinion his sister had toward him was completely lost.
‘This… What is this?!’
“This is all due to that witch!”
He appealed to Sehee from in front of her room and didn’t even realize when he fell asleep there until he was woken up by his mother.
‘My body isn’t trained at all! It hurts…’
Shin Youngwoo placed a cold patch on his body and fell asleep again.
Then the next day...
“Huaaah~~”
He opened his eyes and saw that it was 11 a.m.
His parents went to work at dawn, and Sehee would be in school for three hours already.
“I slept for only six hours. I can’t oversleep because of my diligence... Why did God make me so diligent?”
Shin Youngwoo scratched his hips just above his underwear while heading to the kitchen. He was hungry but found it too annoying to cook.
“Forget it.”
Ignoring the protesting cries of his stomach, he headed to the living room. Then he lay on the sofa and turned on the TV. It was a Satisfy-related channel.
Satisfy was even covered on the housewives channel. The title of the program was ‘How to meet a young man through Satisfy!’ It was a program that dealt with the process of making a character in Satisfy look as young and pretty as possible.
‘...PD Cheon Jaende?’
It seemed to have pretty high viewership. Shin Youngwoo skipped past a man who didn’t think he would live long after a phone call from his wife. Then he stopped at a program called ‘Satisfy’s Hot Issues.’
A cute female reporter was greeting an Asian youth around his age. There was a close up of the young man’s face. At the bottom of the screen, the ID ‘Katz’ and level ‘203’ appeared as subtitles.
“Katz is already level 200?’
Katz was a celebrity. He was notorious due to his arrogance, but he was always one of the top ranks in the warrior class. Three months ago, he was level 170, but now he was already level 203...? At that level, he would be at the top of the unified rankings.
‘How did he get over 30 levels in three months?’
The reporter on the screen was asking the same question as Shin Youngwoo. -Katz, did you know that you are one of the biggest issues in Satisfy these days? Our producers were very surprised. In just three months, Katz has climbed up to the 53rd ranking. What is the secret to your rapid growth over such a short period of time?
Katz swept a hand over his well-trimmed hair and smiled smugly. -Three months ago, I obtained an epic class. I accepted this interview today to reveal my epic class.
-Yes?! The reporter was shocked.
Shin Youngwoo also stopped scratching at his groin.
The news of an epic class was so shocking that the reporter couldn’t respond to Katz. In the past year, only two epic class changes had appeared in Satisfy. Its value transcended the imagination. Yet Katz had gotten his hands on a new epic class.
‘The third epic class...’
There was no information about the previous epic classes that appeared. The contents of the first class change book were kept confidential when it circulated around the item trading sites, and no one knew who the owner was.
The second epic class belonged to Agnus who was ranked 7th on the unified rankings, but nobody knew what class he had.
It was because most users, especially top rankers, were extremely reluctant to disclose their information. After all, information was power!
There was a fierce competition to survive in Satisfy. The information shared among large sites was actually quite limited. Most users kept their information to themselves. Shin Youngwoo would do the same.
However, Katz was revealing his class himself. He was famous for liking colorful and prominent things.
Anyway, this was a huge scoop. It was possible that the ratings record might be broken.
Shin Youngwoo remained fixed on this channel. He focused on the screen, while the reporter’s eyes shone with excitement.
-What class are you?
-The name of my epic class is ‘Blood Warrior’.
-Is it as special and terrible as the name implies?
It wasn’t special or terrifying. In fact, it was a very common and mundane name—a sloppy name for an epic class. Nevertheless, Katz seemed to like the childish name.
-The name isn’t that great, but it is a very fantastic class. Let me tell you one important feature...
Katz pulled out the sword hanging from his waist, emitting a tremendous aura. Shin Youngwoo would be able to pay off all of his debt if he just sold that sword.
-Look. Katz’s eyes were tinged with red. Simultaneously, his sword started to wriggle.
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