Chapter 27

Chapter 27 . Ahimbree (2)

[Bone Armor]

– Proficiency: Rank F

– Summonable Parts: Breastplate

– Use: Register a personal sign . Execute the sign to activate the spell .

[Madness Helm]

– Proficiency: Rank F

– Summonable Helm Count: 1

– Use: Draw a seal on the target’s head . Chant to activate the spell .

Sitting on the staircase leading up to the Subjugation Association Branch building and checking the skills he just received, Hyrkan looked incredibly shabby . It was as if he had just been kicked out of his house .

However, unlike his shabby appearance, Hyrkan’s eyes were shining with excitement stronger than ever before .

‘Madness Helm, this skill…’

As he had known about Bone Armor beforehand, there was nothing to be surprised about . What made Hyrkan so excited was none other than the skill given by Ahimbree, Madness Helm .

‘At just F-rank, it has a 1 . 2 times stat increase?’

Madness Helm .

Hyrkan had never heard of the skill before, even before returning to the past . It was part of the necromancer summon skill-tree, meaning it was non-mainstream . Plus, it could only be obtained through Ahimbree, and the skill book became bounded to the owner, unable to be traded . It wasn’t too surprising that it was unrecognizable .

‘Some of Rich Lich’s summons were wearing odd helmets… is this that?’

Of course, Hyrkan had probably taken a glimpse of the skill before in videos . It was just that he would not have been able to recognize it .

In any case, its effect was amazing .

Any summons equipped with Madness Helm would have its stats increased by 1 . 2 times . Not many buff skills had such high increase at just F-rank proficiency .

‘I wonder how high it will be at A-rank . ’

Necromancer’s summons could not receive beneficiary skills from priests . As such, necromancers had to rely on their buff skills and debuff skills to fight . Moreover, buff skills were much more valuable than items .

‘The problem will be in actual battles . ’

It was a good skill .

The only concern was that Skeleton Warriors equipped with Madness Helm would go mad as the skill name implied, and fight as they wanted . In that were the case, Hyrkan would have a hard time making a decision on whether to use it or not . That said, it did not change the fact that it was a good skill .

‘That’s that . ’

Hyrkan turned off the skill window . Then, he immediately checked his new quest using his watch .

[Nested Egg]

– Quest Rank: Unique

– Quest Level Range: None

– Quest Content: Find an egg in a nest .

– Quest Reward: None

‘God…’

It was an extremely bland quest . In fact, it was too bland that Hyrkan didn’t know where to start . Hyrkan’s held out his lips like a bird’s beak as his expression turned sullen .

‘Warlord really knows no limits . ’

Warlord’s quests were often like this . As quest rewards and quest importance increased, quest content went past the level of being unkind to the level of making players go insane .

In a way, it was to balance out the game . Warlord had an enormous player base . With players shared information online, their information power was just too strong . If this information were carefully controlled, even the most difficult quest became easy . Only when the quest content seemed as impossible as this one, did players truly call a quest ‘hard . ’

Hyrkan clicked his tongue twice and ended his dissatisfaction with the quest there . It was not the first time he had done a quest like this . There was no need to complain at this point .

Moreover, the problem Hyrkan had to face now was not the Madness Helm skill nor the Nested Egg quest .

‘The problem now are those tigers waiting outside . ’

Ahimbree was one of Warlord’s core NPCs .

He even played a vital role in the Corrupt Count scenario quest, which was a hot issue for even the Top 30 Guilds and Warlord veterans .

It was not rare for guilds to station observers around important NPCs like Ahimbree .

It wasn’t something that happened in most games, but in Warlord, a game where an enormous amount of money was involved, it was different . Most importantly, spying, stalking, and blackmailing were not crimes in Warlord . There was no risk involved in doing such things .

‘I can’t run away either since there’s only one exit . ’

After thinking about it for a little, Hyrkan stood up as if he had come to a decision and brushed the dust off his butt .

‘It’s not like I’m going to get an answer just by sitting here . Plus, they won’t know I met with Ahimbree . ’

Hyrkan climbed down the staircase .

★★★

The moment Hyrkan came down to the crowded 1st floor, a few players that had been monitoring the stairs stood up . They were the hyenas that had tried to follow Hyrkan in before .

Hyrkan also noticed their presence .

‘Hmph, a bunch of idiots looking for a free lunch . ’

Hyrkan had no intention of giving them any information for free . Most importantly, PK was banned within the Subjugation Association . The moment a fight broke out, Subjugation Association NPCs made their move . Only a few players in the entirety of Warlord could be their match at this point .

The real problem would be when he stepped outside the town . Even so, any mediocre experts would only be a sacrifice for Hyrkan .

At Hyrkan’s current state of level 20, his current PK battle ability was peerless . It wouldn’t be strange for him to want others to provoke him once he stepped outside the castle .

“Move . ”

At that moment, a lion made his appearance through the pack of hyenas .

“What?”

It was a rough entrance, as the man grabbed the shoulder of the player following Hyrkan and jerked him backward .

The one on the receiving end couldn’t feel happy about it . Of course, if he were wise, he would understand the difference in strength stat by noticing how easily he was pulled backward .

However, such a wise and skillful player wouldn’t be left to stand watch at the Subjugation Association, wasting his valuable time and scheming to eat others’ leftovers .

The player who was pulled back scowled, glaring at the player who pulled him by his shoulder .

Their eyes met .

Then…

“Fuck off . ”

An uninterested sound came out .

The speaker was a man with a small stature, only about 160cm in height . However, his armor was a different story . It was an armor seemingly made of white snake scales . From the helmet all the way down to the boots, the man was adorned with a full set of armor made from the same material . What stood out the most were the decorations on the shoulders . The decorations were snake heads, making the armor’s wearer look like his shoulders were coming out of the snakes’ mouths .

It was an undoubtedly impressive design . With just a glimpse, one would be unable to forget it easily .

Because of this, the few players who had seen the armor before easily recognized the identity of the items .

‘White Mamba set!’

White Mamba .

It was a level 80 boss monster that had been killed just 4 weeks ago . To kill this 40-meter-long snake with huge, white scales, three guilds had cooperated with each other . The live raid sold over 300,000 tickets . Although the ticket cost was on the cheaper side, it was still a fine amount .

Also, as expected from a large-sized boss monster, the White Mamba dropped large amounts of crafting coins . Afterward, one of Warlord’s famous item designers personally designed 22 full armor sets .

One entire armor set was 50 million won! Moreover, it had a level requirement of at least 70 .

It wasn’t something made to be sold to ordinary players .

It was a luxury item meant to be owned by a small minority . It was equivalent to a tiger’s stripes or a lion’s mane in wildlife . Hyenas could only waggle their tails the moment they saw it .

“Ah, I’m sorry . ”

The hyena who had wanted to pick a fight immediately lowered its tail, and the surrounding gaze concentrated on the man .

“Isn’t that a White Mamba set?”

“A level 70+ player? Whoa!”

There was no way a high-level player, especially one comparable to a Ranker, wouldn’t draw the attention of everyone nearby . In such situation, the man in the White Mamba set approached Hyrkan .

“Let me borrow a bit of your time . ”

It was a request Hyrkan couldn’t refuse .

★★★

Their conversation was short .

“In what floor did you receive your quest?”

“The 3rd floor . Why?”

“What kind of quest did you receive?”

“Why would I hand over my valuable quest information to you for free?”

“Are you part of a guild?”

“Do I have an obligation to tell you? Why should I tell you that? What if you’re from a different guild?”

Hyrkan had already prepared for such a situation . Although he didn’t expect a level 70+ player to come, it wasn’t enough to cause him to panic .

Hyrkan knew what he had to do .

‘From this moment on, I have never met or seen Ahimbree . I’m just a regular player who coincidentally obtained a quest here . ’

Hyrkan had two choices .

First was to pretend he was part of a guild, while the other was to pretend he knew absolutely nothing . At first, he planned to use the former . The hyenas easily went away once they heard guild names they recognized .

However, once a level 70+ player appeared, Hyrkan had no choice but to go with the other plan . After all, if he sold a guild’s name and he had some relationship to that guild, he would have been in trouble .

In any case, what was important was that Hyrkan could not let anyone find out he contacted Ahimbree .

‘Ahimbree is currently playing a vital role in the Corrupt Count scenario . If anyone found out I was related to him, they would resort to any means to grab onto my tail . ’

Ahimbree was important enough for guild executives to go so far as to mess with a single player . Thus, once people began doubting Hyrkan, things would become incomparably more annoying .

‘Anyways, who’s this?’

On the other hand, Hyrkan couldn’t help but wonder who he was talking to . The face behind the helmet wasn’t one Hyrkan recognized . The White Mamba set required a certain level of money and connection to obtain . A level 70+ user with such set should be a Ranker class, but Hyrkan had no recollection of the man’s face .

Suddenly, the man put out his hand .

“Sorry for taking your time . Excuse me . ”

The hand he offered for a shake was none other than his left hand, which Hyrkan grabbed with a face full of irritation .

“You did all this just to shake my hand? What, does being high-leveled give you some sort of authority? Next time you do this, I’m going to take a video and upload it . I’ll let you go this time . ”

After shaking his hand for a bit, Hyrkan let go .

“Then I’m leaving . That’s it, right?”

The man only stared silently .

★★★

The moment Hyrkan left the scene, another player approached the man in the White Mamba set .

It was a female player giving off a masculine aura . Wearing a magician’s robe, the woman stared where Hyrkan had left .

“Looks like he’s unrelated to Ahimbree . ”

“At the very least, he hasn’t played Warlord for long . If he did, he wouldn’t have accepted my left-hand shake so easily . ”

With that, the man brushed off his left hand as if he had touched something dirty .

“What a waste of time . I came all the way out here thinking I was called for something important . ”

“Hmm . ”

“Does it even matter anymore? The Corrupt Count quest is going to end soon . Plus, someone with the Rising Star title who passed Ahimbree’s test hasn’t appeared in 3 months . There won’t be any more . Even if one did come out, it’s too late at this point . It won’t… have any effect on the flow of things . There’s no need to recruit anyone new . ”

“You’re right . ”

“Alright then . I’ll fill out the report, so let’s go back to our usual spot . ”

“Yes, sir . ”

“See you later then . ”

After finishing up their conversation, the two of them immediately left the scene . Far off in the distance, someone had been watching the two attentively .

‘There was another one?’

It was Hyrkan who had been hiding in secret . After pretending to leave, he immediately headed to a spot where he could observe the man . There, he saw one become two, and two become zero .

‘Seeing as how he baited me with his left hand, those fuckers are something . ’

The moment the man in the White Mamba set offered a handshake with his left hand, Hyrkan knew .

He wasn’t normal .

Long time Warlord players didn’t shake hands with their left . They felt an instinctive repulsion at the thought of someone nearing their watch . Even if they did, they hesitated . They would first observe the other party to figure out their intentions . Left hand handshakes weren’t normal in the first place . Handshakes were usually done with the right . Not unless the person was a Jimmy Hendrix fan .

‘Who are they?’

In any case, Hyrkan offered him his left hand to understand his intentions and to show his inexperience . Only someone who had played the game for an extremely long time like Hyrkan could make such a split second decision .

However, this was only the beginning of Hyrkan’s concern .

‘If I were to continue Ahimbree’s quest, I might run into them again…’

Although he had passed by the situation, if he were to run into them in the future, he wouldn’t be so lucky .

Then should he abandon Ahimbree’s test?

‘Hmph . ’

Of course not .

‘Whatever . I’m going to have deal with those fuckers just now or the other fuckers later anyways . ’

If he were to run away after being intimidated, he wouldn’t have chosen to walk the path of solo play .

Moreover, Ahimbree’s test was something he had to pass . The merit was just too big to give up .

‘I can only go for it . Even if I fail, I’ll try at the very least . ’