Debut (4)

11.

The capsule room was a product from the era of God Wars.

Most people obviously came to the capsule room to just enjoy playing God Wars.

However, not many people spent all day playing the game.

Mostly, they came out of the game and spent more time with something else.

It was the same at that moment.

People gathered in the rest area of the capsule room and talked to each other while watching a video on a TV which was as thin as a piece of paper.

“Hyukjoo, what did you say was his name?”

“BJ Archmage.”

They were watching a video of BJ Archmage.

“This punk doesn’t have a sense of naming. So, you are saying that he has an item that Azmo doesn’t have?”

“Yes.”

“How much is it?”

“There is a rumor that it’s over a billion won.”

“A billion? Didn’t you say the item is for level 20?”

“I heard that BJ Archmage has had the item since before the Stinky Forest, then it means it’s for level 10. Anyway, I also heard that Azmo said he will give a billion won if BJ Archmage brings the item to him.”

“Crazy assholes. They have so much money to burn.”

Everyone paid so much attention to him even though he just debuted.

“So what? The number of views of his debut video is about to be 3 million soon.”

The number of views passing 3 million was a big milestone.

“Hyukjoo, how much does he earn with the views?”

“Probably a lot.”

Besides, there was more than one reason why people paid attention to him.

“But BJ Archmage won’t even care about the profit from the video.”

“How come?”

“He’s not just rich but super rich.”

One guy listened to Hyukjoo’s explanation then added, “You guys know that Double Casting was listed on G-bay and then disappeared.”

“The one went up to 100 thousand dollars?”

“Yea, that one.”

“What about it?”

“The one who bought it was BJ Archmage.”

“For how much?”

The guy stuck out two fingers instead of answering the question.

“2 billion?”

Everyone was shocked.

Then Hyukjoo continued, “I heard that he’s the only son of a very wealthy family. Also, he’s actually a friend of Azmo and Azmo pretended not to know about him to support his friend.”

Another reason why people were so interested in BJ Archmage was because of the high spending that he and other wealthy people commonly did.

“Anyway, those rich jerks collaborate and help each other like that. Shit, they all should die.”

“I save money on food to buy an item, but they meet wealthy parents and play the game so easily.”

The wealthy was the hottest topic of gossip.

“I want to see his face at least. Is there a video of him without the mask?”

“Hyukjoo.” At that time, someone pushed his face inside the rest area to call Hyukjoo and everyone naturally moved their sights to the new visitor.

“Hey, Hyunwoo.”

“Oh, it’s you.”

Everyone greeted Hyunwoo Jung.

“What brought you here?”

“Hey, why do you think I came to the capsule room?”

“Oh, I’ll set it up for you.”

“Hey, are you allowed to spend more time in the rest area than the counter while working here as a part-time job?”

Hyukjoo unnaturally smiled and started to make an excuse.

“I’m just resting for a minute. Huh? By the way, why do you look so serious?”

He tried to change the topic and talked about Hyunwoo’s facial expression.

“I had to spend money on something.”

Everyone shut their mouths after hearing the answer.

“I’ll do it right away for you.”

Hyukjoo and Hyunwoo left the rest area and the rest of the people started chilling again.

“I feel so bad for Hyunwoo. Hyukjoo told me that his account was suspended.”

“So, he’s mining these days.”

“That was why he comes here every single day. He doesn’t even talk about the game.”

“Normally, he would come here before us and say that we should blow up the rich jerks’ heads….. His face looks too exhausted to do that.”

They talked about Hyunwoo briefly and one person looked at the TV again and said, “Anyway, the world is so fucked up. Someone has so much money to burn like him and others don’t have money to do that.”

Then another one continued, “That kind of son of a bitch will buy a skill without any worries. Asshole.”

“I hope they are hit by a truck or get shocked by electricity.”

12.

[ You have acquired Haste skill. ]

It was an alert that Midas just burned a sum of money that could never be refunded.

‘Oh, my 6 million won.’

He didn’t feel good about it.

‘Our living expense for 4 months is now gone instantly.’

The price of the Haste skill card was 6 million won.

The reason for the price was not only that the skill was rare but it was also very effective.

The price was so high for Midas that his hands shook.

[ Haste ] – Rank: F – Effect: A fairy follows you everywhere while raising your movement speed by 20%. ! When using the skill 1,004 times, you can acquire the title, ‘A man who has wings’. ! When hunting 2,222 monsters with the skill, you can acquire the title, ‘The fast hunter’.

However, Midas didn’t show any nervousness on his face while looking at the information about the new skill that he acquired.

He wasn’t regretting the decision to buy it or losing the chance to sell it.

‘Anyway, I’m ready for the basic stuff.’

He looked forward instead.

Somehow, it was normal.

There were many reasons why skill cards were expensive in God Wars, but the basic reason was simple.

It was because there were players who were willing to spend that much money to buy worthy skill cards.

Haste skill was the same.

It was worth the full 6 thousand dollars.

Increasing movement speed by 20% was outstanding.

It was like a human who ran 100 meters in 10 seconds could now run the same distance in 8 seconds.

It was hard to say that balance existed in God Wars, but it did exist.

The world was designed for a player to fight a matchable monster.

The AI programs that managed and created the world matched the player and the monster’s level.

In that balanced world, a skill like Haste boosted only one side.

‘Well, it’s not that useful for me though.’

Of course, the skill wasn’t that useful to normal players.

They could use it when running away.

Moreover, Midas had to deal damage from the same spot to make Ballista, Long Toss, and Dragon’s Eye more effective.

Even without the reason, Midas wasn’t good at close combat.

If Midas could move around and keep accuracy high like now, he would’ve been a major player at one of the top 10 guilds.

Ah uh ah uh!

What about Lucky who was the best close combat holy beast in God Wars?

He didn’t have to think about it for too long.

‘When Lapo got the Haste skill as a reward of leveling up and invoked it on Tori Tori for the first time, the number of views was over 1 billion.’

Tori Tori, the strongest holy beast in God Wars, was the evidence.

The synergy of the holy beast who had a first-tier god and the Haste spell was already proven.

Of course, he couldn’t be relaxed at the fact since he needed to earn more money from this no matter what it costs.

“Lucky, this time we will do a speed run.”

Therefore, Midas started a speed run this time.

13.

The most popular live stream or video related to God Wars was a boss raid.

However, there were many problems in making that kind of content.

First, the level of difficulty was high.

But the worst problem was getting the timing right and obtaining rights to fight a boss monster. Even though they prepared their abilities and items for the raid, they couldn’t know the exact time when a boss monster would spawn.

They couldn’t just stay at their level and waste their time until they hunted a boss monster.

That was why speed runs came out.

How fast can a player hunt a normal monster?

Or how fast can a player conquer an instant dungeon?

They could prove themselves and that kind of content was quite popular.

“Look, it’s the Sparrow guild!”

“Sparrow? The newbies?”

“They conquer dungeons these days. I guess they are going to do a speed run.”

The Dorido Mine was the best stage to do a speed run because there were plenty of instant dungeons and they could judge the difficulty by referring to the limited number of players that could enter.

Measuring a speed run wasn’t as precise as measuring a 100-meter dash, but it was good enough to compare records.

“Indeed, they get fired from the Sparrow guild if they can’t make a new record.”

“They need to make a good result.”

A dungeon speed run was like an exam especially for players from a major guild and for newbies who just started God Wars while dreaming of becoming a pro player.

Frankly speaking, the goblin champion, slayer orc, and ragged magician were trophies that players could have only when they were lucky.

Everyone would understand if they said they were unlucky if they failed.

“Everyone, focus. You must come back within 10 minutes. If you don’t, we’ll cancel the contract.”

However, there was nothing like that in the Dorido Mine.

“I’m letting you guys know again. It’s for a party of three and the time limit is 10 minutes.”

The test wasn’t avoidable.

That was why Midas was facing the dungeon at that moment.

[ The kobold miner’s mine ] – Grade: Normal – Minimum level to enter: Level 40 and below – Maximum number of players: 3 – A kobold miner’s laugh echoes inside the dungeon. It sounds like there aren’t many of them. – Reward: None

A dungeon for a party of three.

It had the lowest level of difficulty in the Dorido Mine.

In track and field, it was similar to the shortest distance race. Therefore, players preferred this the most when they tried to do a speed run.

‘The best record for solo playing this dungeon was 4 minutes and 11 seconds.’

The shortest time of a dungeon for a party of three in the Dorido Mine was 4 minutes and 11 seconds.

‘The record-holder was the swordsman, Sasaki Kojiro.’

The swordsman, Sasaki Kojiro.

He was one of the top tankers amongst swordsmen and had the Sword Emperor which was one of the legendary items in God Wars.

‘He made the record a long time ago.’

He made the record while solo playing about 5 years ago.

‘I watched him making the record from outside.’

Moreover, Midas witnessed it at the Dorido Mine.

He saw the guy taking a deep breath and entering the dungeon after applying buffs. Then he came out of the dungeon before 5 minutes.

It was a fantastic spectacle.

‘No one could break his record for 5 years.’

Even though plenty of strategies, information, and items were released for 5 years, it was incredible that no one has broken the record.

‘Well, it’s impossible to break the record.’

Midas wasn’t confident in doing that.

‘6 minutes is ok.’

His goal was to conquer it within 6 minutes.

That was good enough.

‘I should do it this time.’

Midas was certain that it would be more impressive than the other videos of him if he could finish it within 6 minutes as he planned.

“Lucky.”

Woof!

“Let’s get ready.”

Midas started to prepare for it.

[ You have invoked Strength on Lucky. ]

[ You have invoked Haste on Lucky. ]

He invoked two skills first.

After that, he took out five potion bottles and poured them on his hand one by one.

Then he put his hand in front of Lucky’s nose.

Lick lick!

Lucky shook his tail strongly and licked the potions on Midas’s hand.

[ Lucky drank a concentrated black herb potion. His strength increases by 28. ]

[ Lucky drank a colorful mushroom potion. His HP increases by 21. ]

[ Lucky ate a tablet of the fruit of the wind. His speed increases by 12%. ]

Midas couldn’t help shaking his mouth because those potions were more effective than the ones Lucky had last time to evolve.

‘100 gold each……’

So, it was obviously a lot more expensive.

“Is it tasty, Lucky?”

Woof!

“Ok, enjoy then.”

Midas didn’t stop giving him expensive potions.

Besides, he spent all of the five potions and took out three more potions from his inventory.

The potions were worth a total of 800 gold which was around 80 thousand won.

‘Now for Lightning Speed.’

After applying all the buffs, Midas stared at Lucky before invoking Lightning Speed.

Woof!

Lucky expressed his happiness and Midas said while looking at Lucky, “Hello, everyone. This is BJ Archmage.”

He started to record a video.

“I’m here to do a speed run at an instant dungeon in the Dorido Mine.”

Woof!

Lucky answered instead of the viewers and Midas pet Lucky’s head and continued, “This dungeon is for a party of three.”

Woof!

“And I’m going to briefly talk about my strategy to conquer the dungeon.”

Lucky answered repeatedly and Midas pet Lucky’s head strongly and said, “Lucky’s going to conquer the dungeon by himself. That’s all.”

Woof?

Lucky was surprised.

Midas moved his eyes towards Lucky.

“Lucky, this is your debut, so go wild.”

Then Midas shouted.

“Lightning Speed.”

Howl!

Lucky’s speed run had started.