Hard Carry Support

Chapter 7 - Hidden Named Hunting Preparation (1)

After Asrian Online came out, SeoHyun's schedule became full.

First, he goes to the university for attendance check-in. Once he finishes that, he walks out of the campus.

Thankfully, he hadn't signed on to any course that required group work.

SeoHyun, who was hooked to Asrian Online, spent more time gaming than ever.

His day really began once he came back home from school.

He began his daily routine by checking the stock price of NFM.

After Asrian Online came out, the stock price of NFM had reached new highs, and it was in the middle of a bullish trend.

Most gaming-related sites were full of news related to NFM.

NFM was originally by no means a small company.

But in just three months, the stock price had risen 80 times. It was receiving the attention of the whole world, and it was in the process of re-writing the history of the entertainment industry.

Asrian Online was a worldwide bestseller, and the stock was reaching new highs every day.

Sadly, SeoHyun didn't know how to do stocks. He didn't have a single share of NFM, but seeing Asrian Online get bigger and bigger made him happy.

"Now, let's visit the next site."

SeoHyun entered Asrian's community boards.

Weirdly, there wasn't much information about the game on the official website.

Did the developers want people to learn about the game slowly by actually playing the game?

That was the reason why SeoHyun only entered the official website to read news about updates. The rest of the time, he always visited community sites.

Most of the time, he laughed at the memes that people posted. But sometimes, he found useful information or news.

<Title: How to level up fast! The fastest way to reach level 15!>

There was a thread about a leveling-up strategy.

Hyun wasn't interested in it since he had already surpassed level 15.

He scrolled down to read the next post.

<Title: How critical hits work>

Another title caught SeoHyun's attention.

It was a post by the user 'Medical Student Wannabe.'

The first few lines were enough to draw his full attention.

- How critical hits work in this game is easy: if you hit the opponent at a vital point, you'll be able to deal critical damage. One thing to remember is that you need to hit it with extreme precision.

- I've discovered a total of 11 parts; among them are the head, the heart, the stomach, the arm, and the legs. Basically, they have the same weaknesses as us. If you hit the opponents in one of these parts, you'll be able to deal critical damage.

It was a very useful thread, but it was sadly full of nonrelevant, dumb comments.

- Girls have one less weakness compared to men. Isn't this too unbalanced?

- If you're mad, just create a female character, lol.

- Hey asshole, it isn't that easy to change the gender of your character. If you're not going to do it for me, just shut up.

SeoHyun focused on the useful post rather than the useless commentaries.

He didn't have enough time to care about keyboard battles.

While reading the thread, he remembered the previous day’s battle.

'So this is how Ain manages to land critical hits all the time... This is different to how it used to work in Asra Online.'

If you land an attack on a vital point, the opponent receives a critical hit.

While dueling, Ain had aimed at his vital points with a smile on her face.

While dueling, he had formed a suspicion that it was how critical hits worked, but the thread had just confirmed his theory.

A battle system that resembles real life…

Something like that worked only because Asrian Online had sensory synchronization.

"I need to get used to the new system."

After finishing reading the thread, he closed the tab.

Once he did that, SeoHyun's daily routine was almost over.

He had already checked out the stock price and read through the community boards.

He had ramen for lunch and then took a cold water shower.

He needed to do many things beforehand if he wanted to game for ten hours straight.

After completing preparations worthy of a pro gamer, SeoHyun logged in to Asrian Online.

[AIN has logged in.]

He got a message that notified him that Ain had entered the game.

She always entered Asrian Online between 17:00 ~ 18:00 and logged off at 03:00 am.

In a way, Ain, who played Asrian Online every day until dawn, was a game addict.

…Although she didn't spend as many hours as him.

Suddenly, he started to wonder something about Ain.

Judging by her playtime hours, she seemed like a student.

Her height and face made her look really young, and she seemed like a high school student at most.

Not asking the age in video games was an unwritten rule, so he decided not to pursue it anymore.

AIN: Are we ghost hunting today?

Ain sent a private message as soon as she got into the capsule.

Hyun and Ain stayed in Kantas Castle for four days in order to hunt ghosts.

At first, because of the difference between the levels, she didn't get a lot of experience points.

Up to a certain point, they just hunted together. But once their levels became similar, they formed a party; that allowed them to gain an equivalent amount of experience.

Hyun Lv.42

Ain Lv.40

Thanks to that, both of them had surpassed level 40.

He still remembered her face when he showed her the ghost farming method.

"Th... This is amazing... Even for you..."

Hyun smiled in high spirits.

They had 20 levels of advantage over the top-ranker in the hall of fame, so there wasn't any user with a higher level than them.

'But this much isn't enough. If the only advantage is the level, they'll eventually catch up to us.'

Hyun knew better than anyone how to keep the distance between them.

Even if the distance between top rankers shrank and became on par with each other, he'd be the exception.

'I should start moving before it's too late.'

Thanks to the online communities, he knew that the biggest guilds were busier than ever.

There was only one reason for them to be busy: Named monster hunting!

'I'm sure many guilds will soon try to hunt down named monsters.'

He was confident that in two weeks, a lot of guilds would start a fierce competition among each other to hunt down named monsters.

Everyone was after the accomplishment of the first named monster kill!

The first kill always gave more rewards than the successive ones.

Some named monsters increased your stats permanently, so everyone was probably after them.

Some guilds would probably try to hunt named monsters to get free publicity.

That's why it was the perfect time to do it.

He was planning to move faster than the others.

'I won't be able to kill every named monster that lives in the Asra Continent since it's so big.'

The named monsters Hyun was after were the special ones! He was especially interested in the ones that increased your stats permanently.

The accomplishment of killing a named monster for the first time would be given only one time, so he should move faster.

'I should take Ain too, right?'

The ‘Close Range Magician's’ specialty, «Flame Claws», could deal a ridiculous amount of damage in exchange for an absurd amount of Mana.

It wasn't very useful for farming, but while hunting a named monster, the most important thing was to deal as much damage as possible in a short amount of time.

There shouldn't be anyone better than Ain for that.

'The only weakness is that she is fragile. But I, as a Support, can cover that.'

First of all, he decided he should check out both of their stats and skills.

"How many stat points do you have left? You haven't used them yet, right?" Hyun asked Ain.

"Uh... I have 70."

"70?"

Hyun rapidly did some math inside his head.

Ain was at level 40. Every time you leveled up, you received two stat points... So she should have 78 left.

Hyun thought that maybe he had made a mistake in the calculations.

‘Why are there eight stats missing?’

What Ain said next solved Hyun's doubts regarding her stats.

"I've used eight to increase my strength."

"Strength...?"

"Yes."

‘Why would a magician need strength? Is there something I'm missing?’

This new doubt was also quickly answered by her.

You could see cold sweat dripping from her forehead.

"I mistakenly thought that I was still a werewolf. You know... The fighting style is very similar to before, so I just used those stat points without thinking about it. I... It should be okay, right? Maybe having more strength could be good in the future."

"Hmm..."

"Even if I made a mistake allocating some stats, I should be okay with my level of control. Right?"

After hearing Ain's excuse, he got a Deja Vu.

How she tried to excuse herself reminded him of a certain somebody.

It was like seeing that guy who had mistakenly chosen Support as a job.

‘Trying to excuse oneself is a personality trait of the hidden job?’ For a little while, he thought of something as ridiculous as that.

"Let's... Use the rest of the stats more carefully."

"Okay..."

In silence, Ain upgraded her stats.

Ain (Lv. 40)

HP: 200/200

Mana: 1000/1000

Job: Close Range Magician (Hidden)

[Strength: 23] [Agility: 30] [Vitality: 5] [Magical Power: 85(+15)]

<Skill List>

[Flame Claws Lv.0]

- Your claws get covered in flames, and you deal [Magical Power] x5 extra damage.

- It consumes 10 mana per second.

[※ You have 39 unused skill points!]

Title - <+ Open List>

Of course, the most useful stat for a ‘Close Range Magician’ was [Magical Power].

Even if you didn't allocate any stats in vitality, your HP still goes up when you level up, but if you don't increase your Magical Power, your Mana won't increase.

There was nothing too hard to think about since there was a minimum mana requirement next to most of the magician's skills.

…And a little bit of agility helped deliver the skills.

Since Ain was a Close Range Magician, she also needed to take care of her combat skills.

Her Magical Power and Agility needed to be balanced; only by doing that would her skills and stats be well balanced and show great synergy.

'Her Vitality is on the lower side, but since I'm here, she should be okay, right?'

There were some named monsters whose attacks couldn't be blocked, but he wasn't planning on hunting them.

The ones he was after were the named monsters they could counter with their synergy.

'Let's leave skills alone for the moment.'

They still had a lot of unused skill points, but there was no need to hurry.

Ain's flame attacks had already surpassed 500.

That amount of damage was so much that he couldn't completely neutralize it with his «One Second Immortality» skill.

Considering that she was level 40, that amount of damage was simply ridiculous.

If you don't take into account the high amount of Mana that the «Flame Claws» skill requires, the Close Range Magician was probably one of the hidden jobs that could deal the most DPS (Damage per Second).

'The damage is more than enough.'

According to his calculations, they could take out a level 50 named boss in under five minutes.

From then on, the problem wouldn't be damage dealing, but all the other things.

…And he was probably going to be the one that needed to cover all the other things.

Translator - Daniel Shin

Proofreader - ilafy

* * *

Arneng, Hell Dust.

The two of them had been playing the game together from the start, so they were really close.

The first time they had played together, it was by coincidence. By pure luck, they began hunting together; that's why they ended up entering the same guild.

They quickly became good friends.

The main reason behind their friendship was that gaming was the primary source of income for both of them.

"I think that things are stabilizing."

"Yes, that's true. Even though the server has been open for just over a month, we're earning enough money to survive."

"That clearly shows that there are a lot of people playing this game."

Asrian had only one worldwide server.

There were more than a hundred million players, and at any given time, millions of people were online.

The world had never seen a game so polished and with such a big scale as that one, and the number of players was increasing day by day.

Arneng smiled.

"This game is still growing, so our income will keep growing too."

"Yes, that's true," answered Hell Dust whilst also smiling.

Arneng and Hell Dust were sure that they would be able to achieve financial success with Asrian Online.

After all, they were already level 30.

Considering their rankings, they were among the top 0.01% of players.

Basically, they were in the heavenly realm.

The only thing other users could do was look up at them.

"The number 10 in the ranking is at level 35, right? We'll probably be able to catch up soon. The difference between us isn't that big."

"If we level up at this pace, shouldn't we be able to become rankers?"

"If we're lucky enough, we'll probably be able to become rankers."

"All top rankers earn a lot of money, right? Once that happens, I want to buy a building in LA."

"I just want to get a sports car."

"Once we become rankers together, let's meet up in real life. How does that sound?"

"That sounds good... It's going to be a meeting between two members of high society."

Rankers were people among the top 1000 players in the Hall of Fame.

The top 1000 may sound easy to achieve, but the truth is that those people were among the top 0.001% of players—they were the one in a million kind of players.

Arneng and Hell Dust thought that they could get to that level.

But their confidence was by no means vain.

A few days ago, a guild member had discovered important information related to hidden named monsters. Everyone within the guild had gotten excited.

Information about normal named monsters was already considered confidential information, but someone had just discovered something above that, a hidden named monster.