Not only am I a handsome guy, but I’m also a crazy talented gamer?!

Episode 7

The first time I fell into the tomb was before the patch. Perhaps the moderators had already tweaked the cave a bit, and if it was activated after the patch, they had already seen where the magic circle would be.

I’ve been inside the gates of hell dozens of times already. Of course, I’d been feeding off the vampires, but the only place I could think of to set up the circle was the pit I’d been crouching in since the day I first fell into the cave.

“The vampires must be in the castle now, right?”

It must be night in-game time. If so, I could research for hours, I thought, lying down in my capsule and putting on my headset.

-Would you like to connect?

A familiar voice.

“Yes.”

-Measuring your iris and brain waves. Would you like to start with the human examination character ‘Karen’, level 97?

“Yes.”

* * *

I took out the lantern familiarly and lit it. It glowed brightly for a moment, and then my vision adjusted to the darkness of the cave. I was sprawled out in front of the gates of hell. I’d dropped a level or so, not a bad penalty, I thought, and searched for the pit.

“There it is. Hmm, different from last time.”

The last time I saw it, it was just a black pit. But now there was a magical circle of blue energy in its place. I was trapped here before the patch, so it was just rocks then, but now that it’s post-patch, it’s a magic circle.

“Isn’t this a waypoint?”

Waypoints were a system that allowed you to save teleportation points to get to areas you’ve been to faster. It’s cheap and convenient… but you still have to pay a teleportation company to take you to places you’ve never been. I took a waypoint. It was saved as a Death Wind Clan tomb.

‘A tomb, indeed…….’

The ‘Tomb of the Deathwind Clan’ waypoints had an additional nine waypoints each. This was a stroke of luck for me. Surely the path must lead to the graves of other vampires.

* * *

“Boss! Something’s wrong…….”

“I know, I’ve been monitoring it!”

The president loudly interrupted Mr. Park. I wanted to fire the operator who created the waypoint… I wanted to fire him right now.

But one of the reasons it had to be done was that vampires were also NPCs (Non-Playing Characters), individuals that the operator couldn’t just delete or move. Waypoints had to be created to facilitate their movement, so that they could be moved in bulk, 100 at a time, in a second, so that the vampires didn’t have to turn into bats at night and travel to the castle.

We didn’t intentionally create a waypoint from the vampire castle to the graveyard. I didn’t want to create a waypoint from the vampire castle to the tomb.

But then I realized this wouldn’t work either. The little bastard in front of you has invaded.

“Phew, now he can go anywhere. He can go to the vampires’ habitat at will… I just hope he doesn’t tell the other users.

“Boss?”

Mr. Park asked cautiously this time. The boss answered just as gently.

“Why?”

“Do you know what today’s event is?”

“Do you think I don’t know what that is? You’re going to take over as the head of the company… Huh!”

It’s been a day in real-time, and six days in-game time, so the Event of the Day applies.

Today’s event is the Dethroning Event.

It’s an event where you unseat a monster leader. It’s a big deal, and it’s a scheduled event.

Every monster has a leader. Urk High rules over all orcs. The Blood Emperor rules over the vampires. The Gold Dragon, leader of the dragons. There are other leaders, such as the Beastmen, who rule over the Vampires, and the Werewolf King, who rule over the werewolves.

Dethroning a leader means that if they are killed, the user will inherit their position.

The only reason we had to do this was for a single event that was already scheduled. The month-long event itself is for “that” event anyway… but today’s event is a dethroning event.

Anyway, that user, Karen, is now a big winner. Of course, killing the Blood Emperor wouldn’t be easy.

“Khhhhh. The Blood Emperor is no ordinary vampire… he’s a Day Walker!

The boss laughed happily, but Park didn’t seem to notice, so he asked again.

“Do you know what yesterday’s event was?”

“That’s the Half Dragon Event. It’s the first event of its kind, and whoever gets caught in it will immediately rise to the top of the rankings… But why am I telling you this?”

The boss’s face twisted as if he’d gotten another punch in the gut. The body of the Half-Dragon would be awarded to the player who gained the most levels in a month.

It’s an event that favors players who join early on, and with multiple events in a month, no matter how fast you level up, 70 is probably the limit. Middle-earth was one of the most difficult games to level up in.

Of course, there were exceptions. Karen. He was a headache in more ways than one. He was leveling about 100 levels a day, with 29 days left to go. That’s more than five months of game time. The winner of the Half-Dragon’s event had already been determined.

“Yikes! Who’s that lucky? Can we cancel the Half Dragon event? Or we can give it to the person who leveled up the fastest after Karen…….”

The director quickly interrupted the boss.

“How many trillions of won did you lose when you canceled the event last time… and the users sued you?”

Leadership by example.

The president’s blood ran cold at Park’s words.

“It’s like this event was made just for him!”

In this world, the boss hated the lucky man the most.

* * *

I rummaged through my inventory and found the lantern.

At first, I was going to go to the other vampires’ graves, but I realized that the experience they gave me was so insignificant, so I headed straight for the Blood Emperor.

The waypoint to the Shrine of the Undead, where the Blood Emperor is located, was easy enough to navigate.

“I guess this is the vampire’s castle, so I’m not getting kicked out?”

As a general rule, all users are supposed to be kicked out of Vampire’s Castle during daylight hours. But I was strangely not being kicked out, and I wondered if… perhaps… using waypoints would exempt me from such sanctions.

My gaze was drawn not to the exquisitely carved statue of the goddess, nor the magnificently constructed temple, but to the large coffin in the center of the room.

‘Perhaps this is the Blood Emperor’s resting place. If so, he must be transformed into a corpse monster now, right?

I approached the coffin with a joyful heart. As I approached the coffin, a tremendous amount of magic flowed through my body. It was enough to send chills down my spine.

“So the boss is different after all?”

I prepared myself thoroughly and decided to open the coffin. I rummaged through my inventory, looking for anything that could serve as a weapon. I had several nice pieces of armor, but my agility was too low to kick the items. I hadn’t put a single stat point into Agility, so none of the armor fit me. But I could pick up the Vampire Slayer.

“Will the Vampire Slayer impale the Blood Emperor’s flesh?”

Even though the Vampire Slayer is a magic item, the Blood Emperor is a top-tier monster. It’s below the Vampire Slayer, of course, but it’s the best humanoid monster.

“What other weapons do I have?

I rummaged through my inventory.

“Hmm, Dragon Slayer, but that requires agility, so no… Holy Sword? I don’t like this one, so I’ll pass… Hoho~ Mithril stake.”

“Mithril Picket

Material: Mithril

Use: Kills any vampire instantly if driven through the heart.”

This seemed to be a setting from a horror movie. The silver stake had an odd glow to it, which I liked.

‘A stake… Hmph, now the Blood Emperor will die too. Hmph.’

I let out a cruel laugh and picked up Thor’s hammer in my right hand and the stake in my left.

Thor’s hammer was a unique item that required nothing but strength, and I had gotten it after five hours of vampire play. A stake driven with Thor’s hammer will surely drive through iron at once…….

I opened the coffin to see a pale Blood Emperor, his eyes closed and lying at ease. Unlike the other vampires, he stirred slightly, but not significantly, and I pressed the stake into the Blood Emperor’s chest.

“You die now!”

* * *

The Blood Emperor was dumbfounded. He wasn’t quite as mangled as he had been when Two-Master User, the leader of the Paladins, lunged at him with his spear as the night was almost gone and the daylight was fading, so I dealt with him in moderation and killed him.

In the last five minutes before the Vampire Castle was sealed off, a cowardly Master-level player rushed in at once to avenge the Paladin’s death, but I managed to defeat them and grab the items they dropped.

By killing you, the monster gains experience and drops items. The more users they kill, the more experience and unique items they gain.

When a monster dies, it drops a lot of experience and a certain amount of items that it has picked up, so users can get items by killing it. Of course, monsters also dropped their unique items.

But the Blood Emperor was badly wounded, and the sun had just risen. When the sun comes out, vampires are unable to absorb negative energy and their wounds don’t automatically heal. They don’t have to stay in their coffins.

The Blood Emperor doesn’t die from sunlight, but it does adversely affect his wound healing, so he stays in his coffin, immobile and recovering.

However, a pair of bastards broke into the vampire castle during daylight hours and attempted to kill him by opening his coffin.

The Blood Emperor glanced at Karen. She was still dressed in her rudimentary clothes.

He wondered how she’d gotten in, but a user of her caliber couldn’t have left a trace on her skin. It wasn’t a level 300 monster for nothing.

The Blood Emperor simply closed its eyes and rested, albeit a little noisily…….

The Blood Emperor sensed danger near its heart. Surely there was nothing life-threatening about a novice.

Swoosh.

“Thud!”

The Blood Emperor screamed, he couldn’t help it. His most lethal weapon… it was a mithril stake.

It drove right through his heart. With familiarity. But by focusing her magic, she was able to stop the stake halfway through her chest.

“You… rotten… human!”

He coughed up blood with each word.

The Blood Emperor was even more outrageous. A user who looked like a novice could drive a stake through a human with such force. A warrior should have been at least level 200.

The normal level for a player to be able to generate this kind of power was 200 unless they were insane. The average player would have a 3:2 ratio of Strength to Dexterity. That is, of course, if you’re a swordsman or warrior.

All of the Blood Emperor’s magic was centered in his heart. It didn’t matter when the heart stopped beating. It wouldn’t be able to push the stake out, but it could just barely channel the magicka into the heart, creating a wall strong enough to prevent more from entering.

Something was wrong with my movements. Every time he moved, he would cough up blood, forcing him to walk slowly and concentrate all his strength on his heart. His obsession with life. …….