One Man Army

One Man Army – Episode 10 : [Chapter 6] Hunting Villains (1)

< [Chapter 6] Hunting Villains (1) >

Sang Hyuk went to the public library and read a set of books for a few hours. The set was titled ‘Chivalry’ and there were a total of 10 volumes in the set.

The moment he flipped over the last page of the final volume, the system message which he was waiting for floated in front of his eyes.

< You’ve learned all the knowledge required to be a knight. >

< You have met all the qualifications required to be a ‘Knight’. >

< Do you want to absorb ‘Knight’, which is one of the knowledge of ancients, into an empty soul hole? Please make your decision within 5 minutes. >

If he didn’t make his decision within 5 minutes, the knowledge of ancients would return back into the book ‘Chivalry’. Of course if he read all ten volumes again, he could bring the same system message back.

“Absorb.”

However, he didn’t need to worry about it now. This was the main reason why he came here. So, he nodded and murmured quietly.

< The ancient knowledge ‘Knight’ has been absorbed into the first soul hole. >

< You have three empty soul holes remaining. >

Shhhhhh.

Sang Hyuk’s soul was filled with the knowledge of ancients with a beam of light. Sang Hyuk who just got the 1st knowledge of ancients opened the system window and checked his basic abilities and soul skills.

< The knowledge of ancients, ‘Knight’ : The power of knight that was handed down since ancient times has been absorbed into your soul. Not only has your body become stronger, but your mentality is also strengthened and inspired by the spirit of knight. Detailed effect: Power of Knight (C) [Increased power, strength, agility and endurance.], Mentality of Knight (C) [Increased mental ability and improved resistance from Psychic attacks.], Craftsmanship of Knight (C) [Proficiency with sword and shield is increased.] >

< Low Level Sword Mastery [Permanent continued effect] [Proficiency : 0] >

< Low Level Triple Cut [Proficiency : 0] >

< Low Level Sword Parry [Proficiency : 0] >

Sang Hyuk acquired a total of four soul skills through the knowledge of ancients. All of them were low-class, but soul skills could be leveled up by increasing their proficiency. So, the usefulness of the skill could be changed depending on how hard Sang Hyuk worked.

If he wanted to improve his proficiency, he had to use his skills often. The skills were already very powerful by themselves, so they were important in the battle of EL.

For example, even though a user could swing his sword three times normally, he could swing it faster and stronger with the Triple Cut Skill. And, he could defend easier and better with Sword Parry.

If he used his skills, even though he would consume more energy and tire easily, it was still better to use the skills.

“These soul skills really bring back memories for me.”

Sang Hyuk flashed a wry smile while he glanced through the information about the four soul skills floating in front of his eyes.

‘Should I setup Quick settings first.?’

There were two ways to use skills. One was using the skill by itself.

If Sang Hyuk used the Triple Cut skill while he was holding his sword, he performed Triple Cut metronomically. He proceeded to do the same with his other skills.

If he used a skill this way, the pattern of the skills became simple. That was why there was Quick settings.

Quick settings was used to exercise skills naturally with the movement of the player.  

For instance, when Sang Hyuk swung his sword three times quickly, the gesture itself applied to exercise the Triple Cut skill. This was called Quick settings, however, not everyone could use this.

Users had to have a high VRA and degree of understanding about their skills. It was difficult with normal senses to activate Triple Cut by only swinging the sword three times in any situation.

That’s why Quick settings was considered to be a right of adolescence for pro gamers or a few users in high classes who had abilities as high as pro gamers in Sang Hyuk’s former life.

Sang Hyuk wasn’t a pro gamer, but he made himself famous as a mystery master, overwhelming numerous pro gamers in his former life. So, he used Quick settings as the basic. Of course, he couldn’t use Quick settings after his VRA got as low as a trash but at least he still had the feeling from then.

Though, there were no significant differences between using Quick settings or the normal settings, whether one used Quick settings or not could lead to a totally different result in the world of pro gamers, where victory or defeat were determined by a fine thread.

Sang Hyuk started configuring Quick settings with his sword at a vacant lot which was outside of Palcorn city. Quick settings were purely made by a user’s ability.

Thus, if the user couldn’t find a subtle sense, which was melded naturally into his movement with a lack of his skills, he couldn’t setup Quick settings.

Sang Hyuk started applying the skills into his movements repeatedly by swinging his sword or running forward.

Other users did not even know there was Quick settings. Rather, they might have known there was Quick settings since they could see the menu when they opened the system window. But, they did not know how to setup Quick settings.

They would know roughly how to setup Quick settings maybe after 10 days, but they took longer than Sang Hyuk to use it properly.  

Sang Hyuk completed setting up Quick settings for all of his skills in an hour. This was the result of a combination between a wealth of experiences and a wealth of talent.

“Bah, I am so rusty. I could complete setting up these low level skills so much quicker before.”

But, Sang Hyuk didn’t like this result himself. His keen sense from his golden period got dull after living like a ruined man for a long period of time.

“ Sigh, let me stop playing here for today.”

Sang Hyuk had played continuously for 16 hours. All users got disconnected forcibly after 17 hours by the prevention law of game addiction. If the user did not rest at least 2 hours of 24 hours, he/she would not be able to log into the game. So, he had to rest two hours anyway.

He winked forty times after logging out. Even though he had not worked out for a while to reserve energy for the game, he definitely still needed the sleep.

As soon as Sang Hyuk woke up after sleeping less than two hours, he made a healthy meal, simply putting milk on high nutrition cereal and multi vitamins. Simultaneously, he started looking at various professional game communities while eating.

[Have to play EL. This is super amazing.]

[I agree with that, Eternal Life is amazing, but it is too expensive.]

[EL is fun to play, but it is hard. Is someone posting any strategy guides?]

[People have been uploading some strategies at In Games.]

[They are not useful at all. The best way is to make your own strategy by playing the game in person.]

[Ah, I would love to play!]

[Well, is this game free PK? Why are there a lot of red eye bitches?]

[Villains are a popular trend these days.]

……

Sang Hyuk read strategies and looked at In Games after.

[How many soul holes should I pierce for myself?]

[Is there any quest I can get early?]

[Where can I level up early? And, are there any equipments I can get early?]

[Please tell me how to get the knowledge of ancients.]

[Is there anyone to explain what Quick settings are?]

[Are there any penalties if you become a villain?]

……

The contents on In Games were also mostly the same. Even though there were some strategies, they were too basic and the number of questions covered all of the webpage.

“People are still not exactly sure how this game goes.”

Because it was only the 7th day since the open beta service started, users still did not know much about the game at all.

More shockingly, EL’s free open beta service was supposed to end tomorrow.

After the open beta service was over, users could still play the boundless pasture for free, but they had to pay when they moved to Teurinakeu planet from the boundless pasture.

“Come to think of it, people from Raon Software……They didn’t have any special package events for new users even when they released the official service of this game. Wow, now that I think about it, they had a lot of guts……. How were they so confident about it?”

There were normally a lot of events for new users when any new games were released officially. But, Raon Software started the official service as naturally as water flowing down a stream.

There were neither any special events nor discount events. That was why many people said bad things initially, but Raon Software stuck to their policy.

A lot of people thought that it was a risky challenge before they revealed that an SJ investment company, which was the world’s best of the capital, worked on Raon Software.  

Raon Software’s non intervention policy ended up being a huge success. They did not even do any internal monitoring for the game.

They were only involved in bug-fixing or monitoring any illegal external activities. Everything else was determined by the autonomous will of gamers.

In fact, it was only because Raon Software made this game so perfectly. If any games were made incomplete and stuck to this kind of non intervention policy, they would have collapsed.  

Sang Hyuk put several vitamins and nutritional supplements in his mouth while he was reading the content on In Games. He didn’t expect to stop playing for a few days, so he had to constantly maintain his health and condition.

After resting, Sang Hyuk entered the capsule and logged into EL again. He had already equipped the knowledge of ancients and got the soul skill. And, he already completed setting up Quick settings, so the only thing left was… hunting villains.

At the 10th day of starting official service……

The age of villains only lasted till this time. After that, users at the high classes who leveled up quietly or did experimental trials started hunting villains. So, they got rid of all the villains within a week.

‘It will be hard to see villains anymore after this point……I have to finish hunting in a week and get a title.’

Sang Hyuk thought, this was the right time to hunt them.

If he missed this moment, it was hard to get the title of Villain Hunter.

“Let’s start from the Spirit Valley?”

The Spirit Valley was one of the nearest hunting grounds from Palcorn city. The kind of monsters that mainly appeared here were evil spirits. It was easy to hunt them and get quite a lot of Karma if he was not afraid of ghosts.   

Many users crowded here because of this. Fortunately, the world of EL was huge, so it did not feel crowded even though there were a lot of users.

In fact, this Spirit Valley was equivalent to nearly five to seven huge hunting grounds in other DN virtual reality games put together.

Even though it was considered too vast for users who just started traveling at Spirit Valley, because there were ten hunting grounds as wide as Spirit Valley near Palcorn city, there was never a lack hunting grounds despite the number of simultaneous users increasing rapidly.

The reason why everything was possible was because Teurinakeu planet was 40 times as big compared to the world maps in other games.

Travellers appeared in the vast world.

Was this because users could do whatever they wanted freely? Users started doing bad things in accordance to human nature. Many villains were created by this……

But, the basic penalties for the villains were not good, and their golden age didn’t last long.

< [Chapter 6] Hunting Villains (1) > end