One Man Army

One Man Army – Episode 4: [Chapter 3] Getting out of despair (1)

Over time, Sang Hyuk’s gathering of medicinal herbs was even speeding up, as a result, Sang Hyuk could get more gold than he expected. However, he didn’t have any gold on hand.

Sang Hyuk looked at auctions and bought items as much gold as he got…. . The item that Sang Hyuk had been buying for a few months was called ‘Sealed Crystal’.

This item used to be called, between Sword & Magic users, a trash drawing item at the moment.

The reason why it was called like that was because they mostly got junk, which was useless, if you opened a Sealed Crystal.

He got an Enhancement Stone sometimes, the probability was low and a normal Enhancement Stone which was not expensive, no one wanted to get an Enhancement Stone opening a crystal.

For these reasons, there were lots of  Sealed Crystals at the auction. Even though users

didn’t get lots of Sealed Crystals because the drop rate of Sealed Crystals wasn’t that high, the problem was that they filled up the auction without anybody consuming them.

Sang Hyuk purchased Sealed Crystals as much as possible while regulating the market price. Because there were a lot of users who sold and bought items by their avocation, he shouldn’t let them notice someone buying lots of Sealed Crystals.

As most auction merchants had a high sense, the price of Sealed Crystal could surge up if they knew someone was stocking up on Sealed Crystals.

Sang Hyuk kept collecting Sealed Crystals carefully.

The reason why Sang Hyuk collected Sealed Crystals was….. an important changing point which was included in 4th big scale patch of Sword & Magic.

The rising price of Sealed Crystals which made users astonished by the development…Indeed, the content of patch could be simply expressed as a sentence, it caused a tremendous ripple.

‘You will get a Blessed Enhancement Stone from Sealed Crystal  with the low rate from now.’

These were not precise, but it was likely to this sentence. Because Sang Hyuk played Sword & Magic after the 4th big scale patch. He didn’t know exactly about the truth because he heard rumors from around at community boards on the Internet.

However, the important thing after the patch was the fact that the Sealed Crystal might produce a Blessed Enhancement Stone.

A Blessed Enhancement Stone was entirely different from a normal Enhancement Stone. A Blessed Enhancement Stone was an extremely expensive item and can be traded with cash.

A normal Enhancement Stone was about 20 dollars cash value, and a Blessed Enhancement Stone was an item with a value of about 2,000 dollars. That meant it was non comparable.  

Even though everybody said that it was too low a probability, people who logged into the game and opened Sealed crystals could get a Blessed Crystal after ten Sealed Crystals. After all, people guessed that the development turned into an emergency patch, so people could get once a hundred.

Sang Hyuk wasn’t sure about the fact because he hadn’t experienced in person either. But, even if people could get one by opening one hundred Sealed Crystals, collecting them could be a big benefit anyway.

The  market price of Sealed Crystal was about 5 dollars now.

As such, even though people got one Blessed Enhancement Stone, opening a hundred Sealed Crystal was still a big benefit.

That’s why this collecting Sealed Crystals could be a jackpot enoughly as people mentioned,  it could be a super jackpot if they got more Blessed Enhancement Stones.

Sang Hyuk’s goal was to collect 3,000 Sealed Crystals. Of course it wasn’t easy, Sang Hyuk did work hard climbing cliffs to collect medicinal herbs.

****

Time flew so fast, it was already spring after a year.  

September 11, 2027.

Finally ‘the Advent of Volloyan’, which was the 4th big scale patch of Sword & Magic, started as Sang Hyuk had expected.

Sang Hyuk was already ready to log in as soon as the patch finished.

Sang Hyuk had collected 3,116 Sealed Crystals after 7 months.

If he could get a Blessed Enhancement Stone after opening the Sealed Crystals as with the rumor, Sang Hyuk might easily be able to get 300 Blessed Enhancement Stones roughly and their values were about 600,000 dollars.

Of course he didn’t expect getting that much, anyway he expected to get at least a few ten thousand dollars.

Sang hyuk already logged into the game no sooner after finishing the patch.

He realized that the rumor he heard wasn’t 100% correct after opening a few hundreds Sealed Crystals. But, it wasn’t totally wrong either.  

A Blessed Enhancement Stone, which supposed to be appear once every hundred Sealed Crystals, was appeared once every forty. Maybe it was correct but people saying that they got one every ten was overwhelming.  

Anyway Sang Hyuk opened 3,110 Sealed Crystals, all he had in an instant and he got 74 Blessed Enhancement Stones exactly.

While it was somewhat different from 300, of which he could have earned 150,000 dollars through encashing them. He could still get 130,000 dollars after deducting all the commissions. It was huge money for a high school student without having any skills for 6 months.

He was satisfied with the amount of money as he decided to be independent from the orphanage and earn money himself.

“Let me finish the game as he was supposed to finish up here.”

Sanghyuk no longer wanted to waste time for Sword & Magic. Sang had better prepare to for EL slowly.

6 months from now, Eternal Life (EL)’s service which Sang Hyuk had been waiting for, planned to start. If he kept playing Sword & Magic for the 7 months, he might be able to make a lot of money, but he wanted to rest enough and be ready physically and mentally for EL.

Sang Hyuk made a clean finish just a few days after he made the decision.  Sang Hyuk sold everything of what could be sold and he had exactly 137,400 dollars in his account.

This money was really big money for Sang Hyuk who had a few hundreds dollars only a few days ago. If Sang Hyuk was a normal high school student, he could spend the money here and there on trivial things.

As Sang Hyuk wasn’t a normal high school student, he wasn’t excited with the money and acted the same like before. He had better not be noticeable now.

‘I don’t remember an exact date, but sometime in November. So, I should live like a poor man still until November.’

The thing he was waiting for. That was the moment the scum would come visiting and make him depressed.

****

Sang Hyuk also sold the headphone VR machine after finishing up the Sword & Magic. After all, a new capsule VR machine was released after launching EL, so he had better sell it before the price went down.

Sang Hyuk suddenly started learning meditation after finishing up. When Sang Hyuk was a director, he read a research which said people who could control their mind themselves had a higher VRA range compared to others not doing it.

Thus, it meant that meditation was helpful to increase one’s VRA range. Anyway, the VRA of Sang Hyuk was already high enough to be close to the threshold, but he stayed on the ball.

He already had the experience of one’s VRA range, which could be fall down for several reasons. Thus, he really cared about VRA maintenance.

Sang Hyuk learnt not only meditation but also Kendo. The reason why he started Kendo wasn’t that he wanted to learn the way of using a sword and use it for the game.

With imagination, learning Kendo in real life should be helpful for the virtual reality game, however, reality and virtual reality wasn’t connected that simply.

Even though someone who did Kendo well in real life, he might not be able to brandish a sword in virtual reality with low VRA. Oppositely, someone who wasn’t any good in sports might have exceptional physical ability with high VRA.

That was the reason why VRA was called as a new style talent.

The reason why Sang Hyuk learnt Kendo was to learn how to control his mind and sustain a healthy body, not to learn how to control the sword.

When he was leading a director’s life, he had seen lots of pro gamers who ruined their bodies after too much obsession about virtual reality, resulting in them not being able to log into virtual reality anymore.

Therefore, he always thought he had to be healthy to become a pro gamer. For this reason, Sang Hyuk learnt Kendo to maintain his physical fitness.

Once again, time flew by.

And…November 27, 2027.

Two guys like devils, who Sang Hyuk never forgot, visited the orphanage.

‘Park Sang Cheol, Kim Dae Sik.’

Sang Hyuk remembered their names clearly.

*Crunch* he gnashed his teeth the moment he saw them again. But, he had to be patient now.

‘I will endure this moment. But, I will never ever skip it.’

He really wanted to report to the police and get them caught right now, the problem was that these bitches moved the workplace around, so he couldn’t report yet because he didn’t know where it was going to be at.

And, people, who got caught by police at this moment, got released easily with the power of money. So, that wasn’t a great idea.  

‘My way…. I will steal the most important thing from you guys and I will crush you guys cruelly. That’s my punishment for you.’

So, Sang Hyuk was thinking of punishing them his way without any police help. Of course it took  time, he had to wait for the moment patiently.

Park Sang Cheol and Kim Dae Sik deceived children with flowing speeches. And, they started the VRA test immediately… Unfortunately, the children all tried to get as high VRAs as they could, like Sang Hyuk did before.

Sang Hyuk wanted to let the children know about Park Sang Cheol and Kim Dae Sik’s true faces and stop them from being deceived, but, he couldn’t do it. It could make the situation worse because even the staff at the orphanage helped the bitches.

Anyway, the children probably wouldn’t believe Sang Hyuk’s word. Sang Hyuk used to stay at another orphanage in Uijeongbu and he moved to this place a year ago after that one closed. So, he didn’t have any friends in this orphanage.

Firstly, because Sang Hyuk wasn’t outgoing enough to hang out with anyone, he became an outsider. For those reasons, Sang Hyuk didn’t have anything to do at this point.  

Sang Hyuk closed his eyes and meditated to control his mind. And, he walked up slowly during his turn and wore the VR machine on his head.

< [ Chapter 3 ] Getting out of despair (1) > end

Translator : Joyce Gim