Chapter 57

Chapter 57 — Don't Think Too Deeply

[Name: Kim Ingwang.
Level: 22.
Gender: Male.
Race: Half-Demon.]

Main — Indomitable Knight.
Sub 1 — Monster Commander.

Strength: 147.
Vitality: 254.
Agility: 172.
Wisdom: 98.

Total Defense: 124.

[Additional Stats]

Resistance: 999.

Titles Acquired — The One Who Never Gives Up.
Wolf Hater.
And so on.

[Skills]

—Swimming in the Sea [C 10]: Has reached the level where he has adapted to the environment of the sea.

—Mental Power ‘Indomitable’ [C 2]: Indomitable is gradually becoming stronger.

—Indomitable Derivative Skill — Indomitable Chain [D3]: Can freely control up to eight chains within a 25-meter radius.

—Pseudo Lion's Roar [D1]: A loud shout that sounds like a lion's roar.
It causes the opponent who hears it to briefly become confused as if they had actually been hit by a lion's roar.

!Bond Skill! —Shadow Movement [A5]: Allows movement between shadows.
There is a possibility of being eroded by the one connected to them.

—Flow [E2]: Has finally reached the stage where he can faintly see the flows that exist in the world.

“Phew.”

I sat absentmindedly in a wide field and let out a deep sigh as I looked over my status window, which I hadn't seen in a long time.

I had been playing the game pretty hard, but other players had now caught up with my stats.

My equipment was also so pathetic that while everyone else had defenses exceeding 1,000, I was the only one still stuck in the three-digit range.

It was partly because I wasn't playing around active skills.

But while other users were enjoying flashy hunts with countless skills, I was hunting using nothing but basic attacks.

Well, the players who had caught up with me were all people among the top ranks, so I didn't feel that much impatience or jealousy.

No matter how hard I tried, I had no confidence that I could beat people who played the game while sleeping only three hours a day.

Rather than jealousy, I felt respect for them.

However, since the enemies I would have to face from now on were the unknown beings called the Fanatics, I couldn't help feeling anxious about that.

“Ah, if you master Flow~ completely, those guys will be nothing but wham, bam, boom!”

“Resistance 999 is an incredible number.
Even among those who possess various resistances, it is rare to see someone with such a high value.
Is it because you are the Master of Madness?
In a way, it is truly a blessing from heaven.”

“But if you're a Half-Demon, shouldn't you have horns?
Where are our Ingwang's horns~?
Here?
Or maybe he~re~?”

Poke, poke, poke.

I let out another depressed sigh with a blank expression.

Dolphin and Jin suddenly came over and began pouring out words one after another.

It seemed they were trying to change the mood, so I decided to play along.

As a side note, I expected the horns were probably on Hayang.

Because I hadn't paid much attention to my appearance, I hadn't realized it at all.

If I didn't have them, then Hayang probably did.

Ever since the beginning of the game, things had been happening so quickly that I hadn't been able to properly pay attention to the thing I cared about most.

My appearance.

In reality, I had apparently become good friends with cleanliness and neatness because of my junior trainer.

But inside the game, I had once let my beard grow until it became a bushy mess that didn't suit me at all.

But why had nobody said a single word about my long, bushy beard?

They didn't think I was trying to imitate Grandpa Alo, did they?

“Dad, Dad!
Look!
I made a hole in the tree!”

“Was it Modak?
For your child, he possesses quite remarkable talent.
Perhaps the nature of fire simply suits my techniques.”

Although Jin still went on about being false and whatnot, he sometimes showed a pleased smile while watching Modak quickly learn his techniques.

It seemed I would be able to clear the Chairman's quest soon as well.

“No!
Our Ingwang is more talented!
Considering he's practically only half a body, isn't this level of skill amazing?”

“Who said otherwise?
The talent I was talking about is the talent required to learn my technique, ‘Extinction.’”

Extinction.

It was an extreme martial art focused entirely on attacking, completely different from Dolphin's Flow.

If Flow was the free application of a single technique that involved reading the flow without any set movements, Extinction felt more like the actual martial arts from wuxia novels, with fixed movements.

The names of the techniques were things like First Fist!
First Step!

So when it came to naming techniques, Dolphin and Jin were both pretty much the same kind of idiot.

Flow and Extinction had the same foundation of breaking, pushing away, and striking the flow until it disappeared, but their natures were completely different.

Apparently, I couldn't learn it.

It was a little disappointing.

“If I could learn both, wouldn't I be perfect at both offense and defense?”

“Yeah, yeah!
There really was someone who could use both!
He was called Spiral!
It was a really~ scary power.”

“There was also a terrifying person who didn't need either.
As far as I remember, there was exactly one person whose fists I never even once remember grazing me.”

So basically, strong people were simply strong.

That had nothing to do with me!

“…So, can those two beat that Fanatic guy if they fight him?”

This had become my biggest concern lately.

What method could work against someone who treated even the Great Heroes lightly?

When I thought about conquering the Empire, I had simply lacked too many things to prepare properly.

It seemed difficult, but at least there had been a possibility.

But with these guys…

I had absolutely no idea.

The beings we had captured, the so-called Seeds, had been tested separately by NPCs who called in high-level users.

They were apparently extremely powerful monsters, and everyone had struggled against them.

Since those users were among the highest-ranked players who could currently be called high-level, they had now discovered ways to defeat them.

But even that required a certain level of stats.

If I encountered a Seed, it would be a very close fight.

Yes.

I was struggling even against a Seed.

And the Seed was definitely the lowest rank among them.

Even so.

At this rate, even if I found the Fanatics, I might not be able to do anything and would simply get captured like a princess waiting helplessly to be rescued.

Should I start growing my hair long enough to hang outside a window?

Phew.

If that incredibly powerful person Dolphin and Jin had mentioned was someone who could still be found in the current version of the game, I wanted to run to him immediately and ask for help.

Would he help me if I got down on my knees and begged?

“Can they win if they fight him~?
Ahaha!
It's not just that they're weak!
They aren't even worth comparing!
I don't know exactly what kind of person that Fanatic guy is, but I can say this for certain.

They absolutely~ cannot beat that person!
He isn't here, though!”

“The person I know is the same.
And likewise, that person is not where you are.

He is the kind of person whose presence is so overwhelming that no one could possibly fail to notice him wherever he exists.”

“Tch.
I was getting my hopes up.”

Perhaps the memories of the people who had inspired these two NPCs, the people they considered the strongest, were being reflected like this.

Please.

I really wished these parts that seemed connected to reality would just disappear.

All those ridiculous fantasies about reality that I had managed to kill off were starting to stir again.

“No.
Come to think of it, that man named Eroll whom we met before.
He looked similar to the person I mentioned.”

“Huh?
Really?”

“Yes.
He had a pretty face and looked like some spoiled parasite.
He walked around grinning every day, which was irritating.
And the way he spoke was unbelievably annoying.”

“Uh, yeah.
Yeah…”

“Yes.
Perhaps he was created similarly to that person, or perhaps there is some connection between them.
That is the kind of world this is.”

That was good news.

Maybe Eroll was based on the person Jin had mentioned.

Yes.

Eroll was the youngest genius among geniuses to reach the position of Great Hero.

There was a high possibility that Eroll would be the key to conquering the Fanatics.

However, the fact that the communication device used by the Fanatics was manufactured in Ipot, where Eroll was based, was still a problem.

Eroll was a Great Hero.

There was no doubt that he wielded considerable influence in Ipot.

Would someone like that secretly steal communication devices like those?

If they were mass-produced and common like modern smartphones, perhaps it would be possible.

But if they weren't, there was no way Eroll wouldn't know.

If Eroll truly didn't know, then someone in Ipot was lying to him.

And if someone was trying to deceive a Great Hero, it couldn't be just one or two people.

Nor could they be people without much power.

Either way, every possibility led to a future where I would be crushed beneath the overwhelming status of the Fanatics.

If they were going to make me meet them this early, they could have at least made them weaker…

This was troublesome.

Really troublesome.

Why had things gotten so big?

My immediate goal was simply to meet Pi.

But the scale of everything happening along the way was becoming ridiculously enormous.

“Oh, right.
Come to think of it, I also need to ask Eroll where the chains came from.”

“But what in the world have you done and how have you lived for chains to be scattered all over the world?”

“Even if our Ingwang had lived a wild and reckless life, Grandma would still be Ingwang's grandma.
Don't hesitate and tell me everything!”

“What are you talking about?”

That was exactly what I wanted to ask.

Pi might have scattered them around the world so that I would find them and come looking for him.

Or perhaps someone who discovered the cocoon I had created had taken them apart.

Twenty years.

Twenty whole years.

How much do you think I can possibly predict about what happened during that time?

Stop overestimating me.

…

Let's not think too deeply.

The important thing was that I had found a clue about Pi.

Let's think only about that.

My brain wasn't designed for deep thinking in the first place.

What kind of expectations did you guys have for a brain that was destined to survive through quick thinking and improvisation even if it killed me?

“I've decided.
Let's contact Eroll.
We'll worry about what happens afterward later!

Life is a gamble!
A gamble!

Just draw the big picture and set off!”

“Indeed, you should be grateful that the old man and the girl are beside you.
Just a moment without those two, and the clever little boy suddenly becomes like this.”

“Why~?
I like our Ingwang like this too~!
So weak and cute!”

If what Jin said was true, then Dolphin, who kept clinging to me because I was cute, and Jin, who looked at me pitifully as if wondering what to do with me, weren't actually influencing me all that much, were they?

It seemed Dolphin, who loved calling me ‘our Ingwang,’ hadn't thought that far.

Anyway, somehow, all my worries disappeared.

When I heard Pi's full name from that Fanatic, I had been so shocked that my mind completely stopped working.

But now, an unknown motivation was overflowing inside me!

“Modak!
Let's go!
Let's burn everything down!”

“Woohoo~!
For real~?!
Chō★Lucky!”

“Where did you learn to say that?!
Don't act so cheap!”

From this moment on, I would summon everyone!

Village Chief, who would probably be lifting weights right now.

Mallang, who would be in the sewer.

Ien, who would be training.

Everyone, gather!

The target was Ipot.

Ipot?
Pob?
Pon?

Ah!

It's damn hard to pronounce!

The target is the Union!

Let's meet the Great Hero of Salvation in the Union and make him confess everything he knows and everything he doesn't know!

As for the method…

I'll think about that later…