Emperor of Solo Play

­ A Nail in a Pocket (2)

One goal of Warlord players is getting a nickname. In Warlord, a nickname was a definite proof of one’s popularity. At the same time, players wanted good, cool nicknames. At the very least, no one would start out wanting an eerie nickname like Hero Slaughterer.

Of course, Hyrkan’s Hero Slaughterer nickname did not originate with good intent.

Cruelty!

Hyrkan’s fights were ruthless.

In a way, all fights in Warlord were ruthless. With bloody fights being the norm, it would be strange if fights weren’t called ruthless. At the same time, fights between players had a bit of beauty in them. This beauty originated from the clash of different magic and skills rather than simple hand-to-hand combats.

But Hyrkan’s fights was more of a one-sided massacre than a banquet of magic and skills. This meant that his fights were efficient and overwhelming, but at the same time, it meant he would be hopelessly beaten whenever he was on the losing end. A fight between evenly skilled players could be called a sport, but when the difference in their skill was big, it would just be a one-sided massacre.

But this was Hyrkan’s charm. It was why a latecomer like Hyrkan could make a name for himself. At the same time, it was something Hyrkan had to do to survive as a latecomer. As he couldn’t match up in terms of items, levels, stats, skills, or titles, he had to pursue extreme efficiency in all his fights. It was fine if it looked good on its own, but he had no room to stage a cool fight.

It was when Hyrkan was betrayed by his Hahoe Mask guild and declared war on the Stormhunter Guild that his fighting style became more cruel and desperate. To fight against the world by himself, Hyrkan had no choice but to become the most ferocious animal.

After he had lost everything, Hyrkan was left with nothing but bitterness. It was truly unlucky for the Ralph Family to become the first scapegoat of such for Hyrkan.

And this truly unlucky day was currently in progress.

Stab… stab…!

Hyrkan’s stabbing did not stop. He would only do so after his opponent ceased breathing. In the end, about a minute had passed since Hyrkan had captured Haybola before the stabbing finally stopped.

Haybola was now in the game over state. Haybola in the real world would have noticed this as well. If he wasn’t so perverted as to enjoy being killed while he couldn’t move, see, or struggle, he should have force logged out a long time ago. He wouldn’t be playing Warlord with the money that it requires just to enjoy something like it.

And in this situation where their comrade was being killed, the Ralph Family’s two remaining members couldn’t carelessly move.

‘What do we do?’

The priest couldn’t do anything as his class wasn’t for fighting. In the end, it was up to the swordsman, Jaiyu.

Currently, however, Jaiyu couldn’t move easily because of the Skeleton Warrior blocking his path. He had already attacked a few times, but the Skeleton Warrior easily dodged all of his attacks. With the Skeleton Warrior showing completely different movements than the monsters he had faced so far, Jaiyu couldn’t choose to forcefully attack. If he had the courage, he would already have done so.

Of course, the biggest reason was Hyrkan’s ruthlessness. What seemed like a tasty fish at first turned out to be a great white shark. Plus, Jaiyu was currently in the ocean, being stared at by that very shark. As the Ralph Family would never have had the chance to face fear like this, it was only obvious that their legs would go stiff.

Hyrkan could clearly tell what state they were in.

‘I’m still weaker in terms of pure power.’

Hyrkan purposefully instilled fear into them. It was the only way to make their minds’ calculators called logic malfunction.

‘Power on power would be hard.’

In truth, Hyrkan was vastly inferior in power. The combination of a priest and a swordsman was too good. Furthermore, their difference was huge. Hyrkan was still level 11, equipped with the Subjugation Association’s default items. The Ralph Family, on the other hand, were level 20 players… with possibly rare items.

‘Stamina’s really the problem.’

The critical problem was Hyrkan’s stamina. There was no way he wouldn’t know the weakness of an all-strength necromancer.

Even with just one hit, he would yell UGH! He didn’t have a priest nor potions to heal him.

But he didn’t feel right letting the two go because of it. In fact, it was against his principle to let these fools worth several tens of monsters go. Such an opportunity wasn’t easy to come by.

Then what he needed now…

‘Strike while the iron is hot’

Was a scheme.

Hyrkan averted his eyes, and his eyes met Jaiyu who was confronting the Skeleton Warrior.

“This is purely self-defense. I was not the one to start this fight.”

His voice flowed out without a hint of stuttering.

“Fuck off!”

Of course, for the one listening, it was pure bullshit. Jaiyu immediately let out a heated response. In truth, he had no right to do such a thing. It was them who first schemed and did an ill-mannered act. If what happened were to become public, Warlord players would applaud Hyrkan and spit on the Ralph Family. A few victims of the Ralph Family might even send Hyrkan money for a dinner or two.

In any case, once Jaiyu heard Hyrkan’s words, his mind shook once again.

‘This fucker…’

He was scared, angry, irritated, and also worried.

All sorts of thoughts filled his mind, causing a headache. He wanted to run, but at the same time, he didn’t. Jaiyu glanced at his friend, Dral.

Dral’s expression wasn’t all that different. With his vicious hobby of toying with players, he had expected something like this to happen one day, but he didn’t think it would happen like this. Most importantly, as a priest, Dral couldn’t lead the fight in any way. In the end, he was only the support. The order had to come from Jaiyu.

As a result, Jaiyu and Dral kept pushing off the lead role, giving tacit hints to each other.

Watching the two panic, Hyrkan smiled inwardly.

‘Retards.’

It wasn’t his first time against players like this.

Players that acted like they were the kings, but turned into 5 year old kids the moment they were driven into a corner.

‘If you’re going to run, then run. If you’re going to fight, then fight.’

If Hyrkan was in their situation, he would not have hesitated to make his decision. Fight or run. These were really the only two choices in Warlord. It was best to never think that talking solved problems.

Thus.

“I no longer want to fight with you.”

Talking now would be his scheme.

“If you call it quits here, I will stop.”

With that, Hyrkan raised both his hands above his head. To Jaiyu and Dral, it was the most appealing Hyrkan had ever looked. Hyrkan also sounded sincere.

“I’ll say it now. I have no interest in your items. If you agree to end it here, let us.”

Jaiyu and Dral had no choice but to be smitten.

Jaiyu relaxed slightly. Then, he stared at Dral, and their eyes met for the first time in a while. They had both reached the same conclusion.

‘Let’s end it here.’

It wasn’t likely that the situation would turn for the better because they remained stubborn. Since their opponent was the one asking for truce, there was no reason for them to not agree. The moment Jaiyu relaxed, the shoulder of his arm holding the sword drooped. Noticing this, Hrykan…

Snap snap!

Immediately snapped his fingers twice.

Attack Mode!

With its master’s command, the Skeleton Warrior charged towards Jaiyu without a shadow of doubt.

Click click!

With the sound of bones hitting each other, the Skeleton Warrior closed the gap between it and Jaiyu in a blink of an eye.

“What!”

Startled, Jaiyu swung his sword as strong as he could with his slightly relaxed body.

His sword moved horizontally like a baseball player’s swing. With only a whoosh, there was no hint of sharpness in the blade. There was no way the Skeleton Warrior would be taken out by a sword filled with nothing but brute strength.

The Skeleton Warrior easily dodged the attack by lowering his waist, and at the same time, launched himself towards Jaiyu’s ankle like a spring. Then, it bit down on his ankle with a snap.

His legs were guarded by armor, but the armor around his ankle were just leather boots and socks. With the Skeleton Warrior’s fangs being able to easily bite off monsters’ skins, it could easily deal effective damage to Jaiyu.

Plus, most people, after getting their ankle bitten, couldn’t respond properly. Their eyesight narrowed and confusion blurred their vision. Even so, Jaiyu responded decently. He stabbed his sword down toward the Skeleton Warrior biting his ankle.

Thwack!

The sword went through the Skeleton Warrior’s boney ribs and pierced the ground.

At the same time.

Stab!

Before anyone noticed, Hyrkan’s sword closed its distance with Jaiyu and destroyed his two eyes.

“Uwak”

Dejavu.

Immediately moving behind Jaiyu, Hyrkan began to cut his neck. The bone-chilling stabbing sound once again flowed out and Hyrkan grinned. With his scheme working out so flawlessly, there was no way he wouldn’t feel happy.

This wasn’t standard in any way. When dealing with multiple players, dealing with the priest first was key. If the priest remained alive, it was easy enough for corpses to come back to life. As long as a high-level priest remained alive and didn’t run out of magic power, swordsmen and magicians never died.

But the current situation was different. A level 20 priest could do no more than curing small wounds and filling up lost stamina. It was far from real priests’ capabilities.

Most importantly, he was too lacking. Even a kid could support a bunch of swordsmen happily fighting up front. But Dral’s response while Haybola was getting killed? Completely useless. It meant he had no experience with a similar situation. In such cases, it was better to deal with the swordsman. Of course, it wasn’t that Hyrkan carefully theorized and judged the situation.

The calculation in his head was simple.

‘This priest is a chicken. No need to pay him any mind. He’ll probably just run anyways.’

The priest was too insignificant to care about!

And as Hyrkan expected.

“Uwaaaaaah!”

The remaining player, Dral, ran off the moment Jaiyu was killed.

Hyrkan sneered. It was a victory ceremony.

★★★

“10 watches.”

The fight was over.

Hyrkan also took care of Jaiyu cleanly. He didn’t chase after Dral. It wasn’t impossible to catch up if he tried, but it wouldn’t be easy. It would take at least ten minutes, and there was a high chance of a problem occurring by the time he returned to this place.

Hyrkan concentrated on collecting his spoils.

It was nothing to scoff at. What stood out was 10 watches. Haybola and Jaiyu were each carrying 4 watches. They were, of course, from the players they hunted. With two of their own, it totaled to 10.

‘If only everything in the item slot came out.’

With this, he had secured himself at least 10 items. Considering the level of players that were Ralph Family’s targets, at least 5 of the 10 would be a miss, likely to be Subjugation Association’s default items. Even so, the Ralph Family’s items would be quite useful.

‘Useful items between level 15 and 20 should go for about 300,000 won.’

Furthermore, useful level 15 to 20 items, especially weapons, easily went over 100,000 won. For players that spent over 2 million won on gaming, they wouldn’t be stingy on weapons they would be using for two weeks to a month.

Another source of profit were the crafting coins. Haybola and Jaiyu’s pockets were filled with crafting coins and jewels that monsters dropped. In a way, there was a higher chance of this being worth more money.

Hyrkan examined the coins one by one using the app installed on his watch. After confirming them, he smiled.

‘Decent.’

PK players prioritize watches first and foremost. Then, they take expensive crafting coins or jewels. It was annoying and inconvenient to carry everything.

“Oh?”

As expected, a fairly good jewel was mixed in.

“Isn’t this Black Goblin’s Eyeball?”

Black Goblin’s Eyeball.

Hyrkan knew what it was. It was an jewelry crafting item that was used for making rare-rank items. Furthermore, it was used to craft armor for magicians.

It was an item crafting material that raised magic power and intelligence.

It was, of course, expensive.

‘This should go for a bit if I remember correctly.’

Hyrkan had obtained and sold it before. Before returning to the past, he had found it when he was around level 20. At that time, it cost around 300,000 won.

‘The others are decent too. They should all sell for quite a decent amount.’

With just 10 minutes of effort, he had earned more than he imagined. A big smile spread out across his face.

There was one more big profit.

‘What should I do with the video? Do I send it to a professional to edit? It turned out quite well, I think.’

PK videos always had decent views.

Hyrkan’s fights were cruel, thus different. In Warlord, where everyone sought after the strangest concepts to stand out, being different wasn’t a bad thing in the slightest. It was the same before Hyrkan returned to the past. It was his unique style that allowed him to stand out and succeed.

‘About 200,000 was it, to make a video?’

In this sense, this fight would become a good profile video to show off Hyrkan’s existence, skill, and potential.

The smile on Hyrkan slightly twisted.