Ranker’s Return

Hyeonu was absorbed in a sensation he hadn’t felt for a long time. He felt like a feather—completely weightless. Every time he kicked off from the ground, he seemed to fly high into the sky. The effects of the buffs were amazing.

Hyeonu moved his feet slowly and walked toward Teika who looked far away. Every step Hyeonu took caused his body to gradually lose shape. His movement speed was so fast that only a blurred afterimage remained.

[The player is weaker than the opponent.]

[The player’s stats will drop at a certain rate during the battle.]

[Player ‘Teika’ has entered a ‘slowed’ state.]

‘That is the debuff from before.’ Teika confirmed the message that suddenly appeared before his eyes. It was the same message he had seen in the arena just a few hours ago. Teika thought that this debuff was the best weapon that Alley Leader had. All of Teika’s stats were decreased evenly. In particular, his movement speed was reduced to a level that made him speechless.

Then Hyeonu instantly appeared before Teika’s eyes and wielded the Mysterious Sky Sword. Teika raised his spear with almost instinctive movements, saving his life. However, Teika’s spear bent like it was going to break. It was the price of preventing Hyeonu’s small blow from landing. This was the result of swinging from nothing to block the blow.

‘What is this?’ Teika was shocked. This wasn’t a power of this world. It felt like he was fighting a boss monster, not a player. Nevertheless, there was no time to feel shocked. It would all be over if he stopped moving now. So Teika used a skill without hesitation. His spear turned blood-red, and he created more than 10 snakes. Yet the snakes disappeared as soon as they appeared. They were instantly cut by the dark-red pure energy that stretched out from Hyeonu’s sword.

‘The next skill...’ Teika wasn’t surprised by the snakes’ disappearance and got ready to use his next skill. However, he didn’t use the skill despite preparing for it. This was due to the energy that started squeezing his body. The energy threads were of a black-red color. They looked like the roots of a tree as they firmly held Teika’s feet and didn’t let go. Despite this, Teika didn’t panic and used an item to release status abnormalities.

‘Eh?’

The status abnormality was only lifted for a short time. The dark-red energy soon grabbed him again and didn’t let go. It didn’t mean Teika was incapable of moving at all, but considering the movement speed that Hyeonu showed a while ago, it was like Teika was being stopped. Eventually, Teika was at a crossroads of two choices—stand still and face the end or use other skills to hit Hyeonu.

‘I can’t admit defeat helplessly.’

Even though he’d lost, he still had to do something. This was a more helpless defeat than what he’d suffered a few months ago. There was nothing he could give to his friend from this. He just lost without doing anything.

‘I can’t say that.’

Teika moved at a slow pace. It was in stark contrast to Hyeonu, who moved so fast it was like he was teleporting. Nevertheless, Teika moved his spear, and the blood-red pure energy tore through the space. Hyeonu was standing at the end of that space. He gently wielded the Mysterious Sky Sword, and a huge black-red crescent appeared in the air. The crescent moon swallowed the blood-red pure energy and rushed forward, flying with enough momentum to cut Teika. However, it suddenly changed its trajectory and flew up into the air.

“Is this enough?” Hyeonu asked as he put the Mysterious Sky Sword into his sheath.

“Yes, this is enough. Thank you, Alley Leader.” Teika also put his spear into his inventory. This was enough. No, it was actually lacking, but no more words could emerge from his mouth.

‘It’s possible to deflect or block the Crescent Moon Cut. But then what next?’ Teika thought. That was it. Crescent Moon Cut was said to be Alley Leader’s weakest attack skill, but it was daunting just trying to stop that. There would have been no next step.

‘How can I convey this?’

Teika acknowledged his defeat and only wondered about how to convey the news to his friend. He was worried it would break his friend’s morale.

‘I will leave it to him to choose.’

In that case, Teika wouldn’t simply tell his friend about this. He was thinking about giving his friend a choice. Would his friend want to open Pandora’s Box?

‘Of course, I don’t know if this dream is Pandora’s Box or not.’

A humorous smile flashed again on Teika’s face. He had returned to his usual self.

***

Hyeonu wondered if Suped’s establishment of the magic circle was going well and visited Phinis. The buildings he saw for the first time in Phinis were showing off their beautiful appearance.

“Edchan, what is this?” Hyeonu approached Edchan, who was drinking something and sweating.

“Eh? You’re here? You talked like you weren’t coming, but you ended up here,” Edchan greeted Hyeonu calmly.

Hyeonu asked again when Edchan didn’t answer: “What are you doing now?”

“What’s going on? Isn’t this what you asked for? I am making statues to carve the magic circle,” Edchan replied with an expression like it was ridiculous.

The person who had asked for the job didn’t remember it. Hyeonu confirmed the identity of the statue and nodded. It was understandable if it was for installing the magic circle, but the shape of the statue was a problem.

“Then why are all the statues in this shape? Who instructed you to make it like this?”

“Ah, this? I thought humans would like this type of statue, so I thought they could be the mascots of the city. All the people passing by said it was good, so I judged it wouldn’t harm the city’s existing image,” Edchan answered in a slightly depressed voice.

He had been very confident when he carved the statues. Every person passing by had complimented him. The most important thing was the opinion of the paying customer. Hyeonu saw that Edchan was dejected and quickly praised him: “No, I’m not saying there is a problem. I was just asking out of curiosity. I’m very satisfied. I think this is truly the craftsmanship of a Golden Hammer.” 

Edchan was an NPC who did a lot of things for Hyeonu’s territory, so it was necessary to keep him happy.

‘It’s not that I don’t like the statues,’ Hyeonu thought. It was true that he liked them. In fact, he was very satisfied with the statues of Tang-E. There were many statues of Tang-E here and there, so it seemed like Phinis had become a theme park. There would be more people coming to Phinis. 

Even now, a considerable number of players were visiting Phinis just to see the only statue of Tang-E. Once the number of statues of Tang-E in various poses increased, there would naturally be more people coming to see them. It was clear that players who came once would definitely come again. Anything that was difficult at first would become easier the second time.

‘By the way, how much money did it cost? The sleek statues seem quite expensive...’

Now Hyeonu wondered about the cost. How much gold was invested in these statues? He didn’t know because he hadn’t stopped by the internal office yet.

“Edchan, how much did the statues cost?” Hyeonu asked the question he was curious about. He couldn’t bear it any longer. However, Edchan’s reaction was strange. He just gulped down the water he was drinking and licked his lips.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Hyeonu wondered inwardly.

“I won’t say anything, so just tell me. How much did you use?” Hyeonu urged in a relaxed voice.

Edchan hesitated before holding out three fingers.

“Is it 3,000 gold?” Hyeonu asked.

Edchan shook his head. It was impossible to hide it like this. Hyeonu tried to control his voice shaking from anxiety and questioned, “Then is it 30,000 gold?” 

Once again, Edchan shook his head. Unfortunately, the answer was no.

Hyeonu asked yet again, “Then 300,000 gold?”

Nod, nod. Edchan finally nodded this time.

“What point are you trying to make by spending 300,000 gold on statues?!!” Hyeonu’s voice was very sharp.

Edchan didn’t answer and just stood quietly like a mute. Moments later, Hyeonu regained his calmness and tried to talk again in a quiet tone: “Why did you spend 300,000 gold? What are these statues?”

His words weren’t implying that Tang-E’s statues had no value. Hyeonu was simply wondering how the 300,000 gold was used.

“That... The material looks like stone, but it is actually a very precious metal. It is very valuable because it radiates magic of the dark attribute...” Edchan explained.

Hearing that, Hyeonu nodded. ‘It’s better than the original magic circle.’

Suped’s magic circle was one that recreated the environment of the demon world. In other words, it created a large amount of dark magic power. This type of magic circle would be engraved on metal that emitted magic of the dark attribute. So of course, it would produce a supplementary effect.

“Is that so? Then it is a result that is worth the gold. I should thank you then, Edchan. Money can be earned again, but this type of precious thing can only be obtained with good luck,” Hyeonu said.

After hearing that, Edchan’s face was full of confidence again. In fact, he had felt really troubled after making the statues. At first, he just wanted to try something new and ended up spending a lot of money thoughtlessly. Then once the results came out to a certain extent, he came to his senses and thought he had spent too much money. This feeling grew even stronger after staying in Phinis for a while and developing a sense of the value of money. 300,000 gold was enough to allow him to drink the alcohol he wanted for months.

Edchan replied, “I appreciate you saying so. It isn’t just because I made them... If you check them out, you will see that the statues definitely came out well. They interact with the magic circle.”

“I understand. I’ll check them out.” Hyeonu now appeared completely calm.

At first, he got angry with Edchan because he was surprised by the amount of 300,000 gold. Nonetheless, after regaining his composure, Hyeonu felt that 300,000 wasn’t a big amount.

‘It will be enough to cover it if Edchan makes a unique item and sells it.’

Edchan was a great blacksmith. It was worth it as long as he made one item as compensation.

‘Of course, he has to give it to me, and I’ll sell it...’

Nevertheless, Hyeonu felt it wasn’t necessary to do so right now and thought it would be beneficial to put a bit of burden on Edchan this time. Instead, he put up with it while thinking of the item Edchan would make one day. Hyeonu walked toward the Tang-E statue and confirmed its information.

‘Item Information.’