Seo Jun-Ho walked confidently out of the gates, but the guard didn’t spare him a single glance because he had masked his presence.
“Night Walking… This is quite a convenient technique,” she commented.
“Yup. If I ever used this for hide-and-seek, no one would be able to beat me.”
The reason why he went so far as to use Night Walking to leave the city was simple.
‘Just in case…’
For the next four days, he would be camping outside while hunting monsters.
‘If I run into people like… Was it the Four Verses of Gangnam? It’ll be annoying if I get tangled up with people like them.’
Even fans would be a nuisance. He just wanted to spend his four days focused entirely on hunting.
“Listen up, Frost.”
“I am listening,” she replied.
“We have three main goals for the next four days.”
The first goal was to reach level 50. The second was to learn how to match his rhythm with hers. The last was to gain PP by using the community forum’s video-recording feature.
“Hm? Is it okay to film the Frost skill?”
“Of course not. When we’re filming, I’m going to hide it and fight alone.”
He needed the PP because without it, he couldn’t enter the news or information boards. He also needed to prepare for when the Administrator eventually opened their shop. Seo Jun-Ho didn’t know how much the items would cost, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a lot of PP ready.
“Contractor, is the thunder bears’ habitat far from here?” the Frost Queen asked.
“Yeah. It’ll take about six hours by foot.”
Crack. Crack.
Seo Jun-Ho finished twisting and stretching his body and spoke, “But we’re gonna run to save time…”
He expected to arrive at his destination in two hours.
***
Thunder Bears were level 65 monsters. They were 2 meters tall when they walked around on all fours, but when they stood on their hind legs, they reached approximately 4 meters. There was no other way to describe their physical stature other than ‘powerful.’ But if all they had were their large physiques and tremendous strength, they wouldn’t be called ‘thunder’ bears.
“Grrrrrrr!” The thunder bear stood up on its hind legs and let out a bellowing roar.
Crackle!
Its front paws became filled with electricity. Even children knew that the moment those paws struck something, it would release an electric shock.
Boom! Boom!
The thunder bear swung its paws as it stepped forward.
“Hup.” But its opponent dodged easily, and calmly stabbed a sword through its chest. The hide of a thunder bear was very thick, and you had to be careful of slashing its thick muscles lest your sword broke upon contact with it.
But that didn’t happen this time…
The man stabbed through the thunder bear’s chest like it was warm butter.
Shoop!
As he pulled out his sword after crushing its heart, the thunder bear fell back with a loud slam.
Seo Jun-Ho grinned as he turned to Frost. She had taken the role of the assistant director, the cameraman, and along with every other role. “How was that? Did you get it?”
“…” She quietly shook her head. “Look at it yourself.”
She tapped the hologram window, sending it flying toward Seo Jun-Ho. The latter tilted his head as played back his hunting video.
– Grrrrrrr!
Crackle! Woosh! Slam!
The time it took for the thunder bear to spot him and die was 14 seconds. And if Seo Jun-Ho had rushed at it first, it would have died for a quarter of that time.
“Hm…” Seo Jun-Ho stroked his chin, looking a little lost. “I think it’s pretty clean.”
“Haaa… Contractor. Is that supposed to be a joke?” She pounded her chest in frustration. She had already filmed twenty videos. “Who would watch this kind of video? It’s boring, and it has no emotion. It doesn’t even show how to hunt and kill the thunder bears.”
“I agree that it’s not fun and that it doesn’t have any emotion, but the methodology is still there.”
“What? Are you talking about the way you dodged its paws and stabbed its heart?”
“Yeah. There’s no better way to hunt a thunder bear than that.”
“Ugh… Aaaahhh!” the Frost Queen screamed hysterically. “Why can’t you understand? Why? Why? Contractor, you’re a strong Player, aren’t you?”
“Of course…”
“Then, think about it from the perspective of other Players. Do you think they’d be able to dodge the thunder bear’s paws? If they lose their balance, can they stab it so casually? Players who can use a sword aura wouldn’t even watch your video in the first place!”
Everything she said was true. Players mainly came to the video board with two goals in mind.
The first was to study how to fight monsters. They wanted to know the attack patterns and weak points of the monsters that they were about to fight.
The second, of course, was to just have fun. They looked for comedy videos or funny hunting videos. However, creating entertaining videos like those required a level of talent that Seo Jun-Ho totally lacked.
“Hmmm,?what should I do? Will I not be able to make any PP?” he asked.
“Phew…?Forget the videos for now and let us focus on hunting,” she suggested.
Seo Jun-Ho didn’t protest. He was currently level 43, so he only needed to level up 7 more times to reach 50. He would also have plenty of time to think of video ideas while hunting.
“Alright. Let’s try to coordinate our movements.” The look in his eyes turned sharp. It was the look of a hunter, not an entertainer. “The most important thing is that we think and act as one, no matter the situation.”
This was very important. After all, what if the Frost Queen made a shield in front of Seo Jun-Ho when he wanted to attack their opponent?
“If we don’t know what the other is thinking, working together will only have a negative effect.”
No matter what kind of situation they faced, they would have to be thinking the same way. If they were able to achieve that, Seo Jun-Ho would become a much more formidable enemy.
“Are you ready?” he asked
“I am…”
Just in time, a thunder bear was walking toward them. When it spotted Jun-Ho, it lunged toward him while running on all fours.
“I won’t use my sword aura this time.” Right now, it didn’t matter how quickly he killed it.
“Rooooarrrrr!” The thunder bear reached him in the blink of an eye and got up on its hind legs, swinging its paws.
Crackle!
Seo Jun-Ho ducked, smelling the scent of singed hair. Black Dragon Fang swung like a flash of light, slicing the thunder bear’s achilles.
“Grrrr!”?It bellowed as it fell to one knee, but it didn’t stop swinging.
However, Seo Jun-Ho didn’t attempt to dodge, even as its paw filled his vision.
Crackle!
The ice shield that formed before him blocked the thunder bear’s attack.
‘Nice assist.’
Still, he wasn’t completely satisfied. He had expected the Frost Queen to do one more thing.
“…!”
The thunder bear’s eyes suddenly went wide. The blood that had been dripping from its achilles had frozen into spikes and stabbed into its back.
“That’s what I’m talking about!”
Seo Jun-Ho charged at the trembling thunder bear. He stepped off its knee and chest, raising his sword. The blade glinted under the moonlight as he thrust it into its mouth.
Slam!
It had taken barely 4 seconds to kill a single thunder bear. Of course, he could have done it even faster if he used a sword aura, but he was able to do it without even using any magic.
He started to give feedback.
“It was really good, from the timing of your shield to the way you froze its blood to make spikes…”
“Fufu.?Of course. I have been using this skill for a long time…”
“How many years has it been?”
“…Regardless of the details, it is not a short amount of time.”
Even though her powers right now were only at the level of a ‘Low’ Spirit, her battle instincts had remained as sharp as before. Seo Jun-Ho smiled brightly.
‘If her spirit rank keeps increasing…’
There wouldn’t be many people who would be able to take him on in a fight. Of course, this was something that was only relevant in the far future.
He wiped off the blood on his sword and laughed. “Let’s try experimenting with a different setup. We need to know how our opinions might differ.”
“Agreed. This has been unexpectedly fun…” The Frost Queen hummed from his shoulder.
***
It wouldn’t be difficult for a swordmaster to teach basic techniques to a beginner. But no matter how good of a teacher they were, it was impossible to make an inexperienced swordsman understand the essence of the sword. It could only be possible if they had similar standards and a similar level of skill.
‘I’m really glad…’
It was a good thing that Seo Jun-Ho’s partner was the Frost Queen. Her battle instincts were on nearly the same level as him, and she was also good at analyzing the situation. In other words, she could create the best possible outcomes without him even needing to say anything. In the time that they hunted twenty thunder bears together, there were only two times in which they had different opinions.
“…Hey, we’re pretty compatible,” he commented.
“How unpleasant… Though, I won’t deny it.” Even though his words grossed her out a bit, the satisfaction from their coordinated movements was electrifyingly satisfying.
“Honestly, I think that was more than enough practice for our coordination.” Since their teamwork was already perfect, there was no point in any more training.
Seo Jun-Ho had reached level 44 during their training. He sat and took a drink.
“We finished earlier than I thought. Now, all we need to do is make videos,” the Frost Queen said.
“Mm,?if we had a strong boss monster, we’d be able to make a super-cool video with it…” When it came to thunder bears, all he had to do was swing and stab his sword to kill them. It wasn’t easy to make a good video with those creatures.
“How about you take a look at the videos that other people have uploaded?”
“Ooh… That’s a good idea.” Seo Jun-Ho opened up the community forums while leaning against a tree. “Mmmm,?the forums are closed.”
Just as Gong Ju-Ha had said, the community forums were designed to be used only in a city. Because of this, most of the boards on the hologram window were black. Except for a few, most of them were locked.
“I can access the video forum and… Huh?” Something caught his eye.
The ‘regional channel’ was blinking red.
‘This is…’
He remembered what Gong Ju-Ha had told him.
—When you’re out in the field, you’ll have access to the regional channel, so make sure to make use of that.
“Is this not the so-called regional channel?” the Frost Queen asked.
“I think it is.” As soon as he touched it, a voice recording started to play.
[Is there anyone here? I’m being chased by thunder bears! Please help me!]
The voice sounded panicked as if the speaker was really being chased. At the same time, a signal flare lit up in the sky about 200 meters away.
“A cry for help…” he muttered, uninterested. He reached to close the channel.
You couldn’t trust Players. That was what everyone in Frontier said. These kinds of things were usually traps that took advantage of kindhearted Players.
Suddenly, the Frost Queen slapped his hand away. “Contractor! This is it!”
“Huh??What is?” He asked.
“Your video! After hearing a cry for help, you come in right on time to save them… You’ll get tons of views. You’ll also get a lot of PP then, won’t you?” She seemed confident after having watched a wide assortment of dramas and movies. ．
“I don’t know. I don’t think someone would even come here if they don’t have the capacity to run away…” He was pretty sure that it was a trap.
However, the Frost Queen only grinned. “Is that not all the more reason to go? If the request for help actually ends up being a lie…”
“…I’ll be able to film a video of catching criminals?” He finished.
“Either way, it will only benefit you.” She explained.
Seo Jun-Ho stood up and nodded. “Frost, you’re a genius.”
He decided to give her a generous helping of Spirit Crystal shavings in her cake and tea once they were done with their hunting.
1. The original Korean sentence is “?? is ready.” Which could be directly translated to I is ready.