Chapter 55 : At Least Master
Chapter 55: At Least Master
Even though it was a modulated voice, the pride felt within it was vivid.
In reality, the General Store was as impressive as the owner’s pride. Because no matter how hard an item was to obtain, you could obtain it here.
This wasn’t just talking about illegal types of items. Leaving aside the distinction between legal and illegal, it was content that applied to all types of items in the world.
How else would the saying ‘If you want something, go to the General Store’ exist?
‘That’s why even those in the light side try not to touch the General Store.’
“Currently, the General Store has two packs of Black Devil in stock.”
“I’ll buy them all.”
“Understood. Will you need additional Black Devil in the future as well?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll sufficiently replenish the inventory.”
Before long, through a small hole drilled below the partition, a dish came out containing two packs of Black Devil and one rather luxurious-looking oil lighter.
Baek Woohyun, who silently gathered the items, instead placed on the plate an amount equal to the price of two packs of Black Devil that he knew.
Though he had to squander all the money obtained from completing missions for this, he didn’t care at all. Because to him, it was game money anyway.
Of course, even if it had been real money instead of game money, he would have paid without hesitation.
“Thank you for using the General Store.”
“……”
“I hope for good dealings next time as well.”
Baek Woohyun, who let the General Store owner’s farewell greeting from ‘over there’ go in one ear and out the other, came back outside.
The gazes that had fallen away when entering the General Store stuck to him as if they’d been waiting. They were gazes showing the will not to miss even one of his trivial actions.
It seemed the fact that he used the General Store itself had struck them as quite peculiar, as the amount of gazes had increased far more than when he came.
However, Baek Woohyun ignored the watchers’ gazes. Because anyway, all those people could do to him was just watch.
Even that was only possible in the underworld’s alleyways; the moment he left here, they would all disappear. If so, there was no reason to care needlessly.
Rather than making enemies with underworld organizations by combing through here like hunting fleas trying to catch them, ignoring them consistently was the wise judgment.
Step.
Baek Woohyun slowly moved his steps in a direction where no presence could be felt.
After walking briefly like that, the place he reached was an abandoned construction site. One that still had construction equipment remaining because it had been finished halfway.
He roughly sat down on the stairs of the eerily atmospheric construction site and put a Black Devil cigarette in his mouth.
Sizzle.
When he turned the lighter’s ignition device, a flame rose with a small sound. It was a flame that brightened the dark interior of the construction site even slightly.
After staring at it for a moment, Baek Woohyun brought it to the Black Devil in his mouth, and soon the paper end turned red.
“Inhale-“
Baek Woohyun calmly savored the taste of Black Devil he was smoking after quite a while. He felt the sensation of acrid bitterness burning his insides black, permeating his lungs.
Befitting a drug made by mixing and condensing numerous drugs, with just one puff, his mind seemed to go beyond hazy to collapsing.
However, that was merely a false sensation created by psychotropic drugs. He knew that all too well.
The clearly burning wick of reason deep inside those eyes that seemed to have become turbidly clouded clearly showed he wasn’t intoxicated.
“Exhale-“
The ashen smoke mixed in his exhaled breath rose shimmering and faded away, just like when he was ‘over there.’
Baek Woohyun looked at the cigarette smoke he’d expelled. Still, it looked like souls screaming and scattering.
As if whispering that even after returning to the original world, to his original body, he still ultimately belonged ‘over there.’
‘It’s the same as when I first smoked it over there.’
That’s why it was all the more strange.
If ‘Reverse Planet’ were a simple game, it made no sense that drug effects would be implemented this perfectly.
A system existed where different restrictions arose by age group, and even if all restrictions were lifted for adults, it was the same.
There was no way a virtual reality game that let adults feel what it was like to do drugs would exist.
“Inhale, exhale-“
‘Should I… investigate more thoroughly?’
Baek Woohyun fell into contemplation while taking another deep drag of Black Devil.
Since returning to this side, until now he’d been investigating Planet Earth and ‘Reverse Planet’ in various ways.
However, that had merely remained at a superficial level.
He hadn’t looked into important information related to the game, for instance, story spoilers.
It wasn’t because of arrogance that he knew ‘Reverse Planet’ better than anyone else due to his experience ‘over there.’
Rather, at first he’d thought he could learn even information he didn’t know ‘over there,’ so he tried to investigate more extensively.
The reason he didn’t do so was because he suddenly felt repulsion toward the act of investigation itself.
“……”
Until now, the people Baek Woohyun had met in ‘Reverse Planet’ had remained at the level of acquaintances.
But if he investigated and learned about his comrades, and if they were still alive and in a state where he could meet them.
Could comrades he somehow managed to meet and encounter be said to be the same people as ‘over there’? Or were they just people who put on the same shell?
From the start, ‘Reverse Planet’ was a game, so they were merely NPCs, not people.
Even if they died miserably before his eyes, if another person viewed the story again, they would appear there with intact faces. That’s all.
……How nice it would have been if he could neatly cut it off like that.
If only he had a mentality solid and cold enough not to care about accumulated connections—
“Exhale-“
Baek Woohyun still hadn’t found the answer to the question he suddenly held.
That’s why, like hiding below to avoid a falling blade, he was merely investigating only Planet Earth or things external to the game.
It meant that even knowing the blade would eventually reach to cut his neck, he was just delaying when that time would arrive.
“What should I do….”
Baek Woohyun, who threw the Black Devil butt he’d completely burned onto the ground, looked around.
The specters that had appeared at some point were just quietly watching him as always. With haggardly dried faces and bloody tears flowing from their two eyes.
He slowly met eyes with each of them in turn, and from them who still said nothing, he took his gaze away and looked up at the sky.
“Yeah, I’ll only know when I face it.”
The night sky full of stars remained the same.
Here or ‘over there.’
That felt unbearably cold to Baek Woohyun.
***
The day of the third ‘Hack Tour’ content
“Oho- So Hackphysical decided to accept the SSR Cup coach proposal?”
“Yes. After agonizing, when I told him the prize money amount, he said he should accept and said he’d do it.”
“Well, the prize money for this tournament is pretty big. If they just win, everyone on the team including coach and director gets ten million won each.”
Cha Seongcheol nodded understandingly at the reason. Ten million won was enough to accept briefly working as a coach.
Though the ‘Hack Tour’ content had been quite successful, promising considerable profit, that didn’t diminish the value of ten million won.
Anyway, the SSR Cup wasn’t a league but an event tournament, so even generously counting the practice period, it would be just about a month.
Ten million won in one month—wasn’t that an enormous amount?
“He’s thinking of buying a latest model connection device with it. Well, the one he’s using now is pretty old.”
“Don’t tell me it’s so old that it’s not even optimized for Reverse-“
“Ah, it’s not that bad. I heard he did the device optimization when he played ‘Colosseum’ before. He just wants to change it because it’s a pretty old model.”
“Aha. I see.”
“Well, this is all talk about if they win anyway.”
The ten million won prize per person was the amount received when winning the SSR Cup.
After that, it decreased to five million won for second place, one million won for third place, and from fourth place down, they’d compete in the tournament without receiving any money at all.
Therefore, Baek Woohyun’s intention to participate as coach aiming for the prize money strictly meant confidence he could put the team he trained in the winning ranks.
“He wouldn’t participate as coach without confidence he can make them win, would he?”
“That’s probably true. But still.”
Jeong Nayeon shrugged her shoulders.
Of course, Baek Woohyun’s strength was beyond doubt. If you couldn’t trust Hackphysical’s strength, there’d be no one in the world to trust.
However, everyone knew the fact that such individual strength didn’t carry over intact to the ability to teach others.
In reality, in any sport, there were many cases where legendary players retired and took the path of director or coach but didn’t achieve particularly outstanding results.
“Anyway, so from next time for a while, even in the ‘Hack Tour’ content, we’ll need to focus on raising rank tier to participate in the tournament.”
“You mean reduce the story portion weight and increase the PVP side. Understood.”
When talking about someone’s skill, the first indicator that comes up is, of course, ‘tier.’
This was an extremely natural story with no room for quibbling. Because you couldn’t grab passing people and explain in detail the achievements that person built to publicize their skill.
Rather than saying they cleared the tutorial with no adjustments, or fought late-version Etinels with one Core Element, just saying “I’m Grand Master!” or “I’m Challenger!” was faster and more convenient, right?
Therefore, since Baek Woohyun decided to appear as SSR Cup coach, he had to raise his tier as much as possible.
At minimum, he had to reach Master to be able to say he at least maintained face as an official coach.
Of course, even that was a bit lacking, but considering the fact that he’d achieved it not long after starting ranked games, it was somewhat offset.
Moreover, he planned to reach it not just in one mode but overall in all of them.
‘Master or above would be impossible time-wise, right?’
Looking at the SSR Cup tournament schedule announced with the roster, the team formation auction was scheduled to proceed before long.
There, those selected as team leaders had to auction off team members from the roster, then select directors and coaches, so the remaining period wasn’t very long.
That’s why the standard was set at Master in three modes rather than Grand Master or Challenger.
No matter how unimaginably strong Baek Woohyun was, he couldn’t tremendously reduce the game time itself.
‘If he sweeps everything alone in Struggle mode or does a Lu Bu play in Survival mode-‘
There might be meaningful time reduction.
However, the problem was that for that, he’d have to risk the consecutive win record being broken faster.
It meant abandoning the challenge of achieving a consecutive win record that might remain in ‘Reverse Planet’ history, solely for fast tier climbing.
If only he could properly set the consecutive win record, it could have an effect beyond participating as coach in the SSR Cup, so it could practically be called putting the cart before the horse.
“Focusing a bit more on ranked games might actually make viewers happier.”
“Do you think so?”
“The story part is only liked by people who somewhat like settings, feel interest in new stories, or if not that, NPC fans.”
Cha Seongcheol, who shrugged his shoulders, continued speaking.
“But PVP is just liked by all ‘Reverse Planet’ users.”
This was a fact no one could deny.
As Cha Seongcheol said, PVP was practically the foundation of ‘Reverse Planet,’ liked by all ‘Reverse Planet’ users.
Even those who hadn’t progressed the main story at all frequently played PVP.
Of course, there were also users on the opposite side—enjoying story and PVE but not touching PVP—but their numbers were insignificantly small compared to the former.
“It’s about time. Shall we start?”
“Yes, let’s go!”