One Man Army

One Man Army – Episode 9 : [Chapter 5] To Monopolize (2)

In a few weeks, players were supposed to gain more Karma by killing villains rather than killing monsters. Besides, there was a rumor that players could get a good title. So from the present, users who were in the highest level class started suppressing villains so much so that villains vanished for awhile.

It became a rare sight to see villains, until ‘Killing Machine’, who was a well known a villain, appeared a few months later.

‘Ah! I totally forgot about the title.’

Sang Hyuk suddenly remembered the title which he never thought of. It was hard for even Sang Hyuk to remember everything, so he sometimes missed something like this.

“What happened to this jerk?”

“He is completely scared. He looks like a beggar, let’s kill him quickly and look for other targets.”

These three users were called PKers(Player Killer) and had already killed dozens of normal users. They were thinking that Sang Hyuk was really scared.

But, Sang Hyuk actually was thinking about completely different things.

‘All three of them are perfectly villains. That means that I won’t get any bad experience even if I kill them, in accordance with the self-defense system. Plus I will get Karma.’

Sang Hyuk was making estimates inversely. Even though he was a lower level than the PKs and didn’t have better items compared to theirs. Also, they had numbers, however, Sang Hyuk wasn’t thinking that he would lose.

Bzzz.

The three PKs drew their rusted swords. This iron sword was a cheap weapon that could be bought in Palcorn city.

“Once again, you’d better think that you are just unlucky today. Just for that, I will give you a painless death.”

The villains were acting like they had already killed Sang Hyuk and drew closer. It was only the 4th day since the starting of the open beta, so most users didn’t yet know how to get ‘knowledge of ancients’.

So, if the group of villains attacked one user similar to this kind of situation, the user was just killed by them easily without any defense.

If both sides couldn’t use their skills on each other, of course many players with their weapons would have the advantage. But, it was only valid in normal situations, not that of Sang Hyuk’s.

‘Their position and way of holding swords are already awkward.’

Sang Hyuk was not a normal user and didn’t match with a normal situation at all. Even though he was bare handed and he didn’t equip any knowledge of ancient, he wasn’t nervous at all.

Sang Hyuk was as comfortable in PvP(Player vs Player) in EL as he was basically just eating. Even though he had neither a weapon nor an equipped knowledge of ancient, what he experienced was more powerful than them.

When a villain who was the nearest to Sang Hyuk ran to him and brandished his sword, Sang Hyuk got closer to him and hit the villain’s wrist exactly with his right hand.

Crash.

Even though the rusted sword which the guy was holding brushed by Sang Hyuk, he wasn’t surprised at all. He was used to experiencing these kinds of situations before. Because when he fought with users in highest level classes in his former life, swords usually brushed by him, almost touching his skin. So, this wasn’t a big deal.

“Ugh!”

The villain dropped his sword and screamed, because Sang hyuk hit the man with strength and power plus 10 growth points.

But, Sang Hyuk didn’t finish attacking yet. Sang Hyuk snached the rusted sword dropped by the villain with his left hand and turned around. The reason why Sang Hyuk could rob his weapon was because he was a villain.

At least, no one knew it was possible at this point. Is that so? The villain who was robbed of his sword by Sang Hyuk was really embarrassed and didn’t know how to deal with this situation at that moment.

“Urgh!”

As soon as Sang Hyuk turned around quickly, the rusted sword cut the villain’s abdomen who missed his sword deeply.

With several corrections made to the game, players felt completely different with the pain of something cutting their body, Sang Hyuk however, was already used to this feeling.

Sang Hyuk knew that new users who had low levels and didn’t have any knowledge of ancient couldn’t bear this level of pain. So, he bent over quickly to avoid the sword which the other two villains brandished.

Actually, the way these three villains brandished their swords was simply a childish move.

If they brandished their swords with their skills, it would have been harder for Sang Hyuk, but they didn’t.

For example, Sang Hyuk’s situation was akin to an athlete or bodybuilder watching children play with their toys.

Pitter-patter. Sang Hyuk avoided the two swords easily, twisting his body from side to side twice. Then, he pierced a rusted sword in one of their heads, the one who stood on Sang Hyuk’s right side directly. He then entwined his left arm around the other villain at the same time.

Whack, “Arrgh.”

Sang Hyuk tightened around the last villain’s neck strongly with his left arm and twisted it. The villain who had low breathing was easily attacked by him.

A lot of things happened in just a few seconds. The first villain who led the other two villains collapsed helplessly on the floor almost simultaneously when the sword was stuck in another villain’s head and the last villain’s neck was broken.

Sang Hyuk who finished this, which was hard to put into words, in a few seconds threw a villain corpse to the floor with disgust.

Even though the white powder from their dead body was scattering all around, it was true that several brutal scenes continued. But, Sang Hyuk’s expression remained calm. In fact, the biggest reason why he could be calm was ‘User Mind Controller’ which was developed 10 years ago and added value to majority of developing DN games.

If there was any scene or situation which caused a hit to the user’s mind, the user mind controller was activated, then the users would feel like everything which happened at the moment became like a dream.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly akin to dreaming, it simply protected users from getting shocks by making them feel like they were in a dream.

This allowed all DN games to receive official approval and to release their services to normal players.

If this wasn’t present in this program, users could have psychological traumas, so it was a necessary element which was applied to all DN games.

Applying this, Sang Hyuk didn’t have any limitation of movements, and it wasn’t a hassle to control his body. In the early days, people said that there were some limits, but there were no problems at this point.

Only a part of a scene, of which a user killed enemies cruelly, was refined to make users feel indifferent about it. This was such a complex mechanism, it was a little inconsistent to explain in words, but users were able to understand what it meant by actually experiencing in person in the game.

Sometimes, some players got shocks even with this system, and were totally limited to play DN in this case.

Lastly, the most important point was that Sang Hyuk had experienced these kinds of things a lot before, so, he could accept everything naturally.

You acquired some of their black karma by killing them.

Congratulations. You’ve leveled up by accumulating Karma.

The three villains who collapsed on the floor in lumps disappeared from the spot while scattering white powder all around. Their deaths presented Sang Hyuk a nice bit of Karma and they dropped a considerable number of items which were stolen from here and there.

Sang Hyuk picked up all the items. As he didn’t have such an extended space bag yet, he had to carry them in his hands.

“To be honest, these items will become trash later on, but for now, they are really valuable to sell.”

Items, which were robbed from other users by attacking them, were pretty useful at the moment, and there was no reason to just let them be.

****

< [Chapter 5] To Monopolize (2) > end

Joyce (TL)

Kerrigan(PR)