The Player Who Stands Above All

Chapter 76

Hair that hadn't been washed in days and was matted with oil.

Dark circles that came down to near her cheeks.

A face gaunt with fatigue.

Cheon Yuhwa, who looked like the epitome of shabbiness, turned off the beam she was firing from her fingertips and focused on drinking coffee so sweet that even a single sip could give her diabetes.

She hadn't said a single word for this long time, but she was strangely thirsty.

In front of her were the three mages, who looked even more shabby than her.

"Haa... is it over..."

"The future me is really amazing..."

"I want to go to the lab right now. How long has it been since I've felt this kind of passion..."

The only difference was that the eyes of the three were sparkling, unlike Cheon Yuhwa's dull eyes.

Looking at the three, Cheon Yuhwa said in a voice full of metallic sounds.

"This is all I know..."

Bolt-!

"Alice, I'll keep my promise, so don't worry!"

"Unni loves you!"

"Good work. And thank you so much."

At Cheon Yuhwa's words, Merlin, Oz, and Crowley answered in voices so refreshing that it was hard to believe they had stayed up all night, and tried to leave their lab.

Ziiing-

"Sit."

But Cheon Yuhwa created a red laser point with her fingertips and pointed at the three, stopping them from leaving.

"......"

"......"

"......"

Swoosh-

Seeing Cheon Yuhwa, who was emitting a ghost-like aura due to her extreme stress, the three returned to where they were sitting and sat in the same posture as before.

Looking at the three, Cheon Yuhwa said.

"The research the three of you did is what I just told you. So from now on, I'll show you what will happen in the future, so watch carefully. It won't be long."

The three silently nodded their heads.

"Ah, and there's one guy I'll show you before that."

At Cheon Yuhwa's sudden words, a question appeared on the faces of the three.

But instead of explaining with her mouth, Cheon Yuhwa moved her aura and showed the face of one person to the three.

"Hmm, I haven't seen this face before. But just by looking at his face, he looks like he'd cause trouble."

"He has a handsome face, but he looks somewhat prickly. Is it because the corners of his eyes are sharp?"

"His hair color is peculiar. Is he using an energy with two characteristics?"

The three looked at the screen and gave their impressions one by one.

Cheon Yuhwa, who had been listening to their conversation for a while, slowly opened her mouth.

"He's the only one who caught up to our level in the future."

"Huh, really?"

"Wow, so there was someone else who reached LV.7 besides us."

"If that's the case, we'll definitely need to remember him."

The three looked at the screen and were amazed.

A general player who enjoyed the game without much thought would stay at LV.1 or LV.2, and players who jumped into battle in earnest were LV.3 and were called Billion.

LV.4 was the Million, which could be said to be the beginning of the rankers, and LV.5 was the standard for the Thousand, who were called high rankers.

And LV.6 was the level where the Hundred-rankers mainly stayed.

The next, LV.7, was the level that those who were called [Kings] had reached.

The three great walls at the end of LV.3, the end of LV.6, and the end of LV.9.

The Ten Kings were geniuses among geniuses who had broken through the two walls in front of them.

That's why, even though they didn't like each other, they acknowledged each other's skills.

Because they knew very well how big and thick the wall leading to the absolute being at the end of LV.6 was.

That's why they looked at the face of the man with red hair and a yellow bridge on the screen, who was smiling broadly, with somewhat curious eyes.

"He reached the level of an absolute being... Well, if he gained practical experience based on his experience in the game, it's not impossible."

"No."

Cheon Yuhwa, who had heard Crowley's muttering, shook her head and corrected him.

"The 'we' I was talking about is not the 'we' in the game, but the 'we' in reality."

"What? I've never seen this face before."

"Really? No, a guy like that appeared only now?"

"There was another guy like that?"

At Cheon Yuhwa's words, the three looked at her with astonished faces.

At that, she lightly nodded her head.

"Yeah, that guy reached the level of LV.8 with us. I don't know where he was hiding in the game, but that guy's talent is real."

"Amazing."

"I know, right? How could something like that happen."

"Hmm..."

Cheon Yuhwa said, sipping the refilled rich cocoa.

"I'll say it again, I don't know much about that part either. In the first place, that guy didn't talk much about himself."

Declaring that once again, she stopped the three from getting lost in a new topic.

"Anyway, this is the guy I've been telling other people about. He'll definitely come up to where we are and get involved, so remember his face."

"So you're telling us to create a sense of familiarity in advance so we won't be flustered when we first meet him?"

"Wrong."

At Oz's words, Cheon Yuhwa firmly shook her head.

"The reason I'm showing you this guy's face is as a warning. I'm teaching you so that you can remember his face and then deal with him well without being flustered."

"A warning?"

"A warning about what?"

At Cheon Yuhwa's words, Merlin and Crowley asked back.

"It'll be hard to understand with just words, so focus on the screen. I'll show you the things that guy did in the future."

With those words, Cheon Yuhwa held a screening again, and the three looked at the screen again.

And the faces of the three who were watching the screen, as time passed...

"What..."

"Wow..."

"He's crazy..."

were filled with astonishment.

***

Kkigigik-

The mother of the Metal Spiders, the boss of the Steel Spiders that ruled the mountain full of spiderwebs, ground her teeth in displeasure while eating the prey her children had hunted and brought this morning.

Because from this morning until now, the mental thread that connected her to her children had been continuously breaking.

Kkigik-

The fact that the connection between her and her children was broken meant that her children had met their death.

She was enraged by the death of her children and had her children investigate the dungeons to see if a Dungeon Break had occurred and a large number of new prey had appeared.

But as a result of checking through her children, there was no change in the dungeons they were looking at.

Then the answer was one.

Kkadeuk-

It meant that there was a guy who had dared to invade her nest.

Kkigigik-

She called her children and told them the situation she had grasped.

Kkigigik--!!!!!

The children who had heard the situation ground their teeth and roared.

The mother was satisfied, seeing the sight that was like a black wave sweeping through the entire cave.

Kkadeuk-

Expecting the dinner table to become more abundant soon, she tore off and ate the spiderweb dumpling with a monkey's head sticking out of it.

Tududuk-

Something burst in her mouth and went down her throat, and as if in response, the cracks on her entire body grew even larger.

***

One's impression of someone is mainly an extension of their first impression.

And for Lee Shin and Baek Hyun-woo, their first impressions of each other were not bad.

'Ah, is this the guy Kim Jae-hyun was talking about?'

From Lee Shin's perspective, Baek Hyun-woo, one of the Ten Kings, fell into the category of an interesting person.

'Wow, he's exactly the same as what Alice-noona showed me.'

Baek Hyun-woo, who had heard a lot about Lee Shin from Cheon Yuhwa, was curious about him.

After greeting each other, the two talked lightly and went deeper and deeper into the mountains, and the sun was already slowly starting to fall from the center of the sky.

"By the way, what did you mean by 'my fan'?"

"Ah, Alice-noona, I mean, Cheon Yuhwa-noona told me a little about you, hyung."

"Really?"

When Lee Shin asked back plainly, Baek Hyun-woo asked as if it were strange.

"You're not going to ask what she said?"

"Well, I know it's mostly good things."

Although he didn't know the reason, Lee Shin had noticed that Cheon Yuhwa had a certain wariness towards him.

It wasn't that she disliked him or anything.

It was more like the eyes of someone looking at a troublemaking child holding a bomb that could go off at any moment.

'It was like that when I first saw her... for some reason, she knows my personality well.'

Kuung- Kuung-

Anyway, even while talking with Baek Hyun-woo and walking into the forest, Lee Shin did not stop swinging his spear at the trees slowly.

And Baek Hyun-woo, who had been watching him for a while, started to break the trees together, doing various poses as if imitating various animals, next to him.

"Ah, by the way, what did you mean when you said my thoughts would change if I went further into the mountain?"

At Lee Shin's words, which contained a small amount of expectation, Baek Hyun-woo opened his mouth with a 'Ah, that?' expression.

Seeing him, Lee Shin thought he was a very expressive guy.

"Ah, I arrived here this morning and saw the Steel Spiders hunting monsters. But the situation was a little different from what I had heard."

"Hmm... to be specific?"

Hwoooong-

Lee Shin said, slowly swinging his spear and cutting down the three trees in front of him.

"First of all, there are a lot of them."

"How many?"

At that, Baek Hyun-woo, who had made his fingers like a tiger's claws, said, slowly breaking the trees.

"I think there were well over a thousand. It seems the ones that appeared in the early days were left to mature and then burst, so they grew well."

After that, Baek Hyun-woo began to explain what he had seen one by one.

"First, they use their overwhelming numbers to find prey, then they surround and watch the prey."

"And?"

Psst-

"They only surround and watch until their comrades gather and never move, but when they think they have enough numbers to deal with the prey, they start to move."

"Hmm, so to summarize what you're saying..."

Lee Shin stopped swinging his spear and said, looking around.

The surroundings of the two were filled with red shining eyes.

"These guys thought they could catch you and me with this number?"

"That's right."

Baek Hyun-woo, who had raised the corners of his mouth at the broadly smiling Lee Shin, said with a light smile.

"Shall I help you a little if it's too much?"

"You should scream loudly so that the forest rings if you're in danger. Then I'll come to help you."

The two exchanged such jokes and naturally stood back to back.

Thousands of pairs of red eyes under the shade of the trees were looking at them with eyes full of hostility.

Just as the two had wanted.

(End of Chapter)