One Man Army

@ Black Cat.

In EL, one of the functions of the NPCs is to give players information. In that sense, eavesdropping on their conversation was a common method to acquire information for every player.

The first thing Sang Hyuk did was, of course, ‘listen’.

Sang Hyuk ordered a casual drink and listened to all of the conversation of the NPCs nearby, maximizing his hearing.

Since Sang Hyuk has outstanding physical abilities, he could hear almost every conversation from the chatting of the NPCs to their whispers.

Sang Hyuk sat on the bar for about four hours, nursing his drinks while listening to the NPC’s words pouring out and meticulously recording the information that could be used.

Most of the information was trivial, but sometimes these trivial things became a clue, leading to information of an important linked quest.

Sang Hyuk, who was piling up the trivial information, stood up from his spot when the trivial information began to overlap.

Hearing duplicate stories meant that there wasn’t much left to get from here.

Sang Hyuk got up from his seat and returned to his lodgings, and calmly combined the information he knew from his previous life with the small pieces of information he had obtained.

While other players may have had to continue to keep listening at multiple locations or track down the sources of minor information to get additional details, Sang Hyuk who had the memory of the previous life as a cheat key, skipped that process.

After correlating his memories with snippets of conversations for a while, he was able to finally find one of the things he wanted.

‘Black Market…. If I dig into it, then in the end the Vigilantes chief will appear!’

Sang Hyuk remembered one incident that became a big issue in his previous life. He could remember it vividly because at that time, the neck of the Vigilantes chief, who had boasted of his power, was chopped off.

‘The thing that makes me a little anxious is that it is too early…. In my previous life, the Golden Mage knew that the Chief had been stealing for a very long time so there was no problem.’

The reason why Sang Hyuk is targeting the Vigilantes was simple.

The Vigilantes were the entity that controlled all of the business interests of Goren City before their Chief was taken down by the Golden Mage.

Goren City had a Commercial Center, but the Vigilantes Chief was almost like a puppet master and in reality, the Vigilantes were really the ones in charge.

In his previous life, it was well known that several top-level players saw this hidden organization but failed to understand the significance and only worked hard on raising the mayor’s favor.

‘First of all, let’s find a way to access the Black Market.’

The best thing was to get a quest related to this, but anyway, the quest would naturally follow if Sang Hyuk worked hard.

Sang Hyuk, who had decided the direction, went out of the Inn again.

‘If it’s Black Market, then I should start from the Black Cat.’

Black Cat was the name of the organization that dominated the underworld of Goren City.

It was not easy to find the members, who are also known as Black Cats, because they were hiding their identity.

But Sang Hyuk solved this problem at once in his own unique way.

There was one Black Cat that Sang Hyuk had befriended in his previous life.

The guy selling fruit at Goren Square looked innocuous, but he was actually a Black Cat.

Sang Hyuk, who had become very close to him by chance, raised his favor by fulfilling requests for him every time he got bored and had nothing to do and as a result it produced a ring of fate.

After creating a ring of fate and growing it up to level 2, Sang Hyuk found out that he was a Black Cat who was hiding his identity and Sang Hyuk received a lot of good quest through him.

The name of that NPC was ‘Euphir’. The level was expectedly fairly high as a B+. Considering that the level of the normal NPC was D to C++, B+ could be said as a high level.

The reason why Sang Hyuk tried to fulfill his requests in the first place was because this fruit seller had an unexpectedly high level, so he had suspected he was more than he appeared.

Anyway, it was easy to find Euphir.

When Sang Hyuk went to the Goren Square, Euphir was still selling fruit. However, it was easy to find him but it was not easy to get acquainted.

If it wasn’t for the other quests that resulted in Sang Hyuk accidentally getting acquainted with Euphir in his previous life, they would have never spoken, as he was an NPC that was hard to get close to.

‘But if it is the present me, it won’t be hard right?’

There was a difference like heaven and earth between his previous life and now.

Sang Hyuk had the special benefits of being the first visitor, along with the numerous title effects.

If Sang Hyuk added Euphir’s information from his previous life…. it would be very easy to get acquainted with him.

‘Let’s start with light conversation.’

Sang hyuk briefly summarized the thoughts that came to his head as he approached Euphir’s stall.

‘Euphir, his apples…. especially his red Jonathans were the best!’

Sang Hyuk, who recalled Euphir’s fruit that he liked the most in his previous life, planned to buy some Jonathans as he started the conversation casually.

* * * *

“Wow, you know what’s good. That’s right. The best fruit is Jonathan apples and the best view is the evening sunset when you climb up the Caryl Mountains.”

Euphir replied with an excited expression.

Sang Hyuk, who naturally started the conversation with Euphir while buying a bag of Jonathan apples, raised his interest to the highest while talking about the topics that were known to be to Euphir’s taste.

After that, everything went very fast.

Sang Hyuk knew very well what Eupir liked and hated, so he chose only the answers and words that Euphir wanted, and Euphir’s favor went up.

Of course, there was a limit to the favor that can be raised only by conversation. Sang Hyuk was well aware that he couldn’t finish maxing out favor with Euphir in a single day, so he didn’t overdo it.

Sang Hyuk spent almost two hours talking with Euphir, and as a result, the relationship between Sang Hyuk and Euphir went up to ‘Close’.

‘Now, I need to move on to the next level….’

Close was the limit of favor that can be raised through conversation. After that, you need to take a request and solve it, give a special gift, or have some kind of a relationship.

“Honestly, I think this is the first time I’ve ever met such a congenial person like you. Speaking of it…. I know it’s kind of rude for the first meeting, but can you accept my request?

‘As expected! It appeared at this time.’

After Sang Hyuk recalled the next step,  Sang Hyuk gave the expected response.