One Man Army

***

After browsing through his memories, Sanghyuk came to a conclusion that he remembered the Sword and Magic of 2027 too well. This couldn’t be helped since Sword and Magic committed a huge mistake and showed signs of giving its position as the top game to Eternal Life.

Although this hadn’t happened yet, Sword and Magic would undergo its 4th large-scale patch in September of 2027…… and this made Sword and Magic into Shit and Magic.

Of course, a few other mistakes were committed on top of this large-scale patch, and as the so-called revolution of VR, EL appeared, it completely collapsed.

However, this hadn’t happened yet, and Sword and Magic was indeed the greatest game in existence right now.

The point Sanghyuk paid his attention to was one of the changes that occurred in Sword and Magic’s 4th large-scale patch that made Sword and Magic into Shit and Magic.

This change was so sudden that the game was insanely ‘shit on’ by the users. But for Sanghyuk, this was a very good piece of information.

Sanghyuk, who had his VR headset on, called the Dream Network’s interface very proficiently. In fact, many first time Dream Network users couldn’t do this very well.

The white space he was currently standing in right now was something called the D-room. To simplify Dream Network, it was a large intranet that connected the existing virtual reality services together.

Normal users could access various virtual reality services in personal D-rooms like the one Sanghyuk was in right now. Naturally, Sword and Magic could also be accessed from here as well.

Of course, Sword and Magic required a pretty large fee of 70 thousand won (70 USD) per month to play. There were many virtual reality services that were free, but they also had ads or other real-money shops, so it was instead natural to use paid services in Dream Network.

And honestly, the monthly fee did look quite expensive in his current situation, but this was nothing compared to the 120 thousand won monthly fee (120 USD) required to play EL.

Sanghyuk had bought a gift card to charge his account beforehand, so he paid the fee right away and entered the game.

Games in Dream Network, especially RPGs like Sword and Magic had long and complex tutorials. However, such tutorials were meaningless to him.

He lightly skipped the tutorial and entered Sword and Magic right away.

At its base, Sword and Magic was a well-made game.

That was the reason it maintained its top position in Dream Network for 3 years now. However, that made it just as difficult for new users to catch up to the old.

Naturally, Sanghyuk wasn’t planning to catch up to the original players by leveling up.

In the first place, his original objective in playing Sword and Magic was to earn cash. That was why Sanghyuk chose not only the starting spot but his jobs as well and not through a random generator.

Ironically, this was done with his experience he got in the ‘workshop’ where he slaved away for 5 years in his past life.

Having selected archer as his job since they had the highest basic strength and agility, and ‘Penwood’, a middle-grade city within a mountain range that people didn’t select a lot as the starting point, Sanghyuk made a bitter smile as soon as he entered.

“At that time, all of this felt like hell…… but now that I see it, the scenery is quite decent.”

All memories of Sword and Magic in his past life weren’t good at all. This was natural since, at that time, Sanghyuk wasn’t playing this game for fun, but was forced to.

To talk about this, an event that happens in around 10 months later in the orphanage had to be mentioned.

In his past life, when Sanghyuk was in his 3rd year of high school, some strangers came to the orphanage. In Sanghyuk’s memory, they had a really long title on their business cards, “Supporter for the Independency of Children Requiring Protection”.

Of course, it was later that he realized how empty their business card was, but at that time, they were quite popular with the children who had bleak futures.

Saying they would help the independency of the children who needs to be protected, they underwent one test against the children who would have to leave the orphanage in one year.

That was the VRA measuring test. They put out a contract to the children saying that there was a splendid working place for them where they could earn money through enjoying games.

Naturally, that contract was an absurd slave contract, but at that time, the young Sanghyuk was tempted by their sugarcoating and signed the contract without thinking much about it.

The related people in the orphanage had also recommended him and the others to sign so he didn’t doubt much about it.

Thinking about it now, they were all bad adults, but it wasn’t actually something frustrating for him considering that he had met more bad people than good in his past life.

Naturally, Sanghyuk scored an absurdly high number and surprised the ‘Supporters of Independence of Children Requiring Protection’, no, those trash that operated the DN workshop.

At that time, Sanghyuk got overly excited when other people praised him for the test and signed the contract they held out.

And per their offer, he did not finish the three years of high school and moved his residence to their workshop under the pretense of ‘employment’.

There was nothing to talk about after that matter.

From then, Sanghyuk had slaved away for exactly five years without even being able to go outside properly. If the police hadn’t attacked the workshop after being informed that children were being treated like abducted slaves in there, he might have had to spend even longer in that life.

He was dragged at 19 years old, and was freed at 24. Since Sanghyuk’s talent was very high, the workshop guys made him work for even longer than the others. And eventually, an accident happened.

It could be said that his life became easier because of that accident, but as a result, Sanghyuk had to lose his shining talent.

In any case, Sanghyuk had to restart everything at the age of 24 because of his hellish experience.

The 5 years he spent in the workshop was a nightmarish memory in his mind, but he at least remembered the things he had learned there.

Since he had learned them in order to survive, he couldn’t forget it even if he wanted to.

“The herb I dug like mad in order to avoid beatings and get food…… now I have to dig them in order to earn money?”

What Sanghyuk had to do in the first 6 months in Sword and Magic was to dig herbs. Different workshops had different ways to earn money, and the workshop that took Sanghyuk knew all of the respawn points for Sword and Magic’s herbs.

With that information, Sanghyuk went around digging those out like mad.

The areas where the herbs spawned were mostly areas where players over level 30 and 2nd jobs could walk around, but Sanghyuk went around those fields after hitting level 10.

This was only possible with his special talent.

Sword and Magic, like any other RPGs, had fast initial level up speed. Sanghyuk became level 10 with just 5 hours of playtime. Unlike the other users who were busy adapting to their movements in virtual reality, Sanghyuk proficiently hunted monsters.

Starting from level 10, the time required to level up would rise quite rapidly, so Sanghyuk didn’t plan to level up anymore. Having reached the bare minimum level required to collect the herbs, Sanghyuk moved to the Penwood Cliffs, which was called one of the spectacles of Sword and Magic.

Penwood Cliffs was currently an area that even users over level 70, the top rankers, couldn’t walk around easily. It wasn’t an area that spawned monsters. To be exact, the terrain was so rough that one mistake would lead to falling to death, so not even monsters could live here.

In fact, a few high-level users came here and showed off with faith in their avatar’s ability and fell to their deaths quite a few times.

Since this was the case with users over level 70, this was considered a forbidden zone for the low-level users.

The reason Penwood was one of the least popular starting spots in the game was also that there were so many similar cliffs around. But Sanghyuk had headed for those cliffs even though he was just level 10.

Normally, this would be considered insane, but this wasn’t anything insane, at least not to Sanghyuk. He even had experience roaming these cliffs when he was level 10 in his past life.

“I can definitely remember things more clearly now that I’m here.”

Swooosh, tap!

Leaping over to the other side of the cliff lightly, Sanghyuk tightly held onto a protrusion in the cliff with his fingers.

He got onto the cliff so easily as though he had put some adhesive on the tip of his fingers. Normal users would have fallen to their deaths already, but he was climbing the cliff very proficiently.

The reason this was possible because he had an extremely sensitive control that could transfer all of his strength into the tip of his fingers, unlike other users.

This was the grandeur of 350 VRA.

“There, and there too…….”

As he had expected, he started remembering the respawn points of the herbs that he couldn’t remember before. This place was somewhere Sanghyuk had pioneered himself later in the workshop and not the points that the workshop had given him, so there was no risk of his spots being stolen.

Of course, the terrain was just as dangerous, but the dangerous terrain wasn’t a problem for Sanghyuk. Even if he made a mistake and fell to his death, he had almost nothing to lose.

Since he was ‘below or equal to’ level 10, he wouldn’t receive any level downs nor would he drop any items. Since he had nothing to lose, Sanghyuk could be more daring in his climb.

Then why did the other users under level 10 not come here? That was simple as well. They couldn’t even move a few steps in this area before falling.

In the first place, a VRA of 350 wasn’t a common value.

Even if someone else did have such a value, there was no way such a person would be digging herbs in this place.

In other words, what Sanghyuk was doing right now could only be done by him.

Sanghyuk climbed the cliff with his bare hands and moved around nimbly. Since the herbs he was looking for were very rare, he should be able to earn quite some gold once he sold them.

Of course, turning them into cash would earn him much more than working part time at a convenience store. However, Sanghyuk wasn’t aiming for such a low amount of cash when he was digging these herbs.

He was planning to do one thing with the gold he would get after selling these herbs.

He was planning to strike it big through this.

A jackpot that no one else could hit.

There was a jackpot that only he, who knew the future, could strike.

When he thought up of Sword and Magic, this was the first thing he remembered, and digging herbs came later, when he was looking for a way to gather enough money for this.

A single change that occurs in the 4th large-scale patch that happens in 8 months. Sanghyuk knew of this change, so he knew exactly what he had to do right now.

He climbed up a high cliff and scavenged 2 sprouts of Nineleaf Redgrass, which would go for 100 gold each.

“Oh yeah…… this feeling…… is what I wanted.”

Sanghyuk knew very well what kind of dangerous things he was doing right now. However, the stuffy feeling that he got when he lost his talent and became unable to do what he wanted made him almost crazy.

“However, this is child’s play compared to EL.”

Sword and Magic was indeed a very well-made game, but it was incomparable to Eternal Life(EL).

EL was literally the last boss of virtual reality games.

‘8 months until the patch…… I’ll gather as many of that as possible!’

Taking a short rest while looking at the scenery, Sanghyuk put the Nineleaf Redgrass into his bag and started climbing again.

If the past Sanghyuk climbed cliffs like crazy against his will, the current Sanghyuk climbed cliffs like crazy on his own will.

He had grasped a new opportunity. His life would begin for real now.