Chapter 75.1 – Settlement (1) (1/2)

We have slightly long chapters this time, so I’ve split it again. Today’s chapter is 2/3 of the chapter, and the remaining 1/3 will be released tomorrow together with 1/3 of chapter 76 since it’s also as long as this one.

Terms used in this chapter:

Spec – gaming term that can mean a character’s specifications or specialization, or how one distributes skill points among the various skill trees available.

Control – gaming term which means how a user ‘controls’ the actions of their playable character, including aiming and moving skills, and the ability to use skills appropriately.

Gae-mo-tae (개모태) – A Korean slang used in chat rooms to describe someone who is really bad at playing games.  Gae (개) means inferior or worthless, while mo-tae (모태) means mother’s womb/uterus. Mo-tae is also used to refer to ‘being born’, ‘born to be’, ‘naturally’, etc. If you combine ‘mo-tae’ with the word ‘sol-lo’, it refers to people who are single since birth (no GF/BF ever). So, gae-mo-tae literally means being inferior/bad since birth.

Jude remembered his first encounter with Cordelia.

It was the time before they were reincarnated as Jude and Cordelia, when they were still Outboxer009 and Yellow Storm.

They had lived as Jude and Cordelia for many years, and if you count the number of years they’ve known each other, it was 22 years ago, as Jude had first met her in the game more than 5 years ago when he was still Kang Jin-ho.

It was the time when Outboxer009, or Kang Jin-ho, started playing the game.

In fact, Kang Jin-ho had lived a life that was quite far from games. It was only a coincidence that he suddenly began playing games and RPGs with VR functions.

One could say that it was beginner’s luck.

Fortunately, Legend of Heroes 2 was a game that Kang Jin-ho really liked.

‘It’s fun. It’s why people play games.’

In Legend of Heroes 2, there were two modes: single player and multiplayer.

In single player, the player literally conquered the story alone. On the other hand, multiplayer was a mode where single players who have finished any kind of ending of any character can gather together to take part in adventures.

‘In order to become strong in multiplayer, you have to play all the characters in single player and get high scores. It was not a joke to delve every corner in order to get high scores.’

There was a ‘Deck System’ in multiplayer mode.

It was a system that strengthened the stats of multiplayer characters by combining the stats and so on of each playable character that a user played in single player mode.

In other words, it meant that the character of a user who cleared both Jude and Cordelia in single player mode was stronger in multiplayer than the character of a user who only cleared Jude in single player mode.

On top of that, the multiplayer character of a user who cleared Jude with 120 points was stronger than the user who cleared Jude with 100 points.

‘In short, one had to clear all the characters in single player mode with the highest scores.’

It was a system that emphasized hard work, so he found it interesting, but didn’t think of actually trying it.

He wasn’t really interested in competing in multiplayer mode.

‘But let’s try experiencing it once.’

The bad ending was also an ending, so when he lost and got the death ending in ‘The Northern Barbarians’ Great Invasion,’ he gained access to multiplayer mode.

‘Okay, enter a nickname…’

He entered multiplayer mode under the name ‘Outboxer009.’

At first glance, it didn’t seem much different from single player mode, but there were two very big differences.

One was that there were other players in Pleiades besides Outboxer009 himself, and the other was the fact that the battle difficulty of the game rapidly became difficult.

[You have died.]

Not long after he went out of town, Outboxer009 accidentally died and became a corpse that slumped on the ground.

‘So that’s why you needed to clear single player mode.’

First of all, it was ideal to be above a certain level, whether it was on spec or control.

The enlightened Outboxer009 waited for a while before clicking the Reset button.

Because there was a user who was approaching him at that time.

‘Oh…are you trying to help me?’

If one used the Resurrection Feather that was given at the beginning of multiplayer mode, it was possible to save those who had just died.

At that time, Jude was still a novice gamer, so he was unaware of the attitude of gamers playing multiplayer games.

Therefore, with a pure heart, he waited for the user to approach him.

‘Pretty.’

He was sure that character’s name was Cordelia.

She was a beautiful girl with striking red hair.

The Cordelia user walked right in front of him and looked at Outboxer009’s corpse, and Kang Jin-ho stared at the Cordelia user with expectant eyes.

Then the Cordelia user said.

[Yellow Storm: LOL game gae-mo-tae]

‘What?’

The bewildered Jude blinked his eyes, but his character was still dead.

The Cordelia user laughed a few more times before just passing Outboxer009 and went on their way.

After a few seconds…a few minutes…

LOL game gae-mo-tae

Game gae-mo-tae.

You’re bad at games since birth.

It was a trivial remark.

Words that he could just ignore.

But strangely, no, mysteriously, the words struck Kang Jin-ho’s mind hard.

It was completely stuck in his head and did not disappear.

So naturally, the user who said those words was also clearly stored in Kang Jin-ho’s memory.

‘Yellow Storm.’

It was the first meeting of the two which Jude remembered but Cordelia did not remember.

***

“Hey! Get it quickly!”

“Huh?”

“Quickly!”

It was right after they defeated Madgar.

Cordelia abruptly urged him as she stared and smiled at the Essence of the Blue Moon, and Jude was a little confused.

“The Essence of the Blue Moon?”

“The Essence of the Blue Moon! What if Gentle Snow Breeze takes it away! Take it quickly! No, just absorb it! Okay? Quickly!”

Gentle Snow Breeze clearly said it.

The Essence of the Blue Moon was a very important item, so the animals in the area did not touch it.

She decided that he should use it in this extreme emergency.

“Just touch it and say that you accidentally absorbed its power. Yes, that would be good. I’ll help you make excuses.”

Cordelia who had said so far, quickly picked up the Essence of the Blue Moon from the ground and even placed it on Jude’s hand.

The Essence of the Blue Moon was an essence of the pure moonlight, so it was a cluster of divine power.

Therefore, Cordelia could not use it properly because she uses the witch’s power.

‘No, she has the sacred rod Moonlight.’

Wouldn’t the Essence of the Blue Moon be absorbed by Moonlight since it is also moonlight?

“Hey, wait a second. What about Moonlight? Wouldn’t it be able to absorb it?”

“Eh? Oh…as expected of my Jude. That’s a good idea…no. Just absorb it yourself. That would be better than strengthening equipment.”

“No, you’ll be the one using Moonlight so…”

“No, no. You absorb it. You consume it and open the third door. That’s much better.”

The two were yielding the item to each other, which was something that was unimaginable for them to do in the past.

And time passed while they were doing things that was unlike them.

“Oh no, she’s coming.”

Gentle Snow Breeze was flying towards them.

She had a lovely smile on her face, but for Cordelia, it looked like an evil face that had come to take away the item.

“I’ll do something about it, okay?”