I Gave Up Being Stronger

He knew that it would backfire if he continued to stubbornly pursue and push Cha Jin-Hyeok. These things took time.

Joseph’s phone dinged with a notification.

[A channel you are following is now live!]

[Kim Chul-Soo has begun streaming.]

[Stream Title: I am completing a mission with some new members.]

Joseph shook his head as he read the title. ‘Another lame title?’

If he’d been there to guide Jin-Hyeok, it would have been different. Maybe something more like ‘What happens when a pair of TWIN BEAUTIES join my party? The results will SHOCK you.’

If someone asked Joseph right now what exactly was so shocking, he himself wouldn’t be able to answer, but that wasn’t really important and could just be shoehorned in later.

‘He’s a complete noob at streaming.’

Not only that, but Jin-Hyeok had completely blocked his comms. It was shocking that a channel like this had more viewers than Egan Paul’s.

‘I’m sure his popularity’s due to something else, like maybe the energy he exudes, or an outstanding analytical ability to explain his plays.’

But as far as Joseph was concerned, it was only a matter of time before other streams caught up to Jin-Hyeok\'s, if these were the only things going for his stream. Eventually, the viewers were bound to seek higher-quality channels, and when that day came, Joseph was sure that Jin-Hyeok would come to need him.

‘Let’s have a look then, shall we?’ Joseph intended to pay close attention to Jin-Hyeok’s Playing and way of handling the stream.

When Joseph tuned in, Mok Jae-Hyeon was speaking.

“H-hello, noonas.”[1]

Mok Jae-Hyeon’s face was bright red. Again. He couldn’t even look at the twins properly.

“Hyung, how were you able to get them to join us?” Mok Jae-Hyeon asked Jin-Hyeok in a tiny voice, in a volume that was nearly inaudible to Joseph.

‘His voice is way too soft.’ Joseph shook his head. It appeared to Joseph that Jin-Hyeok didn’t even know the proper way to handle audio. There was a mountain of things to teach him.

“What do you mean ‘how’? I just went and asked them.” Jin-Hyeok looked puzzled.

“S-So there wasn’t any particular tactic you used?”

“We just found our interests aligned. What’s up?”

Cha Jin-Sol chimed in, “Wow, so it just so happened that your interests aligned with some people you coincidentally came across on the street, and it just so happened that we ended up Playing together right away, and it just so happened that they’re that pretty. Damn, my brother encountered an awful lot of coincidences, huh? I’ve heard that three just-sos in a row is something that was always meant to happen anyway.”

“Three hundred coincidences in a row don’t stop them from being coincidences,” Jin-Hyeok refuted.

Jin-Hyeok knew very well that as one reached an even higher Level, the more they were bound to run into events and developments that they would never have imagined. The higher one\'s Level was, the more often they ran into a degree of coincidences that simply couldn’t be explained.

But Mok Jae-Hyeon had a look about him that suggested he bought into what Jin-Sol said.

“Right, she’s convinced me,” Mok Jae-Hyeon said.

“Convinced you of what?”

“Well, it’s just… seeing how you look, what she’s saying does seem fairly possible.”

Jin-Hyeok didn’t feel it was worth his time to answer back. What was wrong with this kid?

But it wasn’t over yet. Now it was Seo Ji-Soo’s time to attack.

“Hm? Hey, don’t tell me… Is that a ‘hurr durr I didn’t know I was that good-looking’ face you’re making right now?”

Jin-Hyeok was silent. ‘They really seem like they were all born for each other, huh ...\'

By his standards, this just could not be. Fluffing about like this right before entering a Dungeon, the appropriate thing to do was to brainstorm the plethora of possibilities that could unfold in the middle of the raid, and to steel oneself for the possibility of death. To plan and plan and plan until their heads were pounding.

‘They don’t know what it’s like to be thrilled over a raid to the point of obsession.’

How was it even possible to be distracted like this?

***

Jin-Hyeok did indeed have enough self-awareness to know at least that he was born quite a looker, but he didn’t think it to be worth much.

‘What good does being a looker do for me?’

It didn’t help him improve his swordsmanship faster, which meant it didn’t help him become stronger, at all. Rather, a face that stuck out meant a face that was memorable, and that in turn meant it actually created more danger for him. In fact, on one occasion, numerous Players who specialized in seducing others simultaneously targeted Jin-Hyeok, almost as if it was a cruel competition to see who could get to him first.

This was no laughing matter. The so-called ‘Beauty King’ Kang Eun-Woo, who was the very definition of the word handsome, had his life cut short in a similar fashion.

So with all his own experiences and the things he had heard, being a looker didn’t seem like much of a blessing to Jin-Hyeok.

Anyway, at this present moment, Jin-Hyeok’s party members were greeting each other.

“Hello, my name is Mok Jae-Hyeon. I’m the tank for this team. I look forward to working with you.”

“Hi, nice to meet you! I’m Seo Ji-Soo. As you can see, we’re twins. This here is Seo Ji-Ah. Hey, say hi.”

Seo Ji-Ah was a person who did not speak unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Wow, she really does look the same as you,” Jae-Hyeon said.

“She’s pretty just the same, right?” Ji-Soo asked.

Mok Jae-Hyeon’s blushed once more at Ji-Soo’s question. He was not used to engaging in conversation with creatures of the mythical female gender.

Mok Jae-Hyeon fumbled around to change the subject, and finally landed on one.

“I guess I can recognize the noona with the longer hair as the older sister, and you with the shorter hair as the younger one.”

With the quick introductions out of the way, Seo Ji-Soo went to the point.

“Hey, can I ask you something? There’s a little something I want to know.”

“O-of course. I’ll try to answer it to the best of my ability.”

She gave a glance in Jin-Hyeok’s direction.

“Would you say that guy is trustworthy?” Ji-Soo asked Jae-Hyeon.

“H-he’s definitely a cool guy, really. Out of the grownups I’ve met, he’s someone who’s really taught me a lot of stuff,” Jae-Hyeon answered.

“Is that so?”

“Though what’s weird is sometimes it feels like there’s something a little… off with him.”

“What do you mean by off?” Ji-Soo asked.

“Sometimes it seems like he’s pure-hearted, but sometimes it seems he isn’t; sometimes he seems kind, but sometimes he doesn’t. And he doesn’t seem like a scary person, but sometimes he is. You’ll know what I mean when you experience it first-hand,” Jae-Hyeon explained.

If someone asked him what kind of person Jin-Hyeok was, Mok Jae-Hyeon would answer that Jin-Hyeok was an individual who was hard to pin down in more ways than one.

Someone tapped on Mok Jae-Hyeon’s shoulder. It was Cha Jin-Sol.

“Yes?”

“Hey, my brother’s still a nice guy, all things considered.”

“W-wasn’t there a time when you said he was a psycho?” Jae-Hyeon asked.

“Only I’m allowed to say that!” Jin-Sol declared.

Cha Jin-Sol rapped him on the head with her knuckle. They had become a lot closer over time.

“Ow, that hurts!” Jae-Hyeon cried.

“Stop yappin’.”

Feeling the situation was a tad unfair, a flash of anger surged up Mok Jae-Hyeon’s belly, but that was indeed only a flash, because it melted like fine snow the moment he met eyes with Jin-Sol.

‘She’s just so pretty.”

Even if he wanted to get angry with her, he couldn’t.

Cha Jin-Sol also spoke with the twin sisters. Seo Ji-Soo put on a polite smile as she talked with her.

“Ah, so you’re that oppa’s younger sister?”

“Yeah.”

Seo Ji-Soo’s smile became a little warmer as she seemed to ooze more of her sociability.

“It’s so nice to meet you, unnie! You’re so pretty. I’m Seo Ji-Soo, by the way, and I’m a university student. Don’t worry about having to be polite with me.”

***

The motley crew was finally about to enter the third floor of the Sareoga Mart Dungeon.

[The hidden Field, 「Sareoga Mart Dungeon, Third Floor」, is revealed.]

[You are about to enter the Field of the 「King Fist Monkey」.]

A single, long corridor was before them. It was an enormous corridor that stretched on and on with an incredibly high ceiling, complete with a red carpet.

‘Yoooo, I get to see the King Fist Monkey again…’

It hadn’t specifically been in this Field, but Jin-Hyeok had fought a King Fist Monkey in his previous lifetime during his early budding days as a Player. He had been around Level 30 at that time and tried to solo it.[2] Jin-Hyeok remembered that he nearly died at that time.

Lining the walls of the corridor were enormous full-body photographs, each with an accompanying label that had their name and year of birth.

“Here it seems we’ve come across some full-body photographs of the monkeys,” Jin-Hyeok’s stream was back online. “They appear to me to be photographs of the greatest Fist Monkeys of all time—a hall of fame.”

The corridor didn’t look like it was the type that was laden with traps. Regardless, Jin-Hyeok took a step back behind the others.

“We don’t have a resident Dungeon navigator to guide us in our party. So Jae-Hyeon, you take the lead.”

“M-me?”

“Uh-huh. The tank’s meant to go first if the party doesn’t have a navigator.”

“...”

Mok Jae-Hyeon swallowed fearfully.

“Don’t worry, you’re the least likely to die out of all of us.”

“Uh…”

“What?”

“...Hyung, aren’t you the least likely to die out of us?”

“Look, I’m a Streamer.”

“...”

“Don’t you worry. It doesn’t look like there’s anything particularly dangerous around here.”

“Y-you’re sure, right?”

“Uh-huh. Probably.”

This was Jin-Hyeok’s first time venturing into this Dungeon Field as well, so nothing was 100% certain. If something truly dangerous popped out of nowhere, that was too bad. That was just the sort of place Dungeons were.

With Mok Jae-Hyeon at the lead, the party walked through the corridor. They reached the end without a hitch, upon which they came across a massive door. With a face on the brink of tears, Mok Jae-Hyeon slowly touched the door handle.

As Jin-Hyeok had initially predicted, there hadn’t been any traps.

‘Why is this Field so lame?’

The conditions of entry were starkly easy too, so much so that Jin-Hyeok found it to be a bit of a disappointment.

[The 「Champion Belt」 is required.]

“It appears we need the Champion Belt in order to enter,” Jin-Hyeok said to his viewers. “Hey, Jin-Sol, you didn’t chuck it away, did you?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s right here.”

Cha Jin-Sol handed Jin-Hyeok the belt.

[The 「Champion Belt」 is in your possession.]

The gargantuan door opened.

Instead of opening to another room, the entire space they were in transformed.

‘Let me guess, a boxing ring?’

It was indeed a Dungeon Field fashioned like a boxing ring, just as Jin-Hyeok had experienced on the second floor. However, this one was a little larger.

[King Fist Monkey 「Alexander」 will enter in ten minutes.]

[Players, prepare yourself to engage in battle with King Fist Monkey 「Alexander (33)」.]

Wow, they gave me a whole ten minutes! In Jin-Hyeok’s eyes, the System was being incredibly generous to them. Perhaps it was because this was a beginners’ Field.

He knew there would be no such luxuries in later Levels. In fact, you wouldn’t receive any warning notifications at all. Instead, the monster’s attacks would come raining down first.

Jin-Hyeok began explaining his thoughts on the coming boss relaxedly.

“This dude uses destructive, wide-sweeping area attacks rather than sharp and targeted ones. Mok Jae-Hyeon, that means your Wood Fortress ability would be perfect for this one, since a strong stationary barrier is what we need.”

“H-how do you know the monster would be like that already?” Mok Jae-Hyeon asked what was a rather obvious thing for Jin-Hyeok.

“Didn’t you see the photographs we passed on the way?”

“What about them?”

“Didn’t you see all the photographs had names and dates of birth?”

Mok Jae-Hyeon turned to Cha Jin-Sol with a look of astonishment.

“Did you look at them properly, noona?” Jae-Hyeon asked Jin-Sol.

“W-well, I did see them, but…” Jin-Sol said.

No one bothered to scrutinize what seemed like a trivial piece of information in such detail. For Jin-Hyeok, he was willing to cut some slack since they weren’t navigators, but had they been one, they would have received a scolding and a half about now.

“You heard the notification about his name being Alexander, right?”

“Yes, I did.”

“One of the photographs of the dudes out in the corridor was named Alexander. If the label meant anything, he should be thirty-three years old since it said he was born in 1990.”

“...you remember all that?”

Of course he did. As far as Jin-Hyeok was concerned, it was more like he could only remember that much because he wasn’t a navigator.

Real through-and-through navigators would be able to remember everything from the lengths of the monkeys’ arms, to the circumference of their head. They were inhuman. He was willing to wager that someone like his past comrade, Han Se-Rin, would even have counted the number of hairs on their heads.

Compared to people like that, Jin-Hyeok believed his level of perception may as well be about the level of a small child.

“The monkey had a really big build. Though his weight is probably nothing to sniff at, he’s grown his muscles to the point where it’d be inefficient for combat and weigh him down. That should put a serious handicap on his endurance. He should be similar to the one I met on the second floor, but bigger and stronger.”

In essence, the second floor was almost like a lite version of the third floor. If the second-floor boss was the Hulk, perhaps the third-floor one could be called a King Hulk.

“But the fact that he was able to earn the title of King Fist despite his inferior stamina probably means his blows are just that powerful. So powerful that, though he’s probably slow, he can take his opponents out of the fight with one hit as long as it lands.”

“S-so what exactly would happen if he hits me?” Mok Jae-Hyeon asked.

It was beyond Jin-Hyeok why a tank would ever be worried about something like that.

In his opinion, the best way for a newbie tank to learn was to just go in head-on and break a few bones here and there. That should build some grit.

‘I guess it’s fair enough that a newbie asks something like that.’ Jin-Hyeok let out an inward sigh. He squashed down his irritation and explained as nicely as he could.

“That monkey came to be called a King Fist Monkey because he fought other Fist Monkeys, nothing else. Your defense is way stronger than the attacks of a bunch of random apes, isn’t it? Even if your defenses are broken, I don’t think you’ll die in one blow.”

“You don’t think I would die?” Jae-Hyeon asked.

“Mhmm, probably,” Jin-Hyeok answered.

“...probably?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What if you turn out to be wrong?” Jae-Hyeon asked.

“Well, that’s just bad luck then, isn’t it?” Jin-Hyeok replied.

Mok Jae-Hyeon turned pale.

Jin-Hyeok decided to offer the party some additional pointers just in case. Though he felt that these pointers were so obvious that he wasn’t sure whether they even needed to be said at all.

“Oh, by the way, there’s no way the other Fist Monkeys would have just sat there and received the slow strike of the King Fist, right? He will definitely have some kind of special Skill to help him land his attacks, like something to help him close his distance, or increase his attack speed for a short window. I’ll observe him using my Broadcaster’s Truesight and let you guys know what it is.”

In that fashion, Jin-Hyeok and his party members discussed different aspects of the upcoming fight. Jin-Hyeok had always thought that ten minutes of free preparation time before a boss fight was a very long time. But today, it felt rather short, because his team members were all just that much of a beginner.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

[10 minutes have passed.]

[King Fist Monkey 「Alexander」 makes his entrance.]

Lo and behold.

An incredibly bulky and muscular monster that was closer to a gorilla than a monkey revealed himself.

It was Alexander. He looked just like in the photograph Jin-Hyeok had seen.

“Stay on hold. It’s not time yet,” Jin-Hyeok said.

Mok Jae-Hyeon was gripped with fear.

They had discussed their strategy for the upcoming fight for a whole ten minutes, but the real thing was inevitably an altogether different matter to theory.

Jin-Hyeok sensed that Mok Jae-Hyeon might cave to the pressure that Alexander exuded and use his Wood Fortress prematurely.

“Use your Wood Spears first!”

Thankfully, Mok Jae-Hyeon had enough of his wits about him to heed Jin-Hyeok’s instructions. He unleashed the wooden spears, one of his few offensive Skills, which formed floating in the air and headed for Alexander’s belly.

‘There we go,’ Jin-Hyeok thought.

KREEE!

The King Fist Monkey seemed furious at Mok Jae-Hyeon, who had used a weapon that was not one’s fists. He beat on his chest in a way that was reminiscent of King Kong… and approached Mok Jae-Hyeon with the step of a boxer rearing to swing.

“Wood Fortress in three,” Jin-Hyeok said.

Jin-Hyeok noticed Mok Jae-Hyeon had his eyes completely shut. He could hear Mok Jae-Hyeon saying “Fuck… fuck…” under his breath, but chose to ignore it. That much was understandable in this situation.

Maybe Mok Jae-Hyeon was a timid greenhorn, but what was truly worthy of praise was that he always did exactly as he was told.

After exactly three seconds, Mok Jae-Hyeon used his Wood Fortress ability.

THUMP!

The spherical wooden fortress successfully withstood the King Fist Monkey’s punch, protecting the body within.

‘Nice… he held out way better than I thought,’ Jin-Hyeok thought.

That attack just then was the King Fist Monkey’s ‘Right’—his right hook, which was a swing which he put all his weight behind. Out of all of the King Fist Monkey’s attacks, this one possessed the most pure lethal power.

‘He should be able to take more abuse.’

Jin-Hyeok figured Mok Jae-Hyeon should be able to withstand around ten more hits. Sure, he was going to end up with his fair share of non-minor injuries in the process, but it was the tank’s role to take the hurt and the pain.

Mok Jae-Hyeon was surely taking all the King Fist Monkey’s aggro. That was good.

Now it was the twins’ turn.

Their expressions were hardened with resolve. It seemed they, too, were about to fight the battle of their lives.

‘...damn. I want to join in.’

1. Noona is the Korean term used by males to refer to older females that are a few years older at the most. Can be used in both filial and non-filial relationships. ☜

2. For those that may be confused, to ‘solo’ a monster in a video game means to take it on alone. ☜