Chapter 63: Overwhelming Strength
< ‘Pickup Artist’ Guild has revealed their hostility towards you. >
The movement of the black suits running toward me through the pop-up window was different from that of ordinary players at first glance.
They had to be at least between level 40 to 50, and it was very clear that they were armed with a bunch of magic or rare rank items.
But that didn’t mean anything to me. With only the additional stats I received from the two engraved swords, their movements seemed tediously slow to my eyes.
Even if an ant had a jaw that can lift something that is more than 30 times its own weight, there was no way it could possibly stop the footsteps of a baby who just started walking.
It seemed that I did not even need to exert all my powers on these people.
Rather, it was a good opportunity for me. A valuable practical opportunity to use my newly acquired skills.
"Go'h."
The voice resonated around excessively with the feeling that something is escaping from within my body just by saying it out loud with focus.
As soon as I said the skill name, two swords appeared with smoke on my shoulders.
It was Sharma and Korma.
The two engraved swords flew toward the place my gaze was directed without hesitation.
The swords cut through the air so sharp that I could almost hear the wind scream in pain. The blades pierced and cut through the men in black suits running towards me in a parabolic line in line with my gaze.
Neither the tough leather armor that was layered inside the suit nor the hardened skin enhanced by stats could not stop the engraved swords.
“Hff!?”
“Gurgh!”
“Huh? Aagh?!”
By the time the targets collapsed to the ground after leaving their last words, the two engraved swords were already back to where they were fired, on top of my shoulders.
The silence ensued in an instant, but only for a moment. The men in black suits started running toward me and Khea again. However, there was no such thing as cooldown for the skill.
I took a breath and calmed myself down a little.
“Go’h!”
The engraved swords were fired as soon as I called out the skill name once again. The muscles around my eyes started to get tight.
Because I had such a low proficiency in this skill, it was a very hard task for me to just control the two blades. I couldn’t even think about moving my body while doing this.
Unlike what I practiced for a long time on SkyLord, the actual battle required more variety of control.
In the meantime, as if to prove my inexperienced proficiency, some players escaped the veil of the engraving sword and rushed toward me.
But every time Khea's rapiers flashed from time to time, they became more mangled than necessary and fell to their knees, bleeding.
The only man on the other side who was wearing a robe was looking at me with his eyes wide open.
And I caught him in my sight, which means he had become the next target for Sharma and Korma.
The man with his long hair tied back took out an unusual-looking staff from his robe and created a large convex mirror in front of him. It was undoubtedly a protective barrier.
Korma pierced it cleanly, as if the shield had never even existed in the first place, and cut his staff in half.
In that brief moment, I focused all my sight on Sharma who was following after the first blade.
The man in the robe tried to run away with a devastated expression on his face. However, Sharma pierced through his heart, and he collapsed to the floor without being able to withstand the damage.
< Your skill level for ‘Go’h’ has risen. >
The blue text and the appearance of the notification window indicating that the ability of the skill has been improved turned my attention away, and the two swords disappeared with smoke.
Silence had dawned in this place in an instant. As I looked around I noticed that not a single man was standing. It took less than a minute to take them out.
I truly felt the power of the two engraved swords as I looked around the room filled with players who were either already dead or barely breathing on the floor.
In terms of destructive power, this skill was on the same level as the Solar Storm. However, contrary to the Solar Storm, this skill was not as explosive and noisy.
Unlike Solar Storm that quickly swept over a wide area with fire leaving everything in ashes, this 'Go'h' skill was quiet, detailed, and incredibly lethal.
“Mose, that mysterious skill you just used reminded me of the Master.”
Khea couldn’t maintain her silence and showed her admiration in a soft tone.
It was proof that the skill was so amazing that she couldn’t help but push her anger back for a moment.
As we carefully climbed up to the stage where the glow worms hanging from the ceiling were illuminating loudly to and fro, we looked around. Realizing that we had missed something, we looked at each other's faces.
“Choi SeopHo!”
“The 2nd floor...!”
We hurriedly looked around the second floor, but the seat was already empty. But now it didn't matter anymore. With or without him, everything he had will be lost here.
***
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuu-ck!”
Drooling and screaming like mad, Choi SeopHo hurried into the driver's seat of Puavolti and ripped his hair out once more.
“What the fuck is this! Why are such people here in this bumfuck nowhere?!”
He too, like Jason, was very surprised by the sudden appearance of the tycoons.
However, that feeling quickly turned into anger like boiling lava.
“Honor ranking? Not to mention, first place? Ha! Don’t fuck with me!”
He shouted into the air, spitting out of his mouth. Then he inserted the stylishly shaped initiation stone in his hand into the hole located on the right side of the driver's seat as he smiled to himself.
The body of the car began to vibrate with heavy engine noises. Meanwhile, his hand was busy manipulating the purple crystal ball.
After a moment, a voice came from the crystal ball.
“This is the NGTEC emergency security service.”
The voice of the woman that came from the crystal ball was as cold as ice. And as soon as she answered the call,
“This is Director Choi, FUCK! Get the entire security team right now! Including the team leaders! Everyone! Every single one of them! I’m on my way to the factory right now. And when I- I arrive there and you’re missing a single person? You’re all fuckin’ dead, you hear that? Hurry up and do it right now! Hurry! I’m stepping on the accelerator now!”
Choi SeopHo frowned, his eyes filled with madness and screamed into the crystal ball as if he was trying to break it.
“Understood.”
A concise answer came back from the other side of the crystal ball, which had received Choi SeopHo’s flustered emotions.
Choi SeopHo pulled the handle in front of him shaped like the rudder of a ship as hard as he could.
Bam!
A frantic explosion sound erupted from the rear of the Puavolti by the handle being pulled in an instant.
The steel rear wheel of the car made of the Levid Steel, which was known to be the lightest metal known in <Circuit>, started to rotate with tremendous momentum.
The car dug out as much soil as possible with its rear wheels and then jumped forward with a blast.
There was a drawing of a ‘Horace riding a thunderstorm cloud' engraved on the car’s dashboard with a weird color.
“Do you know who I am?! I’m fuckin’ Choi SeopHo! NGTEC’s representative Director, Choi SeopHo!”
Choi SeopHo, feeling an exhilarating sense of speed, spilled his big drops of drool on his lips and began to immerse himself into a deeper madness.
Then he took one hand off the handle, pulled a Vanetic from his pocket, and began to roll it around his neck frantically like a man with an itch.
Soon, black veins appeared from his neck to the base of his chin, and there was only a hazy expression on his face as if he was immersed in ecstasy.
Choi SeopHo arrived at the NGTEC factory in an instant and hurried to the entrance.
As soon as he opened the huge glass door and entered, the employees waiting on either side greeted him.
“Director!”
“Welcome!”
Choi SeopHo’s chin raised up as he received the greeting. Then someone appeared in front of him.
He was the man who was having a conversation with Choi SeopHo in the car.
“Did you take the drug again? I’ve told you this many times, but... Director, you are the representative of...”
“Shut it.”
“Until when do you plan on living like that? The Chairman...”
“I said shut it!”
“I heard about the guild called the <Pickup Artist>. Do you know that the Information Guild has already added it to the ‘removal target’’ list?”
The middle-aged man, who did not budge despite Choi SeopHo's threats, started to take his shots back at him.
“How about you focus on what’s coming at you first? The company’s about to be harmed in ‘more than one way’, as you said, so you better take good care of it, you got that?”
Choi SeopHo spoke in a very threatening tone as he approached the middle-aged man all the way in his face.
“If you don’t stop this then our business partners will be fucked too, you hear that? Those fuckers from other companies took their turns on the product I created. And when that goes out to the public, then we are all fucked, not just me.”
Then he stuck his fist into the middle-aged man’s chest, turned around, and moved on.
The middle-aged man with a furious expression on his face for the first time opened his mouth in a very low voice toward the employees who were frozen on either side of him.
“Everyone, equip the best items given out to you in your inventory. From now on, nobody passes through here, and I mean nobody.”
“Yes, Director Park.”
At the words of Director Park, the NGTEC employees who lined up on both sides of him bowed their heads with determination.
It was a completely different reaction from the reaction they had shown to Choi SeopHo, who had just passed by filled with anger.
Park SeongChil, who was level 59, highest among the employees of NGTEC, was a player who equipped 4 unique-class items under the orders of Chairman Choi.
Park SeongChil was in charge of almost all practical tasks since Choi SeopHo did almost nothing. He had just now turned the arrow of his anger that he had lit with the humiliation he had just received to the ‘various’ problems that would come to find him.
And completely unaware of their struggle, Choi SeopHo was busily moving toward his office in an angry gesture.
Choi SeopHo violently opened the colorfully lighted shiny door to his office, immediately pulled out a huge painting hanging from the back wall of the office, threw it on the floor, and turned his eyes to the huge warehouse behind the painting.
It was the warehouse where "company-owned" items and the most powerful weapon in the guild were stored.
Just like Mose has the 'SkyLord'. Of course, Mose was an individual, not a guild.
The items owned by the company have a very important meaning.
It was no exaggeration to say that these items were the ‘dignity’ of the player companies of <Circuit> itself.
Rare works of art, books, relics, and other expensive items served to attract investors regardless if they were players and NPCs.
Not a lot of players know that they can establish a connection with high-ranking NPCs just by having these items.
The high-ranking privileged nobles or officials in the world of <Circuit> weren’t much different from the ones in the real world.
It was said that the kings, nobles, and riches of <Circuit> recognized the value of the companies just by possessing a super expensive item.
That was the tangible asset to attract investors in this virtual reality, which Choi SeopHo, who has just entered the warehouse, was about to put his hands on.
Choi SeopHo was not hesitant to put his hands on the company-owned assets, strictly speaking, his father’s most cherished items, with a smile of victory on his face.
“These are meant to be used for situations like this anyways, right?”
He said, entering the warehouse while struggling to hold back the burst of laughter. He could not hide his ecstasy when he saw the item with a golden aura inside.
[Varabanderon's Earrings]
Class: Earrings
Rank: Legendary
Effect:
Strength + 33
Health + 33
Speed +33
Intelligence + 33
When equipped, [Lv.7 Body Enhancement] magic is activated.
- The dedicated socket is empty.
‘I shall whisper into your ear [ ]’
History: Varabanderon, the most powerful wizard of the ‘Blood Elves’, a race that was destroyed from within, was the fear incarnate to other elf races. Although Varabanderon never died in the long 'War of the Orton Tree' between the elves, his soul was sealed inside a small earring by one of the ‘Five Branches of the World Tree’ and an elvish archmage ‘Ozirn’ in the end.
Because of how strong the seal differs depending on the ‘unlock condition’, Ozirn had decided to choose the ‘runic alphabets’ as the keys to unlock the seal.
The elves around asked him.
‘What will be the runic alphabet that will unlock the sealing of Varabanderon?’
Ozirn said, with a strange smile on his face.
‘It contains the curse of obedience.’
-Historian Surez-