Chapter 52: Ian’s Performance (2)

TL: Haku

Editor: Hungry Panda

For the whole duration of the first match, Ian couldn’t take his eyes off the a.s.sa.s.sin.

‘Wow, for the first preliminary match to be this much… That a.s.sa.s.sin is quite strong. As expected, there are a lot of hidden masters in Kailran. I need to be on my toes.’

While Ian was surprised by the a.s.sa.s.sin, he looked at the user Flio, the Warrior that went against him, and shook his head.

‘Wouldn’t it be beneficial for that friend to quit gaming as soon as possible for his mental health? How could he think of swinging around his sword when the a.s.sa.s.sin is invisible and he doesn’t even know where his opponent is?’

Amongst all weapons, the sword had the slowest attacking to blocking conversion rate and had the highest risk of attack failure.

You could say that it was almost suicidal, swinging a sword mindlessly in front of an a.s.sa.s.sin, who basically represented surprise attacks and a.s.sa.s.sination.

‘I suddenly feel a little sorry towards Herz and Kroban hyung[1].’

When Ian led guild hunts before resetting his character, he always made fun of Herz and Kroban for having terrible control.

However, compared to the Warrior that he just saw, he felt they were masters…

However, all this a.s.sessment was from Ian’s perspective, so it wasn’t universal.

Generally, users that enjoyed the game normally didn’t game by thinking so meticulously like Ian.

However, as Ian compared all users using himself as the standard, he could only be disappointed.

Ian, who watched a couple more matches like that, could no longer keep his eyes open.

This was because the standard of the matches was critical.

‘Ah, my eyes. They aren’t rotting by any chance, are they?’

Ian just turned his head and mumbled to himself.

‘Currently buying eyes that haven’t seen the preliminary matches of the rookie league arena.’

This was the first time Ian had watched the arena, including before he reset his character.

This was because, although unknown for other parts, Ian, who was full of pride when it came to games, wouldn’t have even thought of entering the compet.i.tion if he didn’t feel like he would be able to at least rank in the top-ranks.

Before resetting, when he was around lv 50, his schedule didn’t fit with the rookie league, and when he reached lv 90, he needed to go to the major league, but because it was obvious that he had no chance of winning with his strength against the top-rankers, he didn’t even dare to think about the arena.

‘It’s probably at this standard because it’s the rookie league, and the preliminary rounds right now on top of that, right?’

Truthfully, Ian didn’t really look at how others fought.

Aside from the guild hunts that he went on periodically, Ian had only solo-played, so there weren’t a lot of times that he had seen other users fight excluding his guild members.

While Ian was thinking of this and that, a sound that called his name rang throughout the arena.

Ian, who heard the message, slowly stood up and brushed his bottom.

Finally, his turn had arrived.

After standing on the stadium, Ian looked at his opponent.

His opponent’s cla.s.s was Black Magician.

Ian summoned Ly and Bbookbbook, and finished getting ready to fight.

Jjaekee was also summoned and flew around Ian, distracting him. The only Familiar that wasn’t summoned was Ddukdae.

‘I’ll have to use Ddukdae as a hidden card.’

However, just then, a loud cry incomparable to anything before rang out all around.

“Wow!”

‘Wha, what the h.e.l.l? Have they all recognized this body?’

Just when Ian was about to be content.

The voices that came in all around threw a wet blanket over his antic.i.p.ations.

“It’s Himenes, the number 1 ranking Black Magician!”

“Himenes, crush the Summoners and the others!”

Ian gazed at the opponent Black Magician and clenched his fist tightly.

Suddenly, a childish compet.i.tive spirit gushed out and stirred him.

‘He’s the number 1 ranking Black Magician?’

Ian wanted to shout ‘I’m the number 1 ranking Summoner!’.

It wasn’t as bad as when he had to tell Professor Lee Jinook about resetting his character, but he was fuming on the inside.

‘Black Magicians and what not!’

However, even if his opponent was the number 1 ranking Black Magician, Ian was confident.

‘Maybe if it was an a.s.sa.s.sin, but there’s no reason for me to not be able to compete with a Black Magician.’

Ian began to think about all the information he knew about Black Magicians slowly.

‘I just need to be careful of Bone Prison and AoE De-buff skills. I don’t think I need to worry too much about Skull Warrior. Since I heard that there’s only about 3 Skull Magicians maximum.’

They were thoughts that would fiercely rage in his mind once the match started.

It was known that the Black Magician’s Vitality was lower than the Magician’s or the Archer’s.

Before he could use the strength of his summoned Undeads and if he could avoid skills that hindered his movements like Bone Prison or ones like AoE Slowing Curse, Ian planned on completely eliminating his body.

“Hoho, Ian, I see. I’m looking forward to this.”

Himenes smiled with an arrogant expression as he held out his hand towards Ian.

In a way, it could be that he looked so arrogant because his face was already unlikeable.

‘How does anybody look so greasy?’

Ian didn’t really like Himenes, but firstly, he took his hand and slightly dipped his head.

“Yes, Himenes. I’m also looking forward to this.”

And a system message rang out.

Ian let out a command to Ly.

“Ly, as soon as the match starts, you just need to keep an eye on that Black Magician. Alright?”

Grr- Grr-

As soon as the match started, Ian’s opponent surely would be thinking of the same thing as Ian.

‘Needless to say, he’ll probably focus all his firepower onto me.’

Since the Summoner, like the Black Magician, was a cla.s.s that would be effortlessly finished if their bodies were caught before they could use the strength of their Familiars.

However, he had Bbookbbook, and he also had the s.p.a.ce Distortion skill as an emergency escape.

‘If I paralyze using Current Proliferation, and Ddukdae uses Ice Wave on top of that, I can endure.’

Ian finished his thoughts and prepared to run out.

‘Let’s go…!’

Along with the finis.h.i.+ng of the countdown, Ian and Ly ran towards Himenes.

“Wha, what the h.e.l.l?”

Himenes, who thought that the beginning of the match would obviously be a tussle with the Familiars and Undeads, was taken aback as he watched Ian, who ran in the frontline.

“Bone Prison!”

Along with Himenes’ command, bones shot up here and there.

However, Ian, who predicted that and ran while keeping an eye on the ground, saw the dark energy that formed from the ground and easily avoided the skill.

Ian’s movements were completely outside of Himenes’ predictions. As Ian’s combat stats, on top of being having superior stats compared to other normal lv 50 users, were mostly on Agility, he showed movements that were comparable to a decent a.s.sa.s.sin.

Before he knew it, Ian, who had gotten close to Himenes, focused his attention onto him.

Now, without letting out a separate command, Ly knew what he needed to do.

It was a situation where buffs were invoked beforehand.

Now, they just needed to succeed in attacking their fl.u.s.tered opponent as planned.

“Block him! I said block him, you skull heads!”

Fl.u.s.tered Himenes shouted out fiercely.

And before Ian reached Himenes, 10 skulls were summoned in front of him.

However, as it wasn’t something outside of his predictions, Ian wasn’t taken aback.

“Ddukdae, summon!”

Ian drew out Ddukdae.

As Ddukdae’s movements were slow, Ian purposely summoned him after he got as close to Himenes as possible.

If he had summoned Ddukdae from the beginning, he would have had to just watch vacantly Ly and Ian fight like a sack of barley that was shoved in.

And Ddukdae was summoned perfectly in time with the timing of the skulls’ s.h.i.+elding.

“Ice Wave!”

As soon as Ddukdae was summoned, he let out an ice wave, and Ian used Current Proliferation above him like he always did.

Thu-Thud- Za-Za-Zap!

Through the Ice Wave and Current Proliferation that shot out into the surrounding, five or six of the skulls instantly turned into slowpokes.

“Whoaa!”

Cries began to ring out from the stands here and there.

This was because they were already engaged in battle without investigating each other first when 30 seconds hadn’t even pa.s.sed since the match started.

On the other hand, Himenes, whose face was already pale, turned even paler.

“Aaack!”

This was because, despite the skulls’ obstruction, he could only hold down Ian’s ankles, while Ly leaped off of Ddukdae’s body and immediately charged towards Himenes.

And Himenes, who had basically no physical combat capability, had no way of blocking or avoiding Ly’s attacks.

As Himenes’ weak points were attacked, critical attacks were effortlessly invoked.

Subsequently, Ly’s Inherent Ability, Bleeding, was invoked shortly after, and because his Berserk skill was also already activated, his Offensive Power additionally increased.

The overlapping of the buffs and critical attacks continuously popped up.

Himenes was taken aback.

‘This cr… crazy wolf b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What the h.e.l.l, how can the wolf of a Summoner in the rookie league rip off close to 3 thousand damage?’

It was an Offensive Power that was believable even if it was said to be the Offensive Power of a lv 70-80 Shadow Wolf.

And it was too worthless for Himenes’ Vitality and Defensive Power to block Ly’s maximized Offensive Power.

“Ah, Ahh…!”

At the fault of fl.u.s.tering, Himenes couldn’t even try to properly resist.

He couldn’t even invoke one of the Black Magician’s inherent skills, Dark s.h.i.+eld.

In an instant, an unbelievable amount of Vitality of over 9 thousand was lost, and Himenes was kicked out of the arena without even a chance to try something.

Even if he had invoked the Dark s.h.i.+eld, which absorbed damage in proportion to the amount of magic possessed instantaneously, he wouldn’t have been kicked out.

And the close to 20 skulls that were summoned within the arena turned into dust and collapsed on the spot.

The first preliminary match.

Just like the match between a.s.sa.s.sin Limlong and Warrior Flio, the place was as still as death.

No, compared to then, the spectators’ shock was even bigger.

This was because number one ranking Black Magician Himenes was one of the strong winning candidate for this compet.i.tion.

“No…way…”

It was a situation that was so shocking that not only the spectators, but the operators of the game broadcasts, who came to the scene for the game, forgot their commentaries.

[1] hyung = what a younger male calls a close, older male