Chapter 343: Episode 343_Life Is About Coming Empty-Handed and Leaving Loaded (4)

7.

An incredible number of items came tumbling out.

“Why do you have so much stuff?”

“Boss, I spent the last few months circling the entire continent.”

Simin was speechless.

’Are you even human?’

The words rose to the back of his throat, but Han Simin didn’t let them slip out.

It wasn’t so much out of respect for his elder as it was a situation where that passion deserved praise.

“You really have all sorts of things here.”

“I tried to choose and choose again, keeping your tastes in mind as much as possible, Boss.”

“Now that you mention it, you’re right. These are all things I’d actually buy.”

The very fact that Han Simin was checking the options on this mountain of items one by one meant that Nodaji’s eye was dead-on.

Han Simin valued that kind of thing highly.

The sight of someone working hard for money.

Maybe it was because he had never shown that kind of effort himself, back when he had been living in a tiny one-room studio, eating one packet of instant ramen a day, bowing and scraping to bosses just to earn a single extra coin and turn his life around.

He nodded and boldly began picking out items.

As he tossed each one behind him, the waiting Rabbits caught it and stuffed it into their pouches.

Of the entire pile, the vast majority of items were chosen by Han Simin.

Once he finished, he smiled benevolently.

It was an uncharacteristic extravagance.

“How about it? I bought a lot, right?”

“...Thank you.”

Nodaji nodded, looking dazed, as if he had never imagined he would sell this much.

He had grown enough to show a bit of backbone to Han Simin, but he still didn’t have the courage to push any further.

This was the difference between those who had held that kind of money and those who had not.

Just imagining touching that much money all at once made his mouth water.

Nodaji scrambled to finish his calculations.

By the time he tallied the final sum and tried to speak, his mouth was bone-dry.

’Can I really ask for this much?’

These were items he had spent months collecting, roaming the continent without sleep and nearly dying several times over. He had sworn to himself dozens—no, hundreds—of times that he would demand their true value. He had settled on this price with that resolve, but it was still an enormous amount to actually say out loud.

It wasn’t that he was in an inescapable, subordinate position in the contract; it was simply the fear of handling a sum of money he had never touched before.

Han Simin saw the mix of excitement, anticipation, and anxiety on his face.

“Just text me the total. I’m a bit busy right now, so I’ll transfer it later.”

“Ah, yes, sir!”

Simin had no reason, nor any intention, to stiff him.

He had always believed that saving money was good, but if he started lowballing people on payments he was rightfully supposed to make, their business relationship would degrade. Trust would vanish.

If there were a profit to be made that way, he wouldn’t say it was impossible, but in the long run, he would be the one losing out.

The only reason his 100% Enhancement ability had allowed him and Kenji to exchange such huge sums—despite Kenji’s resentment—was because that ability was literally unique in the entire game.

The same applied to Nodaji.

Even if it wasn’t Simin, there were plenty of people across the continent who would buy items with special options. Grave Robber items in particular—those dug out of tombs—often carried rare options one would never see on items dropped by raid monsters.

For Simin, who enhanced items and multiplied their value several times over before selling them, it was as if he were now playing Kenji’s role in this new relationship.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. Thanks to you, I’ve now got a shot at a gamble.”

Han Simin’s steps felt lighter than before as he left the forest.

*

Demons never imagined they could die at the hands of something as lowly as a human.

They assumed victory was guaranteed.

Humans, on the other hand, instinctively felt wary the moment they saw demons, who were larger than them and bizarre in appearance. On top of that, demons possessed horns and wings.

More importantly, there wasn’t a single person born on the continent who hadn’t heard stories about demons at least once in their life.

Monsters that ate humans alive.

A cruel race said to rip people limb from limb whenever they were bored.

Hearing such tales was enough to create prejudice, and seeing them in person only confirmed it. They looked exactly as fearsome as the stories claimed, projected a murderous aura, and had, in fact, just demonstrated that very cruelty in front of millions.

This difference in mindset created an enormous gap before a single blow was even struck.

Humans would shrink back, their morale would plummet, and no matter how numerous they were, the thought would creep in: ’Can we really win?’

That was the normal reaction.

However, the mood of the war right now was anything but normal.

“Raaah!”

“We killed a demon!”

“Whoooaa!”

“We can win!”

To be precise, the atmosphere had changed only after the humans had been subjected to a one-sided massacre.

Just as those who had charged in with courage and hope began to falter and slowly back away, a scream had torn through the air.

That scream was what broke them out of their normal state of fear.

A demon, which had seemed invincible, had fallen.

In the face of certain death, that single event was the answer they needed: ’We can win. We can survive.’

After that, the battle devolved into a brutal slugfest.

Even though one demon had died, it was ultimately just an accident. The demons were still overwhelmingly strong, and it didn’t take long for tens of thousands of humans to be slaughtered.

Even so, the humans did not retreat. Under the barrage of attacks flying in from all directions, demons began to fall as well—one by one, barely a noticeable dent in their ranks of tens of thousands, but falling nonetheless.

Neither side held a clear advantage.

It was a dead heat.

If this war of attrition continued, the demons would inevitably be the ones to lose in the end.

No one in that massive crowd was actually calculating the odds, but the soldiers, feeling the flow of the battlefield with their bodies, only shouted louder and swung their weapons, with no intention of calming their fervor.

Han Simin slipped into that chaos.

As he pushed his way in, his body no longer carried the crimson aura that symbolized him. His outfit was shabby and plain to the extreme. It wasn’t quite as pathetic as his old newbie gear, but on a blood-soaked battlefield where everyone wore the best armor they could find to improve their odds of survival, his attire was so unremarkable that one’s eyes would simply slide past him.

Besides, most people’s attention was not on other humans at all, but on the demons rampaging among them, flaunting their strength.

In other words, no one had the capacity to pay attention to Han Simin.

He exploited that blind spot without mercy.

“Urgh! What the hell!”

“Gah!”

His hammer swung.

People collapsed.

The soldiers who turned their heads to see what was happening couldn’t escape becoming targets either.

“Wh-what the hell!”

“What’s wrong with him!”

“Is he out of his mind?!”

They were already barely holding their own against the demons.

If he had been completely outside the demons’ attack range, the idle troops could have simply turned and attacked the traitor. But Simin was killing people while staying just within the demons’ combat zone, which made it impossible to respond.

If they pulled troops away to deal with him, the line facing the demons would thin. They were barely holding on as it was, with casualties mounting; if that happened, the balance would collapse.

Still, what choice did they have?

This was a battlefield, and everyone was on edge. In a place where only allies and enemies existed, anyone who attacked an ally—whether demon, human, or celestial—was the enemy.

“Raaah!”

“Kill that bastard too!”

“He’s a turncoat!”

“He might be a warlock!”

Charging at demons in the first place meant throwing your life away. Their brief hesitation had only been because they couldn’t understand why a human would be killing other humans in a situation like this.

Now, people rushed at Han Simin.

He did not dodge.

Normally, he would have run away and picked them off one by one with cheap tricks.

But not now.

Right now, he was fully buffed.

He was in a state he had not once achieved in the entire year and a half he had been playing 『Fantastic World』. He had grinded, tamed monsters, and gone through all sorts of trials for this very day.

Those memories flashed through his mind.

Taming a Main Quest boss monster, the dragon that had hatched from an egg he had obtained by chance in the Emperor’s vault...

Looking back, he had to admit he hadn’t been unlucky at all; he had been riding a wave of good fortune.

The first piece of that fortune was the most recent he had acquired, and the jewel he cherished most.

“You can do it, Oppa!”

Han Yeori’s voice came through the guild chat from where she was hiding at a distance. Her level wasn’t high yet, but she had raised it enough to cast buffs that would help him in this war.

His body felt noticeably lighter. Some of his stats were capped, but Legendary-grade buffs could pierce even those limits and raise his stats further, which made them all the more valuable.

The Bamboo Spear Hammer, the great equalizer, felt lighter in his hands. It felt like he could kill twenty people with a single swing.

And on top of that came more.

GRUNT!

A cry he hadn’t heard in a long time. The voice of Sudal, the otter, that for some reason always made him want to bully it.

[You are under the effect of ‘Rune: Echo of Earthquake’ for 300 seconds.]

[On attack, all enemies within a radius of approximately 33 feet take damage.]

[You are under the effect of ‘Rune: Hammer of Divine Punishment’ for 300 seconds.]

[During the duration, your Attack Power is increased by 100%.]

[The two Runes have fused, granting you the effect of ‘Special Rune: Caution—Explosion’.]

The best possible rune effects stacked on top of each other. He couldn’t have asked for better luck.

From Han Simin’s body—pathetic in appearance, smeared with blood—light began to shine.

The effects of the two runes, the synergy of their fusion, overflowed from him in visible streams.

Once he confirmed it, Han Simin swung his hammer without a moment’s hesitation.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

It wasn’t that he had been hiding them, but the abilities people had grown to forget about—Han Simin’s powers—were now laid bare before the entire world.

Every gaze on the battlefield, even the demons’ eyes, focused on him.

In that instant of focus, Simin’s other ’limbs’—his pets—sprang into action.

“Argh!”

“What the—!”

With the chaos reaching its peak, the battlefield erupted into noise once again.

*

From the moment he stepped out of the forest, the viewers’ chat scrolled at eight times its usual speed.

—What the hell is he doing?

—He’s up to something again.

—Are we finally going to see Simin’s real power?

—LOL what “real power.” At best he just brute-forces everything with his gear. He’s probably going to try and cheese it again with some kind of nuke or whatever.

—The guy above me clearly doesn’t know Simin. If you’d watched from the very beginning, you’d know. For nearly a year he’s been running around making money instead of upgrading his specs, so it’s hard to tell if he’s an Enhancer or a con artist, but at the start he went nuts on Enhancement, upgraded his territory, met Sudal, tamed the Rabbits, got a dragon... it was great. Sigh. It’s still exciting now, but I miss that old version of him too.

—Oh, shut up. How long ago was that, lol. Aside from Kenji, barely any of the guys who were coasting with him back then are even around anymore. Besides, he’s a production class, so what’s this crap about him wiping a battlefield? If Simin actually pulls that off, I’ll drop $100,000 on this channel.

As always, the argument continued.

And as always, Han Simin answered not in the chat, but with the broadcast itself.

The fast-moving chat froze for a moment.

It had to. It was a chain of breathless moments.

Three hundred seconds.

When that dazzling, rune-fueled high finally ended—

—Where’s the bastard who said he’d drop $100,000?

The user who had promised $100,000 said nothing.

*