Chapter 13: Player Killer (2)

The woman’s split body revealed her organs, which began pouring out.

The man screamed at the gory sight. “Eri! Eri…!”

There was a reason Elder Lord was Rated R; any player properly engaging in battle in Elder Lord experienced cruelty and violence. However, Yi-An was unmoved by the violence. He merely exclaimed inwardly at the realistic anatomical depictions.

Yi-An inspected the dagger embedded in his stomach. He decided to leave it for now and focus on the remaining opponent instead. Yi-An raised his bloodied greatsword, which cast a shadow on the spearman’s face. The spearman lost his will to fight and dropped to his knees on the ground.

He whispered, “Please… as painless as possible…”

Yi-An nodded and swung his sword. His first PvP battle in Elder Lord ended with his victory.

[You have defeated all of the ambushers.]

[You have gained 200 achievement points.]

[You have leveled up.]

[Orc’s Recovery (Common) is in use.]

[You have recovered from many wounds through numerous battles.]

[Orc’s Recovery (Common) has been upgraded to Orc’s Vitality (Uncommon).]

[There is a dagger stuck in your abdomen. It will be dangerous if left untreated.]

[Status Window

Yi-An, Orc Apprentice Warrior

Title: Friend of Farmers

Level: 6

Achievement Score: 330

Assimilation: 57%

Skills:

Orc’s Superhuman Strength (Uncommon)

Orc’s Vitality (Uncommon)

Orc’s Greatsword Technique (Uncommon)

Warrior’s Fighting Spirit (Uncommon)]

Yi-An leveled up twice and upgraded two skills. Seeing this, he could understand why guys like these targeted other players.

As he looked at the corpses of the player-hunters, Yi-An observed that their bodies were turning into wavering white particles. Their bodies swayed like dandelion seeds blown by the wind and eventually became indecipherable dots. Only equipment lay where the three bodies used to be.

“...Are these all mine now?”

There was a reason player killers were in full swing.

Yi-An pulled the dagger out from his stomach and bound the wound with the player killers’ clothes that were lying on the ground.

He scanned their equipment and found there wasn’t anything special. The equipment mostly consisted of regular clothing and weapons sold at blacksmith shops. In other words, they were common weapons. Yi-An packed a spear, two sacks of daggers, and a staff that looked saleable.

Yi-An raised his head. He was in an empty area without any signs of humans around. It looked like most battlefields after the fighting ended.

He felt a surge of morale from having defeated some criminals of Elder Lord.

Yi-An spoke to himself in solitude, “Today, I met three evildoers and brought forth justice by killing them. Where are those who know honor?”

It was a wailing of an honorable orc who had punished injustice. Yi-An admired himself. He felt as if what had just happened was like a scene from a movie, but he also felt a tinge of embarrassment. His face slightly reddened as he feared someone might have heard his monologue. He quickly got up from his spot and departed from the scene.

In the deserted alley of Anail, all that remained was the clothing of the dead ambushers stuffed in the corner.

However, a lady emerged from the shadows.

“Amazing,” she muttered.

She was entirely covered in black. Even her face was concealed by a mask, but the form-fitting clothes revealed the silhouette of her alluring body.

“I came to cover news on player killers but found something much more interesting…”

The lady gazed at the remains of where the player killers had last been.

Jackson, Brown, and Eri were player killers active in the whole district of Anail. They were famous for attacking all players, regardless of whether they were beginners. They would approach players pretending to be friendly and then stab them in the back. If they deemed the player to be weak, they would kill them and loot their items. They aimed specifically at players who were unaccustomed to battle. Thus, there were many complaints about them in the area.

However, they seemed to have made a mistake as they went for an orc NPC and got slaughtered. The battle scene had been astounding. The orc had an audacity that players could not emulate. He was unafraid of blood and decisive to the core. His solemn monologue at the end of the battle was perfect for her video.

The lady thought of a title that suited the scene she had just filmed: ‘Immoral Player Killers Receive Justice!’ She had previously uploaded a video of these player killers’ past misdeeds. The scenes of them ambushing new players, approaching them, or stabbing them in the back had reached an explosive number of views. They had to have been laying low because people could now recognize their faces. Then, they acted hastily and mistook an NPC for a player.

She rewound the video and nodded. People raved about stuff like this—evildoers forgetting their place and acting out of line and then falling to rock bottom because of someone stronger than them. Moreover, there was also a cool monologue from the bringer of justice!

The lady scanned her surroundings and then logged out.

***

Park Jung-Tae smiled at Yi-Yoo, who was chatting busily next to him.

“Hey, Park Jung-Tae, what level are you?”

“I told you I don’t play ‘cause I don’t have a capsule.”

“Then, why don’t you go to the capsule room?”

“Instead of leveling up in the game, you should level up in your life. I heard you did horribly on the exam.”

“Wow, why are you coming at me with facts?”

They were sitting in the university cafe. Their economics lectures had ended, so they were spending time together in between classes.

They were talking about trivial matters when their classmates saw them and yelled, “Ah, there’s Yi-Yoo! Jung Yi-Yoo!”

“Park Jung-Tae is there too?”

Girls swarmed around them and sat next to them.

“What are you two up to?”

“Suspicious… Could it be… Wow… Park Jung-Tae, not bad…”

Yi-Yoo smirked. “If you are going to say nonsense, just leave.”

“That’s harsh. If you keep talking like that, I’m going to summon a rabbit. Do you want to get punished by a rabbit again?”

“Ah, so noisy.”

After the incident where Yi-Yoo was killed by a rabbit, her friends brought it up frequently to tease her.

“Anyways, have you seen it?”

“What?”

“Youvidser Laney’s video.”

Youvidsers were content creators on the world’s largest video upload site, Youvids. Of course, it was the trend to make content related to Elder Lord on Youvids. Laney was a star Youvidser who began gaining attention by reporting rude players. Somehow, she had managed to encroach and film them in full detail.

There was a rumor circulating that Laney was a high-level assassin because the filmed players were unable to detect her presence.

“I haven’t watched it.”

“Look, look. It’s a big hit. It’s a video of three player killers getting humiliated.”

One of Yi-Yoo’s friends brought out her tablet. Yi-Yoo, Park Jung-Tae, and her friends gathered around it.

[Laney: Player Killers Served by Justice. Cider.] [1].

In the first scene, the three players were smirking at the orc standing in front of them.

Captions written by Laney popped up.

[Rude player killers discover an orc player!]

“Orc? There are orc players?”

“Keep watching.”

[They were planning to ambush the player as usual…]

The player killers laughed as the orc seemed to falter. However, the orc charged and chopped off the wizard’s neck in an instant.

“Wow.”

“Crazy, right?”

The player killers’ shocked faces filled the screen.

[But wrong! It was an error! The orc was an NPC!]

The fight shifted to two versus one. The two player killers were quite adept at handling the orc since they were accustomed to battles from hunting numerous players, so the orc got cornered.

“Is the orc gonna lose?”

“It’s coming.”

Then the woman pierced her dagger deep into the orc. As if waiting for this moment, the orc slashed through the female hunter’s torso, splitting the player killer’s body in two.

Yi-Yoo flinched for a second at the violent scene.

“He let himself get injured so that he could inflict a fatal injury on her!” Park Jung-Tae exclaimed.

The woman’s body crumbled, and the lone spearman dropped to his knees. He whispered something to the orc, and the orc nodded in return. The orc beheaded the spearman in a single blow. The battle of three versus one was over!

Although the player killers had the upper hand as the majority, their strength levels weren’t that different from the orc’s. However, the orc’s skills and audacity overpowered them.

It was a true battle!

“This is why you can’t mess with an NPC.”

The dead players’ bodies turned white and disappeared. The orc packed up their weapons and stood up. The video did not end there.

“...There’s more?”

“Listen closely.”

The orc stood straight like a rod and looked off into the empty space.

He opened his mouth and said, “Today, I met three evildoers and brought forth justice by killing them.”

The orc clenched his fist.

He continued in a piercing voice, “Where are those who know honor?”

With those words as his last, he disappeared into the darkness of the city.

Yi-Yoo and Park Jung-Tae watched with their mouths agape.

“...Amazing.”

“...There’s something really cool about him.”

It was cringy, but they felt a surge of morale from the scene.

The comments section exploded.

-Elder Lord One Way: On my way to becoming an orc.

-Arigato: 222222 [2]

-I’m the Best: 222222

-Joripong Yoripong: 222222

-Jo In-Sung Trash: 2222so coolㅠㅜ

-(show more)

-My Name is Yota: Our orc crazy;;;; honorswag;;

-Dragon Bra: If the last scene isn’t staged, real swag

-Ninano: He really seems like an NPC;;; real swag orc big brother

-Orc Player Killer: An orc is a monster no matter what. Acknowledge it!

-Orc Player Number 1 Maguchwi: Filthy humans!! Die!! Shout bul’tar!!!

-Camper May: The real one is here!!!!!!!!

-Oscar Azar: Maguchwi is an endangered orc sorcerer lol he is a true orc player

-I’m Beta: Shit he’s still doing orc hahahahahaha

-Jungle King Bang God: He was whining about resetting looooool

-(show more)

-Normal Person: Even so, no one chooses to be an orc…

-Americano: Orc’s tears ㅜㅜ

-Angel In You: ㅜㅜ Oslam’s tears…

-Orc Player Number 2 Kukwakta: Shout to the top of your lungs! Buuul’taaar!!!!!!!!

-Oscar Azar: HAHA It’s an Oslam festival

-Delicious Omurice: The Oslams are going crazy looool

-Psychedelia: lololololololol there are quite a bit of Oslams around

-Orcs Never Die: hehehehehehehe what does bul’tar mean

-(show more)

(show more)

Regular players as well as Oslams, orc players who were religiously devoted to orcs, went wild.

Yi-Yoo’s eyes glistened after watching the video and the comments. “Should I restart the game as an orc?”

“Are you crazy?”

“...Not a good idea?”

“Orcs aren't for you.”

Park Jung-Tae briefly thought about playing Elder Lord again, but he came to his senses. The character he made a while ago was a human. He had been pursuing the path of a blacksmith, but he quit because he was too busy with his part-time job and school. He didn’t have time to play games.

It was almost time for the next lecture.

Park Jung-Tae got up. “I’m heading to my next class.”

“Okay, bye. See you tomorrow.”

“Jung-Tae, bbye~”

“Bye!”

Park Jung-Tae was heading to the economics department when someone called out to him.

“Hey, Park Jung-Tae!”

“Huh?”

A foreign car stopped in the street. The car door opened, and someone ran up to him.

Park Jung-Tae frowned as it was the senior he got into a brawl with over Yi-Yoo.

“Hey, what the fuck did you do? Huh? What the fuck happened?!”

“What are you talking about?” Jung-Tae replied.

“I will apologize, so please cancel everything. I will pay for your medical expenses, so please return everything back to normal.”

“W-What?”

“My dad’s company went out of business!”

“Why are you bringing that up with me…?”

“The only possible cause is you! Why would all of the clients suddenly cut us off? All of them abandoned our company after we fought…”

The senior frantically begged Park Jung-Tae without a care as to who saw them. A familiar face popped up in Park Jung-Tae’s mind after hearing the upperclassman’s words. It had to have been Jung Yi-An, Yi-Yoo’s older brother and the owner of Café Reason.

“I beg you. I didn’t know you were powerful, so please…”

“No, sunbae, I really don’t know what happened. If I could do something like that, why would I work so many part-time jobs? I would just do whatever I wanted in my free time.”

“Ah…”

“I don’t know what happened. Anyway, I hope it gets resolved soon. I have to go to my lecture.”

“Hey, let’s settle! Let’s settle as if nothing happened! We have to write a contract anyway. Let’s do it now!”

“Right now?”

“Yeah, now.”

Park Jung-Tae nodded.

Then he recalled what Yi-An had said, “Jung-Tae, I will take care of everything, so don’t worry.”

Park Jung-Tae didn’t understand what was going on, but he knew everything was being taken care of.


1. In Korea, cider is often used to describe refreshing situations in which a problem is resolved or there’s payback to an evildoer for a misdeed

2. Repeated 2s express agreement and is a numerical version of 'I second this.'


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