GBAS 11

The price of his bravado was devastating. From the moment he spat out those words until now, Hyunwoo had not been okay for a single moment. Not ever, not never, not ever, ever. The words he’d uttered kept ringing in his head.

‘Well, it’s not like this is the first or second time something like this has happened to me.’

Unbelievable.

“Why on earth did I say something like that…?”

If he was trying to act cool, then he’d succeeded. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t wrong to say it wasn’t the first or second time, either. After all, his own experience was zero, which was indeed countless.

If you really, really wanted to get technical about it.

“……”

His face flushed as he recalled the image of himself shrugging his shoulders along with those words.

Ah, so embarrassing.

Sitting atop the swiftly running Frost, Hyunwoo buried his face in the soft fur and whimpered.

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[General] Camellia: The situation isn’t great right now

[General] Camellia: Don’t you think it’d be too much?

[General] Jinyoung-kun: I agree~!

[General] JuJuGeneralAssembly: OK OK, let’s just play for fun, for fun

As Frost landed on the ground, a gust of wind blew, rustling the nearby tree branches. The hard-to-ignore presence drew the gazes of the people who had been chatting.

[General] JuJuGeneralAssembly: Took you long enough

One person from the group, who had been gathered in twos and threes, stood up. The character who leaped up, with a striking high pink ponytail, was NoRegretKeepGoing.

As NoRegretKeepGoing walked with a cheerful gait, her hair swayed gently. Hyunwoo leaped nimbly off the back of the wolf, which was crouched low to the ground, and thrust a heavy-looking auxiliary bag at the person standing before him.

[General] NoRegretKeepGoing: You brought the right stuff, I hope

With narrowed eyes, NoRegretKeepGoing lowered their voice and spoke as if they were in the middle of a shady deal.

Ordinarily, Hyunwoo would have played along with the role-playing that started at the drop of a hat, but today was not a good day. Completely drained, Hyunwoo shook his head with a reluctant expression and said, “I just, you know, brought a decent amount.”

As he answered, mixing in a sigh from the wave of exhaustion washing over him, the sparkle in the other’s expectant eyes faded, and their lips jutted out in a pout.

[General] NoRegretKeepGoing: Boo, you’re no fun

When they didn’t take what he offered, Hyunwoo nudged the hand holding the bag once, as if to say, “Hurry up and take it.”

[General] NoRegretKeepGoing: You’re so cold…

Snorting, NoRegretKeepGoing took the bag, opened the pouch, and their expression softened into a grin. Despite pretending to be annoyed, Hyunwoo had packed quite well. Murmuring “Good, good,” NoRegretKeepGoing began examining the items Hyunwoo had brought, and the party members who had been sitting in the distance got up one by one.

[General] NoRegretKeepGoing: Alright, alright, form a line!

Hyunwoo silently watched NoRegretKeepGoing whirl around and run excitedly toward the gathered party members, and the others tactfully lining up in front of them. He then unsummoned Frost and trudged away.

Hyunwoo slumped down onto one of the few hay bales stacked along the roadside fence, his shoulders drooping like waterlogged cotton.

To feel this drained after just a brief encounter. Hyunwoo shook his head with a weary face and let out a sigh that he pulled up from the pit of his stomach.

Huuu—.

In truth, it wasn’t anything special. How could a moment like today have been the only one?

His head understood that running into him was unavoidable as long as they were in the same guild, but when the situation actually arose, his body would freeze up like a wimp. This, too, was unavoidable.

“……”

If his feelings for him were merely uncomfortable, it wouldn’t be this complicated.

This is driving me crazy.

His head spun from the chaotic jumble of all sorts of scenes and thoughts. Puffing his cheeks out with a deep breath, Hyunwoo ruffled his own hair and muttered in a small voice, “Baek Jooin……”

Meanwhile, oblivious to Hyunwoo’s inner turmoil, the party members were busy preparing to enter the dungeon.

After receiving healing items from NoRegretKeepGoing, they each organized their items and continued their conversation.

[General] Jinyoung-kun: It’s 9:30 now

[General] Jinyoung-kun: Shouldn’t we leave around 9:50?

[General] BlueSticker: Yep yep, it opens at 10, so we should have plenty of time

The place they were heading to was the Blue Land’s first dungeon, the “Beka Dungeon.”

[General] NoRegretKeepGoing: What was the boss there again

[General] JuJuGeneralAssembly: I think it was something like Vashin?

[General] JuJuGeneralAssembly: The one that appeared on horseback?

The official video uploaded to YouTube announcing the New Continent update had briefly shown scenes from the new dungeons. The Beka Dungeon was set in a dark cave within a rocky area, and it was said that due to the influence of the dungeon’s boss, the demon “Vashin,” monsters resembling snakes would appear.

[General] JuJuGeneralAssembly: They said something about swarms of flies and mantises

[General] NoRegretKeepGoing: Ugh;;

It wasn’t just the monsters that were influenced by the boss in a dungeon.

Fortunately, the demon “Vashin” was said to be highly skilled in handling herbs and gems. Users, knowing that the dungeon’s internal environment was created to reflect the abilities of the demon controlling it, expected to be able to gather more herbs and gems inside the dungeon than anywhere else.

For crafter-class users, who were always struggling to procure materials, this news was like rain in a drought.

<The Frontier> Inven Free Board

202*-08-11 13:43 Views 281 Recommended 0

Author: Doitdoit

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[Free/Chat] The Labor Boom is Coming

Dungeon? Nah

The Beka <Mine> is the rising mecca of manual labor

Just you wait, the sweat of laborers with pickaxes will drench the waiting room

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List | Comments (7)

RoyalTable: Day 1 of praying for potion prices to drop

RedBeanBread: Recruiting new members for the <National Workers’ Union> guild. Guild Master RedBeanBread /

Vice Master BlueButterflysWings. Friend request or message me haha

└ GentleBreeze: Is there a level requirement?

└Spade12: Do your labor in real life;

└CapitalRegion: fr, those pharmacist bastards who RMT are gonna make a killing lol

└ StrongHerb: But how do pharmacists even RMT? Material costs are insane;;

└ RankingIsHigh: Forgot about the price-fixing already? lololol

└ GoForBroke: Just because you buy it with money, you think you’re a consumer? What are you? You’re the one who dies without potsㅠㅠ Whether they make one killing or two, I hope you make a ton, sirs. If you have items to sell, please contact [GoForBroke]^^

The smiles on the users’ faces, which had been wide right up until the update, turned into grimaces in less than a full day.

The problem was the dungeon’s difficulty. The users didn’t know this, but the Beka Dungeon, designed so that one had to go through a whopping four mid-bosses from the 1st to the 50th basement floor just to meet the final boss Vashin, was incomparably more difficult and intricate than any dungeon they had faced before.

Many parties had set off in a hurry as soon as the path to the New Continent opened, but most of them were kicked out on their first try without lasting even an hour.

It seemed to be just as difficult for teams composed solely of rankers. They seemed to last a couple of hours longer than others, but before they could hit the three-hour mark, every single one of them was spat out into the lobby looking gaunt. The fact that even those front-runners hadn’t even seen past the 30th basement floor said it all.

Recalling the particularly shabby-looking figure tucked into the corner of a screenshot at the bottom of the forum post that had once drawn laughter, JuJuGeneralAssembly clicked their tongue in annoyance and said.

[General] JuJuGeneralAssembly: Those cheap bastards

[General] JuJuGeneralAssembly: Would it kill them to share some info

<The Frontier> users hadn’t been stingy with sharing information before, but this time was different. Even though it had been a full three days since the dungeon opened, no information about the dungeon’s coordinates or its internal state could be found anywhere on the internet. It was a strange phenomenon caused by the excessively high difficulty.

The stance of those who had set out early and monopolized the information was firm. They said, as if it were obvious:

[@@@: Until there’s a team that clears it, everyone here is a competitor. I can’t even secure my own meal ticket right now, so isn’t it shameless to ask to be spoon-fed? You guys figure it out by throwing your own bodies at it!]

They were right.

‘Right to get a beating!’

It was absolutely ridiculous how they acted so high and mighty for getting a head start on one stupid dungeon, forgetting all the goodwill they had received until now. It was truly laughable.

Having inadvertently recalled that detestable face again in a moment of distraction, JuJuGeneralAssembly shuddered as if he had appeared right in front of them.

Until “that” remark was made, users had been rooting for a first-clear guild to emerge. But thanks to the all-out aggro drawn by a certain someone leading the charge, they had turned a little… just a little, to the dark side.

And so, they began to pray with one heart.

‘I don’t care who it is, but please, let it not be that bastard….’