“Oh man! What should I do? I met you so early!”
“Well, that means you are not very lucky.”
Oizuki frowned at me, looking clearly upset, so I kindly reminded him of the cold reality.
At the same time, I squared my shoulders and gestured at him to come at me.
By doing so, I could take the time to set which skills I would like to use with the special skill points, for example, Ice Punishment.
But he gave me an unexpected reply.
“I will forfeit this duel.”
[Your opponent has forfeited the duel.
– You have won. You advance to the next round.]
The transparent wall in the centre had yet to disappear when he said that.
In other words, he gave up the duel itself.
Instead, he uttered some other words as soon as he forfeited.
“Damn it! I just regret that I’m in the same region as you! If not for you, I would have definitely achieved a high rank!’
“I have already told you before, man. Your luck is not very good.”
Perhaps, if not for me, not only the younger brother, but also his elder brother who had the Item Master trait, would have been able to advance to a high round, or maybe even win the championship. But that was not to be, as he could not defeat me who had such a high ability to even beat Smith who had a 200% actualization rate.
So as long as he was in the same region as me, he could not realize his dream of beating me at all. That meant he had no choice but to put this goal off in the intermediate term, and set it as his lifelong goal.
Since he was already in the same region as me, he was destined to share a region with me even if more walls were removed.
In other words, he would be destined to belong to the same region as me until all the regions were merged into one.
Anyway, as soon as I said that to the younger OIzuki brother, I was ejected from the arena, as always.
And the level 1500 hunting ground Land of Titan came into view.
So I continued hunting normally, as if nothing happened.
The next day I experienced something even more extraordinary. More precisely, I met a swindler.
“I am a member of the Yanghwa Guild. If you abstain here, I will compensate you accordingly. You already know the Yanghwa Guild’s reputation, right?”
Of course, I knew it very well.
The Yanghwa Guild was one of the three largest guilds in China, and I once joined hands with Chairman Daeyoung Suh of Daeyu to scammYanghwa’s Chairman Jiang Chiangrin.
It was a little awkward to say this, but I was now more famous than the Yanghwa Guild chairman. So this guy who approached me with such an offer was probably not a high level official or not even a member of the Yanhwah Guild because it was clear he didn’t know anything about me. Of course, if I had no chance of advancing to the round of 16, I would be willing to consider his offer, but winning first place in this tournament seemed as easy as taking something out of my pocket to me.
So I responded casually, “Really? Sorry to hear that. These days, what I would require as compensation for your request is not just tens of billions of golden rings and tens of thousands of coins that the Yanghwa Guild can give me. It should be worth the ransom of your chairman Jiang Chiangrin himself. You don’t seem to be as worthy as your chairman.”
As soon as I said that, I fired Ice Punishment at this guy who made an embarrassed expression.
Just like all his predecessors who collapsed at one strike, this guy, who seemed to be so proud and conceited before me, fell right away.
Anyway, I confronted lots of other players as I advanced to the next rounds and I beat them all like before.
Several days later, I had dinner with my family at the Myongjin Shelter.
“I think you beat them all, right?” my sister asked.
I nodded silently instead of replying to her question because I just took it for granted.
This time, my father opened his mouth.
“Well, you have advanced to the round of 128, so you are not that far from the final rounds.”
“Yeah.”
Now that there were exactly 128 players left, there was a lot of talk going around about who would survive until the round of 16 where the rewards came into playl. But I didn’t care about it at all because it was me who would win first place anyway.
Of course, as the rounds moved on, there was something that bothered me a bit.
In other words, I was worried about the appearance of not only the Oizuki brothers, but also those with some extraordinary traits or limited skills that I never expected, like the parasite guy.
Nonetheless, I was confident in winning because my skill and items were clearly beyond what most people possessed. That’s why I’ve won all the time so far.
Anyway, I didn’t need to worry about something that had not happened yet, so I stopped worrying about it, and turned my gaze to someone next to me who was relishing her meal.
It was none other than my sister.
“Congrats! You have advanced to the round of 128 too, sis!”
“Hahaha! Well, I was really lucky.”
As far as I knew, there were several Myongjin players who succeeded in advancing to the round of 256, but my sister was the only one who crossed that round and moved on to the round of 128. That’s why she was smiling from ear to ear.
So, I opened my mouth jokingly to stop her from smiling.
“Then, I might have a high chance of meeting you in the next round, right?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
Obviously, I said that jokingly, but she stopped smiling, and there was even a cold atmosphere at the dinner table as if I spread Ice Field on the battlefield.
So I added right away, “Hahaha! I was kidding. How can I meet you when there are 126 players excluding us.”
But the next day, I decided I should never crack jokes like that anymore.
At the arena where the event was held the next day.
“…”
“…”
I and my opponent who was on the other side of the transparent wall were just speechless because we knew each other too well.
Then the other person shouted at me first, “Juyoung, you son of a bitch!”
“…”
The other party cursed me from the beginning. Obviously, I was famous and strong enough not to be treated with such abusive language from any player, but I could not refute it at all because the other party was none other than my sister.