Riiiing- Riiiiing-
I woke up to the sound of my alarm.
Surprisingly, I saw a white ceiling. I wasn’t in Royal Roader but in my room in Daejeon.
I subconsciously sat up.
‘What! I wasn’t able to go into Royal Roader?’
When I looked at the clock, it was 7am. Since I fell back asleep a little over 4 am, I slept for about three hours.
Then I should have spent about 3 days in Royal Roader.
But I just slept before waking up. It was such a good sleep that I didn’t even dream once.
What is going on?
I then remembered what I did and what he had said in the Chaos Battle.
[I will give you a time restriction.]
I was wondering what he meant by that but I guess this was it. He was going to restrict the amount of time I got to be in Royal Roader.
It is a serious restriction. So scary that it is giving me gooseb.u.mps all over. I only failed to enter Royal Roader this once, but it is already filling me with fear.
That’s how important Royal Roader is to me.
No, it is pretty much my everything. Without Royal Roader, I would still be so poor that I would worry about the price of a soondae gukbap.
It’s not much different now.
My life is controlled by Royal Roader. I earn money in Royal Roader, and I get the benefits of the jewels that I get from Royal Roader.
If those benefits were to disappear?
I would just be an empty sh.e.l.l. I would just need to live like a pig with the money currently left in my bank account.
That is the cold truth about my reality. There’s nothing I’m really good at yet or any skills that i’ve really developed.
Of course I was working on it. I was experiencing all sorts of sports to find the right one that fits my strengths and works well with the skill creation.
Based on the results of my work, I could better understand the nature of the skill ability.
Skill is something that helps you repeat something the same way over and over. Because of that, rather than a complicated movement, it is better to make multiple skills with simple movements. That is the way to make it increase the fastest.
The most suitable sports were billiards and golf, especially golf.
It is a sport where you hit a ball using the same movement over and over. The best golf players can always send the ball in the same direction for the same distance.
In other words, it is the best sport to create skills for.
If I do it right, I can also earn a lot of money.
That was why I’ve been spending a lot of time practicing golf these days. My goal is to be the world’s greatest golfer in the future. But that was still far away. I needed more time.
No, I need to decrease the time. Time isn’t something someone can give me more of because I need it.
Maybe G.o.d gave me this, ‘time restriction,’ to teach me that lesson.
Regardless of what the reason may be, I need to work my a.s.s off from here. If I can’t change even after going through something like this, I don’t have the right to succeed.
But how long will I need to wait until I can get back into Royal Roader?
I hope he didn’t mean I can never go back.
But that shouldn’t be it since he said we will meet again in the future.
I am certain I will be able to return.
The problem is what comes after that.
He said we will battle again.
If I lose again that time, I would get an even stricter restriction.
I don’t want that. No matter what, I need to find a method to win.
I feel like I could win if I came up with a good strategy.
Honestly speaking, this battle wasn’t one I should have lost either. As the situation moved in my favor, my opponent’s abilities were suddenly upgraded.
It was clearly cheating.
But it was a battle without a judge. There was only a winner and a loser.
In order to win a battle like that, I need to not give them the chance to cheat. I need to take care of them instantly before they can even tell there is a difference in ability.
It is impossible with just combo.
‘I need to procure a high damage attack.’
But it wasn’t like I could suddenly give up on agility and focus on strength or magic. Then I won’t end up being good at anything.
I need to find a way to continue my agility build while landing a strong hit.
I wonder if here is a way.
If there is an answer, it would be in the drafts.
I gave Kang Sung Ho a call.
– Yes boss-nim.
“Find a method to cause high damage in one hit without raising strength or magic that much.”
– That’s not something I can search with a keyword. It will take a really long time. Or I will need to use a lot of people.
As Kang Sung Ho mentioned, it would take a lot of time. It is something you can only find by reading through each file one by one.
But I could not wait that long. Even if he needed to hire 100 people, I needed him to find it as soon as possible.
It’s only money. I don’t need to save it.
I offered it to Kang Sung Ho in a different way.
“I will first deposit 50,000,000 won, so find it for me within a month. Every day you take less than a month, I will give you 2,000,000 won more. You figure out how to get it done.”
It is a chance for him to earn 100,000,000 won at once if he’s lucky.
Kang Sung Ho’s voice could not help but get louder.
– Wow, really? I understand.
Ding-
I received a text.
“Already?”
I wondered if Kang Sung Ho was contacting me and opened my phone.
It wasn’t Kang Sung Ho. Of course it wouldn’t be him, there’s no way he would have found it in a single day.
[Blue Sky Enterprises]
Looking at the content, it was the research they did on Hw.a.n.g Joon Yul.
‘Ah, I asked them to look up some information about Hw.a.n.g Joon Yul.’
All of my attention was on Royal Roader that I had forgotten about my request.
It was a message saying they will send the files through e-mail.
I opened my e-mail.
The file was 13 pages long.
But I could not really pay much attention to it.
It was because of Royal Roader. I couldn’t go in yesterday either.
Not being able to go there makes me nervous. I can’t focus on anything. I can barely pay attention to things.
‘I can’t be like this. I need to be calm.’
I thought that way in my head, but my mind would not work with me.
But I still needed to be calm. It wasn’t like I could control anything related to entering Royal Roader.
Plus, I can’t fall from such small obstacle.
I need to win. I need to get tougher the more I get hit. That is the only way to see a better future.
‘Alright. Let’s not focus on the things that are out of my control. Let’s just focus on the things I can focus on right now.’
I took another look at the research information about Hw.a.n.g Joon Yul. Every time my mind was distracted, I calmed myself and focused again.
“Wow, he is not a golden spoon but a diamond spoon.”
“Violence against the elderly? He really is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
And then something caught my attention.
[Pa.s.sed the Golf Semi-Pro test]
Now that I think about it, Hw.a.n.g Joon Yul played golf until middle school. We didn’t talk much, but whenever he was talking to his underlings, the term, ‘golf,’ came up a lot.
But for him to pa.s.s the semi-pro test.
I’m sure his dream isn’t to be a professional golfer. He’s set to take over his dad’s business.
But for him to still become a semi-golfer must mean that he really likes to golf.
I suddenly had a new goal as well.
‘Properly step on, no trample on Hw.a.n.g Joon Yul through golf.’
His shock would be much greater if I could trample on him with something Hw.a.n.g Joon Yul really likes and is really confident about.
I started to imagine the look of despair on Hw.a.n.g Joon Yul’s face once I destroy him in golf. Just thinking about it was refreshing.
Thanks to that, my chaotic mind calmed down a bit as well.
‘I will focus even more on golf starting tomorrow.’
It was starting to get late.
I headed to sleep. I was praying in my mind as I laid down.
‘Please let me enter today.’
I heard a loud noise. It wasn’t the sound of cars or horns, but a noise made of only voices.
I instantly thought to myself that, ‘I’m in!’
There was a voice that verified that I was right.
I opened my eyes.
I could see the clear blue sky. There were no ceilings or high rises, just a perfectly clear sky.
I looked around.
I could see the fancy and beautiful buildings of Avanguarde. I also saw the Gracia Statue, as well as the many warriors all laying down around it.
“Son of a b.i.t.c.h.”
I could hear someone swearing as well. For some reason, I felt like it was directed at me.
I turned my head.
It was the young man with the hundreds of party members that were either his slaves or servants. The punk who claimed he would kill me first for declining his party request.
Unfortunately, he ended up being the one to die by my cutla.s.s as soon as the battle started.
He must know that I was the one responsible for killing him as well.
But all he could do was grumble. He couldn’t do anything to me. It was because the priest of the Ares Temple was protecting me. It was because I was the last one left in the arena.
I was certain that I had returned to Royal Roader.
I felt like a rock that was pushing down on my chest was lifted. How can I express this feeling?
‘Haaa, thank goodness!’
“Kang Hwi Ram, please head to the castle. As the winner, you will be meeting with his royal highness. You just need to get on that stagecoach.”
The priest from the Ares Temple pointed to a stagecoach.
I didn’t have time to think about anything else right now. My head was only full of the ‘time restriction.’
“I understand.”
I started to walk toward the stagecoach the priest pointed at.
“His name is Kang Hwi Ram? I will remember it. You just watch.”
I don’t care what you do. I don’t have the time to care about someone like you right now.
I got on the stagecoach. There was n.o.body else in it. It was a ride just for me.
The stagecoach slowly started to move as soon as I got on.
I returned to thinking about the time restraint.
Until now, I was able to enter Royal Roader whenever I went to sleep.
But I could not do that anymore. Because of the time restraint.
“How often am I allowed to enter?”
If it follows a pattern, I think it is four days in here and two days out. I had spent four days in Royal Roader before I was kicked out, and I was only able to enter after 2 days i the real world.
I’ll need to experience it a few more times to get the specifics.
Either way, it is quite a big loss.
I want to return it to normal. If that is not possible, I want to at least avoid another restraint.
There is only one way to do that! I need to increase my skills and make sure I win the next battle.
‘I feel like as if can do it as long as I find a strong, one-hit attack.’
I’m sure Kang Sung Ho is working hard to find it right now. If he can’t find it, I’ll need to hire someone else to try to find it again.
There was also a different method.
Jewel Alchemy.
If I can raise it to the advanced level, I can reach the level of One with the Sword where my mind is connected to my sword. The power of the fairies stored in the jewels would serve as the medium to connect my mind with the sword.
The problem is time. It is something that would not happen until the far future.
But I can only do as much as I can. That is the only thing I can do right now.
‘Let’s try it again.’
My Jewel Alchemy skill was already at intermediate level 3. Not only did I meet the requirement for the blacksmith quest, I should be able to combine Jewels of Luck now as well.
But my current skill level is not enough to raise the luck index up a lot even if I successfully combined it. I will attempt to combine Jewels of Luck only when I raise my skill level up a bit more.
I opened my bag and took out a Jewel of Creation. I focused as much as I could in a shaking stagecoach and attempted to combine the jewels.
“Please get off. We cannot take the stagecoach from here.”
Did we already arrive at the castle?
Now that I think about it, I was about to attempt my fifth combination. Since each combination takes more than 10 minutes, we should have been moving for about an hour.
Thanks to Jewel Alchemy, my mind, that was in chaos because of the time restraint, was calm again as well.
I got off the stagecoach.
At the same time, I felt like my eyes were becoming brighter.
‘The place that the royalty live is really different!’
Should I call it a difference in fanciness? It seemed to show me the wealth of the Ameri Kingdom.
There were five other winners as well.
Among them was also a champion.
Winners represented the people who got 1st place among the partic.i.p.ants of the level, while the champions not only beat out all other compet.i.tors, they also managed to overcome the valkyries and end up the last one standing.
The champion’s name was Kenyon.
He is really amazing. He became the champion in the highest level Chaos Battle. 5 years in a row at that.
One day, he will have to face me. Although I don’t know if he will maintain the champion position until then.
After walking for a long time, we arrived at the location of the king.
It was a really wide hallway. There were people lined up on the left and right, and the king was sitting down at the end of the row of people. He was so old that it wouldn’t be surprised if he was to die soon.
His advisors on the side continued to whisper something in the king’s ear. Every time they did that, the king just slightly nodded his head.
We continued to walk until we arrived at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the king.
“Keyon. You are amazing. Stories of your abilities ring not only through the kingdom, but across the entire continent.”
“It is an honor to my family, your highness.”
“As the reward for being the champion of the highest level, you will be given permission to use the Imperial Palace treasury as well as an Emperor’s Seal. Use your strength for the safety of the kingdom.”
“I will do as you command, your highness.”
His majesty gave rewards to the other winners as well. Each level had a slightly lower reward.
There is a prize for me at the lowest level as well.
“Kang Hwi Ram. You are the future of our kingdom. You will be allowed to enter the Warrior’s Storage Room, so use it as a tool to continue to improve yourself.”
The Warrior’s Storage Room.
It is the storage room with the lowest level of weapons of the palace.
Even so, the weapons in it are still pretty high quality. If I picked well, I could end up with a cutla.s.s that was even stronger than BachuPichu’s Twin Blades.
But my interest was in something completely different. I have already thought about what to get. It was the reason I joined the Chaos Battle in the first place.
I can confidently say that it is even better than the reward the overall champion received. However, n.o.body knows the value of this item because humans cannot properly use it.
It is an item that will show its true value onto to those who have the ability.
I bowed my head with a happy heart.
“Thank you very much, your majesty.”
“Please follow me.”
I followed the guardian to the Warrior’s Storage Room.
It was a large storage room. There were 5 guardians but even they would have a hard time knowing where everything was located.
“Please select just one item you like.”
“There is already something I have thought about, can I tell you the name of it?”
“Then we will be able to quickly find it. What is the name of it?”
“Bladestorm Scroll.”
I kept it short and just said the name of the item.
Once I did, the guardian tiled his head. It was as if it was the first time he had heard of it.
“Bladestorm Scroll? Is there such an item in the Warrior’s Storage Room? Hey, do you know?”
The other guardian seemed to know the item.
“I think I’ve heard about it. Is it perhaps that special sword art that the Magic Swordsman Morris used?”
I couldn’t help but be shocked.
‘What? There was a human who could use the Bladestorm skill? It’s possible?’
Bladestorm skill was a sword art that used mana, aka. a magic sword art.
There are two restrictions to use it. First, your mana have to be over 50, and second, you had to raise any type of sword art to at least intermediate level 5.
It is not that difficult of a restriction.
But it was this restriction that made Bladestorm into a trash skill. It ended up a skill that neither magicians nor swordsmen could use.
Swordsmen couldn’t make it powerful because their mana was low.
Magicians could make it powerful, but they couldn’t raise a sword art to intermediate level 5.
That was why Bladestorm was known as a skill that only the Drake race could use.
But for there to be a human who uses this skill. It should have been difficult to even get his hand on the scroll.
‘His name is Morris.’
I wonder just who it is.
Author’s Note: Content Adjustment
I changed a part of the content in chapters 22 and 23, ‘Skill in the Real World.’ It does not affect the direction of the novel so those who have already read it do not need to read it again.
But I have decided to post this in case some people were interested as to what was changed.
The content and reason for the change: I started to feel like it was useless for his first skill in the real world to be a swimming (b.u.t.terfly) skill that serves no purpose in the future. As a result, I have changed the first skill in the real world to golf, something the MC will use frequently from here on.
Thank you.
Translator’s Note:
Just in case you were interested, one of the comments asked: Then did you change the part about how he meets his girlfriend at the pool (talking about the girl he picks up before he runs into his ex).
Author’s response: The content was adjusted a bit, but the context has not changed.
Translator’s Note: I wonder if that girl will ever show up again. We will have to wait and see.