“Mr. YuWon!” Halimun shouted, relieved to see YuWon.
In his eyes, it looked as if YuWon had wings on his back.
The players of Team B all faltered, pausing their chase after Halimun, the ‘king’ that was glowing gold.
“YuWon?”
“The Kim YuWon?”
“Damn it. It’s the real deal.”
“Look over there.”
“Kayle died in a single strike.”
The player that went by the name of Kayle was pretty skilled within Team B. As a rare assassin, he was a player that fought by hiding his presence and utilizing his quick mobility.
“… Should we retreat?”
“But we outnumber him.”
“Isn’t this a chance for us?”
Team B was split in their opinions.
“Don’t be stupid. Did you forget who we’re up against?”
“A High Pure-Blood would already be hard for us to handle, and this guy is even more of a monster than them.”
“We should back off.”
YuWon’s appearance put a damper on the chaos.
Within the crowd of whispering players, Yuwon noticed a red flag.
“You guys can go, but leave that behind,” YuWon said, pointing at the flag with the tip of his sword. “Because you guys aren’t retreating, instead I’m letting you guys go.”
The dozen or so players on Team B all had sour looks on their faces.
YuWon wanted them to leave their flags behind. It had only been a few hours since the test started, but they had been running around hard to obtain these flags.
Also, their chance of losing would become higher if they handed over their flags because YuWon’s ‘king’ was present.
“Here,” one of Team B’s players said, pulling out a flag from his coat. The flag said 2. The player continued, “It’s only two, but that’s more than what most of these guys have. I’ll leave this behind, so let me go.”
YuWon nodded his head as he walked towards Team B.
The players split, creating a path for YuWon, and in an instant, he was now in the middle of over a dozen enemy players.
[You obtained 2 flags.]
[You obtained 20cp.]
A CP notification popped up with his procurement of the flag.
Two flags. It wasn’t a bad gain.
The player that had put his flag down started leaving, and YuWon let him go. He then looked at the other players, asking them, “Now what will you guys do?”
YuWon waited for their decision. There was no need to spill any unnecessary blood, especially when killing the enemy team awarded 0cp.
As long as they just peacefully handed over their flags, Yuwon was just going to let them go.
However…
“Are you f*cking kidding me?!”
“We were just going to back off, but you had to provoke us.”
“Alright, let’s go at it…”
A player from Team B took a step towards YuWon, and…
Slash—
The sound of slicing through bone echoed through the forest.
Splatter—!
The player that had shown killing intent while walking towards YuWon ended up getting his body sliced in half.
None of the blood got on YuWon, however, as he repelled all the red drops aimed at him with his sword.
“That’s one down.”
Plop—
A flag fell to the ground.
YuWon picked up the flag.
The guys that seemed like they were about to explode suddenly fell silent.
The situation had changed.
“So, what will you guys do?” YuWon asked again.
“…”
“…”
The players of Team B tried to gauge the situation, trying to decide what to do.
If they gave up their flags, they’d be able to leave with their lives intact. On the other hand, if they fought, their lives couldn’t be guaranteed, but there was a chance they could defeat YuWon and Team A’s ‘king.’
They might even be able to gain the reputation of defeating YuWon.
‘If I could do that…’
‘I might be contacted by a major guild.’
These were the thoughts running through many of their heads. That they’d be able to join a major guild if they were victorious against Kim YuWon.
It was a well-known rumor that multiple major guilds were interested in YuWon, so it was natural that if they were able to take down YuWon, they would end up gaining the interest of the major guilds.
In the Tower, major guilds were basically kingdoms. And becoming members of said kingdoms could net them a significant amount of power. But…
“I-I’ll give up.”
“Me too…”
“S-Same. H-Here’s my flag!”
“I don’t have any flags. Please believe me!”
… They still gave up on fighting.
It was only a natural decision. None of the players present valued their lives so little that they were willing to challenge him after YuWon had just displayed his skills.
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This also meant that no one present was that skilled.
“Well then…” YuWon said, collecting the flags, “hand over everything you guys have.”
[You obtained a flag.]
[You obtained 10cp.]
[You obtained a flag.]
[You obtained…]
YuWon smiled wide. From a party of over a dozen players, he managed to take eight flags.
‘They had quite a few on them,’ YuWon thought.
Because it hadn’t been that long since the test had begun, there were quite a few players who didn’t have a flag yet. So it was a big haul that more than half the players present had a flag on them.
After obtaining the eight flags, YuWon decided he had to change gears.
“The first half of the game is over,” YuWon said.
It had been about four hours since the test started. That was enough time for quite a few flags to have been found. From here on out, it was more efficient to hunt players on the enemy team rather than hunt monsters.
YuWon continued, “Team B’s going to start coming after our flags. And like these guys, some of them are going to start aiming for the ‘king.’”
“M-Me?” Halimun asked stutteringly. He still couldn’t stop shaking from the fear.
“Is there another ‘king’ here?”
“Th-That’s true, but…”
“So from here on out, do not be more than 20m away from me. Even I will have a hard time winning this test without the ‘king.’”
To YuWon, Halimun was an annoyance but also necessary because he needed the ‘king’ to win.
Not only was his team outnumbered four to one, there were no reliable players on Team A. So the only way YuWon could carry this game was to maximize the usage of the ‘king.’
‘And I need the ‘king’ to get double the CP… So as annoying as it is, it’s better if I keep this guy by my side.’
YuWon thought it would be much easier if he could be the ‘king,’ but if that were the case, he wouldn’t be able to obtain as much CP. It was a high-risk, high-reward situation.
In the end, this was a test YuWon had to hustle by himself.
“Where are the other teammates?”
“Everyone spread out. We decided that the best starting move was to gather as many flags as possible…”
“That was a smart decision,” YuWon mumbled while looking at the number on his flag. “That is as long as you guys don’t end up having it stolen.”
Halimun’s gaze turned to YuWon’s flag. Upon checking the number of flags he had collected, Halimun’s eyes widened.
‘27 flags?!’
That was an unbelievable amount for someone to have collected alone.
He did just obtain eight, but that meant that even before they met up, he already had nineteen flags.
One flag was already difficult to obtain. Halimun wondered how it was possible for YuWon to obtain nineteen in such a short time.
Halimun checked his team’s flags.
[Team A: 64 flags]
Among the 64 flags, 27 were in YuWon’s possession. That was almost half, and with the skills he just exhibited, soon enough, he would have over half.
‘Is he really planning on carrying this test by himself?’ Halimun wondered.
From the beginning, YuWon wasn’t treating this as a team-based test.
And for Team B, this was a test where 200 people had to cooperate to defeat the monster that was YuWon.
‘But the number of flags doesn’t add up…’ Halimun was confused.
When he had checked earlier, the number of flags on Team A were 59. So with the eight flags YuWon just took, their total should have been 67.
[Team B: 105 flags]
Team B’s total flags decreased, but it wasn’t by eight.
This meant that…
“It’s finally started,” YuWon said after he, too, checked the number of flags. “The ‘capture’ portion of the test.”
The ball finally started rolling in this game.
* * *
“… So you escaped after just leaving your flags behind?” Hoon asked.
His question made the rest of Team B look over at the players that ran away after losing their flags.
Their gazes were full of discontent, wondering why they didn’t bother fighting when they outnumbered him.
“You guys didn’t see his skills! Kayle and Max were taken down in a single strike!”
“You couldn’t even see his sword because of how fast it was. It sent a shiver down my spine…”
“I could see it, but it was still really fast.”
“You’re bullsh**ting again. How did it move?”
“Huh? Well… It was like this, and…”
“Stop bullsh**ting.”
Unembarrassed, they continued their explanation.
Hoon simply shook his head, disappointed in them.
These were pretty skilled players of the 11th Floor. Only a few of them were truly exceptional, but they were still all above average.
And the guy named Kayle was someone that even Hoon had heard of before.
‘So Kim YuWon is that skilled,’ Hoon thought to himself.
The players of Team B started looking serious.
A group of over ten players had lost to him. Only two players had died, but this wasn’t a problem they could just ignore.
They had lost their flags, and in the end, this was a test to see which side could collect more flags.
“So even if we’re all in groups of ten, he can take us down group by group,” Hoon mumbled.
The players on Team B agreed with him. If YuWon took them down group by group and took their flags, in the end, they’d be at a disadvantage.
“Then what should we do?” someone asked.
This question put Hoon into deep thought. He originally anticipated this to be an easy game, but YuWon ended up being a bigger variable than expected.
“… Did you say that YuWon and the ‘king’ got together?” The first one to break the silence was Ro’el. She looked like she had just thought of something.
“Uh, yeah. I think he was on his way back from gathering flags.”
“That leaves us with only one option,” Ro’el decided. “Please contact Salamov, Kaichel, and any other skilled players on our team.”
“What?”
“A-Are you serious?”
Ro’el’s order shocked everyone because they knew what Ro’el meant.
She nodded her head and said, “There’s still a lot of time left. We can’t just keep running away.”
Her words made everyone murmur.
She was right. The first half of the test was now ending. They couldn’t win this test by just handing over their flags every time they encountered him.
“Yeah… You’re right.”
“That’s true.”
“He might be Kim YuWon, but he’s still only one guy…”
“And we have people like Hoon and Ro’el. Our team isn’t short of skilled players.”
Most people were agreeing with Ro’el.
Hoon kept his mouth shut and listened closely.
Finally…
“So that decides it right?”
… Team B had made a decision.
“Let’s get the ‘king’ and Kim YuWon.”
