Emperor of Solo Play

 ­ Searching for Migi (3)

[Hyrkan]

– Level: 40

– Class: Magician

– Title: 14

– Stats: Strength (277) / Stamina (83) / Intelligence (183) / Magic Power (240)

‘I finally got my magic power past 240 points.’

Watching his upgraded stats, Hyrkan clenched his fists with a happy face. At the same time, the gold colored fur gloves on his hand rolled into a ball.

‘Level 40 Magic Power Switching set for 3,200 gold.’

When Hyrkan turned his head from the stat window, the hair on the lion head he was wearing fluttered in the air, and when he turned his body, the fake tail on his lion body followed.

Lion suit.

This Halloween party costume was the Magic Power Switching set Hyrkan purchased.

3,200 gold!

It was rather cheap for a level 40 item set with a decent magic power boosting stat. What hyrkan was wearing was worth more than 4,000 gold.

Of course, there was a reason that it was so cheap. In fact, Hyrkan’s body was fully displaying the reason.

‘It’s cheap, but…’

Hyrkan slowly looked down at his feet. Watching the large hobbit-like lion fur boots, Hyrkan made an awry expression.

‘For some reason, I don’t think it was cheap.’

There was a fad.

About 8 months ago, when level 40 players were best of the best, a video made by Ranker class magicians went viral. In it, the level 40+ magicians were wearing animal suits, which resulted in animal suits to trend for a short while. It was the result of people trying all sorts of concepts to get attention.

However, as always, no trends lasted forever.

The animal suits created during this time were then shunned by people afterwards. As a result, they ended up selling for much cheaper than other armor with the same stats. After going through owner after owner, the lion suit had now ended up in Hyrkan’s hands.

‘There are too many people trying weird concepts in Warlord. This was worth over 10,000,000 won back then. What a shame.’

In truth, it was so cheap because the prices had gone down since then. When this suit was first made, the price of a level 40 Magic Power Switching set was enormous. After all, it was used by those who didn’t care about spending large sum of money on gaming.

“Shit.”

In any case, it was bad.

No matter how good its options were, wearing such clothing in hunting grounds would bring nothing but mockery.

However, this wasn’t the reason Hyrkan was so bitter. What’s worse was that this animal suit was much better than the clothes he had been wearing before. Thanks to this, Hyrkan was once again reminded of how awful and disgusting his old clothes were.

‘When I get my level 50 items, I’m going to have to get better looking clothes even if I lose out on some stats.’

Then, with his newly bought clothes, Hyrkan made a small vow to himself and set foot towards Churu Castle.

★★★

Churu Castle.

Located far away from Bangtz Castle, this castle was smaller than the Figurs Castle or Bangtz Castle that Hyrkan had visited before. If compared, its size was probably a third of either of the castles.

However, Churu Castle’s atmosphere was vastly different than those of the other two castles. This difference was evident from just the castle gate.

Hyrkan was wearing the Subjugation Association’s default armor saved onto his 3 item slot. As he passed the castle gate, a few players had caught sight of him and were talking amongst themselves.

“Hey, he’s wearing the SA default set”

“Did he get here by himself? Considering how he’s hiding his item settings, he’s probably quite high leveled.”

Low whispers. Of course, there was no way for Hyrkan to hear what they were saying. Even so, Hyrkan could tell what they were talking about.

‘Those are eyes of wolves, not hyenas.’

Churu Castle was founded 7 months ago by the Sweepers Guild, one of the Top 30 Guilds. As such, it was not one of the starting point castles. This meant that there weren’t people staying near the castle gate eyeing for potential newbies to trick. This was reinforced by the fact that there were large amount of level 30+ monsters on the way to the castle.

Therefore, most people visiting the Churu Castle had fair amount of experience and knowledge. It was only natural that players looked at others differently than they would newbies.

As for Hyrkan, he enjoyed this feeling.

‘I made it this far.’

It was a proof.

‘Although I still have quite a way to go, I have the groundwork to catch up to Rankers.’

It was proof that Hyrkan had grown as he expected.

Currently in Warlord, those who could call themselves ‘good gamers’ were between level 50 and 70. The ones like Hyrkan who were prepared to spend their life playing Warlord were above level 80. 1st in the rankings was currently level 109, while 100th was level 101.

Although it wasn’t easy to catch up to them, Hyrkan’s growth speed was incomparable to anyone else. Those who could reach level 40 in 2 months would only be the highest Ranking players. For this reason, Hyrkan could be confident.

With a full smile on his face, Hyrkan quickened his pace towards the Subjugation Association branch.

★★★

[Searching for Migi.]

-Quest rank: Rare

– Quest level range: 40+

– Quest content: As per Ahimbree’s orders, find traces of the agent named Migi, and complete the mission he could not. Acquire information on Agent Migi at Churu Castle’s Subjugation Association branch.

-Quest Reward: 500 gold and additional rewards.

-Miscellaneous: You will receive a penalty if you do not complete this quest in (29 days 9 hours 33 minutes)

Checking the content of the quest, Hyrkan let out a sigh.

‘Fuck.’

The conversation he had just now with a NPC popped up in his head.

After arriving at the 3rd floor of Churu Castle’s Subjugation Association branch, Hyrkan talked to an NPC.

“You are the one lord Ahimbree sent.”

It wasn’t a particularly noteworthy conversation.

“Agent Migi’s mission… his mission was surveillance. His job was to observe the places where Corrupted Stones continued appearing after removing them, and to find the one transporting the Corrupted Stones to these places.”

The quest content wasn’t anything noteworthy either.

Agent Migi is most likely dead, and Hyrkan would find his corpse when he went to look for him where he disappeared.

After finding his corpse, Hyrkan would most likely take over his mission and track the one transporting the Corrupted Stone. Since he wasn’t required to fight any monsters, anyone with the skills to escape could complete this quest.

The problem was the location.

“Where is this place?”

“Bobor Forest.”

“What?”

Bobor Forest.

Hearing this absolutely ridiculous name, Hyrkan unintentionally shouted.

“The fuc…”

Although he almost cursed as well, he was able to swallow the words before they came out. Watching this, the NPC tilted his head.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all. Just that Bobor Forest is quite a dangerous place…”

“Bobor Forest is indeed dangerous. That is why you are here. Lord Ahimbree would not have entrusted this job to anyone. Since you’ve passed his test already, you should be more than capable of finding Agent Migi and finishing his mission.”

Watching the NPC’s trust-filled expression, uncontrollable rage roared inside of Hyrkan.

‘Fuck off.’

Hyrkan knew well enough about Bobor Forest.

‘Come on, what’s up with this difficulty setting? Level 40+? Bobor Forest is a hunting ground for level 70+ players!’

Bobor Forest is a vast forest located below Bobor Mountain. As one might expect, Bobor Forest covered a large area and many different types of monsters inhabited it. This was Bobor Forest’s special trait. Generally, in Warlord, the types of monsters that could appear in a hunting ground were limited. This made it easy for players to set their items and set up strategies for fighting. However, because of the vastly different types of monsters inhabiting Bobor Forest, players had to have multiple item sets and also have multiple strategies in mind.

Furthermore, monsters from level 40 to 70 equally lived in this area. This was also quite problematic. This made Bobor Forest too difficult for level 40 players to use as hunting grounds. At the same time, level 40 monsters weren’t worth money nor the experience for level 70 players. For them, it was much more efficient to use other hunting grounds.

The finishing touch was the boss monster, Bobor Ogre. In truth, most people that visited Bobor Forest was there to hunt this boss monster. At this point in the game, Bobor Ogre was a monster worth quite a bit of money.

In any case, Bobor Forest was too far for Hyrkan. It was too difficult. It was on a completely different level than the Lizard Swamp or the Dead Woods.

‘I’ll die for sure.’

Even if his goal wasn’t to fight, the risk was too big.

The problem was that Hyrkan couldn’t refuse this quest.

“This stone has a magic casted on it. Since Agent Migi also has this stone, it will react when you are near him.”

“Thank you.”

“Good luck.”

That was the end of the conversation.

Hyrkan looked at the stone he received back then. In reality, he wanted to throw this stone far into outer space. His current mood was the worst of the worsts.

‘I mean, I know Warlord sets its quest difficulty high, but isn’t this too much?’

All of Ahimbree’s quests so far were high in difficulty. Just the Nested Egg quest wasn’t something someone of Hyrkan’s level could complete. It wasn’t something meant to be done in partied units, but as part of a guild. In fact, it really was a quest made with guild participations in mind. Main scenario quests were quests that governed Warlord’s world, and thus was very balanced to be made for guild-level units than party-level units.

This was the root of the problem.

Hyrkan was able to complete quests that were far above what those his level could handle. Since he completed the quest, he had to receive the next one, and he ended up receiving a quest meant for a level 60 player at level 40.

Of course, this was to be expected. It was because Hyrkan was that good. He should in fact be quite happy about it. It meant Hyrkan was better than what Warlord’s system could have ever predicted.

However, this wasn’t the real problem.

The quest he received this time was one that would give him a penalty if he failed to complete it on time.

And this penalty…

‘If I can’t finish this quest, I’ll get my ring taken away.’

Was having to return the Pursuer of Corruption Ring.

It was a ring that came with a responsibility, which, in this case, was this quest.

‘Damn.’

If his Pursuer of Corruption Ring was taken away, he would lose at least 50 points of magic power. This would result in a huge problem for his future plans. Above all, it was impossible to obtain a ring like the Pursuer of Corruption Ring for something like 10,000,000 won.

Give it up?

If he couldn’t receive it, he would just feel bitter and move on, but he would not let himself hand over something he received.

There was no such thing in Hyrkan’s dictionary.

‘What should I do?’

That said, heading do Bobor Forest would be worst thing he could do.

Since he had 30 days, he could try to level up as much as possible and search Bobor Forest with only a little bit of time left. Even so, he could not guarantee this plan would succeed. Not only would it be difficult to hit level 50 in 30 days, but being level 50 would also not help his situation much.

‘If only I met with Ahimbree after leveling up a bit more…’

If he knew, he would have purposefully delayed his meeting with Ahimbree.

Of course, it was too late for regrets. Besides, Hyrkan aside, even Ahimbree could not possibly have predicted this.

‘I have no choice here, do I?’

Hyrkan covered his face with his hands.

Like so, while Hyrkan was silently murmuring to himself in the corner of 1st floor of the Subjugation Association branch, a group of players passed by Hyrkan.

“Did you hear? It seems like Hydra Guild is going to catch the Corrupted One soon. What should we do? Go watch?”

“Do you even know who or where? … how much do you think you can get from catching the Corrupted One? I wonder what titles you’d get.”

“I’m just curious what the other Top 30 Guilds will do. I don’t think they’ll just sit by and watch…”

“They’re probably already doing all they can do to hinder the Hydra Guild. If they catch the Corrupted One now, they’ll be the number 1 guild without a doubt.”

“Hm, but what happens with the main scenario quests when the Corrupted One gets caught? Do they all get completed, or do they end incomplete?”

“Not sure… this is the first main scenario quest, so probably no one knows.”

This conversation.

‘Hm?’

Their short conversation turned a switch on in Hyrkan’s head.

‘Wait a minute, if the Corrupt Count gets caught, all scenario quests related to the Corrupt Count ends!’

It seemed like there would be no need to search for Migi.