Emperor of solo play

Chapter 11 : Dancing with the Skeletons (4).

Woong!

When An Jaehyun returned to the real world, he was greeted by the V-Gear’s cooling sound.

[Shutting down the system. Please hold.]

The alert came after the cooling sound. An Jaehyun spat out the mouthpiece he was biting down on, and he heard the V-Gear unlock with a clunk. An Jaehyun then took off the heavy V-Gear and the thick gloves. He was covered in sweat as he lay on the bed with his running shirt and underwear. It wasn’t simply because of the VR game. His one-room itself was scorching. The indoor temperature was reaching 28.5 degrees Celsius (Editor note: about 83 degrees Fahrenheit), unbefitting of January 3rd.

An Jaehyun swept back his sweat-covered hair with his hands.

‘The heating bill’s going to kill me.’

It wasn’t that his heater broke or that he made a mistake. He had raised the temperature intentionally. Playing Warlord for a long time, he found that he could perform best between 27 and 29 degrees. This was important. If his physical body’s condition fell, his in-game condition fell as well. If it remained severe, the Forced Exit System would activate. Normally it would be fine to adjust game play according to the physical body’s condition, but in critical situations and raids, winning or losing depended on how well one could play at their best condition.

‘The heating bill’s going to cost several hundred thousand, and if I add the loan interest and monthly game-cost, I’m going to be sucked dry.’

Warlord was a money-eating game.

It wasn’t easy to make a living with such a game. An Jaehyun let out a sigh. He hadn’t planned on logging out of the game just yet, but he had a reason for doing so.

‘This isn’t the necromancer I knew.’

It was to confirm.

He used his Skeleton Warrior in battle, and the more he did, the more he was disappointed. Eventually, the disappointment turned into a sense of danger. The problem wasn’t just that it didn’t know how to fight.

An Jaehyun wasn’t stupid. He had watched necromancers’ battle videos. On January 1st, after he returned to the past, went to the private loaners, borrowed money, and bought the V-Gear at the Peach Store, he had taken some time to watch various necromancers training. He even researched their training method.

However, he couldn’t find any information on why his Skeleton Warrior was so stupid.

The Skeleton Warriors in the videos he saw all fought pretty well. They properly defended with the shields they were holding, and they counterattacked with their swords or spears after defending. 10 Skeleton Warriors lined up and advancing looked quite cool.

‘Why is my skeleton so shit?’

An Jaehyun was the type to face things head-on and learn rather than theorize.

But now wasn’t the time to face anything head-on.

If he really wasn’t feeling it, he had to start over from the beginning. He didn’t have much time. He had to show results within 3 months; otherwise, he would have to waste time paying off his debt at a workshop.

‘There’s no other choice.’

There was only one thing he could do, pay money to buy information and training method.

‘I’ll have to pay for it.’

Warlord made money. It only made sense that important money-making information was expensive.

It wasn’t just expensive. Information that made money or hunting strategies went for millions of wons. It was the same for information on character training. Such a thing didn’t come up on the videos either. Some cream of the crop information was only passed through 1 on 1 lessons. Lessons ranged from as little as 100 thousand wons to several million.