Chapter 62

“Damn Heavenly Demon villain bastard.”

Baekho drew a throwing knife and raised his arm.

So he made a new ID and chose Tang Household this time.

“Finally broke out of the beginner zone after being stuck there for years. Congratulations.”

“Ha. Really annoying how you keep running your mouth. Yeah, I came to catch you!”

His voice rising, Baekho swung his arm sharply.

The throwing knife that left his fingertips drew a long arc to the side, aiming for Seo-jun’s temple.

When it came to Tang Household’s attack characteristics, you could point to how the trajectory of throwing knives differed for each technique.

Also famous was how the game provided aim assistance.

With aim assistance, attacks always converged on the exact center of vital points, which actually made them easier to block and prevented precise throwing, so skilled players didn’t use it.

Clang!

Seo-jun lightly lowered his sword and intercepted the throwing knife mid-flight.

“As expected, you block well. Crazy Heavenly Demon villain bastard.”

He couldn’t understand why the guy kept calling him a villain.

-Lmao. He’s right that from his perspective, Heavenly Demon is a villain

-How many times did he say ‘I am the Heavenly Demon.’ He’s definitely villain-level LOL

-Even we think the streamer is villain-level

-In the end, isn’t the guy who deleted his account to snipe him also a villain?

-He was originally a smurfer villain anyway

While the chat was sharing profound contemplations about villains, Baekho drew throwing knives in both hands and swung them.

“Then try blocking these too!”

Throwing knives flying with similarly unusual trajectories.

Seo-jun read the trajectories, twisted his body, and swung his sword.

Clang.

The throwing knife lost its force and fell to the ground.

“This one too!”

After dodging the two throwing knives, a throwing knife flew straight at him in his line of sight.

Seo-jun felt something unsettling as he looked at Baekho’s meaningful expression beyond that throwing knife.

* * *

One week ago, the player with the game nickname Baekho, whose real name was Lee Sang-cheol, had his account terminated from For the Murim, which he’d enjoyed for several years.

The first emotion he felt after being kicked to the lobby was definitely bewilderment.

“Isn’t this a bug?”

It wasn’t.

“They didn’t catch me all this time, and now they’re handing down sanctions because of some streamer like that? Does this make sense?”

How many years had he spent in the beginner zone?

“Fine. Let me check what grounds they used for sanctions. I didn’t throw games or troll.”

Throwing games meant intentionally losing.

By trolling, not participating in the game, or leaving, among other things.

Game companies naturally prevent this and consider it grounds for sanctions.

But.

All he’d clearly done was play the game earnestly.

“If this is a problem, then they should’ve made it so you automatically move up from the beginner zone!”

He went to the website and looked into the sanctioned behavior.

After checking, there was nothing about continuously enjoying games in the beginner zone.

“Right. This isn’t right!”

He immediately posted on the community.

[Reporting MovieSoft for sanctioning users without standards.]

===

Hello, users of No-Honor.

MovieSoft sanctioned me for playing games in the beginner zone.

I guarantee that I committed no sanctionable acts whatsoever.

I was simply a user who occasionally enjoyed For the Murim casually, and feeling that my skills were insufficient to leave the beginner zone and being scared, I just stayed and played games there.

The game company didn’t particularly take issue with this, and I played games occasionally like that.

But while enjoying games as usual, I was suddenly kicked from my account.

I submitted inquiries asking about the reason for sanctions, but I simply can’t understand it.

If my actions were problematic, why did MovieSoft leave me alone until now?

And I question whether whatever I did warranted immediate account termination without even a single warning.

===

The post seemed well-written to him.

He’d never written this type of post before, but he thought he’d done a decent job explaining his situation and the atrocities MovieSoft had committed.

“Now let’s see the reactions.”

After writing the post, sending several inquiries, and even calling customer service, he returned to find dozens of comments on his post.

The first comment was,

-Is this Baekho?

└ It’s Baekho LOL

-What were you hoping to achieve by writing this post LMAO

└ Zero conscience lmao

└ What happened?

└ That bastard got banned

“What? How do they know?”

The community people seemed to know quite a bit about him.

Baekho was visiting for the first time and usually had no interest, so he didn’t know, but on No-Honor he had some degree of recognition.

Moreover, the board he’d posted on was the Incidents & Accidents board.

If it had been the free board, maybe not, but the Incidents & Accidents board was where the most hardcore veterans of an already old game resided, and there was no way these people wouldn’t know Baekho at all.

-You deserved to get banned

└ You tormented our cute and precious newbies and thought you’d get away with it!

└ Ugh

-As a Taoist of Mount Hua, such dishonorable conduct cannot be tolerated! Finally MovieSoft does their job.

└ “MovieSoft” while speaking like an ancient master? Your roleplay is all over the place, pick an era.

└ Courting death!

-If you make another account, come to the Demonic Cult. The Demonic Cult can embrace you.

└ You’re from an unorthodox sect, why are you recruiting that bastard to the Demonic Cult?

└ LOL

It was a complete mess.

What he wanted was at least some degree of sympathy, and criticism.

But the comments, busy playing among themselves, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in the content he wanted them to see.

“What is this.”

No-Honor was originally like that.

There were comments focusing on the content though.

-It says in-game unsportsmanlike behavior can be sanctioned at any time, so what’s this bastard saying about not committing sanctionable acts

└ If he had that kind of conscience, would he have been smurfer there?

-Baekho, no wait, not even Baekho anymore. You lost your nickname lmao. Just go to the Demonic Cult. You can make an account once more even after termination. But if you get banned once more, it’s permanent suspension, so be careful.

└ Stop dragging the Demonic Cult into this

Reading the comments, his eyes gradually trembling, he shouted.

“Ah right, my nickname!”

That level of rare nickname wasn’t common.

Anyway, he deleted the post that had poor public opinion, or rather, no public opinion to speak of.

Whew.

And taking deep breaths calmly, he thought.

“Right. Honestly, I expected to get sanctioned eventually.”

He’d written the post by ‘slightly’ downplaying some flaws, but he also knew that what he’d done was abnormal and unsportsmanlike.

So even if he got banned, he had nothing to say.

The game was just a way to kill time anyway.

But.

Why was he this angry?

Why.

The moment he calmly delved into his inner emotions like that, he realized.

It wasn’t getting sanctioned that made him angry, but the fact that he’d been completely toyed with.

That annoying face, that voice came to mind.

[Surely the developers wouldn’t just leave such an unsportsmanlike user alone, would they?]

He immediately opened Travel and entered that streamer’s VODs.

He was curious about why, with what grudge, the streamer had toyed with him and even incited the game operators to ban him.

[Ah that smurfer really can’t play. Thank you for the 10,000 won donation.]

[The Newbie Cutter title is a waste on him. Thank you for the 10,000 won donation too.]

Along with those words, ‘lol’s filled the chat.

And the most important fact.

There were no such donations.

“That Heavenly Demon villain son of a bitch! Ahhh! Fuck! Even this was a lie!”

He’d been thoroughly toyed with.

Thinking that from start to finish, he’d been made a laughingstock while thousands of people watched and ridiculed him made his chest feel tight.

Irritation welled up.

He couldn’t understand why he had to receive stress in reverse from a game that was supposed to relieve stress.

* * *

The next day, he thought.

“I need revenge.”

Right.

If he didn’t pay it back somehow, he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

“First, let’s admit it. Skill-wise, it’s impossible.”

The previous night, he’d tossed and turned, unable to sleep, learning about Jin Seo-jun, lying down, then learning more about him again.

That was the conclusion he’d reached.

Skill-wise, it was impossible.

Then how should he go about it?

He needed to know about his enemy and prepare to be able to meet him.

[‘Jin Seo-jun’ has started streaming]

Watching his stream the next day, he found a way to get revenge!

He entered For the Murim.

A game starting from scratch.

“Ah shit.”

[This nickname is already in use.]

[Would you like to use ‘Baekho3’?]

[Would you like to use ‘Baekho4’?]

[This nickname is already in use.]

“Who the hell is using nicknames like these.”

[Would you like to use ‘Baekho5’?]

[This nickname is already in use.]

“They took this one too. Damn!”

For a moment he thought about using a different nickname.

But if he was going to get revenge, using the same nickname as before would make for a better picture.

It’s not like he was going to hide for his revenge.

* * *

“It’s an opportunity.”

After joining the unorthodox Tang Household, he watched for his chance.

And eventually the opportunity came.

The perfect opportunity at that.

He thought he just needed to hand that bastard a single defeat.

With individual rank 16, the competition was that fierce.

“Sniping is doable.”

Another viewer had succeeded too. Three chances remaining.

“The game mode is too perfect too.”

In escort mode, he could hand Seo-jun a defeat even without winning the battle.

Perhaps if not today, he might never get another chance for revenge.

He watched the stream, timing it right, then started the game.

“Did it work? Did it work? Please! You’re dead!”

The game started and the stream cut off, but there was a way to know.

He hurriedly began running.

The teammates left behind followed him while murmuring.

“What’s with that crazy bastard.”

“Let’s hurry too.”

“Yes.”

It was fine to hear strange things, he just needed to go quickly for now.

If the sniping failed, he needed to end this match quickly to aim for the next opportunity.

Fortunately, a game message came that reassured him.

[Based on the timing, looks like you met him?]

A message from the friend he’d asked.

If you can’t watch the stream in-game, you just need someone who can watch to tell you.

Just the one most important piece of information.

[There’s a large brown box in the middle of the carriage, and right next to it, to the left based on the carriage’s direction, there’s a small box that’s the target.]

[Thanks]

Defeat through target destruction would hit Seo-jun as absurd and devastating.

This is sniping!

He slowed down and sent his teammates ahead.

To clearly identify the target’s location and plan the trajectory to hit it.

‘Confirmed.’

He calculated the trajectory and stepped forward.

“Did you miss me, bastard?”

“Who are you?”

“What… what?”

“Hmm… I’ve never seen that ‘ID’ before.”

“Son of a bitch.”

He nearly lost his reason for a moment but held back.

‘You can only act so confident and shameless for now.’

He threw a throwing knife, but the Heavenly Demon villain easily deflected it.

Right. Of course you’d deflect it.

“Then try blocking these too!”

Throwing two throwing knives simultaneously while preparing the most important strike.

Currently, the Heavenly Demon villain’s position was diagonally away from the carriage at a slight distance.

So he aimed the trajectory to initially appear as if going straight at the Heavenly Demon villain, then curve midway to hit the target.

Then the game would end immediately.

“This one too!”

You’re dead.