Chapter 8

The next day.

Before starting his broadcast, Seo-jun checked the Assassin’s Dawn community once.

Looking at the 30+ upvote posts, most were about major streamers and game information.

The post Joseon’s Assassin had written yesterday was…

‘Found it.’

When he flipped to page 2, he could see many related posts that had gained 30+ upvotes.

[Why the 30-upvote Nameless video is fake]

[Why the Nameless video is legendary]

[Pros didn’t avoid parrying – they just couldn’t do it]

[Why are people making such a big deal about hack-and-slash anyway?]

The post views were high and there were many comments. And it looked like fights had broken out too.

-But in the Nameless video, why does the cane do damage when slashing?

└ You’ve never played Breath of the City, have you?

└ Yeah

└ I’ll explain. The cane is made of iron.

└ So?

└ Tetanus damage

└ Stop talking nonsense. There are blade-like things embedded in the cane. It seems like it was meant to be used when you can’t draw the sword inside the cane. But this guy just never drew it to the end.

Comments like these were posted too.

But that was all.

‘It really gets buried quickly.’

Just scroll up a little and people are already having heated discussions about other topics.

The community Seo-jun looked at constantly had attention-grabbing topics thrown in. So staying there for long was nearly impossible unless you kept supplying new content.

Seo-jun browsed through other posts.

And before long, he found one post that caught his eye.

[(Repost) Why the new Level 10 AI is so damn annoying]

‘This is the Assassin’s Dawn community though? Do they talk about the Training Hall too?’

Seo-jun didn’t know well, but famous incidents tend to be mentioned regardless of the community’s topic. Since most people know about the content, they tend to get upvotes easily too.

Training Hall was a gateway that anyone starting virtual reality would pass through at least once, and a place to warm up that many people loved. Shin Ha-yeon’s AI, which had held the Level 10 position for 5 years and frustrated other pros, had a strong perception of being impregnable.

For someone to beat that AI and not reveal their identity – at this point, it would be strange if the entire community wasn’t talking about it.

Seo-jun clicked on the post. When he entered, the post was copied directly from another community.

====

You all know the Level 10 AI changed, right?

A few days ago, during former pro Gam-jeon’s broadcast where he routinely challenged Shin Ha-yeon in Training Hall before starting games, suddenly some guy was summoned instead of Shin Ha-yeon and everyone went crazy.

The name is unknown. A private user.

So while everyone’s focusing on this unknown’s identity, I want to focus on their personality.

This time a friend I know gave me a video of fighting against unknown.

This is that video. I got permission to upload.

(Video of fighting the Level 10 AI)

Looking at this, the skill is obviously undeniable, but more than that, you can see how vicious this bastard is.

Sometimes he deliberately turns his head away and blocks swords.

Personality is fucked.

He wants to show that he can block without even looking, so even while fighting well, he turns his head away. That friend got really angry because of this.

What did the AI ever do wrong?

You can see the intention behind uploading this data.

Personality issues.

And when you drop your sword, Shin Ha-yeon would wait until you picked it up again, right? This unknown is different.

If you drop your sword, it’s over in that moment. He goes first to step on it, then taps it with his sword to mock or throws it far away.

This is probably why he kept the information private lol

The more chilling fact is that when people registered the Level 10 AI before, they made the AI fight the previous Level 10 AI for several hours to gather data to mimic that person.

That’s how they collect data.

Why this is chilling is because this unknown input this kind of data while fighting Shin Ha-yeon who had reigned for 5 years. He deflected, turned his head, did everything lol

By the way, that friend is convinced unknown’s identity is definitely not human and must be some new type of AlphaGo created by some project team.

(Original post link)

====

-Shin Ha-yeon didn’t play The League ranked yesterday lol

└ From what I see, she’s 100% doing Training Hall. It’s famous that Shin Ha-yeon periodically updates her data because she doesn’t want to lose her throne.

-Personality is fucked lol

└ For real lol. That’s actually a pretty honorable position so other masters showed courtesy. But he goes private and does this lmao

Seo-jun felt an unfair sense of injustice.

‘I think it just ended up like that because I was chatting with Tae-woo while blocking…’

Updating data was more boring than expected. It was just repeatedly doing combat over and over.

That’s why it happened, but somehow he’d become someone with personality issues.

-Came here after watching the video, could it be Nameless?

└ Stop mentioning that scrub already.

└ Stop being brain-dead!

It was Joseon’s Assassin again. Did he have some kind of sixth sense?

‘He’s quick to catch on. Hmm.’

After checking the comments one by one, Seo-jun felt slightly disappointed. He hadn’t expected this level of attention.

But.

‘Getting anything suddenly isn’t good.’

Didn’t he know this from his past life experience?

Unprepared power is actually poison.

And.

‘I can just grow day by day.’

Seo-jun stretched and entered the capsule to prepare for broadcasting.

[432 followers]

More people than expected had hit follow. But among them, only 6 viewers had watched his live stream.

How many would come?

[Starting stream]

Seo-jun clicked on Assassin’s Dawn Breath of the City.

The background turned black, and buildings that had been lying down in the distance quickly approached him and began looking down.

* * *

“Hi everyone!”

As soon as Seo-jun started broadcasting, the chat window and viewer count began rising.

-Hi hi!

-Is this the famous Nameless broadcast?

-I’ve been waiting

-Turn on

-Really wasn’t a troll broadcast after all

“Yes, I’m not Joseon’s Assassin’s broadcast. And I didn’t bribe him either, for reference.”

-LOL

-Controversy knife blocked lol

-Is this the composure of a 2-day streamer?

As they started communicating like that, a fanfare-like sound rang out.

[‘How Do I Really Do This’ donated 10,000 won!]

[I tried challenging after watching your video but I can’t catch Etor. How do I do it? Really wanted to ask so I kept waiting for the broadcast!]

It was his first donation.

“Oh. Thanks for the donation. Um, how to catch Etor? Just hit one spot. That worked for me.”

-Wow! Didn’t know that.

-As someone who watched yesterday, I’m telling you. Don’t ask this guy anything lol

-Only the streamer can ask questions.

-Wasted 10,000 won lol

Seeing the “wasted 10,000 won” chat, Seo-jun quickly came to his senses and gave advice.

“If I had to give a tip, I think aiming for vital spots would be good. When you hit NPCs in other places they don’t panic much, but vital spots make them panic and lose their stance a lot. The damage is all similar though.”

Seo-jun continued chatting appropriately afterward, buying time for people to come in.

[‘Finally’ donated 1,000 won!]

[Can… breathe… now]

“Ah, uh, congratulations?”

A puzzled look appeared in Seo-jun’s eyes. Was this a new meme?

-Congratulations lol wtf

-Is that the guy who got 30 upvotes yesterday?

After having a short communication time before starting the broadcast properly, Seo-jun checked the viewer count.

[327 viewers]

He’d expected about 100 people to come, but viewers far exceeding that expectation had come to watch the broadcast.

‘It seems like everyone who was going to come has come.’

Seo-jun felt the need to end the chatter and start the game. His broadcast was a game broadcast after all.

But Seo-jun didn’t know much in detail.

For other games he could just do what he was told, but Assassin’s Dawn was an open-world game.

A normal player would just wander around here and there and learn naturally, but Seo-jun was a streamer so he needed something to show viewers right away.

“Now. What should I do?”

At Seo-jun’s question, chats poured down.

-Show us hack-and-slash gameplay.

-Finally going for verification?

-What’s there to verify, you guys.

Those who flowed in from the community wanted to see fighting.

-Just look around. If there’s something you want, get money by taking assassination requests from the Assassins, or you can pickpocket, or tour the city. This is open-world!

-If you want to push the story, you have to solve assassination requests. You wander around city districts and assassinate key figures.

Someone chatted detailed information about the game.

Looking at the username, it was the person who had explained things in detail during the first broadcast.

“Hmm. If I want to see the story, I use this Signal Stone?”

The Signal Stone’s description read,

[A tool imbued with magical power that can contact the Assassins.]

-Yeah or you can go to the tavern.

-Amazing fact) No matter which district you go to, our Christina is always there.

Seo-jun recalled the basic information he’d looked up yesterday.

The name of the city that was the setting for this work was Alteon.

Alteon was an ideal city that appropriately mixed the beautiful architectural style of old Europe with the bustling streets of the modern era.

Such Alteon was divided into 4 districts total.

The city center where the royal palace was, the northwest part with the Magic Tower, the northeast upper-class district, and finally the rest where commoners lived.

Security was in the order of Royal > Magic Tower > Noble > Commoner, and assassination difficulty was the same.

Players could receive missions suited to any district they went to through the Assassins, and it was actually possible to assassinate randomly without taking missions.

Even the Assassins themselves.

“First, let me try pickpocketing once as a warm-up.”

He’d never tried pickpocketing in either his past life or current life. So he was curious.

-Avoiding fights because you’re afraid your skills will be exposed? lol

-Yeah give it a try. If you get caught the guards come running right away

-Market go go

Seo-jun opened the map.

“Wow, the city is huge.”

The market’s location was in the center of District 4 where commoners lived.

It was a place that would appear if he walked a little from where Seo-jun was currently standing.

Seo-jun looked around the city streets and kept expressing admiration, and viewers liked his reaction too.

The market they arrived at like that.

Seo-jun naturally melted into the crowd. Like a shadow.

And he deliberately bumped into people while secretly moving his arms.

“Oops!”

Swish.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!”

Swish.

“Oh my, young man, are you okay?”

Swish.

Before he knew it, Seo-jun had 3 wallets in his pocket.

“I tried applying the secrets of Golden Hand technique and it’s pretty easy.”

-Suspiciously fucking good at pickpocketing lol

-Wait, was your control skill developed in real life? Are you from some back alley?

-They say he’s from the martial world.

-Is this broadcast about thievery instead of hack-and-slash? Lol

-No, originally pickpocketing is fun when you get caught and chased by guards ㅡㅡ

Seo-jun looked at the chat window with a proud expression.

“With this level, I won’t starve to death anywhere, right?”

-At that level you’d be building buildings in Gangnam lol

That’s when it happened.

“Hey, hey, come here.”

Seo-jun turned his head to check the source of the sound.

Where Seo-jun looked was a shadowy market alley.

Two people stealthily appeared from there.

“Yeah you. Saw you doing interesting stuff, but to do business in this market you gotta get permission from us first!”

Seo-jun looked between the two of them and made an incredulous expression.

“Wow. After pickpocketing, I get caught not by guards but by thugs and get shaken down? What kind of game is this.”

It felt ridiculous.

-For real lol the freedom is too high

-What buildings in Gangnam lol immediate cut!

-Finally seeing hack-and-slash? Let’s beat them all up like this.

“This won’t work. Guys, can I eliminate their organization from the game?”

Seo-jun’s mind started turning. Wouldn’t it be good to connect this kind of incident with the broadcast?

-Yeah

-If you just catch their boss the market floor becomes clean.

-Breath of the City god game!

Seo-jun smiled brightly, showing his teeth.

“You’re saying I can? Then, today’s broadcast goal will be eliminating their organization.”

The goal was set and people started getting excited about Seo-jun’s statement.

-Wow, filming a noir piece?

-You’re going to catch the Dissemblers? lol

-Skill verification with Dissemblers? I can’t resist this.

They had to. The guys who called him now were Dissembler organization members with mask marks carved on their shoulders.

And the Dissembler boss was the ruler of District 4, a mid-boss level existence in the game.

-I guarantee the streamer doesn’t even know what Dissemblers are lol

-Let’s go go.

-Let’s go go.

-Crazy man who’s going to catch a gang to pickpocket

-Ah, first time watching today but the broadcast is fucking fun lol