A Forest Bear’s thick arm swung past Hyrkan’s head.
Whoosh!
Along with a terrifying sound.
‘Whew.’
Hyrkan did not run in such a terrifying situation. The moment he dodged the attack, he lifted his head up and faced the Forest Bear eye to eye. He was completely unintimidated, as he seemed ready to strike a blow with his sword at any time.
The Forest Bear also didn’t take his eyes off of Hyrkan. He expressed fury at Hyrkan and Hyrkan only. He didn’t have any room or reason to look away from someone clearly showing hostility towards him.
UWOOOOH!
The forest shook along with the Forest Bear’s sonorous roar.
And within this sound…
‘Alright, now! Get in here! I drew the aggro perfectly!’
Hyrkan gave his command. Responding to his command, a Skeleton Warrior jumped up into the air. Throwing its body to stab the Forest Bear’s back, the Skeleton Warrior seemed entirely dignified.
Stab!
The Skeleton Warrior’s knife pierced the bear’s flesh and dug deeply into its back. The instant the knife pierced into the Forest Bear, the Skeleton Warrior let go of the knife and quickly moved to distance itself from the bear.
UWOOH!
The Forest Bear let out a pain-filled cry as it turned around. It seemed to want to kill whoever stabbed the knife into its back.
Uwoh?
But what entered his sight was not the Skeleton Warrior that stabbed him and ran. Another one was running towards him in a straight line in an obvious manner.
Uwoh!
Without a shred of hesitation, the Forest Bear blew off the charging Skeleton Warrior’s head.
Thwack!
With a skull-crushing sound, the Skeleton Warrior’s head flew off far into the distance.
Watching this happen, Hyrkan shouted almost instinctively.
“You idiots! Work together! If you see your friend going in and attacking, you should expect the turn-around and go in a breath later or look for another opening! Don’t go in so obviously, that’s like passing the ball to the goalkeeper!’
At this time, the one remaining Skeleton Warrior charged at the Forest Bear.
“HEY!”
Snap!
Startled, Hyrkan snapped his finger once. The Skeleton Warrior that had been following an obvious path like the one before held up its shield and changed into Defense Mode.
Krrr…
Watching the sudden change in movement, the Forest Bear hesitated. The Forest Bear slowly turned to face Hyrkan, while Hyrkan drew his knife and distanced himself. Watching Hyrkan back off, the Forest Bear entered its Alert Mode.
A momentary respite.
Using this opportunity, the headless Skeleton Warrior headed into the forest to find its missing head.
Click Click!
Like a child, the Skeleton Warrior walked with its arms out, and watching this scene from the corner of his eyes, Hyrkan grit his teeth.
‘Ehew.’
The fact that Skeleton Warriors shared their Combat AIs was an undeniable benefit as Hyrkan didn’t need to teach them from zero. As a result, his Skeleton Warriors all had superb evasion. Backing off right after an attack and flying in like an arrow on an opening were both the result of Hyrkan’s education.
The problem was…
‘These brainless idiots… well, they’re not supposed to have a brain but…’
They couldn’t cooperate at all.
When one acted, another had to act in response, and another had to act anticipating that response. That was ‘teamwork’, but it just didn’t work. They didn’t act like interlocking gears, but rather separate, independent ones.
As a result, accidents like the one just now happened in battle.
‘This huge magic power loss…’
Of course, a normal necromancer would have been able to endure. In the first place, with enough magic power, the skeletons could recover from most damages.
The problem was Hyrkan. As an all-strength necromancer, he didn’t have such freedom with his magic power. Damage to his Skeleton Warriors wasn’t something he could ignore.
Hyrkan glanced to the side. The Skeleton Warrior had come back with its head, and it was now fitting it back onto its neck. Rather than irritation or anger, the sight caused Hyrkan to sigh.
‘Yeah, it was my bad for expecting so much from you.’
In the end, there was only one answer.
‘It was my bad for trying to eat a free lunch. Yep.’
Hyrkan had no choice but to teach them again from the start.
“Damn.”
‘I thought I could sit back like all other necromancers, while the summons did the work…’
Of course, to teach them, Hyrkan needed to direct the fight from the front line.
‘I guess it’s my destiny to fight on the front line with my life on the line.’
Hyrkan held up his longsword and charged towards the Forest Bear.
★★★
An Jaehyun currently held his tablet PC. In it, 3 videos were being shown. Their content was the same, but they were from a different point of view.
Warlord’s camera function captured the world from multiple points of view. It was as if several cameras were filming the same scene from different angles. As the video wasn’t just from the player’s point of view, real movie-like scenes could be made.
At the same time, this feature acted as an excellent analysis tool for players.
Analysis was at the core of Warlord. Although Warlord monsters were outstanding, they wouldn’t escape the limits of their settings. No, they couldn’t. If they did, it would no longer be a game. As such, all monsters showed some signs before executing a certain move, they had a definite pattern to their battles.
Of course, what An Jaehyun was analyzing now weren’t monsters.
‘They’re getting better as the fight goes on…’
3 Skeleton Warriors, An Jaehyun was currently analyzing their battle.
‘But it’s still not enough.’
The Skeleton Warriors’ individual battle ability was actually above his expectation. He was amazed from the bottom of his heart. He even questioned, how did something like this go unnoticed until now?
On the other hand, they were far from perfect. Although they had potential, they still had tons to learn. It was An Jaehyun’s role to create a learning curriculum for them. As he had never done such a thing before, An Jaehyun could only let out a sigh.
‘If I took my classes just as serious, I would’ve been able to go to college.’
Although he was saying this, in truth, An Jaehyun was happy to worry over such matters.
Once they learned and gained experience, they would one day show excellent battle ability.
That wasn’t all.
‘Well, no need for me to draw the aggro too long. Once I hit level 40, I can get my Golem to do it.’
Necromancers weren’t just limited to Skeleton Warriors. There were Skeleton Magicians, Golems, and later he could even summon Death Knights. There were even rumors of necromancers being able to summon Bone Dragons.
At the very least, Hyrkan was certain that his battle videos would fundamentally change once he could summon Golems. As Golems had high HP and defense, Skeleton Warriors would have much wider movements with the Golem keeping the aggro.
The potential was there.
‘I can take it all alone.’
Although troublesome, Hyrkan definitely saw the potential. The potential to solo a raid!
Of course, there were still problems to solve.
The biggest of these now was…
“If only I had more money…”
Money.
Aside from having money to spare, he had to solve his debts first. He would soon hit the one month mark since his borrowed date, and he didn’t have any money left on him. He had to really focus on making money. Before he could aggressively invest money into the game, he had to first pay his debts off.
‘Let’s see.’
An Jaehyun headed to his YouTube page. His introduction video had reached well over 40,000 views, and his other videos were also steadily gaining views. Furthermore, he had reached 10,000 subscriber count.
An Jaehyun smiled.
‘Just looking at it makes my stomach full.’
Everything was going smoothly.
But it wasn’t enough. He had to make content that would make these 10,000 subscribers happy to pay for his character, Hyrkan. He had to prove he was worthy of receiving their donations, that his character, Hyrkan, had the possibility of becoming a future hero and Ranker.
He had already shown the potential.
What was left…
‘Starting now, I’ll focus my videos on level-up speed than battles.’
Was result.
★★★
Warlord was full of news. Rather, people spent huge effort and numerous attempts to make the news. Although most turned to dust, some become worthy of headlines.
Hahoe Mask Hyrkan.
He was currently on the edge of making the news. The scene of a certain man watching his video was proof.
“Amazing.”
A blonde man clad in scarlet armor let out a heartfelt praise. Nearby, a red-haired woman discovered the man and approached him.
“What are you watching to give such praise?”
“Watch it for yourself.”
At the man’s retort, the woman pouted.
“Don’t you know you can’t watch other’s videos for security reasons?”
“Oh yeah.”
After making a face as if he had forgotten, the man told her the video’s identity.
“Hahoe Mask Hyrkan. I’m watching his battle video right now.”
Hearing the man’s words, the woman made a curious expression. This was the third time, the third time that she had heard the name Hahoe Mask Hyrkan from this man.
“You’re doing that pretty often these days.”
“This time, it’s a video of him fighting a Mud Troll. It went up two hours ago, titled ‘Level 20 Achieved.’ You can look it up at…”
“I’m not interested.”
The woman clicked her tongue.
“To be honest, I don’t know why other Rankers are so interested in this player. What’s there to him besides his concept? Hahoe mask and wacky leather fashion. Isn’t it kind of disgusting? If someone around me were to wear that, I’d never talk to him again.”
The man only made a wry smile. He couldn’t think of a way to respond to her statement.
“But he’s good at fighting. It’s a style you can’t see anywhere else.”
With that, the man touched the screen and rewound the video to the part he wanted. Then, he clicked the play button.
A hahoe mask wearing man in a hideous fashion was narrowly dodging the attacks of a Mud Troll. As he drew its aggro, lizard-skulled Skeleton Warriors attacked the Mud Troll one by one. Right flank, left flank. They showed perfectly executed attacks like the gears of a well-oiled machine.
In truth, it was nothing spectacular. Any coordinated team of players would be able to do so.
Only…
‘How did he raise his Skeleton Warriors for them to have such Combat AI? Were Skeleton Warriors’ Combat AIs always this excellent? No, other necromancers weren’t like this. Didn’t most of them defend first before attacking?’
They weren’t players, but rather, Skeleton Warriors. He couldn’t help but be surprised at such a feat. Fighting well alone and fighting well together were entirely different stories.
Of course, the blonde man knew that Warlord’s monsters and NPCs had superb AIs. If only in battles, they were much better than humans.
‘Plus, looking at his level, he hasn’t even played for long! How did he accomplish so much in such short time?’
Hahoe Mask Hyrkan had not played for long, and according to his research, it had only been a month since he started Warlord. Even so, he had managed to create Skeleton Warriors of this degree.
Then…
‘This is only the beginning. If these Skeleton Warriors…’
Given the time, the Skeleton Warriors’ AI would improve further.
‘If these Skeleton Warriors could move as well as Hyrkan himself…’
One day, these Skeleton Warriors might fight as well as their master.
What would happen then?
‘How terrifying.’
The blonde haired man felt a shiver down his back.
The woman nearby shouted at the blonde haired man.
“Stop watching! Soon, it’s time to hunt. We’re going live in 5 minutes. Get up.”
“Oh.”
The blonde haired man got up, and the woman smacked the man’s armored back.
“Stop caring about that small fry. You are Matador Chev, Warlord’s 9th Ranker and the leader of the Red Bulls. What you should be looking at is the peak, not the bottom.”
At this, the man smiled lightly.
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“If you’re thankful, finish it within one try today. We sold 200,000 live tickets. People have paid 2 million dollars to watch your victory ceremony. Don’t disappoint them.”
The man nodded and fiddled his watch. He turned off the hologram window and materialized an item slot.
Then, a helmet appeared behind his neck, devouring his head. In the middle of the helmet with two frightening horns, the head of an enraged scarlet bull was engraved.
Watching the man’s appearance, the red-haired woman shouted.
“Red Bulls, prepare for battle!”
Red Bulls.
Even amongst the Top 30 Guilds, they were Raid Specialists that placed in the top 5 for raids.