I Gave Up Being Stronger

Chapter 25

Cha Jin-Hyeok had fulfilled the condition to obtain the hidden item, but there he did not get any notification for being the first one to do it.

‘No way… Did someone actually clear the Dungeon before me? Is that even possible?’

He wondered who it was.

‘This feels like an attack to my self-est—No! I shouldn’t feel like this.’

He snapped back to reality.

‘Let’s be a good Streamer and focus on streaming.’

Jin-Hyeok did not hear the notification, but he knew the Hidden Stage was going to open.

The next thing he knew, the ground shook like there was an earthquake, and part of the ceiling began to collapse. The effect was so mundane that he wasn’t even surprised.

“Hm… It seems like the ceiling is collapsing.”

This was just the effect of the Field changing. Of course, if someone got hit by that collapsing ceiling, they were definitely going to die.

‘But what kind of idiots would die like—oops. There she is.’

“Jin-Sol?”

Cha Jin-Sol was the first one to die. This was why Jin-Hyeok had always told them to sharpen their sense. He knew they still had a long way to go.

“Our Healer is dead.”

[The boss monster of Bupyeong Station Dungeon, 「Bronze Golem」, has appeared.]

It was hard enough to fight the boss monster with the Blood Priest, but without her, the team was bound to be annihilated.

[「Loser」 has been killed.]

[「Unnie Shadow」 has been killed.]

[The Hidden Stage will be closed when all Players are dead.]

“As expected, the worst Tutorial Dungeon is too strong. Our team has been wiped out, so I will turn the livestream back on later.”

Jin-Hyeok ended the livestream.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Joseph suddenly realized something was wrong with the way Jin-Hyeok’s team played.

‘It looked so natural, so I almost couldn’t catch it.’

The United States government strongly discouraged their Players from constantly dying like this. Not only was the risk of dying from shock too high, but there were too many cases of people becoming extremely traumatized and psychotic.

‘I heard that about a third of Players who died more than once within a three-day period complained of extreme side effects…’

However, Jin-Hyeok’s party was different. They did not broadcast all of their deaths, but he knew they had to have died a lot of times.

‘In a team of six Players, at least one person should have experienced the side effects…’

That was universal and common sense. However, they seemed to be so used to dying. They had even become incredibly strong in this short time.

As Joseph tried his best to understand it, the voice of the Streamer, Jin-Hyeok, was heard.

“Hm… It seems like the ceiling is collapsing.”

It was clear from the video that the situation was very dire, but Jin-Hyeok’s tone was as if he was singing a lullaby. His own sister actually died, but he did not seem to care. From the perspective of a normal(?) person, his livestream was beyond bizarre.

‘They’re… wiped out.’

Bronze Golems were often seen in the United States as well. There were no good strategies to kill these monsters yet, so they were usually avoided. It was not very difficult to escape from them because they were slow compared to their destructive power.

‘If he is left alone, I’m sure he is going to die with his team.’

As far as Joseph was concerned, Chul-Soo (Jin-Hyeok) was a man who did not mind dying.

However, there was one thing Joseph was mistaken about.

Jin-Hyeok was not dead.

For the record, Jin-Hyeok had never died in the Bupyeong Station Dungeon.

‘Looks like his livestream ended again.’

Joseph was sure that Jin-Hyeok had realized he would die soon. Actually, he was probably dead by now.

This bizarre content, which seemed to take the deaths of his teammates and his own death in stride, had a whopping four thousand Likes.

For comparison, a recent live video of Egan Paul had around four hundred Likes.

‘I think they’re all insane…’

Joseph realized that the fact that the six people were all behaving like this was probably a cultural thing. All of them ignored the statistics of the side effects and were acting completely normal.

This was not something Joseph could simply describe as ‘weird.’

‘Maybe this is like a cultural trait of Koreans…’

He had to do a little research on Koreans.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

He heard a notification.

[The Hidden Stage will be closed when all Players are dead.]

[When the Hidden Stage is closed, all Players will respawn at the Bupyeong Station Dungeon entrance and will not be able to re-enter for two hours.]

Jin-Hyeok turned to face the Bronze Golem and looked at it with the Broadcaster’s Truesight.

[LV35(+3/)Bronze Golem/Skill]

The original version of this monster was 35. However, since it was a boss monster, its Level increased by 3 and was now Level 38. The orange color indicated that it was quite tricky and dangerous to face at his Level. Like any boss monster in a Hidden Stage, it had a skill, and it was called ‘Bronze Hammer’.

[Bronze Hammer]

[A skill that strikes with a fist enveloped in mana.

It applies a stun effect with a certain probability.

The probability of the effect varies depending on the opponent’s Level.

Lower Level: 50%

Higher Level: 2%

Same Level: 8%]

The skill had a fifty percent chance to stun its opponent if the opponent was lower Level than the Bronze Golem. In other words, it was an overpowered skill against lower-Level opponents.

‘Since everyone is dead, it would be a waste to just… leave, right?’

He did not have to die on purpose. There were things to learn from dying, but he knew he could learn a lot more from fighting.

‘If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just die, I guess.’

[The Achievement, 「Lord of the Tutorial」, is converted to the Achievement, 「All-Clear (Sareoga Mart Dungeon)」.]

[An attribute boost was applied to the Broadcaster’s Barrier.]

In exchange for giving up having the Broadcaster’s Barrier always activated, Jin-Hyeok received +1 for his elemental defense. He was completely immune to all physical attacks below Level 50.

‘It’s coming.’

The Bronze Golem was definitely much faster than the Brass Golem.

‘Activate Broadcaster’s Barrier.’

Thud!

He felt a slight shake, but it did not do any direct damage to him. Interestingly, when he applied his Achievement, Bronze Golem’s name turned from orange to black.

‘Its attack is stronger than I thought. Hm… This is getting quite interesting. I need to target the joint points first.’

Unlike the Brass Golem, which Jin-Hyeok only needed to target the gem on its chest, he first needed to attack the four joint points, which were its ankles and wrists. He needed to accumulate a certain amount of damage before he could attack its chest.

There were indentations near these joint points, and he could insert the Brass Fragments that he got when he hunted the Brass Golems into them for a perfect strategy.

A perfect strategy.

There were no words that resonated more with Players than that.

‘Since I’m all alone, I might as well go for the perfect strategy.’

There was nothing quite like the exhilaration of successfully hunting down a monster and having everything go exactly as he intended. It was something a person had to experience to know.

His blood was boiling.

‘I just need to put the Brass Fragments into one of the joint points…’

It worked. The Bronze Golem’s movement slowed down noticeably. It began to corrode rapidly around the joint.

‘If I dodge right here, there is going to be an opening.’

He then approached the monster.

‘And if I approach it like this, it’s going to use Bronze Hammer.’

Jin-Hyeok had the opponent’s pattern memorized. And just like he anticipated, the Bronze Golem used the skill, Bronze Hammer.

‘Just as I predicted.’

His accurate prediction of the monster’s movements and the feeling of accomplishment as he worked his way around it… All of that started to excite him.

The Bronze Golem’s fist glowed with bluish mana. It slammed it down on Jin-Hyeok, but he had already moved out of harm’s way.

‘Another opening.’

He pierced through the gap and stabbed the Bronze Golem’s Mana Stone in its chest. Again and again, he fought the Golem, doing the same thing. Several times, its fist was about to land on his temple, and if he had not used the Broadcaster’s Barrier, its attack would have crushed his skull. He was a little disappointed that the monster did not have the ability to learn since it was a low-Level monster. If it had the ability to learn, the fight would have been much more interesting.

Pant. Pant.

Jin-Hyeok gasped

“I guess the daggers are weak after all…”

With a better weapon, he would have had a much easier time defeating the Bronze Golem.

As his rapidly rising emotions cooled, he started to think straight again. He had gotten too excited. Once he calmed down, he was able to look at the situation objectively.

‘Wait a minute… I’m gasping for air?’

It was kind of embarrassing to be gasping for air when he was only facing this low-Level monster.

‘It’s okay. I am a Streamer. That’s why. This identity crisis is driving me crazy!’

[You have defeated the Bronze Golem.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You are the first to clear the Hidden Stage of Bupyeong Station Dungeon.]

Jin-Hyeok flinched for a moment. He had just become the first one to clear it.

‘Ah, so I had to clear the Hidden Stage, not just open it, to be the first one to clear the Dungeon. So I was the first.’

His ego was almost bruised. Luckily, he was right the whole time.

[The Achievement needs to be reconsidered.]

‘Huh?’

[Your flawless solo play has been recognized.]

[The Achievement, 「First Bronze Golem Kill」, will be adjusted to 「First Bronze Golem Solo Kill」.]

Originally, the System reward for ‘First Bronze Golem Kill’ was the Bronze Mana Stone. With this, he could take it to Alchemist Choi Gap-Soo in Cheongdam-dong[1] and convert it into three hundred million won. This old man had nothing but money, so there was a possibility of receiving more than three hundred million won.

‘I hope this doesn’t change the reward.’

Luckily, that did not happen.

[You have been given the High Bronze Mana Stone.]

[Reward for clearing the dungeon 1: You have received 10,000,000 Dias.]

[Reward for clearing the dungeon 2: You have received the Map of the Golden Golem Castle.]

The rewards were much better than he expected.

‘A High Bronze Mana Stone?’

His spirits lifted as he remembered that Grandpa Gap-Soo had bought the High Bronze Mana Stone for seven hundred million won.

On top of that, he had received ten million Dias and the Map of the Golden Golem Castle. To be perfectly honest, the map was his favorite reward.

‘Oh! I haven’t seen this map before!’

His heart was pounding. Such a rare map would ignite a fire in a Player’s heart—no, rather, such a rare map would provide him with great content for his channel. Back in his crazy days, he would have jumped at any new map and thrown himself into it, but he was a different person now.

He was going to approach these rare maps as content for his video since he was not a grown-up Streamer.

‘I am not excited at all.’

However, he could not stop smiling.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

He opened the Hidden Stage several more times. The opening process itself was shown only once. Since he had already shown killing the Brass Golems multiple times, he knew it wouldn’t be particularly interesting to the viewers. He boldly discarded the previous videos and started the livestream directly from the Hidden Stage.

A few days later, they finally succeeded in hunting down a Bronze Golem.

“Finally, the team succeeded in killing the Bronze Golem!”

‘It took them a while. I thought I was going to die of frustration.’

However, Jin-Hyeok still pretended to look pleased.

“Looks like the First Kill Achievement has been applied!”

Honestly, he was expecting another First Kill Achievement, but the System did not give him one.

[You have earned the First Solo Kill Achievement, which is a higher-tier version of the First Kill Achievement.]

[Duplicated rewards are not possible.]

‘So cheap…’

Instead, the team members were given a Bronze Mana Stone and three million Dias as rewards. They seemed to like the reward quite a bit.

[The supporting cast reward ratio needs to be calculated.]

Jin-Hyeok naturally assumed that it would be based on the ten million Dias he had obtained, because that would be the most sensible thing to do.

[Calculation standard: 300,000,000 Dias]

[The maximum limit per appearance is 300,000,000 Dias.]

‘Three hundred million? Why?’

Even if he set the minimum rate of ten percent, he would have to give them a whopping thirty million Dias.

‘Why is the maximum limit three hundred million Dias in the first place?’

If Jin-Hyeok had earned a lot, he was willing to give them a lot. However, this was not fair. It was unreasonable to give away thirty million Dias when he had only earned ten million Dias!

No matter how he looked at it, it felt like he was being robbed.

‘And there is no way I got three hundred million Dias from donations.’

He looked at the donation window, just in case. He had not looked at the donation window because he was pretty sure that the viewers were not that interested in their repeated tries to clear this Dungeon.

‘What the hell?’

The donation window was filled with strange characters.

‘How many zeros are there? One, two, three four… eight zeros??’

There was a crazy person who donated three hundred million Dias. There were other small(?) donations that added up to around thirty million Dias, but when he saw the single donation of three hundred million Dias, nothing else mattered.

‘Who would give me three hundred million Dias?’

He knew he didn’t do anything to deserve this much. Also, he had been tricked before, so he was a little suspicious.

‘I know my channel is in that initial opening frenzy phase, but still, this is strange…’

However, there was something even weirder. The donor’s name was Alchemist Choi Gap-Soo.

‘That old man? The Alchemist from Cheongdam-dong? How can he be the donor, when the only one who can watch System Streaming Platform livestreams at this point is Joseph?’

As far as Jin-Hyeok remembered, Alchemist Kim was just a Player with a lot of money and time on his hands. He knew Alchemist Kim as an Earthling.

‘So how could he watch my livestream and give donations to me? Does he have the Achievement, Race Toward a New World, just like Joseph?’

“I’ll have to meet him.”

He was a little excited when he was faced with this strange and bizarre situation.

It felt like the moment before he went into a dangerous Dungeon.

1. A Ward in the Gangnam District, which is one of the richest areas in Korea. ☜