“Kylo, Kylo!”
Perhaps because even a [World Message] had appeared, Ivelin asked in an excited voice.
“May I ask what effect the title you got has?”
“Ah, yes. Wait a moment. I haven’t checked it yet either. I’ll look now and tell you.”
“Wow!”
Feeling an expectant gaze from inside the unseen helmet, I opened the stat window and checked the title.
[Requiem of the Battlefield]
◆ Grade: Legendary
◆ Effect(Permanently Applied)
[Affinity increases with NPCs capable of sensing souls.]
[Resistance to undead-type attacks increases by 5%.]
─[You soothed the souls of those who died on the battlefield. The traces of the pacified souls will be visible to other undead and those who see souls.]
“This is.......”
“How is it? How is it?”
“It permanently increases resistance to undead-type attacks by 5%, and raises affinity with some NPCs.”
“Resistance increase? Isn’t that an effect only attached to really high-grade equipment?”
In truth, it was. Options like resistance increase only appeared on equipment made with quite a bit of care.
And I had just received 5% as a permanent title effect.......
‘Even fairly hard-to-obtain Legendary titles are usually around 1 to 3%.......’
Was it because it was a hidden title with perverse conditions? The effect was quite extraordinary for its grade. This kind of effect was uncommon even at Mythic grade, the highest grade.
“Wow, wow. That’s amazing.......”
“A noisy message like server-first won’t appear, but if you do the quest yourself, you can get it too, Ivelin. Should I help you?”
This quest made levels completely meaningless, so anyone could do it as long as they had the control.
If I helped beside them until they succeeded, wouldn’t I be able to let Ivelin obtain the title too?
Leaving aside the other hidden title that would appear later, the title obtained by pacifying these ghosts was not that difficult.
“Ah, um....... I’m not confident I can play like you, Kylo....... I’ll try it later.......”
At that, Ivelin violently waved both hands and refused. Was it really something to refuse that strongly?
“Still, I saw something truly amazing! It’s my first time seeing such a hidden quest concealed like this. I heard a lot of lesser-known hidden quests have poor rewards, but I guess that’s not always true?”
“Usually, that’s probably right.”
“Is that so?”
“Elysium is just a bit strange.......”
At this point, I wondered whether this was content the developer had made and forgotten. It was a game with quite a lot of content that had actually been made and then abandoned.
“Still, for now, even if there are no guides and the quest isn’t well known, you can’t completely ignore it.”
“Rather than ignoring it, isn’t it because no one except you can do a quest like this, Kylo?”
“Huh?”
“Getting a title of Legendary grade or higher for the first time on the server isn’t something just anyone can do easily, is it? That also means the quest is that difficult....... I saw it while following you, but I don’t think your skill is ordinary, Kylo.”
Ivelin emphasized it again and again.
“Honestly, earlier, when I saw you keep blocking the Goblin Riders with parries, I thought you were some kind of pro....... I even wondered if it was okay for me to take up this much of your time.”
“I’m not a pro, so you don’t have to worry about it. In the first place, Elysium doesn’t have pros, does it?”
“Ah, that’s true.”
Wasn’t Ivelin the one who had said a pro league would come out later? I did not know whether it would actually come out or not.
“Are you really not some kind of game specialist?”
“No. In real life, I’m just a student.”
“Ah.”
A student on leave was still a student, wasn’t he? In truth, being newly discharged and an unemployed bum with savings was the best situation.
In any case.
“With this, the quest is over. You worked hard.”
“No, no. Thanks to you, I got the poison too. I can proceed with the rest of the quest now. Thank you!”
Ivelin expressed their gratitude energetically.
“And if I have questions later, may I contact you? I don’t have many game friends yet.”
“Of course. Send me a friend request and contact me.”
“Wow, great! I’ll send it now!”
In any case, since I had missed the timing to return to school, it looked like I would only be playing Elysium for a while. There was nothing bad about having a game friend to chat with from time to time.
“Ah, but I really wonder if it’s okay for me to take the time of an expert who even got a server-first title.”
“It’s not a big deal. It’s a game we’re playing to have fun anyway. Since this is the beginning of the classic server, I was just lucky.”
“Is that so? It seems it’ll even appear on the homepage. With luck alone.......”
“When I played Elysium before, there were plenty of things even greater than this, but back then, even when I did things first, they didn’t give anything.”
“......You had more firsts before?”
“It was a long time ago.”
There had been no homepage exposure back then, so I had no proof, though.
“......Um, uh.”
Ivelin stammered for a while, as if they did not know how to take my words.
“Kylo, will you be okay?”
“With what?”
“I think this might become much more famous than you expect, Kylo.......”
“Famous? Over something this minor?”
“Um, I’m not a prophet, so I can’t say for sure....... But just in case, I think you should be careful.”
“Careful?”
“Anyway! Thank you so much for today! I’m going to log out now, so I’ll see you next time!”
“Yes.”
“See you next time!”
Like that, Ivelin, the armored knight who was confusing in many ways, from whether they were a newbie or experienced, skilled or not skilled, disappeared from the game with light.
‘Careful, huh.’
Was there any need to play a game carefully? It seemed like needless worry.......
‘Hm, anyway, what now?’
For now, I had finished preparing the weapon needed to conquer the hidden quest.
‘The next quest is.......’
[Hidden Quest]
[Short Rest]
◆ Grade: Daily Life
─[You safely protected the soldiers and arrived at the Eighth Supply Base. Rest until battle resumes.]
◆ Objective
─[Spend time.]
◆ Reward
─[Linked quest unlocked]
‘I think this unlocked after a day passed and I waited until the next night.’
The sun had just risen. In Elysium, a day passed every two hours of real time, so I would have to wait about one hour of real time before the sun set again.
‘Can’t I just manipulate time?’
[Elysium Online] was a game with quests affected by time, so it was possible to artificially manipulate time.
In that case, you would be moved not to the main channel where most players were together, but to an asynchronous personal channel.
Just like when I had left to quest with Ivelin earlier.
The problem was.
“Oh, welcome! Hero! There are plenty of empty spots, so rest wherever you like!”
I entered the lodgings, but no separate time manipulation UI appeared.
‘Looks like the time manipulation tutorial doesn’t open here.’
That meant I had no choice but to simply wait until that quest activated.
With nothing else to do, I left the lodgings and wandered around the Eighth Supply Base.
‘A whole hour left.......’
No matter how I looked at it, the waiting time was too long.
‘Was it originally designed this way so people could do other quests?’
Maybe you were supposed to farm through the hidden route I did not know, or maybe finding the dwarf ghosts was designed with a much longer time in mind.......
There could be many reasons, but in any case, the problem was that I had too much time on my hands right now.
If I walked around and spoke to NPCs inside the base, there were probably a few more errand quests I could do, but.......
‘I have items overflowing too.’
There was no need to spend an hour doing small errand subquests inside the base to gather items.
Now that weapon enhancement was finished, I had gathered every tool needed until the end of this hidden quest.
‘Should I log out for today?’
There were also things on my mind like the max-level event and the commemorative gift. I should log out for today, look around the homepage a bit, and end it there.
That was the moment I was about to log out.
GRRK, GRRRRK──
The unique delay that occurred when many players gathered nearby began again. Were other players coming in a crowd toward this smithy?
─Um, I’m not a prophet, so I can’t say for sure....... But just in case, I think you should be careful.
At that moment, strangely enough, I remembered the warning Ivelin had left before logging out. Why?
Amazingly, Ivelin’s warning fit like a prophecy.
“Ah! There he is!”
“That’s him!”
“He’s over there!”
“Kylo!”
“He’s the guy from the [World Message]!”
“That scammer bastard!”
Out of nowhere, enraged players were swarming toward me.
“He’s there!”
“Kylo! That nickname is right!”
The players who confirmed me shouted to one another and gathered. The number of players rushing over was three, five, eight.......
......In any case, there were quite a lot. It was a number that made me wonder if they were preparing a raid.
“Hey. You.”
The player who arrived first spat out the words.
“I saw the [World Message].”
“Did you come to congratulate me, perhaps?”
“Bullshit.”
Of course.
“You baited people with hidden information earlier, didn’t you?”
“Baited?”
“Don’t play dumb, you scammer bastard!”
“You lied and said an instant-death trap was a hidden route!!”
“While other people were tricked by you and died in a trap, you swallowed a hidden title all to yourself?”
“Ah.”
No way. Were these scrubs coming to me after failing to properly do what I told them?
“The PVP and the hidden route talk were all just hacks, weren’t they?!”
That hack talk again?
“I think I already explained everything I needed to earlier. If you’re mad, report me. Don’t bother me.”
I was so dumbfounded that I argued back.
“This son of a bitch. Wow, you’re really shameless.”
“Do you know this?”
“You’re getting exposed on the community right now. On the controversy board.”
“As a malicious user who tricks people with fake information from the beginning of launch.”
“You think you can get away with insisting for no reason?”
“Ah, is that so.......”
I don’t know what community you people are on, but can that be worse than getting plastered on the official homepage.......
“If you don’t want to play the game while getting cursed at for the rest of your life, shouldn’t you explain yourself or apologize?”
“Don’t think about changing your nickname and running. We already got your code.”
“The reports have all gone in too.”
That probably meant they had not only taken my Nickname Card, but also gotten the ID code that could identify my account.
Elysium allowed free nickname changes, but instead had separate ID codes used to identify who a player was.
On top of that, it supported only one account per resident registration number, and even if you created another character, the ID code did not change.
Therefore, once your code was exposed, it was practically the same as having every little move revealed.
Of course, if you blocked the other party, you could avoid seeing each other in-game.
But what if you were publicly excluded by many people?
‘It’d last quite a while. Probably.’
In end content, proper play would likely become impossible. There was also content where parties were essential, after all.
But.
“So what?”
Even back when I used to play, this level of conflict was common.
I was a PVP player whose main focus was the arena.
“What am I supposed to do about you getting mad because you’re bad at the game?”
What kind of people all-in on PVP in an MMORPG like this?
People addicted to the stress they received while gaming and the dopamine they got when they beat someone.
Degenerates who endured all kinds of hardship with the mindset that making others mad meant victory, rather than enjoying the game with less stress.
In PVP, if you got mad, you lost, and if you made someone mad, you won.
‘Though this is the first time I’ve seen people get angry before I even touched them.’
Well, I had not expected them to storm in, huffing with anger, even though I had not touched them.......
‘They mentioned a community. Did they fight over me there?’
It was not as if this was the first time someone had fought somewhere else and taken out their anger in the wrong place.
“Crazy, what?”
“This son of a bitch, seriously, wow.......”
“I earned a title, but what have you done in this past hour?”
I did not bother holding back the grin creeping up my face and taunted the players who had come to pick a fight.
“Ha. This bastard really won’t do.”
“Talking big after getting into the [Hall of Fame] with hacks.”
“Hey, we’re recording this right now, you know?”
It had been the same during PVP, but strangely, everyone seemed to record easily. I often saw recording icons nearby.
‘Do they all use good VR capsules.......?’
VR games consumed a huge amount of VR capsule machine resources, so proper recording was difficult unless you had a VR capsule meant for specialized broadcasting equipment.
Why were there so many people recording as if it were nothing?
“Everyone’s gritting their teeth and playing to try entering the [Hall of Fame], and you alone are using hacks and muddying the game.”
“Do you really not know that other people playing the game all hate it because of hack-using bastards like you?”
“You really won’t do. I was going to bury this if you bowed your head, but this needs to be publicized.”
“What a useless thing to do.”
That was my honest impression.
“What? Useless?”
“Ha, this crazy bastard.”
“Why, are you scared now?”
“Even if you have a video, you’ll be the ones losing from it.......”
Because you’re the ones who are wrong. If you blow this up, once people who actually have experience clearing this hidden quest like me start appearing, you will only embarrass yourselves badly.
“It’s already too late.”
“Public exposure has already begun.”
Good grief. So they rushed in without even confirming anything. Those idiots.
“And you really won’t do.”
“You need to get beaten up a little.”
SHING!
The players who had gathered drew their weapons at the same time. There were roughly ten people in front of me alone. Maybe they were a party.
But.
“PVP? You can only do one-on-one, so why are you all drawing so many weapons?”
Even if they challenged me to PVP, they had no choice but to do it in order. Were they doing that to scare me?
“Ah, so that’s what you believed in while acting so cocky?”
“You must have thought you’d definitely win one-on-one if you used hacks to parry infinitely.”
“You really don’t know the game. No wonder people were calling you a hack.”
The gathered players sneered like that.
Immediately afterward.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
[Another player has lowered your reputation!]
[Reputation decreased.]
[Reputation decreased.]
[Reputation decreased.]
.
.
.
[Reputation decreased.]
Messages announcing reputation loss began appearing one after another before my eyes. The gathered players had all started lowering my reputation.
‘Oh, this is maybe......?’
Evaluating another player’s reputation only became possible after completing the first class advancement and escaping [Novice].
KingdomOldHand also seemed to have advanced, so it was not strange if they had finished class advancement through the hidden route I did not know.
The problem was what they were aiming for.
They were drastically lowering the reputation of a player they disliked.
‘They wouldn’t have gathered here just to pull off that petty spite.’
Maybe they had come here to use “that method” I was thinking of.
[Reputation decreased.]
[Reputation decreased.]
How far has my reputation fallen?
[Reputation greatly decreased!]
[Karma State changed!]
[Karma State: Villain]
‘Oh, this is......!’
It was exactly “that method” I remembered.
[Tutorial]
[Karma State has become ‘Villain’!]
[If reputation continues to decrease, Karma State may change!]
[‘Villain’ State belongs to a ‘Negative Karma’ State.]
[In ‘Negative Karma’ State, neutral NPCs may take hostile action!]
[When another player attacks you first, their reputation will not decrease!]
[If you are killed by an NPC or player while in ‘Negative Karma’ State, items other than equipment and valuables may be ‘lost’ at the location where you were killed.]
[Lost items will disappear unless reacquired at that location!]
‘As expected......!’
Commonly known as a Karma Kill.
The gathered players intended to turn me into a wanted criminal and deal with me!