Gwanjongcheonma’s Game Broadcast - Chapter 167

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 167
“Master Hyeon, I implore you in this manner.”
A steel briefcase that looked as though it wouldn’t shatter even under the wheels of a truck.
Inside, stacks of fifty-thousand-won notes were packed tight.
Before his name change, the old man’s name was Hyeon Tak.
He addressed the man sitting across from him curtly.
“Do you mean to insult me? Are you trying to buy me with money?”
“Many craftsmen have said the same thing, but in the end they came to partner with our company. Is it not an amount too large to refuse?”
CapMedia—the nation’s largest capsule manufacturer.
It was not a mere sales representative who had come, but the board of directors themselves,
yet Hyeon Tak’s resolve would not bend easily.
“It is certainly not easy to refuse.”
“Then… perhaps…!”
“Under ordinary circumstances, I might have accepted your hand. But the capsule I have just completed already has an owner.”
“An owner? You mean to say there is a company with which you have already signed a contract? Which company is it? If you will but name the terms, we shall offer…”
“Leave now. What good is being the world’s greatest company if your intelligence gathering is like this?”
Hyeon Tak rose from his seat and turned his back.
The true owner of the newly made capsule was none other than—
[Grandfather! The performance is absolutely insane!]
[You fool. What do you mean “insane” to your grandfather?]
[With just this, I think I can clear the final stage of Milksong without any problem!]
[You can’t even finish the first stage, and here you are bragging. How do you expect to enter Singularity like that?]
[Just you wait! With this machine, I feel like anything is possible!]
[No matter how much you love the machine. Playing too long is forbidden. You understand, don’t you?]
[Yes! Then I’m going to play now!]
Later, when he checked, his grandson’s final play session had lasted forty-eight hours.
After staying up all night gaming, his grandson departed to a world where wheelchairs were no longer needed.
Since the prepared meals were still being eaten and he often fell asleep inside the capsule, the family had apparently failed to grasp the severity of the situation.
He harbored no resentment toward the family living with him.
If there was an original sin, it belonged to the man who had made the capsule—himself.
‘The capsule I created killed my grandson.’
The reason Hyeon Tak had changed his name and emigrated.
The reason he never gave his capsules to anyone else from that point onward.
The mere thought of someone riding in his capsule made him nauseated.
‘And yet, I kept making capsules.’
Wouldn’t an ordinary person have smashed anything resembling a capsule machine to pieces?
But over the past several years.
Even while doing other work, Hyeon Tak had been fashioning capsules in his spare moments.
Had he already been swallowed whole by the great beast called capsule?
Such was the extent of his thinking.
‘A stubborn man, indeed.’
And so the man before him seemed curious to him.
It had been years since all industry contacts had given up and severed their ties.
Yet this man still saw him as a master craftsman whose forge burned bright with purpose.
A complete stranger he had met for the first time,
somehow saw through him better than his own family, better than business associates.
‘He truly is exceptional at games.’
Had he not seen the videos of Gwanjong Cheonma, he would have had no reason to make contact.
Every game uploaded to YouTube carried something special within it.
And he had trembled.
The ideal image of a gamer that he had always envisioned was present in each video.
It was the same kind of thrill that Team Leader Choi Ji-man of Gonau Soft had felt.
[GAME START!]
But.
The game before him was no pushover either.
Even without the tragedy of his grandson, during the time Milksong was designated as the test game, hardly any new Singularities had emerged.
Milksong was the kind of game that was too much even for geniuses.
Hop! Hop!
Hae-rang did not advance, instead hopping in place for a while.
Then he drew his sword and swung it in an arc,
He even drew his sword while airborne.
‘What’s he doing?’
Deep furrows carved between Ryu’s brow.
Just moments ago, he’d spoken with such confidence about attempting Milksong.
Now he was barely making any progress.
The movements on display were almost….
‘Is he performing Milksong for the first time?’
It didn’t seem like he was deliberately acting like a beginner.
And there was no reason for him to.
The crude movements had already kindled an urge in Ryu to quit the game outright.
His already-threadbare patience was burning down to the wick.
The words ‘Enough already’ were about to burst from his throat when—
At last, Hae-rang’s character, ‘Hommet’, moved.
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
Despite the game’s difficulty, the character had a surprisingly cute design.
The head was oversized relative to the body in SD style, with stubby limbs,
and the crimson cape that fluttered with each stride was quite casual in its design as well.
“Whoosh!”
The enemy that appeared was no different.
Though shaped like a monster, it was diminutive in size and possessed an overall cute design.
Yet behind that adorable exterior lurked a difficulty level that would make one blow their top.
Users who’ve played Milksong sum up the game’s strengths and weaknesses like this:
Strength: You put THAT much care into common enemies?
Weakness: You put THIS much effort into common enemies?
The remarks spoke to how impossible it was to brush past even a single minion carelessly.
In particular, the eerie movement of the minion—how it would step back slightly just as the sword was being drawn—
had no equal even now, after much time had passed.
‘Let’s see then. What does he want to show through this game?’
Ryu’s hawk-like eyes fixed on the monitor.
Hommet finally encountered the first mob.
Though it had an official name, users had given this mob a nickname: ‘Scissors Man.’
A monster that appeared wielding scissors larger than its own body.
Like all mobs in the game, defeating even a single Scissors Man was far from easy.
So much so that derivative curses like ‘Damn Scissors’ and ‘Scissors Man be damned’ had spawned.
Hae-rang approached Scissors Man without hesitation.
The moment Hommet swung the sword he was holding.
Whoosh!
Scissors Man executed a back step, dodging Hae-rang’s blade.
Hae-rang’s first attack had failed.
Ryu watched the screen with a face that showed little disappointment.
As expected.
He was merely an ordinary person after all.
Even if Hae-rang truly was attempting Milksong for the first time, the evaluation wouldn’t change.
The genius talent Ryu was seeking was nowhere to be found.
But then—
Slash-slash-slash!
This time, Scissors Man’s blades cut through empty air.
“Hmm?”
Precisely as far back as Scissors Man had dodged.
This time, Hae-rang’s Hommet executed an equally measured back step.
Then came a brief moment of stillness.
Though the two characters were quite cute and casual in appearance,
the tension felt like that of martial practitioners exchanging positions in the Martial World.
Spring!
This time, Hae-rang’s Hommet leaped into the air and swung his sword.
Scissors Man retreated further than before to evade,
then launched a jump attack of his own.
Slash-slash!
And Hae-rang withdrew by that exact distance.
Some might have thought it dull back-and-forth with no real offense or defense.
But to Ryu’s eye, the matter appeared quite different.
‘He’s copying the pattern. It’s as if…’
Learning.
He was analyzing the basic patterns of the monster he faced.
Not merely the concept that if you attack, he evades,
but rather the timing of evasion, the range, the frequency of attacks—all of it he was studying.
Like a human photocopy machine.
“…Now I understand.”
Hae-rang murmured softly, then advanced toward Scissors Man.
Scissors Man moved as if he’d been waiting, brandishing his shears,
and Hae-rang took a Back Step just enough to barely slip past the hit detection range.
Then he burrowed into Scissors Man’s guard after the failed attack.
Shing!
The first Scissors Man fell to Hae-rang’s blade.
After that came a one-sided massacre.
Shing!
Slash!
Once Hae-rang had grasped the rhythm, he tore through the Scissors Men that appeared in succession.
Facing multiple enemies posed no problem,
nor did Scissors Men appearing from both sides prove an obstacle.
The method remained identical throughout.
Wait for Scissors Man to attack first, weaving,
then burrow into his guard the moment the attack ends and strike.
The process happened so fluidly, so instantaneously, that Milksong looked like an ‘easy game’ by comparison.
‘This can’t be…’
Mere stage one minions, after all.
But a craftsman of Ryu’s caliber could perceive it.
What meaning lay beneath this play.
Distance control so extreme that the sword’s edge nearly brushed the fabric of his robe, leaving one’s nerves on edge.
The Super Senses Hae-rang had shown in Iron Fist were revealing themselves here in Milksong as well.
“This one’s got some size to him.”
Now facing stage one’s boss monster, Hae-rang steadied himself.
A massive creature resembling Bomb Man launched skyward,
then began unleashing hundreds of bombs.
Whether this was a 2D side-scrolling game
or a bullet-hell shooter from the old arcade days, the distinction blurred.
Within extreme difficulty where even the slightest touch meant certain death,
Keen!
Hae-rang’s Separated Love Heart Eye found the thread in the opening.
Boing!
Boing!
Hae-rang vaulted over terrain to evade the barrage.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he reached the very top of the screen,
spun his body in a full rotation through midair, and traced a sweeping arc of his sword.
Shing!
At the end of that arc lay the beginning of round two.
<Stage One Clear!>
“…Hah.”
A strained breath escaped Ryu’s lips.
Only then did he realize.
He had been watching the screen without breathing, lost in the moment.
Ryu’s urgent gaze darted toward the timer in the corner of the screen.
‘How long has it been? Since he started moving?’
The total playtime was not short.
There had been time spent bouncing in place before the game truly began.
If you started timing from before he even confirmed Scissors Man’s patterns?
‘No. Not even Scissors Man matters.’
Excluding only the time spent confirming basic controls at the start,
it was quite possible this would become a new world record.
Compared to the Singularity candidates who found even clearing difficult, much less setting records, it was an outrageous score.
‘Indeed. So what he showed on YouTube wasn’t just bluster.’
Ryu took a deep breath and watched Stage 2 unfold.
While Stage 1 was mostly a plains fight, from here on, jump control was crucial.
Most of the monsters that appeared were airborne types.
The creatures commonly called Needle Crows didn’t just thrust in place,
they came at you with random dash attacks as well.
Caw!
A needle-wielding crow dove in with a grating screech.
Hae-rang, who’d been about to draw his sword in midair, suddenly descended.
Whoosh!
“Hmm…….”
The Descent Strike—originally a skill meant to attack the ground from the sky.
But Hae-rang had adapted it unconventionally to dodge the needle.
‘How is it even possible to improvise something like that without anyone teaching him?’
Ryu was left speechless.
A player who’d just started the game was wielding skills like a Veteran Player.
This wasn’t some game where you just mashed buttons, after all.
Executing a Descent Strike required precise input sequences.
Calculating everything in a heartbeat,
inputting the motion accurately and swiftly,
and attempting it without the slightest hesitation.
The realm of talent that Ryu considered most ideal.
In other words,
“A genius…….”
The word escaped Ryu’s lips unbidden.
He stepped closer to the screen.
But premature conclusions were dangerous.
Before even reaching the Stage 2 boss, let alone the ending,
came that moment of carelessness after clearing the Needle Crows—
when a clockwise spinning saw blade suddenly erupts from the narrow cave ceiling.
This was the kind of high-difficulty trap that would make Buddha himself throw up his hands.
Ryu swallowed hard, watching Hae-rang’s movements.
It was the moment Hae-rang’s two feet reached the very edge of the trap.
Stop.
Hae-rang’s character froze mid-motion,
and Ryu rose from his seat.
“The better a game is made, the more its mechanisms show their seams, don’t they?”
Wouldn’t you agree?
The character seemed to ask.
The avatar on screen winked toward Ryu.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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