Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 289

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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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Chapter 289

Someone called a demon had kept scratching at Shin-geom, but he still wasn’t a hideously flawed person.
Overconfident, lacking self-awareness because he’d only ever succeeded, arrogant perhaps—but not twisted at his core.
That’s why he’d wanted to share information with the others.
Of course, he’d meant to share it from the start.
But back then, the reason was that since Shin-geom kept trying to push forward with this quest, he needed to warn the participants who would become his allies.
Now that he’d had his stockpile stolen and lost faith in the Train Quest—now that he’d decided to back out—he didn’t really need to tell them anything.
Besides, if he did, that bastard’s ears would catch it too.
And yet he’d been about to tell them anyway.
Because overall, it would be better if more people survived, and because this seemed like the right thing to do.
But then that bastard—
“Why aren’t you going?”
……
“There’s nothing more to do here anyway. We need to hurry to other places and collect Achievement Points. Right?”
He said it with a grin.
……
“Don’t tell me you don’t even have enough Points to buy a train ticket? That’d be pretty pathetic. Good grief.”
He was needling him. Making it impossible to want to share anything.
‘What a piece of work.’
So Shin-geom swung his blade.
By now he wasn’t even putting real force into it—he was just exhausted.
‘Were we enemies in a past life? How could anyone be so relentlessly vicious…!’
At this point, Shin-geom took a step back and reflected on himself.
Yes, he’d looked down on his opponent.
And yes, he’d provoked him first, so the man had some cause for complaint.
But to stoke this kind of fury?
To raid the storage vault?
“Haah… let’s stop.”
“Fine.”
Shin-geom was actually more angry about this.
The way he’d beaten him senseless and then brushed it off like nothing, like he’d come back and needle him again later.
Now Shin-geom just wanted to avoid him.
“The reason I’m still here is to warn you about the attacker. So wait a moment, Korean.”
Fifty-one minutes.
Starting with one or two participants who’d been watching their fight with interest, the plaza gradually filled with people returning from Cresit.
“Hey, where did Shin-geom Tae-san go?”
And when enough people had gathered, Shin-geom opened his mouth.

* * *

Shin-geom had left.
“What do you think?” Rachel asked Seo Jun.
They’d heard everything together in the plaza.
The participants weren’t in a state of panic.
One participant dying—how shocking could that really be?
It was something that could easily happen.
In fact, things had been surprisingly peaceful until now.
Still, they had to come up with a strategy.
“Should we move around in groups, um?”
Seo Jun replied.
“Now that we’re prepared for ambush, if we do fight, we might actually win, right?”
If they could catch the hidden hand, why not?
That’s what Seo Jun was thinking.
“Come on, Seo Jun. Chaos is the Other World, and it’s probably the hidden hand’s home turf. Aren’t we set up to be massively disadvantaged, even with stat buffs?”
They were simply assuming for convenience that their opponent was the hidden hand.
“We just have to catch them anyway.”
“Right… hmm. Two people farming together and walking about ten meters apart seems to work fine for both to keep getting resources. Maybe I should find a partner.”
“Don’t bother looking—go with Yon, Rachel.”
“Hmm… why?”
“I’ll be going alone.”
“Why?”
“I want to try having a conversation?”
Yon clicked her tongue.
A conversation?
“Nuts?”

* * *

Over the remainder of the fourth day, nothing particularly noteworthy happened among the Train Quest participants.
There were no additional attacks, no witnesses.
Was it limited to one attack per day, or was the NPC simply resting?
No one could let their guard down, and most participants decided to keep working in pairs.
After the fourth day ended, viewers began to speculate wildly.

[Why isn’t he showing up?]
==
That monster bastard?
==

-The Master showed up though?
└The monster IS the Master lol
└Yeah, the Master for sure lol
-Come on, spill some lore about Chaos
└Some stuff did get revealed
└Like what?
└Apparently every time they go down to mine ore, Finn says he feels this massively huge, malevolent presence
└Creepy as hell

Finn is a hero who travels with the Blue Bird, a spirit creature.
He can read the Blue Bird’s thoughts, and apparently he’s been saying he feels something odd every time he goes down to mine ore.

[You guys, scary fact]
==
Between 0 and 1 AM on the third day at the Rift Entrance, the number of mercenaries,
and then after a 10-minute break, the number of mercenaries at the Rift Entrance drops by one. The US official broadcast is replaying it now and it’s definitely true
==

-Chills dude
-Why’d it suddenly become a horror game?
-Mercenaries’ job is to show up where the participants are every 50 minutes and make them leave. Guess that one got lost!
-Wait, I just found something else—that missing merc is visible to the participants leaving the Rift. What is this??
└He just went out for a snack ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└Real talk, some people really do overthink things lol

[So WHO’S the hidden hand!!! Reveal your identity already!]

Information was sparse.
A sense of crisis crept in. The main story was advancing.

[It’s gotta be teamwork then]
==
Isn’t that how they’ll stop him?
==

-All together? But when he fought Tae-san Shin-geom, the guy ran out of stamina—without the ambush he’d have lost
└Right, he can’t just keep ambushing throughout the whole Historical Record
-The Train people are already prepared, right? He can’t ambush them anymore?

[Not teamwork—maybe he’s not even main story. Overblown hype ㄴ]
==
I mean, one of Shin-geom’s friends dying—it’s not like that’s such a big deal, right?
==

-Lol right
└That Korean duo’s rep really went downhill
-Yeah, people are saying that
-Wait, Tae-san’s dead? Didn’t the Master already eliminate three people?
└Wait, is it three? Wasn’t it two in Atura?
└The Master killed Shin-geom too…
└Oh lol

And then.
The fifth day.
On the Train, people passed safely without any threats as well.
But late in the fifth day, a stranger suddenly appeared in a completely unexpected location.

* * *

[Ancient God’s Mission]
==
For the next 8 days, before the day comes when the Rift has been open for a year, eliminate one hero per day to gather power.
Objective: Eliminate Heroes
Reward: Stat Increase for each hero eliminated
==

The Climax.
After just four days—in real-world terms, after two days of loafing around, he’d come in to find this quest before him.
‘I’d expected this once I committed to being the hidden hand.’
He’d also been cut off from information for two days, so it was complicated.
But he’d been given background knowledge when he entered the game.
‘A demon.’
Chaos, as it was called, was an entire world consumed and devoured by a massive Evil God.
And Cresit, who’d accidentally opened the passage between this world and Pangaea, had come here with the Investigation Team.
Among the first investigation unit, an Investigator had fallen deep underground by accident, and there he’d awakened a fragment of the Evil God that had been satiated, sleeping, and devouring the world.
Through the Investigator’s memory, the Evil God’s fragment recognized Pangaea and immediately began preparing for war.
It prepared to create a complete passage that Cresit couldn’t simply shut down.
And it breathed power into the fallen Investigator’s body, transforming his form into something alien.
That was the new heroic existence that the Climax would take on.
Ghost. That seemed to be all it was called for now.
‘My title will be determined by how I perform.’
His mission was simple.
Just as it was simple for the Historical Record.
‘Just kill all the other participants.’
If he succeeded, the next Historical Record would be one of war against the Evil God’s invasion.
If he failed, something else would happen.
It sounded interesting and worthwhile.
That’s exactly what he’d been thinking when he came in.
On his first day, because he could perceive everything in the Other World, he’d waited for prey near the entrance, but when none appeared, he simply ambushed the closest participant and killed Tae-san.
It was a shame he was Chinese like him, but he was in a position where he absolutely had to hunt a participant every single day. He couldn’t just wait around forever.
Balance adjustment.
Right now he was in ambush mode, but by the twelfth day, when the passage seemed about to fully open, the participants would band together to stop it.
One against many.
When he’d first arrived, his stats were ordinary.
‘But the stat increase from the reward is substantial.’
After killing Tae-san, a motion played out where he absorbed power, and his stats rose sharply.
Health, defense, and attack power too.
He couldn’t guess how much they’d rise if he killed all seven, but it was designed so that one-against-many would be possible.
‘He absolutely won’t give Achievement Points.’
Using other shops was impossible.
The only way for him to upgrade his specs during the first week would be through hunting.
‘The difficulty’s high.’
He was cut off from the outside.
And now that he’d hunted once in the Other World, even if he could track positions on a minimap, everyone would be on guard, so the risk had become too great.
So he immediately left the Other World and prepared his next prey.
That had been the fourth day.
By the way, Ghost had the ability to enter the bodies of those he’d directly defeated and operate from within.
If he released his power, he’d return to his original form quickly.
But thanks to that, using Tae-san’s body, he’d killed the mercenary guarding near the entrance, and then left using the mercenary’s body.
That’s how he spent all of the fourth day gathering intelligence.
And during the fifth day, he hunted in the Great Forest and searched for prey in the Lawless City Forest, launching his hunt in the final stretch.
And he succeeded.
“Hard-fought, but well done. Baek Do-yul.”
“Forget it. Who the hell are you?”
The participant standing there with barely a spark of life left was Baek Do-yul.
Korea’s so-called Climax (not really) champion pro.
“Of all times to catch me coming back from hunting… Yeah. If not then, when would you ambush? My mistake.”
Baek Do-yul blamed himself.
He’d been careless. In the real world, he’d only had three days and hadn’t expected such a being to be active. He’d focused on his hunting.
Not knowing that someone was targeting him.
If it hadn’t been an ambush, he’d have won!
Of course, the Climax was thinking the same thing.
“Even in a fair, one-on-one fight, you’d have beaten me.”
“You’ve got some nerve. After ambushing me like this.”
“And you’re quite the talker yourself.”
Two prideful pros exchanged words.
“So, who are you? The hidden hand? What’s your goal?”
“Why are you curious? You’ll be dead soon anyway.”
Baek Do-yul laughed loudly.
Ha ha ha.
Then, after thinking a moment, he spoke.
“There’s actually someone I want to have a real match with…”
The Climax cut him off with a laugh.
“Yeah, I’m not sparing you. So then, time to prepare for my next hunt. The prey is Kael.”
The Climax announced it as if all the viewers could hear him too.
“Ah…”
Baek Do-yul was about to say that’s my prey, but he died first.

* * *

Baek Do-yul’s eyes opened in the Capsule.
Then he closed them again.
His vision went dark.
Zero wins, two losses.
The moment Seo Jun didn’t know that he’d won, Baek Do-yul had lost to him twice.
‘Damn. But I haven’t really lost yet.’
And this was the moment he changed the score from best-of-three to best-of-five.
“Dammit! We haven’t actually fought properly yet, so maybe it’s not ugly to change it…”
“Yes?”
“Ah… you were waiting, Manager. No, I mean…”
Baek Do-yul opened his eyes and stepped out of the Capsule.
“Yes. Well fought, Player Baek Do-yul. Here are your Belongings. If you’d like, though not this hotel, we could arrange another one during the Historical Record period…”
“No… I’m just going home.”
The shocking news of the champion’s elimination spread worldwide, and the sixth day—when the attacker had been predicted to target Kael—began.

[That attacker]
==
A pro-level participant on par with Baek Do-yul, with growing stats and even using disguise. Kael’s really in danger, isn’t he?
==

-I think the Master’s gonna catch that guy and the Historical Record’s gonna be in trouble? Am I the only one worried? lol
└This guy’s right lol
└Hell no, what nonsense are you nuts saying lol

In that brief time, countless debates swept across the globe.

[Watching the US official broadcast and Kael really does seem to be in danger]
==
But why’s that guy targeting you specifically, Master?
What’d you do to him in real life?
Apologize already
==

-Whoever he is, he looks like he did something lol
└Real talk lol
-Kael’s cut! lol
└That’s the Historical Record getting cut, you dumb bastard lol
└Didn’t know your Master could disguise himself~

The question hung in the air: would Seo Jun die on the sixth day, or would he live?

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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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