Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 306

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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 306

Bradley’s instinct that something had gone wrong proved accurate.
After about five minutes of staying still, his stamina would fully recover, and then Seo Jun would finish his prayer and stand.
“Brother? Shouldn’t we practice again?”
This was the third time.
This madman was forcing him.
Practice if you don’t want to die.
“Wait a moment!”
“Yes?”
He wasn’t some unemployed layabout with nothing to do, and yet here he was in a History Book scenario of all things.
“Is it possible I’ve somehow made an enemy of you? Have I done something wrong like Shin-geom did?”
Bradley had heard how Kael had ransacked Shin-geom’s storage and harassed him afterward.
He wondered if he’d made some mistake too.
If he had, Bradley was willing to apologize.
To be honest, he was willing to apologize even if he hadn’t.
“What are you talking about, brother? We’re training hard together to survive the Black Mask, aren’t we?”
Then what about the Damage I’m taking?
Instead of asking that, Bradley simply stared blankly at the sky with a face full of deep doubt.
“…….”
They weren’t getting through to each other. Not from the start. Continuously.
Like those two fellows who were always fretting over noble conferences.
Ah.
So they must have known this would happen and just dealt with it wisely.
“Let’s get up. Let’s fight with strength! We’ll defeat the Black Mask together!”
If he didn’t play along with this insane game, he’d be killed.
Damn it.
Still, he’d heard that Shin-geom was alive, so he couldn’t give up.
“Fine! But in return!”
“Oh. You’ve regained your enthusiasm. Very impressive. What is it?”
“I’ll use a Skill.”
“Hmm. A Skill?”
“Yes. Either way, even if I use a Skill, I won’t be able to kill you, right? Am I wrong?”
“How do you know that?”
“Because your stamina is high.”
“Right, so how do you know for certain?”
“……?”
“You haven’t landed a single hit on me.”
Seo Jun was smirking.
Whether he’d ever seen the stamina bar.
He was smirking about that.
‘Damn it. I just want to rush in and hit him, whether I die or not.’
It was that irritating, but there was one thing that mattered.
“Instead, I’ll also give up part of the wager’s compensation.”
“How so?”
“I won’t demand that you ask Kael to make me abandon the Quest or kill myself. I’ll simply ask you to let me go.”
“For the duration of this entire Quest?”
“Yes. That should be enough, don’t you think?”
“Very well.”
“You’re not hesitating?”
“Because I’m going to win anyway.”
Seo Jun smirked again.
His face wasn’t actually a smirk, but the content was definitely one hundred percent mockery.
“Ha…….”
Yeah.
He knew he used a sword well.
But he couldn’t deny that there was an element of luck at play from earlier either.
Bradley tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword with his right hand.
Six strikes. After that, he wouldn’t suffer anymore.
And he’d survive!

* * *

Seo Jun had several obstacles to overcome.
The greatest obstacle was that he couldn’t kill people.
If he could kill people, this Quest would have been far too easy, so it was a reasonable restriction.
To overcome this obstacle, Seo Jun’s initial plan was to capture the Hounds beforehand.
But this was blocked. Actually, he could do it if he wanted.

[Kha-ha-ha! If you wish, capture them all. But if you do, it will be troublesome for you.]
[Why will it be troublesome? The Hounds remaining there will grow stronger after the passage is reinforced, receiving my power. And they will serve to invade Darahn. Immediately. Kha-ha.]
[The Heroes of Darahn will have their feet tied down trying to stop those Hounds. Yes, what you threatened Atura with is actually happening now.]
[Indeed. You catch on quickly. Just as you said, the Heroes of Darahn won’t have the leisure to spread information about your identity. The Thief Guild? Before that information that Abaran posted spreads, my Hounds will destroy the branch. I must help my collaborators too.]

That is, Seo Jun couldn’t be the one to kill the Hounds.
A certain number of Hounds could be captured. But if Seo Jun captured enough to interfere with other Participants, he would be putting himself at a disadvantage.
More than anything.

[And you must prevent them from finding the corpses. Even if you killed them, they can still collect the energy, haha! Let’s see if you can block it well!]

It became more troublesome.
The Quest difficulty was high for that reason.
There was no answer but guessing games.
But it wasn’t entirely bad.
The higher the difficulty, the greater the reward.

[My power is not infinite. Even now, it’s continuously being used for smooth invasion.]
[Therefore, I must watch and judge whether the power I distribute to you is being used worthfully or not.]

It was a decision about whether to invest more or not.
The Fragment had power that was very insufficient compared to the main body.
Giving ability stats to Seo Jun consumed quite a lot of power, apparently.
In any case, from the conversation, Seo Jun could tell that if he accomplished difficult tasks, a suitable quid pro quo would naturally apply.
‘Though it won’t be huge.’
For the sake of balance adjustment.
But the AI had never once blocked actual profit.
It only trimmed down profits that were too large.
The Points alone that Seo Jun had already accumulated could be considered a balance collapse.
Therefore, the remaining method was ultimately something pathetic, terrible, that broke his heart, but something he had no choice but to do.
Tormenting him.
How unfitting this word was for Seo Jun.
But what else was there to do?
Otherwise, they would suspect.
With tears welling in his eyes, Seo Jun rose from his kneeling position.
And he accepted the terms of Bradley’s wager.
“Come in, brother.”
He’d have to torment him for a while longer anyway. It pained him, but the world was such that you had to do things you didn’t want to.
He too had to survive as the Black Mask.
The opponent had a total of six types of Skills.
Each time he landed an attack, the color of the energy coating the sword changed, and with each change, he could use a Skill with a different effect.
“The first Skill was Swift Movement, wasn’t it?”
A simple but effective Skill that enabled instantaneous high-speed movement.
Through Swift Movement, he could land the first strike successfully and move on to use the next Skill.
Each Skill had a Cooldown of ten seconds, which was long.
But once he transitioned to the next phase, he could use that phase’s Skill again after three seconds, so theoretically, he was a Hero who could use a Skill every three seconds.
So what did that mean?
Ultimately, if he didn’t land hits, he had nothing.
“That’s right. And if I land just one hit!”
The opponent was running hopeful thoughts, but.
Seo Jun deliberately turned his eyes away briefly from the opponent to check his surroundings.
It was a fleeting moment.
His pupils had moved and returned before properly registering the background.
And what Seo Jun’s returning vision caught was merely the sight of Bradley, who had seized that fleeting moment and used Swift Movement, vanishing.
Naturally, since Seo Jun had expected this, his sword blocked the attack coming from the left and simply countered.
Clang!
There weren’t many openings. But there were visible ones.
“Shall I wait ten seconds for you?”
“…….”
“How about we do this from now on?”
“What?”
“You can attack me using Swift Movement once every ten seconds, right? I’ll only counterattack at those moments.”
“Your movement speed is pretty fast?”
“Why? Will you run away using Swift Movement?”
“…….”
Seo Jun chuckled.
“Why don’t you call for help?”
This was a conversation during the ten-second wait.
And his opponent was busy attacking Seo Jun.
Seo Jun said he’d only counterattack then, but he never said Bradley shouldn’t attack.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sword strikes were easily blocked.
Before the sword stance was even completed, mid-motion and from the start.
The sword was freely blocked.
“I did call for help! From before!”
“Your personal connections aren’t very strong, are they?”
“Because of you! Because of you! Why did my teammates become so irrational! Isn’t it all because of you! Argh!”
Bradley, who had been pretending to rage and getting worked up, suddenly vanished from sight again.
Swift Movement.
And Seo Jun’s body naturally turned to face the direction he was heading.
Clang!
The second attack came as a full-power horizontal slash.
It was blocked by Seo Jun’s sword, held vertically perpendicular to the ground.
“Why isn’t this working!”
“You still have many chances, brother. That makes two.”

* * *

The greatest pain was helplessness.
The helplessness of being forcibly injected with defeat that made him continuously feel the gap in skill.
“What’s the way out of this, exactly?”
Finally, the question Seo Jun wanted came tumbling out of the pitiful Participant’s mouth.
It was when Bradley had recovered his stamina for the seventh time.
Knowing there was no method by which he could win the wager, Bradley had entered a state of despair.
‘Ha. With this level of skill, I would’ve lost even in a four-versus-one situation.’
“A way out, you say?”
‘Can’t even tell him to just die.’
No matter what, he couldn’t show a Participant willingly giving up on their own life.
‘A Participant like that wouldn’t be accepted by viewers in any situation.’
Bradley didn’t know that Shin-geom had already done so, and that people thought it was possible.
“Then, kill someone.”
Seo Jun said it. It was what he wanted to say.
“Huh?”
“If you kill just one person, I’ll help you escape this nightmare.”
The fact that he didn’t say until the very end that he would let you go was chilling.
‘At this point, even a three-year-old would know you’re the Black Mask.’
It wasn’t even playing peek-a-boo.
And besides.
“……. Why do you want to watch me kill someone?”
“I’m simply curious what choice you will make, brother.”
He accepted it simply.
When you try to understand it with reason, all you feel is terror.
But he couldn’t kill his teammates. There was only one person who had done a team kill without any profit, just to save himself, and that person was heavily criticized.
It would be better to give up his life.
Even if giving up on life was unprecedented and could cause attitude controversy, it was better than team killing.
Bradley spoke.
“Isn’t Quest Abandonment an option? I’ll just go and live quietly. Quietly. If that doesn’t work…….”
Bradley manipulated the Quest window.
He clicked and dug deeper, then pressed the abandon button.
The harvested items that had been in his inventory disappeared.
Seo Jun watched quietly. Afraid of what he might do.
“Yes. I’ve abandoned the Quest. Now let me go.”
A gamble on the assumption that only the relevant person would be targeted. Either way, death or Quest Abandonment was the same.
Seo Jun approached and raised his arms.
Bradley flinched, but Seo Jun simply patted his shoulders with both hands.
“Brother. Your faith will be rewarded.”
He looked deeply satisfied.
Rather than relieved to have survived, he looked uncomfortably delighted.

* * *

“He’s really gone, then.”
Shon, having finished off all the Monsters, clicked his tongue.
He’d discovered that Bradley’s location was no longer showing up on GPS.
The radio had been out for a while. He hadn’t been able to mourn immediately because he was busy capturing Monsters.
It was unfortunate. Even in that short time, he couldn’t imagine how much he must have suffered.
Terrible radio messages like “Please, save me” came through intermittently, and all he could do was squeeze his eyes shut and turn away.

-It seems so. Do you think he might have died?
-He might have been made to abandon the Quest and had all these communication items removed before being killed.
-What exactly is your image of Kael?

“Now that image will be shared by three people. Bradley must have felt it too.”
Shon began moving toward the next target.

-If he’s still alive.

By his analysis, the probability of death was high.
“Still, if the remaining three make sure not to encounter Kael alone, they could succeed in the Quest……. Oh my.”
How did he know his location?
Thud.

-Shon? Is something wrong? Shon?
-Ah. We’re all dead. All dead.
-Say something! Is this what the nobles of Darahn are like?

He thought there would be a Monster nearby and scanned the area when his eyes met Seo Jun’s, who was watching him while leaning against a tree.
He was startled so badly that his legs gave out, and he fell lightly like a piece of paper.
A bit.
Embarrassed.

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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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