Haroon Volume 3 Chapter 4

《User Jinsoo》

 Haroon practiced Messenger Walking on his way home home. Acc.u.mulating Ki through the sole of his foot by walking, while giving full attention to his feet he couldn't help feel more refreshed and sense of accomplishment. It was a very joyful sensation.

"I suppose I'll have to come out of the capsule and walk on the dirt sometimes."

 Of course, he could train in Beyond as the atmosphere inside of the capsule is being maintained similarly to the outside. But Bell once said that his body is floating in the air, while he is playing the game. That was why he thought it would be better to train Messenger Walking in the real world.

 Walking on dirt was the best way to train Messenger Walking. Although Haroon realized that the mana of Beyond and the Ki of the real world was quite similar concepts, and even though he and his character has a higher sync rate than the other users, it would be more efficient to train Messenger Walking outside unless the sync rate reaches near 100%.

 Haroon came back to his house after practicing Messenger Walking for two hours.

 'Hmm, It's getting late now. I wonder if Jinsoo has logged out,' he thought before entering his house.

 But he hesitated to press the doorbell for a while. He thought again, then concluded It wouldn't be easy to log out so often as a mercenary guild leader, so it was better to meet Jinsoo when he's got the chance.

 He pressed the doorbell. Like he thought, Jinsoo had logged out from the game and was out of his capsule.

 "Oh, hey, It's you! What's up? Well, come in first," Jinsoo welcomed him.

 Jinsoo's house was in a mess. The floor was covered in half-filled instant food packages, empty gla.s.s bottles and litter. There was a strange odor filling his room too, but it seemed like Jinsoo was not aware of the smell.

 Haroon thanked Bell once again.

 Haroon, too, wasn't a neat person. When he was living without Bell, his house was in a mess as well, although it wasn't as bad as Jinsoo's house. Thanks to Bell, his house was being maintained, it was neat and clean.

 "Did you have dinner yet?"

 "Yeah, I already ate."

 He didn't. But he didn't want to. Definitely not in Jinsoo's house.

 "And how about a cla.s.s? Have you got one yet?"

 "Well, I did, but……"

 As Haroon didn't finish his sentence while darkening his face, Jinsoo realized what happened to him and snorted.

 "le' me guess. You dead, right?"

 "Yeah."

 "Hahaha, don't worry about it. There are an unofficial statistic saying that average users die twice before they get a cla.s.s. I already died thrice."

 "But still, I felt really c.r.a.ppy when I died."

 "Really? It felt like nothing to me. Maybe because I died too many times, so I got used to it."

 Haroon thought that it was probably because of the sync rate. If one has a higher sync rate, they get more physical and psychological damage as well. Of course, Bell must have reduced the pain to prevent fatal damage, but it would be different from how normal users with 20~30% sync rate would feel.

 Haroon changed the subject because it was uncomfortable to talk about his character's death.

 "By the way, how is your revenge plan going?"

 Jinsoo's face seemed quite peaceful, unlike the last time. That's why he asked about it.

 "Oh, that? Well, originally, I was going to kidnap that b.i.t.c.h when you and my friends joined me. But you know how they made a sudden announcement about the main storyline quest, right? That's when we changed the plan."

 Haroon's eyes widened when he heard about the news. Jinsoo realized Haroon had no idea about the main storyline quest, and asked.

 "You didn't know?"

 "Know what?"

 "They made a big announcement three days ago. It's amazing how you have never heard of this. It was so viral that users flooded into Beyond's webpage and Necomwall's webpage, so much so that the site even froze for a while."

 Jinsoo explained about the announcement in great details for Haroon.

 The Golden Battle.

 The Teronn Empire. Its territory is the only playable area in the lore of the world of Beyond.  Now it has been confronted with the most chaotic political situation in history, and that storm was very imminent. The bright star of the Emperor has been burning for the last 40 years. Even the star which was being praised for the last few decades couldn't win the force of time, and was getting closer to its death.

 The Empire had a tradition of not selecting the imperial successor prior to the death of the old Emperor. Instead, imperial prince and princesses needed to go under a special process to be an Emperor or Empress: the battle of imperial successors.

 The Golden Battle begins with an announcement made by the senate that protects the Emperor's power, and the battle consist of three major steps.

 The first step of the battle is the process of successors leaving the Metropolis city, escaping to a place where they can build up their foundation. Except for imperial guardians who gets direct orders from the Emperor, the Metropolis Defence troops, the imperial army or front-line army, everyone was allowed to hunt down the successors, as long as they were ordered to by other successors.

 The second step of the battle is the war between the successors, using the physical and political power they have built up to widen their territory by subjugating others one way or another.

 This is the time when many monsters are wiped out and roads are built in order to help the war. Some feudal wars take place in this time, either by feudal lords who support different successor, or by neutral feudal lords who use the golden battle as an excuse to attack another territory. During this time, common people or low-rank n.o.bles are given the chance to get higher social status by contributing to the war for the lords they support. They couldn't get a better chance than this.

 The third step is the final battle where the last four successors needs to fight on the site called 'Emperor's Ground'. Under the Senate's control, each successor is allowed to enter with a limited amount of help for this battle, the winner claiming the throne. If any of the defeated survive, they are forced to give everything they have built up to the winner, and are sent to a special place called the 'Graveyard of the Imperial Family', where they would live out the rest of their lives.

 At a first glance, users did not think this tradition is morally nor ethically right since the whole continent would be covered in blood, but they soon realized there are more pros than cons.

 Societies with social cla.s.s systems aren't healthy for the Empire because of the greed of n.o.bles in high ranks, those who had tasted the power of money and position. Because n.o.bles tended to be focused on collecting money and power, the Empire's growth can easily become stagnant. But the Golden battle allowed the wind of change to blow regularly across the whole society.

 n.o.bles knew higher ranks were guaranteed to them if the lord they support becomes the Emperor, so no n.o.bles were satisfied with their current position. This chance was given to commoners as well.

 Through this golden battle, countless n.o.ble families would rise and fall, but the Empire could stand firmly. No matter how powerful one family was, if their lord loses the golden battle, they eventually fall. Unless they chose honor over power and became a member of the senate, no matter how well established or how much power one family held, they couldn't last for over a century.

 The imperial family of Teronn Empire was blessed with numerous offspring. So the Empire was able to find the successor who would firmly and solidly rule the Empire through the Golden Battle, while taking away the positions of high-rank n.o.bles and officers who didn't deserve to have their t.i.tles.

 This was very good news to players, known to the NPCs as outlanders. Everything

 players could experience in Beyond was slaying monsters and collecting items. Now Beyond was offering a chance to let them build their own foundation with imperial successors to form a vast Empire. This kind of experience was something that was impossible to have in closed cities like the Unions.

 They might be able to partic.i.p.ate in war as a member of an army, or they might even get a chance to rule a small portion of land to earn some funds for the royal whom they support.

 Ultimately, the fun came from playing the game with NPCs. Users were surprised from how the developers drew this out; they waited long enough for users to be familiar with playing the game with NPCs, so they could fully experience what Beyond really has to offer.

 "That's simply amazing. Everything about this game is," said Haroon.

 "I know, right? The scale of this game are so vast! No games can be compared to Beyond. Beyond has everything that the real world doesn't have!"

 It seemed that Jinsoo was as much into Beyond as Haroon was.

 "Well, then how about the revenge?"

 That triggered Jinsoo's eyes, and they started burning with anger. His voice became more pa.s.sionate than when he was explaining about the golden battle.

 "We was still discussing 'bout the details, but this is our plan so far. Since we're gonna take revenge anyways, I thought ruining her game character won't be enough. That's too boring, ain't it? Not just that b.i.t.c.h but that b.i.t.c.h's followers hafta be supporting a imperial successor, so we'll be eliminating that imperial successor so that b.i.t.c.h and her followers won't get to gain anything from the golden battle."

 That sounded fun. In this way, Jinsoo will be able to take his revenge and gain a higher chance to become a n.o.ble In Beyond at some point.

 "So we'll be waiting for now. When we find out who they are supporting, that'll be when we start our revenge.

 "Then you'll choose the opposing side?"

 "Mmhm. There gotta be one who especially hates the successor they support. There gotta be."

 All these news were great information for Haroon. Of course, Bell would tell Haroon about this announcement, with more intel than Jinsoo knew, but it felt quite different to hear it from another user. It gave a different feeling, with the same information.

 "So we still got some time."

 "Yeah, We'll be focusing on getting skillful fonow. I am pretty sure all users are aiming for the same, since they need to be at least as strong as the knights to be free to take actions."

 "As strong as the knights? So do you know how high knights levels are?"

 Jinsoo gave a pathetic look at Haroon. To him, it seemed like Haroon was blind at the game because he joined late.

 "Well, feudal foot-soldiers are able to fight back goblins and maybe weak orcs so they are about level 10 to 20. But foot soldiers of the Empire are about 20~30 as they can fight back most of the orcs. Squires are known to be 50~70, and they can be compared to swordsmen who can put mana in their sword. Common Knights are about 80~120. They can control the amount of mana they put in their sword to increase the hardness or sharpness of the sword. Knight bannerets are considered to be over 120, as they are capable of using aura-thread or aura blade."

 He had seen aura blades before. Devron and enemy knights were using those during the quest.

 "Then what's the average level of the users?"

 "Well, they say not enough data is collected to calculate the average level. Though, the official top player am a level 65 swordsman named Bloodcape."

 He could see what kind of player he or she was just by hearing the name. That player must be battling monsters like crazy. His level proves it.

 "Of course, not every player wishes to show their stats so I am not quite sure if that player is the top player. But generally, people say users above level 45 are high-level players and they can fight Orc Warriors or Orc Commanders. 30~44 are called mid-level, and they can fight with lizardmen."

 Haroon was feeling proud, since he had a t.i.tle named 'Orc Warrior Slayer', of course, it was what Brat's OPness granted him, though. Without noticing the change in Haroon's expression, Jinsoo continued explaining about the game.

 "Game a.n.a.lysts say it'll take about a year for high-level users to reach knight's level. It's mostly because it gets harder and harder to level up as their level goes up. In addition, Necomwall once said that it gets much harder when they get the second cla.s.s advancement, but still, users' development would be faster than the NPCs at that point."

 Of course, getting instant rewards from effort was where the fun of games came from. But developers had to put limits on those rewards as they had to keep the balance between NPCs and the users to keep the experience more real, which is probably why they decided to make levelling more difficult after getting the second cla.s.s advancement.

 "So that's why we should be focusing on getting stronger. If we join the golden battle with low levels, NPCs will consider us as mere foot-soldiers."

 "Now we are on the same page, hmm? Moreover, the imperial successors will be holding events like material art compet.i.tions to recruit talented people, and their priority musta be users as NPCs have seen how much potential the users got. Although some rules 'ave changed as the Golden Battle began, but users became more pa.s.sionate about levelling up. They are risking their lives to level up, so they get used to battling."

 Haroon felt something strange from his words and asked.

 "Wait, did you just say rules have changed?"

 "Yeah. Unlike the time when the game was first released, they increased death penalty to a 20% decreas.e.m.e.nt of level and stats on every death after the cla.s.s advancement."

 He could understand why death penalty was increased. NPCs have only one life unlike how player's characters can be revived. That must be the point where the developers found the balance. When players' character dies more than three times, maybe it was better to get a new character instead.

 "What's your level, by the way?"

 "Well, I told ya I died three times. It got decreased so much, down to 34. But no worries. I found a big, vast orc tribe in the mountain near the County of Jorlen. It's really dangerous as the orcs attack first, unlike how the other monsters get hostile after they get attacked, but guerilla tactics should work, shouldn't they? It'll be a jackpot if I find a dungeon doing that. I hope I do."

 The two had fun chatting for the next two hours, talking about the game. When he meet Jinsoo about a month ago, Haroon felt pity for him, seeing how he suffered from the abuse he got. But now Haroon was not worried about him anymore as Jinsoo seemed quite lively when planning his new future and his revenge.

 Haroon wanted to chat with him all night long, but Jinsoo had to go back to Beyond as he had a raid appointment with his friends. Haroon promised to meet him in the County of Jorlen, and left Jinsoo's house.

Translated by Channy_
Edited by Tom, and Kmatt

Footnotes

Editor's notes:

Channy_: Finally, main story of the game