Chapter 9

A legendary class: Swordmaster.

With this alone…no joke, I could easily wipe out orc warriors by myself.

And then my level would increase! Plus, there’d be loot drops!

There would be no need to lead the villagers and run away anymore.

“Yip! Yip!”

“Ah, stop it.”

The barking dog annoyed a man eating bibimbap across from them.

“Young lady over there!”

“Oh, sorry, I—”

“Please answer your phone. It’s been ringing nonstop.”

“It is…what?”

“I said, please answer your phone.”

I turned toward the commotion as the woman sounded flustered.

“N-no, it isn’t…”

“Yip! Yip-yip!”

The toy poodle approached the man and barked as if sensing its owner was threatened. At the same time, the man’s face hardened.

“What are you doing? Sending this to me… Are you threatening me?”

Wooong!

Divine Power gathered in the man’s right hand. I had been watching the situation unfold, thinking there might be a fight, but now I smiled bitterly.

‘I see. No wonder he acted like that—he is a priest serving the God of Justice.’

On Earth, there were four gods: The Great and Magnificent Gamemaster, who was benevolent; and the deities representing Justice, Truth, and Honor, each overseeing their respective domains. It seemed that the man before us was a priest devoted to the God of Justice.

“I will impose a minor penalty! [Prohibition from using your phone for one day]!”

His divine power activated. I clicked my tongue disapprovingly.

‘All priests of the God of Justice are stubborn old men. How unlucky.’

I wasn’t an esper but I could recognize their types from my time struggling to become one.

Divine Spell: Public Etiquette. Literally, it was a spell that punished those who violated public etiquette. It wasn’t serious and as the middle-aged man said, it would just disable the use of mobile phones for a day. The problem was that this wasn’t a regular smartphone but a Toy Poodle.

‘No, small breed. Toy Poodles. Don’t you know that smart pets need to be at least medium-sized dogs due to functionality? Of course, it is possible if only considering the pet role, but then it isn’t a phone.’

I heard that priests serving the God of Justice were crazy about spells, but they went to these lengths…

‘Should I stop it?’

If a living being who hadn’t learned spiritual energy was caught up in aggressive divine power, their mind would be affected. There wouldn’t be any physical wounds and they might just seem a bit sad for now but there could be side effects later on. However, at that moment…

“Our Sseseong!”

Pang!

“Ugh?!”

“Our Sseseong isn’t a phone! It is a dog?”

The woman’s cry cancelled out the divine spell. The priest groaned at this unexpected situation. I looked with surprise at the woman.

‘Breaking the divine spell with spirit…?’

It didn’t make sense. Breaking a spell by will alone meant influencing the physical world through thought. In terms of martial arts practitioners, it was the realm of Yiqishangren, the pinnacle of experts. In other words, she was a Sword Master!

‘No way, is she already a perfect master at her age?’

“Ah! I’m really sorry for being noisy…” He bowed to the other people and left the restaurant. For a moment, I watched him before getting up from my seat.

“Huhu.” Laughter emerged. It was because seeing this young master didn’t make me feel any sense of inferiority at all. In the past, let’s say 20 years ago, witnessing such a sight would’ve caused my inferiority complex to explode, leaving me depressed for a week.

‘Are you a gamemaster? Well, I’ll get a legendary job! I’ll become an awesome sword wielder!’

I limped out of the bibimbap restaurant, with Cheeda silently following behind me.

Click.

I returned to my room.

[Level Up!]

At this moment, I saw my character on the PC leveling up after auto-hunting. The character’s job was Archer (General), with no special skills but already level 29. It was higher than my character, which was actually obvious.

‘If you give arrows and potions, they can hunt for 24 hours straight…’

“It would be nice if there was automatic hunting.”

Unfortunately, such a thing didn’t exist. No, it might’ve been problematic if it did exist. If I fought using such a naive ‘one-for-one’ style against orcs, I would die before killing even 10 of them.

“Well, what is important now isn’t automatic hunting!”

I patted Cheeda’s belly and bought one million won worth of diamonds.

Originally it was only 1 diamond but there were first-time purchases for 100 diamonds, 500 diamonds, 1,000 diamonds and 5,000 diamonds. In addition, there were special purchases five times annually, monthly and daily, making it much more than that.

“Let’s check first.”

I logged into Ardenia to take out the Archer (General) character ‘Kilian’ from Revenge. However, it wasn’t possible! Puzzled, I tried pressing the destroy button in Revenge.

[This job can’t be destroyed because it is already registered in the collection.]

“Ah.”

Unlike the item collection where items had to be manually placed, it seemed the class collection automatically registered as soon as the card was opened.

“Then I shouldn’t open them on PC. Login!”

I returned to Ardenia and started sprinting eastwards at full speed. I didn’t hide my traces, stomping heavily on the ground as if provoking them to chase me.

“Pant! Pant! Pant!”

Despite my increased stamina and strength, my breathing became labored after running flat out for about 20 minutes. I stopped and leaned against a large rock.

[Would you like to buy it?]

[Yes]

After purchasing a card pack from Revenge’s cash shop, I opened it in Ardenia. There was also a cash shop in Ardenia but…

“Unfortunately, there is no paid currency here such as diamonds. The auction house exists, but without diamonds, it literally has no meaning.”

The fee for listing items in the auction house was gold, so I could list items but couldn’t purchase anything due to the lack of diamonds.

Shhhling!

As soon as he scratched off the card, a playful-looking statue of a goddess appeared briefly before ten cards shot up into the air and transformed into weapons that fell at his feet.

He wondered whether anyone else could see this spectacle but quickly dismissed it as unimportant.

Swordsman (Regular), Warrior (Regular), Swordsman (Regular), Assassin (Regular)…

Flash!

High Cleric (Advanced)!

“Hmm.” Despite feeling disappointed, he tried to stay positive.

“It’s supposed to be 90 percent regular, 9 percent advanced, 0.9 percent rare, and 0.1 percent hero. It’d actually be stranger if I got something better right away.”

Warlock (Regular), Cleric (Regular), Archer (Regular), Hunter (Regular)…

Flash!

Shadow Warlock (Advanced)!

“Again!”

“Again!”

He kept drawing card after card…

And the results were:

Warlock (Basic), Cleric (Basic), Archer (Basic), Hunter (Basic)…

“All basic again!”

He’d wasted one million won without receiving even one rare card.

“What kind of game…? I just spent one million won…”

If this was merely a video game, he would’ve deleted it and cursed under his breath by now, but that wasn’t possible here.

Fortunately, despite all the money down the drain, it wasn’t a complete loss.

[Collection Completed!]

[Close-Range Warrior: Swordsman, Warrior, Shielder]

Strength +1

[Agile: Assassin, Archer, Hunter]

Agility +1

[Wise: Wizard, Cleric, Warlock]

Mana Power +1

[Beginner’s Adventure: Swordsman, Warrior, Shielder, Assassin, Archer, Hunter, Wizard, Cleric, Warlock]

Health +5

…and three more types for collection.

Each buff may not seem significant on its own, but considering they apply regardless of job class, their effects would add up over time.

“I need to invest some more. Logging out.”

He returned to Earth and boldly spent ten million won.

“Yes… Yes, this is still worth it. Where else can you get these abilities at such low prices? Plus, there’s fifty thousand free diamonds as a first-time bonus! Log in!”

jae-yeon immediately started swiping cards again.

Shielder (Basic), Assassin (Basic), Archer (Basic), Wizard (Basic)… Flash! Iron Shielder (Advanced)!

Hunter (Basic), Archer (Basic), Wizard (Basic), Cleric (Basic)… Flash! High Shielder (Advanced)!

Shiiing!

One card suddenly flew up and shone brightly.

“Oh? Ohhh…?”

Feeling unsettled, I pulled out the sword stuck in the ground.

“Sword Ghost!”

Nope. It was Barbarian (Rare).

“Oh…”

I was at a loss for words.

“But this is my first rare card ever! Does that make sense? The odds were supposed to be 0.9 percent! Shouldn’t one pop up every hundred tries? And yet, after over a thousand attempts! Is it rigged or something?”

It just didn’t add up statistically. This couldn’t happen by chance! My anger made me tremble, but I’m now forty-three years old. Although my appearance remained unchanged due to not aging in Ardenia, the wisdom accumulated over time helped calm my fury.

“Yes…it’s just probability after all. If I try countless times, eventually it will follow the probabilities.”

Chaleng!

Shielder (General), Assassin (General), Archer (General), Hunter (General)… Flash! Iron Shielder (Advanced)!

Assassin (General), Wizard (General), Assassin (General), Cleric (General)…

Chaleng!

Assassin (General), Assassin (General), Archer (General), Assassin (General)… Flash! High Archer (Advanced)!

Hunter (General), Hunter (General), Hunter (General), Cleric (General)… Flash! Shadow Archer (Advanced)!

“No… Damn it! Does this make any sense?!”

I was furious at that moment.

Flash!

The goddess, who always wore a playful smile, suddenly wiped away her grin as if startled.

And…

Grrr…!

The sword embedded in the ground began to shine with a golden light.

“Wow…” As I stretched out my hand and pulled it out…

–Be loyal to the royal family and serve as the shield of the empire by giving your life!

An appropriate phrase popped up. I immediately checked the job:

[Imperial Knight (Hero)]

Strength +80, Agility +40, Stamina +80, Health +160, Mana +40

[Decreases damage received by 50 percent.]

[Unyielding]

“Ahh…”

A tanker. Despite expecting something better due to the sword, it turned out to be a tanker. Of course, being a hero is still good, but…

Despite feeling disappointed, I kept it anyway. Although it was a tanker, its main weapon was a sword, so I expected it to be useful. Perhaps things were starting to look up? As I continued scratching, heroes started appearing more frequently.

Gladiator (Rare), Sword Dancer (Rare), Templar (Rare), Sniper (Rare), Silver Ranger (Rare)…

Rare and Hero classes started popping up as well.

—There are rumors of mysterious rangers who eliminate enemies of the alliance without ever revealing themselves within Variant Mountain’s Dark Forest.

[Variant Ranger (Hero)]

—After countless experiments, the great alchemist Helrain successfully improved gunpowder to create a powerful weapon known as the musket. The elite group wielding these were named Musketeers.

[Musketeer (Hero)]

Collection completed!

Knights by Name (Doppelgänger, Duelist, Guardian, Sentinel, Lance Knight): Strength +2

Those Chosen by Shadow (Shadow Hunter, Shadow Knight, Shadow Archer, Variant Ranger): Stealth Buff +10 percent

Swordsman’s Path (Cleric, Sword Ghost, High Warrior, Highlander, Duelist): Close-quarters Attack Power +1 percent…

…and thirty-five more.

I draw one card after another, tossing thousands of Class Summoning Stones up in the air.

Each stone costs 100 dia (10,000 won), so theoretically, I should have received 1,100 stones for my 11 million won purchase. However, due to various bonuses from initial payments, special promotions, and event deals, the actual number is much higher.

And here’s the result: two hero-class cards, twenty-four rare-class cards, three hundred forty high-class cards, and the rest are common classes.

“Ugh… The odds aren’t great, but it’s still better than drawing just 1,000 cards. As expected, when you draw enough times, the probabilities eventually align.”

Obviously, this isn’t the end. Why would there be thousands of cards if they were meant to be discarded so easily? Moreover, legendary classes don’t even appear in regular draws!

It becomes clear what I need to do next.

“Class Synthesis… Let’s go!”