Chapter Text
ragingturtle // isn’t yjh releasing a vid tonight abt that boss
meluntyme // ye :3 already have my chips ready hehe
namwoon // oh shit. i forgot
meluntyme // and you call yourself a hardcore yjh stan?? how DARE you
Yoo Joonghyuk held an impassive expression as he slaughtered ten dokkaebi at once.
[You have acquired 10 fur.]
[You have acquired 60 teeth.]
Their tortured cries echoed through his ears as the dokkaebi plummeted to the ground in one hefty heap.
Click.
Yoo Joonghyuk continued to massacre the hordes of dokkaebi as he progressed towards a distant cave at the corner of the map, where an undiscovered boss lay. The pathway was fairly straightforward with tall, luscious grass plains enveloping a trail directed towards the boss’s lair.
In the midst of his killing spree, Yoo Joonghyuk spotted another player standing in the middle of a grassy area. The avatar had a beginner’s costume on, rare for players that were above level 60. Outfitted in a plain beige shirt, with tattered pants to go along with it and barren pale feet, it was a stark contrast to Yoo Joonghyuk’s own black coat.
With equipment like that, [han sooyoung slayer] could be easily identified as one of those noobs who’d gotten carried and somehow hadn’t been picked off by mobs.
[User [han sooyoung slayer] has requested to message you!]
Yoo Joonghyuk paused. It was rare for players, aside from party members, to engage with others in the game. Compared to others, Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t the most sociable both online and offline. In all honesty, he didn’t see a need to communicate with others he had no use for.
He glanced back at the blinking chat window.
[han sooyoung slayer]: hey
[han sooyoung slayer]: are you also going for random epic boss
How did this no-name know about the boss? It was surprising that they knew about such an obscure boss—much less one that'd never been defeated. A little intrigued, Yoo Joonghyuk continued to scroll down towards the latest messages.
[han sooyoung slayer]: if you are
[han sooyoung slayer]: i want the first kill so wait please
Scowling at the message, Yoo Joonghyuk furrowed his eyebrows in blatant annoyance.
[Do you want to accept [han sooyoung slayer]’s message request?]
Yoo Joonghyuk ignored them and continued to chop some more dokkaebi in half.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
The stranger was persistent and stubborn—Yoo Joonghyuk had to give them that. A look at the chat window prompted an onslaught of [han sooyoung slayer]'s messages.
[han sooyoung slayer]: i can see your avatar moving
[han sooyoung slayer]: i won't take long to kill it
[han sooyoung slayer]: i just want the first kill
Agh, [han sooyoung slayer] was annoying.
Yoo Joonghyuk would’ve just ignored them for the time being and advanced to the next stage to finish off the boss, but the ping of incoming messages pissed him off.
Ding!
He figured that after a few minutes, the player would stop bothering him. They’d leave eventually. They always did.
Ding!
After a while, Yoo Joonghyuk was sick of hearing a ding for the nth time.
[You have accepted [han sooyoung slayer]’s message request!]
[han sooyoung slayer]: oh
[emperoryooyoo]: Wait your turn.
He closed the chat window and went back to slaughtering some more mobs, relishing in the distressed shrieks of impaled dokkaebi as he grew close to the entrance of the cave.
[han sooyoung slayer]: hey
[han sooyoung slayer]: stop ignoring me
[han sooyoung slayer]:
[You can no longer send messages to [han sooyoung slayer].]
???
Why would they cut off the chat if they were the one bothering him in the first place? Yoo Joonghyuk had never heard of a feature like such, but he figured the purpose was not for pestering others then blocking them. He was pretty sure that it should be the other way around; those who were pestered by players like [han sooyoung slayer] would block them in return.
Brushing off the bothersome occurrence, Yoo Joonghyuk led his character to the entrance of the cave. A floating orange exclamation point obscured the opening of the cave.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s character dropkicked it. But to no avail, as the neon monstrosity was still in pristine condition after a flurry of keyboard combinations from him.
How peculiar, indeed.
After ages of him relentlessly thwacking the floating eyesore, Yoo Joonghyuk figured out that he was supposed to click on it.
Click.
The action opened up a new window.
Requirements: Form a one person party to enter the dungeon of [Hidden Epic Boss] (1/1)
Enter?
YES or NO
Dungeon Requirements have changed!
Yoo Joonghyuk closed out the system message before clicking on the exclamation point again.
Requirements: Form a two person party to enter the dungeon of [Hidden Epic Boss] (1/2)
Enter?
Please fulfill the Dungeon Requirements first.
What a nuisance. If it had been an area accessible to all levels, Yoo Joonghyuk would’ve used his sister’s character. Unfortunately, area Grassy Plains 1 (not to be mixed up with Grassy Plains 2,3, or 4) was only unlocked for players level 60 and above. Yoo Mia had a level 10 character because she’d spent too long customizing her avatar to look like a magical girl.
Yoo Joonghyuk now had a problem.
He had no friends.
If he did, he would’ve called one over via game to stand-by while he pummeled the boss into dirt with the other by his side. It was unfortunate that he didn’t have any, though.
For the time being, he decided to kill a few more dokkaebi just because. It wasn’t like they were endangered or anything. There’d been a random encyclopedia lying around somewhere in the game detailing the overpopulation of the species; Yoo Joonghyuk had done his research.
After roughly fifteen minutes of doing so, Yoo Joonghyuk reached an epiphany: death of dokkaebi equaled less stress.
The sensation felt magnificent, like he had downed hundreds of Pocari Sweats in mere seconds. The only difference was that he didn’t need to make a break for the bathroom every other minute—a great relief.
Despite the wondrous effects of murdering dokkaebi, the action did nothing to aid him with the dungeon requirements.
As a last minute resort, he could phone a random streamer that had sent out a collaboration request a few days prior, but Yoo Joonghyuk had no inert desire to split royalties with a mediocre, clout-chasing player. And while he was battling the boss, he was sure the other player would butt in and fuck everything up.
[You can now send messages to [han sooyoung player].]
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyebrows furrowed. (Was it possible for them to furrow even more? Even the impossible was possible with the otherworldly Yoo Joonghyuk.)
Delightful, what did [han sooyoung player] want now? They’d already bothered him enough, and he had been doing perfectly fine without their nosy interference with his agenda.
In all honesty, Yoo Joonghyuk found them rather strange. They had cut off messaging with him in the first place, only to abruptly take it back for no reason. Oh well. It was evident that not everybody had common sense. At the most, Yoo Joonghyuk could only feel the tiniest shred of pity for those poor souls.
Ding!
Without a single glance at his monitor, Yoo Joonghyuk knew the distinctive chime of the chatting system from anywhere after being relentlessly spammed by [han sooyoung slayer]. He clicked around on the game settings for a few moments before turning off chat notification sounds. Good riddance.
Yoo Joonghyuk was still unsuccessful.