"Ah shit," Min-jae sounded when his character was immediately thrown at a wall. His character dropped to 1 HP after the collateral from hitting the jagged edges on the walls. "Dude, can you heal me?" He asked his healer friend.
"How about you give me more than half a second to heal you from 1 to full?" He snapped back. Eun-woo didn't have the patience to be trashtalked.
The mini-boss started to charge up an attack to finish off Min-jae, who was still recovering and arguing. Meanwhile, the demon warrior jumped in front of the tank, a searing fireball launched at him and burned patterns into his shield.
Yu-jun, also known as Angrdog, counterattacked and his sword turned blue and emitted steam. Water dripped from the sword, and it elongated as he slashed and swiped at the monster. A combo of three, four, five, six hits was enough to inflict the righteous punishment and send it back to dust.
All hits were critical.
"You're welcome," Yu-jun boasted after soloing the boss himself. His gear, while much better than what's required for the dungeon, didn't do all the work. His skill in the game was the real carry, he was typically better at PvE content than the other two.
Min-jae picked himself up off the floor and dusted himself off. "That wasn't fair," he muttered under his breath. "What the hell was that?"
Ding
Ding
Ding
All three of them levelled up, Min-jae was now level 35. The other two were level 27, slowly but surely they were catching up.
"How did you get caught out by that?"
"Dude, I don't do casual content."
"Yeah, don't be mean to him, he's fresh to PvE content." His two friends laughed at his suffering, he was getting rolled whenever an enemy had the chance to hit him.
The next floor came along, and again he got pushed to the floor and cornered, but was saved by a bright white beam from the cleric. He didn't have an issue in the beginning, but each floor was exponentially harder than the last floor.
Then the next floor, floor 7. He entered stealth to obtain a damage boost, daggers shimmering with a blinding light as he jumped and exited stealth to slash at an orc from behind.
Thwack.
The orc turned around at a speed much faster than Min-jae, and hacked at his side with a club. He smashed him into the ground as if he were swatting a fly, and continued his onslaught of smacks multiple times, beating Min-jae into the ground. The barrage of hits created a dimple in the ground and with each hit, a crushing sound could be heard.
"Ow…"
A familiar warm green surrounded him and his HP was recovered.
Then another hit, and another hit. Then he was healed again.
He couldn't move, each crushing blow inflicted a temporary daze that reset the timer with each hit.
His health reached 0.
"Fuck, really?" He breathed out frustration with his words.
He could wait to be revived – that's probably for the best, right? Yu-jun and Eun-woo would carry him through this like they've been doing so far.
Except, he was wrong.
They were wiped out one-by-one. Min-jae watched in disdain as Eun-woo ran out of mana and couldn't even dodge out of the way to avoid a slash from one of the orcs that had snuck up on him from behind.
His HP also dropped to 0.
"Just you, Yunnie," Eun-woo cheered him on, but Min-jae could practically hear Eun-woo pouting.
Yu-jun was playing five against one now. His weapon shifted to a sword engulfed in flames. He swung it around in a pattern, the embers leaving a smoky trail in the shape of an eight.
Heroic laughter could be heard from Yu-jun. "Ha ha ha… This is my moment," he playfully called out, leaving Eun-woo and Min-jae disturbed by his sudden personality change.
One slash in, he cleanly decapitated one of the orcs. Another slash and his sword was lodged into the thick skull of another one. His quick feet landed on its shoulders as he tried to pull out his sword, but it was stuck.
"What the hell?" He tried to pull again to no avail.
Another monster barged in, a dragon, seemingly from nowhere. With more tails than he could count, and piercing eyes that lit up like a raging fire, this new arrival screeched a high pitch note that caused the orcs to further engage. Their stats increased.
Behind the dragon were players, about 3 or 4, but the team could hardly process what was happening as they completely ignored the dungeon trash and charged directly towards Yu-jun. He couldn't even see their nameplates, before he dropped the ground.
His health bar depleted. Angry screaming from Yu-jun flooded the voice chat when the rest of the enemy monsters collapsed in on him, hacking, slashing, bashing and smashing until his virtual body dropped to the ground.
Yeah, his last stand wasn't nearly as cool as he tried to make out.
"Did we all just seriously die?"
"Yep."
"Unless someone comes to resurrect us."
Nope, nobody did. Their bodies started to disappear as the timer ticked down.
The party of three spawned back in the starter town and looked around in confusion. Everything was gone: their items, equipment, consumables. Well, everything except their levels and gold. But it was almost everything that Min-jae had been working towards.
He felt empty inside, this wasn't the first time he lost everything in this game. "Are you serious?" His throat ejected the words in the silence. Angrdog was the first one to log out.
"Aight, I'm done," that voice was Yu-jun.
Then Angrcat logged out too.
"Yeah, I'm going to leave too. Sorry, dude," Eun-woo also announced his departure.
Their icons blinked in the voice chat, then disappeared as they left after that humiliating defeat.
Min-jae was left in solitude, his character looping his idle animation.
Min-jae was circling the logout button. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day - if he chooses to log back in, that is. What was the point? First he lost to some nobody, now he's dying to trash in dungeons.
The empty spaces in his inventory stared at him like missing teeth. He was demoralised after spending so long grinding for decent gear to assist with the levelling process. Without it, he'll struggle to complete quests, level further and compete in the wilderness zone.
Then something, or someone, caught his eyes.
His eyes darted to the chat below him. His stomach tightened. His eyes highlighted purple text that popped into the corner of the screen.
[Whisper] W0nderjunjun: Need help?
Min-jae blinked. He wasn't expecting to see this name after blowing him off earlier.
It was obvious he just lost everything. His character was stripped of his equipment and had the starter placeholder clothing to stop his character from being naked. No items, not even a weapon.
[Whisper] 2MinHae: Yes pls :(
He received an invite from his new friend which he quickly accepted.
[Whisper] 2MinHae: Where did you go earlier?
[Whisper] W0nderjunjun: Sorry, had to deal with something at work.
He didn't explain further, and Min-jae almost wanted to ask but decided not to probe. He wondered what W0nder was like behind the computer.
[Whisper] W0nderjunjun: Do you have EclypseLink?
Another message came.
[Whisper] W0nderjunjun: It's just easier than typing everything. I'm bored of typing.
Ah, he didn't want to bore his friend. Although, his voice might be recognisable. Even though he'd rarely speak on his streams in his "past life," his voice was still on record.
[Whisper] 2MinHae: I'm a bit shy…
[Whisper] W0nderjunjun: Are you a cute girl?
That was a bit weird.
[Whisper] 2MinHae: >:(
[Whisper] 2MinHae: My ID is 2MinHae
Min-jae tabbed out of the game for a moment to log into the chat app. He switched his microphone back on. A notification popped up in the window and accepted the friend request.
"H-Hello," he spoke, his voice low and shy as he started a call with 'Jun'.
"So, it looks like you weren't a cute girl after all. Good evening," the voice on the other side spoke. It held a familiar low tone, yet it felt warm. "Did you die inside the dungeon?" He asked. Min-jae tried to put a face to the voice, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"Yes, it was in–"
"Crown City, I saw it. Where did your friends go?" There was a slight chuckle in his voice.
"Oh," he wasn't sure what to say without it sounding embarrassing. His tongue clicked which could be heard on the other side. "They left after we lost. We got ambushed by other players."
As soon as he'd finished talking, a notification appeared on his screen.
<< W0nderjunjun has invited you to join the guild Kkkkkkk >>
<< Accept or Decline >>
"What's this?"
It randomly popped up, unprompted. Was it an accident?
"Join," W0nderjunjun commanded. His voice made Min-jae shiver and he clicked without thinking.
"You're probably not getting anything back since you died inside the dungeon. It's too risky."
He clicked through the guild menus. 'Is this an inactive guild?' He thought to himself as he saw the player list. A few characters were online, all lower level like himself. Then the rest of the list was flooded with characters that have been inactive for 60+ days. The game stops counting after 60 days, but it's far more likely to be even longer.
"Too risky?"
"Yep, it's peak time for all the PKers now."
'Jun' opened up a trade window with Min-jae and added in some items, just a few things to stop him from instantly dying to monsters. Basic equipment filled the window.
Min-jae tried to add whatever gold he had left in return for his kindness. He clicked accept, but W0nderjunjun didn't.
"Remove the gold."
"But–"
"I don't need it." Jun was good at interrupting and making Min-jae's hair stand on its ends whenever he detected a hint of irritation in his voice. "I have plenty."
Min-jae sighed. He didn't need to be pitied. He was quite literally the top player on the server, at least in PvP. However, when Min-jae looked at his character, he lingered for a moment before removing the gold and clicking accept. Perhaps, right now he didn't have the time and wasn't in the position to be picky.
The trade window closed and the items found their way into Min-jae's inventory. "Thank you," he muttered down the microphone in a low voice. There was no response to it other than a hitched breath from the other side. Min-jae checked the chat.
Kimchoo: Welcome!
Tora99: Good evening~
Bbbillulu: Who dis?
A series of welcome messages made Min-jae feel slightly warm inside.
2MinHae: Thank you for inviting me.
He thought he'd try to be polite this time around.
W0nderjunjun: Everyone send my friend some stuff. He's a newbie.
Bbillulu: Ah he's a freshie?
Tora99: Sent~
"Now you owe me," Jun whispered, his words full of mischief.