4.

Kim Buja knew himself very well.

"The only thing I've got going for me is one exceptional talent."

Even that talent didn't come with any particular effort or method behind it. So when people asked, he always answered the same way.

"How are you so good at fighting? How do you come up with such creative growth strategies?"

"I don't know. It just happens."

To those listening, it was the kind of answer that sometimes caused misunderstandings and sparked arguments, but he had never changed it because it was the truth.

That classic line all the so-called geniuses love to say, "Why not?", was Kim Buja's answer, too.

If he had to name anything else special about himself, he would confidently shake his head.

"I'm not rich, I don't come from a good family, I'm not particularly smart, and I'm not good with women. My one and only advantage in life is that I have a talent that's perfectly tuned for games."

Before the dungeons appeared, back when he made his living through games, that talent had been nothing more than a source of relief. It was the one gift that would let him spend his whole life doing what he loved and still make a living. Even as people said, over and over, that the game industry was on the road to collapse and his talent would never fully bloom, it was what allowed him to keep scraping by.

That talent turned from relief into a blessing the moment he awakened. In a reality that was no different from a game, his talent was no longer just something that earned him a few donations from viewers every now and then. It was an asset, a value that manifested to the extreme and could be converted directly into money.

When your talent shines, and the utopia you dreamed of is realized through that talent alone, people usually walk one of two paths. They either fall into arrogance or stay humble and keep moving forward.

Kim Buja did both. He strutted while staying on his path.

Walking his own road, no matter what anyone said—that was his charm and the driving force that had made him who he was. The overwhelming talent that backed him up always created variables no one could have predicted, anywhere, anytime.

This time was no different.

The individual event was a gathering of players so outstanding in all things dungeon-related that you could call them unrivaled on a global scale. And yet he continued to grow in ways even they had never considered. The class system added another variable, but it was entirely up to Kim Buja how to exploit it.

He went all out.

—What's he doing?

—Why's he walking up there?

The massive lump of filth and the equally huge ogre chieftain were locked in combat. When viewers saw Kim Buja, who had been keeping his distance and watching from safety to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, start trudging toward the fallen ogre chieftain, they held their breath.

Under normal circumstances, no one would have thought much of it. When a monster dies, the first thing you do is loot it, and looting starts with going through the corpse. But Kim Buja had already set a precedent with the lump of filth. Among the millions—or perhaps billions—of viewers, no one had figured out how he had done it.

In that supercharged atmosphere, his next move could be the key to unlocking the mystery.

—Is he gonna do it again?

—What the hell is his class?

—Can you get a separate class or skills just on Hunting Island?

—I've seen some simple skills drop, but this is way too broken, isn't it?

People were shocked not only by the bizarre sight of turning a powerful field boss into a subordinate after killing it, but also by the fact that they had no way to gauge its utility. Countless people were thinking the same thing.

What if a skill like that could be used in the real world? What if you could kill a boss monster inside a dungeon, resurrect it as your pet, and walk out with it at your side?

Sure, Kim Buja was still a tutorial-stage player, and there were plenty of people who could kill a boss from a 1-star dungeon, even a Legendary one. But just the potential threat of something like that was enough to make the world buzz with excitement.

If only they could figure out how and if it were something other than a class-specific ability.

With everyone watching, Kim Buja placed his hand on the head of the twitching, demoralized ogre chieftain.

"Grrr…"

The ogre chieftain shuddered violently. A deep scowl twisted Kim Buja's brow, as if he were feeling a sharp disgust at its resistance.

He laid his hand on it again. A second time, and a third. The faint convulsions eventually stopped.

A moment later, the viewers saw it: Kim Buja moving forward, leading both the lump of filth and the ogre chieftain.

—This is completely breaking the balance.

—Seriously, what is his class?

—No, what did he even do? He needs to tell us!

His exceptional talent was finally on full display, successfully grabbing the world's attention.

* * *

Two gigantic field bosses. Each one, on its own, was a curse of Hunting Island, capable of taking on dozens of players or monsters of the same level. With those two in tow, there was nothing for Kim Buja to hesitate over.

Even though the lump of filth's stats had dropped significantly because of the Potential Awakening Potion he had used to overpower the ogre chieftain, it was still more than enough.

"SKREEEEE!"

The poison and corrosion from the lump of filth were still a potent nuisance to monsters, even with its reduced stats. And the ogre's wild blows, landing amidst the distraction, were strong enough to knock creatures out cold in an instant.

The only one raking in the experience points from all of it was their master, Kim Buja.

"Haah…"

Despite the easy hunting, he kept sighing, his expression refusing to relax.

"Damn my life. The struggles of a streamer are real."

It couldn't be helped. Whether you were a player or a celebrity, there was always a dark underside that people didn't see. The brighter you tried to appear, the larger the shadow behind you.

The same went for his two field bosses. At a glance, it looked broken. Honestly, even to him, it was broken.

The lump of filth and the ogre chieftain. Even with less than twelve hours left on the field boss summon timer, he couldn't even begin to calculate how many levels he could gain. He had already gained more than ten levels since resurrecting the first field boss.

Level 28. His level during the event had long since surpassed his real-world level by a ridiculous margin.

"If I really grind, I can probably hit level forty."

He didn't think even Fly could keep up with that. That was how efficient this setup was.

But that level of efficiency had also burned through a lot of gold. Thanks to copying Fly's skill, he had managed to acquire the lump of filth for only a few hundred gold, but bringing the giant ogre along had cost him several times that.

He had gone looking in the Gold Shop for a substitute for the undead summoning skill, and this was the result.

[Single-Use Taming Talisman]

▶ Grade: Unique

▶ A talisman that can tame a monster. 50% chance of success.

▷ The target monster's level must be lower than the user's.

▷ The target monster must be in an unresisting state.

Since entering the event, he had been relying on gold so often that he was starting to question whether he was a Gold Maker or a Gold Shopper. Still, this was also a Gold Maker–exclusive method, and it was a way to get guaranteed results, so he had used it without hesitation.

Five hundred gold apiece. In a limited situation where he could only show this kind of overwhelming performance during the event, why bother saving? When an opportunity came, you had to seize it.

With that mindset, he had planned to drag the two field bosses around and settle things with Fly or whoever else got in his way. That was definitely his intention when he bought the first talisman.

"There's no way this is fifty percent. It's more like five."

The conditions had been perfect. If you went by size instead of level, Kim Buja should have been at least fifty levels lower than the giant ogre, but in the event, the ogre chieftain was level 13, and Kim Buja was already past level 20. The first condition was satisfied.

The second condition was met as well. The giant ogre, left on the brink of death by the lump of filth, could do nothing but blink sluggishly as he approached; it had no ability to resist.

All that was left was whether he would break through that 50% chance on the first try or the second. He hadn't been particularly worried. Fifty-fifty might be even odds, but in most people's minds, that number usually meant you'd probably succeed.

It was the same for him. He had mentally budgeted for up to two tries, even though each one cost 500 gold.

He still had around 17,000 gold left, and if he thought of it as an investment to leave a more spectacular impression, then spending about 1,000 gold out of what he had essentially gotten for free seemed fine.

Even so, the hologram that appeared after he slapped on the first talisman was enough to make him frown.

[Taming Failed.]

'Why is it that every time I face a fifty-percent chance, it always seems to land on failure?'

He steadied himself and applied the second talisman.

[Taming Failed.]

"Shit."

'Calm down. People are watching,' he told himself. 'If I give up now just because I've blown a mere one thousand gold, I'll be throwing away the entire masterpiece I've already started.'

It was the classic mindset of a gambler: just break even.

He couldn't help himself. He bought more talismans, and only on the fourth try did he finally manage to tame the ogre chieftain.

Two thousand gold was the cost of hiring one solid bodyguard for less than twenty-four hours. On top of that, he had bought a 300-gold high-grade elixir to heal the near-death ogre. It would have recovered on its own over time, but this was the most critical window.

Roughly speaking, he had burned through over 4,000 gold in one go just for growth.

This wasn't reality—it was an event.

He forced himself to breathe steadily, running around like a madman to forget the fortune he was burning through. Even so, the results were undeniable.

In the real world, pouring money into something rarely yielded a result that truly met expectations. Gold, however, always delivered more.

'I might as well push this as far as it can go.'

His only complaint was that while his level kept rising, the corresponding skills remained locked. Just as Mimicry had unlocked at level 11, the next skill should have appeared by now—even a temporary, event-only version would have been appropriate—but there was nothing.

He didn't dwell on why.

If it wasn't there, he would just have to manage without it. He had already spent the gold, so he might as well keep spending freely to hold on to first place.

Then, suddenly, something he had forgotten popped into his head.

'Mount registration.'

It was one of the features that had been unlocked before the event started. He had skimmed past it because, just like mileage, mounts didn't seem to have any major impact on the event. But with things unfolding as they had, he couldn't help but wonder.

"Will it work?"

[The 'ogre chieftain' has been registered as a mount.]

[The skill 'Ride' has been activated.]

[The skill 'Command' has been activated.]

[The skill 'Communicate' has been activated.]

What began as a small doubt was answered in an instant.

* * *

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