8.

Up until now, Kim Buja had always walked his path alone.

He had been that way five years ago when he first met Jeong Cheol in the game, and he had stayed that way even after awakening as a player.

He did have a record of clearing a dungeon with Park Sijun, but even that had only happened because Sijun had tagged along in a dungeon Kim Buja had intended to clear solo.

Every video uploaded to his channel showed him hunting alone.

Naturally, people came to believe that Kim Buja specialized in solo hunting and that his class was tailored for that style.

That perception wasn't limited to viewers; other players thought the same.

Even Jeong Cheol and Jeong Seora believed it.

And now he was asking to take over as the one calling the shots for the team.

Normally, Jeong Cheol would have shaken his head without hesitation.

He was hesitating only because it was Kim Buja, but his pause wasn't to weigh the decision.

He wondered, 'What is he thinking, saying something like this? Does he have some other motive?'

It was a natural reaction to behavior that was completely out of character.

Of course, the answer was already decided.

He would reject it.

Even if Fly himself had joined his team and asked the same thing, Jeong Cheol would have refused just as firmly.

There was a clear difference between being a skilled player and being a good leader.

You had to see the whole picture while also understanding each individual member.

Only then could you place each person where they needed to be to create the most efficient and effective synergy in a raid.

The reality was that even team members who had been with him for years couldn't lead the team perfectly in his absence. And now a newcomer wanted to call the shots?

Not in some throwaway dungeon where they could practice, but at a moment where they had to give their absolute best on every single floor?

It was the kind of situation where he should have snorted in disbelief and cursed him out.

"Hm."

Yet, despite his reservations, what came out of Jeong Cheol's mouth was a sound of hesitation. He studied Kim Buja's eyes and wondered if he was joking.

It would be ridiculous to joke at a time like this, but if he wasn't, then nothing else made sense.

Reading the doubt in Jeong Cheol's gaze, Kim Buja scratched his head and answered, "Ah, sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just that the timing on using buff potions and consumables has been a bit slow, so I wanted to make things a little more efficient."

There was no deeper meaning behind his words.

He had no desire to actually lead the team and micromanage every little thing.

It was just that the guild members were so in sync and clearing floors so quickly that he had gotten swept up in it, wondering if they could push the pace even more.

He hadn't stopped to think about how that might make Jeong Cheol feel. As he apologized and started buying food for the next floor, Jeong Cheol spoke up.

"Alright. I'll leave the shot-calling for this floor to you."

The guild members who had been watching looked at him in shock.

At the same time, a sigh slipped from Kim Buja's lips.

"I really didn't say it expecting this, you know."

'This atmosphere is… a bit much.'

Still, he didn't refuse. After all, if they were going to follow his calls in battle, it meant he could execute the picture in his head much more comfortably.

When they were spending hundreds of gold per floor—now even over a thousand—squeezing out more than 100% efficiency was a necessary step.

"Then gather up, please."

Since the individual event, he had been hunting monsters with gold, barely engaging in direct combat himself. For the first time, he converted his Gold Ring.

The guild members approached, their expressions a mix of anticipation and worry.

No one harbored resentment at the idea of a stranger calling the shots.

Given what they had already seen of him and the fact that he was the main reason they had gotten this far, they were more curious than anything to see what would happen if someone like him took over.

Standing before the gathered group, Kim Buja began handing out food.

"These are buff foods."

Since they had always only topped off the bare minimum of energy before battle, there was no issue with eating. The problem was that everyone who took a bite froze.

Startled eyes turned toward him.

[All stats increase by 10.]

[Remaining duration: 59 minutes 59 seconds]

With everyone's attention on him, Kim Buja briefly outlined his plan.

"Since we don't know what kind of floor this is yet, I'll explain the formation and our strategy after we go in. But to give you a quick idea of my command style, it's pretty rough."

He needed to get this part out of the way first.

"You might find yourselves thinking, Huh? This doesn't feel right. If we go in like this, we might die. That's fine. I only call for plays when I see a clear angle, so just follow without overthinking it. The moment you hesitate is the moment you die."

It was the complete opposite of how Jeong Cheol operated, who prioritized safety and pursued guaranteed clears.

That was why Kim Buja normally didn't play with groups.

Even if people trusted his shots, being able to follow them 100% was another matter entirely. He had always been alone and preferred to play solo.

He knew perfectly well that if he teamed up with others, they could progress more easily. He was confident he could grow more efficiently that way, too.

But not everyone was like him. He could adjust his orders to their level, but he had no desire to go to such lengths just to play a game.

The same was true in reality, especially in fact, where your life was on the line.

For someone like him, who preferred walking a tightrope and creating openings in split seconds, leading at his own level would be nothing more than sending other players to their deaths.

That was why he had never found a reason to form a group. But this place was an event.

"Even if you throw yourselves in without a thought and, by some one-in-a-million chance, you really do die, don't worry too much. This is a place where dying is allowed, remember?"

A place where you had a "temporary life." Like in a game, even if you died here, your real self would suffer no harm. Of course, they still shouldn't die.

Within a twenty-person limit, the gap left by losing a single member might be small at first, but as time went on, it would grow. The burden on the remaining nineteen could swell to an unmanageable point.

What he was saying ran directly counter to that. But there was a point to it.

"We're in first place right now, right? We're on the seventh floor. Fly is still only clearing the fourth. Why? It's simple. The difference is me. We're blowing through potions, buffs, and consumables. Other teams are lucky if they get one or two of these per floor, but we're using them like water. We don't even need to rest. Unlike other teams, where twenty people have to live off whatever food drops from monsters, I'm providing for us in both quality and quantity."

The way the Jeong Cheol Guild participated in this event was completely different from that of the other teams.

Everyone nodded.

"As for how this is possible, just think of it as my class being Legendary. I'm putting everything I have on the line to win this event. Everything we're using and eating right now, everything I've spent since the individual event—if you add it all up, it's enough to make me suffer for months. So please, trust me and follow my lead. Don't be afraid of dying. Remember back when we were just playing the game? When we'd throw our lives away over and over to learn a single pattern, suffer through eight-hour death penalties, and still laugh and celebrate?"

Most of the players here had played the game with Jeong Cheol.

The awakening rate wasn't high, so it wasn't everyone, but in this world, it was harder to find someone who had never played the game at all.

The guild members resonated with his earnest words.

"Acting captain, we'll trust you."

"Even if you tell us to blow ourselves up, we'll do it. Just give the order."

Above all, Buja was right. Saving your life was something you did in dungeons.

This was an event. A festival for everyone to enjoy. Not everyone could be the main character.

'Just because the Jeong Cheol Guild was representing South Korea didn't mean I personally had to be the one still standing at the end, holding up the trophy.'

They were doing this for Korean players, for the pride of the people watching, and for the value of their guild's name.

"No matter what happens, I'm going to smash Fly's skull and take first place, even if I have to spend every last coin I own."

Buja had already spent too much gold to turn back now.

Better to have tempered his spending habits while his reserves were still ample, rather than find himself desperate to spend with nothing left. At this point, he might as well reach the highest floor possible and gain an overwhelming victory.

"Then let's go."

On the seventh floor, the Jeong Cheol Guild—now without Jeong Cheol at the helm—headed for the tower.

* * *

As time passed, the widening gap didn't seem to faze the US players or those from other countries.

"Idiots. No matter how advantageous the early game is, don't they realize they're only hurting themselves by sprinting like that?"

"They must not be reading the holograms properly."

"Bunch of fools."

After all, just reading the holograms made it obvious what mattered most in this team event.

[The 'Team Event' has begun.]

[Each team will enter a separate 'Tower of Annihilation' and climb it. Points are accumulated by clearing the conditions on each floor, and the team event continues until a final surviving team remains. If the event period ends before the match is over, the event will be extended, and bonus points will be awarded based on the final surviving team and several other factors.]

[You can obtain various hidden quests and buff effects within the 'Tower of Annihilation.']

[From the third floor onward, a 'Rest Area' is provided where each team can rest safely. Food, consumables, gear, and items can be acquired on each floor.]

It was a competitive map that wasn't really about direct competition. Unlike the individual event or the temporary team event, this wasn't about who was ahead at a fixed time.

What mattered in the end was who climbed higher and who survived longer.

When you didn't know how far you had to go, managing your condition on every floor was essential.

Rather than being impressed by Korea's speed, the other teams saw them as fools. Having personally experienced the difficulty of each floor, they knew that charging ahead without breaks was suicide.

No—they couldn't help but see them that way.

At least, that was true until Korea cleared the fifth floor, and then the sixth.

Once they felt the tower's difficulty and hit a wall themselves, their thinking changed.

"How are they climbing like that?"

"That's impossible."

"They cleared the sixth floor?"

Most of them were barely managing to clear the third floor.

They did have the Rest Area, so if they thought they were going to fail, they could give up and try again, but their limited consumables and food ultimately restricted how many attempts they could make.

To climb like that without a single failure and without taking breaks, they would have to be expending almost no stamina during the raids themselves.

In the end, the other participants' thoughts shifted to a single, malicious hope.

"Hope they burn out."

"Overextend and fall to the bottom."

And Korea's solo dominance subtly influenced the other players as well, especially the Americans.

Fly, who was moving forward with minimal rest, was running at a pace that seemed almost too fast. It wasn't reckless, though.

"They're setting the pace, so we have to make our own process as easy as possible. We'll keep rest to a minimum and keep running."

Fly was looking at it the same way as the other teams. The only difference was that he acknowledged Kim Buja a bit more than they did.

"We can't catch up in the early game. We just have to maintain our own pace and make sure the gap doesn't grow so large that we can't close it later."

With that in mind, he kept chasing. Fly didn't realize that his strategy was only marginally better than that of the teams that had already been eliminated.

* * *

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