4.

After a long night of conversation, Kim Buja left the exhausted, sleeping Jeong Seora and headed straight for the bathroom.

He'd only gotten six hours of sleep. Given the mental fatigue, he should have slept much longer, but instead, he felt wide awake.

'This is the life.'

It was nothing complicated. He had finally achieved the awakening he had wanted so badly, obtained an intriguing class, and now had a beautiful girlfriend. These were all things he'd once dismissed as meaningless when he was just grinding through games to survive. Now that he had some breathing room and money in his pocket, he couldn't believe how huge these little bits of happiness felt.

'So this is why people date.'

He soaked in the hot water and reflected on his life. There had been plenty of hard times. Sometimes he had watched Jeong Seora on TV and compared her to Shin Hye-jung, but he had never seriously entertained the thought. He had always believed that he would never meet any woman, let alone someone like Jeong Seora, for the rest of his life.

And yet they had met. He hadn't done anything particularly special to win her over; their hearts had simply aligned. The way they each focused on their own work had resonated, leading them to this point.

Who could have predicted it? Even he still couldn't quite believe he was alone at home with her.

'I'm going to live a long, long life—until I'm old and senile.'

A pointless surge of will to live bubbled up inside him. With that, he finally pulled up the holographic notifications he'd been ignoring for a full day.

He took a deep breath.

It was a tense moment. He was excited to see what rewards had piled up and how much. Even his relationship with Seora could remain healthy and energetic only if they each remained faithful to their own work. They had even set a grand goal of forming a party and going on dungeon dates together. If he wanted to take another step forward, this moment was crucial.

It was reward time.

'Please.'

What he wanted, of course, was gold. Nothing else mattered. Levels, stats, items—they would be nice to have, but what he needed right now was gold and only gold.

As the available content kept expanding, the need for gold grew by the day. The amount he could earn was also increasing, but even that wasn't enough. It was time for another big leap. Whether through enhancements or passive skills, he had to pour everything into one area and build a foundation that would let him earn even more.

He had this thought every time, but the cycle had come around again. The event, the end of the tutorial, the start of the sixth anniversary, and now the end of the tutorial again. It felt like gears clicking into place. As long as he didn't fall behind, he would be able to achieve what he wanted.

'Wait for Free Gold is a nice little earner, too.'

When he was squeezing every day for time, Wait for Free Gold didn't feel all that impactful. But when he was busy with an event like this and suddenly realized a month had flown by, there was no better or more efficient source of gold. In just about a month, he had accumulated nearly 700 gold. The fact that he had spent close to 20,000 gold in that same period made that unearned income look pitifully small, but it was by no means a trivial amount.

Besides, Wait for Free Gold was no longer just a skill that competed on pure gold yield.

'Once I unlock a few more traits, this is going to start outpacing dungeon income soon.'

Trait 1 had been unlocked, giving him a chance to earn triple gold. That alone meant he would get 60 gold at least once every four days. As his financial power grew, the triple-gold proc would become almost guaranteed. If traits like that kept unlocking, then no matter how hard he farmed in dungeons, there would come a point where he simply couldn't keep up.

The road to get there would be long and rough, of course.

'Please, just let me recover at least half of what I blew in the solo match.'

The version of Kim Buja who had said he didn't regret a single gold coin spent to crush Fly was nowhere to be seen. In his place sat a gold-obsessed capitalist slave who wanted nothing more.

And in front of him, the holograms lined up in a neat row.

[You have achieved the achievement: 'Ghost of the Tower (S)'.]

[You have achieved the achievement: 'Water Ghost of the Tower (U)'.]

[You have achieved the achievement: 'Tower of Annihilation, Floor 13 (U)'.]

[You have achieved the achievement: 'Mysterious Merchant (S)'.]

[You have achieved the achievement: 'A Rotten World That Only Cares About First Place (L)'.]

More than twenty achievements poured in, ranging from Normal all the way up to Legendary. Among them, the proportion of Normal and Rare was actually smaller, which showed just how impressive his performance in the event had been.

Naturally, the rewards matched.

[You have 10 Epic achievements. 'Epic Achievement Effect Lv1' has been activated.]

[You have 5 Unique achievements. 'Unique Achievement Effect Lv1' has been activated.]

▷ Basic Achievement Effect Lv4

→ Strength +5 / Stamina +5 / Agility +5 / Magic +5 / Attack +3 / Defense +3

▷ Rare Achievement Effect Lv1

→ Stamina +2

▷ Epic Achievement Effect Lv1

→ HP/MP Recovery +5%

▷ Unique Achievement Effect Lv1

→ Attack +2

▷ Special Achievement Effect Lv1

→ EXP Gain +1%

▷ Legendary Achievement Effect Lv2

→ Bonus Attack +4%

→ All Stats +2%

At a glance, it looked like a bunch of minor effects cluttering up his status window, but when added together, the numbers were nothing to scoff at. He had no idea why, out of nearly sixty achievements, Legendary made up the largest share, but he decided not to think too hard about it and moved on.

He was already grinning from ear to ear. Even if he had spent 18,000 gold to get this level of effect, he would have nodded in satisfaction. It was a great start.

Of course, it felt great because it was only the beginning.

[You have obtained 4,000 Event Points.]

[You have obtained 22,321 Gold.]

[Your level has increased.]

[Your level has increased.]

[You have obtained 3 Stat Points.]

[You have obtained 2 Special Stat Points.]

The rewards for each achievement followed, then came the rewards for the missions created by the event. Once everything was tallied up, it was surprisingly simple, but he couldn't imagine a reward more satisfying and generous.

"Twenty-two thousand gold."

Most of all, that beautiful number. The gold filled his tired, empty heart. The extra levels, stat points, and special stat points were just icing on the cake.

'I need to look into the event points, too.'

He had a mountain of things to do. He needed to take the time to thoroughly examine the mileage system that had been activated before the event started. But now that he had checked the most important number—his gold total—suddenly everything else felt like a chore.

"Whew, I can do it after I rest a bit."

Right now, it was time to rest. If he wanted to close the gap with Fly, it was a waste to take even a single day off, but people still needed to rest if they wanted to keep running. He couldn't even remember the last time he had taken a break before the event. The national team qualifiers, the gold missions, the event itself—for nearly two months, he hadn't taken a single proper day off. Even before that, he had been pouring all his time into dungeons for growth.

It was fun, and he didn't feel like he was pushing his body too hard. But the human body was like a car. If you kept your foot on the gas forever, the backlash would come eventually. Recovery and self-care were also skills a player needed to have.

'I'll think about it later.'

It was absolutely not because he was feeling lazy. How could he focus on growth when the sauna had melted away his drowsiness and Jeong Seora was waiting to wrap him in a warm embrace as soon as he crawled back into bed?

The festival's heat had not yet faded. He decided to rest until it did.

5.

A night sky full of stars.

Standing atop the city wall, the imperial princess gazed up at the heavens for a long time, her eyes filled with longing.

"You're alive, aren't you?" she whispered.

Her voice, tinged with sorrow, was desperate. It wasn't just a feeling; she had already searched the entire surrounding forest, but there was no sign of Kim Buja anywhere.

He had told her to go on ahead. And then he had never returned.

Even so, the princess waited because this wasn't the first time.

"You'll come back, won't you?"

The first time they met, when he had saved her from the slave traders, he had left her in a cave and disappeared for a long while before finally returning. The gap was even longer this time, but she still believed he would come back.

"Your Highness."

Kallis, who had been watching over her, approached and draped a blanket over her shoulders. He, too, was waiting for Kim Buja. He was supposed to be the one to warn her against falling for a single man, but he was also one of the people who wanted to see him again more than anyone.

If you were a knight, a citizen of the Empire, how could you possibly forget that battle? That war? Just thinking back to that moment, when they had been outnumbered by at least a hundred to one, was enough to make his chest tighten.

And yet Kim Buja had broken through it alone. He hadn't just carved out an escape route; he had created a situation where the Imperial Army was pushing back the allied forces.

It was not a simple victory. Even if Teheran Castle was a natural stronghold, the fact that more than a month had passed without the allied forces even showing their faces meant more than just the damage they had taken. It meant the Imperial Army had utterly broken their morale.

Whether it was due to their resolve to counter black magic or something else, the Empire saw the time they had gained as proof that Kim Buja's unseen influence was still at work.

That was why the Empire needed him. Even if it meant the princess might one day marry him, the Empire needed Buja to secure its future.

Kim Buja's influence had grown so overwhelming in such a short time that even Kallis—the commander of the Empire's army and the man who cherished the imperial princess more than anyone—was entertaining such thoughts. It was only possible, of course, because he believed the princess genuinely cared for the man.

"Sir Kallis."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"How are the reinforcements coming along?"

If anything, the princess felt as if she were growing stronger and more resolute by leaning on Kim Buja as her pillar of support.

Even in this dire situation, she was personally scrambling for any sliver of hope, reaching out in every direction as if searching for any possible escape.

Because of her efforts—in which she showed not the slightest concern for the Empire's pride or her own authority—a faint glimmer of hope was beginning to shine in the Imperial Army's ranks.

"They are gathering, Your Highness. However…"

The problem was that the situation remained bleak. The last battle, which had barely managed to kindle a spark of hope, might have dealt an irreversible blow to the Empire's fate.

"The rumors that we colluded with the demon race… they must be accepted as truth by now, correct?"

"Yes."

The princess and Kallis both knew.

They knew this had been orchestrated by Kim Buja.

However, they didn't know the details. They had no idea whether Kim Buja was truly a black mage who had made a contract with the demon race, or if he had merely staged it to look that way.

At this point, it didn't even matter.

Across the continent, the imperial princess had become a depraved witch who had allied herself with demons, making her an enemy to all.

It was a lonely fight.

It was daunting to even imagine how they could possibly hold on long enough to rebuild the Empire.

'I wonder how he would have handled this,' she thought. This situation was just as hopeless as the battle in the ravine.

It was in moments like these that she missed him more than ever.

* * *

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