Hyper Luck

I was able to spend my day with a light-hearted feeling.

As soon as they confirmed the numbers written in the bank book, they almost flipped out. Then they proceeded to ask me questions if I earned the money through dangerous or immoral methods for a very long time.

Even among their concerns, they did say that they will be rooting for me.

After I handed the bankbook to my parents, a little forcefully, since they had refused to the end, my heart felt lighter as if I had accomplished a huge goal.

Honestly, I never thought I would be able to make this much money in such a short period of time.

It was only after I exchanged it for real money that I got to finally feel how much it was truly worth.

I still felt somewhat flustered.

How I started playing <Circuit> suddenly came to mind.

It all came from a post that a middle school student put on his blog.

The post was about how he managed to acquire a magic rank item from hunting down slimes in <Circuit>.

I thought to myself that I should just do work that can generate high profit in a short period of time, and that was how my journey in the world of <Circuit> began.

And I was lucky enough to get a lot of expensive items after that, and I made a lot of money thanks to it.

Then naturally my hands clenched into fists.

Let's not be conceited, it is also true that I got too big of a result in contrast to the amount of effort I put in.

I didn’t want to make mistakes that ignorant fools would make.

I started to think of all sorts of resolutions in my mind.

The world of <Circuit> was so realistic that the boundary between virtual reality and reality felt very vague.

There was no such thing as plot armor, so even I, who was quite lucky, had gone through a lot of trial and error.

They became good nourishment for me to grow on.

I got off the bus on the way back and looked around while walking slowly.

At the end of the meal with my parents, the drink that I passed down my throat with my father caused me to shake back and forth, in this lukewarm night air.

“Mose.”

Thoughts came out through my mouth.

Still, I was definitely smiling. That was surely a moment of a lot of thoughts going by.

"I’m looking forward to working with you.”

It was a funny thought to behold nonetheless, however, I really meant it when I said that.

I carefully entered the familiar bedroom and immediately embraced the cold floor.

Eventually, I fell asleep as I pushed away even the slightest thoughts of whether to put down my slowly closing eyelids or not.

After a while, I woke up to the stinging heat hitting my cheeks in the early morning.

I slept in a very troubled posture, but it has been a long time since I slept so well.

I hurried to the bathroom and washed my body and dried my hair, putting an energy bar into my mouth.

It bothered me that the quality of food was getting worse by the day, but it was really fortunate that there were even lumps of these tasteless nutrients.

If I really wanted to eat some delicious food, then I can just go eat them in the world of <Circuit>.

I remember seeing something called ‘circuit diet' being introduced on a TV show, to relieve stress by eating all kinds of delicious food on circuit while enjoying a minimum vegetarian diet.

Of course, I wasn't on a diet, though.

I sat down on the connector after finishing the last bits of the energy bar.

At this point in time when I have enough of an idea of what I want to do as Lee KiHo and what I want to achieve as Mose and the action I should take is…

To be greedy.

A desire for more progressive growth.

The result of that greed will surely give Lee KiHo a rich life and a more meaningful and impressive experience for Mose.

I laid down on the connector as I convinced myself.

Then I closed my eyes and whispered.

"Connect.”

***

The slight smell of fabric softener in my room suddenly disappeared from my nose, and after a while, it was filled with a moist and seductive scent of dried petals soaked in boiling water.

It was only after I felt a sense of the body that was different from Lee KiHo, which transcends the power of a normal human being, I was able to open my eyes and notice the glossy ceiling with red bricks coated with ceramic glaze.

"Oh, you’re logged in!”

Guile greeted me with a clean and fresh look unlike his drunk self before logging out. Judging from his awkward gestures, he must’ve just logged on also.

"Did you just log in?”

Guile nodded to answer my question with the clinging sound of his chain armor.

"Yeah, I just logged back on. I had to clean my room.”

Then he opened his inventory, took out all sorts of junk, and began to carefully handle each one.

"I noticed you handle your items with great care, right?”

I sat down in front of Guile as he trimmed each of his items as I showed interest in some of his items.

"I always get scared when I have to fight monsters, so I’ve been collecting items that can help my teammates. Although, I’ve only used like 5 of them so far…”

I put a light smile on my face as Guile laughed awkwardly. 

Guile boldly put down the parts he was not confident in and set a new direction for the solution.

"Looks like we wouldn’t be needing a healer for our party.”

Guile put a mysterious smile on his face.

"You see, my girlfriend, Silid, goes to a Cathedral school. I should really keep this a secret, but I plan on learning some healing skills from my girlfriend later.”

"How wonderful.”

As I was listening to Guile’s ambitious future plans, I suddenly heard an answer from behind.

I quickly turned to face the direction in which the familiar voice came from, then I saw Swordsman sitting on his bed stretching.

"You are here.”

Swordsman nodded his head, patted me on my shoulder, and opened the room door.

"Did you eat already?”

"Yeah, I logged in after I ate something.”

Swordsman stared at me intensely after he heard Guile’s response.

"Well, I did too. But it wasn’t much, I could handle another meal. Let’s go, Mister.”

Swordsman smiled after hearing my response.

"This one’s on me, Mose. I owe you a lot.”

"Wait, you’re gonna pay for us? Then I’m in too!”

Guile jumped from his seat after hearing Swordsman, then we started to go downstairs as Guile and Swordsman had a playful quarrel.

I couldn’t help but let out small laughter as I watched them from behind.

There were quite a few NPCs and Players having a meal when we entered the main hall.

In the midst of the crowd, I noticed Khea and Sharan already had a table on one side.

"Here comes the men.”

Sharan said as she crunched on her crispy roasted sandwich.

Khea, who had been sitting on the opposite side of Sharan, turned around and quickly checked my face, then hurriedly turned her head back.

We joined their table as I took a seat right next to Khea.

As soon as we sat together at the round table, Guile got excited and picked up the menu.

"I’m getting a sudden urge to have some meat, oh? ‘Steamed Bashaff’s thigh’? This looks very tasty!”

Pointing to the most expensive menu, Swordsman looked at Guile and shook his head around.

And among that bustle, I just ordered what Khea and Sharan were having.

"Status screen.”

I decided to check on my status as I waited for the food to arrive.

[ Lee KiHo ]

[Nickname: Mose]

Class: Adventurer

Trait: Lucky Ruiner

Lv: 61

Vitality: 4130/ 4130

Mana: 880 / 880

Strength: 101

Health: 71

Speed: 78

Intelligence: 51

Luck: 4

Fame: 43,286

Abilities: 

[Polorun’s Star] – Health regeneration per second +101

[Polorun’s Star] – Health regeneration in party + 43 (Form: Aura, Max range 250M)

Contract Magic: Sharma

Seal of the Sworder – +14% increase in melee attack

My level had already reached the realm of level 60s. I wasn’t sure if this was considered high among the Players, so I decided to withhold my judgment.

I thought I would get around 1 stat for each level, but there has been quite a considerable amount of stat increase ever since I entered the 60th level.

And the ‘Luck’ stat I acquired from my trait was decreased due to the skill I used back in the underground mine.

This was something I started noticing a while back, but my physical stats are more prone to grow much faster than the other stats since I have to do a lot of physical activities in the process of leveling up.

I got curious out of nowhere, so I asked Sharan a question, who was chewing on her sandwich.

"What’s your speed stat at right now?”

"Ueh?”

She had to answer with food still in her mouth because I asked it all of a sudden. Soon after she swallowed her food in a hurry, she answered me with reddened cheeks.

"65 for me, though my strength is only 14.”

Sharan’s speed stat wasn’t too far away from my own. However, judging from how her strength stat is much lower, It was clear that the automatic distribution of stats by leveling up would depend on how the leveling process was.

"What is your class?”

"It’s ‘Black Shooter’. I learned how to shoot bows from the archers that were called the ‘Black Spire of Santbury’. My specialty is extreme long-distance shooting, maybe?”

The stats she told me was exactly something I’d expect from an archer.

On the other hand, my stats were abnormally evenly distributed in various fields, but there was still room for interpreting it as a special ability of a rare class.

Unfortunately, <Circuit> was a very non-user-friendly game to the point that a Player had to search everything up by oneself in order to solve a problem, so I wasn’t really sure where to get an answer from.

As for the circuit wiki that Sharan loved to use, I rarely ever read articles from there. So all I could do was make an educated guess on this matter to come up with an answer of my own.

However, it seemed pretty clear that the class, stats, and the process of leveling up had a close connection with each other for sure.

Furthermore, each stat works closely with each other to create great synergy, which I have already confirmed in the past several times.

In summary, ‘The level system of <Circuit> is determined by the actions taken by the Player, and each stat has a close synergy relationship.'

After thinking hard to myself like that, I nodded to myself, and Khea was giving me a strange look.

"What’s up, Khea?”

I closed my status screen and looked back at her. She continued her meal without saying anything.

"Skill window.”

Next up, skills.

[ Skill Window ]

[ Disastrous flame: Solar Storm ]

Class: Active

This skill can only be activated when equipped with Attoria’s Stigma. If ‘Attoria’s rising sun set’ is present within the skill caster’s inventory, it is automatically equipped as the skill is activated.

Summons an intense flame storm.

(Range: 250m radius within the caster)

Attack damage: 14,245 ~ 15,561

1,226 damage per second to the enemies touched by the flame

(Duration: 100 seconds, up to 3 stacks)

(The flame can only be cleansed by ‘holy’ type based skills)

[ Lucky Ruin ]

Level: 2

Class: Active

Can be activated through consuming 1 luck stat.

Objects found in ancient ruins and dungeons can be turned into itemized cores. The rank of the items made into cores is increased depending on the level of the skill.

Cooldown: 72 hours

[ Ruiner Mix ]

Lv. Max

Class: Active

Allows the caster to keep the core in the inventory.

The kept cores can be combined as long as they are the same rank. (Max 3 times) Combined cores have maximized rewards.

However, there is a certain chance to spawn monsters from the combined core.

MP required: 800

Cooldown: 48 hours

If there was a change in the very simple skill window, it was that the skill level of ‘Lucky Ruin' had risen.

Then I suddenly remembered that an enormous item was dormant in my inventory.

As soon as I checked my changes so far, a young man with blue hair placed the plate in front of me.

The sandwich on the plate looked as if it was about to burst as the meat and vegetables had been forcefully shoved between the bread.

Guile also received the same food as me and started pouring it into his mouth in a hurry, and I started to dig in too.

A moment later,

< You have eaten Pulo Sandwich. >

< HP regeneration +2 (60mins) >

As I checked a pop-up window with a notification sound, the crispy bread and moist ingredients wrapped around the tongue and danced in my mouth.

If these sandwiches were sold in real life, the sandwich market would change to a monopoly just like the gaming market right now.

After I ate all the food, it turned into a quiet atmosphere as everyone had small talks, but for some reason, everyone seemed to have their attention on me.

Then Swordsman opened his mouth in an awkward tone.

"So, Mose. What are you going to be doing now?”

I replied with a smile to Swordsman's words.

"We are still craving, aren’t we? Let’s get going. To complete other quests!”

Sharan, Guile, and Swordsman's shoulders tightened up.

Everyone's faces began to fill with excitement. In such an atmosphere, they got up one by one and went out of the inn, leaving only me and Khea at the table.

"Where are you going this time?"

"Well, I think I’m going to head to Asparagan for now."

Khea looked down for a moment to hide her expression and then smiled with some bitterness left on her face.

"Next time, try not to bother me too much!”

It was a complaint with a smile.

I showed her a puzzled expression after hearing that, and my next words got Khea flustered.

"What are you saying? You’re coming with us, no?”

"…Huh?”

Khea made a surprised expression after hearing my words. I grabbed her hand, and I led her out of the inn without hesitation.

And in the meantime, I could hear Khea's laughter leaking out from behind, even if it was very faint.