Max Talent Player

Chapter 34: Display of the Guardians (2)

Notices came in.

[The Nameless Observer thinks very highly of your prudence and composure.]

[The Nameless Observer is steadily observing you.]

The Nameless Observer aside, notices from the Courageous Lion King came as well.

[The Courageous Lion King is reevaluating you.]

[The Courageous Lion King has become much more amicable towards you.]

[The Courageous Lion King shows great favor towards your hidden courage and spirit.]

Just what did I do to get this courage-lover to suddenly change his evaluation of me? Great deal of goodwill? So suddenly?

[The Courageous Lion King wishes to gift you High Strength Elixir x3.]

He wasnt the only one sending notices.

[The Lady of the Scales harbors great goodwill towards you.]

[The Lady of the Scales shows great favor towards your chivalry and sense of justice.]

[The Lady of the Scales wishes to gift you the Aten Sword.]

The Aten Sword?

Isnt that the sword the Typhoon, Jo Sunghyun, used in the beginning?

The grade of the item was a staggering Rare. At the very least, the swords attack power was very nearly the best you could get in the beginner period. It did have the weakness of low durability, but even so, it was an item of a prowess far above my current level.

Why this?

It wasnt just the Lady of the Scales.

[The Whispering Devil wishes to nurture you.]

[The Whispering Devil shows a great favor towards your craftiness and resourcefulness.]

[The Whispering Devil wishes to gift you Devils Fruit.]

This time, even the Devils Fruit made an appearance.

A fruit that forcefully advances you into the evil-alignment faction.

Players in the evil faction enjoyed fast growth and were very strong. Up until the middle period, most of the people who could be called masters had evil-alignment classes. If I were to use the Devils Fruit right now, I would instantly become the top-level ranker.

But Im already the top-level ranker anyway.

Other nations were just starting the Tutorial, and I most likely had the highest level in Korea. The Devils Fruit came with disadvantages that were as big as its advantages. After a certain point, further growth was difficult, and in the worst case scenario, you would be swallowed by demonic energy and lose all reason.

One misstep, and youll become a berserker.

The only person who overcame that and climbed to the top was the Demon King himself, Kang Sun-il.

In any case, I had an idea as to why these Guardians were suddenly wanting to send me gifts.

Could it be

Actually, I already knew. It was just that I needed a little time to be sure.

That theyre trying to brown-nose me before the Guardian selection?

I couldnt believe it, but that was how it was. I would pick my Guardian when I reached level 30. The Guardians were always reigning high up there, but for the Guardian selection, and the Guardian selection alone, they were at the mercy of the Player.

Thats what it is.

So basically, the Guardians were preening their feathers, saying: Look, Im this great of a Guardian. But I found it a little absurd. I was just one person, but a whole range of descriptions were tacked onto me. Prudence, composure, courage, sense of justice, chivalry, craftiness, the whole gamut. These guys clearly only saw what they wanted to see.

[The True Master of the Heavenly Demonic Mountain shows great interest in your talent.]

Finally, even the Guardian of the Sword Empress began to come forward.

[The True Master of the Heavenly Demonic Mountain wishes to make you a priest.]

[The True Master of the Heavenly Demonic Mountain wishes to pass down the Heavenly Demonic Art to you.]

The Nameless Observer. The Courageous Lion King. The Lady of the Scales. The Whispering Devil. And now, even the True Master of the Heavenly Demonic Mountain. I wasnt even level 30 yet, but there was a frenzied rush to recruit me.

Compared to the rest, the notices from the Nameless Observer, who had observed me ever since the Tutorial, were a little shabby. They only said they were continuing to observe me.

Senia said to me, The Guardian Lady of the Scales has gifted me a Pause authority. As Player Kim Hyukjin knows, Pause authorities are extremely expensive.

The world turned gray. The only spots of color were me and Senia. I took this as the Lady of the Scales acknowledging her mistake.

A Pause authority. Its not just a reconciliation gift.

Why did the Lady of the Scales gift Senia a Pause at exactly this time? To let me and Senia talk comfortably? It couldnt be just that.

Shes showing off her wealth.

Simply put, she was saying: I have a lot of money; I have a lot of Coins. So when you reach level 30, pick me.

In all honesty, the Lady of the Scales is a Guardian who gives really generous support.

I was left contemplating for a moment.

At least in the early period, theres no mistake that my talent is remarkable.

I had met both the Fist King and the Sword Empress, but no one had greater talent than me. At least in the current period, my talent was the most outstanding, and the same went for my knowledge.

That must be why the Guardians are competing amongst each other like this.

It was all in order to nurture the Players who would become their avatars or incarnations. I had no right to converse with the Guardians in person. You could say I was a character in a game. The Guardians and I could only communicate through the Streamer Senia.

Senia. You know all the proposals I got, right?

Yes.

I could see her wingtips trembling again. My Eye of Perception picked up on a touch of Senias emotions. Normally, it would be impossible for someone at my level to read the emotions of an Intermediate Administrator. The fact I could perceive them right now could only mean one thing.

Even though she looks calm on the outside shes just that agitated on the inside.

This was what winning the lottery had to feel like. Right now, Guardians who had revealed their names, aka influential Guardians, were tripping over each other to reveal that they wanted to give gifts to the Player she had an exclusive contract with. The more Guardians like that there were, the more successful of a Streamer Senia would become.

I am very grateful for the Guardians offers.

Truthfully, I wasnt that grateful. According to what we learned over ten years, mankind was simply entertainment, nothing more and nothing less. Even absolute good alignment Guardians were just exercising the influence of good within the fun; they didnt treat humans like real individuals. Whatever the actual truth was, that was how mankind had interpreted the Guardians.

But right now, I cant accept any of them.

This was an important moment. Guardians had a more petty side to them than one might expect, so many of them disliked it when a mere character in a simple amusement rejected their offer.

I dare not accept the offer of just one Guardian.

Right now, in this very moment, it was the time for me to lower myself and be as humble as possible.

And I dare not accept the offers of all of them.

Those gifts werent just good will or good intentions. They were wordless messages telling me to choose them when I reached level 30. So what would happen if I accepted their presents and didnt choose them?

Id be failing to draw the big picture.

Now that I had returned to the past, I wanted to draw a big picture. I wanted to look a little further ahead. No matter what happened, I wanted to achieve my dreams and succeed. I too was born as a man, as a proud Korean, and I didnt want to live hand in hand with poverty any longer.

To make that happen, I needed to look slightly further ahead and be more careful.

Right now Ill bow my head.

There were differences depending on their dispositions, but as a whole, Guardians tended to prefer Players who were deferential to them. For most cases, my current actions were the right call.

For now, I will simply appreciate the intent of all the Guardians who are sponsoring me and Play with my very best effort.

The Guardians retracted their gifting intentions. I grinned inwardly. Depending on what I did, what actions I took, I could serve the Guardians like they were my masters, or turn them into total pushovers.

Just like how you guys are watching me like your personal jester for entertainment

I would turn them into pushovers.

Ill make full use of you.

Like boiling a frog, very, very slowly, little by little. Especially that courage-lover. I was determined to make the Lion King go bankrupt, without fail. Even now, thinking about the time I almost died in the magic troll raid gave me a spike of rage.

Senias voice interrupted my thoughts.

The Pause will soon end.

With that, the Pause ended.

* * *

After hunting the Six-Tailed Fox, the two of us started heading home. In one day, my home would changewed be moving to the apartment my mom had always dreamt of. While on the road, I got a call. It was from Shin Yeonseo.

That was you, right?

What?

You killed a monster at Mt. Inwang, yeah?

What the heck? The incident hadnt gotten in the media and wasnt at all publicized. I had no idea how she found out so soon and called me.

Yeah. That was me.

And then, out of nowhere

Thanks.

After talking with her a little, I found out that she wasnt joking. When I nabbed the win in the PVP battle we had, Yeonseo had said something after yelping, Mommy!

[Man, if our Mrs. Han Myunghye had seen me just now, she wouldve been shocked, huh? I havent called for my mommy since elementary school.]

One of the women Sunhwa and I had saved today was named Han Myunghye. In other words, the person we saved today on Mt. Inwang was the mother of the future Sword Empress, Shin Yeonseo.

I cant tell if this is a good or bad thing for Yeonseo.

If Yeonseos mom, Han Myunghye, had died today?

She wouldve been burning for revenge.

The Sword Empress had once said that the driving force for her growth was anger or desire for revenge. Back then, I didnt know exactly why that was the case, because she never publicized her personal matters, but it turned out that way back in the beginning, one of the victims of the tragedy of Mt. Inwang was the Sword Empress mother.

But now, her mom is alive.

Did that mean the Sword Empress growth would be stalled? Because her driving force was gone? Was I changing the future a lot right now? I didnt know. I couldnt know. But I didnt regret my actions. I couldnt save everyone, and there was no need to give up on my gains purely to save people, but it was only right to save the people I could save in front of me. I did the right thing.

Thanks. Ill be sure to repay this favor.

Those were the same words Id heard multiple times from So Yoohyun. Somehow, Yeonseo and Yoohyun overlapped in my mind.

What favor? I just happened to be there by coincidence.

I believe that theres no such thing as coincidence. Its merely that the inevitable strings of fate move us, and we call that coincidence.

What kind of nonsense was she going on about now?

Ive decided. Ill attend to you well.

And then, the call ended. I could guarantee itthis girl just said what was on her mind without realizing it. Attend? I was so dumbfounded that I had to laugh. The kid walking next to me, Sunhwa, tilted her head at me.

Oppa. Whyre you laughing like you just heard something ridiculous?

Its nunya business.

Tch, you should tell me.

Yep. The future Sword Empress just said she wants to attend to me. But she probably didnt know what that word really meant. Attend. The heavily implied meaning was a woman assisting a man with that.

Whatever, I inadvertently have her owing me now.

It was fine. A lot had already changed from the past. I got an apartment in my name and had $100,000 in my bank account. The future Fist King and Sword Empress had a great deal of goodwill towards me. And also, by my side was Sunhwa, a tank of perhaps even greater talent than them. So much had changed.

One day passed. The Mt. Inwang incident was treated as important news in the media, with headlines like:

The high-level monster that appeared on Mt. Inwang.

One hiker dead, two injured with varying degrees of severity.

The hero of Mt. Inwang is?

It was publicized that new monsters of a completely different class from slimes had appeared, and one of those monsters killed someone. One person bled a great deal from a gash in their stomach and underwent surgery after being transferred to the hospital, but there was no danger to their life.

I received a call from Yoohyun.

Hyungnim! The hero of Mt. Inwang, is it you?

I was about to call Yoohyun anyway. My level was 26. I had to raise it to level 30, and up until level 30, it was really helpful to have help from a party. Or rather, a party was absolutely necessary.

Cut the chatter and come out to meet me.

I didnt say much, but Yoohyun seemed sure that I was the hero of Mt. Inwang.

I knew it was you. The true hero of this era is you, is it not?

 He sure was good at blathering all by himself.

I admire you, hyungnim.

I called Yeonseo and Yoohyun to meet at a caf in downtown Seoul. Of course, Sunhwa was there, too.

When we were seated, I said, Theres someplace I need to go.

Playing was, of course, accompanied by danger, and that applied to geniuses, too. In order to go higher than others, faster than others, of course everyone would take risks. It was the same right now. I couldnt do it alone. I needed their help.

Were going

I told them our destination.