Chapter 111

CHAPTER 111

In co-op games, progressing through the game usually requires the cooperation of at least two users.

However, the kind of cooperation being discussed here has a different nature from that of a typical team game.

In a team game, even if one person performs poorly or leaves, the others can still cover the gap. It may be more difficult, but it's possible.

Just like in For the Sake of Cooperation, even if Seojun were left alone, he could still secure victory against ordinary players whether it was 3 versus 1 or even 5 versus 1.

But co-op games are different.

In many cases, the system itself prevents players from covering that gap.

Of course, exceptions exist.

If the developers created a solo route within the co-op game.

Though naturally, such cases are extremely rare.

A solo route is one of the tricks developers use to differentiate their game.

But Monster didn't choose that approach.

Then what other exception could there be?

"Maybe it'll work through a bug? Let's make a bet."

Seojun grinned.

Starting a co-op game solo from the very beginning?

And completing the mission on top of that?

It was definitely worth trying.

-Starting solo from the beginning?

-No way.

-If it works, then Monster's the weird one.

-Isn't he saying that because he knows something? Hmmm?

"Ah. No, I don't know anything. But still."

Seojun paused the game for a moment.

His avatar froze, and Seojun returned to his original avatar in a ghostly translucent state.

-In the tutorial that's supposed to teach future cooperation...

-KIPIPIPIPIPI, stop him, you idiot.

-There are tens of thousands of people here. How could all of them resist? lol

The location changed as well.

"Go ahead and bet. Chicken?"

Naturally.

The viewers fell for the cheap provocation.

-Agh.

-The biggest victim right now. Dead Kim Taewoo desperately sending retry messages lol.

[Mission Reward if this Boss Battle is Cleared Solo in One Attempt: ₩200,000]

[I'm suddenly just angry. Beat that bastard up!]

The dead tell no tales.

Taewoo was dead, meaning he had no way to directly communicate with Seojun.

He could use Travel or some external voice program to speak to him, but inside the game, it was impossible.

The only thing Taewoo could do was send small messages that appeared on Seojun's screen.

[Let's help each other!]

[Retry 1/2]

[Let's help each other!]

[Retry 1/2]

[Let's try again together!]

[Let's help each other!]

[Let's help each other!]

-KIPIPIPIPIPI. This is what a collaboration stream looks like?

-At this point, because of Taewoo, we have to watch the host try the tutorial solo lol.

-Hey, is this really a safe asset? Is it really?

And Seojun's current mission success rate had reached 100%.

If the mission was accepted and Seojun succeeded, they would lose money.

If he failed, they'd get their principal back.

Investment returns?

Of course there were returns.

Watching a streamer suffer because he couldn't get the money.

That alone was enough.

So the important question for them was this:

Did he actually have a chance?

Was this asset safe?

No matter how difficult the mission seemed, Seojun had already accomplished absurd feats like securing victory for the Demonic Cult.

The viewers watching the stream began debating.

And naturally, this topic started spreading everywhere.

Seojun's viewer count increased.

And as a result, so did the prize pool.

-I asked Monster and they replied immediately lol. Looks like those guys are watching the stream too.

-They're handling things fast.

-They said there isn't a separate solo route!!!! Nice! This is a genuinely safe asset!

-But what if someone has overwhelming mechanics?

-His mechanics honestly look like a bug.

-Shouldn't there be point betting for this at this point? lol

[+₩5,000 added to prize pool]

[+₩10,000 added to prize pool]

The prize pool kept growing.

And at that moment, Seojun unpaused the game.

[+₩9,000 added to prize pool]

[+₩2,000 added to prize pool]

[Let's help each other!]

Ignoring Taewoo, he continued the tutorial.

"Let's go. Keep watching and keep betting. That prize money looks pretty tempting."

One million won.

If he succeeded, should he split it with Taewoo?

Avoiding the bots, he moved through piles of garbage.

The tutorial taught various movements using double jumps and grappling-hook actions.

Throughout the entire process, Seojun never made a single mistake.

If he died, the mission would fail immediately.

[Let's help each other!]

[Let's help each other!]

It seemed Taewoo had decided to play the villain.

"Oh."

Putting aside his thoughts, Seojun activated the trash compactor according to the green marker.

And during the process, the tutorial finally allowed him to draw the sword hanging at his waist.

The unfortunate thing was that the moment Seojun drew the sword—

-The sword is a bit...

-If you give that bastard a sword, it feels like he can do anything.

-Danger asset alert!

-He literally just pulled out a toy sword. Is it real that everyone stopped donating?

The only disappointing thing was that the flow of mission contributions came to a halt.

"Yeah. Seriously, is that real?"

The prize pool stopped at ₩1.5 million.

Taewoo's messages disappeared.

And the tutorial entered the next phase.

No wonder.

They finally realized why the game hadn't forcibly restarted despite Taewoo's death.

"Save me! I can talk now! You can hear me, right, Seojun?!"

One of the trash blocks compressed into a square by the garbage compactor displayed a green marker.

It was Taewoo.

Only one arm and his head were sticking slightly out of the side of the block.

"Looks like I can save you if I go over and pull you out."

"Hurry up! If you move around and create some distance first, I think it'll work!"

"Then it'd be a riot."

Naturally.

"Money or me?"

"Money."

Seojun answered without a moment's hesitation and focused on the narration.

The explanation about the compactor robot was still ongoing.

-You know you're not supposed to save him to clear this, right?

-ㅇㅇ

[I remember now! That robot's backstory! Right! They were originally going to reuse it as a mid-boss when the protagonist returned here later, but the idea got scrapped!]

[Forget the backstory! Its weak point!]

[It's definitely the eye! You have to destroy the eye! If it can't see, it can't do anything!]

[And how are we supposed to destroy the eye?]

[Knock it over! Knock it down and stab it with your sword!]

At that moment, the robot's eyes briefly changed.

(0.0)

Then it began digging into the mountain Seojun was standing on even more aggressively.

So the sword was meant for destroying the eye.

Then how were you supposed to knock it down?

[How do we knock it over?!]

[Get me out first!]

-Mission over!

-It really was a safe asset! lol

The robot's eye was positioned high up.

A double jump wasn't even close to enough.

The reason this game had such long airtime wasn't because you could jump high.

It was because you could jump far.

So even when combined with the grappling hook, which had a cooldown, reaching the eye was still impossible.

The game was basically saying:

"You probably need to save Taewoo first to find the solution."

And that meant mission failure.

₩1.5 million.

Even split with Taewoo, ₩750,000 was still a lot of money.

It seemed small only because Seojun had recently won an enormous amount from Battlefield in a single day.

But thinking about it, that wasn't an hourly wage.

That was three weeks' worth of pay earned over twenty-one days.

This, on the other hand, was an hourly wage.

And the amount was still increasing in real time.

Looks like everyone thinks this is a sure thing and keeps raising it.

Seojun ignored the chat window and carefully observed the compactor robot's movements.

He had found the clues.

The eye. And the sword.

-Is the streamer deep in thought?

-Hey, this is a co-op game that requires two people.

-Yeah, why are you trying to play solo in a co-op game you got sponsored to stream?

-Everyone looks so happy thinking about making fun of him.

-Hurry up and hit the fail button!

"So in the end, you'll have to save me first, Seojun! Hahahaha!"

Seojun filtered out all the noise.

Then, maintaining his balance, he began skiing down the mountain of garbage.

The head.

The torso with the empty space beneath it.

The two wheels.

The distance between its arms and the attached scoops.

Everything the compactor robot had shown so far.

Its range of motion.

And every one of Seojun's own specs.

His analysis was complete.

So he didn't need to know the monster's pattern in advance.

Seeing it and reacting would be enough.

"I think this might work."

As Seojun approached, the shadow of a long plate swept over him.

BOOM!

The compactor robot slammed the ground behind him.

Then it began retracting its arm, intending to sweep him into its body.

But before the impact could shake the ground beneath Seojun's feet and throw off his balance—

Seojun had already jumped.

He fired his grappling hook at the flat scraper rushing toward him from behind and lifted himself onto it.

Swoosh.

The robot ended up scraping nothing but empty ground.

The grappling hook's cooldown was two seconds.

And two seconds was enough time for a body pulled upward by the hook's rope length to return to its original position.

Which meant it was impossible to gain infinite height with the grappling hook.

That was how the game had been designed.

Probably one of the reasons players couldn't defeat the compactor robot.

But—

When two seconds passed and Seojun had fallen back down to just above the ground, near the height from which he had originally jumped—

The robot was lifting the arm it had used to scrape toward its own body.

And Seojun aimed the grappling hook at the scraper once more.

Clank.

The moment the hook attached itself—

The robot raised its arm.

Seojun's body spun through the air and was pulled upward by the rope.

Higher.

High enough to reach the robot's eye.

"Huh?"

-???

-What???

-Why is he flying?

-Still not enough.

-Phew.

Seojun used the double jump he had been saving at the perfect moment.

A skill that could only be used once per airtime.

It didn't add a huge amount of height.

But it definitely added some.

CRUNCH!

His sword pierced straight into the eye.

-???????

-Wait, what?

Just as the height and distance seemed ever so slightly insufficient—

"No refunds."

And at that very moment—

[+₩2,000,000 added to prize pool]

Someone lost ₩2 million exactly one second after placing it on the mission reward.

"Uh..."

Seojun, equally stunned because he had only tried it on a whim and somehow succeeded, spoke as he fell back to the ground.

Silence filled Crown's boardroom.

It wasn't because someone had insisted that perfectly timing a double jump in a game with long airtime but limited height was impossible for a beginner.

Nor because that same person had claimed the grappling-hook controls were too precise, and that anyone would miss at least once due to distance calculations and fall.

Nor because accomplishing everything on the first attempt was supposed to be impossible.

Nor because they had already tested the tutorial boss several times and concluded that nobody could discover the method alone.

Nor because the director had gradually become skeptical and argued that if money couldn't buy favor, then perhaps overwhelming physical skill was enough.

No.

It wasn't because of any of the countless events that had just occurred.

"So I told you not to bet actual money."

The reason was simply this:

That someone had invested money they could have saved—

If only they had waited one more second.

Silence descended upon the boardroom.

"..."

"Enough. Just leave. I need to start figuring out countermeasures."

The order to leave was given.