Chapter 5

[Viewers: 7]

Seo-jun checked the bottom of the broadcast screen. Before he realized it, three more viewers had joined.

Maybe it really was because of the stream title.

-I bet he dies right here.

-Anyone wanna bet how many deaths before the streamer gives up?

As he thought that, chats mocking him flooded in.

But he didn't mind.

Looking down on him, making fun of the streamer—that was part of the viewers' entertainment too.

As long as it didn't cross the line into something excessive, it was fine.

And skill could always be proven later.

"Who goes there?!"

As Seo-jun approached the mansion, the two guards standing at the front gate drew their swords and began walking toward him.

"Don't worry. I've already got the hang of it."

-"Got the hang of it." (Started today)

-"Don't worry!" (Nobody was worried)

-Was falling over and over earlier part of "getting the hang of it"? lololol

Seo-jun decided to first gauge the speed difference between himself and the guards.

The moment he made up his mind, he closed the distance instantly and lightly swung his cane.

"Remove your hood at once—"

Clang!

A casual probing strike.

The guard blocked it without much difficulty.

'Pretty skilled.'

And then the follow-up attack from Guard No. 2, who had positioned himself behind Seo-jun.

"Intruder!"

Strength entered Seo-jun's toes.

He swiftly lowered his posture, twisted his waist, and captured the enemy's movements in his eyes. Then, within that fleeting instant, he predicted them.

Guard No. 2's eyes reflected the image of the hooded intruder.

Seo-jun intended to knock away Guard No. 2's sword and counterattack.

But then—

Kaaaang!

The moment the blades collided, the background rippled with a visual effect, and Guard No. 2 staggered backward before collapsing into a groggy state.

-Oh lol he lucked into it.

-He actually parried that.

-lololol crazy luck.

"Hmm?"

Seo-jun didn't fully understand what had just happened, but he didn't miss the opportunity and rushed at Guard No. 2, stabbing the cane into his throat.

His HP instantly dropped to zero. An instant kill.

'What was that?'

Then he knocked away Guard No. 1's sword too, and the same phenomenon occurred.

Kaaaang!

-???

-Dude should've bought a lottery ticket lol.

-Two parries in a row is insane.

-What's insane? It was pure luck.

Seo-jun decided to experiment and lightly struck the groggy guard.

But a huge chunk of the HP bar disappeared.

Before he could even hit him twice, the guard died following his friend.

Wanting to know what this was, Seo-jun asked the viewers.

"Guys, what's a parry?"

-You don't even know what a parry is and you did that? Monster talent.

-No way lol, it was obviously luck.

-How do you "accidentally" parry?

-And since when can newbies even parry?

-lolol

"Stop fighting and can someone explain what a parry is?"

A brief silence followed before the same viewer who had explained Dawn of the Assassins earlier started typing again.

-A parry usually means deflecting the opponent's attack, but in this game just blocking normally doesn't do anything. If you strike perfectly perpendicular to the enemy's attack at the exact timing, the opponent enters a groggy state. And enemies take massive damage while groggy. That's called a parry.

-Parries are basically the only hope for Musou Play. But even former pros who were confident in their mechanics tried parrying, failed, and ended up going back to gathering assassination info lololol

-Those guys retired because they sucked though?

Even former pros struggled with it?

Seo-jun recalled the Level 9 AI known as the Gatekeeper of Pros.

If retired pros lacking enough skill were around that level—

'Makes sense.'

He immediately understood.

Perfectly deflecting an attack meant perfectly predicting the enemy's strike and moving your body exactly as you wanted at the exact angle.

Of course it would be difficult.

For other people.

"Got it. But it seemed easy though?"

Seo-jun smiled as he confidently walked through the front gate into the mansion.

-His confidence is actually annoying lol.

-It was luck, newbie!!

-No seriously, I don't think those movements were luck. Something's off about him.

-And who the hell are you supposed to be lololol

-You think parries are free meals or something?

-"Something's off" my ass lololol who even are you?

Chats mocking the viewer who had noticed Seo-jun's skill began pouring in.

Seeing that, Seo-jun was reminded of his previous life.

Back then, because of his lowly background and lack of affiliation, even when he effortlessly defeated disciples from the great sects, the results were always belittled by those same sects.

They'd claim their disciple had been drinking the night before, or had gone easy on him, or had simply let their guard down.

Excuses more shameful than simply admitting a lack of skill as martial artists.

But Seo-jun had no background powerful enough to point that out.

Their goal was simply to bury the matter quietly and move on.

Even so, the Seo-jun of his previous life had never cared.

Instead, he continued proving himself to the very end, and once he did, the sects changed tactics and excessively exaggerated his achievements.

All to justify their own defeats.

Of course, the chatroom and his past life weren't the same thing.

But the essence was identical.

There was only one thing he needed to do.

As Seo-jun entered through the front gate, five soldiers blocked his path.

They had heard the earlier shout from the guards.

Apparently they'd had enough time to prepare, as they were equipped with shields and armor.

Seo-jun thrust his cane toward the throat of the soldier standing farthest to the left like a flash of lightning.

That soldier was the closest and slightly relaxed, making it hard for him to react.

Bang!

A soldier beside him reacted and struck away the tip of Seo-jun's cane.

Seo-jun's right arm, which had extended the cane, was pushed outward.

Then the soldier Seo-jun had originally targeted swung his sword downward at him from above.

'Been waiting for this.'

Seo-jun instantly reversed his grip on the cane and moved it perpendicular to the descending sword.

Kaaaang!

The background rippled once more, and the chat exploded.

-????

-What the hell?

Seo-jun slammed the cane into the groggy soldier's throat after knocking him onto his backside, confirmed the HP dropping, and rushed the soldiers again.

Kaaaang!

Maybe the game company had programmed them to perfection, because their teamwork was clean.

But to Seo-jun, their openings were painfully obvious.

Kaaaang!

Movements that anyone would admire.

Though every attack came from a different angle, Seo-jun missed none of them as he moved his cane.

"If you want to capture me, you'd better bring the Shaolin One Hundred and Eight Arhat Formation."

Kaaaang!

-?? Was the streamer secretly some martial arts boomer?

-That's not the important part. He's already landed four parries lololol

-This is insane. Seriously…

-Still wondering who I am? Still wondering who I am? Still wondering who I am?

"D-Damn it!"

"Run away!"

When Seo-jun knocked down four of them, the last soldier lying on the ground shouted toward the remaining standing guard.

"Hurry and call for reinfor— guk!"

A cane pierced through his throat.

After experimenting with different ways of dealing damage to enemies in a groggy state, Seo-jun had concluded that this method was the cleanest.

"That makes six dealt with."

-No seriously, what does the streamer even do?

-Are you really a beginner???

-I told you guys. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you.

"But I really am a beginner though? You all saw earlier."

-No lololol how does a guy who couldn't even climb rooftops properly suddenly become this good?

-Seriously, when he fell off the rope earlier, I thought I'd found a cute newbie stream to babysit, but turns out it's a god-tier veteran stream.

-What the hell are you guys talking about?

-Watch the replay.

-Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

"Uh, if 'I Am Joseon's Assassin' keeps spamming, that's a ban."

-Understood.

-Ooooh, laying down the law.

-lol serves him right.

The viewer named I Am Joseon's Assassin was the one who had recognized Seo-jun's skill earlier and gotten mocked for it.

Looking through the scrolling chat, Seo-jun saw that the other viewers had continued ridiculing him too.

At least until Seo-jun landed his third parry.

"Well, I get it, but if viewers start fighting each other, I'll have no choice but to ban people."

-Okay.

-What's so scary about getting banned from a tiny nobody stream?

A hostile message suddenly appeared.

Tiny nobody stream.

People compared high-viewer streams to giant corporations, while streams with no viewers were jokingly compared to shabby roadside shacks.

-Ban me then lololol

[lkiop1644 has been kicked.]

"Yes, done."

[Viewers: 6]

Seo-jun immediately kicked the viewer.

If he let someone like that stay around just because he didn't want to lose a viewer, the other viewers might start thinking, Is this the kind of stream where that behavior is allowed?

And that could poison the atmosphere.

He couldn't sell the future of the stream just because he didn't want to lose one viewer.

Though whether there even was a future was another matter.

-lololololol crazy reaction speed. Guess your physical skills are legit after all.

-Wow, I'm jealous. First ban of the season!

Thankfully, the reactions weren't bad. Even Joseon's Assassin typed this:

-Honestly, with talent like this, this stream's probably gonna blow up fast. Getting banned later would suck lol.

-lolol

Hmm.

If people were saying things like that, maybe he was doing well?

In this life, he had barely experienced normal society, so he couldn't really tell.

And in his previous life, because of his origins, he rarely stood at the forefront and had lived rather passively.

In the Murim world, background was unbelievably important.

No—more important than anything else.

The martial arts you could learn, your status, even the fame you could gain—all of it depended on where you belonged.

What they ate, the martial arts they learned, their masters, experiences, the people they met.

Everything was inevitably different.

And in a world like that, he had been an orphan captured from a foreign land.

Fortunately, an elder of the Murim Alliance from the Mount Hua Sect had taken him in.

After realizing Seo-jun's talent, the elder brought him to a place where the orthodox sects gathered their greatest prodigies.

At first, he had been ignored.

But later, his talent—worthy of contending for the title of strongest under heaven—protruded like an awl hidden inside a pocket even there. His master had tried to bring him into the Mount Hua Sect, but because the other great sects could not tolerate Mount Hua growing stronger, he ultimately ended up belonging nowhere.

A martial artist who represented nothing, and whom no one represented.

Yet his talent alone blotted out the heavens.

The solitary Sword God.

'Well… it wasn't really that I wanted to be solitary. I just had no choice. Honestly, nobody lived more cautiously than I did—'

Right then—

'Senior Brother, please stop talking nonsense. Have you already forgotten how much trouble we suffered because of the disasters you caused?'

He heard a hallucinated voice.

This happened sometimes.

Anyway.

Seo-jun was satisfied with the current situation.

Streaming was far more fun than he had expected.

And the game itself was fun too.

'Feels like I've set out on a journey through the Jianghu for the first time in my life…'

Except—

'Senior Brother, secretly marching into the Namgung Family and turning the entire place upside down is not what people call "a journey through the Jianghu." Understood?'

…Would you stop interrupting the mood already?

Still, it was good.

-But seriously, how are you so good at parrying?

-Does the newbie have some secret technique?

"Ah. But how difficult are parries supposed to be?"

-This game made all the veteran players from previous series who bragged about doing Musou runs completely disappear, and now they all preach 'Dosum is a stealth assassination masterpiece.'

-Even former pros complained that the timing window was way too strict. You have to deflect perfectly, so they said they fail one out of every three tries.

-No lol stop bringing up washed-up retired pros.

"I see."

-Hurry up and tell us the secret.

-Pls pls pls

Seo-jun answered honestly.

"Well, you just have to remember your previous life."

-?

-Streamer lolololol your mental state is crazy.

"Or you can just watch carefully and knock the sword away vertically."

-???

-Hah, I shouldn't have expected anything lol.

-"I didn't expect anything." (Was desperately waiting for the answer earlier)

Seo-jun finally burst out laughing.

-He's laughing while gaslighting us lololol.

-Hey, are you having fun bullying people? Hey, hey, let me go.

-If I let go, the streamer's gonna parry you too.

Smiling, Seo-jun thought:

'Maybe I really was born to stream.'

Interacting with viewers was way more fun than he expected.

-So when are you gonna move?

-If you stay there, they'll all gather.

"Ah, about that—"

Tap tap tap tap!

"He's over here!"

"There's an intruder here!"

Enemies flooded in.

Their number: thirteen.

Aside from Ettore, every enemy in the mansion had gathered here.

The first two guards, the one who escaped earlier, the four he had killed, and the twelve new enemies now charging toward him.

And Ettore himself.

Those were the twenty enemies he had identified at the beginning.

-Thirteen? They all came lol gg.

-Well, he's a newbie. Can't help it. If you stay still too long here, they all gather.

Seo-jun calmly spread his arms and waited until eight enemies surrounded him.

-He's given up.

-Just die here, skip the tutorial quickly, and move on to the real game lol. You're never beating Ettore anyway.

And once he was completely surrounded, he announced his plan.

"Guys, I'll show you a thirteen-hit parry streak."

After that, only a single message appeared in chat.

-What the fu—