Normally, when an average player died, the system would just strip away junk such as cheap potions, throwaway gear, and trash items barely worth anything. Sometimes, if they were lucky, they didn’t lose anything at all.

However, Chaos players were at a serious disadvantage from the beginning. For them, death always came with a guaranteed item loss, and not just low-value gear either. The system had a tendency to target valuable items, making the odds heavily stacked against them. It was like spinning a slot machine designed to take something important every time.

That was exactly why the likes of Bloodshed Guild and Rōnin Guild were struggling. Their rosters were full of Chaos players, which meant every time Do-Jin took one down, he walked away with real loot while they watched their resources vanish.

“Are these bastards fucking insane?” Do-Jin muttered, dragging his hand through his hair in frustration.

Wiping out just one or two of their parties meant he walked away with a haul worth millions. Every drop was pure profit, from rare gear and magic stones to top-shelf consumables. For him, killing those eight players felt like joining some kind of VIP event with guaranteed jackpots. The system might as well have been running a luxury loot box on repeat.

From Do-Jin’s perspective, those guilds had gone completely off the rails. Any sane person would’ve cut their losses by now, but these lunatics kept throwing bodies into the grinder like they had something to prove.

“Just counting what I’ve taken already, that’s gotta be worth at least 30 million won. These assholes really have lost every last shred of reason.” He groaned, raking both hands through his hair this time.

Sure, the system ruled it as self-defense every time, which meant every piece of loot that fell into his hands was clean. The money was sweet and he wasn’t denying that. But right now, the money didn’t mean anything. What mattered to him was finishing his long-overdue Adventurer Class Advancement Quests and stepping into the next stage of growth. Instead, thanks to these two guilds dogpiling him, he’d been stuck in this shitty gorge for three straight days.

Even for him, running nonstop guerrilla warfare against enemies coming in waves was no walk in the park. Setting up ambushes, laying traps, luring them into chokepoints took energy and timing. And if the ambush didn’t land clean, or the enemy responded faster than expected, he was suddenly the one outnumbered, forced into desperate fights where one slip meant game over.

It felt like living life on a tightrope, every battle one step away from falling into the abyss. The constant strain was eating away at him, grinding him down. It was like being some half-starved revolutionary commander, always on the run from a better-armed battalion breathing down his neck.

If Anemone hadn’t been at his side, and if most of his pursuers hadn’t been only in the Level 70s or 80s, he would already have been a corpse cycling through the respawn system.

“At this point, it might honestly be easier to just die once and respawn in town,” he muttered under his breath.

However, no matter how much more efficient it would’ve been to take the easy way out, Do-Jin wasn’t the type to just roll over and die. The only way he’d ever fall would be if he burned through every last potion, killed until he couldn’t swing anymore, and finally collapsed empty-handed. Giving up wasn’t his style. That was something he forced onto the enemy, not himself.

Maybe I should just log out for a day or two.

The idea didn’t sound half bad. They had no way of knowing when he was online or offline, which meant every hour they spent searching was wasted strength. Every flare, every scouting run, every sleepless night, they’d be tearing themselves apart trying to find him while he sat comfortably on the other side.

Mulling over different strategies, Do-Jin sat up in his capsule. First things first, he needed to refuel with some food before thinking any further.

“Hey.” He stepped into the living room, still rubbing at his eyes.

There was Chun Ji-Hyun, already sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in her hands. She blinked at him in surprise before asking softly, “What’s been going on with you lately? You’ve been logging out every day.”

“I need a break too,” Do-Jin said flatly.

“Good call. Didn’t I tell you? Health comes first. Want me to fix you something to eat?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What should I make?” she asked, already half-standing.

Do-Jin shrugged. “What do you got?”

When he asked what there was, Chun Ji-Hyun rattled off the menu she had ready. However, almost all of it was salad. Tuna salad, salmon salad, chicken breast salad, even beef steak salad.

Of course, almost everything was salad. That was usually what Do-Jin ate to stay in shape. However, after wrestling with idiots and soaking up stress nonstop, the last thing he wanted tonight was rabbit food.

“I don’t want greens today. Anything else?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

Chun Ji-Hyun blinked at him in surprise. “Wow. What’s gotten into you? You usually eat like some wannabe model on a cleanse diet.” She gave a small laugh and opened the fridge, but all that was in there was fruit, water, and a few bottles of drinks. There was nothing close to a meal.

“Should we just order?” Do-Jin suggested.

She nodded instantly, almost too eagerly.

Not long after, the two of them were sitting across from each other, each tearing into crispy fried chicken legs. For Do-Jin, it was the first time he’d had fried chicken since his regression. The guilty pleasure of grease, crunch, and salt tasted like pure bliss. For a brief moment, the weight of the last few days actually slipped off his shoulders.

Chun Ji-Hyun, however, had a different reaction. “What the heck is this now?” She frowned, phone in one hand and a drumstick in the other.

“What’s wrong?”

“Remember those guys you wrecked during the Haberkan raid? Their guild’s popping up on Lotranet. Suddenly everyone’s talking about them,” she explained, her tone edged with irritation.

Do-Jin froze mid-bite, then slowly lowered the half-eaten drumstick. The bastards at Haberkan belonged to Blood King’s guild, the same assholes he’d just spent three straight days dodging and gutting in Danumine Gorge. Why were they trending out of nowhere?

He stood and leaned over her shoulder to take a look. “What exactly are they saying?”

Chun Ji-Hyun scrolled and pointed. “Looks like Bloodshed’s been locking down a low-level hunting ground. They’re getting roasted for it.”

Do-Jin scanned the posts.

[Title: No way this is real. They’re gatekeeping a noob zone? lol]

[These Bloodshed morons really have no shame. Me and my friends wanted somewhere quiet, so we went up toward the upper gorge in Danumine, and a bunch of high-levels were blocking the way in. Thought I recognized someone, so I looked closer and it was their guild master. For fuck’s sakes lol.]

└ Seriously? Don’t you think there was Hidden content maybe? Like a hidden dungeon?

└ Probably. Those bastards specialize in stealing shit like that.

└ But if they found it first, then technically it isn’t stealing, right?

└ So by that logic, are you saying that it’s totally fine to wall off a noob zone and shut everyone out? Get real.

└ That’s not even the issue. There was a post a few days ago that got buried. Guy said he got PK’d while hunting there. From the way he described it, it had to be Bloodshed. Goddamn scumbags.

└ That was me. I was out there with my girlfriend, just peacefully farming slimes. Out of nowhere these assholes jumped us and lit me up with arrow skills until I dropped dead. Total game over.

└ Hold up. Did you just flex that you’ve got a girlfriend? 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

└ Not gonna lie, that part makes Bloodshed look like the good guys.

└ Ugh. Whatever. High-level guilds fighting over dungeons or hunting grounds is one thing, but pulling this shit in beginner zones is way over the line. People said Bloodshed were trash before, but this is next-level. They’re worse than garbage.

Do-Jin felt a slow, dark grin spread across his face. Bloodshed being torn to pieces online while he was already making their lives hell in-game was simply poetic. He scrolled through more posts, typing “Bloodshed” and “Danumine Gorge” into the search bar. The results exploded down the screen.

Danumine Gorge had always been a trash-tier hunting ground. But despite the infamy, it wasn’t a total ghost town, either. People still came and went, so if some guild were to roll in, lock it down, and slaughter everyone inside to clear it out, word was going to spread fast.

As expected, the guild was getting dragged through the mud everywhere he looked. Watching Bloodshed get roasted left and right, Do-Jin felt a wicked little spark of inspiration. A grin crept across his face as an idea settled in.

“Ji-Hyun,” he called out.

“Hm?” She looked up mid-bite, muttering under her breath about how it would be nice if people could just play their games in peace.

She was lifting another drumstick when she caught sight of his expression. The grin on his face carried that unmistakable mix of mischief and malice. She didn’t know what he was planning, but she knew it was trouble.

“Send the cut videos I’ve got to the company,” Do-Jin said, his voice calm but sharp enough to cut glass.

The drumstick slipped from Chun Ji-Hyun’s hand and hit the plate with a dull smack. There it was again, that word which had never stirred up anything short of a media frenzy. Suddenly, she could no longer focus on dinner.

“I’ll send them right now.”

“And one more thing...” Do-Jin continued.

“What is it?” she asked, leaning forward, her heartbeat rising.

“Tell the company I want a livestream setup.”

Her eyes shot wide, so wide they practically took up half her face. “A... livestream? But you’re the one who always worries about information leaks. You even double-check every cut before you upload. You’re seriously okay with showing your gameplay raw, in real time?”

“It’s fine,” Do-Jin said simply. “This is a one-off. Unless something else comes up, I’m not doing it again. But this time, I need it.”

Chun Ji-Hyun thought immediately of the marketing manager who had nearly begged her over coffee not too long ago.

“Ji-Hyun, you’re wasting Do-Jin’s talent if you just leave him like this. You know the saying, right? You’ve got to strike while the iron is hot. Just imagine if he collabed with other big-name streamers, if he showed his face more often, if he became the face of your brand. Think about the impact. Talk to him. Convince him, even just a little. It wouldn’t be interference, just guidance.”

At the time, Ji-Hyun had wriggled out of it with a polite smile and an “I’ll try my best,” all while running as fast as she could. Because honestly, who the hell was she to lecture Do-Jin about what to do? Her job wasn’t to push him around. Her job was to support him, to make sure he had whatever he needed to do things his way.

And now, Do-Jin himself was asking for it. That was all she needed.

“I’ll take care of it right away,” Chun Ji-Hyun said, pulling out her phone, her voice steady with purpose.

***

Do-Jin spent two days taking it easy. The livestream setup had been finished that very night, but cutting together the video he wanted took a little more time. When it was ready, it went up on his channel.

[VS Rōnin]

It wasn’t a scheduled upload, but Do-Jin’s subscribers were used to that by now. As their notifications pinged, the subscribers flocked in. Word of the new video spread, pulling in even more viewers. In an instant, the view count shot up. This time, the clip showed the fight where Do-Jin ran into those three Rōnin Guild buffoons, and viewers didn’t know what to make of it.

└ What the fuck? PVP? I thought this guy was strictly PVE.

└ What the hell did I just watch?

└ Three-on-one isn’t easy. How the fuck is one guy steamrolling them like that?

└ Jesus, the skill layering is insane.

└ Won’t you look at this. This guy stuns the swordsman with shock. Then uses the paralyzed swordsman as a damn meat shield while casting Rock Shield. Blocks one firing angle, wipes out the first archer. Stuns the swordsman again. Has the summon cover the second archer’s volley. Starts casting mid-cover. Cuts off the swordsman’s next attempt with the summon. Pulls the summon back just in time to reveal the pre-cast spell. Nails the second archer. Finishes the swordsman. That all happened in six-point-seven seconds, folks.

└ Hoooooly shit. Jin! Jin! Jin! Who the fuck said our Jin was just a half-ass PVE grinder? Eat your fucking words!

└ And he’s not even a spiritualist, so why the hell is his summon control that perfect?

The short but brutal fight clip detonated across the community.

└ Hold on... this almost looks too clean. Is this staged? It looks like a coordinated skit, not a fight.

Some people were skeptical, saying it looked too polished to be real. Like both sides had rehearsed it.

└ Wait, the title says “VS Rōnin.” Who the hell is that?

└ Guild, probably.

└ Where did this even happen?

└ Looks badass, but why were they fighting? From the looks of it, those three attacked him first.

Just as Do-Jin wanted, the spotlight started shifting in a particular direction.

└ Hold up. Isn’t that the upper part of Danumine Gorge? I leveled there back when I was a newbie and recognize the terrain.

└ Danumine. The name sounds familiar...

└ Oh shit. Isn’t that the place Bloodshed was supposedly locking down and gatekeeping like assholes?

Bloodshed, Danumine Gorge, and Do-Jin. Those three puzzle pieces slid into place in everyone’s head, and the picture was slowly revealing itself according to plan.