1.

Back in his newbie days, Han Simin had strutted around massacring monsters with a presence completely different from everyone else’s.

A +15 weapon.

+15 armor. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Sometimes he turned off the visual effects because he didn’t want to stand out or because he was pretending to be a beginner. But the moment he put them on, the crimson-glinting gear inevitably made other users feel a bitter sense of inadequacy, along with pure envy.

Why do people chase luxury brands, even when they know the price is ridiculous for the actual utility?

The name value.

The expectation that if you carry it, others will see you as someone a little more special.

That was why.

Fantastic World was no different.

’I really worked my ass off as an Enhancer. This proves it was worth spending all that money on Enhancement Stones and running around to lucky spots.’

’Other users have no idea how much I suffered. They’ll just see this flashy gear and be jealous.’

It made you stand a little taller.

You never forget the thrill of showing off an item that no one else can have.

Even though Han Simin had long since given up hunting, had already made more than enough money, and had grown used to the envious gazes of others—whether for money or women—he still cherished those memories.

He even felt a certain pride about it.

That kind of flashy growth was something no one would ever be able to replicate.

Who else could do it? Who else could be the only one shining with a full low-level +15 set from the very beginning, drawing every eye while hunting rabbits and beasts?

Sure, it wasn’t impossible if you were being power-leveled, but in terms of hunting while radiating that kind of aura, he had been certain no one would ever surpass him.

At least, that’s what he’d thought until he got Yeori’s message, rushed over, and saw her at the edge of the forest. She was beating a pack of wolves into the ground while glowing so brightly it made his eyes squint even from a distance.

Up until that moment, he had been sure.

He stood there, stunned.

But the instant he saw her, that certainty shattered.

Han Simin was quick on the uptake, a man who could face reality more directly than anyone.

Han Yeori had clearly said she was only level 20.

At level 20, even he hadn’t been able to hunt so extravagantly.

No, putting that aside, the aura pouring from her body felt completely different. His own crimson glow had looked lofty enough, but it was as if it had just been keeping the seat warm until the real owner arrived. The Buffer’s effects blazed and sparkled, advertising themselves to the entire world.

Not that appearances were what mattered. What you see on the surface is often inflated. People always say it’s what’s inside that counts, and for good reason. The substance had to match the style.

He was speechless.

And Han Yeori was firing off buffs that looked solid all the way through.

It was true that she had long since passed the level where she should be smacking around the beasts at the forest entrance, but she was a Buffer. Unless she had gone completely insane and ignored his advice by dumping her stat points into something else, what she was doing should have been impossible.

Which meant there was only one conclusion.

Buffers were broken.

Han Simin walked over.

“Yeori.”

“Simin!”

Han Yeori ran up to him with a bright smile, stabbing him right in the heart.

“I leveled up again while you were on your way!”

He was dumbstruck.

“My bonus EXP went up by another 1%! This is so fun. Hehe, I’m totally skipping school tomorrow.”

He remained silent.

His stomach burned, and his gaze drifted toward the sky.

’Damn that BetaGo bastard.’

Up until now, he had cursed it half-jokingly. But in this moment, if he could have ascended to the heavens and met it face-to-face, he genuinely wanted to punch it in the solar plexus three times as hard as he could, then grab it by the hair and yank.

All because of a single difference.

“So, you’re telling me that despite being a Legendary-class job, you don’t have an EXP penalty?”

“Yeah! Apparently, my master’s master turned some kind of curse into a blessing for me.”

“So, despite having no penalty, you get a passive 1% EXP buff stacked on every time you level up?”

“Uh-huh! And just like you said, I dumped everything into Magic, so as my level goes up, my buff levels go up too, and all my other stats increase a lot. You were right. If I just listen to you, it’s like free money falling from the sky. You’re already rich, so I can get rich soon too, right? I want to hurry up and hit level 100 so I can go hunting with you.”

He didn’t respond.

In front of Han Simin, who was only level 60 after playing for a year and a half, she wasn’t just rubbing salt in the wound—she was grinding it in with a hot poker.

Even putting him aside, if Specialist or any other Fantastic World user heard this, her words would be so innocently outrageous that they wouldn’t even know how to be angry.

And honestly, it wasn’t impossible. Her insane leveling speed was fast enough to make you forget she’d started the game a year and a half later than the current rankers and still daydream about her catching up to them.

The only catches were that, later on, she wouldn’t be able to keep hunting this fast just because she had a Legendary class. Also, Specialist—who was already over level 100—had hunted while receiving massive buffs from Han Simin himself, without a broken EXP passive like hers.

The funny part was that Han Simin could solve those problems too.

It was both ridiculous and hilarious.

A thought suddenly crossed his mind.

’If we stack Buff the Buff on top of my Ring of Blessing, support her with my tamed pets, and just openly power-level her... how many months would it take for her to catch up to my level?’

He hadn’t just given up on leveling; thanks to a vomit-inducing 550% EXP penalty, he had been forced to absorb the EXP from countless high-level monsters he hadn’t even wanted to kill, and he was still only level 60.

How long would it take for a broken character, sprinting at full throttle, to reach that level?

He was curious.

Maybe she could even break Specialist’s record—the one already enshrined in Fantastic World’s player history as the fastest, most efficient leveling speed ever.

If it had been anyone other than Yeori, he would never have entertained such a thought. This wasn’t about money. For this, Han Simin would have to go to great lengths, give up other things, and make sacrifices. He had dragged Yeori into Fantastic World not out of some noble determination to raise a penniless kid with potential, but with the petty intention of hanging a spoon on the edge of her bowl and skimming a little extra off the top.

So this was a serious dilemma for him.

But after thinking it over, Han Simin made up his mind. At the last moment, he returned to his roots.

For him, games were still about fun.

Now that he had plenty of money in his bank account, he could treat this as an investment in the future, a way to satisfy his curiosity and run a little experiment. It wasn’t so much out of a warm, familial feeling of ’She is my little sister, after all,’ but more along the lines of:

’She’s not going to take the money and run... right?’

He decided to bet on the person he knew his sister to be.

As always, the hard part for Han Simin was just making up his mind.

“Yeori, want me to help you?”

“Yes!” Yeori nodded happily without a moment’s hesitation.

Seeing that utterly carefree expression, he tossed out a warning, driven by a sheer, old-man anxiety.

“This might actually be really hard. We’re not just going to casually hunt for fun and level up. We’re going to be doing real work to make real money.”

It was something like life advice, the words of someone who had succeeded in Fantastic World.

Even faced with his serious tone, Yeori nodded.

“I can do it. I want to make a ton of money and blow it all on whatever I want.”

He fell silent.

Whether she could actually do it or not didn’t matter. Even if she couldn’t, he could make her.

So he took her with him.

The last Legendary class, one that hadn’t appeared in the year and a half since Fantastic World opened.

The Buffer.

A class that turned the EXP penalty every other job had into a blessing, growing stronger with every level.

He was going to watch it grow, up close.

One way or another, he was excited.

And that excitement didn’t last long.

*

FLASH.

Light flared.

Buff the Buff, unfortunately, was bound to Han Simin and couldn’t be given away, but his first masterpiece—the +15 Ring of Devoted Blessing that had served as the springboard for his growth—gave her an extra 60% EXP. Add to that all sorts of other buffs, his support, the 5% bonus for hunting monsters over 10 levels higher than her, and another 20% from the rabbits.

That 85% total EXP bonus was then doubled by Buff the Buff, resulting in a 170% boost applied directly to her.

That alone meant that when other people killed a rabbit and got 1 EXP, she was getting 2.7. On top of that, she was stacking the personal EXP buff she gained every time she leveled up. Altogether, her bonus EXP was approaching 200%.

Since Han Simin had a 550% EXP penalty, their efficiency differed by a factor of more than seven.

Simple math suggested that Yeori would catch up to his level in about two months.

And if you subtracted all the time he had spent running around the continent for Enhancement...

“She’ll catch me in under a month.”

Level 60.

Given the current average level of active hunters in Fantastic World, that wasn’t actually that high. It was about mid-tier.

But one thing was certain: it was absolutely not a level you could reach in just a month or two of play. It was another world entirely. This wasn’t a pay-to-win game where you could throw money around, instantly surpass veterans who had played for years, and then learn the ropes at your leisure. Most users couldn’t even leave the starting castle, let alone think about leveling.

And in the midst of that, she had started the game and hit level 35 in less than a month.

Tomorrow would mark exactly one month.

“This is insane. BetaGo, you bastard. You’re not going to nerf Buffers?” Han Simin couldn’t help but curse out loud as he watched from the side.

He had decided to really push her, but this was too much.

He couldn’t help but think, ’Did I become an Enhancer, pick up Tamer, and go through all that hell just so I could boost Yeori?’

It was so convenient and efficient to support her that it felt like the entire system had been designed for the sake of Buffers. His pets tamed other monsters, bringing her a steady stream of prey so that Yeori could take all the EXP for herself. The amount she was devouring was beyond words.

And on top of all that, there was one more variable.

“Wow, this is fun. I should have started playing sooner. Hehe, this is exactly my thing.”

“You’re not sleepy?”

“Nope. Even when I was studying, staying up three or four nights in a row was nothing. And this capsule lets you stay in a light sleep state, so it’s comfortable. I should have studied in a capsule like everyone else. I thought they were just making excuses to play games, but this is actually amazing.”

Han Yeori’s patience and grit.

Her interest and passion.

She played just as hard as Specialist, not falling behind in the slightest.

Because of that, even as the one boosting her, he felt a pang of jealousy, yet it made him want to do even more for her. Yeori had that kind of charm. She was starting to show the same instinct to squeeze every last drop of value out of something that even the great Han Simin possessed.

Of course, Han Simin would deny that.

“I want to hurry up and level, too, so I can make as much money as you!”

And so, another little pebble that would send ripples across the continent was slowly growing, just as the stillness of the continent, like a calm pond, was about to be shattered.

*