[Sudden Quest: Judges complete.]
[Time taken to execute 50 Judges: 2 minutes 6 seconds.]
[It is a marvelous achievement.]
[Your reward is maximized, granting an additional 50% EXP.]
[You gain 150,000,000 EXP.]
[You have leveled up.]
Loot, loot.
Hyunsoo gathered up the spoils from the ones whose heads he had cracked open.
Including what he had shaken down from them at the start and what had dropped afterward, he had gained a staggering total of 180,000 gold from gold alone.
Aside from that, there was very little equipment among what they had dropped, but there were enhancement stones, minerals, cooking ingredients, and more.
They were excellent spoils.
The one thing that stood out the most among them was a mask.
This mask was, of all things, a Transcendent-grade mask.
(Grand Thief’s Mask)
Grade: Transcendent
Defense: 154
Restriction: Grand Thief
Special Abilities:
· Agility increases by 15%
· Dexterity increases by 3,000
· All thief masteries increase by 2 levels
· Passive Skill Pickpocket
· Passive Skill Plunder
· Active Skill Analysis
· Active Skill Swift Grand Thief
Description: A Transcendent artifact left behind by the legendary Grand Thief Dakuan for his successor.
Why are all this thing’s artifact effects tied to stealing...?
That was Hyunsoo’s honest assessment the moment he saw it.
Of course, raising Dexterity by a ridiculous 3,000 was insane, and the skill Pickpocket was a power that let you pick pockets in a crowd without even moving.
And Plunder applied to monsters. Monsters hunted by a Grand Thief would have Plunder applied to them, causing additional drops.
But what Hyunsoo paid the closest attention to in the Grand Thief’s Mask was Analysis.
(Analysis)
Artifact Skill
Grade: Transcendent
Mana Cost: 4,000
Effects:
· You observe every artifact the target is wearing.
· The power of the legendary Grand Thief Dakuan helps you peek at even the artifacts of beings whose power far transcends your own.
Even beings who far transcend me?
What level did a being who far transcended him even mean?
Could it even peek at gods?
That’s impossible, obviously. Dakuan wasn’t a god, so saying he could peek at gods makes no sense.
Still, out of everything on the Grand Thief’s Mask, this power called Analysis looked the most useful.
Hyunsoo tried thinking like a thief.
A power that lets you see what the target is wearing and what they have on them.
It would let you choose your target in advance and plan things out.
It was obviously a very good thing for a thief to be able to build a plan around a target from beginning to end.
So what?
For Hyunsoo—
and for the members of Hyun’s Forge—
it was completely useless.
It’s even a class-exclusive artifact...
Then a thought suddenly occurred to him.
It’s totally useless to me, and useless to the people of Hyun’s Forge too, but...
For Raon himself, that might be a different story.
Just then—
[A new Story begins.]
Again?
Hyunsoo realized that the Sudden Quest: Judges, which had triggered first, was part of a chain quest.
A new Story usually only occurred when someone had cleared the previous one even better than expected.
Which means I completed this one brilliantly enough that it judged I could handle the next one too.
[Chain Quest: Purung’s Execution]
Grade: SSS
Reward: Purung’s true identity
Restriction: One who received the Sword of Judgment
Failure Penalty: Purung’s death
Description: Examiner Purung will be executed in 3 days. The reason he is to be executed is likely closely related to you.
Hyunsoo’s face hardened.
Execution? He’s going to be executed? The first quest did say he’d been stripped of his examiner position, but...
Purung flashed through Hyunsoo’s mind—the Purung who had handed him the Sword of Judgment with that faint smile.
And the chain quest had clearly stated that it was closely tied to him.
He’s going to die because of me?
Of course, this was not something he needed to drown in guilt over.
That had been Purung’s choice, and the decision he made as an examiner.
But the description had clearly said it was closely related to him.
[You have accepted the quest.]
It did not take Hyunsoo long to decide.
He sent a whisper to the person most likely to know where the examiners were.
*****
Kumar.
An Indian, and unlike the ordinary people of poverty-stricken India, he was a man who enjoyed wealth.
There was a reason Kumar, born among pickpockets, could live openly as a rich man in reality—even if not in Ares.
It was because he was Grand Thief Raon.
The reason Kumar became a Grand Thief was pure chance.
Not long after he started playing Ares, he pickpocketed an old man.
He had not targeted him for any special reason.
He had only robbed him out of habit in the middle of a crowd.
But after stealing the money, Kumar was later looking through the wallet when he found the old man standing right behind him.
“Hohoho, to think you picked the pocket of me, the Grand Thief. What a cute little brat.”
Anyone who possessed real “skill” in reality—
would naturally get ahead of others.
He had picked the pocket of Grand Thief Dakuan!
More precisely, Grand Thief Dakuan had heard that there was someone pickpocketing without any mysterious power at all and had followed him around, and from that day on, Raon became his disciple.
Grand Thief Dakuan was a strange man.
He stole from corrupt aristocrats and distributed it to the people.
One day, he asked his disciple Raon,
“Well? This is what true chivalry is.”
“Oh... You really are a magnificently splendid, stylish, chivalrous son-of-a-bitch thief.”
“...??”
That day,
Raon got the living shit beaten out of him.
He had no idea why.
After passing everything on to him, Dakuan said this when he left:
“Do you know why I chose you?”
“...?”
“I heard you stole a great many things. But in the end you still looked no different from a beggar. So where did all that money go, hm? Hoho.”
Just as Dakuan had done, Raon’s own start in Ares had been for the starving pickpocket children in the slums.
Pickpocketing in Ares was far easier than in reality, and you could get things of real value.
In reality, valuable things were houses and cars, things you could not steal, but in Ares, you could steal expensive goods.
With the enormous money he made, he fed the starving children of the slums and, as he drew closer to becoming a true legend, he began to dream.
Let’s build an orphanage.
For children who would never have to starve.
And let’s make it so those children never have to pick pockets just to survive anymore.
But that dream was about to be shattered.
The artifact Dakuan had given him when he left—the thing that had made him great and put him on the road to becoming rich—
the Grand Thief’s Mask—
had dropped.
That item was worth roughly 300 million won.
What do I do?
Should I beg?
Should I cry?
No.
Instead, he decided to speak honestly.
Right on cue, the moment he logged in, he had a whisper from Master Blacksmith Hyun.
[Hyunsoo: Where are you?]
Right. I’ve heard all about him. A generous king, full of virtue. A good man who knows how to give...!
So he immediately ran to Hyunsoo, explained everything from start to finish, and Hyunsoo said:
“So you mean he was a magnificent, stylish, dogshit bastard of a thief?”
“???”
Was this déjà vu?
Of course, back then, he himself had been the one who said that, and Dakuan had beaten him like a dog for it.
But today was different.
He had insulted his lofty, sacred thievery!
“Ugh...!”
Raon lunged at Hyunsoo, got beaten like a dog, and decided he would just pick a fight again next time.
“Don’t give me that sentimental bullshit, you little thief bastard.”
“Why did you call me?”
Raon was now nothing more than one of Hyunsoo’s slaves.
Before their heads got cracked open, everyone there had signed a pledge.
Its contents were as follows:
That was what Raon had become—a fallen slave, after having the Grand Thief’s Mask taken from him on top of everything else.
It was only fair.
He was the one who had targeted Hyun’s Unparalleled first.
And after experiencing it for himself, he now knew that Unparalleled was Hyun’s masterpiece, the reward for his effort.
If it had been Raon, he would have shown no mercy at all. He would have issued a kill order and wiped them out to the last one.
But what Raon did not know was this:
being Hyunsoo’s “slave”
would be anything but easy.
At Raon’s question, Hyunsoo said,
“You. Recite the artifacts I’m wearing.”
It helps you peek at even the artifacts of beings whose power far transcends your own.
That was clearly written in the skill Analysis.
Hyunsoo had something he wanted to confirm through this.
The gap in strength between Raon and me is heaven and earth.
Raon was only level 470, and it was merely that his Grand Thief class was exceptional.
Which meant that, from Raon’s perspective, Hyunsoo—who was far stronger—would surely count as a being who far transcended him.
Had he been able to peek even at someone like Hyunsoo through this Analysis?
Or is someone on my level still too much for it?
Raon just stared blankly.
Hyunsoo smirked.
No matter that he’s a Grand Thief, there’s no way he saw every single one of these, things that could become fatal weaknesses for a user. Did I overestimate him?
Then—
“Overlord’s Helm. It has a special power. It can even transform you into the appearance of someone else you’ve seen before.”
“Unparalleled. Honestly, I was shocked when I looked at it. Attack power in the 1,800s? Even so, normally that still wouldn’t let you one-shot users. Just how many stats have you stacked to be pulling that off? Anyway, you really are something.”
“Gremory’s Ring. Gremory’s dead already, so why are you still wearing that? The legion commanders all got wiped out too. You should take this chance to get yourself a new one.”
“...?”
A shiver ran straight through Hyunsoo’s body.
What shocked him the most was that Raon had looked into Unparalleled.
Unparalleled was Mythic.
Among beings whose power far transcended his own, artifacts of that rank should surely have been included.
And yet Raon had already observed it through the Analysis inside the Grand Thief’s Mask.
It ignored even status ailments?
Of course, his plunder skill had failed, but the ability to peek at the full power of every artifact someone possessed was monstrous.
And the reason Hyunsoo had called him here in the first place—
Could there be more Adamantium?
Examiner Purung had possessed the Sword of Judgment, made of Adamantium.
Was that Adamantium the end of it?
“...You saw the examiners’ artifacts too, didn’t you? Is there, by any chance, something like a Judgment series?”
“...How did you know?”
Hyunsoo’s guess had been right on the mark.
Raon smacked his lips.
“Judgment series. Nice ring to it. The first is the Sword of Judgment. Every time I looked at it, I wanted to steal it, but I was afraid I’d die, so I didn’t.”
“The second is the Armor of Judgment worn by Examiner Ren. The third is the boots worn by Alan. The rest are gauntlets.”
“...Could the material be Adamantium?”
“...Huh? It is. How did you know?”
[You have discovered information on Adamantium, a god-metal.]
[The total amount corresponds to 5.6 kilograms.]
Ares displayed notifications like this when you uncovered something tied to your class, or clues about something enormous.
In other words, the notification was effectively guaranteeing it.
The entire Judgment series was composed of Adamantium.
Hyunsoo trembled with excitement.
After forging Unparalleled, he now knew what kind of power a Mythic-grade mineral could bring out.
Why are his nostrils flaring like that?
Watching him, Raon looked baffled.
Then Hyunsoo handed the Grand Thief’s Mask back to him.
“This suits you more than me.”
It was nothing but a nuisance to Hyunsoo anyway, and because it was class-exclusive, he could not even sell it.
And besides—
after hearing the story, that was an item Raon absolutely needed, and it would create synergy when it stayed with him.
And six-month slave Raon could observe and surveil enemies on Hyunsoo’s behalf.
That made him a far more useful slave than expected.
When Raon received it, emotion welled up inside him.
Just as Hyunsoo had thought, Grand Thief Raon needed the Grand Thief’s Mask to generate synergy.
Why is he giving it back...?
He called him a thief, called him a son of a bitch, and yet still showed him mercy?
Just as that incomprehensible gratitude swelled up inside him, Hyunsoo had already activated Overwhelm for the sake of what he wanted.
As a king, Hyunsoo possessed the highest Charisma stat among all users.
Through Overwhelm, that high Charisma made others feel even deeper respect and made them willing to do anything for him.
“Thank you, thank you! Just give me an order! I’ll do anything! Anything at all!”
Hyunsoo said,
“You can really do absolutely anything?”
The Grand Thief’s Mask was worth 300 million won, and from Raon’s perspective, it was worth more than 500 million.
The money needed to build an orphanage in India was by no means small.
And the Grand Thief’s Mask was absolutely necessary for that process.
Now that Hyunsoo had given it back, Raon would have been willing to leap into a pit of fire for him, and if Hyunsoo told him to kill himself, he could have done even that.
Of course, only inside Ares.
“Of course. Whatever you order me to do, I can do it!”
Raon showed absolute resolve.
Then Hyunsoo said:
“Steal the Judgment series.”
“...!”
