Chapter 13
“Hey, Lee. Still holding up?”
A powerful body easily exceeding two meters in height.
Black skin covered in scars.
Yet the man always wore a smile.
“These days, your body's your greatest asset. Literally!”
Tyron Maxwell of the United States.
Humanity's final high-ranking Healer.
He belonged to the Monk Class.
Yet his Stats were so overwhelmingly high that he had sometimes fought as a close-range damage dealer or tank.
A powerful Player.
And a tragic hero.
Tyron had once become friendly with Kim Su-ho of Cosmo Guild.
Later, Kim Su-ho betrayed him and inflicted a devastating injury.
Tyron suffered from the aftereffects for the rest of his life.
Eventually...
They killed him.
He's coming to this auction house.
And this was where he would meet Kim Su-ho and begin building that relationship.
With the very man who would eventually lead him to his death.
Not this time.
Before his regression, Tyron had once told Do-jin why he had deliberately traveled all the way to an auction house in Korea.
He had also told him how he first became involved with Kim Su-ho.
That connection...
Do-jin intended to take for himself.
That was the real reason he had come to this auction with Ra-hee.
At that moment, Ra-hee handed him something.
“Take a look. That's the list of Items scheduled for today's auction.”
“...”
Do-jin silently accepted the list and opened it.
Ra-hee looked at him and sighed softly.
Seriously, what an unbelievable man...
Even I never thought of using it that way.
Kim Su-ho was in a bad mood.
Of course, thanks to his perfect social skills, no one who interacted with him noticed his true feelings.
But his secretary, who had worked beside him for a long time, immediately sensed the cold atmosphere around his superior and shrank slightly.
He even understood the reason.
It's because of the Necromancer.
Recently, Cosmo Guild had planned a spectacular debut for its trainees.
By producing the largest number of officially recognized Players in Korea at once, Cosmo Guild intended to prove that it was the country's greatest Player Guild.
And then they were going to use that momentum to expand internationally...!
It had failed.
Completely.
All because some insane Necromancer did something insane and stole every bit of attention.
And of all places, he chose an Under Arena nobody had logged into for nearly two years!
When the Necromancer's stream first began, even the secretary had scoffed.
He assumed some inexperienced rookie who knew nothing about the world had become arrogant and was about to destroy his own future.
But then...
He cleared it.
The instant that happened, every Player other than the Necromancer disappeared from public memory.
Not only in Korea.
Across the entire world.
The project itself succeeded.
But in the end, it still became a failure.
Player streaming generated money.
There were more than enough absurdly wealthy people in the world.
Even after a livestream ended, the recorded broadcast remained within the System.
As its views increased, a Player's income rose proportionally.
But after the Necromancer cleared the Under Arena, Cosmo Guild's streaming income had been cut in half.
No.
Considering the amount they had spent producing their own content...
The project had become a horrifying financial loss.
The other Guilds and the Awakening Department are probably in the same situation.
Because of the System's rules, all revenue connected to streaming belonged entirely to the Player.
That was one major difference between the System and human-made platforms.
Furthermore, the System existed completely independently.
Humans could complain all they wanted.
They could do nothing about it.
Ever since the Great Transformation, humanity had not simply watched the System passively.
People had tried countless times to contact it.
Control it.
Analyze it.
Every attempt failed.
It was outright impossible to prevent viewers from watching the Necromancer's stream.
Ha! Whatever Guild signed that bastard must be making a fortune.
No matter what revenue-sharing ratio they had agreed upon...
Money was practically raining from the sky.
“Anyway...”
“Yes, Guild Master!”
The secretary flinched when Kim Su-ho's low, emotionless voice pierced his thoughts.
He immediately straightened himself.
This was no time to lose focus.
“The information that the Item will appear at today's auction is reliable, correct, Secretary Song?”
“...There is no mistake, Guild Master.”
Secretary Song's mind moved quickly.
The Guild Master was already in a foul mood.
He absolutely could not make a mistake.
Outwardly, Kim Su-ho maintained a kind, sociable, approachable image.
But at his core...
He was one of Korea's Rankers, someone who had long since surpassed ordinary humans.
