Ryu Min stared at the item in the sales listing.
[Fragment of Immortal Skin][Category: Miscellaneous][Description: A piece of skin cut from a lifeform called immortal.][Seller: dontgo95][Price: 1,000,000 won][Haggling: Allowed][Chat: Allowed][Trade Method: Direct trade only][Location: Suwon]
'No doubt about it. That's a material needed for a legendary craft.'
Above unique, there was the legendary tier.
Legendary items could also be created via crafting, but he had written them off from the start.
For one simple reason.
'Because at this point in time, getting legendary materials is next to impossible.'
Not completely impossible.
Just extremely difficult.
'Right now, there's only one place where a Fragment of Immortal Skin can drop.'
From the boss of Round 5: the High Orc.
When you killed it, there was an extremely small chance of obtaining that Fragment of Immortal Skin.
As everyone knew, High Orc was not an easy boss.
It was stronger even than the Minotaur in Round 6.
'And not only did they kill that monster, they were lucky enough to get that material?'
Without both luck and skill, it couldn't be done.
'Setting luck aside… who is this? Who's strong enough to beat High Orc?'
Several named Players came to mind.
He guessed it might be one of them.
'Could it be that guy?'
Someone strong enough to hunt an Orc boss—and who possessed the [Rune of Drops].
If the seller was the person he suspected, then this was very likely bait.
Dangerous bait.
'Given that it's direct trade only, it fits… I should at least say something to them.'
Before committing to a purchase, he sent a chat message.
[Buyer: Hello. You're the one selling the Fragment of Immortal Skin, right?]
[Seller: Yes.]
[Buyer: You put it up for one million won, and it says you're willing to haggle?]
[Seller: Hmm, I usually don't, but I'll make a special exception. How much did you have in mind?]
[Buyer: 900,000 won. Is that okay?]
[Seller: Hmm, that's a bit much, but fine. I can do that much…]
[Buyer: Ah! No, wait. I misspoke. Could you give me another 100,000 off? 800,000 won.]
[Seller: ㅡㅡ Are you kidding me?]
[Buyer: Why? It's not like there's a going rate yet. Honestly, I don't even know what it's used for.]
[Seller: Then why are you trying to buy something when you don't even know what it's for?]
[Buyer: I want to try out some crafting combinations. That's what everyone's buying materials for anyway, right?]
[Buyer: It's just that I'm a bit short on cash. Could you please lower the price a bit more?]
[Buyer: Well?]
[Buyer: Well?]
[Buyer: Why aren't you answering?]
[Seller: Haa, fine. I'll sell it to you for 800,000 because I feel sorry for you. But it's cash only. You can come to Suwon, right?]
[Buyer: Of course.]
[Seller: Then here's where you should come.]
Once the seller sent over an address, a crooked smile appeared on Ryu Min's lips.
"So it really is the guy I was thinking of."
If he was willing to sell even after knocking twenty percent off, that was almost certain.
The item was probably just bait to lure someone in.
'If it's that psychopath, this makes perfect sense.'
All the more reason to go see for himself.
If he didn't step in, more victims would pile up.
And he needed that legendary material as well.
'Guess it's time to see his face in person.'
It was a bit early for their encounter, but they were bound to meet eventually.
'I'd better be ready for anything.'
He was glad, at least, that he had the Rainbow Effect buff.
'Not that I'd just roll over and die even without it.'
With one corner of his mouth twisted up, Ryu Min casually headed out.
"Ha, this f*cker's unbelievable. Haha."
After finishing his chat with the buyer, Joo Sung-tak let out a disbelieving laugh.
"A guy with the nerve to haggle twenty percent off something I put up for a million calls that a 'kind' personality?"
Never mind personality—did he have any idea what kind of item this was?
This had dropped from the Round 5 boss, High Orc.
The same High Orc he'd barely managed to kill by using twenty Orc corpses.
'I really thought I was going to die that time. I had no idea High Orc would be that strong.'
And this buyer wanted to swallow the item he'd gotten after that hellish fight for a mere 800,000 won?
'Oh, this bastard is dead.'
Not that he wouldn't have killed him anyway.
He'd planned to kill the buyer either way, but this guy had crossed a line.
"When we meet, I won't let you die cleanly, you little sh*t."
Grinding his teeth, Joo Sung-tak set his phone down—and flinched.
He'd heard a dying wheeze from the floor at his feet.
"S-spare… me…"
"Ha, you scared me. What, you're still alive?"
The middle-aged man sprawled on the floor somehow managed to lift his head.
With all his limbs cut off, it was the most he could do.
"P-please… s-spare…"
"'Spare' is awfully informal."
"Me… I'm… begging…"
Squelch—
Joo Sung-tak's dagger punched through the man's throat.
"Quit spouting worthless crap. Tsk. Don't go startling people like that."
He honestly hadn't expected the man to still be alive after losing all four limbs.
"In any case, that buyer's dead as soon as he shows up."
He meant it.
Once the buyer came, he fully intended to kill him.
The item was nothing more than bait for that purpose.
That was why he'd so generously agreed to a twenty percent discount.
It was never meant to be sold in the first place.
'Why would I sell it? Do you know what it took to get this? If I actually wanted to sell it, I would've told him to piss off.'
He didn't know what the item was used for, but it was perfect for luring people in.
Why lure them?
Because it was fun.
No—strictly speaking, because he'd been bored.
That was life.
There came a day when boredom crept in.
A time when you were so bored you wanted to drop everything.
For Joo Sung-tak, that day had come in second grade of elementary school.
'I thought I was going to go insane from boredom.'
Nothing was fun.
Everything was dull.
Everything was unbearably tedious.
Even in the prime of his youth, he felt like he had lost the will to live.
Looking back, it was like he was missing a screw—a broken part.
Things were no different in middle school.
He wondered if throwing himself into something would help, so he tried studying like everyone else.
'I never let go of first place in class.'
Even with top grades, nothing changed.
All that went up were his parents' fake praise and expectations.
He was so bored he even found himself wishing the school bullies would pick on him, but none of them did.
'Even those punks wouldn't touch the top student.'
Or so he thought—but there was something he didn't know.
The reason the bullies left Joo Sung-tak alone wasn't because of his grades.
It was madness.
They'd sensed an inexplicable madness in his eyes.
That was what had made even them avoid him.
Drip, drip—
Wiping the blood-soaked dagger on the dead man's clothes, Joo Sung-tak drifted back into his memories.
'Heehee… Thinking back now, that really was the best. My first kill.'
The first people he killed were his parents.
Once he quit studying out of boredom, his grades dropped, and the nagging ramped up.
That was when he first started clashing with them.
When his grades fell from first place to near the bottom, his parents went berserk and yelled at him.
In a fit of rage, he grabbed a kitchen knife and killed them.
'It wasn't premeditated. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.'
But that moment became the turning point of his life.
'Ahh… I still can't forget what that felt like.'
His heart pounding with tension.
The living room floor soaked in blood.
The feeling of sinking a blade into someone's body.
That first murder taught him many things.
To someone who had been bored to death, it gave his life meaning.
'I want… I want to feel that high again.'
With that thought, he turned himself in to the police.
He knew there was no point in running in a country covered in CCTV.
'If I was going to get caught anyway, it was better to surrender early.'
He instinctively knew that would help reduce his sentence.
He wanted to get prison over with quickly, then carefully plan out a proper killing.
He wanted to savor that murderous thrill again.
So he put on a show of remorse and claimed it had been a crime of passion.
Fortunately, he had a talent for acting.
The police were utterly convinced it wasn't really his fault.
'Stupid idiots. I obviously killed them, and they say it wasn't my fault.'
He wanted to laugh in their faces, but held it in.
He planned to get a reduced sentence and go to prison just as he'd intended.
But then something happened that he hadn't expected.
'What? I'm a "juvenile" offender?'
At the time, he was under fourteen—legally a juvenile—not subject to criminal punishment.
He was sent to a juvenile facility, ordered to perform community service, and released under supervision.
For someone who had fully expected to end up behind bars for killing his parents, it was an unexpected stroke of luck.
'This is f*cking great.'
And the luck didn't stop.
Until he graduated, became an adult, and up to the age of twenty-seven—
He committed countless murders without getting caught.
Was it because he meticulously planned each killing a year in advance?
Or because he chose victims whose deaths would cause no trouble—homeless people, and the like?
Whatever the reason, he had the good fortune to keep playing the part of a normal person while killing people, and he was still killing them to this day.
'Moron cops. They still haven't managed to catch even one of me.'
But that streak of luck seemed to come to an end this year.
When they announced he had to participate in a survival game with his life on the line up to Round 20.
Joo Sung-tak felt wronged.
'If I'd known this would happen, I would've just killed as many people as I wanted and gone to prison.'
He was furious and frustrated that he'd been so careful to stay off the police's radar all this time.
But—
It didn't take long for him to realize that life in the Otherworld actually suited him.
'Is killing a damn goblin really that hard?'
Watching people die in droves in Round 1, he couldn't understand it.
Stabbing goblins barely bigger than middle schoolers was easier than killing people.
And it lined up perfectly with his hobby.
'It's not as fun as killing humans, though.'
Then, while hunting in Round 2, he got lucky and obtained the Shaman class.
'Probably thanks to the [Rune of Drops] I got at the beginning.'
The Rune of Drops was a rune that sharply increased the drop rate of special items.
It was likely thanks to the rune's influence that the Shaman job-change item had dropped.
'After that, nothing was really that hard.'
Maybe he had talent—he breezed through Round 3, scarcely dropping below second or third in the zone rankings.
Round 4, where he had to kill other people, was even easier.
He had been a serial killer to begin with, so it was hardly a challenge.
'If anything, it was really, really stimulating. Hehe.'
The game that injected a jolt of excitement into his mundane life brought him joy.
He wanted to keep playing it as long as possible, survival be damned.
'If I clear Round 20, my wish is going to be more rounds added. It's just too damn fun.'
Real life felt boring now.
He doubted he could go back to how things were before he became a Player.
'Watching the world crumble like this is pretty entertaining too. Keke.'
He'd killed so many people that it wasn't who he killed that mattered anymore—it was how interestingly he did it.
What he was scheming right now was in line with that.
'Once I stuff the corpse I just made into the clothing donation bin in the alley, and the buyer shows up…'
He'd use his [Corpse Explosion] skill to blow it up.
Then, once the poor bastard was on the verge of death, he would pin him down with a skill called [Curse of Fear], and slowly slice his arms and legs into tiny pieces—just like squashing a bug.
He would cut him up while he still lived.
'I don't bear any ill will. I'm just killing for fun, so I hope he understands.'
Tearing his eyes away from the corpse, Joo Sung-tak checked his phone.
There were three hours left until the meeting time he'd agreed on with the buyer.
'Hurry up and come, you little bastard. I've got a present all ready for you. Kekeke.'
For a fresh thrill, he stuffed the corpse into the clothing donation bin beside the alley and used Erase Traces on the ground.
The scattered limbs and blood faded cleanly away.
Then he waited three hours, hoping the buyer would stumble into his trap.
At last—
Step, step—
Someone walked into the alley where his trap was set.
The curve of Joo Sung-tak's mouth lifted.
'Bingo.'