Debuff Master

The Genesis Guild possessed ten thousand strong members, and they were one of the top ten Adventurer Guilds on the Nürburg Continent. It was also the Guild that crushed Siegfried while he was still using the player ID Tae-Sung. Their members were currently surrounding Siegfried while openly showing their hostility toward him.

“It has been a while,” said one of the Genesis Guild members.

‘Choi Cheol-Ki… This damned traitor…’?Siegfried recognized the man.

Choi Cheol-Ki used to be a member of the Beamer Guild, and he was also the culprit behind the arson of their Guild Headquarters before running away and jumping ships.

“I thought you quit the game, but it seems that you’re still here. I was starting to wonder why I haven’t heard any news about you recently,” Choi Cheol-Ki said.

Siegfried almost retorted when a thought suddenly crossed his mind, ‘Cheon Woo-Jin, that bastard.’

He instantly suspected that Cheon Woo-Jin was behind this since Choi Cheol-Ki was talking as if Siegfried’s identity as Tae-Sung had already been exposed. However, Siegfried decided not to easily admit he was Tae-Sung. For now, he decided to feign ignorance for now.

“Huh? I have no idea what you are talking about…” Siegfried said with a dumbstruck face before asking, “Do you know me?”

“Doo yoo noe mee?” Choi Cheol-Ki sneered.

“Hey, Han Tae-Sung. Are you joking with me right now? You’re Han Tae-Sung, right?”

“I’m not…”

“Hmm?”

“My name is Siegfried.”

“Sieg—what…?”

“I have no idea who Han Tae-Sung is. I think you have confused me for someone else.”

“Look at this little weasel! Hey, do you really think I’m stupid? Ha?! You bastard.”

“Check my info,” Siegfried said while pointing at the Rune of Insight at the back of Choi Cheol-Ki’s right hand.

“Ha!?Look at this bastard being so brazen—” Choi Cheol-Ki exclaimed.

However, one of his lackeys interrupted him and said, “Cheol-Ki hyung-nim.”

“He’s not Han Tae-Sung,” the lackey said.

“What?” Choi Cheol-Ki glared at the lackey.

“I checked his info, but his ID says Siegfried. His class isn’t Elemental Mage. It says that he’s a Debuff Master, and he’s only Level 46 as well,” the lackey explained.

“I-Is that so…? But there’s no way… There’s no way… Doesn’t this bastard look like Han Tae-Sung?” Choi Cheol-Ki said in disbelief. He found it difficult to believe the words of his lackey.

“I think it’s best if you check it yourself…” the lackey muttered.

“Alright, shall we take a look…” Choi Cheol-Ki said as he activated his Rune of Insight and checked Siegfried’s information.

[Siegfried]

[Type: Adventurer]

[Class: Debuff Master]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 46]

[Title: Goblin Slayer, Guardian of Biermann Territory.]

Choi Cheol-Ki doubted his eyes the moment he saw Siegfried’s information. He looked down at the information and back to Siegfried’s face a few times before he said in disbelief, “Wow… You look exactly like him. How is that possible…?”

Siegfried looked exactly the same as the Han Tae-Sung in his memories.

“Who do I look like?” Siegfried asked as he sensed that this was his chance.

“Ah, that’s… there’s this guy called Han Tae-Sung who dared to pick a fight with our guild about a year ago, and we crushed him real good,” Choi Cheol-Ki replied.

“Ha?”

“That bastard looked exactly like you and—Hmm… I think you are more handsome than that bastard now that I have taken a closer look at you…”

“That’s strange…” Siegfried muttered.

“What is?”

“I can tell that you guys are from the renowned guild, the Genesis Guild so I think a user being targeted by your guild would have already quit ages ago. Is there a reason that you are after someone who had already quit the game…?” Siegfried asked.

“Ah, that’s… I think it was around two weeks ago? Our higher-ups received a message that the bastard is still playing the game,” Choi Cheol-Ki grumbled.

“Wow! Really?” Siegfried purposely gave an even bigger reaction so that he would be able to extract more information from Choi Cheol-Ki as he added, “I would’ve quit the game if that happened to me. How can he even think about playing the game when he got on the bad side of a guild like the Genesis Guild?”

“That bastard is a stubborn one. He is piss-poor with nothing to his name except for his stubbornness,” Choi Cheol-Ki said with a smug smirk.

When Choi Cheol-Ki smugly smirked, anger welled up from within Siegfried.

‘The piss-poor bastard with nothing to his name except for his stubbornness whom you are looking for is right here,’?he thought while suppressing his anger.

Siegfried wanted nothing more than to immediately whip his steel rod out and smash this damned traitor’s head, but he suppressed his rage as hard as he could.

“But I still think that it’s strange… I’m sure that the bastard quit the game, but I have no idea why they are thinking that he’s still playing…” Choi Cheol-Ki said while rubbing his chin.

“Ah, I see…” Siegfried muttered with a nod.

“Still, it’s the guild master’s orders, so what can I do about it?” Choi Cheol-Ki shrugged.

Choi Cheol-Ki was willingly spilling out information, even though Siegfried had just rubbed him a little.

“I’m sure the higher-ups have something on their mind, but I think they are also having trouble pinpointing his current location since they just drew a sketch of him and distributed it to all of our guild members,” Choi Cheol-Ki said.

“Aha…”

“I think our guild master is being leery... anyway, you be careful now.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You two look scarily alike that even I almost got fooled. You might get attacked out of nowhere if some of the other guys see you.”

“Wow, that’s a bit too much…” Siegfried muttered with the best pity-inducing face he could put on.

“That’s your luck. Why did you have to go and look like that bastard Han Tae-Sung of all people? Tsk tsk…”?Choi Cheol-Ki said while clicking his tongue.

“Do you really think I wanted to look like him or something? What can I do when this is how I was born?” Siegfried grumbled.

“Anyway, you better be careful. Our guild can be quite merciless so don’t go around drawing attention and keep a low profile, so you don’t get mistaken for him. You got that?” Choi Cheol-Ki warned with a hint of arrogance and pride in his voice.

“Aigoo… Of course, I should be careful. I know how scary the Genesis Guild can be,” Siegfried replied while looking genuinely scared. However, Siegfried was doing the best he could to suppress how he really felt right now. ‘I want to beat him up… I want to beat him up…’?

“That’s good if you got what I mean. Then, have fun playing. Let’s go boys,” Choi Cheol-Ki said with a satisfied nod after seeing Siegfried scared out of his wits, and then he withdrew along with the other guild members.

“Ooohhh, you were so scary you almost made me piss myself,” Siegfried muttered with a grin while glaring at the backs of the Genesis Guild members.

***

Some of the facts he found out through Choi Cheol-Ki was that the Genesis Guild currently had no information about him

‘I’m certain that they have no idea I changed my player ID and reset my character. In that case, it means Cheon Woo-Jin did not tell them about me. Then, where did the leak come from…?’?he wondered, but he could not think of any possibility of how the Genesis Guild discovered that he was still playing the game and even distributed a sketch of him.

However, he was certain that his information had leaked from somewhere.

‘Anyway… I should be as careful as much as possible for now since it doesn’t seem like they know about me yet,’?Siegfried thought as he decided to maintain a low profile for now. After all, he had to be at least Level 150 or Level 200 to be able to do something against them.

***

The black market was located on a road called ‘Sukhumvit.’ Sukhumvit was located in the western part of Dondegiri, and it was a road that stretched three kilometers long. The road was tightly packed with hundreds of peddlers, and there was a joke that they sold anything and everything one could imagine since they sold a huge variety of stuff.

‘Let’s sell the loot I obtained first,’?he thought after entering the black market.

He immediately set out to sell his loot, but the problem was that the black market merchants seemed to have no sense of shame at all.

“Goblin Lord’s Blood? Hmm… I’ll give you a hundred gold for it.”

“Python’s Scale…? I’ll give you seven coppers for it. I’m already losing money by doing this.”

“How much have you asked around?”

The merchants seemed to be dead set on scooping up Siegfried’s items for cheap, and it seemed that his low level made him an irresistible target for them.

“Have a nice day.”

Siegfried was not stupid, so he did not even bother to exchange words with the shameless ones. He immediately left their shops in search of other shops that would have more conscience in dealing business.

Three hours later…

“These are quite difficult to find, but you somehow managed to collect them. Hmm… I’ll pay you quite handsomely for these.”

Siegfried finally found a merchant in a small rundown shop willing to pay him what his items were worth.

“That’s 7,800 gold in total. Go ahead and count it,” the shop owner said.

“What…?” Siegfried muttered in disbelief as he doubted his ears. Then, he asked just to confirm, “How much did you say it was?”

“I said, it’s 7,800 gold. Is it too little? I think it’s quite a fair price though,” the shop owner replied.

7,800 gold converted to Korean Won would be approximately four hundred million won.

‘What the hell…? Was it this valuable? I thought it would already be a good deal if I made around two thousand gold out of it…’?Siegfried was shocked since he had never realized that the loot he had obtained would be so valuable.

“That’s… I was shocked since I got more than I thought I would… Haha…” Siegfried replied while scratching the back of his head.

“Hmm? Did you really have no idea?”

“I was expecting to get around two thousand gold for it at most…”

“Damn it, I should have scammed you instead,” the shop owner grumbled.

“Do you regret it?”

“Regret? I paid you 5,800 gold more than what you expected. Ah… I’m too nice for my own good… Tsk…”?the shop owner clicked his tongue and said while genuinely regretting his choice.

‘Those damned bastards… They were trying to scoop up these items worth 7,800 for just five hundred gold?’?Siegfried inwardly cursed and gritted his teeth when he remembered the merchants who tried to ‘rob’ him for the past three hours.

“I have no choice but to accept since I made the mistake,” the shop owner shrugged.

“You are quite cool about it,” Siegfried commented.

“That’s the rule in this line of business. You just have to accept the fact that you got scammed if you got scammed. They don’t call it the black market for nothing, you know?”

“I guess so…”

“Besides, I’m not really getting the short end of the stick here. The Goblin Lord’s Blood is an extremely rare material, and the python parts are even rarer than that. No, how the hell did you manage to get these in the first place when the pythons have gone extinct hundreds of years ago?”

“That’s a secret,” Siegfried replied with a cheeky grin.

“Is that so? Then, I guess I’ll have to give up asking.” ｂｅｄ𝚗ｏ𝚟𝚎𝚕.𝚌𝚘ｍ

“Aren’t you curious?”

“This is the black market. What use is there if the seller doesn’t wish to disclose their source? Do you really think that someone who deals with stolen goods would want to know their goods are stolen in the first place?”

“No...”

“One can ask out of curiosity, but the rule of this place is to not bug another for information. That goes the same for the buyer.”

“Thank you for your advice.”

Siegfried liked this shop owner, but he made sure not to forget that the shop owner was a merchant as well.

‘He’s definitely going to take advantage of me the first chance he gets.’

“Thank you for the fair deal,” Siegfried said.

“Likewise,” the shop owner replied.

Siegfried left the shop with light steps after concluding the deal with the shop owner.

‘I can pay off my debt, upgrade my gear, and send some money back home with this!’?he thought with a beaming smile.

He had been feeling sick after having to spend fifteen million won at Club Heaven last night, but who knew he had so much money lying in his Inventory?

Siegfried thought that this was a perfect example of a blessing in disguise after checking the huge sum of gold in his possession.

‘Let’s go and upgrade my gears first,’?he thought as he was now a buyer in search of an appropriate weapon and armor.

***

However, choosing a weapon wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be, and that was because…

[Alert: You will soon reach Level 50! Please select your main weapon!]

Since he had already grown stronger, it was about time for him to choose the main weapon he would be using from now on.