I Gave Up Being Stronger

For some, it was entertainment; for others, a survival documentary. Egan Paul was part of the latter group. He said, “Y-You’re taking it the wrong way! We were just preparing for any unforeseen circumstances!”

“You say you were just preparing, but your group seemed too disorganized,” Han Sae-Rin said while narrowing her eyes.

“W-Well, that’s because it was a type of monster we had never seen before, and we needed time to figure out how to respond.”

In hindsight, the Avengers Army’s reaction was perfectly reasonable. The Sand Worm was a monster Cha Jin-Hyeok already knew about, but for the Avengers Army, it was an entirely new creature. Acting rashly to save a party member could have led to even greater casualties. It was natural for even a skilled Player to panic in such an unexpected situation.

It was only from Jin-Hyeok’s and Sae-Rin’s perspectives that the Avengers Army appeared disorganized, but from an objective point of view, it wasn’t that bad.

Unfortunately(?), Sae-Rin’s standards were similar to Chul-Soo’s. She replied, “But Chul-Soo managed to rescue Anderson immediately.”

“That...” Egan felt increasingly wronged.

‘Who else could wield such insane firepower while maintaining precise control?! And honestly, it was not like we were completely disorganized! We just could not respond as swiftly as Chul-Soo did! It’s Chul-Soo who is exceptionally amazing, not that we are incompetent!

Sae-Rin remained unsympathetic. “The more I think about it, the weirder it gets. Chul-Soo, who is only a Streamer, sensed the monster, and even I, a retired Navigator, felt it. Why did Black Panther act like he did not feel it? Chul-Soo could rescue Anderson easily, but why didn’t anyone else try? Why couldn’t they do these simple things? Or... maybe you guys ignored it on purpose.”

Egan stood up in frustration. He felt like he was going to lose his mind from being wrongly accused. “You people...! Haven’t you ever considered that your standard of easy is too selfish?!”

Meanwhile, they arrived at their destination. Egan’s face was hot red, and Jin-Hyeok chuckled, saying, “Your expression seemed very real.”

“What?”

“Let’s just stop the acting now, and focus on your expedition.” Jin-Hyeok was in a good mood. Egan’s realistic improvisation seemed to have made for a great video. “Egan, you’re pretty talented in acting. No wonder you’re a prominent Streamer.”

Egan was internally conflicted.

‘Wait, I’m a prominent Streamer? After all this?’

It seemed like Chul-Soo was thinking, ‘It’s such an easy task to identify a Sand Worm and prepare for its ambush, so Egan must have pretended not to notice! There is no way the Avengers Army could not handle such trivial tasks!’

Egan was at a loss for words.

‘Isn’t it common sense to think that we could not respond effectively because everything happened so abruptly? Am I in the wrong here?’

Unaware of Egan’s turmoil, Jin-Hyeok shifted his gaze to Black Panther, who had arrived at the beach first, and said, “We have arrived at the beach. What will happen next? Oh? It seems like the Navigator of the Avengers Army, Black Panther, has sensed something! What could be happening?”

Black Panther almost tilted his head in confusion.

‘Wait, what did I sense?’

Then, he started to feel that something was happening.

***

Black Panther realized that things were different from the previous expedition. He knew this would happen, since they had killed the Sand Worm on the beach. With the first sequence changed, the next one was likely to change as well.

“Everyone, prepare for battle!” Black Panther stabbed his tail into the ground.

‘It feels similar to before!’

It felt like a water vein. However, Black Panther knew it was not that.

Jin-Hyeok realized that Black Panther was indeed pretending to not have detected the monster the last time. He took a step back and captured what the Avengers Army was doing. “Earlier, the monster was a male. This time, it’s a female.”

Black Panther was slightly surprised.

‘There are males and females?’

Black Panther could barely recognize it as a water vein, but Chul-Soo seemed to have already found the monster’s gender.

“This one is bigger and more agile than the last one,” Jin-Hyeok said.

It seemed like the female Sand Worms were stronger than the males. Hickson, the Ruler of the Avengers Army, deployed Players and got ready for battle. Thanks to him, no one was sucked into the sudden Sand Worm ambush. The monster, which had briefly emerged from the sandy beach, hid again in the sand.

“Its head is the weakness!” Hickson shouted.

This was a reasonable inference. Chul-Soo had obliterated the previous Sand Worm’s head with a single hammer blow.

However, Chul-Soo smirked. ‘The head is not the weak point, though.’

When he had hit the previous Sand Worm, he had realized the head was the hardest part.

Poof!

The Sand Worm emerged again from the sand. A few Martial Artists rushed in to attract its attention, and some Archers shot arrows to hit its head.

‘These guys are trying their best.’

Jin-Hyeok could very well understand their feelings. The Avengers Army was essentially an alliance formed by Egan, obviously operating for his livestreaming purposes.

‘I had such a hard time dealing with Grandel.’

Jin-Hyeok had to use many methods to create a sense of crisis and tension when he was fighting Grandel. He could clearly see the Avengers Army‘s strenuous efforts to do the same. Just the fact that they were targeting the monster’s head, which was not a weak point, allowed Jin-Hyeok to feel their sincerity in the livestream. He was pleased to see this.

‘It would have been better if they knew about my current livestream concept.’

Jin-Hyeok’s concept for today’s livestream was clearing the Dungeon with overwhelming power, which seemed to differ from that of the Avengers Army. It was a mistake not to have discussed this in advance.

‘I’ve learned again. Next time, I will make sure to discuss the plan in advance.’

This did not mean Jin-Hyeok wanted to interfere with their Play, which was so sincere. After all, the Sand Worm was a monster Jin-Hyeok had beaten, so there was no need for him to display the same performance again.

“So, shall we just proceed with our own content?” Jin-Hyeok said to Jin-Sol.

“Our content? What is it?” Her eyes sparkled. Jin-Sol was quite bored. She wondered why the Avengers Army was making such a dramatic and serious Play out of a monster that Jin-Hyeok could defeat in one hit.

Although it could be an intense battle for the viewers, for Jin-Sol, it was a tad boring.

“We need to recover the bodies,” Jin-Hyeok replied.

“B-Bodies?” Mok Jae-Hyeon, who was feeling slightly more bored than Jin-Sol due to his superior defensive abilities, was startled. He had seen many corpses, but they still frightened him.

“Yeah, the Sand Worm has dug a lot of tunnels underground,” Jin-Hyeok said.

“Chul-Soo, can you sense that the bodies are underground?” Sae-Rin asked.

“Yeah, you can feel it too, right?”

“...”

Jin-Hyeok did not really wait for Sae-Rin’s response. He thought that if he had sensed it, she had to have too.

“B-But, Hyung... what if we go down the tunnel and the entire thing collapses?” Jae-Hyeon asked.

“You can use something like your vine plants to support it, right? Kind of like a tunnel.”

“...Ah! I will do that.”

Jeong-Hyeon clenched his fist in silence. Always thirsty for justice, he seemed ready to do anything to recover the bodies. “L-Let’s....hit... the road....”

***

Egan had a much broader field of vision than the Players directly involved in the battle. This was partly due to his Job as a Streamer, but also because he was relatively more at ease compared to the combatant-class Players. So he managed to hear the conversation of Chul-Soo’s party, and it made him doubt himself.

“B-But, Hyung... What if we go down the tunnel and the entire thing collapses?”

From Egan’s perspective, this was a very strange question.

‘Wouldn’t ordinary Players be more afraid of a Sand Worm ambush inside the tunnel rather than worrying about the tunnel collapsing? There seems to be no fear of the Sand Worm,’ Egan thought.

“You can use something like your vine plants to support it, right? Kind of like a tunnel.”

“...Ah! I will do that.”

The ease with which Jae-Hyeon accepted this solution was almost disheartening. Also, the fact that Jae-Hyeon said he would do it could make every civil engineer in the world cry.

“L-Let’s....hit... the road....”

“Hey, Jeong-Hyeon, that’s an outdated catchphrase. My livestream concept is not retro.”

“Sorry....”

Chul-Soo, the Saint of Freedom, the Wood King, and the Martial King—none of them seemed to have any interest in the Sand Worm. Chul-Soo was even nitpicking over trivial things like the phrase ‘Let’s hit the road’. Chul-Soo’s party did not care about how serious and intensely the Avengers Army was fighting the Sand Worm.

‘W-Wait a minute!’ Egan thought.

Chul-Soo’s party jumped into the sand pit, an utterly irrational act from Egan’s perspective.

‘We are struggling with battling the monster on land, but...’

They had entered right into the lair of the Sand Worm.

***

Leading the way, Sae-Rin remarked, “The monster is not ambushing us.”

“That’s odd.” This was not something Jin-Hyeok had anticipated. To be more precise, saying that he had not anticipated it would be incorrect; he just had not thought about it altogether. Since he did not care how the Sand Worm moved, he had not really considered it ambushing them.

“Maybe the female Sand Worm is imprinted with fear since the male one died. Perhaps they were psychologically connected.” Sae-Rin came up with an explanation.

“That’s good. I was worried I might accidentally destroy the corpses with excessive force.”

Fortunately, that would not happen. The Level 197 female Sand Worm did not dare come near Jin-Hyeok.

Sae-Rin ran ahead. “There they are!”

They recovered two bodies at this location. Jae-Hyeon quickly made wooden coffins to collect the bodies. Despite being terrified, he did his job well.

“It does not seem like there are more bodies here,” Sae-Rin said.

“Right. Let’s go back to the surface.”

Jeong-Hyeon carried the two coffins on his back. He could have put them in his inventory, but out of respect for the deceased, he chose to carry them instead.

Jin-Hyeok smirked. ‘He is being inefficient.’

If this had taken place during his Sword King days, Jin-Hyeok would have prevented such actions. However, as a Streamer, he found himself more understanding of Jeong-Hyeon’s actions.

‘Well, it’s not like we are in a hurry here.’

Carrying two large coffins would naturally reduce mobility. In a battlefield where life and death were decided in 0.1 seconds, such inefficient actions would be impractical, but in this calm and peaceful palace, he decided to let him be.

‘But... something is a bit off.’

Unexpectedly, a truly dangerous situation was unfolding on the surface.

‘Should I step in?’

That was when Jin-Hyeok had an epiphany.

‘Ah!’

He understood why Egan was struggling so hard in battle and why a Player seemed to have been sucked in by the monster, creating a really dangerous situation.

‘Egan Paul, you clever guy!’

Jin-Hyeok felt somewhat moved.

‘He must be setting the stage for my dramatic entrance!’

With that realization, he decided to respond accordingly.

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