Chapter 14 : Novice

Chapter 14: Novice

Dong Bong-su returned to the Danri Family and finished his day’s routine as if nothing had happened. On the surface, he had not changed in the slightest from before he left the family.

To anyone’s eyes, he was just Sosam.

A foolish, stupid mute that no one ever noticed.

That was Dong Bong-su as he appeared to others.

No one noticed the change in Dong Bong-su, who had taken a step forward.

Before his eyes, far off in the distance, the error box of New Murim Online, which only he could see, was still blinking.

[Critical ERROR has... occurred in the Murim Online system. There will be no issue in proceeding with the game, but....]

Creeeak. Thud.

The door closed, and the stable once again became his private space.

Critical ERROR.

‘A fatal error.’

The very fact that he existed here was itself a fatal error. How could there be an even greater error than that? Most likely, that critical error too stemmed from a systemic discrepancy caused by his existence—something that should not have been here in the first place.

He could roughly guess why that error message had appeared.

A kind of natural disaster that occurred as reality and the virtual reality of Murim Online were being ‘forcibly grafted’ together.

Dong Bong-su surmised that the problem had been latent all along, only to finally rise to the surface when he leveled up.

And.

That was a remarkably accurate conjecture. The 111th Dimensional Plane, the 112th Dimensional Plane, and Murim Online as the auxiliary dimension that served as the medium—these three dimensional systems were colliding with one another upon his level-up, giving rise to the ‘critical error.’

Most likely, the Critical ERROR message would appear every time he leveled up. If the differences between the three dimensional planes had not been so great, this would never have happened in the first place, but the three planes were fundamentally entirely different. Naturally, there was no way all systems could be applied as-is. In most cases, they would appear before him as distorted systems.

Dong Bong-su did not know such deep matters in exact detail, but he had inferred something roughly similar.

The conclusion was—

All of that distortion did not matter much to him.

All he had to do was continue leveling up and adapt to New Murim Online, the newly applied system. That was the path for his survival, and the way for him to grow stronger.

Dong Bong-su raised his right hand and lightly clicked the X-shaped button on the right side of the error box. The error box disappeared, and as he became Level 2, several windows that had become usable or undergone changes shimmered with a golden light.

《Inventory, Status Window, Skill Window, Quest Window》

Dong Bong-su first opened the inventory, which had now become quite familiar.

Inside the inventory, a sword he had never seen before, a set of clothes, a pair of leather shoes, and a hood were neatly placed at the far corner.

He pulled them out and lined them up on the floor one by one.

At a glance, they all looked as though they had been made from shabby cloth, yet their sanitary condition was impeccable. Just like brand-new products fresh off a factory line.

In truth, these were items that should have been issued the very moment Dong Bong-su logged into New Murim Online, but due to a critical error, they were basic equipment he was only now receiving. Of course, Dong Bong-su did not know that, nor did he care to.

If something existed, he used it. To him, it was a simple and straightforward proposition.

Dong Bong-su examined the items briefly, then, without much hesitation, grabbed the sword first.

Click—.

Even though he had only picked up the sword, a sound like metal accessories being fastened rang out. At the same time, a strange sensation washed over him.

‘It feels like I got stronger?’

It was hard to explain in words.

But there was a peculiar feeling that his strength, stamina, and agility had clearly increased.

Dong Bong-su immediately placed the shabby clothes of the Horse Stable Hireling he was wearing entirely into the inventory, then equipped the laid-out gear onto his body. Each time he put on a piece, a clicking sound struck his ears, and just like when he held the sword, he felt as though he was becoming stronger.

“Are these items?”

There was no choice but to be convinced that all of this was game items.

Equipment that had naturally manifested inside the inventory.

The sensation that his abilities increased each time he equipped one.

The mechanical sound he could hear, though he could not be sure whether it came from his head or his ears.

Putting it all together—

That feeling of becoming stronger—

‘It’s not an illusion.’

It was simply that by 《equipping》 gear, his 《stats》 had visibly increased.

Click.

He closed the inventory window. Perhaps because he was done checking it, the golden blinking light disappeared. Now that he had equipped the items, it was time to see just how much stronger he had become.

Dong Bong-su immediately opened the status window.

There, too, there was a dramatic change.

“So the equipment is finally being recognized?”

Items were displayed in the equipment slots that had been empty. The items he was currently wearing were shown exactly as they were.

[Beginner’s Sword], [Beginner’s Clothes], [Beginner’s Shoes], [Beginner’s Hood]

First, Dong Bong-su moved his hand like a mouse and hovered it over the ‘Beginner’s Sword.’ A transparent window appeared beside it, displaying an explanation of the Beginner’s Sword.

[Beginner’s Sword]

Attribute: None

Required Class: Common

Required Level: 2

Minimum Attack Power: 2

Maximum Attack Power: 5

Hit Value Increase Effect: ?

Minimum Martial Attack Power: 3

Maximum Martial Attack Power: 8

Martial Hit Value Increase Effect: ?

Additional Stat Increase: None

Next, he checked the remaining items in the same way, and they all had similar descriptions. The only difference between their descriptions and that of the sword was that attack power was replaced with defense, and martial attack power with martial defense. Aside from that, the format itself was exactly the same.

Another point the two shared was that the increase effects for hit value or defense value were consistently marked with a ‘?’ instead.

Dong Bong-su judged that this, too, was one of the phenomena caused by the critical error.

He briefly pondered what kinds of effects those might have, but soon shook the thought away. No matter how much he thought about it, it was an issue he could not know the answer to at present anyway. There was no need to waste mental energy on such matters.

What mattered was—

‘That I’ve truly become stronger.’

That alone.

He once more examined the changes in the status window. Along with equipping the gear, there had been major changes to his stats as well.

The base stat values for strength, agility, and intelligence had all changed from the previous ‘?’ into yellow Gauge Bars. Since they were not displayed as Arabic numerals, it was difficult to know the exact values, but it was clearly a tremendous change. Though it was subtle enough to be hard to discern at a glance, every gauge bar had risen little by little.

As he leveled up, the stat gauges had finally begun to activate.

Gauge bars also appeared for vitality, accuracy, evasion, attack power, defense, martial attack power, martial defense, elemental defense, and true energy/internal energy, all of which increased in proportion to level, strength, agility, and intelligence. Likewise, none of them were quantified with exact numbers.

After checking several more things, Dong Bong-su closed the status window. Just like with the inventory, once he finished checking it, the blinking of the status window disappeared.

Click.

This time, it was the skill window’s turn.

There were as many as five skills. To be more precise, there were not a single ‘Active Skill,’ and all of them were ‘Passive Skills.’ The four basic actions that should have existed from the moment a game character was created were there, with one additional unidentified skill added.

He was well familiar with the four. Although he had not played for long, he still had experience playing Murim Online.

He immediately checked the descriptions of the five skills.

[Slash (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

- A technique for swinging a weapon.

- Moving a weapon up, down, left, and right to annihilate enemies is one of the most basic attacks.

- Current Action Bonus: 0%

[Thrust (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

- A technique for thrusting a weapon.

- Moving a weapon forward and backward to inflict penetrating wounds on an enemy is one of the most basic attack techniques.

- Current Action Bonus: 0%

[Throw (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

- A technique for throwing a weapon.

- Throwing sharp or blunt objects at an enemy to cause injury is one of the basic attack techniques passed down since ancient times.

- Current Action Bonus: 0%

[Block (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

- A technique for blocking by raising a weapon.

- The weapon is held vertically or horizontally to block an enemy’s attack.

- Current Action Bonus: 0%

These four were the basic actions that all Murim Online characters originally gained in common upon creation.

However.

[Penetrating Eyes (Tester Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

- A tester-exclusive skill.

- Current Action Bonus: 0%

This was something he was seeing for the first time.

Aside from the fact that it was tester-exclusive, there was no special explanation at all, so Dong Bong-su could not even guess what it was. At most, he could only surmise that it was a skill ordinary gamers could not possess.

In fact, everything within Murim Online—monsters, items, environments, skills, and so on—were, in principle, components of the server. As complete artificial constructs, each of them was a finished product endowed with its own artificial intelligence.

Even so, there were a few exceptional cases.

Testing.

Newly opened servers, newly created dungeons, newly added monsters—there were times when their configurations were crude or incomplete. For that reason, before such content was released to the public, testers would play through it in advance to determine whether it was incomplete or not. And to assist those testers in their testing, special skills had been prepared separately.

Those were tester-exclusive skills.

One of those skills had now been applied to Dong Bong-su through an unknown route—most likely due to the critical error.

Why would a mere player like Dong Bong-su have a tester-exclusive skill applied to him?

There were several reasons, but the most important one was, just as Dong Bong-su had thought, the collision between the system of New Murim Online and the real Murim world here.

The system of New Murim Online was, in and of itself, a system equipped with a highly advanced artificial intelligence, but it was currently in a severely damaged and twisted state.

Things that should have existed on the actual Murim Online servers, quite naturally, almost did not exist in this Murim world. Because of that, the New Murim Online system had come to regard all of Dong Bong-su’s actions as new actions—in other words, ‘test actions.’

Dong Bong-su knew nothing of this fact, but to him it was an extraordinary stroke of luck, and to the Murim world, it was something that would become a tremendous misfortune.