TAHR Ch 8

“Should I say it’s the power of server integration?”

Jaein thought. “I’ve barely been in the field, and I’ve already run into another player. If the high-level fields are like this, I can’t imagine how crowded the lower-level ones must be.”

The thought alone made him feel suffocated.

Anyway, he stood still, observing the approaching player, and checked their name. The nickname was Dambi, no guild, and their information was hidden.

“….Hmm?”

A top-ranked player with a nickname he’d never seen before, and no guild? Jaein knew most of the top-ranked players’ nicknames from his previous server. If he didn’t recognize this one, it meant they were from a different server.

“Could it be Youngil?”

What were the odds of meeting the person he was desperately searching for on the first day, in the same area? He didn’t have high hopes, but he needed to check. Just as he was about to speak, something began to shimmer faintly between him and Dambi. One, two, three, and then six of them gradually materialized. And what appeared were…

“Huh?”

A group of Yeti monsters. Tamable ones, at that!

“Seriously, at a time like this?”

If he had spotted them first and attacked, it would be a different story. But they both saw the monsters spawn at the same time, and they were roughly the same distance away. It was purely a matter of who attacked first.

Jaein, without a second thought, dashed towards the monsters. Dambi, seemingly having the same idea, also charged without hesitation.

Seeing the monster rapidly approaching, Jaein’s heart pounded with anticipation. Valkyries were among the faster classes. On the other hand, Magicians were relatively slow, meaning he could lose the monster if things continued as they were.

Fortunately, his Blink skill’s cooldown had just finished. Jaein quickly used the skill to move forward.

The distance that had widened due to his slower movement closed, and the monster finally entered his skill range. He was thankful that his attack range was longer than the Valkyrie’s, but he couldn’t relax just yet.

Ignoring the surrounding smaller monsters, he launched his skill at the tamable one. At the same time, a skill flew in from the opposite direction.

“….Please!”

If he lost the monster and the other player obtained a 5-star Conimon, it wouldn’t just be a sleepless night; his mental state would be completely shattered.

As he focused intently on the monster’s health gauge, desperately hoping…

“Yes!”

The red bar indicating he had claimed the monster appeared brilliantly. Dambi seemed to hesitate, suggesting it was a very close call.

Unable to contain his joy, Jaein faced the monster rushing towards him. This kind of thrilling moment had been a long time coming. In the early days of Blaze, competition for monsters was fierce, but after the player base spread out, he hadn’t experienced anything like it.

Intoxicated by this long-forgotten sense of victory, he dodged and weaved, clearing out the smaller monsters. Then, he noticed Dambi standing still, watching him.

“Waiting for me to fail?”

Jaein smirked, as if to say,

“No chance.”

In Blaze, if the player fighting a monster for taming died, they got another chance. However, if another player was nearby, it was almost guaranteed they’d snatch it. At that point, it wasn’t a matter of manners; there was no one to blame but yourself. The responsibility for missing the first opportunity lay with the original player.

If the second player succeeded in taming, that was the end of it. But if they also failed, the monster would disappear. Both would lose out.

This happened quite often in high-level fields. Even with good equipment, the battles weren’t easy.

However, Jaein had never given or lost a chance to anyone. In the early game, taming was always successful within the taming zone.

When Jaein reached the high-level fields, they were mostly empty, so he had them practically to himself. He had experienced a few failures back then, but the monster would still be there when he returned, so there was no competition.

And now, of course, he boasted a 100% taming success rate.

Players on his previous server already knew this, so they would simply pass by if they saw Mollamolla taming.

So Jaein couldn’t help but feel sorry for Dambi, who was waiting on the sidelines.

“What can you do if you don’t know?”

If Dambi had looked elsewhere at this time, they could have at least saved time searching for another monster.

Anyway, it wasn’t his concern. Jaein finished off the remaining smaller monsters and approached the one he had mezzed1), clicking ‘G’. He immediately entered the taming zone.

From the outside, it would appear as if the monster and character were standing still, but inside the taming zone, a battle was taking place. The field background remained the same, but other than the monster and his own character, little else was visible.

After a while, focused on the battle…

Mollamolla emerged victorious and left the taming zone. Disappointingly, the Conimon turned out to be a 3-star, only usable as evolution material.

He glanced to the side, and Dambi was still standing there. He thought Dambi would move as soon as he saw him emerge, but even after watching for a bit longer, they remained motionless.

Had they left their keyboard? Or were they so upset about narrowly losing that they were frozen in place?

Now he felt slightly awkward, remembering that he had intended to ask Dambi a question before the monster appeared. The thought of whether they might be Youngil.

“Maybe I should have let them win.”

But even if he could go back in time, he would have done the same thing. Who knows when a 5-star Conimon might appear? He’d be kicking himself even if it was a 4-star.

Besides, what were the odds that it was actually Youngil? If it were that easy to find him, his identity would have been revealed back on the Lucan server. Moreover, in this situation, speaking to them would only come across as mocking.

For one reason or another, the circumstances didn’t seem right, and his curiosity about Dambi quickly faded. Thinking it best to avoid making things worse, he decided to leave.

But just then,

[General] Mollamolla: ★Anonymous0101<<Found/Ex-Lucan Server/Rank 5/Reward 10k gold, 30k if it’s you/Whisper-Mollamolla, Ttunttuni

His automated advertisement appeared. In the general chat, no less, with a large speech bubble!

“Wait, what? Why general chat? I set it to server chat!”

He hurriedly checked the macro settings and found the error. The target chat was set to general instead of server. Of all times, why now?

Dumbfounded, he blinked, and the motionless Dambi slowly turned their head towards him.

At that moment, he felt as if he had made eye contact with Dambi. He could vividly imagine their expression – one of utter disbelief, like, “What kind of idiot is this?”

“Oh, the timing…”

He now understood the saying about falling backward and breaking your nose.

Without knowing the context, the current situation looked like he was ignoring the person he just beat in competition and instead posting an ad asking,

“Hey, do you happen to know Anonymous0101?”

If he were Dambi, he would be frowning, thinking,

“What the hell is this guy talking about?”

“No, I really wasn’t trying to ask you! And I didn’t know the settings were wrong!”

He wasn’t sure whether it was his fault for discovering the error late or the monster’s fault for spawning at that moment. Either way, he couldn’t deny the impeccable timing, albeit in a bad way. He let out a heavy sigh.

At this point, he hoped Dambi would just ignore him. It would be less embarrassing if they just disappeared, like he had stepped in something unpleasant.

But as always, his gaming life wasn’t so easy.

[General] Dambi: lol

[General] Dambi: You’re asking me that now?

Dambi’s message clearly conveyed their incredulity. Moreover, while most players tried to be polite when talking to strangers in MMORPGs, unlike in AOS games, Dambi seemed to have no such intention. It meant they were truly offended.

Again, he thought the timing, whether it was the macro error or the monster spawn, was terrible.

“Sigh…”

Still, he had to clean up his own mess. He needed to explain himself. He couldn’t just let the misunderstanding fester; it was too unfair.

[General] Mollamolla: Ah sorry..

[General] Mollamolla: Macro ad went to wrong chat;

[General] Dambi: Wrong chat?

[General] Mollamolla: Settings were wrong.