It’s an Academic Fact That Rankers Are Model Students – Chapter 42

Chapter 42: Change of Study Location: Outdoor Study (2)

“Boss Heukgil-dong, we found the World’s Best carriage you were talking about.”

A thief with a black headband on his forehead reported to the boss.

The strange thing was that the person reporting was an NPC, but the boss receiving the report was a player.

<Heukgil-dong Guild Leader>

▼Heukgil-dong (Player)

Player Heukgil-dong.

He is the boss of the Heukgil-dong Guild, one of the many guilds in the Black Secret Village, and an ex-convict in real life.

The charge was habitual theft.

He often stole laptops or bags from people who left their seats in cafes and resold them on used goods websites.

He didn’t feel an ounce of guilt.

Theft was like everyday life to him, who had sticky fingers since childhood and stole everything from smartphones, MP3s, and wallets from his classmates.

His way of thinking was different from ordinary people.

‘The World is the best. It’s a game, so no one punishes you for stealing or killing? It’s more convenient because you can just kill anyone who bothers you.’

To Heukgil-dong, World was heaven.

It showed a new world to him, who could only commit petty theft in reality for fear of the law.

The first thing Heukgil-dong did when he logged into the game was murder.

While hunting, if he didn’t like someone and they looked weak, he would kill them first.

That’s how he became a PK player and ended up crawling into Black Secret Village while being chased by the Beginner’s Village guards.

If World was heaven, Black Secret Village was heaven’s playground.

There, he committed all sorts of crimes he liked, such as theft, assault, arson, and murder, and soon changed his job to ‘Black Secret Village Thief’.

It was a success story after that.

While other players were catching monsters and leveling up, he was catching people and leveling up.

When he reached level 100, he even killed the boss of his own guild and completed his 1st Promotion to ‘Black Secret Village Thief Leader.

When he became the boss, he also had subordinates.

A total of 15 members of the Heukgil-dong Guild.

This time, he was determined to commit a huge crime by mobilizing all of his members.

It was to attack the carriage of the World’s Best Merchant Guild, which was moving far away.

“Um…… Boss. Are you really going to hit the World’s Best Merchant Guild?”

One of the members showed anxiety as if he was nervous.

“Besides, I heard that World’s Best is very protective of its own people. If we’re not careful, wouldn’t this be like pulling the whiskers of a sleeping lion……?”

The member was scared.

Although it was much smaller than other merchant guilds, World’s Best was a rapidly growing guild recently.

Still, it was dozens of times larger than the Heukgil-dong Guild, which consisted of only 15 members and one boss.

If the fact that they were attacked was revealed and they issued a kill order, a guild like Heukgil-dong Guild would be easily destroyed.

Thwack!

Hearing those words, Heukgil-dong grabbed the member’s neck with tremendous speed.

It was a movement that easily exceeded 300 agility.

“Gasp?!”

“Hey, you b@stard. Are you even a member of the Heukgil-dong Guild?”

“Gulp, gulp…! I’m… I’m sorry…! Please… just spare my… life…”

“Oh, come on.”

Heukgil-dong roughly threw the member away.

The member, who barely caught his breath, coughed and sputtered.

Heukgil-dong looked down at him with a pathetic look and said,

“Whether you’re pulling the whiskers of a sleeping lion or pulling them out completely, if the lion doesn’t know who pulled them, what can it do? That’s why I told you during the operation briefing.”

Heukgil-dong’s plan was simple.

The merchant carriage that would soon pass by was a carriage that traveled between Beginner’s Village and Plovdiv.

Since players couldn’t return to Beginner’s Village once they left, the carriage was inevitably composed only of NPCs, both mercenaries and merchants.

Unlike players, NPCs couldn’t come back to life once they died.

“So, if we steal everything and kill them all, no one will know who attacked them. Even if World’s Best gets angry, what can they do? They don’t know who did it.”

They would certainly guess that it was the Black Secret Village thieves who did it.

However, even World’s Best couldn’t handle the entire Black Secret Village.

If they were to wage a full-fledged war, they would have to put all their efforts into it.

To wage an all-out war while they were busy growing rapidly?

It was impossible unless they were crazy.

“Cough, cough……! But……”

At that moment, the member who had caught his breath spoke again.

His voice trembled because his neck had been choked earlier.

“……According to the scout who just came back, there was one player.”

“What?”

Heukgil-dong frowned deeply.

The member, his face pale, shouted urgently.

“I, It’s true! I’m sure the clothes he was wearing were the beginner clothes that players wear!”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Y, Yes!”

Heukgil-dong fell into thought for a moment at the unexpected variable.

‘Damn it, what’s with a player all of a sudden? Players are a pain in the ass because they come back to life even if you kill them. What if he comes back to life and tells the World’s Best Merchant Guild……’

Heukgil-dong thought for a moment and asked the member.

“How many?”

“J, Just one!”

“A beginner?”

“Judging by how he looks, that’s for sure……!”

Just one beginner player.

Since it was a carriage from Beginner’s Village, it was impossible for a high-level player to be playing a prank in beginner clothes.

Then there was no need to retreat.

“Then let’s change the plan. You guys subdue all the merchants and kill that player. Then I’ll move in.”

He couldn’t show himself until the player died and was forcibly logged out.

If he did, his nickname above his head might be seen and sold to World’s Best.

It didn’t matter if it was an NPC, but players could see each other’s nicknames.

“Can we subdue them without you, Boss?”

“Those Beginner’s Village mercenaries are nothing but level 50 weaklings anyway. Your levels are more than enough to subdue them.”

Heukgil-dong added with a smirk,

“Wait. Don’t kill them right away, just subdue them. You have to take all the items out of their inventories before you kill them. Then kill them.”

“What about the player over there?”

“Yeah. If he’s a beginner and going straight to Plovdiv, he must be loaded.”

The Heukgil-dong Guild soon finished preparing for the attack.

“We’re attacking now! Everyone, take off your headbands just in case you might be identified!”

“As you command!”

As soon as Heukgil-dong’s order fell, the Heukgil-dong Guild began to move quickly.

They hid their black headbands, the symbol of the Heukgil-dong Guild, without a trace.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Since all the members were thieves in their late double digits, their movements were quite skillful.

Heukgil-dong ran at the very back of the members.

He had to make sure that his nickname wasn’t seen by the player in the carriage.

After running for a while, a nickname caught Heukgil-dong’s eye.

▼Kyung-joon (Player)

‘He really is a player. Judging by his clothes, he’s definitely a beginner.’

“Good! Everyone, kill every single one of them! I’ll be watching from here!”

“As you command!”

Heukgil-dong hid himself well so that his nickname above his head wouldn’t be seen, and watched from afar as his members attacked the carriage.

“T, Thieves have attacked! Cough……!”

“Alex!”

“Tsk……! All mercenaries, come out!”

“Merchants, hide in a safe place!”

“Where is a safe place in such an open place!”

“Matthew! Stop driving and get inside the carriage! You’ll get caught in the battle!”

“Ugh! Who in their right mind would attack us after seeing the World’s Best flag……!”

Clang! Cha-ching!

Swoosh, slash!

“Argh!”

“Cough……!”

“You damn thieves! Ugh……!”

“Ahhhh!”

“They’re…… too fast―Gah……!”

The Beginner’s Village mercenaries began to be subdued by the Heukgil-dong Guild members in an instant.

Composed entirely of NPCs, they were hired to deal with the monsters between Beginner’s Village and Plovdiv.

Since it was an open road, the only monsters that appeared were level 30-40 monsters at best.

They were no match for the Heukgil-dong Guild members, who were all level 80-90.

‘Heh heh, this is what I was aiming for. People don’t usually touch the goods coming from Beginner’s Village because they’re nothing special, but that makes them less prepared and safer and easier to attack.’

Heukgil-dong, who was watching from afar as his members easily subdued the mercenaries, was satisfied.

His personality, which minimized risk and targeted only the weak, led this operation to great success.

It took less than 5 minutes for the members to subdue all the mercenaries.

“You rats hiding in the carriage! All of you, come out!”

“Ugh, to think we’d be defeated like this……!”

“Do you think you can get away with this after touching World’s Best, argh!”

“Stop whining and come out already!”

The Heukgil-dong Guild members, without hesitation, used violence to force the merchants out and make them kneel.

“Now, are you all out? Hand over all your belongings right now. If you do, I’ll spare your lives. Hahaha!”

“Argh! I, It hurts!”

The member who was tormenting the merchants while spitting out typical thief lines.

He was the member who had been choked by Heukgil-dong earlier.

The guy who couldn’t even dream of talking back to Heukgil-dong was being all mighty and powerful in front of those weaker than him.

While he was having fun tormenting the merchants, one person caught his eye.

It was Kyung-joon.

“You! What are you doing there, not coming down!”

The member approached Kyung-joon angrily.

The member, who saw Kyung-joon up close, couldn’t help but be surprised.

“……squirm, suffuse, snap back, unfazed……”

Rustle, rustle.

Kyung-joon was memorizing English words.

He didn’t even seem to care that this was happening.

No, it wasn’t that he didn’t care.

He couldn’t.

Kyung-joon was so focused that he didn’t even realize what was going on.

This was the state of Trance.

This is what true concentration is all about, he thought.

“What the hell is this guy looking at?”

Thwack!

The member snatched the book that Kyung-joon was looking at.

Then, a message popped up on Kyung-joon’s status window, which was pushed aside.

[The state of Trance has been lifted due to strong interference.]

No matter how deep in a state of Trance one was, it couldn’t be helped if they were physically disturbed.

“What is this anyway? Oh, could it be?”

The member, wondering if it was a magic book, flipped through the book he had snatched.

Unfortunately, however, what Kyung-joon was looking at wasn’t a magic book, but just an ordinary English vocabulary book.

To be precise, it was 『Seolha Publishing House – Spirit Vocabulary Etymology Edition』.

“What’s this? It’s just a garbage book?”

To the member, an English vocabulary book was a completely useless book.

The member decided to take out his disappointment, which he felt arbitrarily, on Kyung-joon.

“What a crazy bastard. Don’t you see the situation you’re in right now?”

The member took out his dagger and pointed it at Kyung-joon.

He was going to kill him anyway, so he thought he’d have some fun torturing him before taking his items.

He was so pissed off because he had just been beaten by the boss, and he needed to do this to relieve his stress.

That’s when it happened.

[General skill 『Energy Bolt (Lv.8)』]

[Advanced skill 『Spell Modification (Lv.5)』]

[Rare skill 『Multi-Casting (Lv.2)』]

Dozens of Energy Bolts were generated around Kyung-joon and all transformed into sharp icicle shapes and were shot out in an instant.

Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!

“Gah……!”

The member, who had become a hedgehog in an instant, let out a dying shriek and died immediately.

A sudden silence followed.

All of the Heukgil-dong Guild members and the World’s Best people, not a single one of them could fully comprehend what had just happened.

Swoosh.

The first person to move in the silence was, of course, Kyung-joon.

Kyung-joon approached the member who had already become a corpse and bent down.

To pick something up.

The Spirit Vocabulary Etymology Edition that had just been snatched away.

Kyung-joon, who picked it up and dusted it off, read a word softly.

“Massacre.”

Having said that, Kyung-joon closed the book with satisfaction.

“Good, I’ve finished reading it three times in total.”

A total of 1239 English words.

He had just finished his third reading of them.

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