Debuff Master

Chapter 322

Ten minutes later…

“Haa…! Haa…! Haa…!”

Saintess Janette’s breathing became extremely labored.

“T-The crack in her life vessel was really big…”

It seemed that Brunhilde’s condition was so bad that even a Master Healer and Buffer like her had to use all of her strength for ten minutes to heal Brunhilde.

Fortunately, Saintess Janette succeeded.

As expected, the title of Saintess wasn’t just for show.

“I feel light!” Brunhilde said. She looked visibly better.

The body fat and muscles she had lost didn’t miraculously return in an instant, but everyone would agree that she looked much better than ten minutes ago. Now, she just had to eat properly, and she would go back to her old self in no time.

“Oh!” Siegfried exclaimed as his face lit up as brightly as the sun. He thanked the Saintess profusely and said, “Thank you! Thank you very much, Saintess-nim!”

He thanked her so much that he seemed prepared to give his kidney and liver to her if she asked for them.

‘All the suffering I went through at the time has paid off!’ Siegfried rejoiced at the fact that he participated in the Constantine Civil War. He was extremely stressed out at the time, as he had to deal with the scumbag emperor and pope, but he truly didn’t expect that his suffering at the time would pay off in this manner.

The saying—what goes around comes around—was indeed true.

Everybody should be nice to others.

“Thank you!”

Brunhilde grabbed Janette’s hands and expressed her gratitude.

“I will never forget this debt!”

“Please do not mention it, Your Majesty. This is nothing compared to the grace and kindness you have shown our people. Now, please rest and eat to restore your vigor.”

“Yes!”

“Ah, please do not hesitate to call me whenever you are not feeling well. The Constantine Holy Empire will never forget the favor you have shown us,” Saintess Janetee said as she grabbed Siegfried’s hand and smiled.

“Haha! I will not forget what you have done for my queen today. Hmm… Should I fire that freeloader…”

“Excuse me?”

“Ah, it is nothing. Please ignore it! Haha!”

Siegfried was actually considering firing the royal physician, who ironically had become a freeloader, now that Saintess Janette was here, but he changed his mind in the end, as that did not seem appropriate. After all, it would be overkill if he called the Saintess for every single thing.

The royal physician hadn’t really done anything wrong, to be honest.

“Dear, please recover your strength first. Should we dine together?”

“Yes, my dear.”

Siegfried extended his hand, and Brunhilde held it.

This was the end of Brunhilde’s health scare, at least for now…

***

Siegfried immediately logged out after sharing a meal with Brunhilde.

He was finally back to reality.

“Ah, I’m so tired…”

And he immediately fell asleep...

He would have wanted nothing more than to sleep in the capsule just to be with Brunhilde, but his fatigue and exhaustion had reached dangerous levels.

He desperately needed proper rest.

Ten hours later…

“Ah! That was a good sleep!”

Han Tae-Sung stretched after sleeping really well for the first time in a long while.

He didn’t have much to do even after waking up.

He ordered a freshly cooked meal filled with a variety of nutritional food, ran on the treadmill for thirty minutes, and then ate the food he had ordered while browsing the news on his mobile phone.

‘I need to know what’s happening to this world at least, right?’

He was cooped up in his VR capsule all day, so he was mostly unaware of what was going on out there.

[BREAKING NEWS] Pro Gamer Chae Hyung-Seok is currently hospitalized.

[V Sports] The Genesis Guild is losing guild members at an alarming rate.

[Column] Is this the downfall of the Genesis Guild?

Tae-Sung clicked on the V Sports category and found numerous headlines that made his day.

[V Sports] Pro Gamer Chae Hyung-Seok suffers a stroke again… Doctors, “We cannot comment on his current condition…”

“Huh? This isn’t how it should be,” Tae-Sung grimaced after reading that Chae Hyung-Seok’s condition seemed much more severe than he expected.

“Not yet, I still have a lot to give you…”

Tae-Sung had no plans to simply let Chae Hyung-Seok go.

“You can’t die here. I still have a lot prepared for you, Hyung-Seok. Hurry up and recover! Fighting!”

Tae-Sung wished Chae Hyung-Seok a speedy recovery before he unplugged the USB connected to the Ogre and plugged it into his PC. Then, he uploaded the treacherous things Chae Hyung-Seok had done during the raid.

[Special: Chae Hyung-Seok] He stabbed his comrades in the back and tried to monopolize the raid rewards.

He didn’t forget to write a detailed title that would surely attract people.

“Hoho! Now it’s time to wait for the people’s reaction!” Tae-Sung exclaimed with a satisfied grin.

Bzzt!

Then, his phone rang. He picked up his phone and saw the name Scumbag written on it.

— What are you doing? Why aren’t you answering my calls these days? Did you really…

“Shut up,” Tae-Sung snapped back, and then he growled, “Did you call to pick a fight? I’m going to hack up if that’s all you want.”

— S-Sorry…

“Why did you call?”

— Come out if you’re not going to play today. Let’s have a glass of wine.

“Hmm… Sure.”

Tae-Sung had decided to rest today anyway, so he had no problems accepting Cheon Woo-Jin’s offer.

Five hours later…

“Hey, Han Tae-Sung! You seemed to have caused a big one this time!”

“Hyung-nim! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Cheon Woo-Jin and Seung-Gu overreacted the moment they saw Tae-Sung enter the bar.

“What’s wrong with you two? Did something happen?” Tae-Sung grimaced and asked.

Cheon Woo-Jin replied by opening a G-Tube video on the main page and showing it to him.

“Hey! You really dealt a good one this time to Chae Hyung-Seok!”

“Ah, that one? I completely forgot about that. I was taking quite a long shower and shopped a bit afterward, so it completely slipped my mind. But what about it? Has it already become an issue?” Tae-Sung asked.

He seemed to be oblivious to how serious the situation was despite being the one that caused it. Of course, he knew very well what result this video was going to bring, but it was just that he did not expect it to blow up so quickly.

“What kind of question is that?! Here! Look at this! Can you not see how many viewers it has?!” Cheon Woo-Jin asked while pushing his phone closer to Tae-Sung.

“T-Three million?!”

“Yeah! You got three million views in just five hours! Three million!”

“T-That’s crazy…!”

Tae-Sung was absolutely flabbergasted. It was quite common for videos of famous singers to blow up to tens of millions of views in just twenty-four hours, but Siegfried’s record of three million views in just five hours was unprecedented among gamers.

It wasn’t even an official tournament video but was just a normal playthrough video.

“Why is it so famous?” Tae-Sung asked as he read the comments.

[Yong Tae-Pung: Shall we have a chat, Hyung-Seok?]

[Likes: 454,312]

[Dislikes: 5,432]

It seemed that Yong Tae-Pung had seen the video and left an ominous comment.

It was the most liked comment in the video.

31213331: How pathetic.

Jung2Sil: I knew that bastard was going to do something like this!

133221: His rotten personality made him quite infamous after all.

SP0: Wow! He seriously stabbed Tae-Pung ahjussi in the back? Kekekeke!

Ionlylookatholes: Goodbye~

RoundRound: Now he’s totally exposed~ He’s fucked~

The public’s response couldn’t get any worse. Chae Hyung-Seok had committed the biggest taboo of stabbing your comrades in the back, and stabbing them in the back during a raid was an even bigger taboo.

A Raid Dungeon would reward players with items worth tens of millions of won to billions, and the participants in these raids were usually high-level individuals.

In other words, the penalty for dying was drastically more expensive for them than for low-level players.

The damage that Chae Hyung-Seok had caused to the raid party members amounted to at least tens of millions or even billions when accounting for the time and the items they had lost.

To make matters worse, Chae Hyung-Seok was now effectively blacklisted from every raid party. After all, nobody would be stupid enough to welcome a snake that could bite their leg at any time.

‘I think my dear Hyung-Seok will feel really sad if he sees this. Hmm… What if he dies from the shock?’ Tae-Sung was sincerely worried.

“Hello? Please send eight people over there. Yes, the contract will be for one year, and you can send the invoice under my name.”

“What are you doing?”

Tae-Sung asked after overhearing Cheon Woo-Jin on the phone.

“Just wait and see. This is the best present I can get you.”

“What the hell are you talking about…?”

An hour later, Tae-Sung was shocked to see eight large men wearing black suits standing around him.

“W-What?! Who are these people?” Tae-Sung exclaimed.

“Who else?” Cheon Woo-Jin smirked and replied, “They will be your bodyguards from now on. Ah, don’t worry about their pay. I agreed to pay them for one year.”

“Why would I need them?”

“You’re going to end up getting stabbed if you wander around alone.”

“Stabbed?”

“I’d probably hide in some dark alley and wait for you with a knife if I were Chae Hyung-Seok. You know? Stab! Stab!” Cheon Woo-Jin gesticulated with his hand.

“Nah, no way.”

“You’ve ruined his life so he could do worse things, to be honest. And you know how rotten his personality is, right?”

“R-Really?” Tae-Sung started thinking about what kind of person Chae Hyung-Seok was after listening to Cheon Woo-Jin. ‘Yeah, he’s right. That bastard can do worse than just stabbing me…’

He finally realized that Cheon Woo-Jin had made the right call in hiring these bodyguards. Chae Hyung-Seok’s life as a gamer was practically over now, so he had nothing to lose anymore. There was a chance he would do something drastic.

“Yeah, it could be dangerous like you said…”

“Exactly, so you better bring those guys around with you.”

Cheon Woo-Jin easily convinced Tae-Sung.

“Besides, both you and I have more than enough money now, right?”

“Did you hit the lottery or something?”

“L-Lottery… Why would you say that?”

“Nah, forget about it. Hmm… Do you really think Chae Hyung-Seok will try to stab me?”

“Why don’t you just receive protection for now? I really don’t want to see one of my friends getting stabbed, you know?”

“T-Thanks, I guess…?”

Tae-Sung was slightly moved by Cheon Woo-Jin’s actions.

‘Wow, I thought he was just a jerk, but he really cares about me…’

Cheon Woo-Jin was a precious friend to Tae-Sung, who no longer had even a single friend. Of course, Cheon Woo-Jin still looked like a jerk in Tae-Sung’s eyes, especially whenever the former flaunted his money.

“Anyway, food and drinks are on you tonight, okay?” Cheon Woo-Jin asked with eyes full of hope and expectations.

Cheon Woo-Jin was probably a billionaire flushed with cash, but there was something he wanted more than anything in this world that he would be willing to pay for the annual services of eight bodyguards.

It was none other than getting a free meal from the legendary miser, Han Tae-Sung.

However, Han Tae-Sung was an even bigger miser than what Cheon Woo-Jin expected.

Tae-Sung raised a brow and looked at him with a questioning look. “No? We’re going dutch tonight.”

“Hey! Are you a thug?! Can’t you buy dinner when I’m already paying their annual wage?!”

“Did I ever ask you to do that? You wanted to pay for it, right?”

“Argh!”

Then, Tae-Sung passed his credit card to the waitress, who came to the table and said, “I want to pay for what I had tonight.”

***

On that same evening…

‘Time for me to go and see Brunhilde~’

Tae-Sung excitedly skipped to his VR capsule at the thought of seeing Brunhilde.

He logged into BNW and descended onto the continent as the Adventurer and King of Proatine, Siegfried van Proa.

He was planning to sleep together with Brunhilde tonight since he had gotten ample rest in the real world.

‘I’ll hug her while I sleep~ Hehehe…’

However, what awaited him in the game was…

“Your Majesty! Her Majesty the Queen is in danger!”

“W-What?! In danger? Why?!” Siegfried was shocked at Michele’s report and rushed over to the infirmary.

“B-Brunhilde!”

He almost fainted after seeing Brunhilde sleeping soundly yet almost resembling a mummy. She was fine when he left her this morning, but she became what looked like a mummy in just a few hours.