The Solo Challenge

While I briefly ran PvP, RetirementWish, who had finished all his main quests, asked me to go to Iskaria with him, and I began to worry about how to gather a party.

The fastest way was to join a public party, but… I’d be lucky if I didn’t end up complaining of stomach pain from stress-induced gastritis.

[Guild/DontOrderMe: Do you know anyone? I don’t have many friends.]

[Guild/RetirementWish: I cut ties with people when I left my guild, so a bit….]

[Guild/RetirementWish: Can’t the two of us clear it? Do we really need a healer?]

[Guild/DontOrderMe: They say you can solo clear if you chug a lot of potions, but I’ve never tried, so I don’t know.]

[Guild/RetirementWish: I’ll go look at the guide, and the two of us should try going. This is better than a public party.]

PatchNote’s words from the drinking session suddenly came to mind.
‘He said he’d rather solo clear than join a public party.’

I usually preferred party play when running dungeons, so I didn’t have many potions.
I needed to go buy some, though.

I bought a decent stockpile of potions from the trading board and felt a bitter chill, seeing my gold drop instantly.
In reality and in the game, this damned money is never enough, no matter how much I earn.

‘I’ll run Iskaria once, then go back to farming.’

[Guild/RetirementWish: SoonToDie-nim, I have a question. Did you finish all the main quests?]

[Guild/DontOrderMe: ? Yes.]

[Guild/RetirementWish: Even after clearing Iskaria?]

“Hul.”

I hadn’t.
I had only cleared Iskaria, and I hadn’t progressed through the story afterward.

‘Why did I forget?’

I stared blankly at the chat, as if hit on the head with a blunt object, then pressed my temples at RetirementWish’s following words.

[Guild/RetirementWish: Oh, it’s nothing big..]

[Guild/RetirementWish: I don’t care about spoilers, so I just watched the existing content, but if you saw it, well….. lol.lol.]

The fact that Altania was my favorite character was known to all guild members.
And she only appears in the main story!

I banged my head on the desk, agonizing.

Since RetirementWish said that, it must definitely be related to Altania.
‘Why didn’t I check the content afterward sooner?’
‘Was I too preoccupied with the fact that I cleared Iskaria on the first try?’

I wanted to rush to the NPC right away and check the story, but I already had a commitment.
Moreover, hadn’t I been the one to suggest going to Iskaria first?

Of course, since quests don’t go anywhere, it wouldn’t be a problem to watch it after clearing Iskaria.

However, I was worried that I might end up trolling—something I never did—just because I was anxious about the next part of the story.
Tearing at my hair, I managed to type a message.

[Guild/DontOrderMe: Did you check the guide?]

[Guild/RetirementWish: I looked at it, but I’m not sure about itㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

[Guild/DontOrderMe: It’s okay, let’s go right now.]

I may not have money, but I have my pride.
RetirementWish typed anxiously, asking if we were really going as just the two of us.

It was fine. I was confident.

My gear was a +13 Iskaria weapon, and the rest of my gear was all Valhalla.
Plus, I had bought a large amount of potions, so there was no problem.

No matter how hard it was with just the two of us, it couldn’t be worse than a public party.
If I went to a public party, I could die because of the trolls there, but if we went with a small number, at least that wouldn’t happen.

As they say, a clear angle can always be created somehow.
I’ll show them the control I’ve honed through years of hardcore gaming.

Of course, the biggest reason was none other than the clear time.
It takes less time for me to do everything alone than to drag trolls along in a public party.

I wanted to finish quickly and rush to the next quest.
To endure without watching the story related to Altania was a harder task for me than soloing Iskaria.

I sent a party invite to RetirementWish and, after a final gear check, immediately queued for Iskaria of Despair.
I briefly glanced at RetirementWish’s message, saying he was a beginner and would try his best, then took a small deep breath.

One-shot clear.

Definitely one-shot clear.
I was fully capable.

I would do it no matter what.
Because I’m a gamer!

[Party/DontOrderMe: Just try not to die and focus on dealing damage. I’ll take care of the rest.]

[Party/DontOrderMe: There’s no healer, so when area-of-effect damage comes, just chug potions and hold on.]

[Party/DontOrderMe: I’ll be doing the tanking.]

I rushed towards the boss monster with my eyes blazing.
Aggro was drawn, and the boss’s gaze turned towards me.

As soon as the area-of-effect damage hit, I drank a potion, and after tanking the tank-buster with my high HP, I felt that it was manageable.

As long as I didn’t die in one hit, I could cover it with potions.
The debuff could also be removed by entering the swamp without a healer’s help, so it was relatively less burdensome than other dungeons.

[Party/DontOrderMe: Boss damage GO.]

[Party/RetirementWish: What about the mobs?]

[Party/DontOrderMe: I’ll handle them.]

I decided to take on the mobs that needed to be dealt with quickly.

While typing, I used area-of-effect skills to draw the mobs’ aggro and simultaneously pressed the hotkeys for potions repeatedly.
Since there was no healer, one mistake could have a big impact.

I poured all my skills into melting the mobs as quickly as possible, while simultaneously checking the boss’s health threshold.
There was still time.

I was concentrating more intensely than ever before when I was startled by the sudden vibration of my phone, causing me to miss a skill input.

Fortunately, I managed to clear the mobs at the last second, but the combo I was building was broken.
‘Which bastard…’

[Han Do-yoon: Hello.]

[Han Do-yoon: Did I make any mistakes yesterday…]

“You just did! You just did!”

‘You are the troll of this area, you bastard!’

I bit down hard and focused on dealing damage, building up my combo again as I hammered the boss.
Even just one mistake caused a severe loss of damage.

The continuous vibration of my phone was annoying, so when I didn’t need to move, I took my hand off the mouse and threw the phone onto the bed.

‘What does he have so much to say that he keeps sending messages?’
‘Is he taking revenge because I awkwardly left him and his friend at a motel?’
‘Do you think I wanted that?!’

“If even one of you two had been sane, I wouldn’t have left you there!”

At first, I had grabbed them by the collar and asked for their home addresses, but they were too drunk to remember.
But I couldn’t just take strangers home, could I?

‘What would I be trusting by taking them home?’

[Party/RetirementWish: I’m dead.]

[Party/RetirementWish: I’m dyingㅠ]

[Party/RetirementWish: No potionsㅠ Ahㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

The boss’s remaining HP was approximately 15%, and RetirementWish’s character was lying on the floor.
I couldn’t guarantee that I could clear it even if I used everything I had.

‘Is this what a dilemma feels like?’

I gritted my teeth and hammered the keyboard as if to break it.

I would do everything I could, since I didn’t know what the future held.

Hadn’t I cleared it last time in a similar situation?

‘Just you wait until this is over. I’m going to unleash a barrage of curses.’

(4)

I hammered the keyboard with all my might, fueled by my rage toward PatchNote.
‘That damn bastard.’

As before, even if I hit the keyboard hard, it wouldn’t make the character stronger.

It was just that I was so focused that I naturally put force into it.

Perhaps because I pressed too hard, one of the keys malfunctioned, nearly breaking my combo.

My heart tightened.

[Party/RetirementWish: ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

[Party/RetirementWish: That was so closeㅠ If only I hadn’t died earlyㅠㅠ]

[Party/DontOrderMe: It’s not your fault.]

[Party/DontOrderMe: You did well for a beginner.]

[Party/DontOrderMe: I need to make a call for a moment.]

Surviving that long without a healer was a good performance.

Besides, wasn’t he a beginner?

The problem lay elsewhere.

I took a quiet deep breath and picked up my phone.

‘Not using voice chat was a stroke of genius.’

If I had turned on the microphone, the curses I had spat out would have gone straight into RetirementWish’s ears.

I was so relieved that emotion wasn’t conveyed through text.

I pressed my temples, looking at the pile of unread messages, wondering what he had so much to say.

I had to be patient.

PatchNote didn’t have clairvoyance, so he wouldn’t have known what I was doing, would he?

He probably just woke up in a motel and wondered what had happened.

Thinking that way made the rage, which had been boiling like lava, subside a little.

[You]

[Do you want to die?]