Hard Carry Support

Hyun checked Ain\'s reaction.

After saying all that, he thought it was a little bit too much.

Wasn\'t he using her as if she were a slave…? He was worried Ain would go on strike.

"Woah…"

Unlike what he thought, Ain\'s eyes shone after she heard his plan.

Hyun tried to leave the guilt behind and started to move forward with the plan.

"Then, let\'s go."

[\'Ain\' has joined the party!]

Hyun and Ain looked at the 12 sculptures within the candlelit palace.

To unlock the real difficulty, they had to clear all of the easy, normal, and hard quests.

They did them one by one while skipping all of the stories.

«Possession»!

The cooldowns of the skills were applied individually in each episode.

Basically, by using Louise\'s wind, they could go through most of the places very fast.

It was something he’d figured out while doing the History Quests alone the day before. If he didn\'t know that, he wouldn\'t have been able to clear the \'Kaidan Castle Invasion\' quest in hard difficulty.

「Use the ultimate attack.」

「Is that okay?」

「The cooldown times here work separately.」

Fwoosh!

Flames covered Ain\'s body, but instead of the flames being pitch-black, they looked like normal flames thanks to the effect he’d obtained after earning the ‘Darkness’s Shadow’ title.

- Now, even while you have Demonic Energy, the skills don\'t lose their colors. (On/Off possible)

As the red beast\'s claws danced in all directions, the opponents were covered in flames and melted down.

They were opponents that they could kill with just one attack, so wouldn\'t it be better to take that opportunity to cause as much damage as possible?

Ain had shown for the past two hours how an Elemental Berserker was supposed to look.

She still wasn\'t used to controlling Louise\'s wind. So she hit the walls occasionally as they went, but even so, she seemed to be having fun.

All of the opponents within the 100~200 level range died from the «Black Wind» and «Efreet\'s Claws».

It was as if they were grains of sand being swept away by the waves.

Hyun started to wonder about something as he watched Ain hunting.

Except for users, had they fought against monsters with lower levels than them?

When he thought about it, they had never faced monsters that were weaker than them. Most of the enemies they’d fought against had better specs than them.

\'Even in Asra, there weren\'t many cases when such hardcore play was needed.\'

Time passed quickly, and before they noticed, they only had the real difficulty quests left.

Hyun made up his mind after looking at the status window in front of him.

\'It starts now.\'

Just showing people them clearing the hard difficulty may have been enough to get a positive reaction from users, but Hyun always tried to do the best he could. He wouldn\'t be satisfied if he did things half-heartedly.

「Leave everything to me from now on.」

「What about me?」

「I\'ll call you if I need help.」

For a normal user, it was a way to learn about and follow history, but to Hyun and Ain, it was like revisiting what they\'d gone through.

"Order by time."

Whish! As Hyun mumbled with Ain\'s voice, the sculptures started to move and change places.

‘The Day Darkness met her Shadow’ showed up first.

As he touched the sculpture, he got the following message.

(Suggested Members: 1, Max Members: 4)

[You can\'t enter the real difficulty because you\'ve passed the number of suggested members!]

[The Last Gatekeeper, Betty]

[Devil\'s Marble]

[The Giant\'s Forest Where a Heavenly Being Lives]

[The Dying Candles of Iluna]

[Iluna Crash Landing!]

[One Heavenly Being and One Priestess]

[From the End of Kaidan Castle]

[The Holy Knight of the Chainsword]

[Ceremony Offer to Darkness]

Lattice’s History Quest, \'The Dying Candles of Iluna,\' also had a suggested number of one, so Hyun decided to do it later.

They also couldn\'t do Kaidan Castle, so there were eight episodes in total he could do with Ain.

From then on, he would use Ain\'s body to film the videos.

Was it going to improve the speed at which users caught up to them? Of course, he was worrying about things like that.

After all, he\'d been feeling anxious because of that for a few hours, but he soon changed his perspective.

\'These are eventually going to be beaten.\'

There were millions of users in Asrian, and users had unlimited potential, so new videos using strategies he couldn\'t think of would probably come out.

He would rather upload it first and obtain benefits from it before someone else did.

The idea was to make a video using techniques and strategies everyone could copy and follow.

\'I’d rather not use any difficult moves.\'

From the real difficulty onward, he planned to do the full story.

Translator - Daniel Shin

Proofreader - ilafy

* * *

He would use basic techniques without doing any unnecessary movements.

He was going to avoid using too specialized skills like «Prepared to Die», «Possession», and «Sword of Darkness» on purpose.

He also wasn\'t going to use «Acceleration» or «Invisible>. unless it was absolutely necessary.

Hyun had chosen four active skills: «Efreet\'s Claws» (Attack), «Shadow Shield» (Defense), «Wind Barrier» (Utility), and «Steps of the Incarnate» (Movement).

On top of that, if he used the Support\'s passive skills, he would probably be able to clear the real-difficulty quests without using any high-difficulty skills.

「Amazing,」 Ain mumbled while watching Hyun fight using only basic movements.

「What?」

「Hyun, I think that you\'ve gotten better compared to before.」

「Before? When?」

「When we started playing Asrian.」

「Is there anything worthy of being called skillful? I\'m just using basic moves right now.」Hyun asked back after thinking about it for a short while.

「That\'s what\'s amazing. At first glance, it might not look like too much… but it kind of looks fancy.」

「Haha. What does that mean?」

Hyun just laughed because he couldn\'t understand Ain\'s words.

Among the real difficulty episodes, there were many he hadn\'t done with Ain, such as when he\'d infiltrated the pitch-black palace with TarrTarr and activated the Devil\'s Marble, or when he\'d run through the plains of Iluna with Salon.

As for the one that was most recent, the quest that was about blocking the Heavens in the Darkness\'s Land, Ain was protecting the Altar, so it was as if she hadn\'t been there.

「History Quests… I wonder who made these.」

「Hmm?」

「The one who created them is probably a genius.」

Ain\'s eyes shone while doing the episodes she hadn\'t done before.

She was having fun doing the pieces of the past she hadn\'t been able to take part in.

「I\'m «Assimilated» to the past Hyun at the moment!」

「What does that mean?」

Even the quests they\'d done in the past weren\'t exactly the same as before.

For example, in the quest that was about hunting Betty, they didn’t have Practice or Jini to help.

Louise and Radiette were also changed, so it felt different.

Clearing up eight episodes of the real difficulty required a lot of time.

Hyun was worried Ain would get bored…

\'I\'m glad she is having fun.\'

Ain\'s feelings he\'d read through «Assimilation» were of interest, fun, and many other positive emotions.

That meant she was enjoying the moment.

Finally…

[You\'ve cleared the real difficulty of the quest \'The Holy Knight of the Chainsword\'!]

[You\'ve gained 5 skill points as a reward!]

"Ugh…"

Back in the candlelit palace, Ain collapsed to the ground as soon as «Assimilation» was dismissed.

"Tsk. It took more time than expected."

It took them 14 hours.

Time spent eating wasn’t a problem. He and Ain could finish eating in 10 minutes, but there were some episodes they weren\'t able to clear in a single go, so it took them more time than expected to finish them all.

Especially the \'Holy Knight of the Chainsword\' episode that took them five tries to just barely complete.

\'It\'s hard to concentrate in practice as much as in the real battle.\'

The most difficult quests required them to use all of their skills and also Ain\'s help. That\'s why Ain had used a lot of her mental capabilities and was exhausted.

"What\'s your tiredness level?"

"88…"

Hyun checked his tiredness level and saw that it was at 73.

It seemed like Ain definitely got tired quicker than him.

Ain\'s tiredness level had barely ever passed 80, so he was thankful to her since she\'d followed such a hard regime without complaining that much.

"It\'s 3 am… Ain, you should be sleeping if you plan on making it to school."

"What about you?"

"I have a few things to do," Hyun mumbled while looking at the 12 sculptures.

"Order by suggested members."

Whish. Two sculptures appeared in front of him.

[The Day Darkness Met Her Shadow], and [The Dying Candles of Iluna] both had a suggested member of one.

You couldn\'t beat the real difficulty episodes with more than the suggested members, so those were episodes he couldn\'t do with Ain.

\'I guess I\'ll have to do these again.\'

When they first created the YouTube channel, they\'d talked about him appearing on camera.

"I don\'t care about uploading videos… but I don\'t want Hyun to appear instead." Ain had said. He more or less understood why she\'d said that.

Taking that into consideration, he had something he wanted to ask of Ain.

"Ain…"

"Hmm?"

"Before you go to sleep, let me use your body as I want."

"Wh-what…? What do you mean?"

Ain reacted in surprise after hearing a question that could perfectly be misunderstood, but Hyun\'s intentions were far from what Ain was thinking.

Hyun had tested the possibilities of his skills from level 50 onward.

How far could he take «Assimilation»?

For example, could they do a one-on-one duel while «Assimilation» was active?

[A party of 2 can\'t enter!]

At first, he thought it was impossible.

Even while «Assimilated» to Ain, teleportation circles made them pay the price for two.

The circle probably counted the number of souls, but Hyun managed to find exploits in the system.

He could exploit it by making the other person change to rest mode!

"You know. Just like when we teleport together, I\'m asking you to change into rest mode."

A user in rest mode wasn\'t different from an empty, soulless body.

If the target of «Assimilation» changed to rest mode, they could teleport and only pay the price of a single person.

Rest mode left people exposed, so it wasn’t something that could be casually done, but with «Assimilation», that wasn\'t a problem.

After Hyun finished explaining, Ain smiled mischievously and opened her mouth.

"Hyun, you\'re brave. What are you planning to do while I\'m not here…? Don\'t tell me…?!"

"Stop thinking about things like that. I will record everything from start to finish if you aren\'t sure."

It was the first time he\'d asked Ain for something like that, but there was nothing else he could do about it.

Leaving aside the fact that the damage output of the Elemental Berserker was too high, its skill combinations were quite good in terms of base skills.

To make a video with a strategy everyone could copy, there was nothing like using Ain\'s character.

More than that, wasn\'t it she who\'d asked him to record only when he was «Assimilated» into her?

"Okay. I\'ve removed the adult filter."

"Huh…? There\'s no need to…"

Ain\'s smile deepened after she said she\'d eliminated a filter she didn\'t need to.

Before she could say anything else, Hyun quickly changed topics and stopped Ain from saying anything mischievous.

He just wanted her to rest while he finished the remaining episodes.

[Ain has changed to rest mode!]

Hyun took complete control of her body.

He couldn\'t feel anything through «Assimilation» anymore.

Hyun finished the remaining two episodes in that state.

One was repeating what he\'d already done the day before, but the other one was new.

[The Dying Candles of Iluna]

When the second quest began, Hyun was standing in the middle of a plain with a snowstorm raging around him.

\'It… Isn\'t cold.\'

Whish- Was it because of the Heavenly Being title? Even though he was in the middle of a huge snowstorm, he just felt refreshed.

As he waited with both arms open, a message window soon appeared in front of him.