AMRTB 04

The Master Who Returned to Bronze, Episode 004

“Dimension Arena, enter.”

Whoosh!

The moment he confirmed his Awakening, Shinhyuk immediately entered the Dimension Arena. There, he could see numerous people, all either extremely tense or looking dazed.

“The waiting room. I’ve been here so many times it’s boring.”

The game start waiting room. Commonly called the waiting room, it was a place where participants were gathered before entering a game. The system was such that after all participants gathered, the game would start shortly thereafter.

“The Placement Exam is always a 100-player Battle royale.”

While Dimension Arena games came in various types, the Placement Exam was unconditionally a 100-player Battle royale. Of course, since other participants knew this too, it wasn’t particularly important information, but it didn’t matter anyway.

However, soon, a cry of despair echoed through the waiting room.

“Ah, damn it! It’s Lee Ju-ho!”
“What? Why is Lee Ju-ho in my waiting room of all places…?”
“We’re done for. Done for…”
“…Is Lee Ju-ho here?”

It was because the presence of Lee Ju-ho, the eldest son of the Oseong Guild Master, had been confirmed in the waiting room. Seeing the atmosphere in the waiting room become as if a natural disaster had struck, Shin-hyuk let out a laugh.

“Just as expected. Even this is the same.”

In the past, Shin-hyuk had also been assigned to the same waiting room as Jooho. And unlike Shin-hyuk, who had languished in the lower ranks, Jooho had achieved 1st place through active teaming with other players and was placed in Silver 4. As such, unlike others, Shin-hyuk was not surprised by the news of Jooho

But there was a difference from the past.

“Is Lee Jooho coming this way?”
“Huh? Why all of a sudden?”

It was because Jooho was walking straight toward where Shin-hyuk was. Jooho approaching with a group of followers, looked at Shin-hyuk.

“You did something amusing, I hear.”
“What are you talking about?”
“…What am I talking about? You put your worthless name where stories about me should have been plastered?”
“Ah, you mean that?”

Choi Cheol-ho had kept his promise. Thanks to that, all day on December 31st, stories about Shin-hyuk were on TV, news, newspapers—everywhere. The rebellion of the student called a useless scrub. A pearl in muddy water, etc. With such varied headlines plastered everywhere, the O-seong Group side, which had been responding moderately, was completely overwhelmed without a chance to fight back.

Looking at Jooho, who was pinpointing that fact, Shin-hyuk shrugged.

“It was natural, so what’s the problem?”
“Natural… you say? A guy whose predicted tier was Bronze all three years of high school… a useless scrub like you is more remarkable than me?”
“Yes.”
“…Ugh! Fine, we’ll see. But do you really think you can? My friends and I will be in the same game as you.”
“You’ll know if you wait and see.”

Shin-hyuk didn’t even blink at Joohoo’s threat, implying he would interfere through teaming. Ju-ho, who had been looking at Shin-hyuk with disbelief, was only briefly taken aback.

“Is that so?”
“…?”
“To anyone who kills this bastard in the game, I will give 1 billion won in cash outside, or an item or elixir of equivalent value!”
“Huh.”

At Joohoo’s shout, his lips curled into a smirk, all the players gathered in the waiting room flinched. 1 billion won. Money an ordinary person couldn’t save in a lifetime. Money even the moderately wealthy couldn’t spend easily. At the promise to give such money just for catching Shin-hyuk, the players’ gazes changed.

“Who is he?”
“That’s him. That useless scrub from Shinwa High School.”
“Ah, the one who handles a lot but can’t do anything properly, right?”
“Come to think of it, articles about him were all over the place yesterday…”
“He’s still from Shinwa Group, even if he’s the discarded son, huh?”
“Good, screw the Placement Exam. I’ll just catch him.”
“Me too. Catching him alone would turn my life around!”

Since they were players preparing for this, there were hardly any students who didn’t know of Shin-hyuk’s existence. And because they knew how weak Shin-hyuk was, the players’ eyes lit up.

Watching the players’ reactions, Jooho smirked.

“Good luck taking your Placement Exam while being chased by hyenas. Useless scrub?”

Watching Ju-ho and his group disappear with a dismissive wave, Shin-hyuk let out a soft chuckle.

“This is amusing.”

Though he had become the target of 99 players, Shin-hyeok didn’t care.

“What was the reward for the most kills in a Placement Exam again?”

Because he intended to use this too as stepping stones for his path forward. But his thoughts didn’t last long.

[The game will now begin!]
“It’s starting.”

The Placement Exam, the 100-player Battle royale, was now beginning.

Whoosh!

With a feeling akin to teleportation, Shin-hyeok had moved somewhere.

“Inside a house. The starting point.”

The 100-player Battle Royal took place on a vast island. One could farm items from houses and buildings located here and there, and use those farmed items or find an exit to bring them back to reality. As such, originally, a 100-player Battle royale was a place to avoid combat as much as possible, farm as much as one could, and find an exit.

But now it was the Placement Exam. It was full of people who, rather than thinking about what to bring back to reality, were fully prepared to pour out everything they had brought from reality. In such a place, not only was he thrown in alone, but he also had to deal with hyenas targeting the bounty on his head. Literally, the whole world was his enemy.

“A bandage, a healing potion, and a bow? Not bad.”

However, Shin-hyeok, the one placed in this horrifying situation, was quite composed. Calmly farming the items in the house, Shin-hyeok immediately surveyed his surroundings.

Rustle—

‘One on the left.’

At the sound, Shin-hyeok immediately drew the bowstring and released it.

Twang— Thud!

“Ugh!”
[Choi Shin-hyeok-> Kim Geon]

That was the end. Approaching the player who fell with a death rattle, Shin-hyeok naturally looted the fallen player’s items.

“A healing potion and a sword. I don’t need the sword since I have one.”

Since items brought from reality would return to reality even upon death, only farmed items could be taken. Of course, there were games where even items brought from reality could be stolen, but at least the 100-player Battle Royal wasn’t one of them.

Finishing the looting and casually discarding the unneeded sword on the ground, Shin-hyuk lightly left the spot.

“Starting with a bow is good.”

With 99 enemies, the method Shin-hyeok could choose was to systematically eliminate them one by one. Since a bow was best for that, Shin-hyeok, holding the supply bow, melted into the forest.

Four players were walking through a sparsely populated forest. They moved swiftly toward a specific part of the forest without even taking basic cover. The reason was simple.

“Are you sure he’s here?”
“I told you, yes. I checked Choi Shin-hyeok location with a Position Tracker.”
“But we’re really going to split it N-ways, right?”
“Yeah. Even if just the four of us split it, it’s a whopping 250 million each! We’re rich now!”

Position Tracker. A consumable item that occasionally appeared, allowing one to know a specific player’s location. It was an item that could be sold for a pretty high price if brought to reality, but now they were blinded by the promise of 1 billion won.

It was right then.

“I see something over there!”
“Be quiet and move!”

Discovering something hiding somewhere in the forest, they immediately got excited. Though noisy, their movements were incredibly swift. It was only natural, as they too had put in years of grueling effort to become Players. The moment they instantly surrounded the hiding object—

“Get him!”

The player who had found the Position Tracker and was the group’s leader shouted. At his shout, the other three players also charged toward the object and swung their weapons.

Slash!

“I hit him!”

Seeing his comrade rejoicing at the heavy feel of the hit, the leader player broke into a broad smile. At that moment—

Twang— Thud!

[Choi Shin-hyeok -> Lee Do-hyun]

An arrow flew and lodged itself in the leader player’s head.

“…Dohyun!”
“W-where was it shot from?”
“We caught this guy! Killing us won’t change anything!”

They shouted in confusion at the sudden ambush. But that changed nothing.

“…Wait, look at the kill log. It’s Choi Shin-hyeok! Choi Shin-hyeok shot us!”
“Th-then what’s this?”
“Damn it, it’s a decoy!”

The one who had ambushed them was none other than their target, Shin-hyeok. Decoy. An item obtainable with rare probability, similar to the Position Tracker. Its effect was simple: it created a dummy figure identical to the user. What they had dealt with was precisely that dummy figure. And the moment they failed in their ambush and were instead ambushed themselves, their fate was sealed.

Twang-twang-twang— Thud-thud-thud!

[Choi Shin-hyeok -> Baek Geon-woo]
[Choi Shin-hyeok -> Mun Kyung-sik]
[Choi Shin-hyeok -> Han Hyeong-seok]

Three arrows pierced the heads of the three players. Perfect archery without a single error. The status window reacted to this.

[Skill: Archery[C] acquired.]
“C… Not bad.”

Archery[C]. In terms of tier, it was archery effective around the Silver level. However, considering that a kitchen knife can be a weapon depending on whether a housewife or a swordsman wields it, it had to be evaluated at least one tier higher. Especially since, upon acquiring the skill, correction values for archery began to apply, making it even more so.

Having examined his new skill and finished looting the corpses of the dead, Shin-hyuk once again hid his body in the forest.

Jiiing—

The magnetic field was shrinking. As the magnetic field enveloping the entire island shrank, surviving players had to move inward to avoid it. Shinhyeok couldn’t escape this either.

Jiik-jik-

Since he couldn’t handle everything with just ambushes,Shinhyeok had no choice but to engage in combat and ended up receiving a wound or two.

‘My physical stats are too low, it’s painful.’

A situation where his body couldn’t keep up with his mind’s thoughts. Having such miscellaneous thoughts, he bandaged his wound and drank a healing potion.

“The real combat will start in earnest now.”

Preparing to avoid the magnetic field, Shinhyeokk pondered the future battle situation. Shinhyeok had assassinated or ambushed nearly 30 players alone. While he was tired from that, since he had taken all the items they farmed, it was merely a secondary issue. But from now on, combat would begin in earnest. It meant he couldn’t easily handle enemies with ambushes or take out weakened foes like before. Nevertheless, Shinhyeok’s face was utterly serene.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I just need to increase my allies.”

Looking for allies where there were none might make one think Shinhyeok was crazy, but to Shinhyeok’s eyes, it wasn’t a place with no one.

“Arise.”

The corpses. There were the corpses of those Shinhyeok had killed so far. And with Shinhyeok’s single word, mana flowed into them, and they rose again as Skeletons.

[Skill: Necromancy[C] acquired.]

Necromancy, commanding the dead. The moment it was imprinted on Shinhyeok’s skill window, precisely 32 Skeletons advanced toward the center of the island alongside Shin-hyuk.

It was time to see the end of the Placement Exam.