Chapter 96

Royal Roader on My Own – Chapter 96: Dragon Fear (1)

[The birth of a super rookie who will bring forth the golden age of Korean Golf!]

[Kang Hwi Ram scored 12 under par today. Along with his 14 under par yesterday, he created a new record for lowest strokes in both the 18 and 36 hole for the KPGA.]

[We’ve seen it happen in the LPGA, so is it finally the age of Korean Golfers in the PGA as well?]

Portal sites, newspapers, satellite tv and cable tv, everything was discussing my new record.

The thing that I enjoyed even more was that each time they discussed my achievement, they took the time to describe the Dandelion School in detail.

Of course it was because I had made it a condition for an interview. I gave them a lot of information about the Dandelion School and made the deal to interview with them only if they shared all of the details in the articles.

The Golden Dragon Group played a big part as well. They put their full PR team to work to promote me. Since they invested a ton of money on me, I guess they made up their mind to suck out what they can.

[The Golden Dragon Group has completed a main sponsor contract with Super Rookie Kang Hwi Ram.]

[Kang Hwi Ram donates all of the contract money from Golden Dragon Group to the Dandelion School.]

[Dandelion has received a 2 billion won donation for Kang Hwi Ram, who recorded a new record for the lowest amount of strokes. They will receive a 500 million won donation every time he records a new record.]

There were a lot of articles that just introduced the Dandelion School without making a deal with me as well.

Actually, it would be better to say people went to the portal sites to find information on the Dandelion School. What kind of school it was, how it was run, things like that.

They also shared the information they found with other people. As I expected, the aspect that caught fire was the fact that they were completely transparent about their finances.

Maybe that was the reason, but the donations section, which was quiet after the screen golf competition, started to blow up again.

It also could not be compared to the last time. The majority were only between 1,000 won and 100,000 won, but it totaled to over 100 million won in less than an hour.

That was not the end.

We also had an explosion of students wanting to attend. They wanted to know how they could apply for the Dandelion Cooking School.

That was why we needed to create a pop-up window on the Dandelion homepage.

[The Dandelion Cooking School selects new students every January.

Students who wish to attend should prepare and submit the application next January.

We will share the selection criteria in the future.]

Things seemed to be going well. Looking at the articles made me just start to smile.

Riiiiiing- Riiiiiiing-

Another call. My phone has been blowing up lately. Even people who never contact me have been contacting me.

Who could it be this time?

I checked my phone, but did not know the number. Even still, I could kind of tell who it was.

‘It must be the Golden Dragon Group PR team again!’

They’ve been calling me over and over for the last few days.

The reason was simple. They wanted to increase the sponsor contract that I shortened to 6 months to 5 years.

Of course, I immediately declined it. It wasn’t like Hwang Joon Yul personally called me or anything.

That was why I just told them that I will discuss the matter after the 6 month contract was completed before hanging up.

But they just kept on calling to the point that I needed to block their number. Once I did that, they just started to call with new numbers.

I clicked the decline call button. I had no reason to answer a number I didn’t know.

But a few moments later, I got another call.

“Goddamn these people.”

I picked up my phone with the intention of turning the power off.

But the caller was different this time.

It was Kang Sung Ho. My Santa Claus like friend who only has good news for me.

“Hey Sung Ho.”

–        Congratulations, Boss-nim. You are really amazing.

“Punk, you’re really good with the business life to know how to suck up like that.”

–        I mean it. I am really proud to be working with someone like Boss-nim. But my friends won’t believe me no matter how much I tell them. Please buy my friends a meal at some point. I don’t think they’ll believe me otherwise.

“Haha. Now that you mention it, it has been a while since I bought our Sung Ho a meal. Let’s make some time soon.”

–        Also, you said to look for files related to Golan Park, right?

I was planning on leaving Golan Park and heading to the Dwarf Village after reaching around level 250. I expected it to take at least two years.

But in less than 8 months, I was already close to level 300.

It was because of the Demon Cave Clearing Squad.

Even if Golan Park has a lot of monsters and is known as the mecca of leveling up, it could not measure up to a Demon Cave. You would need to run around Golan Park for about a month to meet the same amount of monsters you meet in a day in a Demon Cave.

Of course, it is that much more dangerous as well. I faced many near death situations.

Hundreds of Demon Cave Clearing Squad members died as well. I couldn’t protect all of their lives.

Either way, it was now time to head to the Dwarf Village.

I still haven’t collected all of the map pieces related to the Church of the Sun, but that was the Athena Temple’s responsibility. There was no reason for me to rush it. Shouldn’t I do my own things as well?

That was why I ordered the search.

Since Golan Park was the mecca of leveling up, there should be a lot of really good quests.

“Did you find anything good?”

–        There’s so much that searching through is hard. But I saw something Boss-nim mentioned last time so I called.

“What is it?”

–        DIdn’t you tell me to look for the Shadow Wolf if I had time?

I could feel my heart sink.

“Shadow Wolf? Did you really find it?”

–        Yes. There are a couple of them hiding in Golan Park. I organized the related information, should I send it to you now? Or should I wait to organize it with the other information?

There was no need to stall.

Today was the day I return to Royal Roader anyways. I will then immediately start hunting monsters.

I guess I can head to Golan Park as soon as I finish clearing this Demon Cave.

“Send it now.”

–        I understand. And please buy me a meal. Hehe.

“I will make some time within a week. Gather all of your friends and try to empty my wallet.”

–        Thank you CEO-nim. I will send you the file within 5 minutes.

I received an e-mail not long after finishing the call.

I quickly checked it. I then went to the original documents to look at the information related to the Shadow Wolf.

I was smiling like a madman.

The information was pretty detailed. Where they live, what their strengths and weaknesses were, and even things like what to look out for and how to easily hunt them. They were all there.

“Perfect. I just need to catch them now!”

***

Grrrrroooooooowl –

Even though it was at least 500m away, the roar was so clear it sounded like it was right next to us.

‘Dragon Fear!’

It is one of the Bone Dragon’s strongest attacks. Just this roar alone is enough to instill fear in his enemies.

Even I felt myself flinching and my movement slowing down significantly under the Dragon Fear.

There’s more.

Dragon Fear is more of a controlling mechanism than an attack. It overwhelms the nearby weak monsters with fear and makes them move according to its will.

A battle against a dragon-type monster is not a battle against a single dragon. It is a war against a brigade of monsters surrounding the dragon.

It was that type of skill that made their level much higher than their individual strength, and the reason it was hard to hunt them even with them having such a critical weakness.

“I absolutely cannot go in there.”

“Holy shit, my legs won’t move.”

The entire clearing squad was affected by the Dragon Fear. Each of them started to curl up in fear.

I was no different. It ward hard to get myself back up even though I knew this fear was not real.

Blocking your ears did not do anything. The Dragon Fear is a fear you feel with your entire body.

It wasn’t enough to completely knock me down like it did to the soldiers, but I could still easily pee my pants.

‘What should I do?’

Our preparations were done. We killed most of the monsters and just need to defeat the Bone Dragon’s security brigade.

In order to do that, we need to enter the hall.

But the members would no move no matter how much I tried to persuade them.

At that moment, Shione suddenly put her lips to my ear and started to whisper. It was in a quiet voice that nobody else could hear.

“I will try something. Please let me know when you are ready.”

‘Just what is she……?’

I did not say anything and just moved my lips to ask.

Shione was very observant and quick-minded. We were able to get our message across just like that.

“I will remove their fear.”

I suddenly remembered Shione’s ability.

‘Mind Control!’

Shione lightly nodded her head.

Why didn’t I think of that?

But there are over 80 clearing squad members. We did not even lose 20 of them all the way here.

‘Is Mind Control possible with this many people?’

Shione read my lips and put her lips close to my ears once more. It felt like a fragrant air blowing through my ear every time she did that.

“I think it will be possible to do just once. But it will not last long. After that, I will not be able to use any magic.”

So she will put all of her effort to make it happen.

We had no other choice right now. We can’t just sit here cradling ourselves forever. It wasn’t like  any other method to overcome the Dragon Fear would suddenly appear.

The only thing I was thankful for was the fact that the Dragon Fear had a very long cooldown time. After using it once, it takes a minimum of 10 minutes to use it again.

We just need to use that time wisely.

“Let’s head close to the hall first. They won’t come out of the hall anyways.”

I stood up first.

Shione followed after me.

“Yes, let’s go.”

Shione’s two legs were shaking nonstop.

Shione was affected by the Dragon Fear as well. She was just using her strong mental strength to resist.

Seeing Shione getting up like that made the clearing squad members seem stupid to me.

They were not prisoners. Once Shione and I successfully cleared a Demon Cave, the number of volunteers exploded. Each of them had to compete against others to be selected for this. Only about a third of the volunteers made it in.

But they were bigger cowards than Shione.

“Let’s go. Are you all deaf?”

The clearing squad members’ shoulders started to shake. All of them put their fingers to their lips as if telling me to be quiet.

“Shhhh!”

Some of them looked toward the hall with scared expressions. Funny, since it is over 500m away and they shouldn’t be able to see anything.

Stupid idiots.

“If they were the type to come out because I yelled, I would have already called them out to finish the hunt. All that is left is for us to go in.”

“Go in there?”

“Absolutely not! I can’t do it!”

Shione looked toward me. She was asking whether right now was the right time to try her mind control.

She told me that she could only do it once. If that is the case, I need to calculate the Dragon Fear’s cooldown time before deciding when to use it.

‘Not yet.’

I silently shook my head. Instead, I looked toward Bowchi who was in front of me. Bowchi was a member who had been proudly talking about his four year old daughter Susan throughout the journey.

“I wonder how much Susan will be longing for her dad right now.”

As soon as the name ‘Susan’ came out, Bowchi’s shoulders flinched.

“I’m sure she’s asking every night when daddy will be back. Then sister-in-law [1] will probably console her and say just one more night. But Susan will wake up and her daddy will still not be back. Don’t you want to go home and give Susan a hug?”

“……Susan.”

“Jones. How long do you plan on leaving your mother alone? Think about how much trouble she must be having right now.”

“……Mother.”

“Pedro. You said you wanted to be a proud father. Is this the appearance of a proud father?”

The people gathered here were all Demon Cave Clearing Squad members. They were not prisoners who were forced to come here like last time. Each of them had their own situation and put their lives on the line to change their lives around.

The majority of their situations revolved around family.

Son, daughter, mother, wife!

They wanted to sacrifice themselves to protect their family. They wanted to be a son, father, husband that their families can feel proud about. That was why they had put their lives on the line to come into the Demon Cave.

That alone was enough to say they were courageous people.

The Dragon Fear was just hiding that courage right now.

But lightly touching on their families’ memories seemed to have let that courage lift its head again.

The fear slowly disappeared from the members’ eyes.

Some of them started to tear up as well.

“Stupid. What the hell am I doing as a father when my daughter is suffering as she waits for me back home?”

“I’m sorry Mother. I will return home soon.”

Fear was contagious, but so was courage. As some of them started to become more courageous, the others started to clench their fists as well.

“Just sitting here will not solve anything.”

“Whether it becomes porridge or rice, we need to give it a go.” [2]

End

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[1] Not real sister-in-law, just a term Koreans use

[2] I’d say best comparison would be “You won’t know unless you try.”

I’m back from my honeymoon! I thought I had posted a message on the website but it seems I did not…:3 My bad.

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Translator : Miraclerifle

Proofreader : Borderline Masochist