Can't Control Be Bought With Money? 17 - Hyacinth in Bloom

Chapter 17

“Ah, I died.”

“The boss?”

“No, me……”

“Oh.”

Girmu was still in the dungeon he had gone to practice alone. Shin Wooseok comforted him saying it was okay and moved his character to the map where Girmu was.

Girmu, who had been kicked out of the dungeon, was already sitting by a campfire he had lit.

“It’s hard to avoid the third pattern of this dungeon boss.”

“Skillfully… no, I’ll show you how when we go together next time.”

“Um, I’d like to study more and try again on my own first……”

Girmu said carefully while using the greeting motion.

The Girmu that Shin Wooseok had observed so far had a fair amount of competitive spirit and considerable curiosity. And even more impressive than those were his scholarly enthusiasm and self-reliance.

He was quick to apologize when he made mistakes and wasn’t embarrassed about his eagerness to learn. When he didn’t know something, he didn’t try to gloss over it subtly but asked questions to master it quickly. And when he achieved a goal, he wasn’t just absorbed in his own sense of accomplishment but never forgot to express his gratitude.

Regardless of his skill level, Girmu was a decent person as a user. Though he lacked confidence in himself, his control wasn’t at such a terrible level either.

To Shin Wooseok, who had seen countless users with terrible personalities proportional to their rock-bottom skills, Girmu was quite decent. And now he wasn’t just relying on his guidance but wanted to study more on his own before learning? There was no reason to stop him.

“Then let’s go somewhere else today.”

But why did he feel a sense of disappointment? When such an excellent student with a great attitude toward learning was even volunteering to study more on his own.

“Good. I’ll just go brew some coffee real quick then.”

“Okay, see you soon.”

When Girmu’s microphone turned off for a moment, Shin Wooseok’s eyes narrowed as he rested his chin on his hand while looking at the screen. Somehow, he thought he understood why his mind was buzzing.

‘He’s probably going to practice while watching tutorial videos anyway.’

He immediately opened the internet and accessed MiTube, the popular video upload site. Then he searched for tutorial videos of the dungeon Girmu had visited.

After skimming through videos focused on the perspective of the same class as Girmu, Shin Wooseok soon became displeased.

‘I could do better than this.’

Shin Wooseok, who had considerable pride in his control skills even if he didn’t boast about being a top-ranked player or veteran, felt a strange sense of competitiveness. He could confidently say that it would be much better for him to teach directly than these mediocre tutorial videos.

‘But he seems to want to learn on his own…’

What to do? As Shin Wooseok was contemplating with his arms crossed, a brilliant idea flashed through his mind. Meanwhile, a notification appeared indicating that Girmu had turned on his microphone, probably having returned to his seat.

“Girmu-nim.”

“Yes?”

“When are you planning to practice this dungeon again?”

“Um… since I’ll probably have to log off soon after going to another dungeon with you today, maybe tomorrow or the day after?”

While listening to Girmu’s voice, Shin Wooseok recalled his old, dusty MiTube account and completed the login. It was an account he had used to upload videos occasionally before his military enlistment, but the last video upload date was 2 years ago.

‘Then I’ll record tonight, have it edited, and the timing should work out fine.’

The number of subscribers had increased by tens of thousands since before his enlistment, but Shin Wooseok didn’t notice this fact as he finished his planning.

If there’s no excellent learning material for an excellent student, then an excellent teacher just needs to create custom materials.

Thus, the next day at lunch, a post written by Sinu was uploaded to the Strategy & Tips board on SOG’s homepage, causing quite a stir.

[Sinu] Ashen Palace – Normal Mode Guide (Dragon Slayer perspective)

(MiTube link)

Comments (99+)

EmptyStudent: ?

ChopItsHeadOffAllTheWayToJoseon: ????????????

BreakinItAgain: Bro what are you doing??????????????????

tkffu: Is this an impersonator?

└ FragmentedHandsome: Checked the link and doesn’t seem like it; his previous videos are still there with the same timestamps and view counts

└ NotMyJobYouDoIt: It’s scarier that it’s NOT an impersonator ㄷㄷㄷ;;

……(omitted)……

└ BuffDragonKnightPlease: The Grace guild master commented below, must be real

└ ChatBan: But how would anyone impersonate that controlㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ DragonBro90: Nothing’s impossible; Ashen Palace came out so long ago;

└ Yalladin: ? Did you see the movement at 10:31? When there was a glitch and the motion didn’t even show, people flamed the Dragon Fighter for slow reaction, but he canceled the Dragon Fist>Wing combo>moved outside the AoE to avoid it???? You’ve never played Dragon Slayer

└ Chori: Insane judgment ㅆㅅㅌㅊ

└ OjiSang: No no it’s Sinu’s control that can predict even game glitches lolㅋㅋㅋㅋ Glitches in this trash game classㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ SogOo: Sog Oo….. (A chilling wind of errors blows from somewhere.)

└ DontPickUpCats: If the comment above is true, shouldn’t we call it stale water control so “stale-con”?

WalletLick: The comeback rumors were realㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ Will you do proxy control content?ㅠ

qorhvk: Bro you changed your channel name and what’s with the profile pic vibe;; Was military life that hard???ㄷㄷㄷ

└ Second-row-seat: Omg I just checked and it’s super creepy

└ SogBalance: W1hat (latte art profile picture) What is this;;;;;;;;Is it really not an impersonator? Did he get hacked?

└ KimSatgatSpeechGod: What was it originally???

└ Somek: Just basic, there was nothing

└ ImHungry: But impersonator? Hacked? I have an uneasy feeling because this video is REALLY different from Sinu’s usual uploads – the caption frequency is super dense. He has so many other videos with no editing and no captions;;; Honestly, would Sinu explain such old dungeon mechanics that everyone can just ignore now in such a spoon-feeding way?? Sinu?????

└ NextLifeNoblemansSlave: D1amn don’t explain that, it’s creepy as hell, I’ve already seen all the horror films this summer

└ Grimi: Seeing how serious the comments above are is hilarious lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ Jjabu: Looking at the comment below, maybe he didn’t edit it himself but had someone add tons of captionsㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Youngglory: Nice video^^ I recommend it^^

└ OneShot-Soju: Oh GraHi (means Grace High)

└ HagJaengi: GraGuildHi (means Grace Guild Master High)

└ snqqkd: Yeah boring~(meaning the comments above are boring~)

……(omitted)……

└ GoodBroadcast: Omg it’s real

SaltySalt: Who did the editing? It’s really amazingㅇㅅㅇ~! That person probably had cup noodles for dinner yesterday and only grabbed triangle kimbap for breakfast this morning, couldn’t sleep, and only finished editing around 12:18, about an hour agoㅇㅅㅠ Did you at least pay them minimum wage?

└ Murabara: Why is this so specific lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ Pudding: Is this you?

└ SaltySalt: Gasp! It’s a secret;; I don’t know~~ 6~ㅇㅅㅇ9 ;;

└ Subukhwan: D1amn saying everything and then saying you don’t knowㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

FreshPa2: So why suddenly an Ashen Palace guide? Is there something new with Ashen Palace???? Isn’t it basically a historical site by now?

└ Seashore: My thoughts exactly222222 I’m dying of curiosity, about to become a windmill, please tell me, I’ll hold my breath until you do! *inhale*

└ PotionAddict: The person above has died. Press X to pay respects

└ Gukgugakga: X

└ NonsanTrainingCenter: O

└ ShuShutShukSuk: X… In your next life, may you be born as a windmill from the start…

└ Seashore: You murderers…

zi-UltimateDrSlayer: Did Sinu come back as Dragon Slayer? Did Sinu come back as Dragon Slayer? Did Sinu come back as Dragon Slayer? Did Sinu come back as Dragon Slayer? Did Sinu come back as Dragon Slayer? Did Sinu come back as Dragon Slayer? Did Sinu come back as Dragon Slayer? …see more

DrSlayerLover: Teacher, please take down this post^^

└ DrSlayerGi: For real, as someone dedicated to Dragon Slayer, why such a trial suddenly, teacher?ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

└ DrSlayerLover: I knowㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Why suddenly bring out Dragon Slayerㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ We’ve already been nerfed to losing arms and legs, what are we supposed to do if we get nerfed even more~~~ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

└ YourGameSucks: Whhaat’ss wrrong witth yyouu~~~ Weaklings are going crazy for realㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ Tangtangi: For real, what are we supposed to do lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ OnlyPlayHealer: Is Dragon Slayer good?

└ RiceEatingGameReportThanks: Yeah, there just aren’t many users so it doesn’t seem that wayㅋㅋㅋ If you just look at performance, it’s top tier

└ HolyPublicNation: If the performance is good, why aren’t there many users? lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ SoySauceEggRice: Don’t hide, Dragon Slayer!

ThankYouInEnglish: So why did he go to Ashen Palace and why suddenly pick up Dragon Slayer… Does anyone know??ㅠ

└ GoldYamYamGut: Yeah

└ ThankYouInEnglish: D1amn

The aftermath caused by the post was beyond Shin Wooseok’s concern. He was simply satisfied to see the rapidly increasing view count on his MiTube video after posting the link on the strategy board.

‘I’ve drawn in traffic.’

Based on his past experience, once word of mouth spread naturally, it would easily catch up to the view counts of existing Ashen Palace guide videos by tonight or tomorrow. Since higher view counts would make people more likely to click, the first condition was nearly achieved.

The thumbnail was also made decently clean so it wouldn’t be easily overlooked. Satisfied, Shin Wooseok casually ignored the messages SaltySalt was sending through private messenger. Those were mostly just whining anyway, and given their past history, he had no reason to listen.

Shin Wooseok showed meticulous attention to detail by changing his channel name in case Girmu might feel burdened if he found out he had gone as far as uploading a video. He changed it to the simple and common name ‘S’.

If someone recognized him by his control style, that couldn’t be helped… but he was curious. Would Girmu recognize him?

‘I’ll ask him sometime.’

Shin Wooseok cleared his throat as he stood up from his chair. He realized he was getting ahead of himself, celebrating before the person in question had even seen the video.

First, he needed to bring up the topic naturally. As soon as he made up his mind, Shin Wooseok opened the VoiceCode app and sent a message.

[SN: When are you logging in today?]

[Girmu: I think I’ll be on in the evening ㅎㅎ]

The response was as expected. Then, considering their usual routine, if he asked about practice around nighttime, he could naturally ask how the practice went. Shin Wooseok nodded.

When Shin Wooseok finished his daily tasks and logged into SOG, Girmu was also online. The time was 9 o’clock. It was the perfect timing to ask if he had practiced.