The Grand Duelist

What came afterward was a force, so overwhelming that Joseph virtually had no chance of escaping nor defending against unless he had the legendary plot armor that the main characters always had in their battles.

Without any suspense, Joseph met his demise in the face of Krid's counter-attack.

[ You died! ]

[ You are currently under the penalty upon death. Please take a break for now and take care of your health. Return after you are completely stable to play again. With this, the time penalty has ended! ]

[ Thank you for playing, Victory! ]

[ Sincerely, the P.H Works. ]

When his vision turned completely black upon his death. Several system notifications appeared right in front of him. The completely generic, [ You died ] was still displayed. However, the other system notifications were new features that Joseph didn't know about.

However, right now, he couldn't care less. 

Logging out of Victory, he emerged from his Gaming Capsule and saw that his death penalty was only about half an hour.

This was a light punishment since the players were often logged out of their capsules for at least an hour after their death. Joseph wondered about what was the reason for this phenomenon.

"Could it be that I did not actually fail the quest? The Grand Duelist's Vestige quest didn't say that the death meant the failure of the quest, so could it be that I misunderstood everything from the start? Death did not really mean quest failure and I was just being too cautious?"

Although players could revive upon death, no one wanted to willingly experience dying voluntarily.

Death was still a construct that players greatly cared about, no matter what world they were in.

Furthermore, there were heavy penalties upon dying in Victory such as experience and item lost along with being locked out of the game temporarily.

This was the primary reason why Joseph avoided death. Could it be that these penalties were the reason Joseph assumed that dying meant quest failure?

Realizing this, hope appeared within Joseph's eyes. He itched on returning to the world of Victory, but since he was currently under the penalty of death. He couldn't do anything other than wait for everything out.

In the meantime, he attended to the physiological needs of his body then sat on the couch and turned on the television.

[ Hello, everyone! You are currently watching GMA Esports News! The most reliable media station for news concerning eSports! Right now, we currently have in our studio. The Head of Victory's Development Team and the CEO of the P.H Works, sir Ray Gabriel! ]

Displayed within the television was the figure of a commentator sitting across the figure of a young man who looked to be in his late twenties.

[ Thank you, everyone! Thank you, everyone! To those watching right now who are playing Victory. I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for playing... I hope that all of you have a great time so far within the world of Victory! ]

[ Hahaha, sir Ray Gabriel is really humble. With the widespread popularity of Victory. Apart from those of the old generation, practically everyone owns a virtual reality console in their house and is playing Victory extensively! ]

[ Really? ]

[ Yes, sir! That is the result that we acquired from our recent survey! ]

[ In that case, I really must thank everyone for their continuous support! ]

[ Hahaha, sir Ray Gabriel really is an amiable and a humble man. ]

[ You overpraise me... ]

After these series of compliments, the discussion of the two finally came to a serious one.

[ Then sir, let's discuss the changes that recently arrived within the world of Victory in this patch 2.32.]

[ Ah yes, Patch 2.32. This is the patch where we implemented too many changes within the quality of life in the game and also some changes in our user interface. ]

[ Speaking of the change in the user interface, I found that there are now additional messages upon one's death. Back then it was just a simple message saying that you died, but now. There is a short message coming from the P.H Works... ]

[ Yes, yes, yes. That is true. We added those messages so that we could somehow calm the stressed minds of our players after dying. I mean, dying has always been a stressful matter in the world of Victory. We, the developers thought that adding those messages could calm the nerves of the players after their death... ]

[ Hahaha, indeed. Dying in Victory is really stressful, especially if you died against a small rabbit in the wild as a low-leveled player. ]

The commentator said in a bitter tone.

[ Really? That happened? Hahaha... ]

Ray Gabriel laughed out loud at the face of the commentator's plight, but the latter did not take any offense on it. In fact, he even used it as leverage and added some words to it.

[ Don't laugh at me like that, sir, Ray Gabriel. I mean, I do not think that I'm the only one that died from those pesky small, swift, and unexpectedly dangerous small rabbits near the Beginner Villages, right? ]

[ Hahaha, that is indeed the case. ]

The two poked fun at each other for a while before the meat of the topic was finally released.

[ Well in Patch 2.32, as everyone knew. We added some nerfs particularly against Mercenaries and the Hunter's Draw a Bead. We found that the four main skills of the Mercenaries, particularly Bladed Weapon Mastery scales too much if added on top of a powerful weapon... ]

[ The adjustment that we did was reduce its critical strike percentage from 200% of Attack Damage to 180%. This particular change is made so that the current meta of adding critical strike scrolls towards one's weapon would not be that overpowered and broken anymore. ]

[ Ah... I feel them, sir, Ray Gabriel. I once confronted a Mercenary in the wild and he almost instantly defeated me because he built himself around Dexterity. I found out after some calculations that his Critical Strike Chance was actually at 35 percent, that was crazy... ]

[ Yeah, but with this change. We hope that they will not be that powerful anymore. ]

[ What about the Hunter's Draw a Bead, sir Ray Gabriel? We know about the details behind it, but we want to know more about what led the Development Team into adding such a nerf... ]

The commentator spoke in a somewhat spiteful voice.

[ The change that we did against the Hunter is due to the fact that the Hunter's Draw a Bead made them become really powerful in the long-range. In fact, the channeling for it can be finished too quickly to the extent that players are using them in mid-air whilst they were falling just so they wouldn't remain stationary and lessen the chance of being interrupted. ]

[ We didn't want Hunters to be glass cannons, we do not want them to have the devastating burst capabilities of Magicians. Instead, we want them to get close to their enemies. That's the reason why Acrobat's Dance and Assassinate exists in their kit. ]

[ In their recent state, they were being used as snipers which were something against what we thought about Hunters when we designed them. Although P.H Works doesn't really care about how the players want to play Hunters along with their second-class, one thing is for sure, we want Hunters to be Hunters, not snipers. ]

Ray Gabriel and the commentator froze for a moment before he replied.

[ But... But isn't a 5 second channeling time too excessive, sir? We found a lot of complaints from Hunter players about the excessive channeling time. They are saying that the Hunter Main Class is literally unplayable right now. ]

Ray Gabriel stared at the commentator and smiled.

[ Well, we always gather data for the sake of deciding whether the changes that we made were right or wrong. Let's see what happens in the next patch. ]

Ray Gabriel said and the two talked with each other for a moment before the interview finally concluded.

"Their patch times are really strange, they sometimes come fast and sometimes slow, like right now. It's been two months since the last patch. But not that I should really care about it, for now, I mean. The major changes don't really matter to me... But wait..." Joseph mumbled to himself.

"Since they could freely add nerfs and buffs against classes. Does that mean that they could also do such things against my class in the future?!" Joseph inwardly exclaimed upon this realization.

But after a few moments, he could only sigh since he understood that he couldn't do anything against the P.H Works' wishes.

In other words, his downfall and rise depended on the P.H Works' decision.

The sensation of having one's career in the hands of others was really unpleasant. But since Joseph couldn't do anything about it, he could only sigh and glance at the time.

"30 minutes have passed? Let's go!"

Joseph hurriedly stood up from his seat and ran upstairs. He was careful not to step on the hole that his foot made on the stair as he walked inside his Gaming Capsule and entered the world of Victory once again.

Right now, there were only two days left before his quest ends. This was Joseph thought, but he must first confirm if he failed his quest or not.

When Joseph awakened in the world of Victory, what greeted him was the door of the room where Krid, the Legendary Blacksmith and the old man who killed him was sealed.

Joseph raised his head and found several system notifications floating in front of him.

[ Your [Rusty Beginner Sword] has suffered far too much damage and has been destroyed! ]

[ Since you died under your class-specific quest. You are pardoned from the effects of your title [The Sun that Overlooks Everything] temporarily. ]

Hope ignited within Joseph's eyes when he saw these system notifications and he hurriedly opened his Quest Logs only to find his quest still ongoing.

"I didn't fail the quest! Hurray!" Joseph inwardly screamed in glee.

He quickly went inside the sealed room and the direction where he first looked at was the direction where Ezreal laid on exhaustion earlier.

But he found him missing.

"Where's Ezreal?" Joseph subconsciously mumbled.

"He's here, brat."

A familiar hoarse voice replied and Joseph stared ahead to find Krid currently standing in front of Ezreal who slept soundly on the ground. Right now, Krid was once again chained on the stone slab. But the chains never limited his mobility in the first place.

Since Krid was strong enough that he could easily remove the chains that shackled him. Just how did the Kingdom capture someone like Krid? Did they have something that's more powerful than him?

Joseph shook his head. No, that's unlikely. Krid was a Legend. Although he was only a Legendary Blacksmith. He still was a Legend and something that a mere Kingdom couldn't possibly imprison through honest means.

Joseph thought hard about it but he decided that it was much better for him to ask Krid about his circumstances than to assume.

And so, Joseph cleared his mind of these thoughts and approached Krid with a smile on his face.

Judging from the amiable look on Krid's expression.

It looked like he finally understood Joseph's identity and the latter was happy that even though he lost the battle.

He still ultimately won the war...

Now, the only problem was how he could release Krid from the hands of the Kingdom.