Chapter 38: The Reason for Rank #3

I thought back on the Ban-ye I knew.

He definitely… did have a short temper.

Quitting his part-time job just for getting told off, and in the first place, he left home because he hit the man he was living with.

Had something similar happened in the guild?

I couldn’t contain my curiosity and asked.

“Did something happen?”

“Ah, well…. Something did happen, yes.”

Aki chuckled.

“In the first place, the reason Ban-ye is rank 3 is because he f*cking can’t control his temper. Anyway, his mentality….”

“That’s right. He could have been rank 1….”

“Why? Why couldn’t he get rank 1?”

The story was far too interesting to just let it go.

I was sure… Ban-ye had said that the rankings weren’t in order of strength, but in the order of reaching max level.

What reason would there be for his temper to get involved in that?

“There was someone who used to run dungeons with Ban-ye back then.”

“Ah, Kangnam Hanryang….”

HeyYam said with a sigh.

“Hanryang was much older than Ban-ye, he was very accommodating….”

“Right. He was probably twice Ban-ye’s age.”

“But he eventually left the guild and quit the game. After fighting with Ban-ye….”

“Can you even call that a fight? It was more like Ban-ye unilaterally kicked him out.”

“That’s true too. Anyway, that b@stard Ban-ye….”

Aki clicked his tongue with a “tsk tsk,” as if to say, what can you do.

“Why did they fight?”

“It’s hard to call it a fight…. No, originally, Hanryang used to accommodate everything for Ban-ye.”

“Just like Ah-ang does now.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t accommodate everything for him.”

“If the account owner promptly gives up his spot for the pilot, that’s accommodating everything, what more is there?”

…That was true.

It wasn’t that Ban-ye didn’t listen to my requests, but it was always within the bounds of what he felt like doing.

“Hanryang was really dedicated too. He did everything that b@stard Ban-ye wanted.”

“Thanks to him, he grew really fast….”

“The problem was what happened after he grew. I mean, how could he expect someone to do everything he says? Hanryang must have quit because it got to be too much.”

“That’s right, so… he said something like, ‘I’m not your nagging wife, you nag way too f*cking much. You’re a young brat with a high horse, I can’t do this with you anymore!'”

HeyYam reenacted the moment and finished his sentence with a chuckle.

Aki heard the reenactment and cackled, saying it was spot on.

“He was an old-timer who was usually super polite.”

“Right, he always used smiling emoticons, and would call people by their full nicknames, like, ‘ImSoCute-nim.'”

“But he cussed him out like crazy and left…. That was the first time I ever saw Hanryang curse.”

Though I couldn’t know the full details without being there, just hearing the story made it sound like it was one hundred percent Ban-ye’s fault.

Considering the Ban-ye I had seen so far, it didn’t seem entirely out of character, so it sounded more like a true story than an exaggeration.

‘Ban-ye… you’re something else.’

It’s not easy to act like that toward someone much older than you.

“What exactly happened back then?”

“I don’t really remember well now. It wasn’t a one-time thing, it was something that built up and exploded… did he say he couldn’t keep accommodating him?”

“Right. So back then… it took three days to find a new party member, so he ended up running solo.”

“In that time, Haneul caught up and hit rank 1 first.”

“If it were me, I would have been more patient.”

“Most people would have been patient in that situation.”

I was surprised to hear that and asked.

“So Ban-ye was originally supposed to be rank 1?”

“Yes.”

“He was the undisputed number one.”

“But he got overtaken.”

“…Whoa.”

I remembered when we first met, how Ban-ye had bluntly answered when I asked about the rankings.

[Party][Ban-ye] The ranking isn’t in order of strength

[Party][Ah-ang] Ack, then what is it?

[Party][Ban-ye] Why are you asking ㅎ Just do some damage

[Party][Ah-ang] Aww, please tell me ㅠㅠㅠ

[Party][Ban-ye] It’s just the order of who reached max level 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, we don’t know the DPS ranking

“Poor Ban-ye…. He must have been so pissed.”

I muttered, feeling so bad as I imagined how Ban-ye must have felt when he was pushed down not just to 2nd, but to 3rd place.

But, hearing my words, Aki immediately sneered.

“Sigh…. And you’re still worried about Ban-ye in this situation? More importantly, think about how bad it must have been for the party member who had been helping him get to rank 1 to just quit.”

HeyYam also agreed with Aki.

“Ah-ang, you’re Ban-ye’s akgae.”

“What’s an akgae?”

“A malicious individual fan.”

“W-What are you talking about!”

And ImSoCute, whom I had trusted, was not on my side this time either.

“Back then, if Ban-ye had been a little more considerate of Kangnam-nim….”

I felt a surge of anger seeing everyone gang up on Ban-ye.

No, no matter what, ganging up on him is a bit much.

Besides, Ban-ye wasn’t even here.

“But… from my experience, it’s not like Ban-ye would have asked him to do something completely unreasonable.”

“Kangnam Hanryang, I think that hyung-nim was forty or something. He was more than twice Ban-ye’s age.”

“…Still… in a game, you should listen to the stronger person.”

“You crazy j*rk. You’re starting to resemble Ban-ye in personality, not in skill.”

“…”

I had nothing to say to that criticism.

Even I thought it was a bit much to be bossing around someone more than twice my age….

Still, the thought that Ban-ye wouldn’t have said things without any sense of propriety lingered in my mind.

The Ban-ye I knew was prickly, but he wasn’t a completely unreasonable guy.

In the end, I spoke to the three of them as if I were whining.

“…I get it, so stop talking bad about Ban-ye.”

“What are you talking about. What does Ban-ye getting criticized have to do with you?”

“It does have something to do with me…. It tears my heart apart.”

“Pfft!”

“You’ve really got a serious case.”

“Oh dear….”

Still, the three of them didn’t say anything more about Ban-ye after that.

Since I was defending Ban-ye so much, they probably felt it was awkward to say more.

I wondered if I had overstepped, but just as I told them, it really did bother me when Ban-ye was being criticized.

In fact, even these days, if Ban-ye was being badmouthed on the free-for-all forums, I would report it or fight with the original poster in the comments, so it made me feel even worse.

Since they were close to Ban-ye, I felt like they should at least take his side….

‘Is this… really a serious case….’

As I was thinking that, I casually glanced behind me.

“Heek!”

I don’t know since when, but the door was open, and Ban-ye was standing right behind me.

I was so startled that I scrambled back towards my desk, and Ban-ye just stared at me indifferently.

“…Wh-When did you come in?”

“Just now. I knocked.”

“I-I didn’t hear you…!”

“I did.”

After saying that, Ban-ye swiftly unplugged my headphone jack.

I was shocked, but what happened next was even more embarrassing.

“So, what’s Ban-ye doing? Hey, Ah-ang! Is he playing with you again?”

The voice chat with the guild members switched from my headphones to the laptop speakers, starting to echo loudly in the room.

I frantically tried to turn off the chat, but Ban-ye stopped me.

Then, he spoke clearly into the laptop.

“Yeah. He’s playing with me.”

“…!”

“What, are you two together again?”

“He was next to you?”

“You were together?”

“No wonder you were getting all antsy when we were dissing Ban-ye.”

“Traitor….”

“N-No….”

I felt it was unfair, but the guild members seemed to misunderstand, thinking I was defending Ban-ye because he was right there with me.

That’s not it…!

However, Ban-ye seemed to be enjoying himself for some reason.

With a rare lift of his lips, he lightly blocked me with a push to the shoulder as I reached out to turn off the voice chat, and then spouted this nonsense.

“Hyung, why are you clinging to me so much….”

“Wh-What?”

“…Eh.”

“…What are you two doing?”

“When did I cling to you!”

Furthermore, when I protested, he spread an unbelievable fabrication.

“You kept rubbing your chest on my hand.”

“Hey, why would you say it like that!”

“What the?”

“What the hell are you two doing, it’s gross.”

“What… what is this?”

Thanks to that, the atmosphere in the voice chat room became colder than ever.

The only one with a hint of a smile was Ban-ye.

Ban-ye looked at me as I, startled, scrambled away from his hand, and added one more comment like a final nail in the coffin.

“I’m not in the mood for that today, so can you be a little tamer?”

His words could be interpreted in a strange way, as if something had happened before.

With my face beet red, I glared at Ban-ye’s smirking face, then quickly reached for the laptop.

Tiriring.

And finally, I was able to press the X and leave the voice chat.