Chapter 312: Risky Investment

For an NPC who was constantly on the red line and could be placed on the blacklist at any moment, there were only a few ways to clear their record.

Either they had to obtain a Hero Template, or they had to work for certain factions and receive their protection. Alternatively, they could simply go all the way down the path of corruption and become a red-name monster. If not, they could look for an opportunity to become a player.

There were no other choices.

However, if he had ever had the opportunity to become a player or obtain a Hero Template, he would have done so long ago. As for becoming a red name monster, a status that meant being hunted and killed by players every day, he did not want that either. Therefore, the only thing he could do was find a powerful faction to protect him.

But he also had his own difficulties.

This particular difficulty meant that he was destined to be someone that most factions would never consider worth nurturing as a core member.

Factions that revolved around professions and bloodlines would not value someone like him, who had joined halfway through. Meanwhile, factions that did not place importance on those things would instead care more about potential and temperament.

What a coincidence. He had neither.

Even more fatally, he also had a racial defect.

The grand ambitions he had when he first left his race had already been worn down almost completely by reality. In particular, the resources required by a professional, combined with his own special circumstances, meant that he was destined to need an enormous amount of resources to fill the gap. Otherwise, it would be very difficult for him to continue climbing upward.

However, some resources had long since been monopolized by factions, Lords, guilds, and other forces within the game. Whether even independent players could obtain them depended on luck, let alone NPCs.

Only newly opened game zones offered an opportunity to seek them out. Otherwise, the only way to obtain them was to join one of those forces.

But the problem was that smaller factions might not have what he needed, while the larger factions would not consider his worth taking in at all. Therefore, Joo Joowon’s appearance had actually come at exactly the right time.

It was just that Seong Seungmin had originally not planned to make up his mind so quickly.

Cooperating with a player behind the game’s back was not exactly some shocking or unheard of thing, but he could not predict whether the other party was actually worth doing this for.

After all, before this, Seong Seungmin had been a lone wolf, and not exactly the kind of lone wolf who was struggling to survive. However, his personal wealth was not particularly substantial either.

For a major faction, even if such an investment turned out to be a mistake, it would not cause any serious damage. But he was different, so there was no such thing as being too cautious.

Therefore, after meeting him, Seong Seungmin became somewhat hesitant.

It was very common for players to have an attitude of looking down from above. After all, within the game, they were actually the ones who possessed everything, even if their levels were still inferior to those of NPCs.

However, there was no shortage of players with good tempers either. Seong Seungmin’s original plan had been to find someone who would be easy to handle.

Once that happened, he could slowly strip the other party of their authority and eventually take over everything they had. Otherwise, he would not have been wandering around risk zones in the first place.

Usually, there would be a faction supporting someone capable of doing this kind of thing, allowing them to cover their own losses. He, however, was purely responsible for his own profits and losses.

It was not particularly rare for NPCs to scheme against and seize a player’s "property."

Although NPCs had no secrets in front of Lord players, since their skills, favorability, and system channels could all be viewed by the Lord, this was also why NPCs could become trusted followers of Lords. In the eyes of players, the NPCs they recruited were far more trustworthy than other players.

After all, players could not view each other’s favorability.

It was precisely this kind of trust that gave NPCs the opportunity to betray them.

Although this method was prone to failure and had an extremely low success rate, there had still been precedents where it succeeded.

Moreover, those groups that succeeded were eventually wiped out by all the players joining forces after the incidents were exposed. Yet this still did not extinguish the ambitions of certain people. Instead, it showed many NPCs who were unwilling to remain subordinates a clear path forward.

And obviously, Joo Joowon was not a suitable player for him to carry out such an operation against.

But he had his eyes on him.

An NPC without any faction supporting him, if he was "ungrateful" and did not know his place, what kind of fate awaited him was self evident.

Of course, if the future outcome could already be seen clearly at a glance, Seong Seungmin would not mind fighting to the bitter end either. If he had been willing to obediently accept the fate that had already been decided for him, he would never have left his race in the first place.

The reason he was still hesitating was mainly because the other party was currently "down on his luck," which gave him an opportunity to "share hardships" with him. This meant that there was still a possibility for him to enter his inner circle.

Betraying his master and turning against his master was only worthwhile when the benefits of betrayal were great enough. If he could obtain what he wanted without betraying him, Seong Seungmin had absolutely no problem becoming a good wolfhound.

However, while he was making his choice, the other party’s patience was clearly limited as well.