LS 86

Before Monday’s regular maintenance, they cleared out all the remaining raids, only to realize it had gotten later than expected.

After finishing the prelude quest, Moonhyuk pushed through the remaining hidden quests. Thanks to the other guild members waiting for him, he was able to bring the supporter’s hidden skill, ‘Batienjine Divinity,’ into the last raids.

While Moonhyuk was busy moving around, Tando, Yeohoo, and Daeyoung had their heads together, completely absorbed in crafting all kinds of hidden potions. After all, each character could only bring five types of potions into a raid. The three of them seemed determined to distribute as many different types of potions as evenly as possible among the raid members. No one knew exactly what potions would be needed and when in the Demon Hunter raid, so it was a smart move.

Yeojin, PrettyHealer, and SoftRiceCake had gone out hunting to level up even just a little more, while Noodle, 4Evil, and Oreckthat were swamped with daily and weekly quests and totally preoccupied with clearing their to-do lists. Thanks to that, Moonhyuk was able to enjoy the story and finish the hidden quests without feeling rushed. Well, what’s good is good, right? He had no idea what part of this boring story was supposed to be fun, but if Moonhyuk liked it, that was all that mattered.

Meanwhile, Dohee was tagging along behind Moonhyuk’s hidden quest without doing much else, focused entirely on feeding snacks to Moonhyuk’s real body sitting next to him. When he made ramen at dawn, Moonhyuk slurped down two packets all by himself. Watching Dohee eat fruit across from him, Moonhyuk asked why he wasn’t eating ramen too. Dohee just smiled and said he wasn’t really hungry.

‘I get puffy if I eat ramen at night because of the sodium.’

How could he say something like that out loud? He only wanted to show Moonhyuk his best side. That couldn’t last forever, of course, but at least for now, he felt that way. The person he was dealing with was none other than Kwon Moonhyuk, a guy who was barely swayed even when shown someone’s best side. There was no way he could afford to show him a wrecked version.

Anyway, by the time Moonhyuk, having scarfed down the ramen in an instant, sat back down in front of the computer, the other guild members had mostly wrapped up their own tasks. The new hidden skill Moonhyuk had acquired wasn’t one that was used often. Still, since no one knew how it might be used in this raid, Dohee advised him to assign it to the most easily reachable key on his keyboard.

Supporters generally had more skills to use than other classes, which meant they didn’t have much space left on their keyboards. Fortunately, Moonhyuk had big hands and long fingers, so he could easily reach across every corner of the keyboard. It might sound silly, but in the trial phase of a raid where not even a second could be wasted, that actually helped.

The skill ‘Batienjine Divinity’ had more than a one-second cast delay, and as Moonhyuk ran the raid with his guildmates, he slowly got used to its feel.

Before the raid started, Dohee gave Moonhyuk a quick rundown of the other party members – PrettyHealer, 4Evil, Yeojin, and Oreckthat – and their classes, as well as the burst damage timing. Moonhyuk even pulled out a notebook he had brought for tutoring sessions and eagerly took notes as he listened to Dohee’s lecture.

– “PrettyHealer’s a priest, but most of his skills have long cooldowns, so you don’t need to pay too much attention.”

– “Okay!”

– “4Evil’s got good instincts. Y watch the buff and debuff windows and use skills accordingly. They’re used to that, so no need to worry about them either.”

– “So I just need to watch Yeojin and Oreckthat’s skill use and time my buffs with them?”

– “Yeah. Since it’s our first time doing the Demon Hunter raid, we don’t know the basic attack patterns yet, so let’s leave out debuffs for now. Once we get inside, I’ll call out what skills you should use based on the patterns.”

– “Wow…”

– “Huh?”

– “Just… you’re really cool, Dohee…”

Moonhyuk gave a soft smile. Who told him to smile so shyly like that? Dohee was dumbfounded. A good-looking guy flashing a heart-melting smile like that, wasn’t that cheating? It wasn’t like he could grab him by the collar and shake him. His unintentional charm was top-tier. How many people had probably fallen for him just like this? A moment of silence for them. Not that he saw himself as one of them, of course.

– “Well, I am pretty cool.”

– “You are.”

He’d meant to be a little smug, but when Moonhyuk just agreed so easily, it deflated all the steam. Dohee ended up bursting into hearty laughter.

– “Anyway, both Yeojin and Oreckthat are ranged DPS who use summons.”

– “Oh, I know! They’re… Dark Age and Dragon Knight. Their skills are super flashy and cool. They seem to have a lot of AoEs.”

– “Wow, you can tell AoEs apart from single-targets now. When did you grow up so much?”

– “Huh? I’ve been grown up…”

That’s not what I meant, you idiot. Dohee smacked his forehead so hard it made a loud noise. Moonhyuk, startled, stood up in a panic and reached out toward him. Seeing that, Dohee felt a little better.

Would Moonhyuk ever actually understand what he meant when he talked? Actually, would that day ever come at all? He should’ve reached enlightenment by now, but apparently he still had a long way to go. Holding his stinging forehead, Dohee continued.

– “Usually, once a raid starts, everyone buffs up and takes attack boost potions within 5 seconds, then starts their skill rotations. So you need to cast your basic attack and attack speed buffs within that first 5 seconds. You remember that, right?”

– “Yeah! You told me last time.”

– “Right. And the Bayan-related skills are shields and damage reduction buffs, so use those right after entering, too. In the second party, PrettyHealer will be keeping up constant heals, so you probably won’t need to use any healing skills. Priests naturally have a high healing output. If we were going with a Holy Wizard, you’d need to cast your healing skills, but with a priest, you don’t.”

– “Okayyy.”

– “Yeojin and Oreckthat usually start their burst phases right after all buffs are up. Their classes don’t need a lot of setup for burst cycles, so just unload all your buffs at the start. After that, it takes about 30 seconds plus or minus 5 before their next burst phase. So you should hold onto your buffs and rotate them again about 30 seconds in. Simple, right?”

– “So to sum it up, I unload all my buffs right after we enter, then about 30 seconds later, I unload them again? And just keep that cycle going?”

– “Exactly.”

– “Hmm, I have a question!”

Moonhyuk raised his hand slightly and met Dohee’s eyes. Dohee nodded and swept Moonhyuk’s bangs out of his face. At this point, Moonhyuk accepted that kind of skinship naturally without resistance. That made Dohee keep reaching out to him. It was like his body had honey smeared on it or something.

– “What is it?”

– “Then I should press the longer cooldown skills first, right? Uh… and for things like Enk’s Blessing – which is a movement and attack speed buff with a cooldown over 30 seconds – I might not be able to hit the burst timing with it. Should I just use it when it’s off cooldown, or wait for the next cycle? I’m not sure…”

– “Yeah, start with the skills that have the longest cooldowns. Enk’s Blessing, even with full cooldown reduction, is barely around 34 seconds. That’s my character, and I’ve maxed out my cooldown reduction. Yours is probably over 38 seconds, so it won’t line up exactly anyway. But rather than waiting for the next cycle, it’s better to just keep using it when it’s up.”

– “So for the ones with super short cooldowns that come back quickly, I should keep using them? And just save the ones with around 20-second cooldowns to time with Yeojin and Oreckthat’s burst?”

– “Exactly. Smart guy.”

Moonhyuk nodded and picked up his pen. Curious about what he was writing, Dohee glanced over and saw him numbering out the order of skills to cast. Seriously, he was too much. Even though Dohee looked at him like he was ridiculous, Moonhyuk was intensely focused, furrowing his brow as he wrote.

He was meticulously organizing which skills to rotate constantly, which ones to sprinkle in occasionally for damage, and which ones to save for emergencies, just in case.

Watching that, Dohee suddenly felt a strange stirring in his chest.

He remembered when he first started out as a supporter, not long ago. The skill names had all been long and complicated, and he barely knew what was what. Determined to learn them, he divided them up by elemental spirits –Bayan, Lumitien, Enk, Jiun, Condine – and wrote down their skill names and cooldowns in dense notes he stuck next to his monitor.

Of course, after playing all day every day, he ended up memorizing them naturally without trying. Still, in the beginning, he had made efforts like that. Later on, he spent a long time researching which skill cycles were most effective for which raids, and what rotations worked best for grinding.

Watching Moonhyuk write everything down by hand, trying to get used to playing a supporter, brought back those memories. It was obvious how much Moonhyuk cared about this role.

The sparkle in his eyes, the faint sweat on his brow, the furrowed brow, the lips tightly pressed together in concentration, and the carefully written skill names, someone might say, “It’s just a game, why go that far?” But whether it’s a game, studying for a test, or preparing a presentation at work, that’s not the point.

People who put their heart into what they love, and find joy in doing their best, that’s the kind of person who shines.

And in that moment, Dohee thought Moonhyuk looked incredibly lovely.