| Dong Taebin | |
|---|---|
| |
| Before and after Dicership | |
Description
| |
| First Appearance | Chapter 01 |
| Status | Dicer |
| Rank | A |
| Skill | Teleportation |
| In X's chess | Black bishop |
| Main Stat | Unknown |
| Other Stats | Strengthen mode: Auto-Dodge |
Taebin, in full Dong Taebin, is the male deuteragonist of the series, one of the most powerful Dicers and the one who brought Dice to Dongtae's school. He is a transfer student in the same class as Dongtae and Eunju, and becomes the latter's boyfriend for a while.
As the series opens he is, in the series terminology, a "6" through and through, and thus Dongtae's complete opposite: highly accomplished both physical and intellectually, and extremely popular. It is revealed through the story, though, that he has a dark past.
Appearance[]
Taebin is one of very few Dicers who "became a completely different person", i.e. whose original physical traits are no longer recognisable. This stands in contrast to Dongtae, and Taebin has changed even more than Mio, who at least retained her eyes.
Before becoming a Dicer, Taebin was a short, weak, plump kid with unremarkable facial features, small, dark brown eyes and matching, bowl-shaped hair.
As a Dicer, he has become extremely handsome: tall, broad-shouldered and with a fit, muscular body, large hazel eyes, short, light brown hair and smooth skin.
History[]
(In chronological, rather than narrative, order)
Prior to becoming a Dicer, Taebin lived a life even worse than Dongtae's, and was the target of continuous, vicious bullying, which included forced stripping, constant beatings, stealing of his money and more. At one point, a random girl in his class even suggested that he ought to kill himself.
One rainy night, cornered by despair, Taebin goes to the rooftop of a building in order to commit suicide, but gives up in the last minute, only to be surprised by Mooyoung's sudden arrival and nearly fall to his death. Mooyoung saves him and offers him an unactivated Die. The next day, he transfers to Taebin's school and classroom and saves him from bullies.
Taebin becomes a Dicer and befriends Mooyoung, whom he considers his mentor, and the two assemble a group of Dicers. One day, however, X initiates the PVP stage and Mooyoung, who had created the group with that in mind, promptly goes on to kill all the A Rankers who bear a different skill from his. Shocked and devastated, Taebin narrowly escapes and flees for his life, not before being told by Mooyoung that everything will start over no matter where he goes, and that the two will meet again.
Serving Byungchul some humble pie.
These events are told in flashbacks. The story proper opens with Taebin's arrival at Dongtae's school, intent on starting anew. He quickly becomes popular and attracts both Dongtae's jealousy and Eunju's interest. X notices both and gives Taebin a quest to get Eunju to date him, and also uses him to lure Dongtae in. This succeeds when Dongtae accidentally rolls a Die during a struggle with Taebin.
Taebin does manage to become Eunju's boyfriend, to Dongtae's intense dismay, and they become rivals of sorts: Dongtae realises Taebin's actions don't necessarily reflect his feelings, and Taebin knows Dongtae is still interested in Eunju.
After Byungchul becomes a Dicer, and more so after he dies and his Dice spread all over the school, Taebin watches events unfold from a distance and begins to grow apprehensive that more A Rankers will come into being. He tries to engage Dongtae's help to prevent this from happening, with no success. In the Eunju quest, readers finally find out Taebin's A Rank skill: Teleportation. As a consequence of, with Taebin's help, protecting Eunju until the quest expires, Dongtae is awarded a Golden Die and receives Time Pause as a consequence. Taebin remarks later to him that "A Rankers cannot be allies", in anticipation of a new PVP stage. He proceeds to try to prepare himself for that by reading books on Game Theory, and distances himself from Eunju in the meantime.
As the new PVP stage begins, Taebin grows intensely paranoid that Mooyoung will come to kill him and after playing cat and mouse with him in a crowded street in Eunju's company, he becomes disgusted by her exhortations and questions and breaks up with her.
The next day, on knowing that Dongtae has met Mooyoung, Taebin decides to set up a mock PVP battle with him in order to extract information and to try his Auto Dodge skill against a time stopper in preparation to face off against Mooyoung. However, Dongtae beats him narrowly and as a result, Taebin agrees to tell Dongtae about his past story with Mooyoung. Afterwards, he proposes to Dongtae that the two ally against him, but Dongtae rejects the idea because in his view Taebin's method of fighting in the PVP stage is no different from Mooyoung's.
As the War Quest is announced, Taebin doesn't choose Defence, but his actual team is not known as of yet. He watches from a distance as events unfold and realises immediately that Hood and Mooyoung are not the same person. He is later confronted by Eunju and relays this information to her, along with confirmation that he is a Dicer and an A-Ranker. When she asks what he would like to do with the Final Die, Taebin realises he is unable to recall his conversation on the matter with Mooyoung from months before.
He then proceeds to approach Hood himself to find out more. The two meet at a storage room with only teacher Kim as an eavesdropper. After a fight during which Hood taunts him with cryptic remarks regarding his powers and identity, Taebin manages to remove the Hood to reveal Dawn, his former friend whom he believed dead. He is initially elated and almost moved to tears, but is shocked to find that she considers him an enemy and tries to deflect her accusations of betraying her and their other friends. He tries to blame Dongtae for having spread the Dice in the school, but she corners him by saying that this all happened because he allowed it. She also says Taebin is hiding his true power, and that his skills are not limited to Teleportation.
Taebin's team in the War Quest is neutral but since mooyoung is inside him and mooyoung chose attack the attack sign was flickering, that confused the teacher.
Taebin and Dawn continue their conversation, and she eventually manages to get him to remember the final events of the last day of their group. Taebin remembers witnessing Mooyoung being sent back to this world/dimension after being defeated by X. After some hesitation, Taebin rushes to him, who seems dying from the fall, and asks him why he sacrificed his friends, to which Mooyoung responds that it was necessary to pursue his goal, and the ideal Taebin seems to share, of changing the world into a better place. He then enters Taebins mind and erases all his memories.He then makes only "Fear" remain. he says when there are enough A rankers, he'll wake up from his sleep. This makes Taebin have a split personality and Mio can't read his clairvoyance profile, because his and mooyoungs descriptiions overlap.
Abilities[]
Driving a point home to Daewoong.
Taebin is the oldest Dicer after Mooyoung and as such has had a long time to deposit points in all of his physical and intellectual attributes undisturbed and without competition. As a consequence, it is not even clear whether he has a speacialised stat like Dongtae: all of his stats seen so far are way above average. He has enough agility and stamina to face off against the whole of the Class 8 family on his own, and is so strong that a punch of his hurt its leader Daewoong, who is specialised in Endurance, more than a car hit could. Taebin can crack concrete with a kick. Academically, he liked studying even before becoming a Dicer, and now is easily one of the best students in the school.
His A Rank skill is Teleportation, which he uses proficiently and doesn't even need to shout its name to activate it. When the PVP stage was reactivated, having prior knowledge of it Taebin activated the Strengthen form of Battle Mode to acquire Auto Dodge, an evolution of his skill that allows him to face off against Time Pausers. With Auto Dodge, he teleports to an advantageous location instantly when attacked while time is stopped, but the attacker must come within 2.5 metres from him for the skill to activate. The effects of Time Pause are also negated by the automatic teleportation.
It is also implied that he has a third-level derivative skill in addition to Auto Dodge, but this lacks confirmation.
All in all, Taebin is a leading power even among A-Rankers and so far only Time Pausers seem to be able to take him on.
Personality[]
Outwardly, Taebin is affable and easy-going, and superficially quick to befriend his classmates. He smiles a lot, gets along well with girls and, in the beginning at least, was shown to be very tender to Eunju.
However, and this is something Taebin has only let out in his first conversation with Dongtae, most of this behaviour is a pretence. In truth, Taebin despises most people, and believes all of the attention he gets, even though he accepts it, is shallow and solely due to his good looks and abilities, and not an expression of genuine feeling.
Taebin's honest reaction to most people.
Perhaps as a consequence of his past as a bully victim, his view of the human nature is bleak. That determines his behaviour as a Dicer and his take on the morality of Dicership: while Taebin is not power-crazy and seems contented with the improvements he has already achieved, he does not think Dice are intrinsically evil. In that he is similar to Dongtae, but the reason is different: Taebin simply believes people are bad anyway and this is a world of losers and winners, and Dice, at least, can give someone like him a chance to turn the tables. That being said, he is not interested in the final Die, but understands that the PVP stage is serious and is ready to fight in self-defence.
While he is never shown hurting innocent people, Taebin is not above faking his feelings and telling minor lies in the pursuit of quests, and has no qualms about manipulating other people's sentiments. However, he is particularly vicious towards bullies: soon after arriving at Dongtae's school, he gladly accepts a quest to get his class bullies to pick a fight with him, only to brutalise them without mercy, even breaking Hyunjo's arm, to the point that even their main victim, Dongtae, ends up asking him to stop the beating.
He does seem to acknowledge Eunju's feelings as authentic, though.
Relationships[]
Eunju: they were a normal young couple and Taebin seemed to care for her. In the beginning, that was, in his own words, no more than a quest and the fact that he had no reason to refuse her feelings, given that she was kind and beautiful. Over time, though, Taebin went the extra mile to protect her from harm, even put his physical integrity in the line. How much of that was feeling and how much was a strategy to prevent new A Rankers from appearing is unclear. After a period of estrangement, Taebin declared to be "disgusted" by the situation (presumably, his non-disclosure to her of the fact that he is a Dicer) and broke up with her.
Having a friendly conversation with Dongtae.
X: Taebin and the game master are not shown interacting much, and Taebin doesn't seem to like to talk to X. X, on the other hand, is derisive of Taebin's attempt to prevent the past to repeat itself, and of his attitude in general, and never misses an opportunity to point out that he is in a fool's errand.
Dongtae: Taebin respects his rival, although there is no real esteem between the two. However, because Dongtae is the first Dicer in his new school, Taebin has gone to him for conversation on occasion and the two have exchanged information. He also respects Dongtae's intention of protecting non-Dicers, although he was (correctly) sceptical of the guild's effectiveness. Taebin also resents the fact that Dongtae obtained Time Pause, the same as Mooyoung and arguably the most dangerous skill. Taebin knows of Dongtae's feelings towards Eunju, and uses that knowledge to taunt him on occasion.
Mooyoung: right now, Taebin is afraid and paranoid of his former friend and mentor, and pours all his efforts into becoming strong enough to fight him. In the beginning, though, he looked up to him and tried to earn his praise, like when Mooyoung agreed to his interpretation of the mechanism whereby Dice and quests are created. Thus, he was devastated to the verge of tears when Mooyoung showed his true colours, and his first reaction was to flee, but in the end he rushed to his aid. The author still isn’t clear about Taebin’s true feelings for Mooyoung when they were classmates. The fact that one of his request was to “Confess his feelings for Mooyoung” and his constant interest for him compared to his usual desinterest in people made many readers believe that he loved him in a romantic type of way. Unfortunately Mooyoung is now a part of him and doesn’t have his own body so the real nature of the relationship between these two characters is still not explained.